MarioWiki:Proposals

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r149/Deadringerforlove/dessert1.jpg 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
 * 1) Actions that users feel are appropriate to have community approval first can be added by anyone, but they must have a strong argument.
 * 2) Users then start to discuss on the issue. 24 hours after posting the proposal (rounding up or down to the next or previous full hour, respectively, is allowed), the voting period begins. (The proposer is allowed to support their proposal right after posting.) Each proposal ends at the end of the day one week after voting start. (All times GMT).
 * 3) Every vote should have a reason accompanying it.
 * 4) 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. The voter 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.
 * 5) " # " should be added under the last vote of each support/oppose section to show another blank line.
 * 6) All proposals that end up in a tie will be extended for another week.
 * 7) If a proposal has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes. If a 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.
 * 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) No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old.
 * 10) Proposals can only be rewritten or deleted by their proposer within the first three days of their creation. However, the proposer can request that their proposal be deleted by a Sysop at any time, provided they have a valid reason for it.
 * 11) 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 a Sysop, the proposer can ask for that help.
 * 12) There shouldn't be proposals about creating articles on a 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 creating a PipeProject.
 * 13) Proposals cannot be made about System Operator promotions and demotions. Sysops can only be promoted and demoted by the will of Bureaucrats.
 * 14) If the Sysops 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) No joke proposals. Proposals are serious wiki matters, and should be handled professionally. Joke proposals will be deleted on sight.

The times are in GMT, and are set so that the user is more likely to be online at those times (after work/school, weekend nights). If a proposal is added on Monday night at 11:59 PM GMT, the deadline is the night of the Tuesday of the next week at 11:59 PM. If it is posted a minute later, the deadline is 11:59 PM of the Wednesday of the next week, since midnight is considered to be part of the next day, as 00:00 AM.

Basic Proposal and Support/Oppose Format
This is an example how your proposal should 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]". - ===[insert a title for your Proposal here]=== [describe what you want this Proposal to be like, what changes you would suggest and what this is about]

Proposer: Voting start: [insert a voting start time here, f.e. "2 January, 2010, 14:00". Voting start times are 24 hours after the time at which the proposal was posted, as described in Rule 2 above.] Deadline: [insert a deadline here, 7 days after the voting start, at 23:59 GMT.]

====Support====

====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 anoother 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.

How To

 * 1) All active talk page proposals must be listed below in chronological order (new proposals go at the bottom). All pages effected 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 heading.
 * 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, 4 and 5, as follows:
 * 3) Voting in talk page proposals will be open for two weeks, not one. There is no 24 hour delay between the posting of a talk page proposal and the commencement of voting.
 * 4) Talk page proposals may closed by the proposer if both the support and the oppose sides each have fewer than five votes.
 * 5) After two weeks, a clear majority of three votes is required. Without the majority, the talk page proposal will be listed as "NO QUORUM".
 * 6) The talk page proposal must pertain to the article it is posted on.

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Split SSX on Tour from Video game references. (Discuss) Passed
 * Split Mushroom (Super Mario RPG info) into Mushroom and (Discuss) Passed
 * Merge Turtle (Super Smash Bros.) into Trophy Descriptions (Super Smash Bros. Melee) (Discuss) Passed
 * Merge King Bulblin and Lord Bullbo into Bridge of Eldin (Discuss) Passed
 * Split Pauline's items into, , and . (Discuss) Deadline: 9 March 2010, 23:00
 * Merge Rainbow Boost into Boost Pad. (Discuss) Deadline: 11 March 2010, 23:00
 * Split Dragon into and . (Discuss) Deadline: 13 March 2010, 2:00
 * Split Entei's info into Pokémon and . (Discuss) Deadline: 13 March 2010, 2:00
 * Merge the Yoshi eggs sections of the Egg article into Yoshi Egg. (Discuss) Deadline: 14 March 2010, 2:00
 * Merge all Gnat Attack Enemies into Gnat Attack. (Discuss) Deadline: 14 March 2010, 2:00
 * Merge Mushroom (PM info), Super Shroom, Ultra Shroom, and Slow Shroom into general Mushroom page. (Discuss) Deadline: 14 March 2010, 2:00
 * Merge Item Roulette into Item Box (Discuss) Deadline: 15 March 2010, 23:00
 * Merge relevant information from Baby Yoshi into Yoshi (species). (Discuss) Deadline: 15 March 2010, 23:00
 * Split Dark Koopa into Dark Koopa and . (Discuss) Deadline: 2 March 2010, 23:00 Extended: 16, March 2010, 23:00
 * Split and merge relevant info from Baby Yoshi into Yoshi (species), Fearsome 5, and Little Yoshi . (Discuss) Deadline: 17 March 2010, 23:00

New Features
None at the moment

Removals
None at the moment

TPP Archiving
OK, I was looking at the list of TPPs and I found that the list was taking up about as much space as about two whole proposals and that is way too much space just based on TPPs IMO so I decided that I would make a proposal to shorten it in one of three other options. Now, I heard from that the rules say that TPPs aren't deleted off that list until the appropriate action has been taken (E.g. The articles have been merged) and I think that this idea is keeping it way too long, even if this quiets down another one is bound to arise because nobody is actually merging their proposal articles...

Anyhow, here are my three resolutions (and one non-resolution)
 * 1) Move all TPP results to "Mariowiki:Proposals/Talk Page Proposals" and leave them there for all of eternity so that people can easily see where the archives of their TPPs are and not clog up the proposals page (though eventually we'd have to archive that page too after 100 proposals * ). The proposals that have not passed/failed yet would stay in the TPP section of the proposals page but there would be a link off of there to the archives.
 * 2) The section resolution is to just remove the proposals when they pass and kick them off the proposals page so that they can't clog up space and this is the easiest of the resolutions. It will keep the list short and to the point and people will not be confused about what to do when they archive a TPP.
 * 3) The third (and final) resolution is to remove TPPs one week * after the proposals have passed whether or not the action has been taken so as to not leave them sitting for ever and ever. This will not clog up the page (though it will clog it up more than the second option would) and it would give proposers one week to merge their articles and then it is deleted off the page (though after it is deleted they can still merge, the reminder just won't be there). It gives users time to archive but keeps the TPP section short and simple.
 * 4) The fourth option (not resolution) is to do nothing, this is most definitely the easiest option but not the most productive...

* These numbers are up to debate in the comments section

Proposer: Voting Opens: March 2, 2010, 06:07 Deadline: March 9, 2010, 23:00

Kick off Immediately

 * 1) - Per my comments. If proposers cared they would do what needed. If they cant, they should ask an admin.

Do Nothing

 * 1) There are only 2 TPP whose articles aren't split/merged/deleted. and Per all.
 * 2) Per my comments below. And to the people that say that admins are "good" at merging/splitting, well some aren't. And sometimes the admins aren't usually on, so that's another problem.
 * 3) Per my comments below, and per Gamefreak75.
 * Per Gamefreak75. I don't see a problem with keeping those proposals in the list until they are put into effect, and it's a good reminder.
 * 1) - Per all.
 * 2) - If someone feels compelled to complain about the length of that list, he or she could merge some of the articles and reduce the list by themselves. If we remove them, they will just be forgotten. And so will they if we move them to some extra archive.

Comments
I'm gonna vote later because I'm currently tied between two of my options.

If we just remove them, then nobody will merge/split the said articles of the proposal and it will stay like that forever. If we put them all into an archive, then nobody will care about it and the same thing will happen. I could go with removing them after a week, but that doesn't seem long enough. Perhaps two weeks?
 * These numbers are up to debate in the comments section...

1 week seems enough for me. Why are they delayed anyways??? Its the proposer's responsibility to take action, if they don't we should just remove them, if you need an Admin help, just drop a line in any of their talks (mine if you want to).
 * The thing is, they don't take action. And if nobody takes action, and we just delete it, then the whole proposal would of been useless.
 * Well, then its their problem. Perhaps an user who took part can also take action.
 * In addition, that's exactly what happens on this proposals page.
 * Well, it shouldn't happen. We don't create proposals to waste people's time, we create them because we want to change something. And if the proposal doesn't take effect, then the whole thing was useless.

Well, if the proposer can't take the time out of their day to follow up with the proposal or can't be bothered to remember the due date, the proposal was a waste from the start.
 * You know, I'd like to make the proposals take effect, but I suck at merging/splitting.
 * Well then you should contact the proposers about it, that could help as a reminder for the...uhhh...less active.
 * Well, I guess I could.
 * There are only 4 proposals that are archived and the articles aren't merged/split/deleted/etc.
 * I agree with Reversinator. Maybe people know that something has to be merged and make a proposal. The proposal passes, but their is only one problem...they have no idea how they do it. If they were to merge, they have no idea on what the hell they're doing and can actually screw up an article and get blamed for "vandalization". And ridding of talk page proposals is a HUGE waste of time! You see, all these little things add up.

As I said before, in that case they should contact an admin, we are very happy to help.

Revesinator, your saying all this and you still haven't split the SSX on Tour article from the other article. Mine, well Baby Mario Bloops already made this proposal on merging all the SMRPG Mushrooms, and the SMRPG Mushrooms contain how many HP they heal.


 * One, you didn't see the fact that I suck at merging/splitting, and two, why are you talking about SMRPG mushrooms?


 * Has anyone bothered to read my comments? I, like Reversinator, suck at merging/splitting, so I am not even going to merge my proposal.

I think KS3 vote is not valid. It gives no reason as why to do nothing to them. What if in a future we have 10?
 * 2 weeks ago there were like 12 of them and why then didn't we make that proposal. Back then, I would be glad to vote support. But now there are only 3, and Redstar is busy merging info from Yellow Toad right now.
 * So? That doesnt mean we wont get another 12 in a future, and we wont be able to kick them, because of this proposal.
 * @GameFreak: I can guarantee you 900% that all admins can merge and split. And most of the time there is someone online. In the worst of cases, you can wait an hour or so to find one.

Anyone else thinks KS3 vote is not valid? @TimeQ: So, you agree that admins lack the basic skills of merging and splitting?
 * Yes, I agree that KS3's vote is invalid. It just refers to the current situation, which defeats the point of this proposal. As of your second question: I don't think there are "merging and splitting skills". It all depends on the topic. For example, I (and I'm a bureaucrat) could not have split or merged many of the recently passed proposals, simply because I'm not familiar with the topics in question (there's a lot of games I've never played).
 * So then it should be removed, I think. Well, in most of the cases it can be easily done by looking at the headers, still I think all admins may be capable of splitting an article.
 * Read my vote again. It says Per Gamefreak75.

Oh, so easy to per a vote...... Anyways.... again, Gamefreak, please answer, do not avoid the question, I bet in less than an hour, if you ask it, an admin will have done what needed. What can go wrong?


 * Well, you gotta take Time Q's comment to mind to, about the games played. Also, I'm pretty sure that not EVERY admin on the wiki can merge/split, but I could be wrong and we wouldn't want an admin's page to be cluttered up with headers saying ''Please merge'; or anything along those lines.
 * Thats what us admins are for, to serve the wiki. It is fine if we get our talks "cluttered" with lines saying "please merge!". And about the games, well, if I got asked, and weren't sure how to do it, I would ask someone else to help me.
 * Well Revesinator deleted the SSX on Tour section of Video Game References

Final Vote
Recently, there have been a lot of changes to the voting system, and I feel that one more needs to be made. It seems that every couple months, a proposal is made about censoring the Bob Hoskins article or deciding Birdo's gender. There may be a 30-day minimum before a poll can be changed, but I feel more needs to be done. I would like to introduce a new system called final vote. They are just like other proposals, except for the following:
 * 1) Once a Final Vote proposal has been voted on, the decision can't be overturned (except by an Admin decision).
 * 2) A Final Vote proposal can only be made for a proposal that has already been made three times.
 * 3) Final Vote proposals are open for two weeks.
 * 4) Final Vote proposals are announced in the announcement bar on the Main Page.

Proposer: Voting Opens: March 5, 2010, 2:30 GMT Deadline: March 12, 2010, 23:59

Support

 * 1) – Per above.

Oppose

 * 1) - I feel like this isn't a very good idea. Not exclusively to the Bob Hoskins or Birdo articles, but some decisions have indeed been overturned by a revisited proposal. One example was when I proposed to use present tense in all articles, which passed. Later, when looking through the archives, I found that Dom had also proposed the same thing months ago, but had been overruled. Some people can explain the essence and benefits of a proposal better, and convince others to agree with their opinions. The "Final Vote" system would deny users of a chance to propose subjects that could be potentially helpful to the wiki.
 * 2) Per Marcelagus.
 * 3) Right now, what may be considered right may be considered wrong in the future. This proposal won't allow people to change what can be potential mistakes.
 * 4) - Per all.
 * 5) - The intention is good, but a rule like that would probably cause more chaos than being actually helpful. What if something is decided with a final vote, but it proves to be horribly wrong after some years (you can't predict such consequences)? Would make the reversion too complicated.

Comments
Having some sort of blanket policy like this is a recipe for disaster. If we were going to do something about the annoying, recurring issues, we'd have to be specific, like back when we had a rule against Banjo and Conker proposals (but we could try to be a bit less obtuse about it this time). The Birdo and Bob Hoskins issues both boil down to censorship and squeamishness, which are fundamentally against what a factual wiki stands for, and so we could probably disallow them for that reason (with a little preliminary paperwork to make it legit). Canonicity and organization issues like Banjo and Conker are a bit harder to deal with: if you make too many policies Admin-only, people will cry foul, no matter how good the intentions may be. -

I think the best choice would be to decide on a case-by-case basis. For instance, if there isn't already, we could add a rule on MOS saying something along the lines that quotes shouldn't be censored because this is an encyclopedia, and such. --
 * Maybe admins can declare a proposal disallowed? Not a three-proposal basis but an admins only type of thing so the admins discuss it on the boards and then say so here (on the talk page).
 * That's pretty much Rule 14: "If the Sysops 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." We don't use it very often because we don't want to be power-abusers, and yanking a proposal because it's constant re-emergence is annoying might look dubious to naysayers (even if it was doomed and everyone unanimously hated it anyway). -

The "Mario Series Games" Template Revision
That redish colored template that can be seen under various Mario game articles REALLY needs to be cleaned up. First of all, there's too many games in the 2D games section. Does EVERY 2-Dementional game have to be there? Some games, such as the Mario Party series and Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix are NOT 2D. There is also an RPG section, but the same games are also shown in the 2D section. Now I think we should rename the template "Super Mario Series Games," and have only the major platforming Mario games (and its ports and remakes) in the template. We previously had templates for Mario Party games and RPGs (and etc.), and I think we should bring them back. I KNOW it makes the articles bigger, but you could also comment on how we can organize that template better. Basically what I'm saying is, I think we need to organize this portion of Wiki just like we did months ago.

Proposer: Voting start: March 7, 2010, 1:56 GMT Deadline: March 14, 2010, 23:59

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.

Comments
Good Idea.

Stuff like that should go in the Template Talk, not being made into a proposal.

Miscellaneous
None at the moment