MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Overhaul the no quorum proposal rule (#8)
The current rule no quorum proposals is vague, flawed, and counterproductive. Per rule 8, if a proposal has three votes or less at deadline, it NQs, ending with no action taken. In other words it needs at least four votes overall to pass. I have two major problems with this.

Problem #1: A blanket minimum number of votes means that opposition can actually cause a proposal to pass.

Take these hypothetical proposals, for instance.
 * Proposal A reaches its deadline with 3 support and 0 oppose votes. That's a total of 3, exactly one shy of the minimum 4. Therefore, the proposal NQs.
 * Proposal B reaches its deadline with 3 support and 2 oppose votes. That's a total of 5, enough to avoid NQ. Since there are too few votes for rule 10 to apply, and there's more support than opposition, the proposal passes.

See the problem here? Proposal B has the same amount of support as Proposal A, but more opposition, yet Proposal B passes while Proposal A does not. If Proposal B did not have those oppose votes, it wouldn't have enough votes to avoid NQ. Therefore, the opposition actually causes the proposal to pass. This should not be possible. Proposals should only ever pass in spite of opposition, never because of it.

Three-or-more-option proposals have the same problem, especially since you can vote for more than one option - the rule does not clarify whether or not multiple votes from the same user counts toward quorum. This proposal is a good example - it only met the minimum four because one of the voters picked two options.

Solution: Instead of a minimum total of 4 overall votes, make it so at least one option must have a minimum of 4 votes.

This retains the current minimum number of supports necessary to pass a proposal where no other options receive votes, but eliminates the "opposition backfire" issue mentioned above. Under this new rule, Proposal B would NQ, just like Proposal A. This rule would also apply to proposals with three or more options - at least one option would need at least 4 votes to avoid NQ.

Now for the other problem.

Problem #2: No quorum proposals just end immediately upon reaching their deadline, when we could be extending them.

Imagine the frustration. Your TPP has three supports and no opposition. If just one more person would vote, you'd be golden. But before it can happen, that deadline comes. Your proposal's over. You waited two weeks for nothing. Hey, at least you have "the option to relist said proposal to generate more discussion", even though that's an extremely vague statement that is not clear at all about what it actually means. I guess it just means "redo the proposal from scratch", but why should you have to do that?

Solution: Apply the three-week extension rule to no quorum proposals.

Why do no quorum proposals have to end right then and there? Why not just extend them, like we do with proposals that do not reach a consensus by deadline? This would help give vote-starved proposals more of a chance to gain attention and reduce the number of frustrating NQs. I'm not sure if we should apply the four-week waiting period for proposals that do NQ under this new rule, but I'm leaning towards no. If you think it should, feel free to comment on it.

Proposer: Deadline: April 14, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Apply both solutions

 * 1) Preferred option.
 * 2) Per proposal; I especially support enacting the first problem's solution since it would sew a blatant policy loophole.
 * 3) Per proposal. I think both solutions can work. I do support the idea of the first solution, but the second solution is also a good idea, especially if it concerns a topic that's easy to miss or can easily duck under the radar.
 * 4) After thinking a bit more, I might've misinterpreted what solution 1 would do.
 * 5) Per. Also, yes, I do feel that the four-week moratorium rule need only be applied to proposals that have several votes but remain without a clear majority.

Apply problem #1's solution

 * 1) Second option.

Apply problem #2's solution

 * 1) Better than nothing.
 * 2) I'm neutral about the other point, but per proposal on this one (I was actually thinking of this problem recently after this proposal).
 * 3) While I disagree on some points in problem #1, namely the proposed solution, I do believe extending the NQ proposals is better than relisting them.
 * 4) I'm not sure if the first proposed solution is great in how it would affect proposals with more than two choices, but the second seems fair enough to me.
 * 5) I feel like a better solution to problem #1 would be to modify rule 10 so that it applies to all proposals, not just ones with >10 votes, and/or maybe reduce its margin from 3 to 2. That said, I do think solution #2 is a good idea.

Leave the rule as is

 * 1) I'm admittedly working from vague memories at the moment, so I apologize if anything I say is flat-out wrong, but my understanding is the portion of the rule about relisting NQ proposals is there because there isn't always enough information in them for users to make an informed decision and cast a vote. Other times, what information is there might be at odds with the stated goal. Maybe a proposed solution wouldn't adequately address a problem raised. Maybe someone points out (or realizes) the problem itself is larger in scope than originally outlined or an entirely different problem altogether. Since these sorts of discussions tend to happen after the deadline for editing the proposal has passed, it's an opportunity to incorporate whatever comes out of those into the next iteration of the proposal (in part because of rule 5). The initial deadline is usually enough time for those sorts of discussions to take place, and there are ways of getting people to weigh in if the specific issue is a lack of attention (an ever-present one regardless of what the deadline is). That said, sometimes, unfortunately, there aren't a significant number of people concerned about/invested in a particular thing, and I think the proposed more-votes-per-option solution could therefore result in more NQs or failed proposals.

Comments
Another problem with no quorum is that it also means that the proposal is treated as failed, as if it was a clear opposed result. I disagree; I think it should be treated as if the proposal didn't happen, opening the door for resolution to occur via discussion. LinkTheLefty (talk) 10:32, April 8, 2022 (EDT)

@Somethingone: I'm not going to say I'm against a rule 10 modification, but such a thing would require a separate proposal, since it would need different options for reducing the voting margin or not reducing it (or only reducing it for proposals with ten votes or less). Additionally, rule 10 only applies to two-option proposals, so it would not solve problem #1 for proposals with more than two options like the one I linked. I would also like the know the issue with implementing my solution so I can improve it or come up with an alternative.

@Mario4Ever: You completely misunderstand the purpose of NQs. It is merely to prevent proposals from passing with too few votes. That's it. It is not a defense mechanism against poorly-written proposals as you seem to be claiming. The proper response to such proposals is inform the proposer in the comments why their proposal is flawed so they can either improve it, or in the event a complete overhaul is needed, cancel it and make a new one (or request an admin cancel it if 3/6 days have already passed). Plenty of proposals that NQ don't have issues at all, they just aren't getting the attention they need, and extending them would help with that. Additionally, proposals with the issues you mentioned don't always fail to obtain votes - depending on what the issue is, voters may just outright oppose it until their problems are addressed. Alternatively, the proposal might gain support before the issues with it are fully realized (example), so the idea of NQs as a defense against flawed proposals is a flimsy excuse at best. 13:50, April 8, 2022 (EDT)
 * I'm not saying that NQs are a defense mechanism against poorly-written proposals. I was just explaining that a lack of attention isn't necessarily why the minimum vote threshold isn't met, since that's one of your main points of contention. 15:36, April 8, 2022 (EDT)
 * The vast majority of proposals that end with no quorum only do so because they don't get enough attention, and there are plenty of poorly written proposals that don't get no quorum. Besides, I don't really see how your argument relates to the proposed rule changes, as waiting for flawed proposals to NQ isn't really how you're meant to deal with them anyway. 15:45, April 8, 2022 (EDT)
 * I think part of the disconnect is that the proposal references and directly links to TPPs, which do tend to get less attention than proposals on this page (or at least, they did). Most of the proposals I've weighed in on have been in the latter category, where the things I've mentioned are (were?) more likely to come up. 00:57, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Your point? The majority of proposals made nowadays are TPPs, and issue of whether or not the proposal is on a talk page is irrelevant. You have yet to justify your opposition in any way. 12:47, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * It's relevant to my argument to the extent that it informs my perception of proposals, but getting to the point, I don't see the proposal's problem #1 as such (and don't believe effectively redefining what constitutes a quorum would benefit them if it were). I also don't think more time would necessarily give TPPs more attention because my general approach involved prioritizing things like the scope or the information I had/needed over the deadline. 14:41, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * How can you possibly think that problem #1 isn't an issue? You're saying that oppose votes actually causing proposals to pass is entirely logical. It's not. Imagine you oppose a proposal. It has 3 supports and 1 oppose - namely, you - near the deadline. This encourages you to game the system by removing your oppose vote at the last minute to stop the proposal from passing. How is that not completely asinine? 18:44, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Let's say the proposed solution to problem #1 is implemented. You create a proposal that's set to pass with four votes to one. At the last minute, the fourth supporter decides they're ambivalent toward the outcome and removes their vote, or maybe they get blocked for some reason, and their vote is removed. Now, let's say the extension solution is also in effect, so the proposal doesn't get relisted. In the worst case scenario, another three weeks go by with no additional votes to give either option the four-vote minimum, so at the final deadline, it fails with a 3-1 ratio. Is having your proposal not go into effect at all preferable to the scenario of it getting potentially overturned later?  22:09, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * You're missing the point. Let's take your hypothetical proposal, but remove that one oppose vote. What happens under the current rules? It NQs, since it doesn't have enough votes. Meanwhile, your version of the proposal would pass because it does, despite having the exact same amount of support. Why should that happen? Why should it be possible for opposing a proposal be counterproductive to actually stopping a proposal from passing? Like I just said, this encourages the opposer to game the system by removing their oppose vote at the last minute so the proposal will NQ and therefore not pass, which is ridiculous. Simply put, if a 3-0 proposal doesn't pass, then a 3-1 or 3-2 shouldn't pass either. 22:38, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * I don't think it's counterproductive to vote in opposition to something even if it's not likely to (or doesn't) prevent the proposal from passing. My hypothetical scenario demonstrates that "gaming the system" is technically possible under the proposed new system. Since that's therefore not the problem being solved, I don't think it's a relevant justification. 23:37, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Your hypothetical scenario demonstrates nothing of the sort. A supporter removing their vote because they changed their mind isn't gaming the system, it's normal. An opposer removing their oppose vote at the last minute to deliberately cause an NQ for a proposal that would otherwise pass is absolutely gaming the system - a form of which my proposed solution would render unnecessary. Opposition not preventing a proposal from passing is not the problem, it's opposition actively causing a proposal to pass because of the current NQ rule. Stop misinterpreting my posts. I'm still waiting for you to justify why a 3-0 proposal shouldn't pass, but a 3-1 or 3-2 should. 13:04, April 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * Community input is as or more important than a proposal's outcome, the impact of which is neither permanent nor irreparable. Ignoring that I never encountered a single instance of someone doing what you describe in 12 years, I think, depending on the proposal, four or five votes is an adequate reflection of that input. 14:19, April 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * That's just flat out wrong. Community input is what causes a proposal's outcome. You can't just lump supporters and opposers together under the banner of "community input" like they're the same thing. When someone opposes a proposal, it's because they don't want it to pass. Therefore, it should never result in it passing for any reason, ever. While proposals can be overturned, it requires another successful proposal, which means just one or two people wanting the overturning aren't going to cut it. If a proposal with those one or two opposers should pass, then a proposal without those opposers should also pass. If a proposal with three supporters shouldn't pass, then a proposal with three supporters and one or two opposers shouldn't pass either. I don't get why that's so hard for you to understand. 15:39, April 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * I haven't been following the discussion too closely but I think the idea is that a proposal with five votes, even if some of them are opposition, has had adequate community participation to move forward. Honestly, I think you're focusing way too hard on the issue of people potentially "gaming the system" by not opposing to deliberately force a no quorum. I've never seen that happen and it seems like assuming bad faith to me. -- 15:53, April 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * I don't think concern over a potential issue equates with assuming bad faith in the userbase. It's still a loophole and the system's better off without it. 16:47, April 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * Precisely. It doesn't matter if this loophole isn't exploited regularly, the mere fact that it's possible to exploit it warrants fixing it. It doesn't matter if you've seen it happen, not voting is a non-action, so you can't produce evidence of it happening or not happening. There's no reason not to fix this; I should never have to consider not voting on a proposal I actively oppose (or removing my existing oppose vote) just because of this loophole. 17:15, April 10, 2022 (EDT)

@LinkTheLefty: I don't understand what the problem is with how it would affect proposals with more than two choices. Be more specific so I can maybe improve it or come up with a better solution. 12:47, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * I feel like an issue one might have with solution 1 is that it could result in situations where proposals with many options could have many votes but still NQ because no option has >3 votes. Proposals with 5 options could take up to 16 votes before they aren't called NQs in situations like that. Somethingone (talk) 13:31, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Basically. It just makes it needlessly harder for multiple-choice proposals to pass, also considering option results sometimes overlap with each other. LinkTheLefty (talk) 14:21, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * "Proposals with 5 options could take up to 16 votes before they aren't called NQs in situations like that." Not necessarily. A proposal with 5 options may have accrued only 4 total votes and still pass, provided all those votes are for one option in particular. If not one option has more than 3 votes, it's a NQ period, regardless of how many available options there are. 16:22, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * That still doesn't factor when choices overlap, which more often than not do in multiple-choice proposals. Say this hypothetical proposal: 1) do X only, 2) do Y only, 3) do Z only, 4) do X & Y, 5) do X & Z, 6) do Y & Z, 7) do X, Y & Z, and 8) don't do anything. Let's say the X & Y options are generally unpopular, but votes are accrued for options involving Z. Let's say #3 gets 3 votes, and #s5, 6 & 7 get two votes each. And for the sake of argument, let's say that all the votes are from different users. That's at least nine total, with the remaining options having zero-to-two votes. Under the current system, #3 passes, and everyone walks away somewhat pleased because they at least agreed to do Z. Under the first proposed solution, the proposal becomes a no quorum, despite the fact that virtually everyone had Z in mind, making no one happy. That's another reason why I think no quorums should be considered non-proposals rather than opposed/failed ones. LinkTheLefty (talk) 16:50, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * You seem to have forgotten about rule 9, which would force an extension on your hypothetical proposal anyway. If there were nine voters, three votes wouldn't be enough for the option to win. It would need more than half, in other words, at least five. 17:26, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Then that might be another technicality with the system, but I digress. Fudge the specifics a bit if you like; the bottom line is 100% support on one action minimal (Z) and a lot of multiple-choice proposals are structured this way. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:37, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Are you saying that you oppose rule 9 or want it changed? Because that's what would get in the way of your hypothetical proposal. It doesn't matter how many votes there are, if the voters are spread across four voting options and they're too close, rule 9 won't let it pass. Anyway, a simple solution to the "overlapping options" issue is, once you've established that everyone wants to do Z, make Z a standalone proposal. 18:28, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * That seems cumbersome. You could just note in the above proposal that overlapping choices (e.g. "Z", "X&Z", and "X&Y&Z") will count votes together towards the common goal "Z". I agree with LTL insofar as it doesn't make much sense to treat these as mutually exclusive. 18:51, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Is that allowed? There isn't anything about it in the proposal rules, and I've never heard of such a thing happening. 18:58, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Rule 14 states: "Proposals can only be rewritten or deleted by their proposer within the first three days of their creation". I assume "rewritten" implies you can bring in any modifications, including additions--I've done it before in my proposals and nobody minded. It's been 2 days and ~6 hours since the proposal was published, so I think changing it as of this comment's writing is still ok. If your question refers to the matter of overlapping options, I'd say that, since the proposal at hand already sets out to amend the rules, you may indeed add any further stipulations if you see it fit. 19:18, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * I wasn't talking about my own proposal, I was asking if a rule about the overlapping options thing already existed (which I'm pretty sure it doesn't). 19:32, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * It doesn't, that's why I was suggesting it's offhandedly taken care of in the current proposal. Adding such a rule could and should have been made through a separate proposal, but what the current proposal advocates makes way to the issues described above by LTL (although I still support the amendment per se), so I was thinking you could kill two birds with one stone by taking care of it in the same proposal. 19:49, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * The problem with deciding on the addition of such a rule here is that this proposal already has four options, and that would require adding additional variants of those options that include adding the new rule. If there turned out to be disagreement on whether it should be added or not, this would cause division amongst the current options' votes (which are already rather close between two of them), thus increasing the risk of this proposal stalemating. Anyway, I already mentioned that the issue described in LTL's hypothetical proposal is already present due to rule 9, so as long as rule 9 exists, problem #1's solution doesn't cause any issues that don't already exist. 20:07, April 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * Yeah, ultimately, it might be better to address that matter in a future proposal. 20:19, April 9, 2022 (EDT)

Pinball (1984): full coverage or guest appearance?
Should Pinball, an NES game released in 1984, be classified as a guest appearance or a part of the Mario series? This proposal was created following User:Mario jc's comment here.

I believe this game features enough Mario-related content to justify full coverage of this game on this wiki. 1 out of 3 scenes is dedicated to Mario. In the scene C the player is controlling Mario to save Pauline, Mario is also heavily used in promotional material, including being on the cover-art for this game.

Alternatively, we can only allow coverage for the scene C, which features Mario as a playable character and Pauline.

Affected pages:
 * Template:Pinball
 * Card (Pinball)

Proposer: Deadline: April 15, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Allow full coverage

 * 1) per proposal.
 * 2) - if Alleyway can get full coverage, so can this.
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) I feel like this is one of the loosest games you can consider part of the franchise (and Mario is not referenced or advertised at all on the Famicom box), but Lady/Pauline is mentioned in the manual's "plot"/objective, so you can say it barely counts.
 * 5) Perhaps this is a crossover between the Mario series and the game of pinball.  We have full coverage of the Mario & Sonic series.  I'd argue that this game fits into the Donkey Kong/DK Jr./Donkey Kong GB line of games and would suggest adding it in the "related games" section of that series, if it's not already there.

Classify as a guest appearance (prohibit full coverage)

 * 1) As I understand it, this removes Pinball-exclusive articles while keeping the main game article intact. If it must be considered a guest appearance, I'd rather go for this approach, since the main article is short enough that I don't feel it's worth trimming. Either way, "penguin" does irk me a bit under the SM64 one.

Allow coverage for the Mario scene (scene C) only (and classify as a guest appearance)

 * 1) Second option.

Comments
I do want to add something. I was reminded of pages 238-255 of Encyclopedia Super Mario Bros. earlier which, while "not an exhaustive list", is nonetheless a fairly big one. It contains a bar showing Mario's involvement with each entry: four stars is "Main Super Mario series games", three stars is "Mario is a major character", two stars is "Mario plays a small part", one star is "Mario's likeness appears", and no star is "A member of the Mario family appears". Obviously, this can vary depending on if it counts Donkey Kong, Yoshi, or Wario franchises, or one-off character spinoffs like Super Princess Peach (two stars), but Pinball is decidedly none of those (for the record, the Super Smash Bros. games are two stars, though the wiki deems them a special exception). Pinball and Alleyway are given the same two-star status as things like Tennis, Tetris, Qix, and "Famicom Disk System (boot-up screen)". For reference, Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally has three stars even though Famicom Grand Prix: F1 Race has two stars, and Golf isn't mentioned. Granted, this is mainly referring to the involvement of character Mario rather than necessarily being indicative of Mario games, so make of this what you will. LinkTheLefty (talk) 18:14, April 8, 2022 (EDT)

Classify Art Style: PiCTOBiTS as a guest appearance and give it its own page
The DSiWare game Art Style: PiCTOBiTS is a block-falling game where you try to make various sprites. A good number of these sprites are from the NES Super Mario Bros., while a couple come from NES Wrecking Crew. While it's certainly a crossover between different franchises, the main franchise of the game is Mario, since 12 of its 30 stages focus on the franchise. The game also includes, as part of its main mechanics, coins (using their Super Mario Bros. sprites) and the POW Block; no other franchise is referenced in the main mechanics. I'd argue that it deserves coverage, just like Super Smash Bros. and NES Remix. Let's make a page for it, rather than just including it in the list of Mario references in Nintendo games. I've written something up in https://www.mariowiki.com/User:Jacklavin/Sandbox. (I've been playing the game on my 3DS, and I used No$GBA to take the screenshot.)

Proposer: Deadline: April 19, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) This is my proposal.
 * 2) This game has a significant amount of Mario-related content to be classified as a guest appearance.
 * 3) Per Spectrogram
 * 4) Per all.

Comments
While this game appears on page 250 of the Super Mario Bros. encyclopedia, it's clear from the information provided that the writer only learned about the first stage of the game; its information is actually incorrect. --Jacklavin (talk) 12:39, April 12, 2022 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.