MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
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New features
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Removals
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Discourage drive-by templating part 2
Building off of this proposal, I propose taking this one step further with some more templates that are often used. Suggestions to merge, split, and rename articles are frequently made using the relevant templates, but many times that's the end of it and no talk page discussion is ever started. The reasons for the suggested change are left behind in a quickly buried edit summary, or not elaborated on at all. That makes it a lot harder for users to know why the change was suggested in the first place, and to discuss whether to do it.

If this passes, then these templates must be accompanied by either an active discussion or proposal. The discussion/proposal doesn't need to be on the talk page of the article where the template is used, but it does need to exist somewhere, and the template needs to link to the appropriate page. I'm hesitant to define what counts as an active discussion here, because I think it's fair to have some level of discretion there - personally, I would say that if there hasn't been any engagement whatsoever in the past 365 days, the discussion isn't active anymore (please be aware that this is not set in stone). This is to prevent having these templates left behind while attached to discussions that are years old - like proposals, if you suggest a change it's up to you (or the other supporters) to see that through and keep it active until a consensus is reached.

Articles where the proposed changes are enforced by a proposal but not enacted yet are exempt, as a decision has already been made. However, the proposal field of these templates should be used to link to the relevant proposal.

The following templates will be affected:
 * Template:Merge to
 * Template:Merge from
 * Template:Split
 * Template:Move

Proposer: Deadline: May 4, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) yeah
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) "Yeah" indeed. (To be honest, I thought this was something the previous proposal did...)
 * 5) Explaining why you suggest a split/merge/move in the edit summary is horrible for wiki maintenance. The reasoning is often very hard to find (if it even exists), and the templates end up linking to a red link talk page. If you can't be bothered to actually start a discussion on the changes you want to see made, then you shouldn't be allowed to use these templates in the first place.
 * 6) Per proposal.
 * 7) Yeah, fully on board with this. I've seen this template many times and it often doesn't have any sort of discussion tying to it.
 * 8) Per all, I've seen so many instances of this with no discussion to be found anywhere.
 * 9) This is exactly what I had brought up on the previous proposal.
 * 10) - Please? (because a "per proposal" doesn't drive home the urgency.)
 * 11) Pretty please. Way too many instances of articles having these specific tags but never linking to talk pages, or any other way to give out what the reason for it's inclusion is. I especially hate it when the reason is hidden away in edit summaries, like, edit summaries are only ment for telling what you did on a page, it is NOT for explaining complex topics that better warrant an entire discussion on a talk page.
 * 12) Per all. The there are a lot of pages that have had those templates up for a very long time yet nothing had been done about it.
 * 13) I thought this had been decided after the previous proposal already. I actually have already been removing some of these if there was no discussion at all or hadn't been active for a while.
 * 14) per all
 * 1) I thought this had been decided after the previous proposal already. I actually have already been removing some of these if there was no discussion at all or hadn't been active for a while.
 * 2) per all

Oppose

 * 1) This adds too much control to the wiki and kinda dictates it. Mind you, the previous proposal was made to fix users adding templates for no reason. Plus, other wikis don't act like this. And if that argument sounds weak, it was used for merging various Smash articles. The history section exists for you to go look for it. And if you don't agree with the template, you just delete it. I apologize if this support was a bit too informal; I just need to get my points out there. I know for a fact that this proposal will succeed.

Comments
@Wikiboy10: The goal of this proposal is the same as the last one, getting rid of vague templates. A request for a rewrite or more images that doesn't actually specify what's wrong with the page is only a little more useless than a suggestion to merge a page with no reasoning - at least the suggested course of action is there, but the reasons why aren't, making it harder than necessary to come to a decision. This is meant to make maintenance easier for our userbase in the long run, and I don't see how requiring users to state their reasons for a suggested change is any more "controlling" than requiring users to specify why they're putting a rewrite template on a page.

The actions of other wikis have no bearing on how we do things, and never should, period. Every community is different and things that work for their organization, maintenance, and policies may not work for another wiki and vice-versa. We can certainly look to other wikis to see what ideas might be worth adapting and what's failed in the past, but it shouldn't be the basis of our decisions. Even using Smash as an example, there's several much more solid arguments to be made for reducing or cutting that content. A proposal that rested solely on "we should cut non-Mario Smash content because Bulbapedia doesn't cover non-Pokemon Smash content", for example, would've flopped horribly. I find it concerning how often "other NIWA wikis don't do this" or "SmashWiki exists" has been brought up in the recent Smash proposals, because apparently this attitude is now spreading to other issues and has been given the appearance of legitimacy, when historically it's been one of the flimsiest arguments used here for good reason.

The issue isn't just the reasoning being left in summaries, but that's a big enough problem already and it's been brought up by supporters why this is a bad idea. Also keep in mind that these templates sometimes stay up for years at a time, and especially on high-traffic pages, those summaries can be buried quick. Providing reasons for suggested changes to articles is simply not what page history is meant for, and drops the responsibility on someone else to start a discussion. However, many times users don't leave an edit summary at all. It didn't take long for me to find an example of this - Big Bungee Piranha. There's no discussion on the talk page, or on Bungee Bud's talk page either. The discuss button is a red link, in fact. Neither page's edit history has any reasoning for the suggestion. At the bare minimum, there's not even any edit summary that would suggest the template was added, making tracking down the original user who added it to contact them directly needlessly difficult. Maybe there's a discussion about this somewhere, but if there is, I'd have no idea where to look. What's the point of leaving this template up? In some cases, it may be fairly easy for someone else to fill in the blanks, others might be more difficult and rely on obscure material, but it really should be up to the person who suggests the change to follow through and explain why we should do it.

Finally, deleting merge/split/rename templates just because you disagree with the suggestion is a very bad idea that will most likely lead to edit warring. It's the exact opposite of what should be done, discussion until a consensus is reached.

Apologies for the long comment, but I felt the need to address these points. -- 15:05, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

"Plus, other wikis don't act like this. And if that argument sounds weak, it was used for merging various Smash articles." If you're referring to a couple misguided support votes in those proposals, maybe. But none of the proposals out of those that actually succeeded were built on that principle, so I suggest you not spread misinformation. As others including WT above have said time and again, there is no inherent, indisputable benefit in modelling this wiki after others. 15:40, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
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