MarioWiki:Proposals

List of talk page proposals

 * Split into Adult Shine Block and Small Shine Block. (Discuss) Deadline: December 1, 2016, 23:59 GMT

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Allow .APNGs and create a notice template related to them
This proposal will overturn this one and will likely reinstate this proposal that attempted to create a notice for APNG images. It will set the .apng format as the preferred animated format, overturning our current .gif preference and rewording slightly in Image use policy.

We briefly had some .apngs running around in this wiki, though we have disallowed them mainly because of lack of universal browser support (notably, in Chrome).

The current animated format we use and prefer, .gif, however, is highly flawed. Not to mention, it's very outdated. This is because it supports only 256 different colors, making the images indexed, which isn't really much of an issue because most sprites are below this format. It also does not allow semi-transparent values, thus making it "all-or-nothing". It also usually isn't a problem, but recently, we have several images that use semi-transparent values, but are forced into a .gif format, thus greatly reducing the quality of these images. It also forces the transparency to look horrible and resemble a poorly-cropped image that goes against our own policy on transparent images. Arguably, this forced change also goes against our aim to give game-accurate impressions.

APNGs are intended to be a replacement for the outdated .gif images, but again, its biggest issue is that it lacks universal browser support. I've been informed recently, however, that Chrome, the biggest offender, is likely going to have APNG support in the future. Otherwise, for any other browser that doesn't support APNG I don't think we should have to bend backwards to stick to a superseded format just because some browsers don't bother keeping up with the times.

If this proposal passes, we'll have to create a notice template as in this proposal (see comments section). I also don't think we should get out of our way to convert every single .gif to .apng either, but we have to, at the minimum, allow .apngs. We might have gotten away with .gifs due to the simplicity of most sprites, but we have some recent games that use sprites that don't transition well into .gif at all, which includes Wario Land: Shake It! and Paper Mario: Color Splash and we have some miscellaneous animated images as shown here that would benefit from staying as an .apng rather than a .gif.

In brief:


 * This proposal allows .apngs because of transparency and indexing issues with .gif. .gif is an outdated format, and it shows.
 * A template on apngs will be created to warn users that use browsers without .apng support.
 * This proposal does not intend that .gifs must be replaced with .apngs.

Proposer: Deadline: November 25, 2016, 23:59 GMT

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.