MarioWiki:Proposals

Remove non-Mario characters from the trophies, Assist Trophy, stickers, and Spirit pages
The Mario Wiki's Super Smash Bros. coverage always has been, and likely always will be, one of the most consistently controversial aspects of the wiki. In my opinion, instead of trying to solve any of these coverage issues with one large, sweeping proposal, it would be better to handle individual topics in smaller-scale proposals. This is one of them.

Basically, the longest page on this wiki as of this proposal is List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U - something about a game which isn't even part of the Mario franchise. That's pretty insane. We have several lists, such as the Spirit page, the Assist Trophy page, the Sticker page, and the lists of trophies in _ game, which give coverage to each and every single collectable that is a part of their respective groups, even if they have absolutely nothing to do with the franchise. We don't need this. It unnecessarily bloats the pages with information not related to the wiki itself, and would make it harder for readers to access the information actually pertinent to the franchise and in turn, the wiki. No one would go to the Mario Wiki to find out what Ghirahim's spirit does. If they did, they would just go to a Smash Wiki. Basically, this non-Mario related list content just makes these pages filled to the brim with non-pertinent info that would just make a page harder to load for those who want to find actual Mario related info on a Mario Wiki, and not info about a million other gaming franchises. In short, what I propose is the following:

That any list information that isn't pertinent to the Mario or related franchises would be removed. This will affect the following pages, under this proposal:


 * Assist Trophy
 * Any of the "List of trophies in _" Super Smash Bros. game (will not affect Trophy (Super Smash Bros. series).
 * List of Smash Run enemies
 * Spirit (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate).
 * Sticker (Super Smash Bros. Brawl).
 * List of Mii Fighter Outfits
 * List of Mii Headgear
 * Subspace Army

This will not affect:


 * The Pokémon page. The page is entirely filled with non-Mario information. Wether or not this page should be deleted is a discussion for a different proposal.
 * The intro of any of these pages. The spirit page, for example, will still inform the reader about what a spirit is.
 * The fighter pages. Even if the trophy/list pages have non-Mario content removed, any spirit or trophy info on any fighter's page will still remain. Wether or not we should even have pages on fighters which never appeared in the Mario franchise is for another proposal.
 * The Super Smash Bros. game pages, which will remain mostly unaffected. Any changes that should be made to these is again, a subject for another another proposal.

Additional notes:


 * Some redirects, such as Bonkers, may have to be deleted if they become useless after this proposal is enforced, if it passes.
 * This will not remove any list info directly pertinent to the franchise (such as any Mario, Wario, Yoshi, or DK trophies).
 * I have included the option to support the removal all non-Mario thing on these lists except for fighter trophies, spirits, etc for those who would rather that outcome.
 * Coverage will be slightly modified to reflect any changes with how we handle this content.
 * This will be enforced simply by removing any parts of the list that aren't pertinent to the franchise. For example, the info about Akira's Assist will be removed from the Assist Trophy page, though the info on say, Waluigi's, or Klaptrap's Assist, will remain.
 * Some of the pages affected by the proposal are featured articles. Wether or not they will still be worthy of their featured status is something to be considered after the proposal is enforced.

Edited notes:


 * I have added an option for voters who support removing non-pertinent items, except for items which already have individual pages. Under this option, stuff for Blinky (the Pac-Man ghosts), Knuckles, and the fighters would be kept, as they already have their own individual pages for other reasons (being a playable MK character, being in Mario & Sonic, and being a fighter). The above option would still be for those who want to keep the fighter items, but not the non-fighter items.
 * I have added the Mii gear pages, due to forgetting them at first.
 * Added info about the Subspace Army.

Proposer: Deadline: March 14, 2021, 23:59 GMT

Support (including the removal of non-Mario fighter spirits, trophies, etc)

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) - per proposal
 * 3) Per proposal; there really is no need for unnecessary info if it's irrelevant to Mario.
 * 4) - per proposal
 * 5) Per proposal.
 * 6) I support any proposal that aims to remove Mario-irrelevant Smash content from this wiki. All other NIWA wikis (barring Smash Wiki itself) stick purely to covering Smash content that is relevant to its franchise. The only thing different here is that Mario gets more representation than other franchises; that alone doesn't mean we should have tons of articles and information on things that have no relation to Mario. Bulbapedia doesn't have articles on Bayonetta, Rathalos, Tabuu, etc., but we do!
 * 7) Per 7feetunder, as well as Bazooka Mario in the comments.

Support (excluding the removal of non-Mario fighter spirits, trophies, etc)

 * 1) - If it has a page, is fair game, is how I see it.
 * 2) Strong support. We went out of our way to limit coverage of the Super Smash Bros. franchise itself, which has more in common with the Mario franchise than any other singular franchises represented in it. In that case, why pray tell do we have so much irrelevant coverage on Zelda, Star Fox, Kirby and many others? However, as Glowsquid stated above, any extra-Mario subject that has a page here for one reason or another should still be allowed additional info like trophy and spirit information.
 * 3) I'm additionally fine with this being the case, though the above option is preferred in my opinion.
 * 4) I'm more than happy for the articles to be downsized in my opinion, considering how large the List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U article is, with not much information on Mario and more-so on other franchises.
 * 5) Trophies and spirits from other franchises that aren't Mario aren't information relevant to MarioWiki.
 * 6) I think loading times and the amount of scrolling are other problems with these pages, this is a good way to sort that out.
 * 7) Per everyone.
 * 8) - We really don't need all of these lists of non-Mario stuff. I think all of the fighter spirits/trophies/stickers that aren't Mario-themed should also be removed from said list pages, but should be kept on the actual character's pages. For example, I think Link's Spirit shouldn't be included in the list of Spirits page, but should still stay on the Link article. Same thing with like the Sonic characters that crossed over in Mario & Sonic, with Banjo & Kazooie, with Villager/Isabelle, with Inklings, etc, since all of these crossed over in a Mario-themed game before. (I still think some pages like Cloud/Marth/Mementos/Bombchu/etc should be deleted in general due to never actually crossing over with Mario outside of Smash, but that's for another day I guess...)
 * 9) Second choice.
 * 10) - second choice

Oppose

 * 1) Traditionally our reduction in Smash Bros. coverage has always been to reduce the prominence of information, rather than outright remove it. I don't really feel comfortable going farther. I also worry that any other option we go for will look inconsistent and arbitrary to our readers, whether it's within our Smash coverage itself or with other crossovers. I'm especially opposed to Assist Trophies being tossed into this proposal since they have a much more significant impact on gameplay. Doing this will effectively leave us with an article that only partially explains what an item that Mario chcaracters can use does. Not listing every single collectible in the game is one thing, having an Assist Trophy page where we don't even acknowledge the majority of them is confusing and not very helpful. At that point we're starting to gut our coverage of the gameplay of the series itself, and I only see us being a few more proposals away from deleting the rest of the fighters entirely. I also have serious problems with this proposal as a whole which I have outlined in the comments, particularly that this proposal is far larger than it claims to be and tries to clump together too many unrelated subjects (of the 8 articles listed, I can think of 4 groups to accurately separate them into). (And actually I do find myself using the Spirit page here for all of them in general, I find it more helpful that they're on one page which afaik SmashWiki doesn't have)
 * 2) Per WT and my general opposition to removing Smash content.
 * 3) Per all. The Assist Trophies don't even take up a lot of space, they just describe what they do in Smash Bros. like the other things do. If we can fully cover the Mario & Sonic games and have pages about characters like Sticks the Badger, I don't see why Smash should be treated differently. It's not really unrelated to Mario if it's in Smash.
 * 4) - Per Waluigi Time both here and in the comments. I just don't see the point in outright removing all of this unless it explicitly clashes with the coverage policy (which it doesn't seem to) or substantially slows down the entire Wiki. I also don't think elements that have a larger effect on gameplay (Assist Trophies, maybe Subspace) should be lumped together with things that are primarily collectibles (Trophies, Stickers...) - unless the plan is to outright get rid of all non-Mario Smash coverage entirely, in which case this feels like a half measure. And either way, why would it be better to remove it entirely rather than just rewriting and condensing it to solve the size issue?
 * 5) Per all
 * 6) Per Waluigi Time. While I can agree that maybe trimming down content like trophies, stickers and trophies wouldn't be that bad, I feel Subspace and Smash Run enemies and Assist Trophies are a bit more involved and could stand to have their lists kept.
 * 7) Initially, I supported this proposal. However, after considering it more, I have decided that I agree with some of the points brought up by Waluigi Time, MrConcreteDonkey, and Tails777. I do personally still believe that the lists of trophies, stickers, and spirits should definitely be cut down, as there is no reason for them to be among the longest articles on the wiki. However, I agree that Assist Trophies and the Subspace and Smash Run enemies have a much more significant role, and thus I do not feel it makes sense to group them in with the lists of collectibles, since it would be inconsistent with how we currently cover other items that have a larger impact on gameplay. I fully agree with the idea of possibly limiting Super Smash Bros. content, but I feel this proposal currently combines subjects that do not have a completely similar impact on gameplay.

Comments
@Waluigi Time We shouldn't not do something because another wiki is lacking. In addition, I do see any reason to stop at removing info if there's no reason for the info to be on this wiki in the first place, and it's not like we haven't removed swaths of non-pertinent info in the past (like with how we previously had a ton of Banjo content). 17:19, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * I'm not saying that's why we shouldn't remove it, just addressing the comment you made. I agree in theory - the Banjo and Conker content was way out of scope and didn't need to be here, and we don't need to keep unrelated content just because some people may find it helpful. Smash however is too intertwined with the Mario series for me to be comfortable with throwing large parts of our coverage out completely. -- 17:33, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * How is Smash intertwined? While yes, there's a lot of content themed around the franchise, it's not like the actual Mario franchise takes inspiration from Smash itself, or vice versa. 17:37, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * There's enough Mario content in the series for me to consider it a proper crossover (i.e. Mario & Sonic or Fortune Street) worthy of covering. It's not like Banjo and Conker where they happened to appear in Diddy Kong Racing as advertisement and never touched the Mario franchise again (until Banjo in Smash obviously). -- 17:39, February 28, 2021 (EST)

While I prefer the second option over outright removing everything, since there's no reason not to keep information on subjects we cover, after all, I can't see it working out too well... Crossover characters can gain relevance to the Mario franchise at any time, either through becoming a fighter or other means, and if we give them articles then we'd also have to dig up all of the Smash info we used to have for that character and restore it, and possibly end up missing some along the way. Additionally, this option only makes exceptions for non-Mario fighters. What about characters like Knuckles? He's not a fighter but still has a page. -- 17:53, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * I'm only giving exceptions to fighters due to having a larger importance. Knuckles doesn't have a page because he's in Smash - he has a page due to Mario & Sonic. Anyways, we shouldn't keep unneeded info because of the mere possibility of a character becoming more relevant - that's like saying we should keep the humans page in case a reason to have it independent of categories latter pops up. If, in the future, a removed spirit becomes a fighter, then we can re-add it then, but's it's no reason to keep massive quantities of non-pertinent info. 18:22, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * That seems almost arbitrary, to be honest. Some non-Mario characters we cover get to have their information kept, but others don't? It's pretty bizarre that Knuckles would still have his trophy/spirit/sticker information on his own page (I assume it would stay), but the pages covering those items as a whole including lists would make no mention of them. I don't see how this is comparable to the human page at all, either. The human page is being proposed for deletion because there's currently no useful information to cover there. It's not any extra effort to start a new article with information that we never had before. This on the other hand would be information that currently is useful and if the option passes, could and would be brought back at any time. -- 18:30, February 28, 2021 (EST)


 * How would the resulting list be organised? "Mario spirits", "Non-Mario fighter spirits" and "Spirits of subjects that appear in other Mario media"? I feel like if they were otherwise merged without sections, the list would look kind of... random: A list of Mario subjects with a number of non-Mario subjects mixed in, which might lead some readers to wonder why some are listed and some aren't.


 * "Knuckles would still have his trophy/spirit/sticker information on his own page (I assume it would stay)" About that... Just to clarify, if option 2 passes, does this just apply to the lists, and not their individual pages? In other words, would articles on non-Mario, non-fighter subjects that have spirit, trophy etc. information (e.g. Moogle) retain those sections? I think they should at least be kept on their own pages in a similar approach to the Captain N info for Simon Belmont, in that "They have a page, they appear in this thing we also cover; we should mention it." 05:31, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * The proposal as a whole only impacts lists. Thus, Knuckles will to retain any Smash info, Moogle will, fighter pages will still list their trophies, etc. What to do with these non-list pages is for another proposal. 17:52, March 1, 2021 (EST)

Would this proposal impact the Subspace Army article? It is not specifically listed, but I feel the "Basic troops" section of the article is a similar situation to the List of Smash Run enemies article. -- 19:56, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * It wouldn't, as like with the Pokemon article, it is entirely about a non-Mario subject that would end up deleting the page if all non-Mario content was removed, and it is thus out of this proposal's reach. 23:02, February 28, 2021 (EST)
 * There are Mario enemies in the Subspace Army, though, similar to the Smash Run enemies. 05:31, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * My mistake. I have rectified that. 09:10, March 1, 2021 (EST)

I'm pretty indifferent on the proposal. I don't have a problem with the way we handle Smash content now (except for the absurdly long list pages of trophies and spirits). So I'll just help with whatever outcome happens, should pages need deleted. What I *do* see a problem with, though, is how this effects our other crossover content. With what is said on Coverage, every element in a crossover game gets full coverage as if it's relevant to the Mario series. Be it Mario & Sonic, Fortune Street, and even elements that cross over with Mario such as Link in Mario Kart 8. I realize the page states that Smash is decided on a more particular basis, but it is still a crossover game, so removing all Mario content when other crossover games do not will look very out of place, imo. 00:24, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * The content being removed here isn't Mario content, though. Any spirits, assists, etc that are actually directly related to the franchise will be kept, but stuff like Bonkers on the Smash Run enemies page will be purged. Bonkers in Smash Run isn't Mario related, and thus removing him from the page isn't removing Mario content as much as it is removing Smash content.

In addition, this doesn't really affect other crossover content. As you stated, that page notes that Smash content is treated differently. It wouldn't look weird to treat this differently from Fortune Street and Mario & Sonic: those two are crossovers much more exclusively focused on the two franchises represented, compared to Smash which not only covers dozens of different franchises to different degrees but is altogether its own thing, with a good amount of original content and characters. You could very much classify Smash as its own franchise independent of any individual ip represented, compared to Fortune Street which is very much only a Dragon Quest and a Mario game, not part of an independent franchise, if that makes any sense. If anything what looks out of place is the sheer amount of content we have with other franchises which have absolutely nothing to do with Mario, though I understand that's a different topic for a different proposal. 09:10, March 1, 2021 (EST)

In the case of Trophies, Stickers and Spirits, I can agree to that. Mii Fighter costumes, maybe too. But I feel Subspace/Smash Run enemies could remain, as they have a more involved role in their respective modes. That’s just my opinion on this topic.
 * But respective modes aren't in a Mario game. Why should we, a Mario Wiki, care about how important non-Mario enemies are in a non-Mario mode in a non-Mario game? 17:49, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * A fair point, but I still believe the physical, role playing appearance is a bit more deserving of coverage compared to a cameo as a sticker, trophy or spirit. I can say the same about Assist Trophies; they play a more involved role in the core gameplay of Smash. And yes, Smash is a non-Mario mode. And Smash is the only way to play on non-Mario stages and use non-Mario characters. The cameos of Trophies, Stickers and Spirits is something I can agree on, but involved roles through Subspace enemies, Smash Run enemies and Assist Trophies seems a bit of a stretch to me at the moment. 16:44, March 4, 2021 (EST)

Right, I'm not quite sure where to vote here yet, but I wanted to ask some questions about some of the unusual cases that I don't think have been covered in the proposal as it stands (If I've misread the proposal and it is included, or I just haven't understood it right, please let me know): I might still be missing some stuff, but I'd at least like to know what the plans are for stuff like this, as if this isn't thought out there's going to be a big mess to clean up if it comes to execution time, and I don't think we want to have to set up another load of proposals just to sort through the case by case ones. BBQ Turtle (talk) 16:29, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * So, just to clarify what's happening to the stuff for characters that aren't fighters but have pages for other reasons, like the Sonic or Pac-Man characters? I've seen it's been discussed already but I don't quite understand what the current position is.
 * What happens to stuff that isn't a fighter but already has a page, like the various items or Skyloft?
 * When you say about keeping the fighters' spirits/trophies, what exactly do you mean by that? Is that only keeping the ones specifically tied to Smash, or does that include anything that features them, such as the goodness knows how many Link's got? And how would that work with ones that got trophies in earlier instalments and became fighters later, like King Dedede or Little Mac? What about spirits for Min Min, she's a funny case as she's got two? And what would happen for fighters who have multiple costume spirits, like the Heroes, Corrins and Inklings?
 * Would stickers that feature non-Mario characters but specifically affect them (i.e. the ones that can only be used on certain characters) be kept or removed?
 * What about vice versa, are the non-Mario related conditions going to be removed as well?
 * What about spirits where the battles feature Mario characters representing non-Mario characters, what happens to those? And the vice versa of that one too.
 * Is there a full plan for what's going to happen to the Assist Trophy page? I was just taking a look at it to check my facts, and if we just chuck all of the non-Mario characters it's going to leave a really big mess behind, so some thoughts on a future structure might be nice.
 * Has some thought been given to what's going to happen to somewhat-related characters that don't have a page, such as the Arcade Bunny or Nikki from Swapnote? I think R.O.B.'s stuff might also fall into this category, so are there any thoughts what's happening there?
 * In order:


 * Under the first option, all non-Mario list items will be removed. This includes non-fighters that have pages for other reasons. Under the second option, non-Mario fighters will be kept with everything else being kept, so Sonic would stay but Blinky would not. Under the third option, non-Mario fighters and non-Mario items that have pages for other reasons would be kept, but the rest would be removed, so both Sonic and Blinky (Pac-Man ghosts, in this case) would be kept but Bonkers wouldn't. Option 4 wouldn't do anything.
 * See above. Skyloft trophies/other would be removed under options 1 and 2, but not 3 or 4. Same with items.
 * For the sake of simplicity, under options 2 or 3 the only fighter spirits kept would be the spirits of the fighter type. So with Link, his fighter spirit, as well as Toon Link and Young Link's fighter spirits would stay, but the Link (The Legend of Zelda) wouldn't, as that is a primary (3) sprit, not a fighter one. Min Min would also follow this; her primary (2) spirit would go, but her actual fighter spirit would stay. Any list item of a character which only became playable in a later instalment would be removed, so Little Mac's assist would go as he wasn't a fighter in that game.
 * Stickers are pretty different from the other items here, as non-Mario stickers can exclusively affect Mario characters. As to not remove any info actually pertinent to the franchise, I would suggest only removing those that don't exclusively for some of the Mario fighters, and just put them under a header like "Stickers not from the Mario franchise that can be applied to Mario fighters". The proposal is about removed information not pertinent to the actual Mario franchise, not about removing any actual, valid, pertinent info.
 * Any sticker or spirit which is kept will have said sticker/spirit's full information.
 * My plan is that we'll simply remove the template info of any deleted item, and that the correlating trophy info + gallery images would also be removed.
 * I don't know what you mean by "somewhat" related. The Arcade Bunny as in the character is not related to the Mario franchise. The Nintendo Badge Arcade as in the video game is related to the franchise, but the character is not, and thus he would still be removed. As for Swapnote, while the actual application is related, Nikki the character is not, so again she would be removed.
 * I appreciate the concern. Please add any addition questions and I'll try to respond in due time. 17:49, March 1, 2021 (EST)

So here's the issue I have with the Assist Trophy page in general being trimmed, a bit more fleshed out after having thought about it for a while. Short of failing entirely, this proposal will remove certain characters from the Assist Trophy page entirely. Now here's the issue: We have a page for an item that can be used by Mario franchise characters that no longer fully explains what the item does. You could argue the item's sole function is "spawns a character" and stop at that, but that only opens up more questions. What characters? What do they do? I see no benefit to ignoring Assist Trophy characters for the sake of "not Mario". I also feel the same way about the Pokemon, though I think it could be beneficial to heavily trim that page and just merge it to Poke Ball. -- 16:50, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * The Assist Trophy page will still have an intro explaining what the actual item does. That's not going anywheres. It will still explain its basic function, and what they (in general) will do. We don't need to list non-Mario assists or what those in specific do as the actual info isn't pertinent to the actual franchise, and bloats the page for those who want Mario info on a Mario site. As for Pokemon, that's not for this proposal, as that entire page is about a subject with literally nothing to do with the franchise; if we were to remove non-pertinent info they we would just end up deleting the page, and again, that's for another proposal. 17:57, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * I strongly disagree. If the article's content only explains that the item spawns something, but then doesn't say what it spawns or what the things it spawns do, that's not at all helpful or comprehensive. Why we should have a bizarre half-article just because the item can spawn some non-Mario things is beyond me. -- 18:23, March 1, 2021 (EST)

"The fighter pages. Even if the trophy/list pages have non-Mario content removed, any spirit or trophy info on any fighter's page will still remain." A question: why should their trophy bios remain? The information doesn't really come from a Mario source does it? 17:19, March 1, 2021 (EST)
 * The page doesn't aim to affect the fighter pages. The info about their moves also doesn't come from a Mario source, but it's still there. That's a topic for a future proposal. 17:49, March 1, 2021 (EST)

With all due respect to Doomhiker, and my opposition to the premise aside, this proposal is very flawed. To my knowledge, there was not any discussion anywhere else prior to this being proposed, and it shows. There's already been a lot of confusion and disagreement about what should and shouldn't be included in this proposal that could have easily been cleared up if this was discussed. Furthermore, this proposal was originally and still is being purported as "smaller-scale", yet is quickly snowballing out of control into an all-encompassing blanket proposal that, as far as I can tell, is now affecting the majority of our Smash coverage, for the most part only stopping short of pages that would be deleted entirely. (And I take serious issue with this as well - several of these subjects have been added after many users already voted and aren't comparable with what was already included in the proposal, which while allowed, is a very bad idea for something as delicate as Smash coverage.) Many of these subjects simply aren't at all comparable with each other and have been tossed in with no regards to their effects on gameplay, and some of Doomhiker's statements make me believe that this ignorance of gameplay is by design, which I find very concerning. Even trophies, stickers, and spirits, some of the most closely related things on this list, aren't 100% comparable. Trophies are a bit easier to deal with since they're really just collectibles, but what about non-Mario stickers that have effects on Mario characters specifically, or non-Mario spirits that have Mario characters in their spirit battles? How are we supposed to organize those in a way that doesn't immediately appear awful and inconsistent to our readers?

tl;dr This proposal, while claiming to be "smaller-scale", is far too broad and trying to clump together too many unrelated subjects. I strongly suggest either canceling this proposal for the time being and starting a discussion instead to iron out the issues, or opposing it for the same reasons so we can come back to it later. -- 11:23, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * ok so. No offense to anyone but. There was actually quite a bit of discussion about doing the things this proposal aims to do on the discord a couple weeks ago. The only thing that has been added to the proposal since it was created was the subspace army, the rest were going to be in the proposal from the start. If someone wants to look up say a list of trophies in super smash brothers for the nintendo 23ds xl & watch they're more likely to look on the smash wiki other than here, I don't think we should be the wiki with the biggest trophy lists because this is the mario wiki. I see no reason not to remove all these things, they're related in that they're completely irrelevant to mario as a series. All of the items listed here except Assist Trophies don't have much of an effect on gameplay beyond status effects. non-mario stickers that only affect mario characters or non-mario spirits that have mario characters in their spirit battles shouldnt be covered imo, their only relation with the mario series is by proxy. 13:26, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * Well I'm glad to hear there was at least some discussion on this prior, though I don't think there was enough since there are still glaring issues that were already pointed out in the first two days of this proposal. Your stance on the stickers is contradictory to what Doomhiker has already said (he said they should be kept), and rightfully so. Removing items that only specific Mario characters can use for the sake of removing content that's not relevant to the Mario series makes absolutely no sense. I don't think I need to explain why. Similarly, I don't see any value in removing coverage of battles that Mario characters fight in for the sake of removing content not relevant to the Mario series. I think you're shifting the goal posts a bit here, since a tangible connection to the Mario series has been pointed out and now you're just devaluing those things entirely. -- 13:43, March 2, 2021 (EST)

I think ultimately, the fact that the Mario representation in Smash covers four separate franchises, countless subseries, and a disproportionately large amount of every smaller factor of each of the games that saying "not Mario related" to any portion of it is incredibly shortsighted. As mentioned, Mario characters can already use the items/spirits/stickers/whathaveyou, and honestly, considering unlike any other franchise represented, the representation in question is so large it can't just be summarized in a few sentences, that not going all the way with explaining it is doing nothing but a disservice to our readers. And whether they'd look on Smashwiki or not is irrelevant; not only are we not at all bound by what a separate wiki does, but Smashwiki is a totally different animal full of fan jargon, other fan-related stuff, and absolutely no consideration for casual players of the game. So no, removing that stuff from here, where it is written in a way normal people can understand, is a shortsighted thing to do that will do nothing but leave behind a bunch of glaring half-articles that won't look good no matter how you slice it. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 14:39, March 2, 2021 (EST)

My concern is that deleting so much Smash content without relocating it elsewhere will result in a lot of wasted time & effort. As Doc said, SmashWiki is filled with fan jargon & does not neutrally accommodate for both causal and competitive players. Personally I'd want an alternative Super Smash Bros. wiki for the content to be relocated to (honestly an alternative for any big Nintendo franchise in the Mario Wiki format would be nice) so that all this content isn't wasted and so it can reach its potential. Results May Vary (talk) 15:24, March 2, 2021 (EST)

@Waluigi Time, all the options in here have something in common; they're lists with some Mario content, but heaps of completely unrelated fluff. It's far from too broad: I specifically designed this to avoid affecting stages, fighter pages, the game pages, and to avoid having any item page deleted. There's been years' worth of discussions about this and related subject; no need to delay it more. I'm not cancelling. I did not say that stickers should be kept; I made it clear that stickers that do absolutely zilch when it comes to the franchise (not being equip able by Mario characters, as unlike spirits or assist what sticks can be removed is fighter-specific, or not being from the actual franchise. Removing non-Mario items makes sense. We're the Mario wiki, not a Smash wiki, not a general video game wiki. Like, if we for some odd reason we had a page on Sonic Adventure because of some dated policy, would that be called removing content for the sake of removing content? We can't just cover anything we feel like covering; there needs to be limits, and imo the wiki is still passing those limits.I'm also not trying to devalue anything; we just aren't the type of wiki which needs this stuff. @Doc Smashwikis problems are shortcoming should have no effect on what we do with this wiki. We shouldn't keep unneeded content just to make up for an unrelated shit wiki, as we don't exist to make up for other wikis' shortcomings. In addition, a Mario Wiki article with only Mario content isn't going to leave "half-articles", it'll leave articles which are complete in the context of the Mario Wiki and the Mario franchise. It's not shortsighted to say that Akira, a character that has zilch to do with the franchise besides for appearing in a game in a completely different franchise, is unrelated to Mario. "not going all the way with it" isn't going to disservice our readers; this is a Mario Wiki, so we only need to cover the actual Mario content, doing so isn't "going halfway", and it's not like Smash games are Mario games. @RMV, again, the failings of other wikis shouldn't effect our own wiki. It's not wasted effort; anyone can go and look up the revision history and copy-paste templates if they're really desperate. It's a wiki, some content, no matter what, will end up being deleted or edited to the point of being unrecognizable. 17:57, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * That's the problem. You're looking at it from the angle of "they are all lists of Smash stuff", I'm looking at it from the angle of "these are separate kinds of subjects which should be dealt with separately", a position that as far as I'm aware is historically consistent with how we've always done things. They are similar articles, yes, but completely different subjects, and you could make any ridiculous blanket proposal you want by taking that logic and running with it. Ideally, this would be split into four proposals - collectibles (trophies, stickers, spirits), customizations (Mii gear), enemies (Subspace Army and Smash Run), and an Assist Trophy proposal, possibly split even further to account for the nuances of the different collectibles. I understand you meant that only non-Mario stickers which have effects specific to Mario characters would be kept, my apologies if that was unclear - I was specifically referring to TheDarkStar's position that non-Mario stickers and spirits should be removed regardless of any relation to the Mario franchise (this was also what my "devaluing" content was reflected towards). As for the Sonic Adventure comparison, I find it very hard to imagine any scenario in which we would have justified a Sonic Adventure page, and frankly I'm not a fan of comparisons like this. A comparison that would make more sense would be Banjo and Conker, but even still there's really nothing you can 100% compare properly to Smash, which the Mario franchise has actually been a part of (and continues to be) since the beginning. -- 18:14, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * You completely neglected to acknowledge my main point of Mario's disproportionately large representation in order to go after some minor side-issue I brought up. Don't do that. Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Wario are all treated as separate franchises by it, and that's not even getting into the different subseries (Super Mario, Dr. Mario, Mario Kart, Wrecking Crew, etc.) it covers. Additionally, the mere fact that Mario is always the most prominent character on the covers, first one on the character select, first character trophy, and treated as the most basic "default" character points to it being at least more than a little related. And before anyone goes "but World of Light so it's really Kirby," Sakurai is on record for saying his original choices for starter characters in that were Palutena and/or Bayonetta, and they're definitely minor characters in the grand scheme of things. And need I remind you it's not just "Smash," but SUPER Smash BROS.? Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 18:15, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * The fact that Mario content take up a decent chunk of the franchise's content doesn't automatically mean that we should treat it similar to a Mario content, or give depth to droves and droves of unrelated stuff. Also, in SSBU, there's 12 Mario-related fighters; out of the 87 fighters with the DLC, that means that all four of the Mario franchises in Smash only take up a mere 13.79% percent of the roster. That's not a bit of "disproportionately large representation" even relative to other series: Pokemon has 9 (counting PKMN Trainer as 3) equating to 10.34%, Fire Emblem has 8 equating to 9.2%. Mario being the first on the character select, being prominent on the cover doesn't mean that the Smash franchise is squared and mainly focused on Mario and that we thus should cover it en mass, when it comes to cover art Link and Pikachu both have been just as prominent (Pikachu is flat out front and center for Smash 4 Wii U); I don't see the correlation between box art and coverage. Mario's likely the "default" character here simply because he's one of Nintendo's most profitable and popular characters; not because he defines Smash. Also, the Super Bros title thing is looking too deep into it; plenty of game have had "super" in their name, and the bros. part may just be referring to the variety of characters, sometimes with a degree of familiarity. (Bros. has also been in other video game titles too, like Snow Bros.). 18:38, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * Having "Super" and "Bros." at the same time is clearly derivative, though, and pretending it might not be is just silly. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 18:48, March 2, 2021 (EST)
 * It could be derivative for the reason that it draws more attention from the many potential buyers who are acknowledged with Nintendo's most popular franchise, Super Mario Bros., which would make it a purely marketing-based decision. Same thing can be said about Mario’s prominence on promotional material—his recognizability is being exploited with the endgame being larger sales. That doesn't change the fact that the Smash Bros. series is not solely focused on Mario with his role in these games being one as big as Zelda's, Corrin's, and Duck Hunt Duo's. In fact, Mario hasn’t always been the only central boxart figure. Regarding the title, there is a similar case in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island where the title pretends there's a significant link between this game and Super Mario World when there isn't, probably also with the intention of driving more sales. 20:24, March 2, 2021 (EST)

So I have to ask, why should Smash take a backseat to other crossovers anyway? There's a lot of franchises represented in Smash, sure, but that doesn't at all diminish the prominent role the Mario franchise has in it. It's just as important as any other franchise, and in all honesty probably way more important than the majority of them because, well, it's Mario. I would argue that "too many franchises" alone being the reason for not covering it is getting dangerously close to the practice of not covering things because there's "too much information". And at that point, what even determines if there's "too many franchises"? The amount of franchises represented in the game alone? (And in Smash's case specifically, how would this be determined? Do random games getting, for example, a handful of trophies or spirits but nothing else, count toward the total? Or is it only franchises that have fighters, stages, and items? Potentially only some of those criteria?) Is it the percentage of Mario content in the game? (Again, how would this be determined? Only certain types of content? Absolutely everything in the game?) And how would either of these standards not be completely arbitrary, especially when software updates or DLC can skew these numbers at any time? Or are there no standards whatsoever and it's just some sort of gut level feeling? (Probably not the best way to run a wiki especially if you at all value consistency) This doesn't just affect Smash, realistically it affects our coverage of crossovers in general. Would we axe a good chunk of our Mario & Sonic coverage if they added a third franchise to the mix? If not, what about a fourth or a fifth? How arbitrarily big does a crossover have to become before we decide "nah, this isn't important enough to Mario anymore"? Will we ever get a crossover even close to as big as Smash again for any of what I said to even be important? Highly unlikely, but these are still questions that should probably be answered. -- 10:49, March 3, 2021 (EST)
 * My guess is that by the nature of many franchises being repped, this makes Smash less of a Mario game compared to Fortune Street and Mario & Sonic games. It's also suggested in the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia (yeah I know) that Mario doesn't play a major role compared to the classifications of the other crossovers. Instead of taking half of the content, Mario takes only a fraction. If they added a third franchise to Mario & Sonic, I still think proportionally, Mario is still a good chunk. Asking about fourth and fifth does muddy that water a bit, but there's not many games that do strictly four or five way crossovers that I can think of. Usually when it's more than three (even three I'm not having much idea) it's a general crossover of multiple franchises. I don't think it's relevant to ask. 00:31, March 4, 2021 (EST)
 * With all due respect to the Encyclopedia (who am I kidding, it doesn't deserve any) I really disagree with that. Mario is just as important to Smash as Link, Kirby, or Pikachu. To say that he's less important just because of the sheer amount of characters represented is looking at it from the wrong perspective, imo. (And if this was referring to the Mario franchise rather than Mario himself, swap out characters for franchises. My argument remains the same otherwise.) -- 11:09, March 4, 2021 (EST)

@7feetunder: The "other NIWA wikis don't do this" argument has been used many times before and the response is always we don't base our content on other wikis. Do you care to expand on why you think following in the footsteps of those other wikis is worth emulating here? -- 11:31, March 4, 2021 (EST)
 * Because we're the sole exception here. Obviously other wikis do things different from us (Pikipedia allows strategies, Smash Wiki covers the competitive scene), but it's still really telling that we're the only ones (besides Smash Wiki, of course) that cover Smash this much. If there were a good reason for it, I'd understand, but there is none. Like I said, the only difference between Mario and other franchises represented in Smash is that Mario has more of it. It still only accounts for a fraction of the representation. It's not marketed as a Mario game, it's marketed as a massive Nintendo (and increasingly, non-Nintendo) crossover fighter, and Mario just happens to be Nintendo's flagship franchise, so it gets the most reps. SSX on Tour has three Mario reps as playable characters, so unless you think we should have full coverage of that game, yes, we do have to decide what crossovers qualify for full coverage and which ones don't, otherwise this wiki would be bloated with extraneous articles and information. If a game comes out that we're not sure of, that's what discussions and proposals are for. Because let's be real, who's going to Super Mario Wiki to look up info on Solid Snake? 14:54, March 4, 2021 (EST)
 * Literally me 10 years ago? Anyways, I personally feel the title similarity at the very least indicates it is (or at least initially was) marketed as a Mario derivative, with the increasing divergence being comparable to the DK, Yoshi, and Wario games and how little they tend to have to do with the "core" Mario much of the time. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 15:22, March 4, 2021 (EST)
 * You're just sidestepping the issue here. I asked for something more than "other wikis don't do this" and all you gave me was "we're the only one that does this", which is just the same thing. What are your reasons for thinking that our current Smash coverage is an issue that don't take any other wikis into account? Admittedly you do bring up an interesting point regarding SSX on Tour, though I'd like to point out that we already have guidelines for distinguishing between proper crossovers and mere guest appearances not worthy of full coverage. I'd whole-heartedly categorize SSX on Tour as the latter since 1. It's part of a game series that already existed and 2. The game was released on multiple consoles and had the Mario content cut from the rest of them, clearly showing that this was never intended to be a Mario crossover game, just a fun extra for the Gamecube version. (Sidenote, I find it humorous how the supporters for this proposal keep rhetorically asking "who's going to read this on our wiki anyway" while handwaving away examples of people who actually have done that as irrelevant to the proposal. If it's not relevant, don't bring it up? Not saying you're one of the ones handwaving, but this isn't the first time it's been used.) -- 17:19, March 4, 2021 (EST)
 * I'm not sidestepping anything. Only the first three sentences of my previous comment had anything to do with the "other wikis don't do this" bit, the rest stand on their own. Not sure how you got that impression, but it's false. Anyway, the point I was trying to convey with even bothering to bring those up (and I realize I didn't make this clear enough) is that if we were for instance, a Pokémon wiki, would you still be advocating for full coverage of Smash? Would you go to a Fire Emblem wiki (or any other franchise with large representation in Smash) expecting to find articles on Rathalos and Mr. Saturn? What makes Mario so special that Smash needs to be treated like full-on Mario games instead of the massive multi-franchise crossovers they are? There's nothing different about Mario 's representation in Smash other than that there's more of it. 1/3 of Nintendo Land's attractions/minigames are themed off of Mario and its offshoots, but we still only cover the Mario content, even deleting Monita's article via proposal (and that's a standalone game and Wii U exclusive, so the arguments you made against SSX on Tour don't apply). Lastly, about the "who would look this stuff up here" bit: just because someone may find some use for us having an article on Rathalos doesn't mean we should have one, I'm sure someone out there also thought it was useful for us to have a list of characters who kissed Mario, but we still got rid of that, and for good reason. The only reasons to look up Solid Snake here instead of, say, Wikipedia or a Metal Gear wiki, is because you either A) want to know how he relates to the Mario franchise (with the answer being "he doesn't, outside of being in Smash) or B) you are already have prior knowledge of Super Mario Wiki's Smash coverage and want info specifically on his Smash appearances (in which case Smash Wiki is much more comprehensive). So, it's not irrelevant, it's just not good enough. 01:01, March 6, 2021 (EST)
 * So here's the thing. I wouldn't necessarily just go on any wiki and push for them to start fully covering Smash if they don't already. Every wiki does things their own way and that's fine. But we already do cover Smash, and I personally see no benefit to removing that coverage. As for Nintendo Land, I wouldn't really consider that a proper Mario crossover either since if you'll notice, no Mario characters or locations actually physically appear. It's all just theme park attractions and Miis in costumes, but no elements of the Mario series appear proper. -- 11:56, March 6, 2021 (EST)
 * "We already cover the Smash content, so we might as well keep it" is not an argument. It's conservative, change-fearing hogwash. Whether or not the Smash content already exists on the wiki should not be a factor whatsoever. Things change, and so does this wiki. There was a time when people made proposals to split levels from their worlds that failed. Nowadays, such a thing would be preposterous. If that can change, than so can our Smash coverage. There is a benefit to removing it - less Mario-irrelevant junk on our wiki. Smash gets more and more content with each installment, which means more and more articles on Mario-irrelevant fighters, items, stages, and bosses every time a new game or DLC comes out. It's not even consistent; we have articles on every Subspace Emissary stage but almost nothing on Ultimate 's World of Light. 18:38, March 6, 2021 (EST)

I wasn't sure about posting this comment since it's really more about my thoughts about the wiki's coverage of Smash in general rather than the specific points discussed in the proposal, but clearly it's what this comments section turned toward so whatever. At least I'll have something I can link back to.

A Mario crossover vs a adjectiveless crossover

I don’t feel Smash is the same thing as other crossovers featured on the wiki like the Mario & Sonic series, Fortune Street, etc. For Mario & Sonic, the pitch is having Mario and Sonic together, characters with a certain real-world history, is the core premise of the game. Something like Fortune Street is a bit more distanced because it was a long-running franchise before its Mario installments,, but even then a short research on the source series history show earlier installments did not have branded characters sot at least for Fortune Street and its DS predecessor specifically, the combination of Mario and Dragon Quest in a board game is the draw, and thus is makes sense to cover the game in full since Fortune Street is a game that has Mario at the core of its DNA, ie it’s a Mario crossover.

By contrast, the pitch for Smash Bros. is not “Super Mario vs everything else”, it’s ‘’Nintendo crossover’’. Since Mario is Nintendo’s mascot franchise and one of its biggest and most financially successful, there’s obviously a lot of content mined from Mario and its derived series… but not so much it can be said the basis, or cornerstone of the crossover nor is there any authorial statement it is foremost Mario with the other franchises along for the ride.

Oh yeah, the name. It’s probably true ‘’Super Smash Brothers’’ was specifically meant to riff on Super Mario Brothers, but one could just argue it was done for the pun rather than to highlight Mario is meant to be the star of the show. I don’t feel it changes what I argue above.

On cascading coverage and why I think our way of covering Smash Bros. goes into nonsense territory

Smash Bros is a very modular game with a lot of content and mechanics that interact with each other. Currently the thinking is -> Mario characters are playable in the game (and there is other Mario stuff) -> The game gets a page (that part I don’t object to) -> The other characters/items/stages that are not from Mario also get a page, because Mario characters can fight those characters or use those tiems. It’s all quite logical on the surface

The comparison I’m about to make is quite niche and certainly painfully nerdy, but I feel it’s the one that most directly describe the way we do things right now and why I think they’re flawed: Let’s imagine for a moment that there is a wiki on the Mobile Suit Gundam media franchise (there’s one, but picture one that is more exhaustive and like us in term of coverage). Now a good Gundam wiki would cover the Super Robot Wars franchise: for those not familiar. Super Robot Wars is a long-running series of crossover video games that combines multiple franchises from the mech genre in turn-based strategy games that link all those franchises in one continuous storyline (usually). It makes sense: while Gundam is not the basis of the crossver (just as how Mario isn’t really the basis of Smash Bros.), the original anime and its countless sequels and alternate universe spinoffs makes up a large chunk of Super Robot War’s content, so it makes sense to talk about it.

However, if that Gundam Wiki applied the same logic to Super Robot War as we do to Smash Bros, it will go a lot beyond just talking about Super Robot Wars as it is relevant to Gundam. It would have individual pages on the mechs, characters, locations fictional concepts, etc. of other massively popular franchises like Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Mobile Police Patlabor, Neon Genesis Evangelion, the original characters and storylines of Super Robot Wars itself and countless other properties not mentioned, not just because the fictional storyline of Super Robot Wars have those properties intersect, but because the format of Super Robot Wars means you can have the robots from Gundam fight the robots from Macross in the game’s turn-based battles and that counts as an interaction, just as we justify having a page for Joker Persona 5, not because that character has any substantial narrative or real-world ties to the Mario franchise, but because he is playable in a crossover video game Mario also appears in, and Mario can punch him.

Now consider there are well over a dozen of Super Robot Wars games (though granted a subset of it only features the series original characters), exhaustive coverage would mean you end up neck-deep into complete nonsense territory, with well over hundreds of articles on robots, characters, lore etc, that ultimately don’t have any link to the Gundam franchise beyond that they appear in a crossover game, not a Gundam game, but a crossover game that Gundam appears in, taking the warped view that Super Robot Wars is not a crossover game that includes Gundam content, but a Gundam game that includes other fictional franchises. And I can take the analogy further: just as some users here appeal to keeping Smash Bros content not necessarily because of its relevance to Mario but because the existing Smash Bros resource is arguably lacking in certain regards, some users in this hypothetical Gundam wiki scenario could feel that, because of Wikipedia being what it is and the lack of dedicated ressources for the more obscure properties represented, the state of the matter would mean that the Gundam Wiki’s would ironically have the best pages on certains characters, etc, and even if a page on the protagonist of Detonator Orgun does not further the reader’s understand of Gundam as a fictional universe or real-world media franchise, that it should stay as an useful ressource to the western mech fandom. But the "we shouldn't base ourselves on other wikis" goes both ways; just as the fact NIWA wikis don't cover Smash Bros anywhere as rigolously as we do is not an argument in itself for scaling back our coverage, the feeling that the main Smash Bros ressource is lacking in some respects is not an argument to keep it either.

I was going to leave it at that, but the exchange featuring 7feetunder made me wonder... if we have page on Smash-exclusive characters on the basis of "Well you can fight those characters and pick up those items while playing as Mario characters", then for what reason really do we make a distinction for those EA gamecube games. The Mario characters in SSX and NBA Street V3 are just as fully realized as the other playable characters and not segregated to their own mode, meaning they can trade hoops and fouls just as well. Those games being released on other systems do not change that. Bring on the page I say! --Glowsquid (talk) 11:32, March 6, 2021 (EST)
 * Those are guest appearances unique to a single release of a multiplatform game, whilst in Smash, Mario's depicted as a headliner character consistently. Those examples are more similar to Link in SoulCalibur II or all those random characters in that one Mortal Kombat game (or was it Tekken?). Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 16:52, March 6, 2021 (EST)

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