MarioWiki:Proposals

Ban certain cases of future tense from the wiki
No, not discourage. Ban.

When this wiki deals with a subject from an upcoming game or update, it's very common to see phrases such as "set to appear" or "will appear in said game or update". This kind of wording easily becomes obsolete once the game/update goes live. While some cases are promptly corrected, others remain unchanged for a long time. This instance, for example, had been forgotten for months since before the release of Mario Tennis Aces simply because it was too obscure.

I propose the Manual of Style to be updated to forbid explicit statements that a subject will appear in a future media, on grounds that simply stating the same thing in present tense ("[subject] appears in [upcoming game]") is fine enough to use and doesn't risk becoming out of date (except in extremely rare cases, where the subject it removed from the game or the game gets cancelled). It's actually more correct to state it this way, since any trailer or gameplay of an unreleased game presents elements that have already been incorporated into it and are thus presently in the game. We may then avoid situations like this one where the subject is literally hours from going live at the time of this proposal.

However, not all future wording would be affected by this proposal. Lead paragraphs that refer to a game as "upcoming" are free to stay, as this is the most simple way to state that the game is not released yet, on top of being likely more visible and easy to update than an obscure sentence on a particular page. So, cases like "Super Mario Maker 2 is an upcoming 2D platforming and level-editing game" will stay this way until release, even if the proposal passes.

Proposer: Deadline: March 13, 2019, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) per proposal
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) I don't see any better way to prevent outdated future tense from persisting awkwardly. Support.
 * 5) This is partially my fault, so I do apologize. Anyways, I agree that using future tense can often date a page and be forgotten about, so per all.
 * 6) Please.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) I’ve seen instances where the future tense is left in the article long past the subject is released, so I feel this makes sense.
 * 9) This is an outright ban I'm sure we all can live with. Per proposal.
 * 10) I was concerned about the vague provisions in the title of the proposal, but that's already addressed in the proposal. I think this is solid.
 * 11) Per all.
 * 12) Per all.
 * pa
 * 1) omg, I have lost count of the number of times I've come across "will be in [future game]" for a game that came out even more than a year ago. Please, PLEASE eradicate this practice
 * 2) Agreed, in those cases the future tense is unneeded and it's very easy to miss the update of some sentences after release
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) Per all. If this proposal passes, I don't have to worry about tense of any sort.
 * 5) Per all.

Oppose

 * 1) I don't like this idea at all. If it is banning, then no. Discouraging is ok, but banning?! Would it make it a level offense? We usually fix it when the game is released, but when it is not released, it is fine to use it. I wouldn't stand that! I would make a counterproposal if this passes. >_>

Comments
Why are we banning it? I would prefer we discourage rather than banning. Should i make a counterproposal four weeks after the proposal's deadline? -- 03:26, 1 March 2019 (EST)
 * You can, but judging from the overwhelming support for the present proposal, I think people really don't want to see future tenses on the wiki. What's the point of having them if they are going to be changed to present tense anyway? 07:40, 1 March 2019 (EST)

Thing is, that's what the and  templates are for. They highlight upcoming or recently released games/subjects, which get categorized to look through. It's a simple category to look through and update, and if we have to edit the page to remove the template when it's time to do so, might as well change the tenses, and the Upcoming_content already encourages things to be written in a present tense in this way. 15:36, 2 March 2019 (EST)

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Changes
None at the moment.

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.