MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Discourage drive-by templating
Improvement templates are a necessary, or at least beneficiary, eyesore but they can be subject to degenerate editing behaviours. Namely, it's very easy (and common) for editors to just slap improvement templates on pages with no or vague reasons and then leave (Template:Rewrite-expand in particular is subject to this). Not only can it be Kind of Rude when it's slapped on a recently-created article, the resulting eyesores stay on pages for years, as it's not clear to anyone but the editor who added the template what needs to be done - the Donkey Kong page has had a Rewrite-Expand notice since 2017 for vague "bad writing" and it's hard to tell what's so awful about the existing writing or what content must be added.

Through conversations on our Discord server, I've found other editors share my frustration with this behaviour. Fortunately, I believe there's an easy fix. Most improvement templates have parameters to explain in the template text why the template was added to a page, and any improvement template that currently does not incorporate this can be easily modified to have it. As such I propose, should this pass, that from this point, any improvement template added to a page must have its reason parameter filled with specific, actionable points. Emphasis on the "specific" - just saying a page has "bad writing" or "is missing images" without specifically saying what is bad about the writing or what images are missing won't cut mustard. Any currently-used instances that do not have their parameter filled (or only give a vague reason) will be removed, although it does not mean the templates can't be readded if specific reasons are listed.

Proposer: Deadline: March 6, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Require improvement templates to have their reason parameter filled, remove unfilled/vague notices on mainspace articles

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal.
 * 5) was always bothered by this
 * 6) I don't see any reason why we should not do this.
 * 7) - Per (also the reason parameter should be the second one, not date or user or whatever irrelevant garbage)
 * 8) per. Also we should encourage going on talk page or linking to an existing talk page discussion, which can also serve to elaborate on points being made that can't fit on a rewrite template.
 * 9) per.
 * 10) Per proposal.
 * 11) Per all. I remember doing some edits to the Donkey Kong page and having trouble finding what was being considered "bad writing". So I ended up mostly just removing false information and fixing the formatting on the page.
 * 12) Per proposal, (maybe without the Trivia template).
 * 13) Per proposal.
 * 14) Per proposal.
 * 15) Per proposal.
 * 16) per all the users who interacted with me previously in one way or another.
 * 17) Possibly out of the scope of this proposal, but I also think that split and merge request templates without a discussion tied to them (I've seen several) should be removed for the same reason.
 * 18) Absolutely on board.
 * 19) Per proposal.
 * 20) Per proposal.
 * 1) Per proposal.

Comments
This is probably a given already, but will this also apply to "more image" templates? Again, what kind of images required should be stated as well. 21:42, February 27, 2023 (EST)
 * Yeah, I think in spirit, this should apply. 01:54, February 28, 2023 (EST)

Two questions: Specifically what templates would be covered under this proposal? And what would happen to existing examples of unhelpful templates on the wiki already? (i.e.: Donkey Kong's page, Kamek's page) Will they just be removed (per proposal) with no discussion (if so I do agree)? 11:17, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * The proposal does say that any templates that either don't have any reasoning or are too vague will be removed from articles. I'm assuming templates like Template:Rewrite, Template:More images etc will be the ones affected. 11:37, February 28, 2023 (EST)

So the templates covered would be the following:


 * Template:More images
 * Template:More media
 * Template:Rewrite
 * Template:Rewrite-expand
 * Template:Trivia

"Will they just be removed (per proposal) with no discussion?"

Yes. --Glowsquid (talk) 12:41, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * Are you sure including the trivia template for this proposal is a good idea? Spectrogram (talk) 12:53, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * I almost put "Maybe it could be an exception? idk" next to it. It already identifies a specific problem so I guess it can be excluded. --Glowsquid (talk) 13:04, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * Seconding this question. The community has already discussed specific criteria for trimming improper trivia, so any problems signalled by this tag are often easy to detect and fix, even without providing specifics in said tag. 13:06, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * That makes sense. You have my vote, although I believe Trivia template should not be included. 13:36, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * The trivia template probably could be reworked some way, maybe agree on how many trivia points in a trivia section there should be before the template becomes warranted (I'd often say about five or six). 16:00, February 28, 2023 (EST)

Trim the Smash Bros trophies page
Special:LongPages tells me ‎List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U‎ is the biggest page on the wiki. That's pretty weird! List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS follows it at #3, List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. Brawl at #12 and List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. Melee #135. I don't have any investment in making List of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! quotes the rightful new biggest page on the wiki but I think a case can be made for trimming the fat.

It's pointless content: I think the trophies page, in a way, best illustrate the follibles of treating Smash Bros like it's a Mario game that happens to have other Nintendo characters in it. There's a certain amount of sense in thinking "Well Mario is playable in this game and he can punch Joker so why not have a page on him" but by going from there and treating everything Smash Bros as it's a Mario game, you end up with a situation where spend a lot of bandwith talking about Doshin the Giant, Mach Rider, Judy from F-Zero, etc etc. Characters that have no relevance or presence in the Mario IP, but happens to have some text written about them in a crossover game Mario & co happens to be playable in.

We have a precedent for trimming Smash content: A recent proposal agreed to merge characters that don't have any substantial appearance beyond Smash Bros to list pages. It's not been enacted yet - but that's not my problem~

It's not original content: An argument to keep Smash stuff in previous discussions is that the current Smash Wiki we're affiliated with is overtly written for hardcore competitive players in mind and that our Smash Content allows for a "Simple English" alternative for people who don,t care about that stuff. Leaving aside the validity of using the perceived failings of another wiki as a factor in our content, this is so not the case here. It's all straight text dumps directly from the game - text that can be read on other websites and video slideshow of those other trophy galleries. In this instance I believe that, yeah, "just go to Smashwiki" is a valid argument.

It's simple. I propose to simply trim those trophies list pages to only the Mario/DK/Wario etc. character and cut the rest. This includes crossover characters that have pages on the wiki - while we may have a Link page because he's in Mario Kart 8, his Smash Bros trophy is about Link the protagonist of his own independent intellectual property and not Link the funny Mario Kart 8 man, and it leads to the bizarre situation of having a listing of Link but not the character his series is named after. Best keep things simple.

What about stickers?: Those have a (minor, barely discernible) gameplay purpose so I thought people might object to the removal of relevant gameplay information.

What about spirits?: I thought of lumping them in this proposa, but the deal is that because of the format of World of Light, a PNG might not represent a Mario character but may involve characters, items or stages as part of the fight gimmick. I don't know what to do, so I'll let someone else do it.

Proposer: Deadline: March 8, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Trim the Super Smash Bros trophies list to only the content relevant to Mario and related franchises

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Cut, cut, cut, cut!
 * 1) Cut, cut, cut, cut!

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.