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Many articles contain Trivia Sections near the end. These sections are meant to hold any small bit of trivia relevant to that article. However, due to the ambiguous nature of trivia it is sometimes unclear what should or should not be included. Before adding an item to an article's Trivia section, please consult these guidelines first.
Writing trivia
- Trivia should be short, clear and concise. All trivia sections are styled as bullet points, not paragraphs. If the trivia item you are writing seems to have a particularly long description, consider instead summarizing it briefly and linking to a source with more relevant information.
- Do not post images or videos unless absolutely necessary to prove a point. Most trivia are self-evident and do not need a visual aid. If it is absolutely vital that a video be included, it is better to link to the video than to embed it for trivia. Images should be shown as thumbnails.
- All trivia should still uphold the rest of the Style Guide. This includes grammar, spelling and formatting.
Removing trivia
Before removing trivia, first consider whether or not it is indeed trivia by following the guidelines below. If it is found not to be trivia, then it should be removed. Please don't forget to state why it isn't considered valued trivia in the summary. If the information is relevant in some way, but not trivia all the same, consider finding a way to work it into an existing article. It is always possible that an item that is not trivia is in fact relevant information for another article.
What if my trivia is removed?
If your own addition to a trivia section is removed, do not immediately add it back into the article. First check the article's history to see who removed the item and if they left a reason in the edit summary. If the person did not leave a reason or if you do not agree with their reason, consider asking them for an explanation or elaboration on their talk page. If the matter is not resolved, make a new post on that article's talk page and state your case as to why your item is valid trivia. The resulting discussion will determine the final fate of that trivia item. If it is decided that a trivia item's removal was justified, do not ignore this decision. Repeated adding of a removed trivia item and ignoring the reason for its removal can be grounds for a temporary block from editing the Wiki.
Guidelines for trivia
The following is a set of guidelines to follow when writing trivia. Before making an addition to a trivia section, try to make sure that the item follows these guidelines. If you believe an item might qualify as trivia but are uncertain, feel free to post on the article's talk page and ask for opinions.
What is trivia
- Trivia items should be interesting facts about the item in question. They may only be tangent to actual nature of the article in question, but should be have a direct relation nonetheless.
- Trivia items should be new information that is not already available in the infobox or article. It should also be information that does not belong in the infobox or article.
- Trivia items should be interesting and/or helpful. This can be tricky since "interesting" and "helpful" are somewhat subjective terms. In general a trivia item that displays a non-noteworthy example of something or whose relation to the article is tenuous at best will be considered uninteresting. Trivia items are looking to receive a reaction similar to "Wow! I didn't know that!" from the reader. If most readers' reactions to the trivia item are similar to "Meh, who cares?" then it is likely not a good piece of trivia.
- Trivia items should be factual, not guesses or conjecture. It is preferable if there is a verifiable reference, but due to the fact that some items may come from game-play experience that has gone unrecorded or private chat sessions or e-mails from developers is it understood that this is not always possible. However, if an item can be cited, it should be.
What is not trivia
- Trivia items should not be obvious to anyone who has played through Portal or Portal 2. Unfortunately "obvious" may have a subjective definition as veteran players may have a different opinion on what is obvious compared to novice players. Something that is inevitably discovered simply by playing the game or casually studying the subject in question should be considered "obvious" and thus not trivia.
- Trivia should not state how a characteristic of an item relates to the characteristics of others. This includes, but is not limited to, listing other items that share a certain characteristic, listing items that that do not share a certain characteristic, stating that an item is the first or only item to have a certain characteristic, etc. Often this will be in the form of "This is the first X to ...", "This is the only X to..." or "This is one of N Xs to...".
- Trivia should not be a bug or glitch with the item, especially if it is not noteworthy such as a visual glitch or a quickly-patched bug. Any noteworthy bugs should instead be places on the Glitch or Exploit pages. Trivia should be about the item addressed in the article, not the mistakes the developers made in the implementation. If it is a statement on the way an item used to function, then it should be placed in the Previous Changes section of that article.
- Trivia should not be a simple observation of the item. If it can be deduced by simply looking at the item, then it is not trivia. This includes, but is not limited to descriptions of the item, resemblances the item has to something or comments on the in-game appearance of the item.
- Trivia should not be an assessment of an item's worth. An item's perceived value in a trade is entirely subject to the opinions of those involved in a trade. This also includes an item's supposed value in real-world currency. Regardless of how much an item has gone for at one point, it in no way is directly associated with the item's creator or the reason for the item's distribution and therefore is not noteworthy in the slightest.