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In quiz bowl, trivia refers to information which does not meet standards of importance and thus is not suitable for use in quizbowl questions. This sort of knowledge is typically based solely on memorization of an arbitrary fact, divorced from any context of why that fact might have significance.
In common usage, "trivia" refers more broadly to "unimportant matters" or "facts (as about people or events) that are not well-known;"[1] under this colloquial definition, the vast majority of things discussed in quiz bowl are trivia.
"Trivia" is also used to refer to formats used in the broader trivia community, e.g. Learned League and Jeopardy!.
Theory
Justification
The choice to designate a subset of information as "trivia" and to not include that in questions is a deliberate choice of quizbowl; many other formats which appear similar to the outside observer do not make this distinction, and may even lean into the exact set of clues which quizbowl avoids. This is a value judgement on the part of the community - over the years, quizbowl has defined itself as a game intended to reward deep engagement with academic material, but this is not the only sort of game that can (or does) exist. For more information on these other formats, visit the page on trivia formats.
Definition
The distinction between what is and is not trivia is one of the most difficult and subtle parts of becoming a good question writer for quizbowl. The tenets of "good quizbowl" hold that players should be rewarded for their knowledge in a fair and consistent manner, and that the nature of this knowledge should be significant and (in the case of most tournaments) academic. Such information (sometimes called "significa") is mutually exclusive with trivia.
While there are arguments about the precise boundaries of important, academic content, no quizbowl question should have a piece of trivia as an answer. Furthermore, the use of trivia as clues in questions should be sparing and intentional. Giving information like the exact dates of important events or the occupations of a famous person's parents encourages players to memorize those unimportant facts rather than learn conceptual material, defeating the academic purpose of the game.
Example
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Consider Zachary Taylor. Let us take for granted that both the Mexican-American War and the 12th President of the United States are important topics which have legitimate reasons to be learned about.
- Knowing that Taylor won the battle of Buena Vista is academic: it is important to understanding both Zachary Taylor (who rode his status as a victorious general during the Mexican-American War to the White House) and the Battle of Buena Vista.
- Knowing that the Battle of Buena Vista took place before the Battle of Veracruz is academic: Tyler's defeat of Mexican general Santa Anna happening before Santa Anna meant that it could interrupt the siege of key port Veracruz, making it important in the ultimate outcome of the war.
- Knowing that the Battle of Buena Vista took place on February 23 is trivia: its absolute date means nothing without the context of the other battles' dates.
Thus, a question asking on Taylor mentioning that he was the victorious general at Buena Vista, a question on Veracruz mentioning that it took place after Buena Vista, or a question on Buena Vista itself is academic. A question that just asks what year Buena Vista took place is trivia.
In a proper pyramidal tossup on the Battle of Buena Vista, the date of the battle can appear, but should be given near the end of the question and with appropriate context. In most situations, only the year is provided, perhaps with an adjective like "early" or "late" to indicate the half of the calendar.
Additional examples
Biographical minutia
The use of unimportant pieces of information about an individual, rather than facts about their accomplishments and, is often derisively called "biography bowl". Common examples include:
- the birthday of a person
- the institutions at which a famous person was educated
- the profession of a famous person's father/mother (e.g. Victor Grignard, Nobel-winning chemist, was "son of a sailmaker"[2])
Almanac knowledge
Questions relying on certain kinds of trivia, especially demographic or geographical in nature, are sometimes known as "almanac questions", as almanacs frequently include similar information. Unlike almanacs, though, the clues in a quiz bowl question are expected to each have intrinsic importance beyond their association with a country or place. Examples include:
- the number of people living in India in 2010
- the 15th largest country by land area
- the 4th largest subnational division in China
- the average age of Japan
- details about a nation's flag
Minor distinctions
Superlatives about an answer are typically trivia ("the [blank]est [blank] in [blank]"), though there is some overlap with legitimately important information. Examples include:
- the highest mountain in Botswana
- the longest-lived member of the spider family
- the most expensive car made by Toyota.
Similarly, the "first X to do Y" type question, especially the more esoteric examples:
- the first Romanian to basejump off the Eiffel Tower
- the first woman to write an episode of Taxi
- the first number one single to be released on CD.
All those forms of questions are trivia unless their subjects are important for something other than a mad-libs type achievement - these "achievements" are not sufficient on their own.
The Modern Library Top 100
One specific (and particularly awful) form of trivia is knowledge of specific rankings of "the Best [X] things in [Category Y]". One particularly egregious question in this vein asked players to identify Crayola as the company whose products were ranked as the 18th most memorable smell in a recent news article. Other questions that rely on random outside "rankings"—and provide no other clues about the answerline besides the ranking—are trivia for similar reasons.
For a long time, the worst offender in a category of offenders was the Modern Library Top 100 for fiction, and, to a lesser extent, the complementary nonfiction list. When this list came out in spring 1999, it was open season on asking about every work on it in both collegiate and high school quizbowl without respect to difficulty or canonicity, and often using inane "it was ranked #11 on the MLA list" type clues. The worst questions of all were those which relied solely on memorizing the MLA list to get points, such as "given the book's position on the MLA list, name the book" bonuses, which sadly were actual things that existed. As more time has passed since the list was issued, it has become less of a crutch in "bad quizbowl" than it was in the immediate years after 1999.
Historical also-rans
In various forms of competition, from sporting to political, there are winners and there are losers - generally speaking, the winners are remembered much better. Some of these second-place players are of note enough to warrant their own page in the history book, while others are merely trivia attached to well-known names. Some examples:
- vice presidents of minor presidents
- losing presidential candidates
- losing commanders at battles
- silver, bronze, or non-medalists at the Olympics
- historical second-bests
- the leaders of countries in hypothetical scenarios
- Oscar/Tony/Grammy nominees
Inane nonsense
A step beyond the dry and context-less facts mentioned above are questions which reduce entire categories of knowledge into rote memorization of numbers, often shielded in the guise of a cute premise. For example:
- performing math on Presidential numbers
- periodic table chess ("What halogen could a knight land on if starting at nitrogen?")
- periodic table spelling/Scrabble ("What elements spell the word 'TiN'?"/"What is the highest scoring element name in Scrabble?")