MarioWiki:Proposals

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Merge Imajin, Mama, Lina, Papa, and Poki and Piki with Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (Discuss) Passed.
 * Separate Wii U audio files from the ones on the GBA (Discuss) Passed.
 * Merge Goombette with Micro-Goomba (Discuss) Deadline: February 8, 2015, 23:59 GMT.
 * Add an image of a Question Block to the Empty template (Discuss) Deadline: February 9, 2015, 23:59 GMT.
 * Split the level 75m from Donkey Kong from the Smash Bros. stage of the same name (Discuss) Deadline: February 12, 2015, 23:59 GMT.

Writing Guidelines
None at the moment.

Make a new "Out of date" template
I think we should make a new "this page is out of date" template. To avoid confusion, here is why summed up in three reasons:


 * It is needed here- many pages are out of date.
 * Out of date pages should be independent of, because putting completely unrelated issues under one template is confusing. This template assures that the template is specific to the problem, unlike.
 * It is instantly recognizable and more convenient. Why be confusing when you could be concise and too the point?

Below are two versions. Personally, I like images on templates because they show creativity, but I understand some people disagree on me about images, so I've included a template without an image as well.

Version 1

 This page or section is out of date. Please update any inaccurate information

Version 2

 This page or section is out of date. Please update any inaccurate information

So, what do you guys think?

Proposer: Deadline: February 15th, 2015, at 23:59 GMT.

Support (Version 1)

 * 1) Per proposal.

Oppose

 * 1) Per Yoshi876 in the comments. The Super Mario Wiki is generally well maintained and letting articles get out of date is a rare occurrence, so adding another maintenance template would simply be a waste of space, most likely.
 * 2) This proposed template causes several redundancies with existing templates we have. When a page is outdated, it is tagged with a green "recently released" template in corresponding sections already. That should already hint that the said page is outdated. I'm not totally cool on the fact that "oh, someone will come and fix it", otherwise, what's the point of even adding image or rewrite templates? However, this template already does what upcoming or recently released does; hell you can even just tag a rewrite-expand there because that's essentially what it is.
 * 3) Completely redundant. It works well enough in the Rewrite family.

Comments
Can you direct me to a page that is out of date? And how do you mean "out of date? If it's missing info, then someone should be expected to put that information in, even if it's just one sentence. And if it's using a name that isn't widely used anymore then a simple edit is all that's required rather than some poxy template.

Take Club Nintendo (rewards program) for instance. The rewards are, well, out of date. Since no one is editing or updating it, this template would fit in perfectly. Andymii (talk) 13:55, 8 February 2015 (EST)

What's all this fuss about "instant recognizably", anyways? Is it really that difficult to just read the template? --Vommack (talk) 16:30, 8 February 2015 (EST)

Removals
None at the moment.

Establish a duration rule for music files
Is this the right place to have unnecessarily long (even 2:00+ long) music samples such as this one? The wiki does not focus on game music. They are just samples, so people usually check them out to get an idea of the song, not to listen to them from the start to the end. Besides, shorter samples make the article seem lighter and do not divert attention from the page for much time. I suggest we make all music files between 0:15 and 0:20 long.

Proposer: Deadline: February 15, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * Per my proposal.

Oppose

 * Well, we are a wiki about all things Mario, and the soundtrack is part of it; the wiki isn't even running out of storage space, anyway. It's not like people would be too lazy to press the pause button if they didn't want to listen to the whole thing. Plus, what is someone did want to listen to a whole song? True, the user could just go to Youtube, but having everything Mario-related on one page is what makes the Mario Wiki special. If a music is a short loop, yes, there is no need for a 5-minute recording, but what you're doing here is putting a cap on all songs, which could cause issues. Shorting down the songs just causes more problems, while having the whole piece is beneficial to all.
 * 1) As Andymii said, this is the Super Mario Wiki, dedicated to everything that's related to the Mario series, and if the music is a part of a game, it's a part of the series. The focus of the wiki isn't on music, sure, and it also isn't characters, beta elements, enemies, glitches, stages... They're all just naturally covered because they exist within the series. Viewers of the wiki are as likely to want to listen to the songs as they are to look up a character. Also, I don't get the "shorter samples = lighter articles", considering literally the only thing that would change is the tiny minute:seconds timer on the far-right. Also, limiting music samples to just fifteen to twenty seconds long would require people to not only go out of their way to edit the songs (and with the number of music files out there, this will take a while), but there will certainly be arguments about which fifteen/twenty seconds of the song should be used. Simply put, adding the full songs to the wiki is a much simper option that gives convenience to both our editors and our viewers.
 * 2) Per all.
 * 3) It will cut off some parts of music. Per all.
 * 4) "Unnecessarily long" has to be defined better since most video game background music (BGM) rarely go over 2 minutes without loops. Youtube doesn't have the highest quality of music and there are several annoying ads you have to sit through to listen to the 3 second loop of 25m. Finally, this rule won't prevent people from embedding Youtube links of the full BGM in the pages, and Youtube embedding puts a lot more strain on the loading times than .ogg files. I find this rule unnecessary at best and convoluted at worst.
 * 5) "Unnecessarily long" is, well, unnecessarily vague, and besides that, this proposal hasn't actually provided a reason as for why a long track is a bad thing.

Comments
The ONLY problem we have with our current policy is that we upload like, complete CD rips of game soundtracks when they are clearly copyrighted by Nintendo and are crossing the illegal line. Unlike content here on MarioWiki, on which we use for a clear fair use basic, music is something slightly different; they have soundtracks of it and they WILL mark you for copyright if you upload the complete track on YouTube. Now I'm using YouTube's ty copyright claim system but then again, these pieces of music were composed by artists and are copyrighted by Nintendo. Furthermore, our own fair use policy even states that we have only a sample of the soundtrack, like a shorter or a reduced quality version of it.

I admit there's a gray line when it comes to soundtracks of games not officially released but something doesn't sit well with me when we upload clean, nice uploads of complete BGMs when a soundtrack CD of the said game DOES exist. And yes, you can use the typical illegal measures of obtaining CD ripped soundtracks on say, you know those sites. It's almost like we just pick apart the original rip from a CD and reupload it on this wiki.

I entirely disagree with the proposal, regardless. Many people love certain video game bgms and would probably like to listen to the full version of it, which is what this wiki provides, but I'm still a bit skeptical whether we should still provide the full bgm of a song. 15:19, 8 February 2015 (EST)
 * I'd say not to upload full rips of games with official soundtracks that can still be easily obtained, like Super Mario Galaxy or SSB4, but for something like, say, WarioWare: Twisted, which hasn't received anything officially in regards to its soundtrack and is a decade old now, I'd go for it.
 * I wouldn't support uploading the entire Official Soundtrack (OST) of every game, no matter how old it is. Copyright laws can be pretty bitchy, but again, we're not a database for audio files including .brstms, .wavs, and the other doodads. That being said, I support uploading the more "notable" tracks like the main theme, the basic level theme, and the common theme. 16:07, 8 February 2015 (EST)

"say, WarioWare: Twisted, which hasn't received anything officially in regards to its soundtrack and is a decade old now, I'd go for it"

No. Fair use doesn't work that way. --Glowsquid (talk) 16:47, 8 February 2015 (EST)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.