MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Discourage drive-by templating
Improvement templates are a necessary, or at least beneficiary, eyesore but they can be subject to degenerate editing behaviours. Namely, it's very easy (and common) for editors to just slap improvement templates on pages with no or vague reasons and then leave (Template:Rewrite-expand in particular is subject to this). Not only can it be Kind of Rude when it's slapped on a recently-created article, the resulting eyesores stay on pages for years, as it's not clear to anyone but the editor who added the template what needs to be done - the Donkey Kong page has had a Rewrite-Expand notice since 2017 for vague "bad writing" and it's hard to tell what's so awful about the existing writing or what content must be added.

Through conversations on our Discord server, I've found other editors share my frustration with this behaviour. Fortunately, I believe there's an easy fix. Most improvement templates have parameters to explain in the template text why the template was added to a page, and any improvement template that currently does not incorporate this can be easily modified to have it. As such I propose, should this pass, that from this point, any improvement template added to a page must have its reason parameter filled with specific, actionable points. Emphasis on the "specific" - just saying a page has "bad writing" or "is missing images" without specifically saying what is bad about the writing or what images are missing won't cut mustard. Any currently-used instances that do not have their parameter filled (or only give a vague reason) will be removed, although it does not mean the templates can't be readded if specific reasons are listed.

Proposer: Deadline: March 6, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Require improvement templates to have their reason parameter filled, remove unfilled/vague notices on mainspace articles

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal.
 * 5) was always bothered by this
 * 6) I don't see any reason why we should not do this.
 * 7) - Per (also the reason parameter should be the second one, not date or user or whatever irrelevant garbage)
 * 8) per. Also we should encourage going on talk page or linking to an existing talk page discussion, which can also serve to elaborate on points being made that can't fit on a rewrite template.
 * 9) per.
 * 10) Per proposal.
 * 11) Per all. I remember doing some edits to the Donkey Kong page and having trouble finding what was being considered "bad writing". So I ended up mostly just removing false information and fixing the formatting on the page.
 * 1) Per all. I remember doing some edits to the Donkey Kong page and having trouble finding what was being considered "bad writing". So I ended up mostly just removing false information and fixing the formatting on the page.

Comments
This is probably a given already, but will this also apply to "more image" templates? Again, what kind of images required should be stated as well. 21:42, February 27, 2023 (EST)
 * Yeah, I think in spirit, this should apply. 01:54, February 28, 2023 (EST)

Two questions: Specifically what templates would be covered under this proposal? And what would happen to existing examples of unhelpful templates on the wiki already? (i.e.: Donkey Kong's page, Kamek's page) Will they just be removed (per proposal) with no discussion (if so I do agree)? 11:17, February 28, 2023 (EST)
 * The proposal does say that any templates that either don't have any reasoning or are too vague will be removed from articles. I'm assuming templates like Template:Rewrite, Template:More images etc will be the ones affected. 11:37, February 28, 2023 (EST)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.