MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
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New features
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Remove the 15th infraction for why a reminder can be issued (changing American spellings and grammar conventions to British standards)
Please see Warning policy before voting.

Ok, now there are multiple reasons why someone can get a reminder, but this particular infraction stands out to me because not everyone who has English as their first language uses American English. People all over the world edit the MarioWiki, and that includes people from the United Kingdom who use British English as their primary language. I feel like a reminder is too harsh for this, especially since changing American spelling and grammar conventions to British standards does not negatively affect the article in the long run. If the article is looked at from a bigger point of view, '''it's still readable and not super difficult to follow through. All that was changed was a single word that can still be understood by many people.'''

As for inserting speculation, unnecessary information or trivia, false information, into an article or vandalizing it, I understand how those offenses are warnable to varying degrees. But a good faith user should not be issued a reminder solely because they barely changed a word (simply by adding a letter to it) and left its meaning the same. Changing a word for its American spelling to its British spelling does not damage or degrade the quality of an article, so why should it be a warnable offense to begin with? I have seen only one user get warned (and blocked) for this while browsing this wiki, but the fact that users can get a reminder for this infraction surprises me, and I'm surprised this infraction was not brought up sooner.

In case users do not want to remove the infraction but also do not want to keep the wording for the infraction as is, I've added an option to modify the infraction without entirely removing it. So there are three four ways this proposal can go:

1. Support (and remove the infraction): This option removes the "changing American spellings and grammar conventions to British standards" from the list of infractions that deserve a reminder template.

2. Modify the infraction without entirely removing it: This option keeps the infraction while allowing it to be modified to make it more clear. If you feel that this infraction should stay, then making a few productive changes to it won't hurt.

3. Oppose, but move the infraction under the "Failure to follow the writing guidelines" infraction: This option will not modify the wording of the infraction, but instead of having the infraction be by itself, it will be placed under the "failure to follow the writing guidelines" infraction and indented.

4. Oppose (and keep the infraction entirely as is): This option does what it says on the tin. The infraction will be left as is, and good-faith users from the United Kingdom have something to dwell about (apparently because American spellings are preferred to be used on articles over their spellings). I suggest we do not choose this option.

Proposer: Deadline: August 22, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Support (and remove the infraction)

 * 1) My preferred choice.
 * 2) Per all.
 * 3) per all.


 * 1) It's an academically established spelling convention that many people utilise in their daily conversation. I don't see a practical need to enforcing such restrictive measures on one's regional spelling just because it doesn't perfectly line up with the writing attuned to the wiki's general public. I like standards myself, using American spelling in the main space, but I'd be up for repurposing this rule as a recommendation, and not an obligation, for particular spelling.


 * 1) I think this is the step in the right direction. Though there is a difference between warning someone over using the alternative variants of English and warning someone because they decided to change every word in an article from (for example) American English to British English for seemingly no reason.


 * 1) I always found this clause a bit silly. Literally nobody in the anglosphere would be confused by spelling color as colour or favor as favour, and it's a bit silly to issue reminders to english speakers who don't use the American English style. Also, did we not agree to being okay with British spelling before?

Modify the infraction without entirely removing it

 * 1) My second choice.

Oppose (and keep the infraction entirely as is)

 * 1) Per Waluigi Time in the comments (although I agree a reminder template is a bit harsh for a good-faith editor doing this without knowing it's a rule, I'm pretty sure an informal reminder would be issued in that situation anyway).
 * 2) I'm opposing this proposal mainly due to the reasoning behind it. Like Waluigi Time and Bazooka Mario said, removing this as a specific reason for an infraction does not change the fact that changing American spellings to British ones is against the manual of style, so this proposal passing will not actually allow it, since people can still be reminded and warned for not following the manual of style. Your actual goal here seems to be straight up changing site policy to allow people to make these spelling changes to their heart's content, which is a terrible idea. If some UK editor decides they prefers British spellings and changes them on an article, what's to prevent some US editor who believes otherwise from changing them back? And if edit wars brew over this, how do we decide who's right and who's wrong if we don't have a preference? If the answer is "first come, first serve", the worst solution ever to anything on a wiki, then no thanks.
 * 3) Per 7feetunder, this will require tweaking the manual of style and possibly lead to more edit warring. I wouldn't give anyone a reminder about this straight away, only an informal talk page message.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) Per 7feetunder. This is definitely a situation where I prefer informal reminders since it is completely understandable for someone to make this mistake without realizing it is a rule, but it is still against the manual of style. I oppose changing this part of the manual of style, as not having standardized spelling would ultimately lead to unneeded problems. I definitely do think immediately giving official reminders over this is too harsh, though.
 * 6) per all.
 * 7) Per 2.1336metersunder.
 * 8) Per all.

Comments
It is stated on the Manual of Style that the reason American spelling and names are prioritised is because the majority of readers come from North America. Just pointing out that I am from the UK though. 20:45, August 15, 2022 (EDT)

I'm not sure exactly what this proposal is trying to accomplish. If all this is doing it as removing it specifically from the warning policy... well, whether it's listed there or not, if someone repeatedly ignores the Manual of Style, we're going to have to do something, including potentially issuing reminders/warnings (this is already covered under "Failure to follow the writing guidelines" immediately below, which makes it a bit redundant actually). To achieve the proposal's desired effect of not giving out reminders for this, it would probably have to be removed from the Manual of Style entirely, which I wouldn't support. -- 21:32, August 15, 2022 (EDT)
 * I feel the whole changing American to British spelling falls under a very general infraction of not following writing guidelines, and I think it doesn't need to be specified in the warning policy. It's like having a warning dedicated to people capitalizing all words in a category or article subsection. Yeah technically they shouldn't be doing it, but I don't think this guidelines is so important and needs to be clear and explicit to the point it has to be mentioned in the warning policy. 20:32, August 17, 2022 (EDT)
 * @Waluigi Time and Bazooka Mario: Would it be ok if we moved the infraction under the "Failure to follow the writing guidelines" infraction? I've added it as a possible option in case this infraction ends up staying-it looks awkward for it to stand by itself, because it's a writing guideline, right? Mari0fan100 (talk) 22:42, August 18, 2022 (EDT)

@Somethingone: It was proposed, but then the proposer themselves cancelled it. Although we did not technically agree to being okay with British spelling before, this proposal gives an opportunity to make it happen. Mari0fan100 (talk) 22:15, August 15, 2022 (EDT) I want to point out one thing: choosing between British English and American English is not just a matter of spelling of words. There are still elements, such as courses or species, that are named differently in British English compared to American English. The kart, tires and courses in the Mario Kart games, including Mario Kart 8, are the most prominent example, but there's also the case of the naming of all the Magikoopas as Kamek in British English, reflecting their Japanese name. Even many Mario & Luigi games were named differently in British English. Therefore the choice of one English or the other has a lot of implications, and once we decided to stay with the American English, you can expect the rest of the page to follow through to keep consistency, as a page written in British English about a subject that has a different name in British English would look rather confusing to the readers.--Mister Wu (talk) 08:50, August 19, 2022 (EDT) @Koopa con Carne, @Spectrogram, @Somethingone: I hope I'm not coming off as rude here, but are there any reasons you suddenly decided to change your mind and completely countered this proposal? I'm sure you had great reasons, but none of the edits give a reasonable justification, nor did you give off reasons to change your votes. It seems peculiar that all of you were in massive support of this whole thing and then decided to change your minds for no given reason completely. Wikiboy10 (talk) 08:51, August 19, 2022 (EDT)
 * I know I'm not one of the people being addressed here, but it is possible for people to be convinced to change their minds if a counterargument gets brought up, which it did, and all of them cited that as their new vote reasoning. 10:03, August 19, 2022 (EDT)
 * People can veer to a different point of view if presented with good enough arguments to support it. 7feetunder had the foresight to point out some realistic consequences of this proposal’s passing, and I simply found myself agreeing with him more than with the proposal or my previous statement. 10:14, August 19, 2022 (EDT)

Changes
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Miscellaneous
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