Board Thread:Consensus Track/@comment-1738746-20150110031434

This discussion has been moved from the main Policy Changes thread in order to have its own discussion without impeding discussions on the original thread.

There is discussion as to whether trivia of speculative nature i.e. information not officially confirmed by Bethesda, should or should not be found on the Wiki at all. One view is that the Wiki is an informative place which, to maintain its credibility, should present only strictly factual information. The other view is that information that is still referenced or sourced, but unconfirmed, should find a place on the Wiki in order to provide extra information to readers, such as potential sources of inspiration for certain characters, places or objects.

The current trivia policy stands as this: The first point in the policy goes against the dictionary definition of the word trivia, which stands at "details, considerations, or pieces of information of little importance or value." Other users have pointed out that trivia are little bits of information that don't contribute much to the overall main article, which is the purpose of speculative trivia.
 * Use this section sparingly. Only important or interesting trivia should be added. If you are concerned about whether your trivia is welcome on the page, talk about it on the article's talk page or consult a staff member on the wiki.
 * Almost all trivia points need to be sourced.

One proposed change is to that of the policy wording regarding the Trivia Policy. A detailed proposal was given as such:

Comicsilver wrote: If I may on the topic of real life trivia on articles, the community I'm an Admin for (The Dark Souls Wiki) faced as similar problem. We ended up agreeing on the following points to be our policy on trivia information pertaining to real life references:

The last sentence of the final point is irrelevant here, since this game was first written in English, so you can disregard that. Hope this helps!
 * Real life trivia points must be sourced to show legitimate factual backup to the theory.
 * The trivia must be relevant in some way to teaching about the article it is posted on.
 * The article and the real life "thing" must share more than a common name; however, having a name in common is a major part of connecting the two things. Similar qualities, such as design, voice actor, or weapons/armor in common will also qualify as legitimate trivia points. Literal translations from English to Japanese, or vice versa, will also qualify as trivia allowed on pages.

Other ideas towards the actual trivia's presentation on an article/the Wiki have been presented:
 * A voting system for trivia that has no sources to support it, most like implemented through the article's Talk page.
 * If there is a lot of speculation or speculative trivia, that it be moved to a subarticle so that users can choose to read it or ignore it and that it doesn't clutter the main article.
 * If there is a small amount of speculative trivia, that it be added into a spoiler bar on the page such as this one so that again, users can choose whether or not to read it and it doesn't clutter up the article.
 * An tag to go alongside trivia that is not officially confirmed by Bethesda.

My own notes on the subject:
 * Even Wikipedia includes unverified information in its articles, but is clear to mark such information as unreliable to readers; does this compromise the integrity of the article and Wikipedia on a whole or does it add an extra depth to the information it provides to readers?
 * "Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence" - People often opposed to the idea of including speculative trivia do so under the claim that this trivia is false information. I would like to make clear that unconfirmed trivia is neither true nor false and that until Bethesda say it themselves, we cannot claim a speculation as false information.
 * A distinction needs to be made between speculative trivia that has solid referencing and sourcing as opposed to those points that do not. It is very easy to dismiss speculation or theories based loosely on other things, but ones that have been well researched and have the evidence to back themselves up should be considered very different to unsourced trivia.

Please discuss whether you agree on allowing trivia of speculative nature on the Wiki, and if so, what kind of mechanism you agree on, or alternatively propose, in order to present and display such information on an article page and the Wiki as a whole. Please also comment on your thoughts regarding the current Trivia Policy and whether it is fine as it stands, or if it could do with the changes as proposed. 