MarioWiki:Proposals

 http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/9/9/17/f_propcopym_9045f2d.png 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. Signing with the signature code (~) is not allowed due to technical issues.

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 vote and discuss on the issue during that week. The "deadline" for the proposal is one week from posting at:
 * 3) Monday to Thursday: 17:00 (5pm)
 * 4) Friday and Saturday: 20:00 (8pm)
 * 5) Sunday: 15:00 (3pm)
 * 6) Every vote should have a reason accompanying it.
 * 7) At any time a vote may be rejected if at least three active users believe the vote truly has no merit or was cast in bad faith. However, there must be strong reasons supporting the invalidation.
 * 8) " # " should be added under the last vote of each support/oppose section to show another blank line.
 * 9) 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.
 * 10) 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.
 * 11) Proposals can not be made about System Operator promotions and demotions. Sysops can only be promoted and demoted by the will of Bureaucrats.
 * 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.

The times are in EDT, 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 Saturday night at 11:59 PM EDT, the deadline is the next Saturday night at 8:00 PM. If it is a minute later, the deadline is a day plus 15 hours (Sunday), as opposed to a day minus 4 hours.

CURRENTLY: , 27 2024 (EST)

Create a Rules Page
How do I begin? Oh yes, umm...I am making a proposal for a rules page. Like any other wiki, website, or collaborative project, we must have a set of rules and a page to find them. I wanted to create this myself, but I also wanted community approval. So how about it?

Proposer: Deadline: February 15th 2009 15:00

Support

 * 1) - Per above
 * 2) don't see anything wrong with it.
 * 3) - Per Lu-igi board!  Amen.
 * 4) - A coherent and official rules page outlining the basic rules and guidelines would be good. It would have links to the more indepth policy pages, of course. Right?

Comments
We have many Rules pages. See: Category:MarioWiki Policy. --
 * Yeah, but this is a directory of rules. --
 * I don't understand. That is what the category is for - it generates a directory of rules. --

Funny, I was going to write two versions of the MarioWiki Rule/guidebook (it's in my to-do list), the professional version; for you SoS. ...And the more user-based/funny version, for me, Neu, and maybe others with comical drawings I can make with it. :3 Oh, MarioWiki:Help is like a contents section; from a book. And the one Mr. SoS posted, it's like you can make whole pages appear together with and read them all together as a bundle. :o Sadly, I don't have time for that right at this moment. :o The book will cover just about every single rule that is in effect, if I can try that is. :o

What Son of Suns said, exclamation mark, smiley face, etc.
 * Personally, I think we should have a page directory that's easier to find than a category. Even Ghost Jam thought of doing this.
 * Very true, and the fact that some "rules" aren't even found on the MarioWiki pages, but on Help pages makes it all the more difficult. For example, there are currently no MarioWiki pages pertaining to Template policy, while there are regulations about them floating about, such as the rule against creating template redirects I stumbled upon by chance in the ending paragraph of Help:Redirect. Having everything together in a point-by-point list would be quite usefull. Even though many aspects of the Wiki require long, windy explanations, having a bare-bones list to build upon would make it much easier to understand the more abstract concepts as a whole (especially the ones spread out over multiple pages, such as vandalism, warnings and blocking). However, this will require a lot of work and collaboration, and might not be something any one user should undertake on their own. -

Removals
''None at the moment.

Splits & Merges
None at the moment.

Use First Official English Title for Articles
Although we are an English wiki, we are first and foremost an international English wiki, reaching out to English speakers from all over the world, including many non-native speakers. However, some of our de facto naming practices for articles have shown a heavy North American bias. Therefore, I believe we should create a rule stating that the name of articles should reflect the official English name from their region of first release. All official English names would be stated in the introduction of course; only the title would change. For example, Mario Strikers Charged would be changed into Mario Strikers Charged Football, as that game was released in Europe before North America. Similarly, articles about subjects from games released in Europe or Australia before North America would also have their titles changed. In this case, the kart articles from Mario Kart Wii would change to their PAL titles (example: Daytripper becomes Royal Racer). Games and article subjects first released in North America would keep their original titles. I feel this is the best way to resolve any conflicts about different English titles from around the world - release dates are the most objective standard we have.

Proposer: Deadline: February 17, 17:00

Support

 * 1) - Per above.  This should help us curb American cultural imperialism at the wiki while simultaneously fostering a spirit of internationalism. =)
 * 2) - Though resistance is futile, I must say that this is one of the most biased Proposal discussions ever, since 99.9999999999% (OK, a little bit less) of the users here are American. Per all of Son of Son's reasoning.
 * 3) - Per Son of Suns. The American bias here is enormous, I remember there was a proposal to clear the wiki of British spelling... And it almost passed!

Oppose

 * 1) - Sorry, Son of Suns, I'm going to have to oppose this proposal for three reasons (1) The founder of this wiki as well as the HQ of this place is based in the United States (if I'm not mistaken), (2) the majority of visitors are in the United States area, I believe... and, (3) for game articles, we usually make sure to place different titles in there anyway (basically at the start of the articles themsevles). So, once again, I'm going to have to say "no deal" on this front.
 * 2) - For me it would be good, as I bought my DS and Wii games in Spain, but I'm per MeritC.
 * 3) - Your overall goal for internationalism is highly considerate and very thoughtful towards our viewers who are from locations outside of North America, but I have to oppose. My reasons are that inconsistency in an encyclopedia (especially one of high standards, such as ours), is very unprofessional. Mentioning the PAL regions' names for games and objects in the opening sentence of an article is good enough; it still keeps this valuable information, yet it keeps all of our articles consistent. If I'm not mistaken, this proposal would also get rid of . I'd also like to note that Wikipedia, an encyclopedia with a much larger user base, and an even higher page view ratio does not do this. All articles have a North American English name, so long as there is one to provide. (An example is that Mario Strikers Charged is not called Mario Strikers Charged Football.) I'm not saying that we should follow Wikipedia to a tee, but overall, I feel that the inconsistency will only cause confusion and unprofessionalism throughout the site.
 * 4) - MeritC is correct that the website operates out of the US and most of our users (by far) are North American.  I oppose this simply because of how confusing such a regulation would be to implement.  For the editors: It would require users who wish to use the linking function to memorize where each title was originally released and whether each subject's first appearance was released in North America or Europe first to avoid linking to redirects.  Furthermore, we would have to comb through the entire Wiki, conforming it to this new standard.  It's going to be very messy and confusing without some way to monitor which articles have been updated and which ones have not.  For the readers: We'd simply be confusing them, especially in the time it would take us to update the Wiki for this new policy.  It's going to lead to a large amount of clicks just to find out that, for example, Mario Strikers Charged Football is NOT a new game where Mario and friends play American football, but rather our new name for a subject that we previously called Mario Strikers Charged.  Yes, it's a hassle for our non-US editors and readers to have to check around for the American names of subjects, but it's easier than making every contributor find out the correct name according to this policy.  And, for the record, I'm not being an imperialist. :)  If most users here were from, say, the UK, I'd be up for using the UK names.
 * 5) - Per all.
 * 6) - Yah, most of the people wouldn't even know the other titles for the articles. I think it would be safe to say that we should just leave them the way they are, they aren't causing any problems are they? Like the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And also Per all.
 * 7) I disagree the proposal in response for all - Also, it's better use the official north american names since the wiki was created in North America, don't you think? Use "original english name regarding to the region that the game was created" sounds pretty "weird" :/ (a word that you don't expect certainly).
 * 8) - Per all. Sometimes it's a pain to cow down to the American standards (I cringe each time I read "colour" as "color"), but you've just gotta grin and bear it.
 * 9) - I don't like to flame so I'll just say "per MeritC", or as I like to say, Merit Badge for MeritCool!!!

Comments
To respond to MeritC:


 * 1) The founder of this wiki is not only from the United States, but from the Earth. The wiki itself is "based" in a global communications network.
 * 2) That's a big assumption. I would say a majority of our visitors are from outside the United States.  Besides, we will always have redirects of any American English name to the game or subject article, so American visitors won't get list, and...
 * 3) ...the game articles, as I stated above, will have both names in the intro. Only the title on the top of the screen would be the first international English name.  So European titled articles will have both European and American English names in the intro, just as American titled articles will have both American and European English names in the intro.

Again, this is not for every article - only those subjects which were released in a different English region before the United States (and most of the time, the titles are the same anyways). --
 * Actually, MeritC is right on point 2... last I heard. I believe Steve can shed more light, but the last time I saw the figures we are ridiculously US-based in terms of readership.  15:10, 10 February 2009 (EST)

I must say this proposal really remind me of the whole Super Mario Strikers/Football move fiasco with ALTTP. Anyone remember that? --Blitzwing 15:40, 10 February 2009 (EST)
 * Yeah. Who could forget it?  Luckily there's much less accusation involved here.  17:56, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Son of Sons, you're a legend. Yet another reason I've mostly retired from this Wiki: I'm sick of this American superiority. And also, the time sig code stuffs up when I use it >_>

Thanks Dom. This is exactly my point - we are turning off our international friends because changing things would be "too confusing," even though the way things are now could be as confusing for international users, and even downright offensive or discriminatory. Basically, keeping things as they are can prevent users from editing, as the titles we use discriminate against users of certain backgrounds. Having an official policy in place that finds a compromise for all English-speaking peoples is the best course of action to encourage more users to edit, and for more users to feel welcome at the wiki.

To Stooben Rooben: Actually, this system would not be unprofessional, but highly organized. We would base article titles on official release dates, which looks much more professional than keeping to one "region," which is highly opinionated and connected to perceptions of superiority. If anything, our articles would be more consistent, as we would base everything on release dates. And this would not get rid of the other language template - that is for subjects that don't have an official English name but a name in another language. This proposal is only referring to subjects with two or more official English names. And actually you are incorrect about Wikipedia. Some articles actually use the European title, such as wikipedia:Yoshi's Universal Gravitation and wikipedia:Wario Land: The Shake Dimension. They don't have consistency, but we could if we used a release date policy. This would make the wiki less confusing and more professional.

To Stumpers: You have to consider how confusing everything already is for other users. Perhaps we should be trying to learn other titles on both sides. And of course this will affect much of the wiki, but that's the point. The whole point of the wiki is to change as needed. Stooby's recent template proposal is going to effect thousands of articles. But it passed, and now Stooby and perhaps others have to implement the policy and update all the articles on the wiki to reflect it. Regarding this proposal, I would be willing to edit all articles as needed - a PipeProject could even be created. Again, that's the purpose of PipeProjects - to organize massive changes to the wiki. And wikis are supposed to educate people - I would be happy for people to learn Mario Strikers Charged Football was not a new game but the first English name of Mario Strikers Charged, just as I would want someone to learn that King Koopa from the cartoons is based on Bowser from the video games, as King Koopa redirects to Bowser. We would actually be teaching people something. And making things harder for non-US users is pretty discriminatory - things should be equally "hard" for everyone. --

Alright, so my point about Wikipedia being solely American-titled was flawed. I concur with that. And maybe it wouldn't be unprofessional; I wasn't trying to jump the gun when I said that. But I would like to note one thing that you said that I find to be highly flawed. "Even though the way things are now could be as confusing for international users, and even downright offensive or discriminatory." Yeah, that may be so; I won't argue with you there. But, in that same sense, isn't this proposal possibly discriminatory or offensive to non-English languages? Say a game is released in Japan first. Its Japanese title, not the English translation mind you, should be said game's article title. (For example, The Lost Levels would be renamed "スーパーマリオブラザーズ2".) I hope you don't take offense to this comment, as none is intended, but that's just the way I see it.


 * Yeah, that's why I noted at the beginning of the proposal that we are an English wiki, which of course leads to discrimination against people that speak other languages. This proposal, along with everything else on this English wiki, is discriminatory in that regard.  However, within the English-speaking world, which we specifically cater to, we should be as free of discrimination as possible. --

Although I have to oppose the proposal, I do think that this website sometimes shows wwwaaayyy to much bias toward America. You guys aren't as high and mighty as think you are. Besides, its 'colour', not 'color' people! I'm from Australia. Its epically awesome. Getting to the point, some articles actually have better names in one region, for example, Wario Land: The Shake Dimension sounds better than Wario Land: Shake It!.

I'm ashamed that Walkazo supported and said we non-Americans should just accept this sh... er, stuff. But anyway, just thought I'd say that SoS's comment above this makes perfect sense - if we were catered to a Japanese audience, we wouldn't even be called the "Super Mario Wiki" - we'd be the *insert Japanese words*. Oh, and this proposal reflects some major cultural issues in the non-virtual world.

Knomaj: "Color" and "colour" are both correct. And before you say anything, I'm Brazilian, not American. I don't wanna start a war between the NTSC and PAL regions. About Stooben's point: He is right. If this proposal passes, we shouldn't discriminate non-English languages. So, if a game was first released in Japan, we should put its title in Japanese. For example, Mario Party DS, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Super Sluggers, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, Mario Power Tennis would have their titles translated into Japanese. And I'm sure there are other games that were first released in Japan.


 * Yes, both "color" and "colour" are correct. And Paper Yoshi, you are incorrect about the proposal.  If this proposal passes, we would still use English titles.  That's what the proposal explicitly says.  There would have to be another proposal to use Japanese titles or titles in other languages. --  P.S. Many games were released in Japan first, especially games from the good old days...(nostalgia trip)...

This proposal is clearly a direct response to my comment here, so I'd thought I'd reply, even though I'm not voting. I am sorry that Americans believe they are superior. We are not. We are lazy, unproductive people with no work ethic whatsoever. I am truly sorry about that. I wish I could change it. I really have nothing else to say about this proposal, as I would prefer uniformity with the names, but I don't believe we should use all American names. So yes, I am sorry. But I have nothing else to add.

This needs to be said: all these calls of "American superiority/inperialism" and some such are unwarranted generalizations against our American users, and it's beginning to border on bad faith and personal attack. I hardly see why this proposal is becoming a free pass to generically bash the blanket term "American" while forgetting that some of our most dedicated users who made the Wiki what it is today are American. This is not a black and white issue, as anyone who actually read both the oppose and support sides knows. The opposers are not automatically being pig-headed Americans and the supporters are not automatically being free, forward-thinking globalists. No matter which side you fall on, there are pros and cons to the issue. And, if you'd like to find out more about them, they've already been written about in depth above. So, here's what we all need to do: please assume good faith, as our policies state, and reread both the supports and the opposes to familiarize yourselves with reasons for each side that go beyond "YAYZ-AMERICA!!!11!!" and "BOO-IMPERIALISTS!!!!111!!", because this argument should not be about which nation you're from. To respond to SoS, I am aware of PipeProjects and the Wiki's goals, but I think about it like this: there is so much that still needs to be improved upon on this Wiki (yes, including the templates). I just couldn't justify taking away a substantial amount of user energy and time for what ultimately is going to be a very minor change when there is so much other work to do, just like I couldn't justify the outlawing of non-American spellings.
 * OK, I suppose I was a bit too wide with my accusations. There are a lot of great, selfless American people out there. And a lot of them are editors and admins of the Wiki. I am truly sorry if I offended anyone; I was simply saying that a lot of Americans in general do have a "superior" attitude towards other nations. I am glad that these people do not often edit the wiki. Dang, I fell like an idiot now... I should have kept my mouth shut. >_>

No worries Bloc Partier. I think it is important that we get our feelings and ideas out into the open, for better or for worse. And thanks Stumpers. We do have to remember to keep good faith. I believe we are all trying out best most of the time. The purpose of this proposal is not to attack people on either sides, but to debate wiki policy as it is connected to the heated issue of cultural imperialism. And to respond to your comment, I guess it's a matter of personal sense of importance. I feel this proposal would bring MAJOR change to the wiki, and may be more important than some of the other things that need to be done. Indeed I feel such a move could increase traffic from English-speakers in other nations. (Chicken or the egg, right? Do a majority of Americans work on the wiki, thus justifying American titles?  Or do American titles discourage editors from other countries, allowing Americans to assume the majority?)  Anyways, yes, it is important to keep good faith. We are all working to make the Mario wiki the best source of Mario information (in at least the English-speaking world). Debates and changes are important, but so is respecting and helping other users. =) --

I see your point, Son of Suns. So I'll remove my oppose, but I'm not gonna support the proposal. I just don't know what should I do. Support? Oppose? Neither? So... Good luck for you. Just solve this "little war".


 * Block Partier - thanks for the apology. Don't feel like an idiot, okay?  My comments were an attempt to refocus the argument, not to point a finger at you.

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.