MarioWiki:Proposals

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 Rules
 * 1) If users have an idea about improving the wiki or managing its community, but feel that they need community approval before acting upon that idea, they may make a proposal about it. They must have a strong argument supporting their idea and be willing to discuss it in detail with the other users, who will then vote about whether or not they think the idea should be used. Proposals should include links to all relevant pages and Writing Guideline proposals must include a link to the draft page.
 * 2) Proposals end at the end of the day (23:59) one week after voting starts, except for Writing Guidelines and Talk Page Proposals, which run for two weeks. (All times GMT.)
 * 3) *For example, if a proposal is added at any time on Monday, August 1, 2011, the voting starts immediately and the deadline is one week later on Monday, August 8, at 23:59 GMT.
 * 4) Every vote should have a reason accompanying it. Agreeing with or seconding a previously mentioned reason given by another user is accepted.
 * 5) Users who feel that certain votes were cast in bad faith or which truly have no merit can address the votes in the Comments section. Users can ask a voter to clarify their position, point out mistakes or flaws in their arguments, or call for the outright removal of the vote if it lacks sufficient reasoning. Users may not remove or alter the content of anyone else's votes. Voters can remove or rewrite their own vote at any time, but the final decision to remove another user's vote lies solely with the administrators.
 * 6) If a user makes a vote and is subsequently blocked for any amount of time, their vote is removed. However, if the block ends before the proposal ends, then the user in question holds the right to re-cast their vote. If a proposer is blocked, their vote is removed and "(banned)" is added next to their name in the "Proposer:" line of the proposal, which runs until its deadline as normal. If the proposal passes, it falls to the supporters of the idea to enact any changes in a timely manner.
 * 7) No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old.
 * 8) 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.
 * 9) All proposals that end up in a tie will be extended for another week. Proposals with more than two options must also be extended another week if any single option does not have a majority support: i.e. more than half of all votes cast must be for a single option, rather than one option simply having more votes than the other options.
 * 10) If a proposal has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes. In other words, one option must have 50% + 3 of all votes cast. This means that if a basic two-option 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. Proposals with more than two options require more precise counting of votes to determine if an extension is necessary.
 * 11) Proposals can only be extended up to three times. If a consensus has not been reached by the fourth deadline, the proposal fails and can only be re-proposed after four weeks, at the earliest.
 * 12) 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 an administrator, the proposer can ask for that help.
 * 13) Proposals can only be rewritten or deleted by their proposer within the first three days of their creation. However, proposers can request that their proposal be deleted by an administrator at any time, provided they have a valid reason for it. Please note that cancelled proposals must also be archived.
 * 14) If the administrators 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.
 * 15) There should not be proposals about creating articles on an 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 setting up a collaboration thread on the forums.
 * 16) Proposals cannot be made about promotions and demotions. Users can only be promoted and demoted by the will of the administration.
 * 17) No joke proposals. Proposals are serious wiki matters and should be handled professionally. Joke proposals will be deleted on sight.

Basic Proposal and Support/Oppose Format This is an example of what your proposal must look like, if you want it to be acknowledged. If you are inexperienced or unsure how to set up this format, simply copy the following and paste it into the fitting section. Then replace the [subject] - variables with information to customize your proposal, so it says what you wish. If you insert the information, be sure to replace the whole variable including the squared brackets, so "[insert info here]" becomes "This is the inserted information", not "[This is the inserted information]". Proposals presenting multiple alternative courses of action can have more than two voting options, but what each voting section is supporting must be clearly defined. - ===[insert a title for your Proposal here]=== [describe what issue this Proposal is about and what changes you think should be made to improve how the Wiki handles that issue]

Proposer: Deadline: [insert a deadline here, 7 days after the proposal was created, at 23:59 GMT. (14 days for Writing Guidelines and Talk Page Proposals)

====Support====
 * 1) [make a statement indicating that you support your proposal]

====Oppose====

====Comments==== - Users will now be able to vote on your Proposal, until the set deadline is reached. Remember, you are a user as well, so you can vote on your own Proposal just like the others.

To support, or oppose, just insert " # at the bottom of the section of your choice. Just don't forget to add a valid reason for your vote behind that tag if you are voting on another user's Proposal. If you are voting on your own Proposal, you can just say "Per my Proposal".

Talk Page Proposals All proposals dealing with a single article or a specific group of articles are held on the talk page of one of the articles in question. Proposals dealing with massive amounts of splits, merges or deletions across the Wiki should still be held on this page.


 * For a list of all settled Talk Page Proposals, see here.

Rules
 * 1) All active talk page proposals must be listed below in chronological order (new proposals go at the bottom). All pages affected must be mentioned in the brief description, with the talk page housing the discussion linked to directly via "". If the proposal involved a page that is not yet made, use to communicate its title. The Deadline must also be included in the entry. Linking to pages not directly involved in the talk page proposal is not recommended, as it clutters the list with unnecessary links. Place  under the section's header, and once the proposal is over, replace the template with.
 * 2) All rules for talk page proposals are the same as mainspace proposals (see the "How To" section above), with the exceptions made by Rules 3 and 4 as follows:
 * 3) Voting in talk page proposals will be open for two weeks, not one. (All times GMT.)
 * 4) *For example, if a proposal is added at any time on Monday, August 1, 2011, it ends two weeks later on Monday, August 15, 2011, at 23:59 GMT.
 * 5) Talk page proposals may be closed by the proposer at any time if both the support and the oppose sides each have fewer than five votes.
 * 6) The talk page proposal must pertain to the article it is posted on.

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Remove info about Super Mario 64/Super Mario 64 DS item from Cape Feather and put somewhere more relevant. (Discuss) Deadline November 24, 2012 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Sticker Star with List of Implied Locations. (Discuss) Deadline December 3rd, 2012 23:59 GMT

Writing Guidelines
None at the moment.

New Features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Allow Support Reasoning on Featured Article Nominations
This is kind of a... er... wierd rule, On Featured Article nominations, nobody other than the creator can put a reason for supporting.

I have heard some users say that sometimes they actually want to write a support vote, but can't because of the rules.

I am proposing to allow, but not require, reasoning for supporting a Featured Article nomination. However, votes that say "Per *insert user*" will be removed.

Proposer: Deadline: November 22, 2012 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) It's my proposal.
 * 2) I've often thought the exact same thing.

Oppose

 * 1) Comments should only be left in the oppose section, so as to give a reason why users don't agree with the FA nomination and give suggestions to improve the article. I believe that it is logical to leave the support section clean, rather than allow a flood of supporting comments. This can eliminate the possibility of users middle-fencing (see this nomination archive) for a good example. Most of the users there have supported the nomination, but still suggested improvements for the article. We should either support a nomination or oppose it, not both. Removing supporting comments is logical as it allows all the attention to go to what the oppose have to say. I think we should just stick to the rule we already have and only allow a supporting comment for the nominator.
 * 2) Including support reasons in Featured Article nominations is redundant. With FAs, there are established standards they must meet before they can be featured, and it stands to reason that users who nominate articles for featured status believe they meet those standards, and any supporters afterward also hold that view (or some variation which falls under one or more of the established standards). The process is the same with every FA. Proposals, by contrast, allow for greater variety regarding users' reasons for supporting them because proposals cover a wide range of topics, so there is no list of standards to which the proposer must ensure the topic of his or her proposal adheres before the proposal can be made. Every proposal must be formatted a certain way, but each type of proposal is dealt with a little differently depending on its specific type.
 * 3) As flawed as our current FA nomination system is, this wouldn't fix the flaws. Per Mario4Ever.
 * 4) There is a reason we removed support votes. Per all.

Comments
I would support it but then I took an arrow to the knee why should "per" votes be removed? They are as equally legitimate as the same user restating the other user's reason.

Create articles for non-Mario attractions
For the sake of resolving the discussion here, I'm reaching a decision through a proposal. It has been discussed that we shouldn't create articles for the Minigames in Nintendo Land that don't relate to the Mario series. But our coverage policy says that we cover all information in a crossover that mixes Mario with another series, but it is limited to the information from the crossover and we can't talk about additional info from the other series. We currently cover only four of the twelve minigames, one of them not being directly related to Mario. I see this as illogical as we shouldn't leave a game half covered and rely on other NIWA sites for further info on the uncovered minigames (one of them isn't even covered by a NIWA site). And then we fully cover crossovers like the Super Smash Bros. series and the Mario & Sonic series. As discussed on the talk page, we don't fully cover Captain Rainbow but the policy says we can, so why not Nintendo Land?

Proposer: Deadline: November 24, 2012 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per my arguments above.
 * 2) Per Yo-YoKong.
 * 3) - I agree this should count as a full crossover, like SSB, Itadaki Street DS or Mario Hoops 3-on-3, and so, all the minigames should get pages, including the stuff that's not directly part of the Mario-derived content in the game.
 * 4) - Per all.
 * 5) Per Walkazo.
 * 6) I'm very undecided, but I suppose the MarioWiki coverage allows us to make these articles. SO LONG as external hyperlinks to the articles in other NIWA wikis remain, I guess I'll support this.
 * 7) Per all.

Oppose

 * 1)  Going against the curve here in opposing. Unlike Super Smash Bros., Mario & Sonic, or even Captain Rainbow to an extent (in the hypothetical case that our coverage of that game would be expanded), as far as I'm aware, the attractions of Nintendo Land don't interact with each other. They could essentially be their own games, they're just all on the same disc. While I could see making a page for, say, the monitor host thingy whose name I forget, making pages for non-Mario minigames just because they appear in the same collection as Mario minigames seems to be pushing our coverage policy. Now, if someone can prove to me that the games do interact in some meaningful way, I'm all for supporting this, but otherwise that's my position.
 * 2)  per 1337star.
 * 3)  Per all.

Comments
@Electrical Bowser jr. Thanks for the vote, but providing a reason is mandatory. 21:46, 17 November 2012 (EST)

In response to some of the arguments against full coverage, unlike NBA Street V3 and SSX on Tour, the Mario influence on Nintendo Land is huge, just like all the undisputed crossovers (Mario & Sonic, SSB, Fortune Street and Itadaki Street DS, Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 and 2, Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!, Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix, plus the slightly different case of the Game & Watch Gallery series (they're ports of non-Mario games, but with "modern" Mario versions)). Leaving out the non-Mario stuff would make the coverage of any of these games seem patchy, whereas for NBA Street V3 and SSX on Tour, it's clear we're only bothering with the little slices of Mario and not the other 95% of the games that are completely unrelated to our series: as I said in this forum post, these games are more like "guest appearances" than full-on crossovers (same with Densetsu no Stafy 3, which we haven't even made a page for yet). Captain Rainbow is more of a crossover than a "guest appearance" given how Birdo's a major character and how there's other series represented in the game, but giving it full coverage would be difficult given the Japan-only nature of the game. Plus, most of the main characters, as well as the plot and setting, are original to the game and factor in much more heavily than the original content in other crossovers (SSBB is the only one that really comes close), which sets it a bit apart from the more standard crossovers - including Nintendo Land. And to be thorough, we also give single-article coverage only to Tetris DS and Art Style: PiCTOBiTS (and now Pushmo too), but given the simple puzzle-game nature of these titles, single articles is all we really need to cover them. The point is, Nintendo Land is much more like the other accepted crossovers than the "guest appearance" games that are only given partial coverage, so as the proposal says, it should get full coverage. -


 * Awesome. I'm glad that the decision the proposal will make is off to a good start. Also I'm just wondering, what's the limit we can go for creating articles for guest appearances? I would like to get the article Densetsu no Stafy 3 created eventually, but how notable does the guest appearance have to be to get their own article? Like for example, we have a heap of Mario references in the game The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Like Stafy 3, could that game also get an article? 22:18, 17 November 2012 (EST)
 * What sets Stafy 3 apart from games that merely "reference" Mario is the fact that Wario's role is fairly important, and not just a cameo that could be totally erased from the game with no effect on its plot or gameplay. Wario's not playable like the Mario characters in NBA Street V3 and SSX on Tour, but as his article explains, he helps the player complete various levels, gives them treasures and teaches them how to use one of Starfy's moves. Wario's not a major part of the game, so it's not a full crossover, but if you take him out, there would be an effect on the game, so he's more than just a cameo. And unlike something like Mario refereeing in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Wario isn't just a face slapped on what cold easily be a generic role: it's Wario being Wario in Stafy 3. Of course, speaking of Punch-Out!!, the Wii game might be eligible for an article given how Donkey Kong's featured as a bonus opponent: that's less involved than Wario is with Stafy 3, but it's still heftier than your run-of-the-mill cameo. I think the best thing to do would be to make Proposals (like this one) before expanding content for Punch-Out!! Wii, Densetsu no Stafy 3, or any other intermediate "guest appearance" game: when you're dealing with grey areas like this, case-by-case is always the way to go. -


 * Okay, but is doesn't have to be a grey area. MW:Coverage could get updated to mention such articles. At present, the policy says that we organize information based on importance. How you defined importance above may be a topic to elaborate on in the policy. And if we were to allow Densetsu no Stafy 3 as a complete article some time in future, then it may be good to update the "Cameo" section when necessary (changing the part where it says that info about the game that isn't related to the cameo appearance is not allowed). But you also said Wario was more than a cameo in Stafy 3. If he's not exactly a cameo, then what should it be defined as in the policy? Oh, and here's an image to liven up a chunk of text :D 02:53, 18 November 2012 (EST)