MarioWiki:Proposals

Standardize citations for archived pages
Many web pages that are used as citations on the Mario Wiki are no longer available at their original links. Consequently, the citations use links from web page archival sites such as archive.today or the Wayback Machine. This can be seen on articles that reference the English translation of the Mario Portal, such as Banzai Bill, as well as other articles, such as Nintendo GameCube. Including archived citations is especially important for web pages that are volatile by design, such as online store listings for merchandise. However, nowhere does Citations feature a template for how to properly cite archived web pages; therefore, an example of a citation for an archived page should be created under the heading What to put as references.

The current basic template for citations of non-archived pages looks like this: "Author Name (January 1, 2000). . Publisher. Retrieved January 1, 2000."

Ideally, citations of archived pages should follow this template by first linking to the original, unarchived page (whether or not the link is dead), then appending the archived link and the date the page was archived to the end of the template, in parentheses. For consistency with the rest of the template, the date should be accurate down to the day, but should not feature a specific timestamp. The date of retrieval should stay the same, regardless of whether the original or archived link was retrieved. "Author Name (January 1, 2000). . Publisher. Retrieved January 1, 2000. ( January 1, 2000 via Wayback Machine.)"

This is what an actual citation would look like under this standard, using one of the references on the Nintendo GameCube article as an example: "Satterfield, Shane (August 25, 2000). Nintendo's GameCube Unveiled. GameSpot. Retrieved July 15, 2022. (Archived September 5, 2015 via Wayback Machine.)"

Here's another example, using the citation of the Mario Portal on the Banzai Bill article (because this specific page does not have an author nor a release date attributed to it, these details are omitted from the citation): "Game Archives"

As a clarification, this proposal does not mean to mandate that every citation of a web page should include an archived link; that should be left to editor consideration. However, in cases where archived links are necessary, such as volatile links or links that are already dead, a standard method of citation would be useful to implement.

Proposer: Deadline: October 24, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.

Comments
Can you articulate some specifics for this standard? Namely, would it suffice to include the link to a snapshot, or would editors be requested to also add the time, date, and name of the archivation website of that particular snapshot? You are putting forward the Banzai Bill citation as a template and, though I agree on encouraging comprehensive fact-checking and easy readability/access (as the user who basically pushed for this whole format across the wiki over the past years), I reckon some editors may not like being forced by policy to tick so many boxes when structuring their links. 00:50, October 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * I've edited the description of my proposal to reflect your criticisms. If there's anything else I was unclear about, please let me know. 11:57, October 10, 2022 (EDT)

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Merge all non-Mario universe Super Smash Bros. Stages into a collective article
Throughout the past few months the wiki has been trimming down on Super Smash Bros. content. Mutliple propsoals have now been passed supporting the trimming of Smash content including propsoals merging items, deleting general technqiues and most recently the merging of bosses. Up until I recently beleived that Smash should receive full coverage on this wiki becuause of the high level of represention Mario and its sub-franchies recive in these games. However the recent trimming of content combined with the existence of Smash Wiki I have changed my mind on this. The next step that should be taken in trimming smash content is would be to merge the stages into one collective artcile.

This is probably the most radical proposal in the trimming of Smash content so far giving the stages are a big part of the Super Smash Bros. franchise. However if we are no longer going to have seperate artciles for Items and Bosses then I think it now has to be questioned to wherever or not non-Mario stages should be also still have seperate pages given this the Mario Wiki that they based on locations that have nothing or very little to do with the Mario franchise and that seperste artciles of these stages exist on Smash Wiki.

Given that this the Mario Wiki that all stages based locations from the Mario and the sub-franchises should keep their artciles. By keeping them split it will emphasis that this the Mario Wiki by given increased focus on elements from Smash that are based on Mario. Therefore should this propsoal pass stages from these franchises which are covered by this wiki remain split:


 * Mario
 * Donkey Kong
 * Yoshi
 * Wario

One series where I think there is question mark to wherever they should be split or merged are Smash oringal stages, ie Battlefield and Final Destination. I would be also keep these with their own articles as these stages have the most hertiage of all Smash stages in the series and that they are not specfially based on a non-Mario franchise. I will therefore provide two options for merging one that sees the Smash oringnal stages remain split and the one that sees them merged.

As for all the other franchises inclduing not listed above they would all be merged into an idvidual artcile with the page names being replaced by redirects and include external links to Smash Wiki. Futhermore the infoboxes for the non-mario stages are removed and the text body should be limited to one paragrah per stage.

I'm very much aware that if this proposal passes it would be a very signifcant change for the wiki. But I beleive now given the trimming of smash content that has been taking place it is one that I beleive should hapoen. (Amendments made to proposal in comments below)

Proposer: Deadline: October 8, 2022, 23:59 GMT Extended to October 15, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Merge all non-Mario universe stages excluding stages orignal to Smash

 * 1) Per proposals, first prefrence

Merge all non-Mario universe stages including stages orignal to Smash

 * 1) Second prefrence.
 * 2) I'm in agreement with the proposal, and generally also with the original proposition to have some of the information trimmed, such as the soundtrack listings (although I wouldn't exactly restrict stage entries to only one paragraph, but I digress). The way Super Mario Wiki covers Smash content is an infamously messy attempt at a compromise between the practices of a bygone era of the wiki and its current efforts to curate information. Most of these stages, while not entirely out of the wiki's scope given their presence in a crossover game, have too tenuous a connection to Mario to have dedicated articles; related information is much better conveyed on Smash Wiki, i.e. someone can go there to see Dream Land's track selection if that's a concern. For the record, I would support a similar treatment for fighters that haven't appeared in Mario media.
 * 3) After some thought, I think this is also a fine option.

Merge only non-Mario adventure mode and subspace emissary stages

 * 1) Merging all stages seems like biting off more than we can chew right now, but these in particular aren't really significant enough to warrant separate articles for them.
 * 2) Per my reasoning in the comments
 * 3) I think that the main stages are prominent enough to remain separate, per Waluigi Time’s vote below, but I feel like these stages are less significant and can be merged.
 * 4) Per TheFlameChomp. the adventure mode and subspace emissary stages don't need separate pages.
 * 5) Per all, the arguments for stages being too prominent to merge don't really apply to the adventure mode stages.
 * 6) Per all. I agree to this most.

Keep all Smash stages split

 * 1) Creating a single page to contain every non-Mario stage in the series history, as this proposal seems to aim to do, is going to be way too messy. I'm also strongly against this specific sentence: "Futhermore the infoboxes for the non-mario stages are removed and the text body should be limited to one paragrah per stage." By doing that, we either lose information while trying to keep it trimmed to an arbitrary maximum (why?) or we have all the information we can talk about regarding each stage clumped into a single paragraph, which isn't nice to read. Take a look at Dream Land (Super Smash Bros.) for example, and try to think of how this would look merged. It's not pretty. Stages are a big enough part of the series gameplay that I think they're fine keeping separate, and frankly, I wasn't really too happy about items being merged either, but at least that was easier to pull off.
 * 2) - Too much, too far. Engaging pushback mode.
 * 3) I feel stages are the second to only playable roster in terms of prominence in a Smash Bros. game (I mean we didn't get an "Everything is Here!" for stages 😒) so I feel a lot of other content should be merged first before we consider stages.
 * 4) I may consider The Subspace Emissary, which is mostly Smash-original content (and the parts that aren't, aren't Mario-related), but Adventure mode mostly consists of normal stages, and one of the nonstandard stages gets utility outside of the mode via Event Match.
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) Per all. At least, until we can adequately address the issues brought up by other users.

Comments
I'm very conflicted about this. I think non-Mario Subspace Emissary stages such as Battleship Halberd Bridge or The Path to the Ruins need to be merged, but regular stages that shape Smash Bros. into what it is are fine. Not to mention, Battlefield according to the last Smash proposal will be merged with Fighting Polygons and other teams, so that would mean merging a stage that was already just merged. Keeping it unsplit alone would also be seen as weird. Your proposal also does not make an exception for Wrecking Crew (stage). Please add an option to only merge non-Mario Subspace Emissary levels Spectrogram (talk) 13:07, October 1, 2022 (EDT)
 * I agree with merging Subspace Emissary stages, along with Melee Adventure Mode stages barring Mushroom Kingdom. 17:23, October 1, 2022 (EDT)

Thanks for all the feedback given on this proposal, I created this proposal because I feel like it should either be all or nothing when consdiering Smash content, either it should be all merged or all split and I felt based off the pervious proposals held that the consenus of smash content leaned towards it being merged. By having items and bosses merged but stages split i feel it is middle of the road but i do understand the points made of stages being more important. It seems very likely that this proposal is not going to pass but i'll going make amendments based of the things said to see if changes any minds. Firstly as per comments from Spectrogram and 7feetunder I've added the extra option to merge non-Mario adventure mode subpace emissary stages. Secondly in regards to infobox removals and trimming of content, i've decided to strike that off from the proposal given ideas clearly sound unpopular. Thirdly in regards to Wrecking Crewe I completly forgot that stage existed and if this proposal were to pass then that would also stay split. Lastly if this proposal passes then maybe rather than one aritcle it be mutliple articles perhaps one per game to avoid it being messey. That being said even despite these ameadments the consenus clearly belevies the stages should remain split and fully see where all of you are coming from the points made but I curious to see what you all think of these amendments.

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.