I really think there needs to be some sort of guideline on how much trivia is allowed on an article. I’ve seen several character pages that have a huge amount of trivia items and they clutter the pages up horribly. Anders has 16, Isabela has 20, Varric has 18 (and several of them are extremely long). Those are the ones I’ve noticed just by skimming, but there are likely more. Having that many on a single topic just seems horribly excessive.
We have a brief guideline on what kind of trivia isn’t allowed (such as speculation on similarities between Thedosian countries and real ones). I’d like to propose putting some stricter limits on the types of trivia allowed, and putting a limit on the amount. I’d like to see a limit of 10, possibly 15 at most.
Some suggested guidelines about trivia on character pages:
- Any trivia dealing with a specific item or quest should be put on those respective pages, even if they’re specific to a single character (Isabela’s quest Fools Rush In for example).
- Name etymologies should be eliminated, unless there is a proper source that states specifically what a character’s name means (such as Fenris meaning “Little Wolf”.)
- Trivia where the source no longer exists (all those about what type of drink so-and-so prefers. That interview apparently doesn’t exist anywhere anymore, so I don’t think they should stay).
- Trivia about Inquisition, even if it's been confirmed--those should be behind spoilers at the very least.
- Similarities between a character and that of one in a different game. This can be subjective, and if it looks extremely obvious I’ve got no quarrels with it. But to compare Isabela to a character in Sims Medieval?
- Can we limit the number of things that developers and writers have said about the characters? There are dozens of interviews out there, many of the writers participate in the Bioware forums and have twitter and tumblr accounts. Does each and every thing they say regarding a character need to be added?
- Pointing out specific items in party banter. Those should already be on the quotes page so there shouldn’t be any reason to point them out in the trivia. Same with pointing things out in codex entries.
- A limit on the amount of pop culture references.
I’m not saying that all of these should be implemented, they’re just suggestions on stuff that I think can be cut out without being detrimental to the spirit of the wiki providing information.
The trivia sections as they are now are (in my opinion) too cluttered. But I think this is something that's going to have even more impact in the future. I don't want to talk about details of Inquisition in this topic because I don't want to spoil people (including myself) who would rather limit their knowledge of it right now. But the fact is that there are going to be existing characters who play anywhere between a minor to a major role in the next game. I'm pretty sure about one in particular, who currently has over 15 trivia items on their page. What do you think it's going to look like after Inquisition comes out? Or a new comic, movie, book, etc. Kelcat (talk) 23:47, August 14, 2013 (UTC)
- We actually already have trivia guidelines but as I see you've gathered, it's a policy which needs to be much more strongly enforced in my opinion. I couldn't agree more that much of the trivia of pages can often seem to be too, well...trivial, and I like many of the suggestions you've put forth. I think for the most part I'd prefer to allow editors to use their common sense when adding or removing trivia (with more emphasis on the latter), though I'd give serious consideration to adding points one, two and six to our current guidelines (would we be happy to include some of these under a broader rule addressing the superfluity of some trivia or leave this to common sense?)
King Cousland | Talk 00:00, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- I'm definitely in favor of emphasizing using common sense, and not having hard and fast rules that have to be enforced, no exceptions. If a character only has four or five items, I think it'd be fine to be more lax, or if there's trivia that maybe falls outside whatever guidelines are set but that are important to point out about the character (such as pointing out how Isabela has dialogs about sex with all the companions). But I'd definitely love to see the guidelines expanded on, specifying things that are discouraged from being added. And at least a suggested limit on the amount of trivia. Kelcat (talk) 00:25, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Sounds like a reasonable proposition. Maybe we should lower the limit on quotes as well. On some pages the number of quotations have really gotten out of hand.-HD3 (talk) 01:07, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- I think points one and two would good, easy to follow, additions to the guidelines. I would also be in favour of putting a hard limit on the number of trivia items allowed. I think 10 should be plenty.
I don't like the idea of limiting the maximum number of trivia items. Various places and characters have different coverage in the lore. I.e. a character who is featured in two games and a comic series (Isabela) will necessarily have more items associated with them than a DLC character, and we know more about Ferelden than about Par Vollen.
However, I strongly agree with the following:
- Similarities between a character and that of one in a different game. This can be subjective, and if it looks extremely obvious I’ve got no quarrels with it. But to compare Isabela to a character in Sims Medieval?
- A limit on the amount of pop culture references.
This is something I wrote here - most so-called references to other games\books\movies etc are actually examples of common tropes that DA and these games\books\movies etc happen to share. I'd remove all such items from trivia.
Also, do we have a spoiler tag for DAI yet?Asherinka (talk) 01:15, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
PS By the way, in case of characters many trivia items are simply repeating something already written in involvement. I believe that removing such items is the easiest way to reduce their number without rewriting any guidelines) Asherinka (talk) 01:22, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- I agree with that; no repetitions should fall on the side of common sense. And there's definitely existing trivia that can be removed without needing the guidelines rewritten to adress them specifically, these are just things I saw repeated in several different articles. Kelcat (talk) 01:33, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe half of what we currently have Loleil. The current limit just seems so excessive. Surely the function of the quotation section is to add a bit of flair with a couple of truly outstanding quotations. With the current guidelines we end up with situations like Loghain and Cullen where almost everything they ever said from every moment is written up. I guess the broader question is what we're actually trying to achieve with the quotation section. -HD3 (talk) 01:58, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
My votes:
Trivia for a specific item/location/quest should be on its page.
I would even support removing name etymologies altogether.- While I strongly dislike drink-so-an-so trivia, I don't think that all trivia with dead sources should be deleted.
- Don't care.
- Don't care.
- I think we should limit what is said, not how much is said.
- I'm against limiting a number of trivia items.
– mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 06:21, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- I wasn't entirely sure about whether deleting all trivia with dead links was a good idea or not (I don't know what sort of thing is in place to address those dead links.
- Can you clarify your answer regarding limiting trivia about developers talking about character? I don't quite get what you mean by "limit what is said, not how much is said." Kelcat (talk) 06:57, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- What I meant is that I'm against limiting a number of things that can be mentioned. I think the problem is not with the amount of trivia, but with the quality of it. – mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 07:04, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- And I agree that there are problems with quality, which is why I gave examples of guidelines in addition to setting a limit. A wiki free for everyone to edit, and the vast majority of people who add the trivia think that the quality of it is just fine. Why else would they post it. Everyone thinks that what they're adding is the most important. Setting a numerical limit would curtail the free-for-all that I'm envisioning coming soon, and it will also encourage people to think harder about what trivia is really important. Kelcat (talk) 07:23, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Well, I'm afraid that I would be forced to choose between equally important pieces of trivia.
- – mostlyautumn • talk • contribs • 07:46, August 15, 2013 (UTC)
- On the Loose, "Walter's voice (who looks older) is higher than Cricket's voice (who looks much younger)." These are the sort of notes that clutter trivia sections. Seriously, what is the point of this? Should we also note that Walter has longer hair than Cricket? Is it trying to imply they mixed up the voice actors? People have different pitches of voice, just like they have different color of hair, skin, and eyes. These are the kind of things that people write just to feel like they contributed (or.. well, I can't think of another reason) and are the things that should be removed. Agreed with Autumn's statements, and let's cut out these terribly useless notes. Sen 01:55, August 16, 2013 (UTC)
I like and hate the trivia section, since it tends to be cluttered with extremely trivial items (which, in some cases, get removed per our guidelines), or long ones that are comparisons of x and y and z (this is a personal preference—I just don't like them because you can make plenty of comparisons, heh). I think we might be better off renaming "Trivia" as "Behind the scenes", as it suggests it's not going to be that trivial. I remember being told that trivial items is okay because it was trivia, heh. :P
I'm against a limit of trivia items though. It's a little hard to enforce just how many you think is enough or not, depending on the topic. It's a bit different than quotes, which we have an endless supply of and thus, needed a hard limit. People will add whatever they want regardless if there is a limit. I prefer that we work as we do with information in the article, that is, deciding if the item itself should be removed or not (at the discretion of the editors, or talk page if it's being contested).
If you believe a trivia item should be removed because it is completely unnecessary (it doesn't "add" to the article), then definitely do it. We can expand the trivia guidelines a bit more with examples of what is too trivial vs. acceptable. ··· 
d·day! 23:51, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'm going through and deleting some trivia that I know has no place, but I'd still like to see some more concrete guidelines written up. The ones that irritate me the most are the etymologies of names--they tend to get added to as more people find similar names from different regions/cultures. My main reason for wanting to put a limit is due to the fact that, as I said, they tend to really clutter up the page. On some pages I've seen trivia sections that are almost as long as the involvement sections. On pages that are already really long and detailed, having so much trivia can be overwhelming.
- But, in my cleaning up of trivia lately, I have found a few articles where, even though there is lots of trivia, all of it does seem relevent or notable. I'm wondering if it's possible to in some cases create a separate trivia page for these specific articles. It wouldn't be in every case, but perhaps for some of the characters that are most popular and/or in more than one game/comic/etc. Similar to how there are links to full quotes pages for the more prominent characters (Anders/Dialogue, for instance, though the trivia obviously wouldn't be that long of a page). Kelcat (talk) 00:07, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
- Per one of your suggestions, it'll be better to exclude the etymology of names. I'm generally against comparisons because they tend to be extremely long in certain cases, though I just let them slip by regardless. I'm not sure how others feel about this, as I know some editors believe comparisons to real world vs. fiction is interesting enough to be included (but like I said, parallels can be drawn out of anything).
- As for separating trivia from the main page, I think it may be okay if the section becomes so long and all trivia items are actually notable. In that case, it could be nominated for split with {{Split}}.
- I just realized I didn't go over your points:
- This is how it should be generally speaking.
- I agree with removing name etymologies.
- I have no problems regarding this, as eventually, we are meant to remove any information with dead links. I was trying to hunt down some information with dead links back then, thus why so many are still there I think (there's a certain period that should be given before taking down those links, but a lot of them are no longer salvageable since they're from the old forums—I don't think we'll ever see them again). This is a separate issue from trivia, actually.
- Since the game has been announced, any information regarding the game should be in its own new section "Dragon Age: Inquisition". It's no longer trivia.
- Similarities are to be removed—this comes down to personal opinion, unless that was the writers' intentions.
- It depends what is being said and whether it's actually notable and interesting. As discussed, I'd still say, no limit.
- I think they can be removed.
- I think some people think it's a reference, when it's not, and why you think there should be a limit. It has to be really a good one to be included without a source. For example, there was a ring in Origins in one random event that was clearly a reference to Lord of the Rings. There is some leeway though. I'm against limits though, since it doesn't weed out the bad ones regardless.
- That's a lot of things to cover, so I'd like to reiterate the main issues, I think:
- Do we impose a hard limit? Do we also impose on a limit on a certain type of trivia, e.g., pop culture?
- Expand what isn't trivia (depending on the outcome of the discussion):
- Name etymologies
- Similarities between characters (this falls in personal opinion, which is covered in the guidelines, but can be clarified)
- Irrelevant information obtained from dialogues or other sources (if it's noteworthy, it should be moved in the main sections), unless they refer to something important (in which case, it's no longer irrelevant)
- I'd pitch in the comparisons, but that may not go too well, heh.
- You and mostlyautumn raise some good points against limiting the number of trivia items, and after thinking about it more, I agree that limiting the amount isn’t the best idea. Nominating split pages could resolve the issue of some articles having an overabundance of relevant trivia. As a result of all this, I’m revising and restating a simplified proposal--one that I think warrants some consensus on.
- Proposal: Expand the current wiki guidelines regarding trivia. Additional items to include that should not be placed in the trivia section:
- 1. Name etymology, unless officially confirmed by Bioware
- 2. Limit generalized speculation regarding the similarities of characters, places, etc outside of the Dragon Age setting, unless the similarities are extremely obvious or relevent (such as the Grey Wardens being similar to the Knights Templar).
- These are the only two that I think would impact future additions to trivia. The other ones I listed have more to do with things that can be removed from existing trivia sections, and the clarification you guys have given works for me.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm seeing a strong consensus here regarding the etymologies, snippets from dialogue/quests, keeping quest/item trivia items on the relevant pages and being stronger on making sure sure real world similarities are noteworthy. I have updated the guidelines accordingly. 
Loleil Talk 04:57, August 23, 2013 (UTC)