MarioWiki:Proposals

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r149/Deadringerforlove/dessert1.jpg A proposal section works like a discussion page: comments are brought up and replied to using indents (colons, such as : or ::::) and all edits are signed using the code.

This page observes the No-Signature Policy.

How To
 * 1) Actions that users feel are appropriate to have community approval first can be added by anyone, but they must have a strong argument.
 * 2) Users then vote and discuss on the issue during that week. The "deadline" for the proposal is one week from posting at:
 * 3) *Monday to Thursday: 17:00 (5pm)
 * 4) *Friday and Saturday: 20:00 (8pm)
 * 5) *Sunday: 15:00 (3pm)
 * 6) Every vote should have a reason accompanying it.
 * 7) At any time a vote may be rejected if at least three active users believe the vote truly has no merit or was cast in bad faith. However, there must be strong reasons supporting the invalidation.
 * 8) " # " should be added under the last vote of each support/oppose section to show another blank line.
 * 9) All proposals that end up in a tie will be extended for another week.
 * 10) If a proposal has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes. If a proposal reaches the deadline and the total number of votes for each option differ by two or less votes, the deadline will be extended for another week.
 * 11) Any proposal that has three votes or less at deadline will automatically be listed as "NO QUORUM." The original proposer then has the option to relist said proposal to generate more discussion.
 * 12) No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old.
 * 13) Proposals can only be rewritten or deleted by their proposer within the first three days of their creation. However, the proposer can request that their proposal be deleted by a Sysop at any time, provided they have a valid reason for it.
 * 14) All proposals are archived. The original proposer must take action accordingly if the outcome of the proposal dictates it. If it requires the help of a Sysop, the proposer can ask for that help.
 * 15) There shouldn't be proposals about creating articles on a underrepresented or completely absent subject, unless there is major disagreement about whether the content should be included. To organize efforts about completing articles on missing subjects, try creating a PipeProject.
 * 16) Proposals can not be made about System Operator promotions and demotions. Sysops can only be promoted and demoted by the will of Bureaucrats.
 * 17) If the Sysops deem a proposal unnecessary or potentially detrimental to the upkeep of the Super Mario Wiki, they have the right to remove it at any time.
 * 18) No joke proposals. Proposals are serious wiki matters, and should be handled professionally. Joke proposals will be deleted on sight.

The times are in EDT (UTC -4:00), and are set so that the user is more likely to be online at those times (after work/school, weekend nights). If a proposal is added on Saturday night at 11:59 PM EDT, the deadline is the next Saturday night at 8:00 PM. If it is a minute later, the deadline is a day plus 15 hours (Sunday), as opposed to a day minus 4 hours.

CURRENTLY: , 27 2024 (EDT)

Amend Size Requirements for the Featured Article Process of the Super Mario Wiki
Ok, this proposal will eliminate the size requirement of a Featured Article system.

Deadline: Friday, 25 September 2009, 20:00 Proposer:

Amend Size Requirements

 * 1) Per my comment below.
 * 2) - Don't judge a book by it's cover. Or in this case, don't judge an article by its size. That is what we've been doing, it's time to stop.
 * 3) - Relatively short articles can be well-written and representative as well, so why not removing the size-requirements or at least decreasing them? I'll support this.
 * 4) - Per me (see below).
 * 5) Shorter articles usually require less work to be good, but that doesn't stop them from representing the best the wiki has to offer.
 * 6) - Per all, how can we write 4000 characters about things like.... uh.... dunno, but here are some examples.

Comments
The last proposal I made was starting to fail, so I rewrote it. Common sense can be used for the size, if it is a well-written article and meets all of the requirements except for the current size-limit, it would still deserve to be featured, except in the case of stubs. As I said, common sense can be used. 16:22, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

For the record, this was originally my idea (made in response to SPMB's original proposal): "'If smaller pages deserve to be recognized, lowering (or even eliminating) the minimum length of the FAs seems like a better way to go about things than installing a second system; the sizes of individual sections are already taken into consideration when people vote on FAs, so having the overall size of the page left to the voters' discretion doesn't seem unreasonable.'" Credit is as credit does... Or however that expression goes. -

Removals
''None at the moment.

Splits & Merges
''None at the moment.

New Policy
Sometimes, there's an article that is created with one or two lines of text. It starts building up after after a while. When we see these articles, we simply slap a stub template on it in hopes that someone will expand it. This kind of thinking has created more than a 1000 stubs. That means more than 1/10th of all the articles on the wiki are stubbed. We need to fix this proportion for the sake of the wiki. There is no quick fix, but we can reduce this if we add this new policy to the Rules.

Any article two complete sentences or less is subject to deletion under the following conditions:


 * The article is linked to from 9 or less mainspace articles. Links from a template page are acceptable.
 * The article has no images.
 * The article belongs to 2 mainspace categories or less.
 * The article has 4 or less different contributers, not including edits by sockpuppets or trolls.
 * The article is at least a week old.
 * The article is not a disambiguation page.

So basically, any two sentence article that fits under ALL these conditions is deleted. If an article has sentence fragments or redundant sentences, they will not be counted. An article like "Goomba Pirates are Goomba pirates. There are lots of Goomba Pirates. They appear in Mario Party 8. They are found on (whatever board that was). They throw players into a cannon and shoot them to the start if they land on a ! Space." will not work.

If this proposal passes, articles on the wiki will be deleted if they meet these conditions and will become an enforced rule and a new policy will be added. The editors in no way will be punished for creating an article under these conditions, unless it is vandalism. If you have any suggestions or questions about proposal, please leave them.

Proposer: Deadline: September 22, 2009, 17:00

Support

 * 1) My support is a given.
 * 2) - Per Knife. We have many stubs, quality before quantity.
 * 3) - This rule is actually pretty good! It should be easy to attain it. Per Knife.
 * 4) Great proposal there are much too many stubs and it needs to stop.
 * 5) Per Knife and Tucayo. There are too many stubs that are sometimes poorly written and need to be expanded/marked for deletion by patrolers/sysops. There are about 1500+ Stubs and that needs to be fixed!
 * 6) - I think every article that happens to meet ALL the conditions mentioned above could be considered very extreme, even for a stub. Removing those shouln't be harmful.
 * 7) Super Paper Mario Bros. Per all. Good idea, we need less pointless articles that don't help.
 * 8) - He did what I suggested; now the limits are good.

Oppose

 * 1) The rules are a little to strict.  Maybe less than 10 links and 0 or 1 categories.  Also, Knife, your example would be deleted after it was put on BJAODN.  Something similar is actually on BJAODN.  I advise all users to see it.
 * 2) - There was a (largely ignored) rule created over a year ago (I think) against creating new stubs, but as for existing short pages, it really has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Putting more emphasis on merging short pages and deleting unnecessary stubs would be beneficial to the Wiki, but that's more PipeProject fare than Proposal.

Comments
What rule says that this proposal can be given a long deadline?
 * None, so I corrected it.

@Marioguy1: Actually he says that there have to be at least 19 links TO the page, not FROM the page. -

@Ralphfan: I loosened up the rules a little, but I think 2 categories instead of 1 is a better fit since we have so many categories. It still has to pass all those conditions before being deleted anyway, so I don't think it is too strict. @Walkazo: That is exactly what I have been doing. If we deal with these case-by-case, we will get nowhere. Stubs are created much faster than they are fixed/deleted. It has gone far beyond Pipeproject repair. This is more of a deterrent for future stubs and hopefully will encourage users to not to make short articles for the sake of filling a red link (the manual of style has that bolded, but that isn't an enforcable rule).

I thought we could manipulate the deadline. Sorry for assuming that.
 * Knife, may I add a suggestion? If the article has an image in it, it passes.


 * Good idea.

All rules are enforceable, so if you see someone creating a one-liner (to fill a red link, or for whatever other motivation) you can stop them. The old no-new-stubs rule also lets you delete new stubs; I think the problem has been that we don't always catch them right when they're made and later assume they were there all along (granted, that's what checking the History is for). Personally, I always worry about removing what little information the stub does provide: there should be more emphasis that when you delete a stub, you have to make sure the info goes somewhere else (i.e. delete a Level page and the info gets pasted on the World article instead). -

The no-new stubs rule. If you could point out where it was passed, I would have a better understanding of it. Even if it was passed, why isn't it on any policy page? While this proposal is also supposed to cut down on stubs, it has two major differences. The first being that new stubs are still allowed if any of the conditions don't fit. The second being that existing stubs can still be deleted. You are also worried about valuable information being lost. Don't fret. If a user creates an article with only two sentences, there are two conclusions:


 * The user doesn't know enough about the article and probably shouldn't be creating an article on it.
 * The subject in the article does not have enough information that can be written about it and should not have its own article.

I can't think of any two sentence article with information so valuable that it needs to be merged/stay as an article. I wish we had an extended deadline so that we can discuss this further, but we only have 3 days left.


 * I'll search the archives for the no-new-stub proposal tomorrow (I can't tonight because of time and computer constraints) - regrettably, most policies that pass via Proposals can only be found there (people love making new ideas, but if implementing them is hard, they don't always follow through). For some examples of informative 2-liner stubs (albeit ones that have images and templates) see Chocolate Islands 1 and 3, and to a lesser extent, Chocolate Secret. Some of the other Chocolate Island levels have a decent amount of writing to their name, but I think the whole lot could be merged into Chocolate Island quite handily. (I'll admit, that's more relevant to the old "should every level get a page" debate, but it's the only example I could come up with off the top of my head.) -


 * Those examples don't work for me. The first one has no important text and wouldn't be deleted under this new rule. The second one has 4 sentences (the sentences in the level template), therefore is not relevant at all. I believe the old proposals should be better organized instead of just archiving them by date, but that's a different issue. Let me know when you find the old proposal.

Time Limit Before New Game Spoilers Added to Other Articles
First, I hope I've added this proposal correctly; my apologies if I've messed up somewhere. To the point, I'm proposing there be some sort of time limit, a statute of limitations if you will, before spoilers for an as-yet unreleased game begin to filter their way into other articles. For example, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is not out in North America yet, but as I was reading over several Partners in Time entries, I came upon numerous spoilers for the unreleased game. I understand if spoilers for BIS would be in the M&L:BIS entry, as that would be a "read at your own risk" situation, but should someone who is just trying to get caught up be forced to find out things they don't want to until they get a chance to play the game?

Proposer: Deadline: September 20, 2009, 15:00

Support

 * 1) - I am aware, that this is of little point, but anyways... My opinion is, that spoilers are something one has to expect on a wiki. But major spoilers should only be found on the respective games article or in a paragraph dealing with that game on another article. That means, a spoiler about M6L:BiS on the M6L:PiT is fine, as long as the paragraph it is in is concerning BiS in general. That would not just increase user-friendlyness, it would also make the wiki more orderly and more structured.
 * 2) - As per Edofenrir.  Looking back, it seems the bigger issue is more with the nature of the Trivia sections as a conduit for such spoilers to appear in other unrelated articles.  It's one thing to go into Bowser's entry and know which section to avoid, but another to look up a form of his from one game and see "guess what?"
 * 3) - Per all

Oppose

 * We're not a random fan site, but an encyclopedia, and as such are our task is to cover everything Mario-related in the most objective and neutral way possible. Thus, hiding information from our readers, no matter for what reason, is bad. If someone doesn't want to know something about Mario, they shouldn't read this wiki, it's as simple as that.
 * 1) – Per Time Q
 * 2) – Per Time Q. He said everything I wanted to.
 * 3) - This is censoring Bob Hoskins all over again, no, no and no again! Besides, if SMG had just come out two days ago and I somehow got it at that early date and got as far as I am in it now, how would I have figured out how to beat Bowser?
 * 4) - Per Time Q.
 * 5) Per Time Q
 * 6) - Per Time Q. We should just get rid of the Spoiler templates and say the entire site's a "read at your own risk" database (like everything else on the Internet).
 * 7) Per Time Q and Walkazo.
 * 8) - There's a warning.  If you ignore it, that's your fault.
 * 9) Per Walkazo.
 * 10) Per all.

Comments
I agree with TimeQ, but i HATE spoilers.

Is there a way to add a spoiler tag or something, then? Again, not saying no spoilers at all, but spreading them throughout to articles only slightly related seems a bit like overdoing it. If I just want to learn more about Partners in Time, is it really necessary that the first piece of trivia I see in one entry spoils a game that's not even out yet before I even read the more relevant info? And Marioguy1, would that info not be in the SMG article? That would be a different situation from what I'm speaking of.
 * No actually, how to beat a boss is a spoiler :). BTW, you cannot propose to hide the spoilers from view in some kind of template that says "Click for Spoilers" as it hasn't been a month since Electrogoomba tried the same thing.
 * It is, but a Super Mario Galaxy spoiler in a Super Mario Galaxy article makes sense. What I'm talking about is akin to putting a Super Mario Galaxy endgame spoiler in an article about Super Mario 64 or Sunshine.

As far as I understand a major concern of this proposal is that spoilers are available outside of the respective game article, and I can perfectly understand that. Spoilers belong to the game's article or paragraphs in other articles that deal with that game. What situation would rectify it to post a spoiler outside of an article or paragraph of the respective game? Are there examples? -
 * Ah, you get what I mean. As noted, why am I being spoiled for Bowser's Inside Story when I'm just trying to read about Partners in Time?
 * How about some specific examples (i.e. individual pages)? I can think of many reasons for PiT articles to have M&L3 spoilers: one of the Super Mario Wiki's aims is to identify and present common themes running through series, and plots are an integral part to any RPG coverage, spoilers and all. Character articles are guaranteed to have spoilers, as will prominent items, enemies and areas is many cases. Granted, some editors might go overboard and spill the beans where a page could be perfectly complete without the spoilers, but other times omitting the spoiler would be denying the unconcerned (spoiler-wise) readers all the information we could give them, which goes against everything the Wiki stands for. -
 * Yes, in many cases, spoilers have to be pointed out for the sake of being informative. I won't argue that. But is there a reason why spoilers have to be given outside of a respective paragraph? I mean, there may be f.e. paragraphs like "Role in BiS" on a character article and putting spoilers in there would be fine. What I wouldn't understand is, when someone would put spoilers outside of an existing BiS paragraph. I mean, that would not just be unnecessary, but make the article itself appear less structured. -
 * All bets are off when it comes to Introductions, Trivia sections (which are discouraged, as they do make the page look disorganized), and other little bits like "Personality", "Powers and Abilities" or "Relationships with Character X" (another defunct section, by the way). The writers could be more discrete about the ending details, but I doubt more anti-spoiler rules will change that (we tell people to use proper grammar, but a lot of crud still gets posted day in and day out). -
 * Examples. The main one which led me to this was the first trivia item here: here. Various Shroob entries also reference a battle in the latest game, though those seem relatively minor by comparison.  I suppose this may act as much as a discouragement to the Trivia sections lamented above. -
 * That Bowsletta/Shrowser/Dark Bowser point is perfectly reasonable, as it is undeniably true that Bowser's essence is combined with that of the main villain of all three Mario & Luigi titles; not mentioning the trend would be a grievous omission. The fact that the Shroobs appear later also has to be included, as it is part of the history - the backbone of almost every page on the Wiki - of these characters; just as we mention every game Mario appears in, so too must the Shroob cameos be noted. -