Forum:Trivia guidelines: confirmation issues and possible revamp

Good day everyone!
As suggested on Merry's talkpage (Talk:Merry), I believe it is time to discuss the wikia's trivia guidelines - and possibly add / remove certain paragraphs.

If you want to participate in the discussion, I recommend reading up on the current trivia rules (if you haven't already: One Piece Encyclopedia:Trivia Guidelines).

What's the problem?
While the current rules are sufficient enough to explain what kind of trivia we want on articles, they don't make clear if we should allow only confirmed information from Oda (through the SBS or other sources) or also permit interesting observations from editors as well. This causes edit wars on a not very often, but regular basis.

What the guideline provides (related paragraphs):


So on the one hand we have the permission to speculate on possible connections, but on the other hand speculation should be strictly avoided. A double standard that causes irritations.

Examples of unconfirmed, but informative trivia.
While from Oda confirmed trivia's leave no room for complaints, "observations" from editors sometimes do. Nonetheless, they often provide interesting information.

 A good example would be Kalifa's trivia section, which contains all 3 "types" of trivia: 


 * Kalifa's birthday was revealed in a SBS Volume 43 to be April 23. This is because Secretary's Day is celebrated on this day.

(Trivia type 1.: Trivia confirmed by Oda) (Trivia type 2.: based on conclusion) (Trivia type 3: based on speculation, tho informative and backed up by an external link)
 * Oda has named several female characters after birds. Kalifa seems to be named after the Kalij Pheasant (or in German, "Kalifasan").
 * Her name might also be a reference to Queen Califia, queen of a legendary tribe of Amazon women who lived in the mythical Island of California.

Possible options so far:

 * 1) Allowing only confirmed trivia by Oda
 * 2) Allowing facts confirmed by Oda, along with conclusions based on similiar cases.
 * 3) Allowing speculation, but backed up with external links and/or reason. (includes Oda and option 2.)
 * 4) Eliminating the trivia section altogether and merge confirmed information with other sections (appearance, personality etc. - where it fits).

Discussion / suggestions
I like the fact that this thread was created .. but I dont like the trivia to be voted ( whether something should stay or not ).. it's not supposed to be most of the time.

Frankly, I say option 1 is the way to go. Since speculations (backed up though they may be) may lead to creation of useless pages and unnecessary information within the main section of the articles by the more inexperienced editors. Yatanogarasu 00:44, May 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * I got a better idea: why don't we just eliminate trivia altogether? Like Zeldapedia doesn't do trivia at all. We can just add all the information from SBS (favorite food, color, etc.) into personality and appearance sections. Any other information can be added into appropriate places or not added at all if not important enough. Yatanogarasu 01:05, May 3, 2011 (UTC)

I think that option 2 is the best. The only problem is going to be distinguishing between observation and speculation, since both can have links, either for backup or further information. 01:16, May 3, 2011 (UTC)

I dont know which option this goes into, but I'm sure u can add any trivia to that section if the reference is provided and is trivial enough :)

Option one is the best way to go. Eliminating trivia is completely is a really horrible idea. I'll be back in two days. SeaTerror 06:36, May 3, 2011 (UTC)

Option 2 and 3 would effectively change nothing. Option 4 is a bad idea, as there are some things that just dont belong in anything but trivia. Option 1, I'm just going to go with the example I used on merrys talk page again. Donquixote Doflamingo. It's not confirmed, but it obviously comes from that. Option 1 would completely eliminate trivia like this and that's not good. Panda 10:38, May 3, 2011 (UTC)