MarioWiki:Proposals

Expand Featured Articles writing guidelines
Currently our writing standards regarding what constitutes as a Featured Article at MarioWiki: Featured Articles is a vague list of short phrases and one-liners, which makes it far too loose to interpretation to my liking, especially for a process where quality control is key and enforcing these guidelines is a pivotal step to picking out only the best articles in MarioWiki. I propose that we expand these guidelines into small little paragraphs, detailing what exactly we want out of a Featured Article. This will follow the model similar to how we write out our good writing policy, where key points are organized under a header as a list first, and a paragraph detailing what we want under the header will be elaborated on.

If you want the specifics on how exactly I want the writing guidelines to look like, I have worked on it in the following sandbox page, where most of my proposed points is detailed out and worked on


 * User:Baby Luigi/Featured Articles guidelines

If you suggest any improvements to the writing or any further clarity, please comment on the proposal!

Proposer: Deadline: February 15, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Everything looks nicely policy-oriented, clear-cut, and not too confusing for the average reader. Per Baby Luigi.
 * 2) Strong support. While I'm not usually very worried about the whole featured article thing, I have seen cases where a nomination does not pass simply because the list of prerequisites was not clear, either because the nominator believed the article was ready when it was not or because the opposition believed the article wasn't ready, even though it may have been. There it is. That phrase. May have been. The current policy is so vague that it doesn't answer users' question about what an article should look like and leaves them thinking "Well, I guess it could be ready. Maybe, maybe not." You shouldn't have to actually nominate an article to find out if it's ready, the policy should tell you all that. Frankly, I'm surprised it's stayed as long it has. No question, that whole section needs a rethink. Per all.
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) Per all, though I feel the first sentence of the "Be sourced with all available Mario-related appearances." section should say "All appearances of the subject need to be present in the article."
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Having a well written and detailed explanation of the various points is always good.
 * 9) Per all
 * 1) Per all

Comments
Shouldn't there be a draft of this beforehand? Rule #11 especially comes to mind: "An article must be of reasonable length and not be marked as a stub." At first glance, it's hard to know where to start. Only if we put a little more thought into the actual content (such as adding information on how certain sections should be formatted, and not to mention between certain types of subjects) would this proposal actually be clear-cut and easier to implement. (Not that this will cause me to cast a conditional oppose vote, just making sure .) 15:41, 1 February 2018 (EST)
 * Never mind, didn't see the subpage. I'm apparently a little hasty. 15:42, 1 February 2018 (EST)

For the sake of proper grammar, can you change "An article must be..." to "An article must..."? It just bugs me to see "be...be" or "be...not be". - 21:49, 1 February 2018 (EST)
 * Noted. 17:15, 2 February 2018 (EST)

New features
None at the moment.

Delete the articles for Galaxy and Galaxy 2's conjecturally-named "minigames"
We currently have articles on four "minigames" from Super Mario Galaxy, namely ray surfing, Bob-omb Blasting, Bubble Blowing, and Star Ball Rolling, as well as two more from Galaxy 2, Crate Burning and Fluzzard Gliding. However, out of all of these, only ray surfing is officially called that in-game. I slapped templates on the other Galaxy "minigames'" articles, but I'm pretty sure they're outright conjecture. The ones from SMG2, Crate Burning and Fluzzard Gliding, actually have templates. Even worse, "Star Ball Rolling" and "Bubble Blowing" aren't even minigames. The Star Ball and Bubble are just game mechanics that change how Mario or Luigi move through a level, and these "minigames" only exist in this wiki's imagination. The Star Ball Rolling article is completely redundant with the Star Ball article. Galaxy's bubbles don't have their own article, but even if they do deserve a separate article, the correct answer would be to simply split them off, not create an article for a nonexistent minigame. Which is why when I brought this up on Galaxy's talk page a couple months ago, my thoughts were that these two specifically were the ones that needed to be put down. After all, Bob-omb Blasting, Crate Burning, and Fluzzard Gliding are conjecturally-named too, but at least they're actual minigames, right?

But now that I've thought about it, those don't deserve articles either. There exist plenty of nameless minigames, such as the Hoohoo Spirit collecting and Guffawha Ruins platform jumping games from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, numerous bonus games from the Donkey Kong Country series, and several racing games from Donkey Kong 64, which don't have articles, and I can't think of any that do. In other words, there's no precedent for the existence of articles on nameless minigames. Stuff like "Bob-omb Blasting" and "Crate Burning" can simply be described in the articles for the missions that feature these "minigames", which is how stuff like this is handled for other games (like the Blooper surfing missions or Roller Coaster Balloons from Sunshine), so why should Galaxy and Galaxy 2 be any different? So let's solve this inconsistency. Here are our options:


 * Delete all of the conjecturally-named minigames: If this option passes, Bob-omb Blasting, Bubble Blowing, Star Ball Rolling, Crate Burning, and Fluzzard Gliding all go, with only ray surfing surviving. Any relevant content these articles contain will be merged into other articles.
 * Delete Star Ball Rolling and Bubble Blowing only: If you feel that the others should stay, let's at least get rid of the "minigames" that can't even be called that.
 * Do nothing: Self-explanatory. Star Ball Rolling and Bubble Blowing continue their meaningless existence.

Proposer: Deadline: February 20, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Delete all of the conjecturally-named minigames

 * 1) My preferred option.
 * 2) Second preferred choice. After all, we'd basically be the Department of Redundancy if the articles stick around, but I digress. Per 7feetunder.

Delete Star Ball Rolling and Bubble Blowing only

 * 1) Even if my preferred option doesn't win, these need to go.
 * 2) Yeah, we really need to say bye-bye to these.  Why do we have these articles anyway?  But I don’t quite agree with deleting the others; they’re minigames, just like ray surfing, and as such need to stay.  The other minigames just need a  template, not outright deletion, and we do need to give the nameless minigames from other games articles as well.
 * 3) Per YoshiFlutterJump.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) This is an obstacle course mechanic, we don't have an article for generalizing timed red coin missions in Sunshine, nor do we need one. Same goes for the recurring "slide" level type.
 * 6) - Per all. I always wondered why they were there, but I never bothered to do anything about it :P
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Preferred choice. Star Ball Rolling and Bubble Blowing aren't minigames; they're just fancy ways to traverse the galaxies. Per all.
 * 9) Per all.

Create articles for Super Mario Odyssey minor objectives
Back when Super Mario Odyssey was released, many users were confused as to which missions get articles. A discussion started on Porplemontage's talk page, and Porplemontage said that only major objectives merit articles, and minor objectives are included with the most recent major objective. However, this creates a problem with the Cap Kingdom objectives, as all three are minor with no major precedents. As such, these three objectives have no coverage on the wiki, and that's a problem. I brought it up on the wiki collaborations board on the forums, and told me to ask, who told me to attempt to counter his rule with a proposal, and that's exactly what I'm doing now. Here are all the options, explained in detail:
 * Create articles for all minor objectives: This option would completely overturn Porplemontage's rule, and all objectives would be treated the same, major or minor. This would create all articles listed below.  This is my preferred option.
 * Create Cappy of the Cap Kingdom only: This would leave everything as it is now; however, the Cap Kingdom objectives would all be covered in a single article. As such, "Cappy of the Cap Kingdom" would be considered a major objective, while "To the Top of Top-Hat Tower" and "The Kingdom Next Door" would be considered minor objectives of the first.  Other than a single new article, everything remains unchanged.  This seems to be a workable option as well, as it still gives the Cap Kingdom objectives coverage.
 * Only major objectives get articles: Do nothing. Minor objectives are included with the article of the most recent major objective, and the Cap Kingdom objectives get no coverage.  I strongly oppose this option, as the Cap Kingdom objectives are as worthy for coverage as other minor objectives.

Articles suggested by this proposal: Cappy of the Cap Kingdom To the Top of Top-Hat Tower The Kingdom Next Door Getting the Band Together Powering Up the Station An Invitation from the Mayor The Glass Is Half Full!

Proposer: Deadline: February 16, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Create articles for all minor objectives

 * 1) Preferred option, per proposal.

Create Cappy of the Cap Kingdom only

 * 1) This is a workable option as well, per proposal.
 * 2) This is the choice I'm going with. It's an exception mostly because as stated in the proposal, the objectives in the Cap Kingdom don't even have an article like this to begin with and therefore is the most justifiable into receiving one. It's also the first cutscene in the game anyway that kickstarts the entire story of the game into motion, so I say that's important enough for this mission to get its own article. I'm not a fan of splicing off separate articles for minor objectives simply because of a small title change in the mission like "round up three guys because it's one of the objectives" or "this is the same objective but since this small portion has you fight a boss it's suddenly different" like in the Ocean Kingdom's The Glass is Half Empty!'s mission.
 * 3) Per Baby Luigi.
 * 4) Per Baby Luigi.
 * 5) Per Baby Luigi.
 * 6) Baby Luigi has really good strengths about her argument, so I'm going with this option. Per all.
 * 7) Per all.

Comments
Hm, I might make a proposal for giving the secret branch-off areas their own articles, the ones that are comparable to the ones in Sunshine...they consistently have two moons each. I'd like to finish the game before I make any decisions on that though. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 19:46, 13 February 2018 (EST)

Create a template for FA archives
Baby Luigi's proposed system has been a success so far. However, since we use a template for most archives, why not this one? The table columns are long and repetitive enough to get cumbersome to archive, anyways, so I propose we use a template for archiving featuring (as well as unfeaturing) nominations. I have two drafts, which you can view here and here.

Let me know in the comments if there are any issues or possible fixes you have in mind with the templates.

Proposer: Deadline: February 18, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Per proposal, although I think it should look more like the one used for proposals.
 * 3) Per proposal.

Comments
@YoshiFlutterJump: This was Baby Luigi's intended layout, and I don't see how structuring it the way you suggested is entirely possible anyways. 20:15, 11 February 2018 (EST)

Add a small link to Appeals in the reminder/warning/last warning templates
We have an appeal system that is not used a whole lot, and one of the reasons it's not used is simply because it's not that visible; it requires digging around our maintenance and policy pages to find it, so many users may not even know that such a system exists. Some of us do manually link to there when we occasionally hand out the templates, but why not make the process automatic? After all, this system is directly linked to those templates, and I don't see any reason to segregate the two processes entirely.

Here's an example of what I want these to look like

Any changes to wording or comments, please note.

Proposer: Deadline: February 18, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Strong Support: It should be clear for users what to do if they feel they were formally warned for no reason. It just SHOULD be clear, period. I also strongly agree that appeal rule #1 should be repealed, since admins (like any other user) may make mistakes, and appealing a warning issued by an administrator would make zero difference compared to appealing a warning issued by an normal user. Baby Luigi clearly knows what she's doing, and I intend to stand by this proposal by all means.
 * 2) Both users have really good points. Per both Toadette the Achiever and Baby Luigi.
 * 3) Per proposal. Can't see any reason not to do this.
 * 4) Per all. Users should be able easily learn about their options.
 * 5) Per all. The only downside is that we’ll get a LOT more bad faith appeals, but that’s not a major issue.
 * 6) Per all, I only found out it existed after someone recommended I used it, so it should be more visible.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) I didn't even know appealing was a thing until I saw this proposal. Per all.
 * 9) Per all.
 * 1) Per all.

Comments
Regarding a rule in MarioWiki: Appeals, (1#: Reminders and/or Warnings given by an administrator cannot be appealed.), I had challenged it on Discord and I want to see that rule removed, hence why I haven't added an extra line saying that "Keep in mind that X given out by a member of staff cannot be appealed). But I don't know what the staff's official final say on that rule is, so I will edit that line accordingly once I get official confirmation. 22:17, 11 February 2018 (EST)
 * I did bring this up in the admin boards like I said I would. I'm honestly not sure where we all stand on the Appeals line, but we've unanimously agreed that admin warnings should not be appealed. 23:02, 11 February 2018 (EST)
 * I like how I don't count. --Glowsquid (talk) 23:06, 11 February 2018 (EST)
 * ...I misread your post, so never mind I guess. 23:16, 11 February 2018 (EST)
 * Two edit conflicts in a row?! Anyway, one reason we have that rule is that admins can already remove warnings without appeals, so what’s the point of appealing an admin warning if you can just personally ask the admin who gave it to you to remove it?  Sounds illogical to me.  And by the way, we used to have that link on the userspace reminder, but it was removed when the template was repurposed for unknown reasons. - 23:19, 11 February 2018 (EST)
 * I had argued that if that was the case, then why do we even need MarioWiki:Appeals in the first place? Why can't we settle it internally with emails, pm's, DM on chat, etc.? I mean, with this system, there will already be discussion taking place on the staff boards regardless if the administrator themselves issued a warning or not if that was made in bad faith. 23:31, 11 February 2018 (EST)

For reference, here’s what the old userspace reminder said: This notice is official and is considered to be a permanent record'' focusing on the edit history for your account. This notice is not to be removed under any circumstances; any attempt to remove this notice will lead to a warning being issued. If this notice was not issued by an administrator and you feel you have received it in error, you may appeal it.'' - 11:12, 14 February 2018 (EST)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.