Proposals can be new features (such as an extension), the removal of previously-added features that have tired out, or new policies that must be approved via consensus before any action is taken.
"Vote" periods last for one week.
Any user can support or oppose, but must have a strong reason for doing so (not, e.g., "I like this idea!").
All proposals must be approved by a majority of voters, including proposals with more than two options.
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 {{User|User name}}.
How to
Rules
If users have an idea about improving the wiki or managing its community, but feel that they need community approval before acting upon that idea, they may make a proposal about it. They must have a strong argument supporting their idea and be willing to discuss it in detail with the other users, who will then vote about whether or not they think the idea should be used. Proposals should include links to all relevant pages and writing guidelines. Proposals must include a link to the draft page. Any pages that would be largely affected by the proposal should be marked with {{proposal notice}}.
Only registered, autoconfirmed users can create, comment in, or vote on proposals and talk page proposals. Users may vote for more than one option on proposals with more than two choices.
Proposals end at the end of the day (23:59) one week after voting starts, except for writing guidelines and talk page proposals, which run for two weeks (all times GMT).
For example, if a proposal is added at any time on Monday, August 1, 2011, the voting starts immediately and the deadline is one week later on Monday, August 8, at 23:59 GMT.
Every vote should have a strong, sensible reason accompanying it. Agreeing with a previously mentioned reason given by another user is accepted (including "per" votes), but tangential comments, heavy sarcasm, and other misleading or irrelevant quips are just as invalid as providing no reason at all.
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. Voters 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.
Users can also use the comments section to bring up any concerns or mistakes in regards to the proposal itself. In such cases, it's important the proposer addresses any concerns raised as soon as possible. Even if the supporting side might be winning by a wide margin, that should be no reason for such questions to be left unanswered. They may point out any missing details that might have been overlooked by the proposer, so it's a good idea as the proposer to check them frequently to achieve the most accurate outcome possible.
If a user makes a vote and is subsequently blocked for any amount of time, their vote is removed. However, if the block ends before the proposal ends, then the user in question holds the right to re-cast their vote. If a proposer is blocked, their vote is removed and "(banned)" is added next to their name in the "Proposer:" line of the proposal, which runs until its deadline as normal. If the proposal passes, it falls to the supporters of the idea to enact any changes in a timely manner.
No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old.
Any proposal where none of the options have at least four votes will be extended for another week. If after three extensions, no options have at least four votes, the proposal will be listed as "NO QUORUM." The original proposer then has the option to relist said proposal to generate more discussion.
All proposals that end up in a tie will be extended for another week. Proposals with more than two options must also be extended another week if any single option does not have a majority support: i.e. more than half of the total number of voters must appear in a single voting option, rather than one option simply having more votes than the other options.
If a proposal with only two voting options has more than ten votes, it can only pass or fail by a margin of three votes, otherwise the deadline will be extended for another week as if no majority was reached at all.
Proposals can only be extended up to three times. If a consensus has not been reached by the fourth deadline, the proposal fails and can only be re-proposed after four weeks, at the earliest.
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 an administrator, the proposer can ask for that help.
If the administrators 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.
Proposals can only be rewritten or deleted by their proposer within the first three days of their creation (six days for talk page proposals). However, proposers can request that their proposal be deleted by an administrator at any time, provided they have a valid reason for it. Please note that canceled proposals must also be archived.
Unless there is major disagreement about whether certain content should be included, there should not be proposals about creating, expanding, rewriting or otherwise fixing up pages. To organize efforts about improving articles on neglected or completely missing subjects, try setting up a collaboration thread on the forums.
Proposals cannot be made about promotions and demotions. Users can only be promoted and demoted by the will of the administration.
No joke proposals. Proposals are serious wiki matters and should be handled professionally. Joke proposals will be deleted on sight.
Proposals must have a status quo option (e.g. Oppose, Do nothing) unless the status quo itself violates policy.
Basic proposal and support/oppose format
This is an example of what your proposal must 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]". Proposals presenting multiple alternative courses of action can have more than two voting options, but what each voting section is supporting must be clearly defined. Such options should also be kept to a minimum, and if something comes up in the comments, the proposal can be amended as necessary.
===[insert a title for your proposal here]===
[describe what issue this proposal is about and what changes you think should be made to improve how the wiki handles that issue]
'''Proposer''': {{User|[enter your username here]}}<br>
'''Deadline''': [insert a deadline here, 7 days after the proposal was created (14 for writing guidelines and talk page proposals), at 23:59 GMT, in the format: "May 6, 2024, 23:59 GMT"]
====Support====
#{{User|[enter your username here]}} [make a statement indicating that you support your proposal]
====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 "#{{User|[add your username here]}}" 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 another user's proposal. If you are voting on your own proposal, you can just say "Per my proposal".
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.
All active talk page proposals must be listed below in chronological order (new proposals go at the bottom) using {{TPPDiscuss}}. Include a brief description of the proposal while also mentioning any pages affected by it, a link to the talk page housing the discussion, and the deadline. If the proposal involves a page that is not yet made, use {{fake link}} to communicate its title in the description. Linking to pages not directly involved in the talk page proposal is not recommended, as it clutters the list with unnecessary links. Place {{TPP}} under the section's header, and once the proposal is over, replace the template with {{SettledTPP}}.
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 and 4 as follows:
Voting in talk page proposals will be open for two weeks, not one (all times GMT).
For example, if a proposal is added at any time on Monday, August 1, 2011, it ends two weeks later on Monday, August 15, 2011, at 23:59 GMT.
The talk page proposal must pertain to the article it is posted on.
When a talk page proposal passes, it should be removed from this list and included in the list under the "Unimplemented proposals" section until the proposed changes have been enacted.
Consider Beanies and Octoombas to be related to Goombas rather than direct variants of them (for consistency with Galoomba et al.) (discuss) Deadline: May 10, 2024, 23:59 GMT
Split "Baby Fat" from Baby Yoshi (discuss) Deadline: May 10, 2024, 23:59 GMT
In Template:Species infobox, expand "Relatives" guidelines to include variant-type relationships with significant differences between species (discuss) Deadline: May 12, 2024, 23:59 GMT
I propose that the {{title source}} template needs added.
<div class="notice-template" style="text-align:justify;background:#F5F5F5;margin:.5em 2%;padding:0 1em;border:1px solid black;color:black">
The title of this article is official, but it '''needs a citation'''. You can help by adding a reference to the article.
</div><includeonly>[[Category:Articles with titles from other languages]]</includeonly><noinclude>[[Category:Notice templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]</noinclude>
Proposer: Woodchuck (talk) Deadline: November 27, 2017, 21:28 GMT
Ultimate Mr. L (talk) I'm not even sure this proposal is valid, since it's just the exact same thing as {{ref needed}} Per all.
TheFlameChomp (talk) Per all. I don't see a point in creating a new template when a template for a very similar purpose already exists.
7feetunder (talk) What everyone else said. Also, "The title of this article is official, but it needs a citation." How do we know it's official? If it's unsourced, it could be conjecture for all we know.
Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) The only solution to this "problem" is for you to not knee-jerk change "ref needed" templates into "conjecture" templates.
Comments
@7feetunder Sometimes names come from obscure portions of games that some people have seen but others haven't....see whenever [[Octopus (Super Mario Galaxy)\\ gets a ref needed tag despite the name appearing in the game itself. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 16:34, 20 November 2017 (EST)
That's just one possible scenario. The suggested template text is assuming that every unsourced name is official. An unsourced name could easily be something someone made up, like Wario Punch. 20:50, 20 November 2017 (EST)
Removals
None at the moment.
Changes
Remove the Mario & Sonic header templates
There are seven templates that are used exclusively for events in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: M&S-Athletics, M&S-Aquatics, M&S-Archery, M&S-Gymnastics, M&S-Rowing, M&S-Tennis, and M&S-Skeet. All of them are 100% pointless and should be dealt with. For starters, Fencing is completely missing from this deal for no explainable reason. If you say that's because Fencing only has one event tied to it, then automatically, the majority of the templates would also be deleted, since they too only cover a single event. Athletics, Aquatics, and Gymnastics are the only ones that cover multiple events, and even then, Gymnastics has a grand total of two. You don't need an entirely separate template for two articles. This is to say nothing of how none of the other games in the series have these templates or anything that resembles them, and really, they shouldn't. They only add an image to the top-right corner (which also creates ugly overlap with the FA template), which then links to the appropriate event category, and that's it. The categories are already on the pages in the first place, and the infoboxes already mention what kind of event it is. There is nothing to be gained from these templates, especially when they cover so few pages.
The most obvious solution (and most preferable, to me) would be to simply remove them, and have our readers actually look at the article for information rather than a small image in an obtuse location. While it would be possible to merge the templates into one (somewhat similar to Template:Button), which would solve the problem of having a bunch of scattered templates covering so few pages, they would still be wholly redundant and pointless. If someone thinks that the images are crucial to the articles, then they can be worked into the infoboxes, but otherwise, they're just wastes of space.
Proposer: Time Turner (talk) Deadline: November 26, 2017, 23:59 GMT
Tucayo (talk) - Per proposal. For the record, I do recommend the images being integrated into the article, possibly in the infobox.
Oppose
Comments
Shouldn't this be a multi-option proposal, since you mentioned maybe working the templates into the infoboxes? (T|C) 12:57, 19 November 2017 (EST)
I mentioned including the images into the infobox. I don't see why we can't both do that and delete the templates. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 13:07, 19 November 2017 (EST)
In the previous proposal about navigation templates, I noticed Template:G&Wario and how its name is totally inconsistent with every other name. It was presumably named that because "Template:G&W" could be confused with Template:Game & Watch, but that's not how we resolve overlaps. For example, since "SMS" could refer to either Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario Strikers, their corresponding templates are written out in full, as Template:Super Mario Sunshine and Template:Super Mario Strikers. There are very few examples of this on the wiki, but in almost every case besides G&W, each name is written in full (the other exception being Template:WWS). With that in mind, "G&Wario" should be moved to Game & Wario to resolve the inconsistency.
However, a while back (in another proposal that involved standardizing names), I actually suggested doing what G&Wario's doing now, with the last word being written in full while the rest of the name is abbreviated. It was shot down in a later discussion by an admin, but now that we have an inconsistency to resolve, I thought that it would be worth bringing it up again. Using the half-abbreviated approach saves on space while still preventing confusion, but at the same time, it's kind of unwieldy and isn't particularly intuitive. With all of this in mind, there are three options: move G&Wario and the other exceptions (WW and WWS) to follow the other templates' examples (option 1), move the other templates to follow G&Wario's example (option 2), and do nothing (option 3). We definitely shouldn't do nothing, since that would leave us with an inconsistency for no good reason, but beyond that, the other options are open for all.
Proposer: Time Turner (talk) Deadline: November 27, 2017, 23:59 GMT
Option 1: Only move the exceptions
Alex95 (talk) - Per proposal. This should set a standard as well, with any templates being similarly abbreviated being moved to the games' full name.
I didn't even know about that one. Into the pile it goes! Hello, I'm Time Turner. 19:55, 19 November 2017 (EST)
I want to vote option 1, but what about future similarly abbreviated templates in the future? Should this set a standard of some kind? 22:54, 19 November 2017 (EST)
However this ends, it'll be a signal for future editors on what they should do, just like my previous templates about colons and ampersands. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 22:58, 19 November 2017 (EST)
Option 1 still makes no mention of what to do with WW and WWS if it passes. 23:45, 19 November 2017 (EST)
Ah. Right. Because I wrote the proposal when I thought that G&Wario was the only exception. One moment, please... Hello, I'm Time Turner. 23:47, 19 November 2017 (EST)
@Time Turner: You forgot to vote on your own proposal. -YFJ (talk · edits) 09:42, 23 November 2017 (EST)
Miscellaneous
Online Flash games
We currently have little coverage on official Flash-powered games used by Nintendo to promote their games in the past. In fact, the only relevant thing here is the Barrel-Blastapalooza page, which I wrote and nobody seemed to mind, but when a bunch of other games were added to the Mario games nav template, they got removed by someone stating that they need to be discussed first.
Under Glowsquid (talk)'s guidance, I decided to make a proposal dedicated to the matter. Should we give official Flash games the same treatment as full-fledged games? Should there be a separate template to include them all?
I visualise three options:
Each Flash game could receive its own page. I strongly recommend this to be done because I consider these games to be games after all, no matter if they are mere advertisments. Donkey Kong Country: Barrel Maze is an example of a game that seems to stand on its own without a relation to a particular game, and if it is to have an article, the other games should too.
Info on Flash games could simply be incorporated in one big article. This would mean merging Barrel-Blastapalooza with said article. I'm not keen on the idea, but it could be a workaround for games that have become unavailable, whereabout information is scarce.
The Flash games should not be covered. I obviously don't agree with this option, since we're talking official material.
Proposer: Super Radio (talk) Deadline: November 25, 2017 23:59 GMT
YoshiFlutterJump (talk) They're games. They're official. Hence, we cover them. Per all.
Mister Wu (talk) Some of them might look simple and thin in content when compared to other videogames, but they're still games licensed by Nintendo and I guess the content there should be anyway enough to make a page for each one of them, as Barrel-Blastapalooza showed.
Ultimate Mr. L (talk) Per all. (I had no idea that Nintendo used Flash games.)
Ultimate Mr. L (talk) Considering Flash games are smaller than full-fledged games, this seems like a workable option.
YoshiFlutterJump (talk) This isn't a bad choice either. After all, it still covers the information.
Don't cover Flash games
Comments
@Super Radio: My suggestion to make a proposal wasn't over wheter the flash games should get their own pages (it's offishul material and nobody has objected) but rather wheter they should be listed alongside "real" games on templates or rounded up in their own ghetto (personally I favor the later solution). --Glowsquid (talk) 19:15, 18 November 2017 (EST)
I'd personally vouch for them appearing on Template:MarioGames and the like. If they're official, we might as well treat them officially (and if the Donkey Kong slot machine is already on the template, I think they'll be in good company). At the very least, we could have a computer games template and lump in the edutainment games with the flash games. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 22:00, 18 November 2017 (EST)
@Glowsquid: I know, and I did ask in this proposal if web games should have their separate template. However, I wanted a proposal to discuss the whole matter of Flash games, as it was requested by Lindsay151 to happen. I agree with Time Turner; there should be a template with all PC games like Mario's Time Machine and Mario's Missing, which could include Flash-based games. Although Flash is a computing platform in itself, similar to any OS, the games in question were only meant to be playable on a PC via web browser (any sort of emulation notwithstanding). -- -- KOOPACONCARNE 05:02, 19 November 2017 (EST)
Since the Flash games are meant as advertising material and not as actual, full-fledged games, I oppose including them in {{MarioGames}}. If anything, they should get their own template (again, separate from actual games like Time Machine and Mario's Missing). --™The 'Shroom 22:43, 20 November 2017 (EST)
If it's not overkill, I can create another proposal solely about a template with Flash games. Just as Glowsquid originally suggested... -- -- KOOPACONCARNE 13:59, 22 November 2017 (EST)
One thing I am not sure of is what genres are some of these games fit in. DK: King of Swing -- Hurling for Distance, for example: it plays very similarly to the Yetisports games, if anyone's ever heard of them, but I can't find a professional term to describe this particular genre, other than "distance games". Are they just called action games? Well, you certainly can't compare them to these. What do you think? -- -- KOOPACONCARNE 07:57, 19 November 2017 (EST)
Yup, I think I'll stick to calling it an action game. -- -- KOOPACONCARNE 00:41, 20 November 2017 (EST)
I have one concern about this. Should we cover Adobe Flash Player like in a similar method to that of Nintendo consoles or MS-DOS or Philips CD-i? There are a lot of Flash games that were meant to advertise or promote the main games rather them be a standalone game to be taken seriously. Heck, because we have Super Mario Run, should we cover iOS or Android OS? --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) (Stats - Contribs) 05:54, 23 November 2017 (EST)
20:50, 20 November 2017 (EST)
(T|C) 12:57, 19 November 2017 (EST)
22:54, 19 November 2017 (EST)
™ The 'Shroom 22:43, 20 November 2017 (EST)
