The 'Shroom:Issue 145/Pipe Plaza
Director’s Notes
Written by: The Pyro Guy (talk)
Welcome to another Pipe Plaza, fresh and ready for your visual consumption. April's here, and with it comes some certified New Returns. Lakituthequick (talk) is back with another season of Anniversary Announcements, all about the ongoings of this year's Mario Awards. Check it out below. Other than that, there's the usual hotspot of information all here. Interviews, Discussions, Reports, and Spotlights- you know how it is.
This April brings beautiful days with it. Looking outside, I can finally see the sun shining, the flowers blooming... days like these remind me to look forward to the Summer even more. I hope your seasons are as bountiful as mine. Enjoy the content!
Section of the Month
Congratulations to LudwigVon for his Community Report contribution! Raregold, Pitohui and Geeky all did splendid jobs with 'Shroom Recap and Poll Committee Discussion, respectively.
| Pipe Plaza SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Poll Committee Discussion | 5 | 27.78% | Hooded Pitohui |
| 2nd | Interview | 4 | 22.22% | Superchao |
| 3rd | 'Shroom Recap | 4 | 22.22% | Hooded Pitohui and Raregold |
Monthly Report
Hello 'Shroom readers! Not much to say, because I am busy lately, but that does not stop me from keeping you informed with my Monthly Report! Let's take a look at the Mario Wiki's statistics for April, but also with a comparison with the previous month. Without further ado, let's take a look at it.
| April Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Statistic | As of April 13, 2019 (20:21)* |
| Content Pages | 21,844 |
| All Pages | 188,896 |
| Files | 106,804 |
| Edits | 2,492,726 |
| Edits per Page | 13.20 |
| Registered Users | 26,999 |
| Active Users | 375 |
| Bots | 3 |
| 'Shroom Writers | 47 |
| Autopatrolled | 44 |
| Patrollers | 3 |
| Administrators | 11 |
| Bureaucrats | 4 |
| Proprietor | 1 |
| March — April Statistics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statistic | As of March 13, 2019 (21:26)* | As of April 13, 2019 (20:21)* | Percentage Change |
| Content Pages | 21,790 | 21,844 | +0.247% |
| All Pages | 187,496 | 188,896 | +0.746% |
| Files | 105,728 | 106,804 | +1.017% |
| Edits | 2,472,920 | 2,492,726 | +0.800% |
| Edits per Page | 13.19 | 13.20 | +0.075% |
| Registered Users | 26,835 | 26,999 | +0.611% |
| Active Users | 363 | 375 | +3.305% |
| Bots | 3 | 3 | 0% |
| 'Shroom Writers | 47 | 47 | 0% |
| Autopatrolled | 44 | 44 | 0% |
| Patrollers | 2 | 3 | +50% |
| Administrators | 11 | 11 | 0% |
| Bureaucrats | 4 | 4 | 0% |
| Proprietor | 1 | 1 | 0% |
Conclusion:
LuigiMaster123 (talk) is now a patroller! A big congratulation for his promotion. Aside from that, many things went up this month and especially in the number of active users. Let's just hope that this trend continues for the next months. To conclude, a more active month in comparison to March, which had received a small decrease on the edits per page.
And that's all for Issue 145's Monthly Report. Thanks a bunch for reading it, and come again next month. Meanwhile, have a great time!
Anniversary Announcements
Written by: Lakituthequick (talk)
- “It's true, it's the only reason we keep Smasher around.”
- —Superchao (Talk Page · Forum Profile)
Hello again! Welcome to the first Anniversary Announcements of 2019! We're a month later than usual, but that's because we had so much time last year that it was decided to just start later!
For the people that are new to this section, Anniversary Announcements is a section that tells you about the behind-the-scenes developments behind the Mario Awards, the yearly event that celebrates the anniversary of our beloved Wiki. This includes the Awards themselves, tournaments, prizes, and all other things that influence the event.
First, let's give a hand for...
The Awards Committee
The people that will go through all awards for you, the Awards Committee! They are the awesome people that have been selected this year.
At the helm of the committee:
- Hypnotoad (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Awards Director and Mario Awards host since 2015
- Turboo (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Sub-director and Fail Awards host
- Raregold (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Community Awards host and freshly elected director of The 'Shroom
- Gabumon (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Awards Staff consultant
- 2257 (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Awards Staff consultant
- Lakituthequick (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Awards Record Keeper and writer of Anniversary Announcements
A full list of all members in this years Committee can be found here. You can contact any of these people if you have questions, and if they don't know the answer, they will pass it through as needed. For questions or suggestions relating to Anniversary Announcements, you can contact me (Lakituthequick (Talk Page · Forum Profile)).
Among the committee are six newcomers! This means that in a few months, they will be featured in new Committee Interviews in this section!
The Munchers
Let's start with the bigger happenings! First of all, last year thoughts have spawned to rework or abolish the token and prize system we've had for years, because of the burden the upkeep of it. This with an eye on maintaining a list of interesting prizes and the financial costs of them, as well as acquiring the prizes to be gifted since Steam changed the way gifting works. It has now been decided to completely abandon the system, meaning there will no longer be tokens to win from tournaments. Public reactions have it that this will likely have minimal effect on participation in these, however. Tournament hosts are also free to provide prizes of their own. This also means that The 'Shroom Achievements has lost its source of prizes. What will happen to that is not yet decided upon.
Other than that, a few tournaments are already in the planning or interest gauging phases on the public Awards board on the forums. For Nintendo Switch-based tournaments, which require a Nintendo Switch Online plan to participate in, at least two users have expressed that they are willing to provide access to a family plan for others to participate without requiring them to have a plan of their own.
Awards
In this part of Anniversary Announcements, I will list all awards that have been discussed and changes made to them. This includes existing awards, completely new ones, and removals, and the additions, removals, and changes within each award.
Before going in greater detail, the headlines. Plans are to rework some duplicates, redundancies and irrelevant awards within the Community category. Some of the issues are leftovers from when the User and 'Shroom awards were merged a few years ago. Several other awards are up for rework as well.
M5 through M7, Favorite DK, Wario, and Yoshi Level respectively, are rotating awards since last year, and will be changed to Favorite Character awards of their respective series.
M10 Favorite Song is up for discussion, as it was created last year with the intent of only having vocal pieces, but had a lot of non-song write-ins. These have been kept because of the sheer amount of them. Discussion will point out whether the award is going to be all-inclusive, is going to be split, or just renamed.
Refer to this document for a full list of nominees.
And that covers it for all awards that have thus far been discussed, all in the big table you know and love me for! Stay tuned for the other awards and developments around them in the following months, and until next month, keep that touch screen smokin'! Buh-bye!
All information above was correct as of 14 April 2019.
Interview
Hello, 'Shroom readers! It's Superchao again, after yet another interview, here to bring you the results! I had planned to make a wiki staff trilogy, but unavoidable circumstances meant I had to delay one of my planned interviewees. So I moved up someone I was going to interview late in the year - Snack! He's been around since 2007, but if you're active only the wiki, you might not even know that! Primarily focusing on the community, Snack's been around the boards and IRC for years, but sometimes not as active as other times. Still, he's a longtime guy who's been doing things even in the present day, so why not listen to what he's got to say?
The Interview:
Superchao: Hello, 'Shroom readers! Superchao here, ready to bring you another interview! Hopefully you're reading these so that this isn't just an exercise in futility!
Superchao: Today I've brought in someone who's been around the block more than once - longtime user Snack!
Snack: For some reason it’s kind of funny to me that is actually in the interview and not added after the fact or something
Snack: I dunno if I’m allowed to say that and reveal the process to readers but still
Superchao: Hit 'em hard and hit 'em fast, I'd say. And honestly, I'm pretty sure at least half of my readers have been interviewed by now, so they know.
Snack: True
Superchao: So! The basics. How did you, personally, find the wiki?
Snack: Uniju actually found it before me, and then one day for whatever I reason I was annoyed with him for something – probably stupid seeing as I was like, 14 – and so I logged on to #mariowiki IRC to heckle him
Snack: I was “Snackserv” because part of it was some silly persona of an irc service bot but for snacks
Superchao: The three great -servs: Chanserv, Nickserv, and Snackserv
Snack: yeah
Snack: I doubt I would’ve stayed long term honestly if not for the fact that this happened in 2007, and Super Mario Galaxy came out a few months later and Super Smash Brothers Brawl not long after that
Superchao: So basically, it's a good thing Uniju ticked you off then. Thanks, Uniju!
Snack: lol
Superchao: What made you actually stick around on the wiki and/or boards? Making the jump from IRC to those?
Snack: If there was anything in particular besides wanting to talk about SMG and Brawl I can’t remember it at this point
Superchao: Funny how Brawl was such a big deal for the wiki, and yet since then we carved down a lot of our Smash coverage.
Superchao: Truly, our past selves would be disappointed in us! (But they were all idiots so they don't get votes.)
Snack: I’m pretty sure the work I did on the articles for the boards (Bill Board and et cetera) in Galaxy is still the only noteworthy thing I’ve done on the wiki itself actually
Superchao: I looked at your user contributions to prepare for this interview, and... that is pretty much correct
Superchao: You did a pile of work in 2007 and then stopped.
Snack: I got Galaxy the day it came out so I wanted to record stuff I saw in it and that was the first thing I saw that hadn’t been mentioned yet, I guess
Snack: Then Galaxy 2 got me on BJAODN
Snack: I’d like to challenge anyone to prove to me that what I wrote was inaccurate and that Whittles in fact do not speak very good English for being entirely made of wood
Superchao: In fairness, just because you're made out of wood doesn't necessarily preclude you from taking the time to better your grasp of the language
Snack: I guess
Superchao: So what made you, well, not interested in continued contribution?
Snack: I dunno
Snack: I guess there just hasn’t been anything I felt the need to contribute that someone else hadn’t already done
Superchao: I think that really seems to be one of the two really big barriers of entry to new editors
Superchao: Namely, that the dedicated crew of editors tends to work so fast and quickly there's no real time to add anything that isn't obscure or cleanup work of some kind.
Superchao: On the plus side, the community aspect sure kept you busy!
Snack: Yeah
Snack: There’s a lot of stuff I don’t think I’d be doing or interested in if I hadn’t stuck around really
Superchao: Wiki-wise, or just in terms of your general interests?
Snack: General interests
Superchao: Now that's something to dig into! ...Though I think we should discuss your history a bit, first.
Superchao: What interested you when you discovered Userpedia?
Snack: Probably it being a creative outlet basically; even beyond things like comics and stories I could just write stuff that came to mind and seemed interesting to me and put it down in an article
Snack: Which is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember, I just didn’t put it to writing nearly as much
Superchao: Honestly, I feel like the relative... lack of expectations? Is that a good phrase? Anyhow, I feel like that contributed to the 2007/2008 Userpedia Boom in a big way.
Snack: In hindsight it was all really goofy so I don’t care to think about it, but, yeah, when you put it that way, like
Snack: EVERYTHING was sort of goofy, that’s just what people did, partly because everyone was really young
Superchao: And then everyone got just a little older and suddenly there were 8 million dramatic super long epics
Superchao: (7 million of which were Scarecrow's)
Snack: Oh, I was always writing stuff that was goofy in that sort of way
Superchao: That's true! Unfortunately, we had to bring this up sooner or later, so brace yourself:
Superchao: What made you decide to make a big comic in the form of Legends of the Fallenstar?
Snack: A collective episode of madness like the 17th century Dutch tulip bubble or the late 1990s web bubble
Superchao: The 2008 housing bubble was nothing compared to the 2008 userpedia comic bubble, then?
Snack: Besides that and just having silly overdramatic ideas I wanted to do something with I can’t think of anything
Snack: pretty much
Superchao: I feel like I can't give an objective assessment of anything from 2008 because I was dumb and 15. Alas.
Superchao: And then the scribblewiki crash happened! I forget, did your comic survive that??
Snack: I really can’t remember the timeline of all the different userpedias
Superchao: Imagine if MarioWiki itself had as convoluted a history as Userpedia
Superchao: scary thought, huh?
Snack: yeah
Snack: Anyway, if you mean did it kill it as an ongoing project, I’m not sure honestly because it was something I gradually lost intererst in I think, and I’m not sure offhand when Scribblewiki died
Snack: If you mean killed it as in it got wiped out and lost like a lot of other userpedia things, fortunately (or unfortunately, perhaps), for whatever reason it survived
Superchao: I primarily meant as an ongoing project, so... yeah, honestly, that doesnt' surprise me too much. A lot of the Big comics died to a case of "more ambition than energy"
Superchao: Come to think of it, I'm not sure anyone except Jorge ever completed a long-running comic series.
Snack: I’m not sure at this point if I still had the files – I’ve had at least one computer die and switched computers one or two other times, so I think a lot of my files from that time or before or lost – or if I managed to find them from somewhere, but it definitely still exists
Superchao: I look forward to when your run as a presidental candidate is disrupted by someone posting LotFS
Snack: I know I’ve made this joke a few times, but I can definitely never run for president; we’ve only had bad presidents named “Andrew”
Superchao: Thanks for preventing a 3 for 3, I appreciate it!
Superchao: So, eventually you drifted off Userpedia, and then what? Just stuck around the forum for a while?
Snack: yeah, that’s pretty much it
Snack: Although I’ve drifted on and off the forums/IRC a lot over the years
Superchao: Yeah, I remember that when I came back to the forums full-time, you... weren't so much completely absent as you kind of existed only on the periphery
Superchao: Is it just a tendency to lose and gain interest over time?
Snack: Yeah; I feel like my interests shift a lot actually, and for a while I had other communities that I was more involved in that for various reasons I’ve now drifted out of too and ended up back here
Superchao: That happens to me, honestly; I've got two major communities I'm in, and it feels like there's a push and pull between them for me
Superchao: I don't fully leave Marioboards or the other one, but I have a tendency to focus on one more than the other depending on various factors
Snack: I think part of why I stuck around has been the minecraft servers we’ve had for #mariowiki too and on this laptop I’ve had issues with the keyboard – I guess I’m just a bit hard on it – and so for a while since I couldn’t play with a broken keyboard I stopped for a while
Snack: I can’t actually remember if that was a time I also wasn’t so active on the forums or IRC though now that I think about it
Snack: so, uh, that might not actually be relevant to anything
Superchao: Keyboard issues are the worst non-fatal laptop issues, honestly
Superchao: Sometime I definitely need to get minecraft though. Maybe this year will be the year.
Snack: If you do you should get it by august for the awards
Superchao: Minecraft Games is pretty much the #1 motivating factor for me in the decision, so good work team
Snack: I didn’t really mean that as a public plug for the Minecraft Games but now that I think about it that’s what it’s going to be, lol
Superchao: If you've seen some of the shameless shilling I do in interviews, you'd feel just fine!
Snack: I really need to read more of them
Superchao: Everyone does.
Superchao: You've done some more recent writings, though, like Rideable Minecart High School. Anything in particular that got you interested in making up your own cast and world of sorts?
Snack: I’m not sure what specifically interests me about it; I guess I’ve always been interested in fantasy though; not necessarily only in the genre sense but in the idea of worldbuilding in general
Snack: Like how I mentioned earlier that I wrote a lot of articles for userpedia that were just ideas that came to me
Superchao: That makes sense - the premise means you get to explore both the characters and the minecart world too.
Superchao: Do you have a favorite Rideable Minecart girl to write?
Snack: Yeah, although it’s setting isn’t so much a fantasy world honestly, although the towns themselves are fictional
Superchao: True, but it's still the chance to write in a world out of your own personal experience.
Superchao: In its own way, that's pretty fantastic!
Snack: Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually written it – it’s another thing I sadly lost interest and momentum in before I could tie it up really – so it’s a bit hard to say, but I always liked writing Subaru; she’s very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of character and just a ball of big dumb energy
Snack: Which makes it sound like she’s not a very deep character, and she honestly might not be, but I mean that in a good way
Superchao: Heheheh, those are always fun characters. Here's hoping that someday you regain that spark - I'd like to see them again sometime! But not until you feel ready.
Snack: like, I didn’t really want her to be that archetype of someone who’s putting a front despite being really troubled internally
Snack: I always found her fun to write and it was easier for me to think of what she’d do in a given situation than some of the others – I struggled with Ran for instance, and I struggled with the group dynamic after I introduced the transfer student character who I doubt anyone remembers, which is probably part of what stopped me from continuing it since that happened right after I’d finally gotten in to a good groove with the original four main girls
Superchao: Maybe try writing a few one-shots with the four main girls when you want to return to it? Get back to them, then maybe expand out from there
Snack: maybe, yeah
Superchao: So, coming back to an earlier thing, I'm curious. What are some things you got into/stayed into because of the community?
Snack: I don’t think I ever would have watched Detective Conan without talking to marty about it, for one
Superchao: I appreciate Marty's interest in lesser-known anime/manga properties, mostly because it means I have someone else who recognizes Kinnikuman
Snack: I don’t know if I would have ever gotten in to Love Live without knowing TFP, NEX, and Star either, and without hearing Turb and GBA talking about it Fire Emblem would still just be “those weird games with anime sword boys in smash where you pet your wife with the touch screen” to me
Snack: Although I feel like when I put it that way it’s pretty
Superchao: I also got into Love Live thanks to this community, so we can be buddies!
Snack: obvious, I guess; everyone checks stuff out because they hear about it from their friends and think it sounds intriguing
Snack: But if I hadn’t been here it would probably have been other stuff for me
Superchao: I mean, it's always neat to have specific examples. I wouldn't have ever checked out F-Zero if not for specific friends, and I'm the guy who writes a section about it!
Superchao: I take it you don't mind getting into any of those, huh
Snack: Not really
Snack: well, Love Live gets kind of a bad rap and that’s something I can get too hung up on, honestly (and I’ll admit it’s not like, a masterpiece of modern literature or anything), but I enjoyed it
Superchao: I feel like as long as people can respect my positive opinion on Love Live, I will happily respect their negative opinion on it
Snack: I do feel bad sometimes that I can’t seem to stay interested in things for more than a couple years, but I can’t really do much about that
Superchao: I feel it's kind of natural? You get some things that stick with you forever, but then some that are just flashes in the pan. If I ever get an interview, remind me to put forth a couple examples of that I've got
Snack: This is another thing I dunno if you want me to give away, but I think you said you were planning on retiring in the next year or two? Whoever picks up interviews next should definitely interview you first
Superchao: I'm okay with sharing it now, honestly. It means my regular readers will know the job is open and might be inspired to think about taking it over eight months instead of one
Superchao: So, there you go, 'Shroom readers - the last interview I do (for this particular tour) will be in December 2019. Look forward to it! And the seven others in between then and now.
Superchao: anyhow clearly i should just use my 'shroom influence to make interviewing me a mandatory condition to take my job
Superchao: Out of curiosity, do you still follow Mario that much? A lot of long-time wikigoers have had their tastes shift and aren't that into the series these days.
Snack: Not all that much
Snack: I loved Odyssey though and whenever the next main series game gets announced I’ll probably tune in more, but that probably won’t be for a while now
Snack: I’m always down to watch when people here stream Mario games too, especially SM64 speedruns
Superchao: I feel like Nintendo decided to frontload the Switch with big series - Mario, Zelda, technically Metroid, and by now they've got Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing on the way.
Superchao: Should make the next couple years pretty interesting... hopefully.
Superchao: someday the marioboards will produce a world record speedrunner
Superchao: and by that i mean it's going to be marty speedrunning katamari
Snack: Oh, it has
Snack: pretty sure marty still has the world record for Doraemon N64 100%
Superchao: Oh wow, I forgot that. Marty: world record man