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: (All times GMT)
 * 3) *Monday to Thursday: 23:00 (11pm)
 * 4) *Friday and Saturday: 2:00 (2 am) of the next day. A proposal posted on a Friday ends the following Saturday morning; a proposal posted on a Saturday ends the following Sunday morning.
 * 5) *Sunday: 21:00 (9pm)
 * 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 Monday night at 11:59 PM GMT, the deadline is the next Monday night at 11:00 PM. If it is posted a minute later, the deadline is a week Tuesday, since midnight is considered to be part of the next day, as 00:00 AM.

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 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) Passed
 * Merge Syrup (M&L info), Super Syrup, Ultra Syrup, and Max Syrup into one article (Discuss) Passed
 * Merge Nintendo GameCube Microphone into Nintendo GameCube. (Discuss) Passed
 * Merge Banana Bunch into Banana. (Discuss) Passed
 * 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
 * Merge Triple Bananas and Giant Banana into Banana. (Discuss) Deadline: 12 February 2010 20:00. Extended:20 February, 2010, 20:00
 * Split Mushroom (Super Mario RPG info) into Mushroom and (Discuss) Deadline: 20 February 2010, 20:00
 * Merge Metal Luigi into Metal Mario (character). (Discuss) Deadline: 13 February 2010, 20:00 Extended: 20 February, 2010 20:00
 * Merge Mushroom (SMRPG info), Bad Mushroom, Mid Mushroom, Max Mushroom onto one page. (Discuss) Deadline: 25 February 2010, 20:00
 * Merge Standard Bike M, Standard Bike L, and Standard Bike S into Bike. (Discuss) Deadline: 25 February 2010, 20:00

New Features
''None at the moment.

Non-Mario Appearances in Infoboxes
In infoboxes (the boxes that appear in the top right corner of many articles) e.g. for characters there is information about the first and latest appearances of the characters. While this is fine in my opinion, I propose to get rid of any information about appearances of the characters in question outside of the Marioverse (for lack of a better term; with "Marioverse" I mean all sources and appearances our wiki covers). For example, look at Bomberman (character). He first appeared in a non-Mario game and it's mentioned in the infobox. This kind of information is completely irrelevant to our wiki and just clutters up the infobox. It can be mentioned in an introductory sentence to the article, though, but there's no need to put it in the infobox. It's even worse with the "latest appearance"; there's really no need to keep track of each new appearance of a character outside the Marioverse.

Thus, I propose to only put relevant Mario information (including Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Bros. and so on) in the infoboxes and get rid of sources that are irrelevant to the MarioWiki. This applies to every kind of infobox, not only those for characters.

Proposer: Deadline: February 22, 2010, 23:00

Support

 * Per the reasons given above.
 * 1) - Per Time Q again, I mean this wiki is the Super Mario Wiki not the Metroid Wiki, Zelda Wiki, Pokémon Wiki...
 * 2) Per Time Q.
 * 3) – Per all.

Oppose

 * 1) It's there because with a non-Mario series character, there's information we won't cover. With the link there to the character's first appearance, it will pretty much link to whatever we wouldn't cover.
 * 2) I am Zero! Per Reversinator. Zero signing out.

Comments
I don't think it'll work out right. Does this include Kirby, Ike, Meta Knight, and others for the first appearance thing being irrelevant.
 * None of those characters you mentioned has those infoboxes I'm talking about. But if they had them, we'd put a SSB game as their first appearance rather than a Kirby or Fire Emblem game. Those original appearances can be mentioned in the article itself (for example: "Ike is a character who first appeared in the game Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance...").
 * Oh, okay, that sounds better.

@Reversinator: Well yes, the reason we don't cover the information is because it's completely irrelevant here. We can still link to the Wikipedia article about the original appearance outside the Marioverse in the introductory sentence. No need to clutter up the infobox with it.

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, 23:00

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.
 * 6) - Per Cobold.
 * 7) Really needed. Per Cobold, too.
 * 8) – Per all!

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, 23:00

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.
 * 5) Once again, Cobold has allowed his genius to shine through (or maybe it's just common sense). Per him.
 * 6) - That sounds fair. Lo apoyo.
 * 7) – Per all.

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. -

24-Hour Delay Before Voting on Proposals
I propose to introduce a 24-hour delay for each proposal after it is made before users can vote on it.

Currently, as soon as a proposal is put on this page, users are allowed to vote on it. This is a problem for the following reason: Sometimes, proposals are made that seem very worthy to support, and within few hours, many votes are added. This is bad for people who are not online during that time but who would like to discuss points of the proposal they don't agree with. When they come online after a few hours and already find dozens of votes, they have no change to argue against them, and some of the voters might not even visit the Proposals page anymore after they have voted. Also, during the 24-hour period the proposal can be discussed and, if needed, edited, before any overhasty votes are made.

If this proposal passes, the following changes will be made:
 * Additionally to the "proposer" and "deadline" lines, there will be a line "Voting start" which will be 24 hours after the proposal is made.
 * The voting start time can be exactly 24 hours after the creation of the proposal, however in order to not make things too complicated, proposers can also round one hour up or down (e.g. if the proposal is created at 17:14, one may put 17:00, and if it's created at 17:33, one may put 18:00).
 * The deadline will be one week after the voting start rather than after the creation of the proposal. The usual deadline rules apply (e.g. if voting time starts on a Monday at 18:00, the deadline will be next Monday at 23:00).

This proposal would not abolish the possibility for the proposer to support their own proposal right away.

Proposer: Deadline: February 22, 2010, 23:00

Support

 * Per the reasons given above.
 * 1) - Per Time Q, this is really necessary.
 * 2) This sounds pretty good, so users can discuss it before voting right away.

Comments
How exactly would we regulate this? –

Change Proposal Archives
Our current method of archiving gets the job done, but it isn't very efficient when we want to look back and find a specific proposal. You might need to look through 15 archives (which take a long time to load) to find the proposal you're looking for. When the proposal archiving method started, we didn't feel the need to create separate sub-pages for each proposal. Now we have 18 archives and growing, so I feel that we need to create a new system before the number of archives grows too big and it becomes virtually impossible to find a specific proposal.

Things that would change if this proposal passes:


 * Each proposal would have its own subpage which would be linked as something like . That link is supposed to link to the first proposal that ended in 2009. This is to prevent extremely long titles and allow two different proposals of the same name to have different pages.
 * Sub-proposals will be split into regular proposals. For example, this proposal would be split into two different sub-pages since the results are different. Since the second part is not given a formal title, a new title will be created for it like "Rules for Talk Page Proposals".
 * Repeated, overturned, and amended proposals would link to each other. For instance, a page for "Bring back Banjo & Conker" will link to other "Bring back Banjo & Conker" proposals.
 * Scroll boxes would be removed since they are unnecessary on separate pages.
 * Extremely long, erratic, and misleading proposal titles will renamed to something shorter or more appropriate.
 * Proposal archive pages themselves will be deleted, leaving only one centralized archive page which links to multiple sub-pages.
 * The main archive page will remain unprotected and the proposal sub-pages will be unprotected. This is so that relevant information about the proposal (such a recently passed proposal overturning an older proposal) can be added by regular users.

Things that would not change if this proposal passes:


 * No content about the proposals will be altered in any way. The only thing about a proposal that can be changed is the title itself (which only happens if there is a good reason for the title change).
 * Results will not be changed and all results (if applicable) will still be in effect.

Finally, look at this template created by. The template will be used to list Proposal entries. This is how the each proposal will be linked from the main archive page. All the parameters are described on the page itself.

Proposer: and Deadline: 20 February, 2010, 20:00

Support

 * 1) – Per proposal.
 * 2) Per Knife.
 * 3) - Per Knife, and proposal.
 * 4) Per Knife.
 * 5) - Ditto
 * 6) Don't you hate you try to search for a past proposal, but have to search through all the archives!? I agree with the proposal.
 * 7) - Per all.
 * 8) - Per Proposal.
 * 9) – Per all.
 * 10) Per all.

Comments
I have to make some things clear.
 * 1) Will there be something like Archive/2009 that links to all 2009 proposals, or will all of them be cluttered in a yet huge page?
 * 2) It may be hard to numer all proposals sonce 2005 or 2006 i dunno, so I suggest numbers are something like #09001 09 for 2009 and 001 because it is the first proposal.
 * 3) Protect old archives and proposals such as the main archive page.


 * No, every single proposal will have its own sub-page. The year is simply there to organize proposal pages by year. Notice the /1 after 2009.
 * 1) It shouldn't be too hard. Even the earliest proposals had deadlines, so we can easily number them chronologically.
 * 2) I'd rather leave all the pages unprotected so that regular users can update the pages as necessary.

22:57, 12 February 2010 (EST)

1 and 2: Ok. 3, update as what? We can protect 2005-2009 archives, and each individual proposal, there wont be any need to edit them.

The pages are supposed to dead and all the discussions shouldn't be edited. However, there are certain things that need to be continually updated. For instance, if a "Bring back Banjo & Conker" proposal actually passes, all previous "Bring back Banjo & Conker" would need a note at the top the page stating that the decision was overturned by a more recent proposal. Protecting pages is more retroactive than proactive. Sure, we may be protecting pages to prevent vandalism, but it also means sysops have more duties and responsibilities.-- 23:17, 12 February 2010 (EST)