Thread:RRabbit42/@comment-181516-20130209124809/@comment-961279-20130209152716

A while back, we went through this phase of "we're getting noticed by both Wikia and by people who make Phineas and Ferb, so we better clean things up so we look even better". That's about the point where we decided to start consolidating information like having one page for background characters instead of a separate page for each one.

It's also about the point where the decision was made to not have a trivia section, or we renamed "Trivia" to "Background Information". The result was that Continuity and Background Information became a dumping ground for pretty much everything. We started cleaning it up by adding a Production Information section for details about making the episode.

What WiKiAN is doing is continuing that cleanup, something that has been needed for a while. And it looks like we need to more clearly define what each section is for.

Based on what I said before in the last week or two, this is how I think it should be organized:


 * Production Information: details and behind-the-scenes information about how the episode was made, such as "dialogue for the episode was first recorded on", "the inspiration for this episode came from" and "the episode was first announced at".
 * Continuity: points in the episode where it is clear that the characters or events in the episode are referring to a previous episode. The strongest example is in "Fly On the Wall" where the kids start singing a song from Across the 2nd Dimension and Phineas realizes that he doesn't know how they know that song. If a point isn't clear and obvious, it may instead be a Trivia item.
 * Trivia: a new section we would add to cover the things we notice but are not readily apparent as a Continuity item. An example would be "fourth episode where it snows". Unless we get information that says the writers decided to make another story involving snow to place it immediately following episode XYZ, then we're the ones who are trying to find deeper meaning in a common event, rather than a concrete decision by the writing staff. If we did get that kind of information, this becomes a Continuity item instead of Trivia.
 * Background Information: where we can explain some of the things that happened in the episode. Fourth wall breaks, Bobbi Fabulous wears a wig, Doofenshmirtz's relatives are introduced, etc.

Here's what I said about two weeks ago about how to decide if something is Continuity or Trivia:


 * Probably the easiest thing to do would be to ask yourself if you think it was put in the episode to specifically call attention to a previous episode, or if it could be coincidence or just a placeholder (they need some item to fill a particular background spot, so they re-use a previous design). If it's the latter, it's trivia because we are the ones who think it's significant.

A real-life example would be you wear a blue shirt today. When you picked that shirt, were you thinking "I'll wear a blue shirt today because I've worn a blue shirt for the last five days", or was it "that shirt's available, looks good and is clean"? If you didn't deliberately make the decision to wear the same color shirt but someone points it out to you, it's trivia and coincidence. If you then decide to keep wearing blue shirts, it becomes continuity.