MarioWiki:Proposals

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Merge Imajin, Mama, Lina, Papa, and Poki and Piki with Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (Discuss) Passed.
 * Separate Wii U audio files from the ones on the GBA (Discuss) Passed.
 * Split the level 75m from Donkey Kong from the Smash Bros. stage of the same name (Discuss) Deadline: February 12, 2015, 23:59 GMT.
 * Delete Template:SSBtrophy (Discuss) Deadline: February 22, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Writing Guidelines
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New features
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Removals
None at the moment.

Establish a duration rule for music files
Is this the right place to have unnecessarily long (even 2:00+ long) music samples such as this one? The wiki does not focus on game music. They are just samples, so people usually check them out to get an idea of the song, not to listen to them from the start to the end. Besides, shorter samples make the article seem lighter and do not divert attention from the page for much time. I suggest we make all music files between 0:15 and 0:20 long.

Proposer: Deadline: February 15, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * Per my proposal.

Oppose

 * Well, we are a wiki about all things Mario, and the soundtrack is part of it; the wiki isn't even running out of storage space, anyway. It's not like people would be too lazy to press the pause button if they didn't want to listen to the whole thing. Plus, what is someone did want to listen to a whole song? True, the user could just go to Youtube, but having everything Mario-related on one page is what makes the Mario Wiki special. If a music is a short loop, yes, there is no need for a 5-minute recording, but what you're doing here is putting a cap on all songs, which could cause issues. Shorting down the songs just causes more problems, while having the whole piece is beneficial to all.
 * 1) As Andymii said, this is the Super Mario Wiki, dedicated to everything that's related to the Mario series, and if the music is a part of a game, it's a part of the series. The focus of the wiki isn't on music, sure, and it also isn't characters, beta elements, enemies, glitches, stages... They're all just naturally covered because they exist within the series. Viewers of the wiki are as likely to want to listen to the songs as they are to look up a character. Also, I don't get the "shorter samples = lighter articles", considering literally the only thing that would change is the tiny minute:seconds timer on the far-right. Also, limiting music samples to just fifteen to twenty seconds long would require people to not only go out of their way to edit the songs (and with the number of music files out there, this will take a while), but there will certainly be arguments about which fifteen/twenty seconds of the song should be used. Simply put, adding the full songs to the wiki is a much simper option that gives convenience to both our editors and our viewers.
 * 2) Per all.
 * 3) It will cut off some parts of music. Per all.
 * 4) "Unnecessarily long" has to be defined better since most video game background music (BGM) rarely go over 2 minutes without loops. Youtube doesn't have the highest quality of music and there are several annoying ads you have to sit through to listen to the 3 second loop of 25m. Finally, this rule won't prevent people from embedding Youtube links of the full BGM in the pages, and Youtube embedding puts a lot more strain on the loading times than .ogg files. I find this rule unnecessary at best and convoluted at worst.
 * 5) "Unnecessarily long" is, well, unnecessarily vague, and besides that, this proposal hasn't actually provided a reason as for why a long track is a bad thing.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Music files tend to be over 15 - 20 seconds, so if we limit those files to that, we can't hear the full thing, just a short excerpt. It would be great if users didn't have to turn to Youtube or something to hear the whole piece at least once. Also, if someone happens to love, say, Cloudtop Cruise, and goes to the article, they can turn on the audio file and listen to the music as they read. Per all too.

Comments
The ONLY problem we have with our current policy is that we upload like, complete CD rips of game soundtracks when they are clearly copyrighted by Nintendo and are crossing the illegal line. Unlike content here on MarioWiki, on which we use for a clear fair use basic, music is something slightly different; they have soundtracks of it and they WILL mark you for copyright if you upload the complete track on YouTube. Now I'm using YouTube's ty copyright claim system but then again, these pieces of music were composed by artists and are copyrighted by Nintendo. Furthermore, our own fair use policy even states that we have only a sample of the soundtrack, like a shorter or a reduced quality version of it.

I admit there's a gray line when it comes to soundtracks of games not officially released but something doesn't sit well with me when we upload clean, nice uploads of complete BGMs when a soundtrack CD of the said game DOES exist. And yes, you can use the typical illegal measures of obtaining CD ripped soundtracks on say, you know those sites. It's almost like we just pick apart the original rip from a CD and reupload it on this wiki.

I entirely disagree with the proposal, regardless. Many people love certain video game bgms and would probably like to listen to the full version of it, which is what this wiki provides, but I'm still a bit skeptical whether we should still provide the full bgm of a song. 15:19, 8 February 2015 (EST)
 * I'd say not to upload full rips of games with official soundtracks that can still be easily obtained, like Super Mario Galaxy or SSB4, but for something like, say, WarioWare: Twisted, which hasn't received anything officially in regards to its soundtrack and is a decade old now, I'd go for it. I'm going to retract my lapse of common sense.
 * I wouldn't support uploading the entire Official Soundtrack (OST) of every game, no matter how old it is. Copyright laws can be pretty bitchy, but again, we're not a database for audio files including .brstms, .wavs, and the other doodads. That being said, I support uploading the more "notable" tracks like the main theme, the basic level theme, and the common theme. 16:07, 8 February 2015 (EST)

"say, WarioWare: Twisted, which hasn't received anything officially in regards to its soundtrack and is a decade old now, I'd go for it"

No. Fair use doesn't work that way. --Glowsquid (talk) 16:47, 8 February 2015 (EST)

Dunno if it's outlined in any public places, but Porplemontage once suggested (to the admins) that we aim for 15 seconds maximum of tracks longer than a minute (and 25% max of tracks shorter than a minute), rather than full songs, for the same reason that we don't upload entire comics or make full game scripts anymore. Documenting and providing samples of music, art, etc. is one thing, but we don't want to risk legal crap by reproducing full versions of any sort of content - nor is it our place to be a one-stop shop for Mario music: that's not what encyclopedias are about. -
 * If Steve said that, then this discussion is pretty much over and we need to add shortening sound files to the "to do" list. The idea that someone may "like it" and that's why it's here is irrelevant, we're an encyclopedia, not last.fm. If someone wants to access a full version, it shouldn't be here. Perhaps Youtube or something. -- [[Image:Shyghost.PNG]]Ghost Jam[[Image:Shyghost.PNG]] 05:26, 9 February 2015 (EST)

If the Mario Wiki is still sticking to the motto of covering "all things Mario," then personally I think the whole piece should exist. But if Porplemontage suggested it, it's sort of hard to argue. However, the idea doesn't seem very favorable, and (I might be looking too deep into this) Porplemontage after all only meant it as a suggestion, not an order. Andymii (talk) 19:31, 9 February 2015 (EST)
 * When we mean by "all things Mario", we mean "all things that abide by fair use laws". If we're taking it literally, we would also be providing ROMs of games in which is this case is clearly illegal. Sound clips of a short time or clips of a music piece are fine; apparently, the full soundtrack is not. 19:35, 9 February 2015 (EST)
 * It's not. The main concern at the time was copying soundtracks sold separately as albums, but even if the tracks are only in the games, full songs are still too much. By "suggestion", I didn't mean it's something that can be disregarded, just that we didn't formally spell it out on a policy page or aggressively go about chopping tracks after the glaring offences were taken care of, since it wasn't really high on anyone's priority list (and then got buried by other concerns). But he very clearly stated we "want users aiming for those values" and that "we don't want the full songs sitting there for too long". Granted, over a year later, many are still sitting there afaik, but that's the Super Mario Wiki for ya... -

This is another topic, but concerning fair use, if we're really going to shorten the music tracks, fine, but we can't leave artworks untouched either due to this line in our fair-use template: "It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of character artwork for commentary on the character in question qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law." 15:06, 10 February 2015 (EST)


 * Yeah, limiting image resolution has also been discussed, but Porplemontage didn't want to make a snap decision as it'd have pretty wide-reaching consequences. The idea thus far is that since we're not reproducing the gaming experience by showing screenshots and artwork, we're not taking business away from Nintendo, so it should be okay as long as it's all being done for encyclopedic reasons. Same deal with music: full soundtracks are a no-no, but lots of little clips or even the occasional full song, all uploaded for good reasons, are fine. But just as we don't need all the full songs for any given game, we also don't necessarily need giant HD files to show what characters or whatever look like. For both things, uploading in moderation is probably the best way to go, rather than a hard cutoff, but nothing's decided for sure yet. -

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.