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 with the signature code (~).

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) At the deadline, the validity of each vote and the discussion is reviewed by the community.
 * 10) Any proposal that has three votes or less at deadline will automatically be listed as "NO QUORUM"
 * 11) 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.

The times are in EDT, and are set so that the user is more likely to be online at those times (after school, weekend nights).

So for example, 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 indeed a minute later, the deadline is a day plus 15 hours (Sunday), as opposed to a day minus 4 hours.

CURRENTLY: , 28 2024 (EDT)

New Features
None at the moment.

LOLCats
While looking at some User Pages I have noticed large chunks of images from the site ilovemiaow.com. These seem to be massive space-wasters. has a entire page of them, has a big chunk of them and  has inserted a LOT of extra   's on User:Plumber/Pignature just so he can insert a LOLCat GIF at the bottom. So, should we get rid of them?

Proposer: Deadline: March 8, 2008, 20:00

Remove

 * 1) -Per my speech above.

Keep

 * 1) -Dude, it's an external link! If you block that you'll have to block other external links, which means people will have to upload everything here. That would be even worse. Plus, it's their userpage, they can do what they want.
 * 2) Per Purple Yoshi. You can do what you want with your Userpage, unless it breaks the rules, and having an incredibly large Userpage isn't against the rules. Its just annoying. Heh, just kidding.
 * 3) - Per all.
 * 4) - Per everyone. No one forces you to go on Userpages, they aren't article or something.
 * 5) Per all. Plus, Plumber and Sadaharu are mostly retired now, so they are kinda bad examples.
 * 6) Getting rid of the LOLCats wouldn't make sense. Like PY said, you'd have to get rid of all external links by getting rid of LOLCats; why? Because it would be discriminatory against that particular site and it's harmless images. Youtube, Photobucket, Picoodle, and others would have to go too, which would anger a lot of users, because that's a form of taking away people's rights. Not only that, the citing reference may fall into that "banning" category too, since their external links that can lead to other things that you may find offensive...blah blah blah. There's no point in taking away something that a lot of users enjoy and get kicks out of because "it takes up space". That right there is only half true: The images take up a lot of physical space on the page's face, but it takes up only a few lines in syntax to insert the images. Just because it takes longer to load a page, doesn't necessarily make it bigger. My page is almost 75KB long, but there's very few images on the page; it's mostly text and what few images I do have are small in size and take up one line in syntax. So, in other words, leave it be.
 * 7) Per all
 * 8) Per Stooben Rooben, and everyone else.
 * 9) Per all of the above.  Besides, the LOLcats are my favorite form of comedey on this wiki.  I first found out about them from Reasonably Clever webcomic.
 * 10) http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3473/linkswordmi2.gif Paper Jorge ( Talk&middot;Contributions)&middot; http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3473/linkswordmi2.gif Let those guys keep those. We have nothing to do with their business. Let them keep LOLCats. They're doing no harm.

Birdo
This Wiki features articles for both Toad the character and Toad the species. The same applies to Yoshi. In light of this, the topic came up on Talk:Birdo regarding whether the Birdo article should be split in the same manner. A proposal appeared there before the creation of MarioWiki:Proposals, died, and was brought back. I'd like to bring it here so that it is official.

What it comes down to is this: is there ample evidence to conclude that a character named "Birdo" exists in the Super Mario series? For Toad and Yoshi, the policy has been that when a game, TV show, or otherwise specificially refers to a character by name, it constituted mention in the character article. (ie. "Bowser kidnapped Peach and Toad," rather than simply "Bowser kidnapped Peach and a Toad,").

Proposer: Deadline: March 8, 2008, 20:00

Support (Split)

 * 1) Birdo was introduced as a single character in instruction manual of Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA).  In the remake, she is still referred to as a single character.  Additionally, comments such as, "I'm ready for you THIS time!" imply there is still one single Birdo.  The existance of Birdo as a species is an invention of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! that came to the games in Mario Power Tennis.  Even with this developement, Birdo has been given the more distinction from generic Birdos in each appearance following Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (the ring).  Even Toad and Yoshi don't have a distinction in these titles.
 * 2) Per Stumpers, I agree 100%.
 * 3) Per All.
 * 4) Walkazo - Per all.
 * 5) Per above. Yoshi and Toad have been split into separate articles of the character, and their species (even though they're hard to define from their species as Stumpers said). Even though Birdo (character) is seen more than her particular species, she needs to be split to define the differences. Even Mario (who is a human character) has been split from his species. Even if Birdo (species) would be a very short and limited article, it wouldn't be classified as a stub because it would contain all the known information about the species.
 * 6) Per all
 * 7)  Makes sense to me. Per all.
 * 8) Princess Grapes Butterfly Per Stumper. He right we should split each page by species.
 * 9) GreenKoopa - Comments or questions? · [[Image:Koopa.gif]] Per all.
 * 10) Per all HyperToad Even though I'm a bit uneasy about the leagth of a specics article, we'll be able to work it out.
 * 11) Per all
 * 12) Stumpers has a point, while Birdo may have been just a single character in Super Mario Bros. 2, she is shown as a species in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and in the Mario Strikers series, so we should split them.
 * 13) User:Despot_joil
 * 23:36, 5 March 2008 (EST))
 * 1) We agree with everyone. We think the Birdo section should be split. A good reason being their are multiple Birdo in the spin-off titles in the Mario series. The Mario Brothers  23:36, 8 March 2008 (EST)

Comments
Comment 1 So, uh, are we voting on wether or not to split the Birdo page into Birdo (character) and Birdo (species)?
 * When the proposal wins, the character should stay at Birdo, and only the species moved to a different article with a note in brackets. - 06:20, 1 March 2008 (EST)
 * My basic question was, are we voting on wether to make an article on the species or not...
 * Yes.  10:19, 1 March 2008 (EST)
 * I'm a little confused: If I support, am I saying I think Birdo should be split into Birdo and Birdo (species)?
 * Yes. But, if you have other ideas for the page names, let us know.  14:59, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Commment 2 What I said on Birdo's talk page is that the birdos in Super Mario Bros. 2 are bad, and the Birdos in the sports and party games are good. I think the most logical explaination is that the ones in the sports and party games are the same, but not the ones in SMB2. Either way it's fine, but if it does get split, there should at least be some mention that they sports and party birdo might not be the same as the SMB2 birdo, for the reason that one fights Mario and friends and one is close with Yoshi.
 * I don't want to jump to that conclusion, because SMB2 did refer to all pink, bow-wearing bosses as "Birdo" singular, and SMA, rather than overwrite this, only cemented this further. I would be glad to accept your view if you can take a look in the GCN instruction booklets and find maybe a biography for Birdo that proves me wrong.  10:19, 1 March 2008 (EST)
 * Well, right now the "split article" side is winning, so it'll probably get split. That's fine with me, but can the character article at least mention that there's a possibility the two birdos aren't one? There's no proof they're the same, and most Mario characters aren't like that, sometimes good and sometimes bad (On the other hand, Donkey Kong is kinda like that, but still.) 19:00, 1 March 2008 (EST)
 * I was thinking about this, an I'm pretty sure saying that in the article would be POV. We have a character Nintendo named Birdo from SMB2 (USA) and a character Nintendo named Birdo from the spin-offs.  If we do what you suggest, for consistency we would have to note that the Mario from Donkey Kong Circus may be different because he is bad in that game (exploiting DK before DK ever did anything wrong).  The thing you're seeing is called character growth in other fictional universes.  Until we see a good character named Birdo and a bad character named Birdo lined up next to each other, I don't feel right putting that in the article.  14:59, 2 March 2008 (EST)
 * I guess you're right, but I'm still not going to vote for either side.

Comment 3 The one thing I'm afraid about is that the species article may be a stub. I'm not sure if it will be, but what are everyone else's thoughts?
 * If we expand on appearances in other media, it would be less of one. It's a good point, though: how about I try writing an abridged version or something?  15:43, 1 March 2008 (EST)
 * I don't think it'd be a stub. Birdos that aren't the Birdo appear in lots of sports games (for example, Super Mario Strikers and Mario Superstar Baseball). Inclide Birdo biology (egg shooting) and there'll be more than enough for a uncontestable article. - Walkazo
 * Well, one thing that could make the species article longer (if it were to be noted) is that Birdos come in different colors in SMB2 and SMA. Though these Birdos act the same (are evil and want to stop Mario), they are different colors and have different powers. The pink Birdo shoots eggs, the red Birdo shoots eggs and fireballs, and the green Birdo shoots just fireballs. Would this be noted as separate sections of the Species article, or would they be separate articles themselves (like the Yoshis are). I would tend to think that they would all be part of the species article since they're not officially named, but they appear slightly different.
 * Alright, all this makes sense. I added my vote.
 * I wouldn't split those articles like the Yoshi ones, just because they haven't played as big of a role. Oh, and also, we know Birdo (character) can change colors... I think. (SMB2?)  21:30, 2 March 2008 (EST)
 * How exactly do we know what Bridos were or weren't the Birdo? HyperToad Most of it would be speculation, or it would be a stub.
 * The same way we determine which Yoshies and Toads aren't the Yoshi or Toad: you see how they are referred to both in game and in the instruction manual. It's actually pretty clear whether a character is called Birdo (Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Super Mario Advance), instead of just being a member of the species (Mario Power Tennis).  18:15, 3 March 2008 (EST)

All right, you guys needn't worry about length: writing just one section of the history (based on the Super Show episode, "Toad Warriors," and the intro, its already 1837 characters long, not including species infobox. 21:04, 3 March 2008 (EST)
 * Way to go, Stumpers! It seems like there's nothing to worry about now!
 * Aw, thanks! 19:10, 4 March 2008 (EST)

Comment 4 Okay, so I'm working on the rewrite now, and so far I've got a bunch of stuff about The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. So, after I finish with the American TV shows, we also have the Super Mario Strikers games and sections about physiology and abilities, correct? I think I'm missing something, so if you can think of any additions, let me know. Oh, and I'm not sure if the traditional "History", "Other Information", "Apperances in Other Media" set-up will work for this article. The majority of the history of the species is based off of appearances in other media... so we're going to have a really small "main" section of the article and huge sections that are supposed to be tiny. Anyway, I'll post it if the proposal passes and then hope someone can figure out a way to do this up like the other articles. 20:38, 5 March 2008 (EST)

Comment 5 I agree with the idea of the separate articles for the Birdo character and Species. Although it would appear that there were more than one Birdo sub-bosses in SMB2 I'd suggest that the most commonly encountered one was in fact THE Birdo not a random Birdo which would explain why in the instruction booklets for the original and remake Birdo is referred to as an individual, also when she still spoke in english instead of various noises she would show that she remembered Mario and friends (as mentioned by previous users).

Also as for the idea that any Birdo who attacks Mario or Luigi is a bad Birdo and therefore not the actual Birdo, is probably untrue due to the events in Super star Saga. Where Birdo helps then for a short time hinders Mario and his brother, she then also goes on to say that she plans to become a super star hinting that she will appear in future games trying to gain fans, this could perhaps imply that the sports titles Birdo is one in the same (Also this could simply show a part of her personality, meaning she is open to helping but, no above hindering when it serves her needs).

A confusing issue of the Birdo character is Super Mario Strikers, in other games Birdo's large diamond ring has been described as her pride and joy yet, in this game all the Birdos wore one. I'd suggest that the ring was invented so to make it easier to identify the Birdo character from her species, and the appearance of the diamond ring on other characters of her species was just perhaps laziness, a mistake or over sight by game designers in this case. I also doubt every Birdo ever born considers a diamond ring it prized possession. Also as mentioned by other users Birdo is one of the few species based characters to have a physical trait added, as Yoshi hasn't but is accepted as an separate character and neither has Toad (although the Toad character has been slightly replaced by other characters more recently, but, that's for another time.)

Also it has recently been shown that Birdo has the ability to incase others and herself in eggs for protection, which could perhaps even prove that the Birdo working for Valentina in Mario RPG is also her simply in some kind of defense mode (the fact she emerges fully grown from said egg may also back this up as the eggs she otherwise produces are considerably smaller). Also noting that she claims not wanting to destroy Mario and company as they are too cute hinting to the fact that Birdo may no be clean cut good or evil (similar to Wario who is known to be and friend and foe) and perhaps from past experiences with them as grown somewhat fond of them.

It appears also that Birdo is somewhat lovelorn, working only with Popple because she believes she loves him, perhaps her employment as an enemy or friend could be hypothesized as either going from infatuation to infatuation or working as some kind of gun for hire as Birdo seems to be buyable when offered the right reward. Sadly this point is a slightly weaker one as it has never been revealed as to why Birdo was working for Wart or Valentina (although a infatuation is possible with Wart it is not proven, but with both these villains Birdo could simply be preferring to be the right hand of evil rather then being in it's way, this is however speculation) I have still however included this point in my rantings as it is something to consider that is it completely possible that THE Birdo has no side alignment and the sports games Birdo and in her other appearances has been shown to crave attention, maybe showing that all these Birdos encountered are one in the same.

Any way before I write an essay she needs to be split to allow for documentation of her personality better (as it is at the moment being neglected), individual powers and abilities outside of her species normal traits and to better keep track of her future and past appearances. Although concern has been shown about the length of the Birdo article I am not concerned as there is a bit of information around e.g. we know all Birdos can shoot eggs, that despite only so far seeing what we assume are "female" Birdo's we know they are physically very strong and so forth. It's just a task of seeing what facts can be given to both Birdo the character and Birdo the species and then adding to each over time as more information is at hand.

Did I write too much? (there are a few more little things but, I'll stop. Apologies.)

Changes
None at the moment.

Patroller Power!
The Patroller ranking seems very much, useless. They have very limited powers, making them simply Users with a big Block Gun on their side. My point being, the Patroller ranking should NOT be removed, but should at least be given extra powers. At least give them the ability to edit protected pages. Nothing TOO major, just make them less of a User, and more of a higher authority on the Wiki. Also, I tried asking Steve if its even possible to add more powers, and he never responded. So, someone, please, answer that for me.

Proposer: Deadline: March 13, 2008, 17:00

Add moar Powers

 * 1) I am the Proposer and my reasons are given above.
 * 2) - I may be biased because I am a patroller, but I think we should atleast have the abbility to edits protected pages. I wouldn't mind having access to the Sysop only board . Uh, nevermind.
 * 3) I think more power is a great idea. I also think that each ranking should have a certain criteria that helps you try to become what ranking you want to be (sort of like a cheat sheet)!
 * 4) As a Patroller myself, I feel that more powers would only be beneificial. I just can't put my finger on which powers would be suitable, without turning us into Jr. Sysops. But I'm all for it, regardless. -- Booster
 * 5) If you feel it will help me help you, I'm all for it.  But, we're not sysops for a reason, so it's really not my decision.
 * 6) It's true, patrollers don't have as many powers as they should.  They just seem like users with different names.  Per DP, as usual :P
 * 7) Princess Grapes Butterfly Per all I think they should have a little more power because they might need it and the three patrollers are trushful right?
 * 8) I find it funny that all these normal users are supporting this. But hey, it's a good idea! :D So per all.
 * 9) Walkazo - Per all.
 * 10) Informant/ - They deserve the extra power, and besides, maybe one day I'll be a patroller.
 * 11) See my comment below.
 * 12) Patrollers should at least have less powers than Crats', and should have a bit less of Sysops. Per DP.
 * 13) I think that the patroller group are trustworthy enough to have a few extra powers, but not as much as a sysop or there is no point. Powers that I think are OK for patrollers are editing protected pages and deleting pages (Patrollers are about reverting spam and that includes deleting spam pages).
 * 14) http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3473/linkswordmi2.gif Paper Jorge ( Talk&middot;Contributions)&middot; http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3473/linkswordmi2.gif If it's possible then it's gotta be done. As Plumber said, being a patroller is very boring. We need to give patrollers more!
 * 15) &euro;zlo Even though I don't have any comments, about the proposal, patrollers also deserve a bit more of acknowledgement by their jobs of protecting the wiki against vandals. however, you can't have such the luxury of having many capabilites that sysops have. therefore, you'd remove the patroller rank.
 * 1) &euro;zlo Even though I don't have any comments, about the proposal, patrollers also deserve a bit more of acknowledgement by their jobs of protecting the wiki against vandals. however, you can't have such the luxury of having many capabilites that sysops have. therefore, you'd remove the patroller rank.

Comments
Now that I think about it, I don't really understand the point behind patrollers. They're job is to find things that a Sysops can fix, but not be able to fix it themselves? -- Chris 13:27, 6 March 2008 (EST)
 * I alway thought that the Patroller were an half-baked reaction to the increased vandalism that happened during February-May 2007. According to former bureaucrat Xzelion, the Patroller are a "test" to see who can becomes a sysop. Personally, I think it's a load of BS.

I think that Patrollers should have powers that ease them in fighting vandalism and making maintenance (Deleting pages, being able to edit protected pages ect) while sysops should have powers that allow them to keep order (Deleting specific revisions, being able to protect an frequently vandalised article, ect..) althought perhap the two rank would be a little too close in term of powers. --Blitzwing 15:14, 6 March 2008 (EST)

I disagree they should have more powers.After all it isn't a really high rank.If patrollers had more powers,why not make them sysops?Patrollers already have good powers,anyway.Like User:Blitzwing said,they have powers that help them with fighting vandals.User:Goldguy
 * Uh, they do have powers, but they are pretty much useless in fighting vandalism (Except for blocking an user), maybe you missreaded my comments. --Blitzwing 13:27, 9 March 2008 (EDT)


 * DP, is that the only power you want to add, or are there others? Because according to this, the patroller rank was designed to counter vandalism, which doesn't include editing protected pages. If they were to gain any more powers, they should be anti-vandal specific, as that's what the rank was designed for. Also, Jaffffey, we have one of those for administators, although perhaps we could have one for patrollers. -- 15:30, 6 March 2008 (EST)
 * It would be useful to me! I don't even know what a "rollback" is, but I was filled in on the main ideas by other users the day I got promoted.  21:21, 6 March 2008 (EST)
 * Rollback = Revert. --Blitzwing 06:05, 7 March 2008 (EST)
 * Normal Users can already revert most pages so giving Patrollers a fatser way of doing it isn't actually doing that much, they can just fight vandalism a bit faster. Letting them delete pages would let them fight more vandalism (but perhaps only small pages under a certain amount of coding lines, or something). - Walkazo
 * Well, let' say that a vandal create a page that only contain nonsense, but it have an humongous number of coding line (I remmember it happened before, some guy create a page containing 400. 000 lines worth of coding, all of which said "MEOW MEOW"), the patroller can't delete the vandalism. --Blitzwing 21:18, 7 March 2008 (EST)
 * Patrollers are considered "Between Sysops and Users", but they are closer to User status than they should be. Patrollers should be able to delete pages...especially nonsense pages of "MEOW MEOW". Maybe Patrollers should be given access to the following powers:
 * 1) To "rollback" pages, like they currently can in order to block spam and vandalism.
 * 2) To be able to block vandals and spammers of pages; however, the Patroller should not be able to block users because of "inappropriate behavior", "offensive usernames", or anything else except vandals/spammers; the rest should be left to the Sysops and bureaucrats.
 * 3) To edit certain special pages. (e.g.: Categories)
 * I don't know how this would work out though, because I'm nothing but a mere user, so I don't know how close of a conflict this would cause between Patrollers' and Sysops' powers.
 * Hmm, not sure. Anyway, to Blitzwing's MEOW MEOW example, couldn't they just edit it and chop out a bunch of the coding lines, and then delete the shrunken page? - Walkazo