Collab: Cleaning the Trivia sections

Glowsquid

Glowsquid

Shine Sprite
Retired Forum Mod
Retired Wiki Staff
'Shroom Consultant
Air Bag is a pun on the word airbag
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The [enemy literally called "Thwack Totem"] resembles a totem pole.
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[Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games‎] is the First Time seeing Toad and Toadette Barefoot
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You might be laughing, but a scary majority of the trivia sections are composed of this sort of nonsense. Thanks to its ill-defined, "anything fits in" nature and the low barrier of entry, Trivia has been a fertile breeding ground for insanely obvious statements, tortured associations, random "facts" the editor didn't know where to fit in the main text and insane bullshit. It's the perfect section for "contributing" to the wiki without actually adding anything meaningful.

Trivia sections aren’t actually supposed to exist, or at least nowhere near as much as they are now. The Manual of style discourages using them and tell to fit the information in the main body whenever possible. But of course, nobody reads boring guidelines pages.

So yeah, trivia needs a serious cleanup and that is going to take a very (very very very) large combined effort to do that. To participate, simply check the trivia section for any article you are reading and clean it accordingly, and/or patrol the recent changes for any recently added trivia “info”. If you are not sure if a Trivia entry is valid or where to fit the information in the body, don’t hesitate to post in this thread. And be sure to share any BJAODN-worthy stupidity you may find, eheheheh.

Articles tagged with this category are especially in need of a good cleanup.



What Trivia is for:

It’s really a “You know it when you see it” thing. There are a few instances where a relevant/interesting information cannot be integrated elegantly anywhere in the main text. In those cases, trivia sections are acceptable.

What Trivia isn't for:

*Explaining extremely obvious puns or naming conventions (The Fire Skeleton is named as such because it's a skeleton on fire? You don't say.). Puns on figures of speech are generally exempt from being "too obvious" as non-native speakers are largely guaranteed to not be familiar with them.
*Dubious, strained "links" between two elements (Ex: "Mario having three segments of health in Super Mario Galaxy is a reference to how he can take three hits in Super Mario Bros 3. if you use a powerup”).
*Loose "patterns" don't have any meaning beyond "this doesn’t happen/this happens rarely/this happens more than once". (Ex: "In each Paper Mario games, someone is told to "still their tongue" by someone whose name's start with B". Okay, and..?)
*Speculation. If any trivia entry claims that something is "unconfirmed", it has a 99.2% chance of being worthless bullshit,
*Random facts that could easily be inserted in the main text. If the “Red Chomp” enemy has blue teeth, it would be much better to write “The Red Chomp is a chain-chomp with red skin and blue teeth” in the main body rather than sticking “It has blue teeth” randomly somewhere near the end.
 
Glowsquid said:
[Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games‎] is the First Time seeing Toad and Toadette Barefoot
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Why did you include that one? Almost as soon as it was added, it was quickly removed. Four times.

On topic, I'll try my best to help, though perhaps you could also mention the overly long trivia sections?
 
Definitely in on this. I already try to remove any bad trivia I see, so this isn't going to be a whole lot of extra effort.
 
GreenDisaster said:
On topic, I'll try my best to help, though perhaps you could also mention the overly long trivia sections?
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Good call, I added a link to http://www.mariowiki.com/Category:Articles_with_long_Trivia_sections.
 
This is Mario and Luigi's first adventure together since Super Mario World.
The theme when fighting Cackletta in Woohoo Hooniversity is a remix of the Koopa Baddies Arrive (theme which is also known as the Danger theme) and Cackletta Theme (the theme that plays when Cackletta is present)
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Not sure of either of these. First could probably be removed but I want to doublecheck. Second sounds like something legitimate, but on the wrong page...
 
I'd say the first can safely be removed and the second would be a better fit for the Cackletta page.
 
I'm so in also because from looking at other wikis and wikias, too many trivias makes the article look bad.
 
I remember removing shit trivia on the Macho Grubba and Lady Bow pages.

I also cleaned up Mimi and Yoshi Kid's trivias.
 
*By coincidence, the title ''Super Mario Galaxy'' was first mentioned in a fan letter written to [[Nintendo Power]] by Jimmy Peterford of Glen Cove, New York. The letter in question, which was printed in the December 1991 issue, detailed a fantasy game system called the Raw Power System, which would come bundled with a game titled ''Super Mario Galaxy'', but in Peterford's words, would be "better known as ''Super Mario Bros. 24''!"
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Keep or delete?
 
I'm not 100% sure either but I'm leaning toward keep, seems like the kind of minor detail that's interesting to note but doesn't really have a place anywhere else.
 
Just cleared out a bunch of trivia left by one guy, Keboom. Not to be rude, but some of these... are more than dumb.

[quote author=Prince Froggy's article]A YouTuber claims that Prince Froggy is the most gross boss ever.[/quote]
[quote author=Airship Fortress' article]The airship is owned by Bowser Jr and this makes sence.[/quote]
[quote author=Wario Colosseum's article]Why Wario would need a colosseum is anyone's guess, for it does not fit with his personalty.[/quote]
[quote author=DK Mountain's article]Donkey Kong might not bother with any track with a volcano.[/quote]
[quote author=Gold Mantis' article]This car looks like a crane, further establishing the connection between Waluigi and Foreman Spike.[/quote]
 
I'm physically semi-retired from the MarioWiki right now, but I guess I'll take a look around, and see if there's anything in need of changing.
 
a new policy page has been created to explain our stance on trivia sections and how you can organize miscellaneous information.
 
I've always wondered what is an overly long trivia section officially. I've always stuck by "if there's more than five trivia pieces, it's overly long", but is there an actual definition?
 
I think it should be case by case like an article like Mario could have a lot of trivia because it's Mario and there is a lot of info about him that wouldn't fit in most of the articles, while other articles should have less trivia because they don't appear as much
 
But that doesn't seem fair. How do we decide what deserves more trivia and what deserves less? It's better just to have a general rule for all the articles.
 
Nabber said:
shove it in BJAODN?
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Not all of it. There are ton of "[obvious pun] is a pun on [obvious]"-style trivias, that while stupid, are not especially amusing and would just waste more server space if they were reposted elsewhere. BJAODN is about "funny" mistakes and truly rare bits of stupidity, like the entriesquoted above.
 
Just remove 'em. intelligence-insulting cruft is intelligence-insulting cruft, no matter where it's placed.
 
Not sure about these ones:

[quote author=Outta My Way!]Its name comes from the expression used by someone as they clear their way through a crowd.[/quote]
[quote author=Reel Cheep]Its name is a pun on the expression "real cheap!"[/quote]
[quote author=On the Spot]The minigame name comes from the term "Right on the spot."[/quote]
[quote author=Slammer]Its name comes from a slang term for prison[/quote]
[quote author=Koopa Kurl]It is based on the Real World sport of curling, which is referenced in the title, although "curl" was corrupted to "kurl" to form a piece of alliteration with "Koopa".[/quote]
[quote author=Forest Jump]Its name may be a reference to Forrest Gump.[/quote]
The first few are English idioms, but I'm not sure whether or not foreign users would recognize them. I'm also dubious on the last one, Forest Jump. It both seems right and doesn't seem right, does that make sense?
 
I'd keep "Reel Cheep" and "Slammer" (the minigames have nothing to do with prisons or buying stuff, respectively, so the names aren't intuitive); "Koopa Kurl" (curling-related terms aren't exactly common vernacular, and the corruption to "K" adds extra complexity (for lack of a better word)); and "Forest Jump" (it seems like too random a name to not be deliberate).
 
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