MarioWiki talk:Featured articles

"All Appearances"
One of the FA requirements is: "[An article must] be sourced with all available sources and appearances." Currently, there is a debate on whether this includes non-Mario-related appearances as well. I propose, in order to make this line unambiguous, to add: "be sourced with all available sources and Mario-related appearances." Any objections? 05:51, 25 September 2009 (EDT)
 * Nope, I totally agree, me and 2257 were discussing that on chat
 * Ok, if no one objects until tomorrow, I'll edit the rule. 06:43, 26 September 2009 (EDT)
 * I agree with this proposed policy: It is impossible by our current coverage policy to allow non-Mario content in the articles, it would be nice to have our Featured Article system follow the rules. 09:26, 26 September 2009 (EDT)

I really don't understand what's wrong with the current rule preventing non-Mario articles from being featured. Looking at the article Ganon and being a Zelda fan, it just looks very incomplete to me, and I don't understand how it can be considered high quality enough to feature. It's adequate to understand the very minor way the character is related to Mario, but it's not an adequate amount of information for an FA, as it says virtually nothing about the character himself. And looking at it as a Mario fan, I'm confused as to how a topic so tangentially related to Mario could ever be considered important enough to feature. It has to send a confusing message to guests when they come to the main page and get an infodump about a Mario-unrelated topic. 04:56, 28 September 2009 (EDT)
 * D'oh, I somehow forgot about this discussion, sorry. Anyway: What is wrong with the current rule in my opinion is that since we're the Mario Wiki, nobody expects to read non-Mario content here. If people come here to read an article about, say, Kirby, they don't expect any information that has nothing to do with Mario. There are other sources of information then. See: Kirby's or Ganondorf's role in the Marioverse is bigger than some original Mario character's. It would be unfair to reject FA status for characters like Ganondorf when the only reason is that they originated from a different series. Articles should cover Mario content, that's our task. And any article that meets this requirement should get the chance to become featured. 13:01, 2 October 2009 (EDT)
 * Shoot, I forgot about it again >.< So, are there any objections left? Otherwise I'll amend the rule tomorrow (if I don't forget it again...) 06:26, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

Support Votes
It's obvious we have to do something about the support votes on FA nominations. Until some months ago, we would just accept any support vote. Personally, I liked it that way, but there were legitimate objections because too much "fan votes" with elaborate "reasons" clutter up the pages. So currently admins are allowed to remove support votes. In my opinion, this made things worse because there are no rules when a support vote should be removed - admins can do it at will. made a good suggestion that could satisfy both sides: we could keep all the support votes, but remove the reasons attached to them, or at least the reasons of the votes that come after the first or fifth one or so. This way, we would still accept any votes, even if they're "fan votes" (which do no harm, since from the sixth support vote on they don't count anyway), but we would avoid cluttered up nomination pages. Of course, this would only apply to FA nominations, not to Unfeature ones, where still any vote needs a reason. What do you think about this? 14:39, 30 December 2009 (EST)
 * Considering that 90% of support votes essentially say "per the first guy", this sounds like an elegant system that prevents wasting our time with requesting a reason for the 10th vote in an FA nomination. - 16:19, 30 December 2009 (EST)
 * I agree with Cobold. Additionally, I'd like to say:

"...this made things worse because there are no rules when a support vote should be removed - admins can do it at will."
 * This is not true! There are many votes I'd like to remove, only being held back by those rules that "don't exist". - 16:28, 30 December 2009 (EST)
 * Per all Edo said. -- 16:33, 30 December 2009 (EST)
 * @Edo: Where are those rules? The proposal didn't mention them, IIRC. 20:00, 30 December 2009 (EST)
 * I believe to remember the Proposal clarified those rules. Any vote that does not relate to the article it supports can be removed. The drawback of this is that votes are safe from removal as long as they relate to the article in some way. There are many votes I would personally consider to be fan votes, just with a "great article" quickly attached to them. But out of respect of the rules and other user's opinions, I do not dare to touch them. If you just claim there is no rule and we just act randomly and at will, this feels like a slap to the face for me (and I assume for Tucayo as well). - 20:10, 30 December 2009 (EST)
 * Sorry, I didn't intend to offend you. I didn't say you actually act at will but that the proposal allows us admins to do so. This is actually the case; the proposal description was as short as this, with no clarification what exactly are those votes that "do anything but help". So basically, I could go and remove all votes starting from the 6th, since they do not help (only the first 5 votes count). 20:18, 30 December 2009 (EST)

Thank you all for your opinions. Before I actually make a proposal about it, there are a few more questions to talk about. What do you think how many votes with reasons we should keep? Delete all reasons but the first one? Or keep the first five, as T.c.w7468 originally suggested? Another thing is: how do we inform the users that reasons are not allowed? We could just delete the reasons after people voted, but that would be quite a lot of work and likely lead to confusion. 06:32, 31 December 2009 (EST)
 * I'd say we delete every reason except for the first one. We must view this issue in regards to the problem we want to eliminate: The lack of quotable reason. The first one to support doesn't have this problem, since he or she usually has some sort of reason to nominate the article. Every additional vote is just a "per", so it doesn't need a reason. As for the additional work: I'm ready to do my share. Systematic maintenance like this is one of my specialities. - 21:26, 3 January 2010 (EST)
 * When will this start?? -- 22:48, 3 January 2010 (EST)
 * Once Time Q's questions are answered, I assume. - 22:55, 3 January 2010 (EST)
 * Thanks for your input, I think it's a good idea to have only a reason for the first one. 09:44, 4 January 2010 (EST)

In my opninion, fan votes really don't do much harm, because they have about as much reason as "Per [User]" that most votes' support reasons are anyway(which, now that I fully read the discussion, has been mentioned.) Also, as for the no reasons for following votes, I think we could have a little box below the FANOMSTAT template that has the reason for nomination, rather than having the reason next to the nominator's name. (I can create an example page if you'd like to see what I'm trying to say)
 * GM's idea is really good. -- 21:28, 4 January 2010 (EST)
 * I don't think this is a good idea because this would mean that each supporter had to support the reasons put by the nominator. I mean, one should support only under one circumstance anyway, that is if one is of the opinion that all the criteria listed here are fulfilled. But we can't force users to put all those criteria and say they're fulfilled, that would be redundant. So why not remove the first reasons as well, or make it optional?
 * Perhaps make it so users can add something, if they have someting else to say. -- 11:31, 5 January 2010 (EST)
 * I honestly think it doesn't matter if users have reasons or not(for support votes, at least). People could choose to add comments next to their name or just leave it blank. IMO, it doesn't make much of a difference. --
 * Yes, I agree with that. 16:47, 5 January 2010 (EST)

Ok, it's time to come to a conclusion here. Here are some questions with my personal answers: If you have any objections to my suggestions, please state them. Thanks. 11:05, 15 February 2010 (EST)
 * How many reasons will we keep, with all others after them being deleted? Having only one reason from the original nominator is reasonable, IMO.
 * Will it be obligatory for the nominator to give a ("valid") reason? I'd tend to say no, but for the sake of the compromise, I would agree to require a reason for the first supporter that in some way relates to the quality of the article. However, when we're in doubt, we should assume good faith in the nominator (i.e., "I like it" would be sufficient, no need to repeat each and every FA condition).
 * How do we inform users of the changes? It would probably be sufficient to edit the FA page, and the message that appears when one tries to nominate an article (don't know how it's called, it's at the top of this page). The reasons that will be added regardless of those notices can be removed manually.
 * Should we make a proposal before we amend the changes? I'd say no, since there have not been any objections to the basic idea. Also, it's really just an administrative issue, those are usually handled without proposals.

1: I say 1. 2: I say yes, they should nominate it for something. 3: I say put somthiing in saying "Please check our new FA policies!". 4: I say no :) -- 15:45, 15 February 2010 (EST)
 * Thanks, Tucayo. If there are no further objections, I will make the changes on Friday. 14:42, 16 February 2010 (EST)
 * Oh, one more thing. What will we do about the support votes on the current FA nominations? We can't just remove the reasons retroactively, can we? 14:44, 16 February 2010 (EST)
 * Well, I don't know. Leaving a message on the voters' talk pages would be the best choice, although there's a lot of users that voted and are now gone.
 * Perhaps leave the reasons in current nominations, but remove it for future ones. This also includes any votes posted after the day the policy gets changed. -- 15:32, 16 February 2010 (EST)
 * I also thought about this possibility, but there's one problem: some nominations for major topics (Boo, Luigi, Mario, ...) stay here for months. It would be strange if at the end of the year no reasons will be allowed except for the Mario nomination just because it was already there when we made the changes. 15:49, 16 February 2010 (EST)
 * You have a good point. And I had an idea about deleting nominations older than X months, but I dont know if you would like it.... If its not that, perhaps we can simply go and remove all reasons. After all, theya re not needed -- 15:46, 17 February 2010 (EST)
 * How about we delete a nomination if either the article that's being nominated breaks one of the rules, oppose votes outweigh support votes by five or the reason that the nominator chose to nominate the article wasn't valid?

I agree, we cant have those forever. -- 16:30, 17 February 2010 (EST)
 * Those are some good ideas, I'll think about them and give my opinion later, but we should discuss that somewhere else, as it has nothing to do with the removal of support vote reasons. I think I agree with Tucayo, we should simply remove the reasons of all the supports on current nominations. Perhaps we can wait until they are edited by someone before we remove the reasons, in order to avoid manipulating the time they were last edited (remember that nominations are deleted when they stay unedited for one month). 16:49, 17 February 2010 (EST)