MarioWiki:Proposals

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Separate Wii U audio files from the ones on the GBA (Discuss) Passed
 * Split the Paper Mario boos from Big Boo into a separate article. (Discuss) Passed
 * Merge Blurp (Yoshi's Story) with Cheep Cheep (Discuss) Deadline: June 21, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Big Bertha with Boss Bass (Discuss) Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Boss Bass with Cheep Chomp (Discuss) Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Alph with Captain Olimar (Discuss) Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Expand Radio conversation characters to cover Palutena's Guidance and rename accordingly (Discuss) Deadline: July 3, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Writing Guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Remove four proposal rules
Four rules for a proposal seem unneccessary and I think they should be removed. Here are the four rules to keep or remove.

''-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. ''-If a proposal has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes, otherwise the deadline will be extended for another week as if no majority was reached at all. ''-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. ''-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.''

If this was a soccer match, does the game go to extra time (or end in a draw) just because the score is 1-0, the winning team not winning by three goals? No. The team that scored the goal wins. Why does this have to apply to proposals? If a soccer game goes into a penalty shootout and the shootout is extended to the "first to score while opponent misses" section, could it end because the shootout went for a long time? No. Why should a proposal be canceled because it's gone for four weeks without a decision made?

Proposer: Deadline: June 26, 2015, 23:59 GMT.

Remove one rule and keep three

 * 1) I do think that the first, second, and fourth rule that is being put into question are good quality rules that should not be removed for many of the reasons that  has made in the comments section.  However, the third rule is something I disagree with.  Suppose there is a proposal where there are three options, two of the options are towards changing something, possibly because there is a quality issue with the article that needs to be fixed, that can feasibly be fixed in multiple different approaches, while the third option is to keep it the same.  In cases where the Do Nothing option has the least votes on it, I feel that it means that there is a general consensus that something should be done to the article, just that what is to be done to the article is still up for debate.  It is clear that most people have a problem with the current state of the article in these cases and it is a bit unfair to keep a problem in an article, and not fix the problem just because people can't agree on what is the best way to fix the problem in the first place.

Remove all four rules

 * 1) Per my proposal. If 1-3 rules are voted to be removed and the others kept, decide which ones.

Keep all four rules

 * 1) This proposal is very problematic and I will not support removing these essential rules. See comments below.
 * 2) Per 'Zooka Mario
 * 3) Per Mario.
 * 4) - Per Bazooka Mario. Not that these rules are even negotiable in the first place: the admins who wrote them have the final say, so don't be surprised if we just veto the proposal sooner or later.
 * 5) Per Bazooka Mario, he got it exactly right. Additionally, in favor of straight up administrative veto, but I'm willing to wait a bit to see if anyone might have an interesting counter point or two. Remembering, of course, that the admin team is not a hive mind and another admin may just go ahead and shut this down, as Walkazo said.
 * 6) Per Walkazo.
 * 7) Rule 1: You can't have one or two voters represent the whole MarioWiki community. It isn't accurate. For example, if you flip a coin twice, it won't always exactly land on heads once and tails once. Rule 2: Having just one voter decide the whole proposal makes no sense. Rule 3: This helps make sure that the idea that wins is truly favored by the majority. Rule 4: If people have not found a final solution after so long, then there's obviously some major issue that's bugging half of the voters.
 * 8) Per all.

Comments
I will outline the rules that you have problems with and explain why these rules should be in place.

-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. -If a proposal has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes, otherwise the deadline will be extended for another week as if no majority was reached at all. -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. -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.
 * This rule is here to encourage more votes. People don't vote all the time. If people don't vote, it's usually that they overlook it or the proposal itself is perhaps not important to draw attention. At the last ditch, you should contact other active users on your proposal, but keep in mind, it is a last ditch attempt, so don't try this unless you're certain nobody else will vote. This hasn't happened in my five plus years here, so it shouldn't happen.
 * The soccer match analogy doesn't work here. A proposal that has 20 votes in one side and 19 votes on the other side does not mean it should pass. What you're proposing places too much emphasis on the quantity of the votes rather than the the proportion of the votes. It's the reason the U.S. congress requires a 2/3 majority rather than a simple "this side has more supporters so it wins" because there needs to be a clear majority; if the amount of dissenters that rivals the supports, then there is a problem in the proposal. Allowing proposals to pass by only one vote will create problems.
 * I don't see the problem with this? Again, you're placing too much emphasis on the sheer quantity of votes rather than the proportion.
 * If a proposal has not reached consensus at the fourth deadline, it suggests a problem with the proposal. Subjects do get controversial sometimes, but this rule prevents proposals from dragging in the mud and encourages propoers to better phrase what they want next time. It also suggests that such proposal is not ready for voting and probably requires open discussion on respective talk pages and forum posts before actually putting it up to vote.

The voting process does have its problems, but what you're proposing is simply erasing the essential margin for a majority, and that's very problematic, especially when proposal decisions are quantified here. 18:46, 19 June 2015 (EDT)


 * @Kart Player 2011: You have it backwards: the third rule is to avoid cases where vote-splitting allows a third option to come up the middle and win even if the majority of people disagree with it. I.e. if there were two change options, and 3 people voted for each, but 4 people voted for no change: 6/10 voters want something to change, but since they couldn't agree, no changes are made (although it's actually worse if a change option passes without a majority, but this is the easiest scenario to try and explain). It would be better for the wiki if that proposal keeps going until most people can agree on a change, or eventually defaults in a tie and allows the proposer to resubmit it with an option the majority of users can agree on. -
 * No, what I mean is like in cases where the do nothing vote total is, lets say... 2 votes, and one of the options to change the way the article is written has 6 votes while the other option to change the way the article is written has 7 votes which is the situation I am trying to address when I am saying that I feel the third rule is unnecessary. In that case, we'd be doing nothing because neither of the options to change anything has a majority even though both of those options clearly had more support than the do nothing option. -
 * Even ignoring the third option, 6-7 is too close a race for either solution to be the right one, which is the idea behind the second rule (which also applies to multi-option proposals), which you yourself said is fair. Better to keep debating and refining the proposal than allow a barely-supported option to pass: if 13 people think a change needs to happen, it'll happen, but it has to be one that's well-supported. -

Change the proposal system
I have heard quite a few users describe the proposal system as "flawed", particularly with the voting. I was thinking that we could change it so that, instead of a majority opinion based on votes, we could create a system where any user can post a reason, not a vote, as to why they think that they should have their changes done. Then, after the 1 or two week deadline, a proposal team could get together and decide the verdict on the matter. For instance, on this proposal, there would be a group of users giving arguments for me, and there would also be, naturally, a group of users against me. But what makes this different is that there would be no "per all"s to support the case without a proper reason.

Proposer: Deadline: Saturday 27th June, 2015 at 29:59.

Change the system

 * 1) You know, because it's not like I'm going to go against it.

Do not change the system

 * 1) Per Baby Luigi & myself in the comments. They should be able to fix any issues we have (none of which I know of) without completely changing our system.

Comments
Shouldn't something intending to make a complex change require a writing guideline?

I think you should have made a discussion on the proposal talk page instead of making a proposal about this. But I think this isn't the best way since most users "per" other users reasoning anyway and that's what proposals already sorta do. Yeah you have people jumping on the bandwagon because another user says something long without reading previous discussion and deciding what to do but it's not that much of a huge problem since it could be considered reasonable. Using "per" is just a convenient way to say that one user said one thing better than I did. I understand where this is coming from but I really don't think it'll fix the people who simply jump on the bandwagon rather than actually reading discussion and it will create more problems on its own such as no discussion at all and stagnation. 13:47, 20 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Continuing off what BL said, I also think voting instead of point-making allows the proposal to be decided by the people of the wiki, not just a select few. Keep in mind that proposals aren't debates; they  are meant to decide if the community as a whole agrees upon a proposed idea. Andymii (talk) 13:56, 20 June 2015 (EDT)
 * There's a problem with letting anyone vote though; there's actually bandwagon hopping especially on the oppose side of a proposal whose points have not been refuted except for one reason. Anyone can participate in a discussion in the first place, it's not like we restrict discussions to only a select few people. The only times that a select few make policy changes is usually after an administrative consensus but considering that they attempt to maintain the general upkeep of their wiki it is probably their duty to instill some changes. 13:58, 20 June 2015 (EDT)
 * In my opinion, that's not an issue of our voting system; it's an issue of our voting guidelines. Anyone should vote, but there should be quality control on making sure the reasons are strong. Andymii (talk) 14:05, 20 June 2015 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.