MarioWiki:Proposals

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r149/Deadringerforlove/dessert1.jpg 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 using the code.

This page observes the No-Signature Policy.

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) Users who feel that certain votes were cast in bad faith or which truly have no merit can address the votes in the Comments section. Users can ask a voter to clarify their position, point out mistakes or flaws in their arguments, or call for the outright removal of the vote if it lacks sufficient reasoning. Users may not remove or alter the content of anyone else's votes. The voter can remove or rewrite their own vote at any time, but the final decision to remove another User's vote lies solely with the Administrators.
 * 8) " # " should be added under the last vote of each support/oppose section to show another blank line.
 * 9) All proposals that end up in a tie will be extended for another week.
 * 10) If a proposal has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes. If a proposal reaches the deadline and the total number of votes for each option differ by two or less votes, the deadline will be extended for another week.
 * 11) Any proposal that has three votes or less at deadline will automatically be listed as "NO QUORUM." The original proposer then has the option to relist said proposal to generate more discussion.
 * 12) No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old.
 * 13) Proposals can only be rewritten or deleted by their proposer within the first three days of their creation. However, the proposer can request that their proposal be deleted by a Sysop at any time, provided they have a valid reason for it.
 * 14) 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.
 * 15) There shouldn't be proposals about creating articles on a underrepresented or completely absent subject, unless there is major disagreement about whether the content should be included. To organize efforts about completing articles on missing subjects, try creating a PipeProject.
 * 16) Proposals cannot be made about System Operator promotions and demotions. Sysops can only be promoted and demoted by the will of Bureaucrats.
 * 17) If the Sysops deem a proposal unnecessary or potentially detrimental to the upkeep of the Super Mario Wiki, they have the right to remove it at any time.
 * 18) No joke proposals. Proposals are serious wiki matters, and should be handled professionally. Joke proposals will be deleted on sight.

The times are in GMT, and are set so that the user is more likely to be online at those times (after work/school, weekend nights). If a proposal is added on Saturday night at 11:59 PM GMT, the deadline is the next Saturday night at 8:00 PM. If it is a minute later, the deadline is a day plus 15 hours (Sunday), as opposed to a day minus 4 hours.

Basic Proposal and Support/Oppose Format
This is an example how your proposal should look like, if you want it to be acknowledged. If you are inexperienced or unsure how to set up this format, simply copy the following and paste it into the fitting section. Then replace the [subject] - variables with information to customize your proposal, so it says what you wish. If you insert the information, be sure to replace the whole variable including the squared brackets, so "[insert info here]" becomes "This is the inserted information", not "[This is the inserted information]". - ===[insert a title for your Proposal here]=== [describe what you want this Proposal to be like, what changes you would suggest and what this is about]

Proposer: Deadline: [insert a deadline here, f.e. "5 January, 2010, 17:00". Rule 2 above explains how to determine a deadline]

====Support====

====Oppose====

====Comments==== - Users will now be able to vote on your Proposal, until the set deadline is reached. Remember, you are a user as well, so you can vote on your own Proposal just like the others.

To support, or oppose, just insert " # at the bottom of the section of your choice. Just don't forget to add a valid reason for your vote behind that tag if you are voting on anoother user's Proposal. If you are voting on your own Proposal, you can just say "Per my Proposal".

Talk Page Proposals
All proposals dealing with a single article or a specific group of articles are held on the talk page of one of the articles in question. Proposals dealing with massive amounts of splits, merges or deletions across the Wiki should still be held on this page.

How To

 * 1) All active talk page proposals must be listed below in chronological order (new proposals go at the bottom). All pages effected must be mentioned in the brief description, with the talk page housing the discussion linked to directly via "". If the proposal involved a page that is not yet made, use to communicate its title. The Deadline must also be included in the entry. Linking to pages not directly involved in the talk page proposal is not recommended, as it clutters the list with unnecessary links. Place  under the heading.
 * 2) All rules for talk page proposals are the same as mainspace proposals (see the "How To" section above), with the exceptions made by Rules 3, 4 and 5, as follows:
 * 3) Voting in talk page proposals will be open for two weeks, not one.
 * 4) Talk page proposals may closed by the proposer if both the support and the oppose sides each have fewer than five votes.
 * 5) After two weeks, a clear majority of three votes is required. Without the majority, the talk page proposal will be listed as "NO QUORUM".
 * 6) The talk page proposal must pertain to the article it is posted on.

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Merge Mushroom (M&L info), Super Mushroom (M&L info), Ultra Mushroom, and Max Mushroom (M&L info) into one article. (Discuss) Passed
 * Merge Triple Bananas and Giant Banana into Banana. (Discuss) Deadline: 12 February 2010 20:00.
 * Merge information pertaining to generic Blue and Yellow Toads into Toad (species) and Toad Brigade, leaving the separate Blue Toad and Yellow Toad pages for the specific Toad characters that appeared in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Whether or not these pages will be named "" and "" or "" and "" is also being voted on. (Discuss) Deadline: 13 February 2010, 20:00
 * Merge Metal Luigi into Metal Mario (character). (Discuss) Deadline: 13 February 2010, 20:00
 * Merge Syrup (M&L info), Super Syrup, Ultra Syrup, and Max Syrup into one article (Discuss) Deadline: 14 February 2010 15:00
 * Merge Nintendo GameCube Microphone into Nintendo Gamecube. (Discuss) Deadline: 14 February 2010 15:00
 * Merge Banana Bunch into Banana. (Discuss) Deadline: 15 February 2010, 17:00
 * Merge Double Item Box into Item Box. (Discuss) Deadline: 17 February 2010, 17:00
 * Merge Special Kit 1 and Special Kit 2 into Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis. (Discuss) Deadline: 18 February 2010, 17:00
 * Split SSX on Tour from Video game references. (Discuss) Deadline: 20 February 2010, 20:00
 * Merge Whip Shuri into Shuri. (Discuss) Deadline: 20 February 2010, 20:00
 * Split NBA Street V3 from Video game references. (Discuss) Deadline: 20 February 2010, 20:00
 * Split Mushroom (Super Mario RPG info) into Mushroom and (Discuss) Deadline: 20 February 2010, 20:00

New Features
''None at the moment.

Removals
''None at the moment.

More transparency in discussions
After voting in the unfeaturing for the Princess Daisy article last evening, I came home tomorrow to see the page completely blown up, deleted for having "no supporters". I found this claim to be very wrong, as I was very sure that I myself supported that very nomination just yesterday. Browsing through the deleted page with my sysop powers, I could reconstruct the discussion. Still, absolutely all support and oppose votes have been blanked, and I have no nerves to go through the over 100 revisions that the page got overnight to find the exact changes to find out who removed those votes, why and with what authority.

I find this to be a very intransparent and confusing way of having a discussion. It is very hard to reconstruct the actual positions of the people who did place their vote, but got it removed. It is also impossible for anyone who is not a sysop to even read the page any more. That bears any reason. Every user in the wiki should be allowed to take part in these discussions and should be able to read them when they are over.

Thus, I propose the following changes for the rules of all sorts of discussions (proposals/featurings/unfeaturings):
 * If a vote is determined invalid, whether it is a support vote or an oppose vote, it does not get removed. Instead, it gets striked out with tags. Next to the striked out vote, there should be an information of who striked the vote, and why. This could be done with a template similar to.
 * Nobody has the right to remove a vote or comment unless it is clearly
 * without any reason
 * offensive or insulting
 * spammy / off-topic
 * All past discussions get archived. That means, all Featured Article nominations and Unfeature nominations get archived - whether they are passed or not, and whether the original proposer removed them or not.
 * Previous passed and not passed feature/unfeature nominations get linked to from the article's talk page for better reference.

None of these changes would change the rules as to why comments or votes can be invalidated. All I want to ensure that the discussion can be easily tracked down and are transparent for everybody on the wiki, not just sysops and those who have the patience to plow through endless numbers of revisions in the history.

Proposer: Deadline: February 15, 2010, 17:00

Support

 * 1) - I want every user on the Mario Wiki to be able to view and understand previously public debates and discussions.
 * 2) - Per the proposal and my comment below.
 * 3) Per Cobold
 * 4) - Per Cobold.
 * 5) Per Cobold.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) - After what occured yesterday, this change is definitely necessary.
 * 8) - Per all.
 * 9) - Per Cobold, even though I have no idea what happened
 * 10) Sounds like a lot. I do not want other proposals that are going to make this place a better place deleted. Per all.
 * 11) - Per Cobold!
 * 12) What the heck happened to the unfeaturing Daisy page? Per proposal.
 * Per proposal. Transparency is what we should aim for.
 * 1) Per Cobold.
 * 2) - Per Cobold.
 * 3) - Per Cobold. The only thing I was worried about were the striked votes, but as long as they are moved to the bottom of the list and organized with "*" instead of "#", they should not cause confusion with the tallies.
 * 4) I am Zero! Though I didn't notice that I got to say that is a really good rule. Zero signing out.
 * 5) Sounds reasonable. Per Cobold.

Comments
One thing I alway found lolzy is when a page gets immiediatly deleted because it "has" no supporter after the previous votes got deleted.

Well yes, it may not have support right now you dummy, but someone might find the discussion and bring in arguments that'll change the course of the debate. Cheating users out of that is retarded.
 * I also noticed that. Whether or not there is no vote in the nomination currently, it still has to stay up until the deadline per the rules anyway. -

Tucayo, that's the whole point - I also can't really make out what happened. -

It's kind of ironic: You propose a rule that prevents users who don't stay online all day and night from being surprised at something that happened during the time the were offline - and now I haven't been online during the last 24 hours or so, get to the Proposals page and find a proposal with already 12 supporters which I had virtually no chance to argue against if I wanted to. (Which gives me the idea that it might be good to be allowed to vote on a proposal only after 24 hours or so, I might propose that someday.)

But back to topic. First of all, I'm sorry for all the inconvenience the deletion of the nomination page caused. I didn't even think about the fact that regular users as well as sysops might want to trace back the discussion and that they have no chance of doing so when the page is deleted. So, sorry. I'd like to add, though, that all I've done was according to our rules. Nominations without supporters have always been deleted in the past, so there was no way for me to know that just this very nomination would cause such an uprising.

Still, I can't support this proposal right away. There are a few questions left. The first being, do you propose to get rid of the voting process of removing votes completely? That is, if this passes, there will be no "Removal of Supports/Opposes" sections anymore? I find this a quite convenient way of dealing with votes you deem invalid. Don't forget that at least one sysop has to agree with the proposal to remove a vote. Of course sysops make mistakes at times, but it's not like a vote can be removed just because three fans of the topic congegrate. Also, I don't think that striking a vote and adding a note would change anything about the "bureaucraciness" of the removal process. Which brings me to my second point, striking votes. A little problem with that is that striking votes messes up the numbering. If 10 users vote on a proposal and three of them are crossed out, the last number in the list is still a 10 rather than a 7. And finally, while I definitely agree with your idea to archive failed nominations, there have been several nominations in the past that were hardly worth archiving. Some nominations are just made by fans of the topic ("Don't unfeature XYZ!") without any serious reasons. What about those?
 * Oh, please do not misunderstand me here. Many points you said were wrong in this proposal are not actually in it. There would still be the possiblity to remove support or oppose votes. The only difference is that instead of entirely removing them from the list, they get striked out for better visibility. You can move the striked out votes to a separate list if you think it breaks the numbering. If they are striked, they do not count as anything any more, just like if they were removed entirely. An actual change for the rules of removing support/oppose votes is in the proposal below.
 * Also, don't worry. I did not accuse you for deleting the page. It has in fact been common practice that has been according to the rules to delete nomination pages with no supporters. Thus I have to propose this change in the first place.
 * As for what to archive and what not, I we do not restore any previously deleted nomination pages unless there is a specific request by a user. Future nominations that have failed may be evaluated - if there has been no serious discussion and the original supporter just had a fan vote, there would be nothing to archive. I would use common sense there, along the lines of "clearly without reason, insulting/offensive, spammy/off-topic".
 * Now that you mention it, having a similar 24 hours rule for proposals is a good idea as well. -
 * Thanks for your clarification! There's no doubts left now, so I'll support.

Change rules for invalidating votes
Currently, the rules for removing support votes from unfeature nomination reads: "Similarly, not only oppose votes, but also support votes can be removed if they are not well-reasoned enough. The agreement of three users, including a sysop, is needed to remove a vote." This does not, in any way, allow the supporter/opposer to respond to the action taken against his vote. My vote was removed overnight while I was at sleep, giving me no chance to react at all. That is not right. There should be a time window in which the voter is allowed to clarify their statements before it just gets removed while they are away. Especially if the vote was just a "per " and the vote of " " gets invalidated.

I would suggest that the original voter gets 24 hours to clarify their statement. Any process of featuring /unfeaturing is put on hold during that time window.

Proposer: Deadline: February 15, 2010, 17:00

Support

 * 1) nobody can be online 24/7, so the rules shouldn't expect them to.
 * 2) - Per Cobold.
 * 3) Per Cobold.
 * 4) - I agree with Cobold again.
 * 5) - Per all.
 * 6) - Per Cobold
 * 7) That same thing happened to me.
 * 8) That happened to me. It's irritating. Sounds like a smart solution to this problem.
 * 9) - There is a high chance that you misunderstood the proposal/nomination, and they deserve time to change the vote to how they want, or just have it be deleted in about a day or so.
 * 10) - Sounds good to me. Per the proposal.
 * Per proposal, it would be fair to give users some time to explain before their votes are removed.
 * 1) - Again, per Cobold.
 * 2) - Per Cobold.
 * 3) I am Zero! Exactly what Cobold said, nobody is on the SMW all the time so it's fair to have a time to respond. Zero signing out.
 * 4) Per Cobold.

Comments
Okay. Buut. What I wanna know is, how can someone who's reasoning for voting, on just about anything, have the right to stand behind reasoning that is no longer applicable. On the page for the users trying to unfeature Daisy's article, I solved everything anyone complained about to the point all they said was: oh well the page is still poorly written. Stuff like that. Other reasoning included: this section has too much information. Too much information? How can people who just recently opposed a proposal to limit information, tell me the Daisy page has too much? Yes, some users went through afterwards and fixed some stuff on her page, but no, the points I had already resolved were not touched on by any of the people voting to unfeature her article, and no, not any of the things people have currently fixed on her article were mentioned beforehand, aside from the things I myself fixed. Yeah, Daisy's article had stuff that needed fixing, but when people trying to get the Mario article featured try to unfeature an article like Daisy's? an article with many less problems than articles such as Waluigi, Yoshi, and Wario's?

Clearly a lot more needs to be done to the featuring/unfeaturing system.ForeverDaisy09 21:28, 9 February 2010 (EST)


 * We are not talking about individual nominations :) Also, I ask you, if something similar was done with a character you dislike, will you try to fix the article in every way possible to keep it featured?
 * Are you suggesting I wouldn't? ForeverDaisy09 21:51, 9 February 2010 (EST)
 * Well, some of your defending points about the Daisy nomination contradicted with your criticism of the Mario nomination. --
 * WELL it's not my fault the terrible quality of Mario's page is not completely fixable by my hands. But let's stay on subject. ForeverDaisy09 02:47, 11 February 2010 (EST)

I do this entirely unrelated to the actual reasonings behind votes on the Daisy nomination. I am also not trying to just make the rules fit any purpose of unfeaturing the article - all problems were cleared, after all. This proposal is not trying to suggest that I could have changed my vote so that it would not have been removed. And I do agree that the entire featuring/unfeaturing system needs a lot more work. I am only proposing the most obvious. The details will probably be worked out by those who were actually present in the mentioned Daisy unfeature nomination. -

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.