Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion

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Outlaw the Trivia sections?

I know I haven't been with the Wiki for very long, but in the time I have been here there is only one thing that truly irks me: the condition of the trivia sections. Almost every trivia section in the Wiki contains nothing but small tidbits which, with a bit of rewriting, could easily fit into the main article. A lot of the time they are poorly written lists of information that is either irrelevant, obvious, or just plain incoherent. Some of the worst pages are the Class pages, where the Trivia sections are nearly as long as the rest of the article. The style guide says:"[The Trivia] section is for all additional or interesting information regarding the weapon that does not belong in any other section." I argue that if the information is pertinent and interesting, then there must be a valid section for it. Some of it may require the addition of new sections, but to me it would be preferable to have one new, paragraphed, legible section than the current disassociated list of random elements that currently resides in nearly every page of the Wiki. I'm willing to do as much work as it takes to clean up the trivia sections once and for all, but such a change would be Wiki-wide and I would never presume to do so without consulting with those who know the Wiki and its needs better than I do. {{subst:void|This template should always be substituted. Please change {{Unsigned}} to {{subst:Unsigned}}}}— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alex2539 (talk) • (contribs) 2024-12-25, 09:10 UTC

Well, I do think that there needs to be a massive cleanup of trivia sections-- combining or removing much of it. However, outlawing them entirely seems unwise. There are some things that do belong in the section. -Shine[] 02:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

"Outlaw" may be the wrong word. Perhaps I should have said "discourage"? Either way, my hope is that we try to use them as scarcely as possible. -- Alex2539 02:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I never understood why wikipedia outlawed the trivia section, until I've seen this wiki :D. While I agree some trivia sections are quite a mess now

With the addition of the Mann-Conomy update, five classes are now capable of healing themselves. The Scout (with Mad Milk), the Soldier (through successful hits with the Black Box), the Pyro (by killing an enemy with the Powerjack), the Heavy (with his edible devices), and the Medic (passive healing, successful hits with the Blutsauger, or the Oktoberfest taunt). --Blutsauger#Trivia

The Flare Gun is the only incendiary-based weapon in the Pyro's arsenal which does not have flames depicted in its kill icons. --Flare_Gun#Trivia

just to name two, some trivia would be missed. I have to admit, I wanted to include a very good example here as well, but I couldn't find one although I've looked at 10+ trivia pages. Food for thought. --CruelCow 22:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

There are a couple of good pieces, but they are few and far between. One of the ones I liked was:

"Hot Rod" is also the title of a 1979 movie, in which Grant Goodeve, voice of the Engineer, starred. --Hotrod#Trivia

Did you know that? I didn't know that. It technically doesn't have anything to do with TF2, but it's still a very interesting coincidence. Also, there's this from the Tribalman's Shiv page:

Originally, the creator of the Shiv intended to make the viewmodel as it is now, but on a Critical hit the knife would be turned around so that the notched side struck the enemy. However, this did not get implemented as it required custom animations, which neither the creator nor Valve were willing to make. --Tribalman's Shiv#Trivia

That is information that is pertinent to the weapon itself, but is largely unknown because it was never implemented. But for every trivia item like those two, there are a dozen poor ones, like this one that I removed earlier this week:

Texas Slim's Dome Shine: This headwear may be a reference to Riddick, a fictional character, who is also bald and wears similar goggles. --[Texas Slim's Dome Shine (October 5th, 2010)]

While I fully support the inclusion of interesting factoids, the sections themselves are, by their very nature, far too vague to exist in their current state without being abused. -- Alex2539 04:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I think they should stay, its an easy section for people new to the wiki (and we have lots of those) to add stuff, when each article gets cleaned up by a more experienced editor the carp can easily be removed leaving hopefully real pearls of wisdom, all we really need is to agree on is which articles really need cleaning up as a priority--Markd 10:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at Chieftain's Challenge ive split the trivia in two, not sure on the title of the other section so i have left a descriptive after it for now. Let me know what you think , it appears to be a good start in moving trivia we want away from trivial stuff ! lol--Markd 10:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps limitations on the Trivia section as a whole is needed. As has been stated, for every good factoid of Trivia on this wiki, there's a dozen bad ones. Limiting Trivia tid-bits that are nothing more than pure speculation would help reduce these sectins significantly. Additionally, outright obvious facts should also be kicked to the curb. With the stock weapons and pre-community hats and weapons, this won't be too hard. However, with community contributed content, perhaps we should look in to contacting their creators in order to find out some of their inspirations for their items? (This has probably already been done, but it doesn't hurt to throw a suggestion in.) Such has been done with The Saharan Spy Pack's creator. Maybe this is what we need to do for the remaining items? --Krizzle_0 10:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to say, the awesome and ongoing (User:Alex2539/Trivia_Cleanup_Checklist) recent cleanup work has improved the trivia sections alot. That combined with a bit of careful recent changes watching and the new policy might be enough. --CruelCow 23:00, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been going back and editing some of the tips into the article and removing them from trivia. For some reason some of the articles have tips in the Trivia Section. -- Balladofwindfishes 01:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Trivia warning

On the same note as Alex2539's request above, I feel we need to do something radical to deter people from simply editing useless, unnecessary, uninteresting information. Firestorm suggested running AWB to add a <!-- comment, asking people not to edit the section without first reading the trivia guidelines. --> to each individual == Trivia == section, something I consider myself a supporter of. What say you, guys? ~ lhavelund ^{(t ▪ c)} 21:12, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I like this idea. By adding it as a comment directly under == Trivia ==, it's guaranteed to show up no matter how they choose to edit the page. I was thinking something along this line:

== Trivia ==

<!-- Before modifying this trivia section, please refer to the trivia guidelines, found at: http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Help:Style_guide/Trivia to ensure that your trivia item is appropriate for inclusion. Failure to comply with these guidelines may cause your trivia item to be removed. If the guidelines are ignored repeatedly, a temporary block may be put on your account to prevent further edits. -->

To me, this seems like an unavoidable pointer to the style page, with a reminder of the consequences if they ignore the guidelines. I made the consequences fairly mild since, in reality, that's all that would happen. It would take a lot of really poor edits to warrant an outright ban. Right now, I'm more that certain that a lot of the crappy trivia items stem from a complete ignorance of the style page's existence. This way, we tell them directly where it is within the section they want to edit itself. After that there's no real excuse for not reading it besides apathy or laziness. I'm sure it won't stop every instance of bad trivia, but I do think that it should at least help limit it. -- -- 21:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Mild support: It won't hurt trying, but I don't expect too much success. The tips section of the characters have similar warnings and still people add random strategy to it. --CruelCow 22:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Trading Value section in hat pages?

I've seen people that get scammed into getting their hats traded away, I think we should have a section of hat pages saying their value in metal so these scams don't happen as much.-Kholdstare 23:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Oppose The value of hats is completely up to the parties involved in a trade, and how much they want the hat in question. We collect facts, not opinions. ~ lhavelund ^{(t ▪ c)} 23:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Understandable, you're right.-Kholdstare 23:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The value of a hat is not measured in metal. Everyone has personal preferences. I like alot of hats that others think are ugly. If someone wants to give 4 hats for 1 that they really want, then I don't see a problem in it. You can't make someone trade if they don't want to.User:Firmly_Grasp_It 23:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

No. It's not really down to us. If a person is silly enough to get scammed then I doubt a note from us about hat value would help. Also, please start new sections at the bottom.  – Smashman _(talk) 07:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

 Oppose Even then, because hats have no intrinsic value, no one can really be scammed in terms of value. You can't be given a counterfeit Bonk Helm, it's just a Bonk Helm. Whether or not what you traded for it was worth the trade is entirely up to you and how much you like the Bonk Helm. The only real scams that might occur are those where you do not receive the item you wanted, usually due to a multi-step trade (eg: those involving more than four items from a single person) and those have nothing to do with the perceived value of a hat. Long story short, hats have no value but the sentimental value their owners have for them and the Dollar values in the store. -- -- 07:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Exploits and Glitches as trivia?

What are the feelings on glitches and exploits in trivia. I noticed some articles mention glithces and exploits and they didn't stand out as trivia to me. It just doesn't seem like something that needs to be mentioned in an article, unless it's something just bizarre like the Mackarel being all crazy in lefty mode. The Frontier Justice article for example, has nerely half of its trivia as glitches and exploits. Many articles have glithces as trivia mentioning that they were fixed. We have spots for previous changes to weapons, put it there, not in trivia. Let me know what your thoughts are, and I'll go through and comb the articles and either remove them or put them in a proper section -- Balladofwindfishes 01:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)