This has been something on my mind after someone else brought it up to me. Many of our trivia sections have some elements in them that aren't trivial for one of two reasons. The first reason is some of the facts are just a bit pointless, the trivialness of a point can be so low it feels uneeded, such as letting someone know that X is the 5th time something has happened. And expanded on that fact, when something is the first to happen in a game, it could be seen more as a new feature than a trivial point, an example being "The M8A1 is the first weapon in the Call of Duty series to fire four-round bursts", while an interesting fact, it could well have been mentioned during the weapon description. Furthermore, a trivia point on the Point of Contact page states "The time in Point of Contact is simply shown as July 24, 9:15:16." which we do not need since we already have it in the date section of the infobox. On the flip side, we also seem to be using points in the trivia that are untrivial due to the fact they're quite important details, that should be found in the main article itself, and not as a trivial point. An example of this would be "The M8A1 naturally fires fully automatic in Single Player, despite it being a natural four-round burst in Multiplayer", this seems more like a main feature of the weapon, and should be mentioned (if not already) within the main parts of the article, it's not something that's trivial. To sum up, I feel that we need to comb though much of our trivia and start weeding out the trivial elements from the parts we don't need to mention, and the parts we should incorporate into the main body of the article itself. Trivia section should only be for trivial information that has no place anywhere else on the article.
00:37, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
To add on to my point about trivia points that we really don't need, CoaZ recently removed it, but we did have a point stating "If MacMillan dies, the screen will blur and it will say "Your actions got MacMillan killed!"", which is not even trivia, it's just a mission failed text.
02:04, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
- Hmmm, seems that maybe questionable trivia slips from our knowledge. However yes, getting rid of trivia that can be explained on the main article should be moved to its respected area.
Argorrath おしゃべり
02:06, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
You can just remove it if it isn't trivia. Although I have always wondered if "x is the y time something has/hasn't happened" counts as legitimate trivia. The first time I can kind of understand, but not much past that. And the Zombie pages are full of those. Things like "x utility is featured on every map except..." is fairly common too, as is a voice actor who voices multiple characters in multiple games. Edit: And is it really trivia that the Odin and Loki space stations are named after Norse gods? With the popularity of The Avengers and the success of the two Thor movies, it's not exactly a little known fact that Odin and Loki are Norse gods. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 01:34, February 6, 2014 (UTC)
- while it is true it's not fully trivial and can be removed, people can sometimes be fickle about what things are named after, and may simply take Occam's razor to things. Some people, amazingly, may state the weapons are named after Loki from the Avengers, and not the Norse Gods. While I can't think of any edits off hand, I have seen some similar occurrences regarding trivia and names. 04:57, February 7, 2014 (UTC)
- Hm...I never thought of that. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 17:15, February 7, 2014 (UTC)
another thing is easter eggs. we been adding them to trivia when it should really be in an easter egg section, no matter how big or small it is. RisingSun2013 (talk) 02:16, February 6, 2014 (UTC)
- Well outside of Zombies mode and Fog, there generally is only one or two easter eggs to a map, if any. It doesn't really need its own section. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 06:24, February 23, 2014 (UTC)
- I believe it can vary depending on what time of Easter Egg it is. With Zombies, it's not really trivial since it's more or less the storyline (in fact "Easter Egg" doesn't really fit them anymore). But with anything else, they tend to be closer to references, like Ghosts' trophy collection, which is closer to trivia. 15:00, February 23, 2014 (UTC)
Also another point why all the "This is the X CoD to do Y" is untrivial. On the very first mission page of CoD 1, whilst sounding absurd, you could get away with things like "This is the first mission to include guns" or "This is the first game to include Germans". Which is mainly why things like that should either be removed, or put into some kind of "New features" section.
15:02, February 23, 2014 (UTC)
- In my opinion, some points that aren't trivial but are worth mentioning should be in a separate section called "Notes". See for example the page Safeguard (Gamemode); I recently created this section on the page while moving some important elements from the "Trivia" to it. --Ultimate94ninja (talk) 15:15, February 23, 2014 (UTC)
- I prefer this method despite its tendency to be misunderstood. Anything that could be important or useful information to the player that doesn't fit anywhere else should go there, whereas anything else that doesn't benefit the player should be considered trivia. Joe Copp 16:15, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- We need to be careful with this method however. The reason we have so many untrivial points is because bullet points are easy and lazy writing. From what could be added to the article is often just slung into trivia. even when it is something useful, and by no means trivial. 16:25, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not really sure what could be done about this considering our target audience, and the content and scope of the games. Editor laziness is always a problem, but nothing that can't be fixed by someone else. Joe Copp 16:33, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Of course, there's nothing wrong with it, I'm just saying we'll need to keep an eye on the sections, to ensure we don't end up with more bullet points than actual content. 16:47, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Well, it's not like bullet points don't count as content. They just can look worse if done incorrectly. Joe Copp 16:50, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- I understand, but I just consider that if a page has more bullet points than than written content, it looks a bit bullet heavy. Which is what I would consider as incorrect. 16:54, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Agreed. Joe Copp 16:59, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- I understand, but I just consider that if a page has more bullet points than than written content, it looks a bit bullet heavy. Which is what I would consider as incorrect. 16:54, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Well, it's not like bullet points don't count as content. They just can look worse if done incorrectly. Joe Copp 16:50, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Of course, there's nothing wrong with it, I'm just saying we'll need to keep an eye on the sections, to ensure we don't end up with more bullet points than actual content. 16:47, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not really sure what could be done about this considering our target audience, and the content and scope of the games. Editor laziness is always a problem, but nothing that can't be fixed by someone else. Joe Copp 16:33, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- We need to be careful with this method however. The reason we have so many untrivial points is because bullet points are easy and lazy writing. From what could be added to the article is often just slung into trivia. even when it is something useful, and by no means trivial. 16:25, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- I prefer this method despite its tendency to be misunderstood. Anything that could be important or useful information to the player that doesn't fit anywhere else should go there, whereas anything else that doesn't benefit the player should be considered trivia. Joe Copp 16:15, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
So should we be looking to update page policy to a specific method for trivia sections, or should we just look to increase our efforts to sort out untrivial information in those sections? Joe Copp 16:06, March 5, 2014 (UTC)
- Bit of both. We should try and stop "This is the first X happens". Like earlier someone added how Griggs was the first African-American to work with the SAS. Which isn't greatly trivial. 02:31, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
- Which page would we even put this information on? The only one that really comes close is the MoS, but I feel that trivia is too specific a point to just briefly mention in there. Would it be necessary to create an entirely new section in the MoS about using the trivia section? Joe Copp 15:35, March 10, 2014 (UTC)
Personally I think we should update the policy on it and get rid of some of the X of Y instances like the boss zombie pages had for a while. However I think we should keep some stuff that doesn't fit into the main body of an article. For example the four round burst of the M8A1 should be written into the article. However something like Dr. Edward Richtofen is the only German character to be playable in World at War, Black Ops, and Black Ops 2. That's just an example but I think they should be noteworthy, and as far as what we should do about the pointless trivia is simply read through and edit it out. I know for a while I was doing it with Buried, Mob of the Dead, and Origins because a lot of previously stated information was being restated in the trivia. Digitized since 95 Pcthomas2 07:32, March 29, 2014 (UTC)