What counts as trivia?

[Longfellow]

I looked for a project page or forum thread outlining what we may put in a trivia section, but found very little. All I know is that observations about sprites (i.e. "This back sprite is similar to the one in the last generation") are frowned upon.

Are there any other concrete rules? I sometimes see tidbits that seem silly to include even in a trivia section. For instance,

Abra (Pokémon): "Abra is one of the few Pokémon who cannot learn STAB attacks by level-up."

Signature Move: "Although other Pokémon are capable of learning Drill Peck, Fearow, Dodrio, and Zapdos are shown to be the most common Pokémon to use it."

Signature Move: "Sudowoodo is the only Pokémon to learn Mimic by leveling up in Generation II, but other Pokémon could learn it through TM31 in Generation I and move tutor in Generation III."

Viridian City: "It is the only town that is the first visited in the game that has a Gym after the starting location, though the Gym is closed until the other seven Badges have been obtained."

By what standard do we admit these trivia and not the ridiculous made-up examples below?

Arbok (Pokémon): "Arbok has been the first Poison-type Pokémon in alphabetical order since Generation I. It was also the only Poison-type in Generation I whose name started with an 'A', although it shares this distinction with Ariados since Generation II. It is still the only pure Poison-type whose name starts with an 'A'."

Signature Move: "Although Tackle is learned by many Pokémon, it is most associated with Rattata, the earliest available Pokémon that get STAB on this move."

Pallet Town: "It is the only hometown located due south of the next two towns. It was also the only hometown located due south of the next town until Littleroot Town in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, which is south of Oldale. Littleroot is also due south of Verdanturf, but that is only the seventh town visited without the use of cheating devices."

To me these really aren't much sillier. My reaction is the same: "Who cares?" Sure, maybe we as individuals like to notice patterns in the sea of Pokémon data. I've spent a lot of time looking at RBY base stats and I can point out all kinds of funny quirks--did you know that if you count Special for double, Gastly's base stat total exceeds that of five fully-evolved Pokémon?--but I don't add such information to the articles. Should I?

I think we'd be wiser to write clear guidelines on what we count as trivia. I would defer to the regular editors before enforcing my own vision, but here are some ideas:

* trivia about a sprite or sprites don't belong.
* trivia about stats only belong if the stats are extreme--i.e., the top or bottom compared to every other Pokémon.
* trivia in the form of "[x] is the only [y] that [z]" only belong if [z] is one relevant condition. My made-up Arbok quote's a good example of how to break this rule.

If we can agree on some of these rules, maybe we should add them to one of the project pages (something like Manual of Style). Thanks for reading!

 

[Falconwing]

I agree. Some of the trivia on the pedia isn't really trivia anymore. Or ever was. I laugh every time I run across trivia that says that "in this episode TR use a variation of their motto." Yeah, that and every other episode nowadays.

 

[MAGNEDETH]

stupid people add stupid trivia. we do what we can to remove a lot of it, but sometimes it gets under the radar. its a never-ending battle. however, those signature move trivia pieces you mentioned make sense in the pages context.

 

[Politoed666]

I will revert/remove any trivia that doesn't meet the following criteria:

1. Must not be visible through direct observation, unless it's something people would not normally interpret as odd.
2. Must be interesting. Duh. No one cares about minor sprite differences.

There are probably more, but that's the bare minimum for what trivia should be.

 

[LULZ 26023]

The Ash Ketchum article has so much useless trivia.

 

[evkl]

I went through about a year ago and fixed trivia for all 493.

My basic criteria were this:

*No sprite trivia if it was a difference-based thing. (Sprite changed from X game to Y game.)
*No "one of x that can do y" if x was greater than about five. "One of 22 Pokemon who can learn Tackle but not Slash" (or something, I made that up) is not interesting.
*Must be generally interesting and generally relevant; something I'd find "cool" or useful to know. Subjective, yes, but it's generally a good rule of thumb. If you're like "oh, that's really...minor," it's probably not trivia.

 

[The Outrage]

Can there also be a rule against trivia that they just read of the dex entries?

Off the top of my head, I do remember an Arceus trivia stating its dex entry says that it created the universe with 1000 arms, and then stating it has none. We can see that ourselves.

Here it is:

Even though it is said that Arceus created the world with its thousand arms, it is not shown to have any arms at all, nor can it learn hand-based or arm-based moves

Also something against fan theory in the trivia? Again, an example from Arceus:

The code for Diamond and Pearl has sprites for Arceus using its Multitype ability with all 18 types, including ???-type. It is disputed whether the ???-type Arceus is obtainable, as there is no plate in the code that can be used for this. It is possible this sprite was programmed in to prevent game crashes caused by tampering with Arceus's type

There is no evidence for that statement, and someone in the talk page puts up a much better explanation about Multitype just being programmed to turn Arceus into any type, so I don't see why one fan explanation deserves a mention over another. Stating that there is dummy data for ??? seems sufficient.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I noticed recently that someone added to Cyrus's article the theory that he was touched by Mesprit. Any fool can see he still has emotion, and thus any fool can see that that theory is inane. Yet it's still up there.

Also I think we need to use sources for the trivia wherever possible, when they depend on outside sources (interviews, in-jokes, etc).

 

[TTEchidna]

There is no evidence for that statement, and someone in the talk page puts up a much better explanation about Multitype just being programmed to turn Arceus into any type, so I don't see why one fan explanation deserves a mention over another. Stating that there is dummy data for ??? seems sufficient.

Saying that there is dummy data isn't always enough. There's gotta be a reason why.

 

[stevoman97]

Some of the sprite data can be relevant/interesting (but not minor differences), such as:
"The amount of petals Venusaur has on its flower has been inconsistent over the generations in all forms of media, varying between five and six. Its Generation I and II official artwork show only five petals, but the Generation III and IV artwork show six. In the main series game sprites, Red (EN), Yellow, and Generation IV show six, but Red (JP), Generation II and III show five. The anime, console games, and Pokémon Adventures have always depicted it with six."
Obviously, this can be seen by looking at it; however, noticing these differences is often not done. I think trivia should
(1) be something that is close to unique; basically 1 of 4 or 5 (or less) pokémon that...
(2) matter. For example (although this wasn't a real quote), I don't care if Arbok is the only pure poison-type that starts with A. Sure, I won't notice it, but that's because it's irrelevant.
(3) cannot have a broadened category. For instance, the fact that Bibarel is the only dual normal-water type that learns curse upon level-up is unnecessary, as it is the only normal-water type at all. I have seen a few of these elsewhere.
(4) be out of a category greater than about eight (eg the information on the towns at the top – it makes sense that there are two starting towns due south of the first city, as it is out of four).
That's about all I've got. If you see anything ludicrous, please change it for everyone.

 

[Werdnae]

Yeah, group size is deffinitely related to trivia notability, although I don't think there is a specified limit. I just tend to look at the percentage. If it's more than about 5% of the group it's probably irrelevant, or the group size is too small.

For example, the trivia Togekiss, along with Mamoswine, are Dawn's only Pokémon in the Sinnoh dex extension. hs been removed from Dawn's Togekiss's page twice. Dawn's only had possession of 8 Pokémon. If she'd almost comleted a DP Sinnoh dex then maybe it would be notable, but with 8 Pokémon? Not so much