Do not make changes 1-4
I want to support some changes on the Yoshi franchise articles. The article about the series of Yoshi platformers could be too excessive and could be deleted and merged into the article about the Yoshi's Island series to classify Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Balloon Trip, Yoshi Touch & Go, Yoshi's Island DS, and Yoshi's New Island as direct installments in the Yoshi's Island series and Yoshi's Story, Yoshi Demo, the Purple Yoshi tech demo, Yoshi Topsy-Turvy, Yoshi's Woolly World, Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World, and Yoshi's Crafted World as indirect games of the Yoshi's Island series. For example, Yoshi's Story's working title was Yoshi's Island 64, and the early logo looks similar to the SNES game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island logo, implying that Yoshi's Story was originally planned as a sequel to said game and would have been a direct title in the Yoshi's Island series. Another example says that third-party company Game Informer calls Yoshi's Woolly World an indirect title in the Yoshi's Island series, stating that the game is "the best Yoshi's Island since the original Super Nintendo title". In addition to this change, the page about the Yoshi puzzle games could be moved to "Yoshi (series)". For example, Tetris Attack could be a spin-off of the Yoshi series of puzzle games.
Proposer: Teh Other (talk) Deadline: January 7, 2023, 23:59 GMTExtended to January 14, 2023, 23:59 GMT Extended to January 21, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Hewer (talk) I think a better idea would be to just merge the Yoshi platform series article with the main Yoshi series article since the 'platform series' is so vaguely defined. Also, moving the puzzle series to 'Yoshi (series)' is a bad idea because that's easily confused with 'Yoshi (franchise)', and I'm not sure why you brought up GameInformer since they aren't an official source.
This proposal really needs more options; primarily to be able to support one or the other rather than only all at once. Nightwicked Bowser 20:43, December 31, 2022 (EST)
I also doubt the proposal format is appropriate for this. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 21:30, December 31, 2022 (EST)
You should probably have a project page to show how this would look if passed. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 21:13, January 11, 2023 (EST)
Create Mario Kart course redirects with game prefixes for recurring track names
create redirects for all courses 2-11-0
In case the title wasn't clear, I'm referring to making redirects like GBA Rainbow Road, DS Mario Circuit, and Wii Bowser's Castle. My argument for doing this is simple: I think it would be both useful and in line with our redirect policy.
For my first point: Series convention has people referring to these tracks this way even outside of official contexts, and people aren't going to take the time to think about whether a certain course came back before typing it into the search box. Heck, even I, whose editing hangout spots include not one but two lists of which courses appear in which games, find myself sooner typing "DS Bowser's Castle" into the search bar than "Bowser Castle (Mario Kart DS)", if only because one is shorter.
I do not believe these would be in violation of our redirect policy, as these names are neither silly (being an extension of series convention) nor ambiguous (there's only one course "Wii Mario Circuit" could be referring to). These are really the only criteria they need to meet, as the policy is otherwise very encouraging of redirects.
Now, my initial proposal was to do this for all unprefixed courses with recurring names, not counting MK8 or spinoffs since we don't know for sure what their prefixes would be. This results in this list:
GBA Bowser's Castle 4
GCN Bowser's Castle
GCN Rainbow Road
DS Mario Circuit
DS Bowser's Castle
DS Rainbow Road
Wii Luigi Circuit
Wii Mario Circuit
Wii Bowser's Castle
It seems a bit excessive to me, but I realized while writing this that I may want to include an option to do this for every course (aside from MK8 and spinoffs), so I'm also including that as an option.
DOUBLE EDIT: I've changed the second option to be what the edited-in third option was, since I didn't realize I was leaving Tour out when I first made it. I am sorry if this causes confusion.
Proposer: Ahemtoday (talk) Deadline: January 27, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Create these redirects for every course (aside from MK8, Arcade GP, and Home Circuit)
Ahemtoday (talk) My listed reasons can apply, albeit more mildly, to all these courses; and as the redirect policy says, redirects don't cost anything.
Hewer (talk) Per proposal, I'm surprised this wasn't already the case (also it's kind of already done with the non-city Tour courses here, here, and here, I would suggest extending this to Tour courses as well but since it's inevitable that they'll all be in the Booster Course Pass I guess that would just end up pointless in the long run).
Tails777 (talk) While the idea of these technically not being official names still come to mind, I'm no doubt supportive of this, mainly cause I'm definitely one of those people who refers to pretty much every track with their system prefix beforehand, official or not. On another note, this could also just make it easier when these tracks inevitably do return, as the article contents can just be moved over to these redirects.
RealStuffMister (talk) per proposal however as i mentioned in my comment, this would be my secondary option if another choice including Tour courses is added.
Mister Wu (talk) It makes sense, those redirects will eventually become the actual page names anyway (except maybe for the case of Mario Kart Tour whose non-city courses aren't consistently given the Tour prefix)
Arend (talk) Surprised it wasn't done before. Per all.
Don't create redirects
Comments
I would say "Create redirects for all unprefixed courses from MK7 or before", however I believe that Mario Kart Tour courses should be included in this list, so the page Tour Singapore Speedway would redirect to Singapore Speedway's article. For now, i will vote the option i mentioned earlier, but if you create an extra option to include Tour courses, then i'd vote that one - YoYo (Talk) 19:28, January 21, 2023 (EST)
Like I said in my vote, the issue there is that they'll all inevitably come to the Booster Course Pass and be moved to those names anyway, so it would probably just end up being unnecessary extra work. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 19:33, January 21, 2023 (EST)
that just means some courses will have prefix redirects, while some won't for up to 11 months, this, to me, is an "all or none" situation, if you're gonna do some, you might as well do them all. besides, creating a redirect, then transferring contents of another article to it isnt that much work, there's been more intense stuff done to their articles before. - YoYo (Talk) 19:41, January 21, 2023 (EST)
Admins can move pages over redirects, so one can just ask an admin to rename the pages when necessary. rend(talk)(edits) 15:12, January 26, 2023 (EST)
Ahemtoday, you can still change the second option to include tour courses, the rules state you can append proposals within the first three days of it being written. Im sure if the people voting for it care enough about the other games having the redirects, they'd agree to Tour courses too - YoYo (Talk) 12:02, January 22, 2023 (EST)
I'd rather have the prefixes removed from the course names that are unique (and keep them for those that have different iterations such as (character) Circuit or Rainbow Road courses, obviously) then make prefix redirects. I honestly dislike how Tour courses that got added to BCP have the prefix, but those that has yet to be added did not. — Stache (talk) 23:00, January 23, 2023 (EST)
Decide what to do with StreetPass Mii Plaza
Trim and classify as guest appearance 5-0
Merge request has been sitting on this page for a while, so let's resolve it once and for all. StreetPass Mii Plaza features plenty of Mario-related content, so it should be considered a guest appearance. However, it covers too much information unrelated to Mario, so I additionally propose to trim the features section, Find Mii, and DLC to only cover Mario content.
Proposer: Spectrogram (talk) Deadline: January 28, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Merge certain non-Mario fighters from the Super Smash Bros. series into game-specific lists and trim away detailed special move information for all non-Mario fighters
Trim detailed special move information, merge fighters into game-specific lists 16-11
Here's a simple premise: the Super Mario Wiki is not the Smash Wiki. The wiki has no business giving undue focus to every single element that has been part of the Smash Bros. series. In spite of the effortsto curtailthis practice, the elephant in the room is still cosily seated.
I'll first reiterate my feelings on non-Mario concepts featured in this series: in my view, Mario Wiki's mission is indeed to provide information on anything the Mario cast interacts with, and the various Super Smash Bros. concepts, therefore, deserve by all means the privilege to be covered in some way, shape, or form. The problem is that these concepts are currently presented in excessive detail, much of which is specific to these concepts and perhaps as far-removed from Mario as one can get. I believe the two courses of action proposed here go hand in hand towards offering a much more streamlined coverage for the subjects that lack enough notability within the bona fide Mario franchise.
Following the standard of the List of Super Smash Bros. series items and List of Super Smash Bros. series bosses, my initial plan was to propose merging fighters who have had no significant presence within the Mario franchise into one list housing all their current Smash-related information, in addition to, perhaps, any other relevant information from other Mario-related media where they had cameos and mentions. Realising that the resulting page would be excessively long and more than likely violate the article size policy tenfold, I came up with a compromise that aims to achieve a similar effect:
Trim away detailed, textual information on special moves for all non-Mario fighters. Special moves are intrinsic to a character, employing their own abilities and/or weapons. Giving each move a separate heading within a fighter's article just isn't proportional to the extent they manifest a relationship with Mario elements; they can be neatly summarised in prose, as fighter articles already do. In removing this information, a sizable amount of space will be saved, allowing for more compact fighter lists. Images relevant to the special moves will be kept and repurposed as part of the next course of action:
Make a list of fighters for every Super Smash Bros. game (where for 3DS and for Wii U fighters share the same page) containing the relevant sections of each of the non-Mario, non-franchise-significance fighter, complete with a gallery of relevant images for each section. For instance, this means that we take the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sections of Ness, Simon Belmont, and other fighters who fulfill the aforementioned criteria and throw them in a "List of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighters" list, with each section having a gallery that comprises any relevant image that would go unused as a result of the redistribution of information. A visual example of how this would work can be seen at the end of the proposal.
A few notes:
if a character has had a significant appearance within the Mario franchise proper, such as having a playable role in Mario Kart--and this includes actual Mario characters--their page will remain intact.[amendment 1] They will still have an entry on the relevant fighter lists, but nothing else beyond their representative artwork and a "main" tag with a link to their respective article. Cameos such as Super Mario Maker costumes, Yoshi's Woolly World designs, WarioWare microgame appearances, non-speaking roles, and mentions do not constitute a significant appearance--and neither do appearances in media where Mario characters are guests, such as Captain N, nor appearances in non-Mario media that is syndicated/distributed with Mario media, such as The Legend of Zelda cartoon and the Mario/Kirby OVA.
in cases where information on a fighter is split between lists, their current article is turned into a disambig page for their list entries (e.g., for Ness, it'll be "For information on Ness in the Super Smash Bros. series, see: List of Super Smash Bros. fighters § Ness; List of Super Smash Bros. Melee fighters § Ness etc.") For fighters who have only appeared in one Smash game, their current article is turned into a simple redirect to their respective section.
current profile sections won't be moved to these fighter lists to keep their size reasonable. Trophies, stickers, and spirits of each fighter are already covered on their parent pages.
Subspace Emissary info and classic mode routes from Ultimate will be among the ported information, even for non-Mario fighters. Reason being, these often involve Mario characters as opponents or otherwise.
Sonic - playable in the Mario & Sonic crossover series
Villager - playable in Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
I put together a sample layout that would inspire the appearance of these new fighter list pages; particularities, such as image size and whether or not fighters with intra-Wiki "main article" tags need an image to begin with, are negotiable.
Page title: List of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighters
Ness appears as an unlockable playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. While his moveset is mostly unchanged from the previous Super Smash Bros. titles, he has received various new tweaks to his moves. Ness now emits PSI when pummeling opponents and while using his neutral aerial. His up aerial, rather than headbutting, has him waving his hands in the air. In addition, for his PK Fire and PSI Magnet moves, graphics are taken from EarthBound. He and Lucas have a new victory theme, which is an arrangement of the last two of the Eight Melodies from EarthBound Beginnings.
Several of Ness's attacks receive names: his forward smash is called Batter Up!, his up smash is called Around the World, his down smash is called Walk the Dog, his forward throw is called PK Throw, and his back throw is called Reverse PK Throw.
Simon Belmont is a protagonist from Konami's Castlevania video game series, debuting in its very first entry. He makes his Super Smash Bros. debut in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a third-party playable character, alongside fellow Konami characters Solid Snake and Richter Belmont, his descendant. He was announced to be playable in the game during the August 2018 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct, alongside fellow newcomers Richter, Chrom, Dark Samus, and King K. Rool.
Simon's various attacks involve him using his "Vampire Killer" whip. His special attacks are Axe, an axe that is a powerful projectile; Holy Water, a magical, multi-hitting projectile dealing flame damage; Cross, a projectile with boomerang-esque properties; and Uppercut, a powerful uppercut that functions as Simon's recovery move. His Final Smash, Grand Cross, involves trapping players in a coffin and destroying it. Simon's whip is long-ranged, being effective to use from far distances. Simon's forward, back, and up aerials also function as tether recoveries, making them useful for recovering when close to an edge.
Keith Silverstein, Simon's English voice actor in Castlevania: Judgment, reprises his role as Simon. Hideo Ishikawa, who voiced Simon in DreamMix TV World Fighters, also reprises the role in the Japanese version.
In his debut trailer, he arrives at Dracula's Castle and eliminates Death shortly after the latter killed Luigi. He later confronts Dracula himself but is nearly defeated, only to be saved by his descendant Richter.[1]
In the Adventure mode, Simon is seen standing near a cliff when he and the other fighters oppose Galeem for the first time. Although Simon is not shown to be hit by Galeem's beams directly, he, like every fighter except Kirby, is imprisoned in the World of Light, where a Galeem-serving puppet fighter of him is created. Simon is later freed after his puppet fighter is defeated, and he subsequently joins Kirby's team against Galeem and later Dharkon.
^The author of this proposal confirms this statement to be an oversight and has ruled through another proposal in March 2023 that it be understood as the following: "if a character has had a significant appearance within the Mario franchise proper, such as having a playable role in Mario Kart--and this obviously includes actual Mario characters--they will still have a page of their own. However, if they're not characters from a franchise that receives full coverage on this wiki, their lists of moves in the Super Smash Bros. series will still be trimmed away."
Koopa con Carne (talk) According to calculations that came to me in a dream, this proposal has an 86.489% chance of failure.
Spectrogram (talk) Per proposal and the discussion on Discord. Smash Bros. is a crossover, sure, but Mario content is now very minor compared to the games' first installment, and the problem will only continue to get worse and worse with each coming game and their DLC. Edit: also per Somethingone's rant below, dear God, this was one hell of a read.
Ahemtoday (talk) I'm looking at these pages for Smash characters, and... this is just a less comprehensive version of what's on the Smash wiki. I really don't see the need for these. Perhaps they could be just trimmed, but... well, that'll happen anyway with this whole list thing.
Cosmic Cowboy (talk) Yeah. I gauged interest for this on the forums, and we aren't trying to be SmashWiki here. SmashWiki exists for a reason, you know?
Shiny K-Troopa (talk) This is the only NIWA wiki hogging Smash content like this, it makes no sense. Most of it is irrelevant to Mario and Super Smash Wiki has a purpose.
ShootingStar7X (talk) I've never been fond of our Smash coverage here, and nothing's stopping us from changing our policy after this proposal rather than before.
Somethingone (talk) If us worrying about not treating Smash as a crossover was a valid reason to stop all our trimming of the coverage of it, we have passed all the points where we could stop everything and have a reasonable policy whilst keeping that fact in mind. We could have stopped when we first changed its status from "crossover" to "special case", but we didn't. We could have stopped when we merged the items into a list page, but we didn't. We could have stopped anytime between those two critical points and had a (mostly) reasonable Smash policy, but we didn't. Now, we're at a point where simply doing nothing creates a coverage confuddlement of picking and choosing things based on arbitrary metrics, and I can't help but find the arguments against this proposal a wee bit misguided. No, this proposal is not going to remove any information regarding Smash by merging things into a list. That didn't happen when we merged the items, or the bosses, or the Subspace Emmisary stages. At worst, we trim a bunch of sentences to better summarize them with a space limit in mind, splitting the lists up if they get too big. But that is just standard practice on this wiki when we deal with a lot of text, unless this wiki somehow decides to never trim pages ever again? But regardless, how is it possible that after years of debate on this topic there is still so much drama over trimming information about non-Mario characters' Smash appearances, yet nobody batted an eye when we suddenly stopped covering Smash information in full on Mario's own article without any prior discussion? And no, doing this proposed merge would not be inconsistent with the way we cover the stickers, trophies, spirits, etc. We don't have individual pages describing every single one of those in extraneous detail or, even worse, with just the description of each trophy on each page. We keep all of those in list pages instead, just like we now do with the items and the bosses. If anything, it's even more inconsistent leaving our policy as it is now, as like I mentioned it's arbitrary cherry picking what we do and don't want to have full coverage. No, doing this merge will not impact our search results (don't even try bringing that faulty argument up) as we would still have redirect pages on this wiki, under the names people search up to which they click and are brought to the list pages. I've tried it before, and that is what happens, not "nobody clicks on those pages anymore". No, Smash is absolutely not in any way comparable to any other crossover Mario has been in. Why is it not in any way comparable to any other crossover Mario has been in? It's not just because it's a multi way crossover from 50+ different game series, it's because Nintendo has largely treated Smash as its own unique series with its own unique things to it instead of just a multi way crossover. Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Tabuu, Galeem, Dharkom, Battlefield/the other non-series-specific stages, the Home Run Contest and Target Practice, everything in Subspace Emmisary, etc. None of these things are from any specific series, they are all Smash-original. How much crossover-original, interactible, non-generic content do other crossovers like M&S, Fortune Steeet, Mario & Rabbids, etc. have? Very little. And most importantly, No, the amount of Mario content in Smash is NOT in any way significantly more than any other series's content in Smash, and Mario does not have special Smash treatment in any way. Nintendo never marketed it as a Mario game, never treated it as such, never showed a clear preference towards Mario in the Smash games themselves, and if it ever seems like it did, please remember just how big the greater Mario franchise is as a whole. The only time that Mario could have maybe almost kind-of sort-of had a bigger promise was in the first Smash installment, but that's it. Heck, was Smash ever listed on any Mario-series guidebooks (I.e., on ESMB or something else)? I don't know, but I honestly doubt so. TL, DR; If we wanted Smash as a full crossover, we wouldn't have given it special status back then. If we don't want inconsistency by making the fighters into a list page, we wouldn't have merged every* other aspect into a list page. And if we are worried about a loss of information from this proposal, it's most likely just a worry as condensing information & linking to SmashWiki does not do that to such a significant degree. Strong support, I just want this nonsense to end.
Swallow (talk) I originally wanted to back out of this one, but when it started I was sort of leaning towards support and following Somethingone's vote reasoning I've decided to put a support vote here too. As lomg as we don't lose too much information, then I'm ok with this.
SmokedChili (talk) Per proposal. The Smash Bros. series, which doesn't have much of original content of its own, has the foundational basis on which content from the other series, Mario included, is built.
Cadrega86 (talk) I'm a newer user and I've made only a few edits, but as a longtime reader I've always found odd how much Smash Bros. is covered here, especially compared to other NIWA and non-NIWA wikis.
Wikiboy10 (talk) Absoutely no. We have had many proposals to restrictSmash Bros. information that failed and this would be one of the most serious. The game is a crossover, so we have to cover all the relevant information that a crossover game must have. At least with other instances, those were just gameplay mechanics or related to non-playable characters. This is merely giving the game a guest appearance role, which would go against what we stood on the games for years. This proposal also fails to mention the Subspace Emissary which has many of the characters interact (and this is why I felt merging Master Hand and other story-related bosses wasn't a good decision). I'd only really accept this if the game was considered a guest appearance but we have consistently referred to it as a crossover. I feel that these pages could be important if people want to know which characters have crossovered with the franchise at one point.
Waluigi Time (talk) Our stance on trimming Smash coverage has, in almost every instance, been to condense information, not cut it. This would not only completely reverse that stance, but start top down at what is pretty much the most important aspect of the series - a change like this, if it were to go through, should really start bottom up. Axing this much information on fighters, when we couldn't even get a consensus on merging the stages just a few months ago and elements of the series like trophies, stickers, and spirits are still covered in full, is a weird way to go about it and definitely too much, too fast. Aside from that, I don't think splitting this into one page per game would be the best way to do this. There's a lot of overlap between fighters, and realistically, how different is Captain Falcon across the series that we need to split that information over five pages? (Also, I'd say Samus would be worth keeping around too since she had a physical appearance in SMRPG.)
TheFlameChomp (talk) Per all. Though I have been in favor of condensing and limiting some of the Smash Bros., but like my position on having articles for stages, I feel that fighters are important enough to have their own articles, especially when the games are considered crossover appearances. I am also not in favor of completely cutting content unless it refers to very minor aspects of the series.
Paper Jorge (talk) If we're gonna start violently trimming Super Smash Bros. content, I think starting at the prominent, notable and major playable characters with various crossover cameos instead of starting at trophies, Lylat Cruise convos, spirits, challenges, you name it........is horrible. Terrible prioritizing. I actually think if we're gonna reinvent the wheel and start from scratch, the playable characters and stages should be the most important things to keep.
Killer Moth (talk) After thinking about for a little bit, I have to agree with the opposition here. Trimming down coverage on things like items and bosses is one thing, but these are the characters that are the most vital part about the game. This wiki covers all Mario-related crossovers. It is why we have articles for Sonic characters because they appear in the Mario & Sonic games and make up half of the cast, we can't just go around trimming content for the sake of them not being Mario characters. Ultimately, like the users above, I find this to be unnecessary.
Hewer (talk) The main reason I'm opposing this is because I think it's inconsistent with how we handle other crossover games. While it's true that, say, Mario & Sonic has a much greater proportion of Mario content than Smash does, that doesn't change the fact that there is still a significant amount of Mario content in Smash, and the Sonic characters in Mario & Sonic that we give their own articles don't have much more to do with the Mario series than all the Smash characters, the only real difference between them being that one crossover has significantly fewer franchises involved in it than the other. If we decide to make a change like this then I think we should first revise the coverage policy as a whole, because it doesn't seem logical to me to merge the Smash cast into Lists of Super Smash Bros. fighters without also having List of Sonic the Hedgehog characters in Mario & Sonic, List of Dragon Quest characters in Fortune Street, etc. Also, merging fighters when every stage is still split even after a somewhat recent failed merge proposal for them is kind of ridiculous.
Tails777 (talk) Per all. I've thought about the comparison to Sonic series characters in the Mario & Sonic series as well; even if Mario & Sonic is a much smaller crossover compared to Smash, both are still crossovers. If we cut/trim/lower information on Smash fighters, we'd have to do the same for characters like Tails or Shadow or Vector cause even if Mario & Sonic is just two franchises, those characters have about as much relevance to the Mario series as characters like Ness, Wii Fit Trainer or the Duck Hunt Dog do.
MrConcreteDonkey (talk) Per all. I don't really have strong opinions for or against trimming Smash content down (I don't think it's something most visitors to the Wiki care about or something that reflects badly on us to have), but splitting characters across 5 (6?) different list articles seems so needlessly complicated. Also if anything it makes our coverage even more like SmashWiki's, so I don't really understand the support votes that seem to be opposed to that? If our aim is to cut down on unnecessary Smash content then something like listing characters by the game they debuted in (as Ultimate basically does) would be much neater.
LinkTheLefty (talk) I get where the support's coming from, but still, I think the proposal would be compacting too much. I for one believe the Yoshi's Woolly World designs and Super Mario Maker costumes, for instance, are significant enough to push a number of subjects as their own article (the former is notable because, unlike the latter, the credits don't even mention or market third-party permissions), since those are Mario franchise games through and through. Not every player of these games is going to be aware that they even are recycled guests from Super Smash Bros. Suppose someone new has no idea what a "Captain Falcon" is and decides to look it up on the Mario Wiki because of course he's from a Mario game. They'd be confused when they then get redirected to a list of Super Smash Bros. fighters with the original Yoshi's Woolly World / Super Maker Maker information made less accessible (nevermind the fact that the Blue Falcon gets an article but he doesn't under this proposal, despite making a Mario-related comic appearance). That's basically my issue with some of the lists in these merge proposals - they sometimes don't take into account that beginners could be looking for information elsewhere and instead redirect wholesale to what's taken to be the search of the majority. There's just some overlap with articles like the Subspace Army, Assist Trophy, and list of Smash Run enemies, not to mention Smash Run Pokémon such as Gastly not covered properly in the main Pokémon article, and then we're left wondering why it's not as intuitive as it used to be to find what you were looking for. I do like the idea of disambigs over redirects, and suggest extending that to the aforementioned and trophies, stickers, and spirits.
Comments
@Wikiboy10, err, there's a specific statement right there in the proposal that Subspace Emissary info will be kept. -- KOOPACONCARNE 12:44, January 23, 2023 (EST)
@Waluigi Time: Where do we draw a line between condensation and removal of information? What about the former bonuses pages: that information was outright removed due to being irrelevant and having equivalent coverage on the Smash Wiki. The amount of detail given to each character's special move set is similarly completely out of line with this website's scope and is being better handled on the other wiki. -- KOOPACONCARNE 13:01, January 23, 2023 (EST)
It seems to me that anything we have cut has always been the nitty-gritty minor elements of the series. Besides fighters, we still cover all the available information on the stages, items (including Assist Trophies and Pokemon), bosses, side modes, and the collectibles I mentioned, even for what's been merged to list pages. Setting aside my own opinions on Smash coverage, I just don't think starting by gutting the most important element of the series is a good idea when all of that is still on the table. There's a reason why the successful Smash coverage proposals have been done gradually, and why the ones that have tried to do too much at once failed. --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 13:20, January 23, 2023 (EST)
And wouldn't the in-depth explanations that this wiki currently provides for each character's moveset be well beyond reasonable? Smash Bros. items, Assist Trophies, and assist Pokemon aren't nearly comparable to fighters in gameplay role; there's only so much you can write about these, and their current coverage already lays down the gist for each. Recurring side modes like Break the Targets and Home Run should be broken up and merged with their relevant game articles (keep in mind that subjects like Mob Smash and Classic Mode are currently handled in this way, and that works well enough), and the collectible lists continue to have hosts of irrelevant information the likes of which this wiki should get rid of, albeit I agree the way this was attempted was not the best. In contrast to the unsuccessful proposals you mentioned, the present one pursues a very clear goal: merge fighters into game-related pages and, in the process of assuring these pages are within acceptable parameters, trim the useless and deprecated information that takes the form of detailed movesets. The alternative approach would have been to make this proposal a two-parter, where one establishes whether said information should be trimmed, and the other finally advocates merging the fighters provided the first one passes, but I think the proposal in its current form serves to accelerate the process whilst providing two simple options. With all that said, I do operate under the assumption that, given the two-part proposal situation, there would have been a sizeable overlap between the people who would support one and the people who would support the other, as would be the case with the opposition. -- KOOPACONCARNE 16:14, January 23, 2023 (EST)
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on what's "reasonable" to cover then, since we have totally opposed stances here and I doubt any more back and forth would change that. --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 17:00, January 23, 2023 (EST)
@Paper Jorge: As far as the wiki is concerned, fighters and stages are just another aspect of the game, regardless of how you or anyone else perceives them. Fighters may be the game's main draw, but that essentially only plays into player preference and sympathy, and this is their only claim to coverage priority on this wiki; there otherwise exists zero ingrained, objective priority to cover one group of Smash subjects better than another. (Name one besides "characters are playable and I relate to them more than to an inanimate object".) The proposals that aimed to restrict information on stages, trophies and the whole shebang had too many options, and Smash coverage is already contentious as it is, so it's not difficult to see why these proposals had users pulling in different directions, yet those subjects should definitely be revisited especially if this proposal, by a miracle, succeeds. -- KOOPACONCARNE 08:54, January 24, 2023 (EST)
Unlike crossovers where Mario franchise makes up a very large portion of the game, such as Sonic or Fortune Street, Smash should be covered as a guest appearance. There is no reason why a series with countless franchises put together should be covered in full. Mario elements deserve pages, I don't understand why we should bother with the rest. Spectrogram (talk) 14:06, January 24, 2023 (EST)
Not sure if treating Smash as a guest appearance is optimal, but I agree on maintaining a differentiation between it and other crossover situations. Hewer, respectfully, did you even read the coverage policy before bringing it up? It says right there that Smash Bros. is an exceptional type of crossover, as it's marketed as "many franchises coming together" rather than "Mario and then something else". Thus, quote, "pages for the [Smash] series are decided on a more particular basis", different from the treatment of other crossover titles. Your vote, and Killer Moth's for that matter, are based on wrong premises. -- KOOPACONCARNE 14:20, January 24, 2023 (EST)
You misunderstood my point (though it is my fault for not explaining it better). "should be covered as a guest appearance" does not imply "should be classified as a guest appearance". Smash Bros. as a crossover should only have in-depth (key word is in-depth, lists are a perfectly fine compromise) coverage of Mario elements and the rest is unneeded. I know coverage policy well, thanks. Spectrogram (talk) 14:28, January 24, 2023 (EST)
I was addressing Hewer with the part of my message that concerned the policy, not you. -- KOOPACONCARNE 14:44, January 24, 2023 (EST)
I apologize for being an idiot. Spectrogram (talk) 15:11, January 24, 2023 (EST)
Ok, sorry for having worded my vote badly, but what I was trying to say is that if we're doing things like this to our Smash coverage I think we should first revise the coverage policy as a whole because I don't think it's consistent to give subjects only related to Mario via Smash less importance on the wiki than subjects only related to Mario via other crossovers. For example, Sticks the Badger and Incineroar really have the same amount of relevance to Mario as each other, both being characters we only cover because they were playable in crossovers with a lot of Mario content, and I don't think the proportion of Mario content in each crossover is a good reason to treat these otherwise virtually identical cases differently to each other. Yes, there are a lot more other franchises in Smash than in those smaller crossovers, but there is still a very large amount of Mario content in Smash probably comparable to the amount in those other crossovers even if the proportion may be very different. I'm aware the coverage policy says Smash is something of a special case but I personally don't think that exception should be taken to this much of an extreme in trying to have our cake and eat it too. I've reworded parts of my vote to hopefully be more clear. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:11, January 24, 2023 (EST)
You excuse yourself for having worded your vote badly, then proceed to restate the very same wrong premise you went with originally. The policy already makes a distinction between Smash and crossovers like Mario & Sonic, and that's because, again, Smash isn't billed as "Mario + other franchises", which would give it the privileges of a Mario game proper, it's "this, and this, and this franchise all coming together (and Mario just happens to be there)", something that hasn't actually been tried in any other Nintendo propriety. [Late Edit: And as Somethingone states, Smash Bros. is more of a franchise of its own, it isn’t claimed by any one franchise represented in it; heck, the first game wasn’t even originally conceived with an all-star Nintendo cast.] No, the argument that Mario is disproportionally represented doesn't hold water, that's yet another metric powered by subjectivity and is easily dispelled by the aforementioned fact. Besides, whether the changes proposed here should extend to coverage of the other crossover games is up for another discussion, not this one, because it would entail an overhaul of policies that currently operate separate from each other. The fact that the opposition knowingly ignores this just reeks of bad faith. -- KOOPACONCARNE 15:08, January 26, 2023 (EST)
The part of my vote I worded badly is when I originally said that the proposal was inconsistent with the coverage policy, when what I'm really trying to say is that I don't think the exception Smash has should be taken this far (i.e. I think the coverage policy should be changed if this were to pass). I'm aware this proposal isn't technically against the policy, but again I reiterate that the Sonic characters in Mario & Sonic or Dragon Quest characters in Fortune Street have about the same relevance to Mario as the crossover characters in Smash, all of them being characters we only cover because they were in games with lots of Mario stuff in them and that are otherwise just as irrelevant to the series as each other. I never said that Mario is 'disproportionally represented' in Smash (in fact I specifically argued against the proportion being prioritised in importance over the amount), I'm just saying that there's a lot of Mario stuff in Smash even though it isn't a Mario game itself in a similar fashion to, say, Fortune Street. I'm aware I'm discussing potentially overhauling policies, that's because I think it's necessary to have that discussion first before deciding to make a change like this due to the large inconsistency it would cause in our crossover coverage. Basically, I don't think we should be merging the Smash fighters into lists without also doing the same for other crossover characters. I'm also not quite sure how exactly my argument is a 'wrong premise' or 'reeks of bad faith'. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 08:47, January 27, 2023 (EST)
On the one hand, you claim that Mario's disproportionate representation is not your argument, but then you make a case for Mario being prominent enough in Smash that the other fighters represented within deserve an equal type of coverage. These two stances are contradictory. I apologise if this response seems austere, or if I'm simply too obtuse, but I'm genuinely perplexed as to what you're trying to get at. -- KOOPACONCARNE 14:29, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I'm saying that because Mario plays a big part in Smash (not necessarily a bigger part than all the other series, but still undeniably a big part), the other crossover characters and series in Smash are no more Mario-relevant than those in smaller crossover games. I don't think Mario's representation in Smash is disproportionate and I recognise that it's considered equal in importance to the other series in Smash, but ultimately I don't think that changes my argument much. Similarly, even though games like Mario & Sonic have a much greater proportion of Mario representation than Smash, I'd say my argument stands because that doesn't make the crossover characters they feature any more relevant to Mario. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 15:27, January 27, 2023 (EST)
*I will say one criticism to the proposer though; if you are going to merge the fighters, then you reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally should have done the same with the stages as well, as they have the same treatment as fighters but a lower degree of importance. I still support this proposal, but if it passes it means that this wiki will be treated inanimate, generic floors with a 3D background as more important than the characters you play as, which I guess is kind of a thing this wiki has as a whole for any game. S o m e t h i n g o n e ! 17:21, January 26, 2023 (EST)
A similar proposal will be made to account for the stages, provided this one passes. Playable characters don’t have any perceived importance over stages; both of these groups are gameplay features added consciously and with a clear goal. Obviously, in game design, you have to establish a hierarchy between the player and the elements in their environment, but that has no bearing on the fashion these subjects are documented on a wiki at all. -- KOOPACONCARNE 21:14, January 26, 2023 (EST)
I would like to point out that opposition is right that spirits, trophies and stickers should be trimmed. Spectrogram (talk) 01:34, January 27, 2023 (EST)
There are many arguments here, so let me explain my stance on this. We have crossover games, guest appearance games, and cameo games. The crossover games are stuff where the whole point is that these franchises are interacting with each other. For example, Mario & Sonic are about the Mario and Sonic characters competing at the Olympics. That's a crossover. Mario characters team up with the Rabbids. Another crossover. Calling those guest appearances would severely downplay how much of a significant role these other characters have. Guest appearances are when Mario elements have a prominent role in the game's story or have one of them as a playable character. The NBA game is an excellent example since that game does not advertise itself as a crossover. Also, while Nintendo Landdoes try to reference various Nintendo franchises, the games are primarily self-contained and don't crossover with each other. Link's Awakening only gets the article because Wart plays a minor role in the game's plot. The same case for the Starfy article for Wario. Cameo games are when games where that are more subtle or are just minor gags, if anything. The Zelda series occasionally likes to reuse enemies such as Chain Chomps and Lakitus, but those are more like fun nods than serious significant crossovers. The reason for Link's Awakening was because of Wart, who has retroactively become part of the franchise. LEGO City Undercover has tons of Mario-related cameos in the game, but many are just gags. The closest thing to the characters are the Mario enemies.
Super Smash Bros. is very tricky because it's hard to fit into any of those categories. Not a cameo game because the Mario characters play a significant role in it. Calling it a guest appearance would also be wrong because the games are treated as crossover games with Nintendo characters fighting. Starting with Ultimate, it's become a general crossover game, notjustNintendo. Calling it a crossover is thorny because, while Nintendo treats them as crossovers, there are all on the same level. Ultimately (no pun intended), you'd have to reach a compromise. Not a cameo game, more than just a guest appearance, kind of a crossover. So here's the thing. It's a crossover franchise, but barely. It meets just the bare minimum for such a qualifier. If there is just barely enough to qualify, that's good enough for me.
The pages serve as a helpful tool for people to know what non-Mario character has a role in the franchise. Remember that Amiibo support for the Smash figures is a thing in multiple Mario games. Sure, it's just minor stuff (I'm not for giving Hello Kitty an article) but historically interesting to document. Also, to Somethingone, the Smash games are indeed mentioned in Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia. Wikiboy10 (talk) 13:37, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I'm not convinced this wiki should cover all of these characters in full. This is why we attempt to merge them, not outright delete them. I'm yet to see a good arguement why this specific NIWA wiki should cover it all. Spectrogram (talk) 13:58, January 27, 2023 (EST)
First off, please try to stick more to the proposal's topic. Coverage policy for crossovers in general is not what's addressed here. This is an advisory for everyone here. Secondly, with the last paragraph, you're seemingly losing track of the proposal itself. The proposal doesn't put any non-Mario Smash info at risk of being completely eviscerated from the wiki, it just argues containing the info differently while trimming and condensing it at specific points--something that's already been done with items and bosses. -- KOOPACONCARNE 14:29, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I'd like to ask the supporters a question specifically regarding the organizational method proposed here, which is to merge the fighters into separate lists by game. What this means is that, with the exception of Ultimate newcomers, the information on them will be split up and scattered across anywhere from 2-5 pages, depending on the character. The Ultimate list would not go into detail repeating details that are unchanged from Sm4sh, or any other comparable situation - the example provided actually shows this with Ness, merely saying that he is "mostly unchanged from the previous Super Smash Bros. titles" while providing no help to the reader to actually find that information. Keep in mind that on a surface level, Ness has pretty much remained unchanged since Melee, besides getting a Final Smash in Brawl, and still has a lot of elements retained from the original 64 game. So if you want to find out what Ness is like in Ultimate, the page for that game is actually pretty useless, and you instead have to track down that information split across three other pages (Sm4sh muddying the waters by being an extra page that's not very useful here), trying to piece together which information still applies, instead of simply being able to scroll.
Is this actually a setup you would find ideal and helpful for readers, or are at least some of you just caught up in the idea of less Smash content? Whether you think the fighters deserve any coverage isn't important here, as this proposal does not remove that coverage. It's still going to be here, so it should be organized as best as we can. Even if I were supportive of trimming Smash, I don't think I could support this. I would sooner support keeping all the information on each character in one place, whether that's accomplished through "List of fighters introduced in X" pages for each game (a subtle change, but one that would improve this a lot), or just all fighters being merged to one page for the entire series.
Also, @Koopa con Carne, are you open to pulling Samus out of this, at least for now? Aside from her physical appearance in SMRPG (which I'd argue is worth a page by itself), she's made multiple appearances or at least been referenced in several Mario and Mario-adjacent pieces of media, and I think she has enough history with the franchise to at least not immediately be tossed into this as a package deal. Nevermind it's too late to edit the proposal --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 13:58, January 27, 2023 (EST)
Wouldn't it be too late to edit the proposal? Also, I like the idea of creating lists of characters based on the game they were introduced in. Spectrogram (talk) 14:06, January 27, 2023 (EST)
This issue is addressed in the proposal; "in cases where information on a fighter is split between lists, their current article is turned into a disambig page for their list entries (e.g., for Ness, it'll be "For information on Ness in the Super Smash Bros. series, see: List of Super Smash Bros. fighters § Ness; List of Super Smash Bros. Melee fighters § Ness etc.") For fighters who have only appeared in one Smash game, their current article is turned into a simple redirect to their respective section.". If that's not enough, we can easily put a "see also" hyperlink above each section of a fighter that appeared in multiple Smash games that links back to their disambiguation page, where readers can then go to their information in other Smash games.
Also for the record, I am not "caught up in the idea of less Smash content", I am caught up in how inconsistent and inertic this wiki is with how it treats Smash coverage. Had the original "merge items and bosses into lists" proposals failed, I would have been fine if a proposal came out to expand our view on Smash coverage. But those passed, and so we should be consistent in that decision by applying it to all aspects of the series instead of picking and choosing which aspects we deem "more notable" than others. S o m e t h i n g o n e ! 14:38, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I don't really see the disambiguation page as a solution here, nor do I think adding see also would help much. The issue is, again, that information on one subject will be scattered across as many as five pages, which is especially bad when you're talking about Smash fighters, as each game builds upon the previous installments with them, and the pages even say this. Simply having links doesn't tell readers where to actually find anything specific that they're looking for, it just reduces the time it takes to find it. It's a band-aid fix that makes an inconvenient situation for readers slightly less inconvenient - but why should we be doing that at all when there are other ways to cover it that are much more convenient and don't send readers on a wild goose chase across multiple pages just because a page that they thought was about a specific game tells them very little about what is actually in that game? (Also, if we want to talk consistency, how is splitting up the fighters across multiple pages like this consistent with any other Smash lists so far?) --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 14:48, January 27, 2023 (EST)
@Waluigi Time, I'm fond of your idea to organise fighters by debut Smash game, and support it wholeheartedly. I reckon this would involve considerably smaller and more digestible lists than what's proposed here, in addition to having better organisation. As it's already been said, though, it's too late to edit the proposal. Unless it's possible to change the course of action by having enough of the current supporters plead for it here in the comments, a follow-up proposal should take care of it--all provided this one passes, of course. As for Samus' appearances in the Mario franchise, most of them are squarely cameos (with Samus Doll already having a page of its own), and the one in SMRPG also seems like a cameo appearance more than anything, but it's probably best if there's a separate discussion on this. @Somethingone, what WT suggested would be more efficient than disambig pages, as you'd keep the continuity of information on each character on one page. -- KOOPACONCARNE 15:05, January 27, 2023 (EST)
Named NPCs policy Spectrogram (talk) 15:18, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I can agree to organizing the lists by debut game instead of splitting the info itself across multiple pages, that I can whole-heartedly agree on. I must have misread Waluigi Time's comment. S o m e t h i n g o n e ! 15:21, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I don't think much can be done about it now, so the proposal would have to run its course and then depending on the outcome, either a new proposal or counterproposal would be made. I don't think this would be viable for an admin cancellation at this point, but I could be wrong. (I suppose if this were to pass, the responsibility of enacting the changes would fall to you, so you could just put it off until enough time passed to be able to do the new proposal.) --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 15:20, January 27, 2023 (EST)
Let it be known that I still support the principle of merging non-Mario Smash subjects by appropriate criteria, and that I do not wish to cancel or nullify this proposal. -- KOOPACONCARNE 15:25, January 27, 2023 (EST)
On the other hand, if this proposal passes, four weeks isn't a long time, and overall this proposal is perfectly fine. Spectrogram (talk) 15:28, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I have thought about this proposal a lot, and I will say that I think that I would be more willing to consider supporting if it was organized the way that Waluigi Time suggested above. While merging character articles goes further than I personally prefer, I do understand the reasoning, but I would like it to be done in a way that is actually convenient for readers. I think one main thing that doesn't really sit right with me about the proposal is the fact that merging characters is being considered before smaller things like trophy, sticker, and spirit lists, as well as some other things such as bonus stages and challenges (Snag the Trophies!, Race to the Finish! (minigame)). --TheFlameChomp (talk) 18:18, January 27, 2023 (EST)
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm annoyingly repeating myself, but--to address the latter part of your comment as well as some other comments made in the meantime--I never had any regard for any preconceived "priority" these fighters have over other elements, hence why I took the liberty to "jump" straight to fighters. They're simply just another set of things with attributable gameplay roles. I am still waiting for someone to explain in what manner does this priority operate, other than the fact that these fighters are playable (which doesn't change anything, Dixie Kong has the same tier of coverage as Pebble despite one being playable and another being a borderline joke item) and are more relatable than an object (subjective criterion). -- KOOPACONCARNE 18:35, January 27, 2023 (EST)
"yet nobody batted an eye when we suddenly stopped covering Smash information in full on Mario's own article without any prior discussion?"
Just to clarify, the information I cut wasn't because it was Smash Bros. coverage creep. I was in the process of cutting down excessive plot details in the Mario page (which is huge and we need to split off the history section at some point, sooner the better imo, which I did bring up) and I did exactly that to this section. I redirected to SmashWiki's page because it seemed like the best place for readers to see Mario's role in the Subspce Emissary. Sure, I could redirect it to a section in Brawl's main page or a related article on MarioWiki if not that, but then you'll have a lot of information iirelevant to the character's role in the plot, so I settled on SmashWiki's page. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 18:33, January 27, 2023 (EST)
Merge "Yoshi (platform series)" and "Yoshi (puzzle series)" into "Yoshi (franchise)"
merge the pages 5-0
My last proposal has been declined, so Hewer is right—a better idea will be to just merge both the "Yoshi (platform series)" and "Yoshi (puzzle series)" articles with the main "Yoshi (franchise)" article since the former is quite unclearly defined and movinf the latter to "Yoshi (series)" is a bad idea because that's easily confused with "Yoshi (franchise)".
Proposer: Teh Other (talk) Deadline: February 2, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Hewer (talk) I wasn't originally thinking about merging the puzzle series too (my argument quoted in the proposal was a reason not to move it as was proposed before and not an argument for merging it), but now that I think about it, it does make sense to merge both of these because they aren't clearly defined and for the most part seem to just be standalone games that happen to share a genre, whereas we usually only split series with games that have an official or clearly indicated connection beyond that.
Killer Moth (talk) Per all. The puzzle games aren't clearly defined as a series and only really share the same genre.
SONIC123CDMANIA+&K(B&ATSA) (talk) I was a bit skeptical at first, but now I see that this would be good for the wiki, as the Wario Land series & the WarioWare series are both on the Wario (franchise) page. Per all.
canceled by proposer
Previous proposal failed to implement Visual Editor as the second option. The opposition failed to make a good arguement against its implementation. Just like I said in my vote months ago, "It doesn't take away anything and encourages newer users who don't yet have experience with source editor to contribute." Since that proposal has failed, I now have to make a new one to overwrite the last one.
Wikipedia has a Visual Editor. I see time and time again newer users who don't yet understand source editor go for Visual Editor instead. Source editor makes perfect sense for us, but not for everyone. Sure, newer users should learn the source editor, but for some people it takes time. We shouldn't discourage newer users from editing. It doesn't take away anything. It is a toggleable option for those who choose to use it. It can be helpful for more experienced users too. It's overall a win-win situation. It doesn't take away anything, and it only improves the experience of everyone on the wiki. If Wikipedia is using it, clearly the Visual Editor is alright. Thanks for reading.
Proposer: Spectrogram (talk) Deadline: March 3, 2023, 23:59 GMT Date withdrawn: February 26, 2023
Support
Spectrogram (talk) I encourage everyone to overwrite the previous proposal.
Oppose
Comments
You seem to have missed a very important point brought up in the previous proposal: namely, that this is not something that can be decided purely through proposal. Implementing new tech is something that's up to Porplemontage (talk), the proprietor of the wiki, since it's work he would have to do. Talk to him about it first, and if he wants community feedback, then you can make a proposal about it. If you can get his approval, then I don't see a problem with implementing Visual Editor, but it's something he has no obligation to do. 17:33, February 24, 2023 (EST)
I'm aware. The problem is that a proposal needs to be overwritten first Spectrogram (talk) 00:13, February 25, 2023 (EST)
And in order to "overwrite" that proposal, you have to re-propose--and earn a supporting majority for--the same changes presented there, which is basically what you're doing here and 7feet is advising you not to do without some kind of go-ahead from the one person who is able to enact these changes. Ground zero can't be reached again; you're either going to have it one way or another based on community consensus. -- KOOPACONCARNE 12:50, February 25, 2023 (EST)
Require improvement templates to have their reason parameter filled, remove unfilled/vague notices on mainspace articles 25-0
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: Glowsquid (talk) Deadline: March 6, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Require improvement templates to have their reason parameter filled, remove unfilled/vague notices on mainspace articles
Somethingone (talk) I don't see any reason why we should not do this.
Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - Per (also the reason parameter should be the second one, not date or user or whatever irrelevant garbage)
Bazooka Mario (talk) 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.
Killer Moth (talk) 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.
LadySophie17 (talk) Per proposal, (maybe without the Trivia template).
7feetunder (talk) Possibly out of the scope of this proposal, but I also think that split and mergerequest templates without a discussion tied to them (I've seen several) should be removed for the same reason.
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. Nightwicked Bowser 21:42, February 27, 2023 (EST)
Yeah, I think in spirit, this should apply. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 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)? — Lady Sophie(T|C) 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. Nightwicked Bowser 11:37, February 28, 2023 (EST)
"Will they just be removed (per proposal) with no discussion?"
Yes. --Glowsquid (talk) 12:41, February 28, 2023 (EST)
Are you sure including the trivia template for this proposal is a good idea? Spectrogram (talk) 12:53, February 28, 2023 (EST)
I almost put "Maybe it could be an exception? idk" next to it. It already identifies a specific problem so I guess it can be excluded. --Glowsquid (talk) 13:04, February 28, 2023 (EST)
Seconding this question. The community has already discussed specific criteria for trimming improper trivia, so any problems signalled by this tag are often easy to detect and fix, even without providing specifics in said tag. -- KOOPACONCARNE 13:06, February 28, 2023 (EST)
That makes sense. You have my vote, although I believe Trivia template should not be included. — Lady Sophie(T|C) 13:36, February 28, 2023 (EST)
The trivia template probably could be reworked some way, maybe agree on how many trivia points in a trivia section there should be before the template becomes warranted (I'd often say about five or six). Nightwicked Bowser 16:00, February 28, 2023 (EST)
Those (however inexplicably) don't even have reason parameters, so that is inapplicable here. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 17:48, March 2, 2023 (EST)
7feetunder said if they could only be used if there is an active discussion or proposal regarding its respective matter, which I would agree with as well. Nightwicked Bowser 17:51, March 2, 2023 (EST)
I would agree with requiring an active discussion or proposal in order to use merge or split-related templates, as like with the templates currently covered by the proposal, I have seen occasional instances of the reasoning for the split/merge request being only stated in edit summaries. I feel like it is important for the templates to be able to link directly to discussions that include reasoning, as I feel that having to search page histories for reasoning makes it more likely for the templates to just sit on articles without getting attention. --TheFlameChomp (talk) 23:34, March 4, 2023 (EST)
If someone wants to propose merge or split or rename, they should be required to actually start a discussion on the talk page or make a proposal. Spectrogram (talk) 01:55, March 5, 2023 (EST)
It's pointless content: I think the trophies page, in a way, best illustrate the follibles of treating Smash Bros like it's a Mario game that happens to have other Nintendo characters in it. There's a certain amount of sense in thinking "Well Mario is playable in this game and he can punch Joker so why not have a page on him" but by going from there and treating everything Smash Bros as it's a Mario game, you end up with a situation where spend a lot of bandwith talking about Doshin the Giant, Mach Rider, Judy from F-Zero, etc etc. Characters that have no relevance or presence in the Mario IP, but happens to have some text written about them in a crossover game Mario & co happens to be playable in.
We have a precedent for trimming Smash content: A recent proposal agreed to merge characters that don't have any substantial appearance beyond Smash Bros to list pages. It's not been enacted yet - but that's not my problem~
It's not original content: An argument to keep Smash stuff in previous discussions is that the current Smash Wiki we're affiliated with is overtly written for hardcore competitive players in mind and that our Smash Content allows for a "Simple English" alternative for people who don,t care about that stuff. Leaving aside the validity of using the perceived failings of another wiki as a factor in our content, this is so not the case here. It's all straight text dumps directly from the game - text that can be read on other websites and video slideshow of those other trophy galleries. In this instance I believe that, yeah, "just go to Smashwiki" is a valid argument.
It's simple. I propose to simply trim those trophies list pages to only the Mario/DK/Wario etc. character and cut the rest. This includes crossover characters that have pages on the wiki - while we may have a Link page because he's in Mario Kart 8, his Smash Bros trophy is about Link the protagonist of his own independent intellectual property and not Link the funny Mario Kart 8 man, and it leads to the bizarre situation of having a listing of Link but not the character his series is named after. Best keep things simple.
What about stickers?: Those have a (minor, barely discernible) gameplay purpose so I thought people might object to the removal of relevant gameplay information.
What about spirits?: I thought of lumping them in this proposa, but the deal is that because of the format of World of Light, a PNG might not represent a Mario character but may involve characters, items or stages as part of the fight gimmick. I don't know what to do, so I'll let someone else do it.
Proposer: Glowsquid (talk) Deadline: March 8, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Trim the Super Smash Bros trophies list to only the content relevant to Mario and related franchises
How would this affect characters like Sonic or Link who would be removed from the lists but still have their own pages? Will their trophies still be in their respective profile sections? --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 13:32, March 1, 2023 (EST)
My gut response would be to keep them there. It's the same thing as articles mentiong random character have appeared in Captain N - why not? --Glowsquid (talk) 13:55, March 1, 2023 (EST)
What about the weird situations of some generic subjects? Mainly apple because it has a gameplay purpose, just not Mario-based. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 12:47, March 2, 2023 (EST)
Change the way Super Smash Bros. fighter lists are organised
List fighters by debut Super Smash Bros. game (and include other Mario-related appearances) 9-0
If I may...
A month ago, a proposal passed to collect Smash fighters who've had no significance within the Mario franchise into lists, each list having a focus on fighter appearances in one particular game. A valuable point was made by the opposers, stating that this particular organisation obfuscates the information and disrupts its continuity, forcing readers to jump between pages to get a thorough impression on only a single character--to say nothing of the fact that any other Mario appearances they had, which are obviously relevant to the wiki, are eviscerated for no reason. The proposal advanced too far in time for me to be able to make changes to it, so I bided my time for another proposal to amend these shortcomings, hence why I personally didn't act upon it.
With that said, the present proposal isn't meant to overturn the nitty gritty of the one before it. Before I list the specific stuff that I'm proposing to change, here's a recap of what's gonna stay put:
Obviously, the fighters are still gonna be compiled into lists, with "main article" links to pages for Mario characters and those who had some relevance in the franchises this wiki focuses. The list of affected articles is the same as in the previous proposal.
Detailed move listings are going to be laid to rest, or at most condensed into a fighter's appearance section (if that isn't the case already).
To avoid inflating these lists, no "profile and statistics" sections will be moved over, especially considering the concurrent proposal to remove trophy information for non-Mario fighters.
Contrariwise, information on The Subspace Emissary and Classic Mode routes are going to be covered within these lists, since they may involve Mario elements. To potentially clarify, just as in the current status quo, they will be covered in sub-sections of their respective game appearances. (e.g. "Subspace Emissary info will go in a section under Brawl's.)
Now, onto the proposal's actual matter:
The fighters will be organised by the Smash game in which they debuted. Fighters who debuted in the og Super Smash Bros. game will be listed on one page, as should be the case with Super Smash Bros. Melee, Brawl etc. (with Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U debuts covered on a single list). By extension, instead of splitting their individual Smash appearances between different pages, fighters will have all Smash-relevant contained on one page (e.g. "List of fighters debuting in Super Smash Bros." will have Pikachu's appearances in all Smash games).
If the size of these pages and consistency with similar Smash-relevant pages is a concern, the proposal's Support option will be split into having all other appearances in Mario-media covered as well (dubbed "Option 1") and having only the Smash information covered.
All or the majority of images related to one fighter's game appearance will be moved into a designated gallery sub-section within its respective appearance section. This is done, in part, to avoid image clutter; however, if you think one or two images are representative enough to be shown front and center in a section, you may so choose, albeit this is up to each user's or group of users' discretion. The images in question include any images that would potentially be orphaned as a result of purging the move lists. (e.g.: An image of Ness's PK Fire move from Brawl will be placed along with all the other Brawl images in Ness' "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" section.) Whether these images or a part of them are necessary to the wiki's well-being is up for another discussion; this proposal only advocates a place for them in the meantime.
As an exception, the fighter's main artwork for their most current Smash appearance (as of today, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) is placed at the top-right of the fighter's section, since it's representative of the character's current state in the series. A caption stating that it is the character's artwork from <Smash game> should also be included with the image.
As part of Option 1, miscellaneous images from other Mario media will be collected into a Gallery section under a character's "Appearances in other Mario-related media" section. The gallery section will have the same tier as the individual Mario game appearances.
A suggestion, nevertheless not obligately imposed by this proposal, is that each fighter who is covered into their own page should have a short, concise statement about an aspect in the Smash series, as per MarioWiki:Empty sections. Something along the lines of "This fighter is available by default in <games>, while they are unlockable in <yet other games>." would work, I think, since it's often the first thing mentioned about a fighter in a given Smash appearance.
TheFlameChomp (talk) I strongly prefer this method of splitting the fighters over the method established by the previous proposal, as it keeps information about each fighter together on one page, rather than splitting information of each character across five pages. I also do not see harm in keeping additional Mario related content.
Waluigi Time (talk) If we're going to do this, this is a much better organization method.
Spectrogram (talk) While I would much rather prefer a different option of keeping all characters on one page (while keeping Mario-related appearances), for the sake of article size I'll go with the majority.
List fighters by debut Smash game (but exclude other Mario-related appearances)
Keep the course of the previous proposal
Comments
Merge Mario Kart Tour Kart and Glider variants or Split Character variants: The Threequel
do nothing 5-4-6
Oh boy, he's at it again
I understand I’ve brought this up many times before, be it through discussions or pastproposals, and regardless of which solution has been agreed on thus far, I still feel this situation could be handled better. Thus I feel it necessary to revisit the whole ordeal with Mario Kart Tour’s karts and gliders. The way we cover the characters, karts and gliders is still glaringly inconsistent and it feels it gets more inconsistent the more I think about it; character alternates, kart alternates and glider alternates all share the same differences; different favorite and favored courses, differnet visual appearances and different special items/skills/item bonuses. However the characters do not get their own articles (for reasonable reasons), but the karts and gliders, despite being palette swaps, just as Yoshis or Shy Guys are, can have their own articles, creating that inconsistency between not only the character alternates as a whole, but how we naturally treat other palette swaps. And I feel we need to fix that. I’ve brought this topic up at least twice in previous proposals, with the only passable outcome being to create list articles on character variants (something I have still failed to follow through with). But with the arguments against splitting Yoshi colors, I can’t help but be bothered by how the arguments there contradict with how we handle these karts and gliders. One the main arguments being that splitting the Yoshi colors seems excessive. I still don’t understand how extra articles for different colored Yoshis is excessive, but extra articles for different colored Yoshi karts is not excessive. And while splitting Yoshi colors extends to other species, merging karts and gliders does not extend to nearly as many similar problems, with the only real one being the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! karts and several Mario Kart 8 wheel sets. Those, as well as other arguments, are here with my attempts at answering them:
The Karts and Gliders have different statistics: A point I feel is completely null at this point. As I’ve mentioned, character alternates feature the same differences and they are deemed too excessive to split. On top of that, again drawing parallels to the Yoshi debate, the colored species such as Yoshi, Shy Guy and Birdo have the same Tour differences, with Yoshis having even more beyond that across many other games and that’s still not enough to consider their own articles. Heck Shy Guy has variants that are a mix of coloured variants and themed variants (Pink Shy Guy (Ninja) for example, being an alternate of Pink Guy Guy while also being a variant of Shy Guy (Ninja), if that makes any sense). As such, “different stats” is either not enough to warrant a split or there needs to be a general agreement on how different said stats need to be. Until then, karts and gliders having different statistics feels like a nullified point.
They look different/have different names: Sure, the Magic Parasol has a different texture than the Peach Parasol, but if having gameplay function isn’t enough, then I fail to see how having a visual difference means anything. The Magic Parasol still looks identical to the Peach Parasol, just with a different visual appearance, just as Santa Mario still looks identical to Mario, just with a different visual appearance (or outfit appearance I should say). It wouldn’t be hard to list variants of karts and gliders in the same way we list variants for characters. Heck, we can list variants off in the same way we list the Mii Racing suits: a table with an image, tour debut and special skill/item bonus. As for naming, it WOULD be a viable argument if several karts didn’t follow the same naming convention as the colored alternates; Blue Biddybuggy, Green Cheep Charger or Gold Clanky Kart are literally the same concept as Blue Yoshi, Green Shy Guy etc. And that’s not even covering the fact that there are gold characters as well as gold karts and gliders. Even ignoring those names, a lot of karts are just “Insert descriptive word” “Insert original Kart name” (Grand Badwagon, Sunny Surf Sailer etc). Compare that to real life; do we consider cars completely different if they’re different colors? I’m pretty sure a blue Nissan Micra and a red Nissan Micra are still Nissan Micras. The naming of karts is generally no different than character alternates.
Some of the kart variants have different sizes: Again, gameplay differences of a bigger scale don’t cut it, I can’t see how this would.
It’s harder to pinpoint the original kart/glider: Originally, yes, it was and that was a very good point to make. But as of now, both file names and ID numbers can and have proven to be reliable ways to work around this, as we have done with the Butterfly Wings and the Dragonfly/Dozer Dasher idea. Some karts, like the Speeder (Jetsetter), which doesn’t really have a set variant name (as the first variant was just named Green Speeder) don’t really need a kart with the base name, as it kinda already exists from before. The Kiddie Karts are in a similar boat, with neither names indicating which the original variant is, but the file ID seems to point towards the Red Kiddie Kart being the original variant. Which debuts first doesn’t seem to make a difference.
Mario Kart Double Dash and Mario Kart 8 also feature palette swapped karts/parts: Indeed they do and they should definitely be under the microscope too. However Mario Kart Double Dash’s palette swapped karts are of fewer numbers when compared to how many variants of karts are in Tour, though in all fairness, these aren’t creating an inconsistency in the same way Tour does. If we do end up merging karts and gliders, THEN it’s something to discuss and I am definitely not against discussing that and I’d fully support the idea of merging kart part variants in Mario Kart 8 (the wheels specifically, as they feature no stat differences and are only palette swaps), but right now, I would like to focus on Tour’s problem and bring up that possibility later. I will say, however, that at the moment, I’d like to leave the Gold Standard, Gold Tires and Gold Glider off the list of things to merge, as they have had consistent appearances across several games, though if the idea of merging them too comes up, I’d gladly discuss that.
What about other similar topics: Honestly, this proposal isn’t meant to cover and consider every instance where this happens, it’s meant to concern Mario Kart Tour. If this passes and other areas become inconsistent, we can discuss those instances separately.
All that being said, I think the options are simple. While I do feel there’s a general agreement on how we cover character alternates, for the sake of keeping all options on the table, I will still include the idea of creating articles for character alternates.
Split character variants into their own articles: Character alternates like Mario (Santa), Yoshi (Kangaroo) or Dry Bones (Gold) will get their own articles, just as kart and glider variants do. As per comments below, this, for the time being, will exclude colored alternates like Blue Yoshi, Pink Shy Guy, etc and focus more on the established characters like Mario, Daisy, Wario etc. Alternates like Yoshi (Kangaroo) or Toad (Party Time) are still viable to be split, as they are directly based on the characters themselves, while something like Pink Shy Guy (Ninja) will be worked into a Shy Guy (Ninja) article.
Merge Kart and Glider variants to their parent articles: Kart and Glider alternates, such as the Blue Badwagon or the Shell Parachute, will be merged with the kart/glider they spawned off of, with the variants being listed off in a similar manner to how character alternates are listed off on character pages or how Mii Racing Suits are listed. A separate gallery section can be added to each page to showcase variants. In terms of which are the parent topics, we can easily use file names or IDs to determine this, though many of these variants are pretty easy to spot.
Do nothing: We decide to leave everything as is.
I have made a complete list of each kart and glider and the variants they have on my work page. If there is anything I missed or anything to question, let me know.
Proposer: Tails777 (talk) Deadline: March 12, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Split Character Variants
Ahemtoday (talk) I agree that we need to treat these things consistently, but I think we need to go the other direction. Aside from the arcade games and Live, which Nintendo does not seem to consider part of the main series, there's little precedent for character "variants" outside of that set by Tour itself. There's just the different colors of Yoshi and Shy Guy for Download Play stuff up until 8, which has... well, still Yoshi and Shy Guy colors, but also the different Villager genders. 8 Deluxe introduces Gold Mario and BotW Link, but also splits the Villagers and Inklings. That's all of two costumes that actually stayed costumes instead of getting their own spot on the character select. And one of them's unlockable and the other one's a post-launch update, so neither of them are exactly "normal". It falls to Tour, then, to set the precedent for how the series treats "costumes"... and it treats them all as their own characters. And why shouldn't it? The other games have stuff like Dry Bowser and Tanooki Mario and Pink Gold Peach, and they've all been listed as separate characters despite being exactly as different as your average Tour variant. This is unlike palette swaps, which have a much stronger precedent of not having their own space on the character select. To summarize: the handheld games set a precedent for color variants not being separate, so they should stay merged. In the entire rest of the main series, in and outside of Tour, non-color variants are treated like separate characters, and therefore they should be split.
Spectrogram (talk) No, I don't think this is the right call.
Waluigi Time (talk) You know what, sure. I've said before that the Tour variants are basically just that series' version of power-ups, so why not? We can keep all the information on each variant in its own dedicated place, and it's an easy way to document the history (if any) of that variant beforehand.
#Tails777 (talk) While I'm still a bit more on the idea of merging karts and gliders, as to be consistent with all character alternates, I'm still open to the idea of splitting character variants too.
Merge Kart and Glider Variants
Tails777 (talk) I still support this idea. It's easier and more consistent with how we handle the character variants and other palette swapped characters.
Hewer (talk) Per proposal, and I just can't imagine pages for the character variants being anything but a mess. Seeing as they're currently adequately covered in one or two sentences on the main characters' pages, I'm having a hard time imagining full articles being made for these variant characters (especially the Tour-original outfits), and to my knowledge it's not consistent with any other game we cover.
Somethingone (talk) I would much rather prefer this over the splitting option, as all these character costume things are just that; costumes that characters wear. They did not make a different character that looks and acts like Mario but with a different outfit, they simply made Mario change his clothing. Replace "Mario" with any other MKT character, and it works out the same way. We don't split the costumes from SMO, or the endless combinations of enemy stacks you can make in SMM, or all the ghost outfits in Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, etc. Plus, the parameters the split option entails ("include other appearances of this costume it is based on on the page with the MKT instance of the costume") would inadvertently lead to us splitting off the Luigi's Mansion instances of King Boo from the regular King Boo page, something that nobody but a few IPs have advocated for in the past as they are otherwise treated as the same thing.
Arend (talk) Per proposal; also, as Hewer and Somethingone said, splitting off all character variants would make quite a mess, and is something we don't really do for any other variant outside of Tour. I cannot really imagine why anyone would rather split every character variant (even with the passed proposal of just making them list articles being a fine enough option as it is) just to not deal with the merger of many karts and gliders, and the difficulty of determining which kart/glider is a variant of which.
Do Nothing
Arend (talk) Secondary choice. I'd rather not do anything at all than split off all character variants. As explained above, it would just be a clunky mess that would be inconsistent with how we deal with variants in any other game.
Ahemtoday (talk) Well, in stark contrast to y'all two, I'm putting my second choice here because I feel that merging the karts and gliders would be a mistake. I can live with merged characters (easily, since some very good points have been raised about awkward situations that would come up) but I just think merging things that, unlike characters, have never been shown as anything but separate options with the same importance as the original, isn't the way to go.
Spectrogram (talk) Second option as well, because I reeeeally do not want the other option to pass.
Waluigi Time (talk) Since this is gaining traction now, second choice, don't really think this needs to be an either-or situation.
Comments
Would articles on separate character variants detail any prior history of that variant? Like, would Mario (Chef) have separate sections on the outfit's appearances in Yoshi's Cookie and Super Mario Odyssey? -- KOOPACONCARNE 08:54, March 6, 2023 (EST)
Honestly, for those cases, I wouldn't say so. Mario dressing as a chef in Yoshi's Cookie is merely for the theme of the game and Super Mario Odyssey, it's just a costume with no gameplay features. Neither appearance treats the outfit as anything special; Mario's still Mario, just dressed as a chef. It can easily be mentioned that the outfit is based upon said appearance, but otherwise, it would only cover Tour as that's the game it has an actual functional difference from normal Mario (different special item, different favorite/favored courses, different availability across the game's history). I am aware that if we do split variants, it could cause further inconsistencies, such at the commonly mentioned palette swaps or even the power-up variants. But I wanted the option to be there for people who believed it was a better course of action and if it passes, we can work out inconsistencies from there. Tails777 Talk to me!
I'd say yes, though it would be fairly brief. Taking inspiration from another part of Tour, the national landmarks: appearing in Tour is not enough for a landmark to get its own page, but for any landmark that does because of an appearance in (for example) Mario is Missing!, its article has a section its appearance in Tour. I think these variant articles could do something similar. Ahemtoday (talk) 16:25, March 6, 2023 (EST)
I'd also support including those other appearances. If we have an article on a subject, all of its appearances should be included, even if individual ones aren't necessarily article worthy. Omitting them is just going to be confusing. (It's worth noting that this is the approach we took with Builder Mario. We didn't make an article on it until it became an actual power-up in SMM2, but its earlier appearances where it's just a visual difference are included.) --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 17:32, March 6, 2023 (EST)
I have no conflict over splitting the character variants at all, but my only concern rests in the fact that this will affect the colored alternates like Yoshi, Toad, Shy Guy and Birdo and I'm aware there has been a common disagreement on that stance. As previously, I do still support this, but I know others may not. In the case of the Yoshi species especially, that would basically mean they get their articles back, since most of them are playable in Mario Kart Tour with the same qualifications as any other variant. Tails777 Talk to me!
Well, like I said in my vote, they differ from other variants in that they have a lot more precedent as "variants" within the series, which otherwise (in the same games, even) treats likes of Metal Mario and Cat Peach not as "variants". Given that, I think it's defensible to keep the color variants merged while splitting the other variants. Ahemtoday (talk) 19:43, March 6, 2023 (EST)
That's kinda the thing, Yoshi, Toad and Shy Guy have the "Color name" "Species name" deal going while Birdo has the same naming convention as the rest of the variants, suggesting the colored Birdos are variants in the same way that Mario (Santa) is to Mario. On top of that, Shy Guy has two variants that split off into colored variants as well; Pink Shy Guy (Ninja) is named as if it's a variant of both Pink Shy Guy and Shy Guy (Ninja). And while there isn't a Shy Guy (Explorer) yet, there is a Light-Blue and Yellow Shy Guy (Explorer), so if we were to just bypass the colored alternates, what would we do about those examples? Do we just relegate every version of Shy Guy to the Shy Guy article or do they get treated the same as every other alternate? And do we treat Birdo differently because they are named the same way as the other variants being split? Tails777 Talk to me!
I think it's pretty clear what's a color variant and what's not, regardless of in-game terminology. Birdo colors are colors of Birdo. Pink Shy Guy (Ninja) is a color of Shy Guy (Ninja) and could get covered there. A "Shy Guy (Explorer)" could cover both Light Blue and Yellow Shy Guy (Explorer)s. Ahemtoday (talk) 20:39, March 6, 2023 (EST)
I will say, though; I understand the desire to also split the colors into their own article, and that also seems like a fair way to do it. If my option and a complete split were separate options on this proposal, I'd vote for both. (And honestly, as I sit here typing, it's growing on me.) But splitting the colors has consequences that extend far beyond Mario Kart Tour, so I think it might need its own dedicated proposal. (That said, a split may also have far-reaching consequences on how we handle powerups, so maybe I'm being a bit hypocritical here.) Ahemtoday (talk) 20:39, March 6, 2023 (EST)
I agree; working with colored variants is beyond the scope of this proposal. And while I was thinking of making a separate option, I think it's best, for the time being, to focus on the established characters. The colored Yoshis can stay with the Yoshi (Species) article while things like Yoshi (Reindeer), Yoshi (Kangaroo) etc can be split. But I still think that it's really worth considering colored characters like Yoshi especially. I know a recent proposal failed to split them, but I myself will always stand by them being enough to have their own articles, as they have had consistent appearances across the whole franchise that have gameplay differences. For now, I think I'll specify that splitting character alternates will exclude colored alternates. I'm pretty sure that should be fine, as it's less than 3 days since I started this.
Edit What are the thoughts on the Mii Racing Suits? Should those just remain with the Mii article or are they worthy enough for a split? Tails777 Talk to me!
The Mii Racing Suits strike me as much more similar to costumes than colors. Even the basic colors would seem quite odd to me lumped together on the Mii article if the others were split. Having an article for "Brown Mii Racing Suit" also feels odd, though... Not sure how to handle that. Ahemtoday (talk) 05:09, March 7, 2023 (EST)
@Spectrogram Sorry, I'm a bit confused at your vote. You say you don't think this is the right call, but you're voting for splitting the character variants. Are you merely saying that merging karts and gliders isn't the right call or is there a typo/miswording in there? Tails777 Talk to me!
Change how we display staff ghost information in race course infoboxes
passed 10-0
Currently, all of the relevant information is plain text, with one line showing the time, player, and game; and another, smaller line beneath it showing their character and vehicle. This worked for some time, but now we're in the age of 8 Deluxe. We have wheels and gliders and the CC to fit down there. The smaller "line" is spilling into two lines. Tokyo Blur's 150cc has so much to convey, it looks like this:
At this point, I feel like it no longer makes sense to display staff ghosts this way. I propose we do it like this:
8DX 150cc
Nin★Yuya
1:36.317
This 2x2 grid shows the game (and CC), the name of the ghost, and the ghost's time. In the bottom right, we show the ghost's character and vehicle combination as a line of icons, similar to how 8 Deluxe shows them. These would go under an expandable header near the music samples and course maps.
Here is a demonstration page where you can see these in action for Yoshi Circuit, as well as see them for other games in the series.
While I'm very open to recommendations for how to improve and better implement these, I think this 2x2 grid layout is the best way to cleanly show many staff ghosts' information in a compact space.
Proposer:Ahemtoday (talk) Deadline: March 24, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Tails777 (talk) Per proposal. I honestly think it would look much better this way. Plus, we have these sprites, it honestly just looks better to use them like this.
Camwood777 (talk) - This definitely looks a lot better and conveys info a lot better, though I would like to state that we should probably make sure to include alt text on the actual images for the sake of stuff like screen readers; otherwise, this could become a bit cumbersome for those. (Tried testing it myself, but uh, it turns out Windows Narrator is a little jank on my PC???)
Oppose
Comments
@Ahemtoday: I'm all for this proposal, but wouldn't it make more sense for it to go under the "changes" section? This isn't exactly a new feature to me. It's more of a change. Mari0fan100 (talk) 21:42, March 17, 2023 (EDT)
I also agree, this should be probably moved to the "changes" section. Dinoshi 64 Yoshi,Yoshi! 21:47, March 17, 2023 (EDT)
A quick and dirty amendment to the January-February 2023 Smash proposal
passed 5-0
I've just realised I done brain farted in this proposal, completely changing what I wanted to get at, and yet the error somehow went under the radar. The error in question is in this statement:
if a character has had a significant appearance within the Mario franchise proper, such as having a playable role in Mario Kart--and this includes actual Mario characters--their page will remain intact.
The bolded part was really only supposed to apply to characters who originated from the Mario franchise. Otherwise, it's in direct contradiction with the proposal's goal to indiscriminately trim and/or re-incorporate moveset lists for all non-Mario characters, regardless if they're still supposed to have a full page on this wiki or not. To reiterate, this is because they're hardly Mario-related concepts and can be neatly summarised in a character's entry for a given Smash appearance if they aren't already.
So with this proposal, I aim to clarify the statement as the following:
if a character has had a significant appearance within the Mario franchise proper, such as having a playable role in Mario Kart--and this obviously includes actual Mario characters--they will still have a page of their own. However, if they're not characters from a franchise that receives full coverage on this wiki, their lists of moves in the Super Smash Bros. series will still be trimmed away.
If this proposal passes, a link to this proposal will be added as a footnote in the quoted proposal's main body, though without directly altering the original statement.
Will we also be axing stuff like the Classic Mode routes? Palutena's Guidance texts? I'm not entirely sure where to draw the line, but I think there are other things besides the move lists on these articles that are fully the Smash wiki's territory. Ahemtoday (talk) 20:32, March 19, 2023 (EDT)
As far as these fighters pages are concerned, the previous proposal answers your question: Classic Mode routes are moved over to these pages as these may involve Mario characters and music, while Palutena's texts, as with other information of the "profiles and statistics" type, aren't. -- KOOPACONCARNE 21:17, March 19, 2023 (EDT)
Add level maps for levels with no maps
cancelled by the administrators Per rule 15, a proposal isn't necessary to add missing information.
It's simple. Many levels in this wiki from many games have no maps.
This definitely does not need a proposal. Many level articles have these maps already, anything that doesn't should absoloutely have them too. It depends if there's anyone around able to do it. Nightwicked Bowser 15:22, April 11, 2023 (EDT)
Trim and merge Smash spirits and stickers
do nothing 4-0-0-1-8
Just like what we did with trophies, I propose we do the same and remove all non-Mario series spirits and merge the rest with Spirit (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate). If the spirit just so happens to not be from the Mario series but includes a Mario reference in the background or whatever, it also gets to stay. Same applies to Sticker_(Super_Smash_Bros._Brawl), the article gets trimmed to only include Mario-themed stickers.
If the proposal passes, the following changes will be implemented:
Second option: keep stickers and spirits if they also have any relevance to Mario in their statistics, obtaining, battles, etc. This option was added per Koopa con Carne (talk)'s vote, and even though I believe this approach is inconsistent to what we did with (for example) Subspace Emissary stages, I see no reason not to have it as an extra option. I would also like to ask to comment before voting next time, as people very often forget to re-read and to re-vote on a proposal, even if their vote and reasoning are no longer relevant.
Feel free to comment if you've got any issues with the proposal, I can always edit it.
Proposer: Spectrogram (talk) Deadline: April 20, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Wikiboy10 (talk) SmashWiki exists for this information. Nothing will be lost and there isn't that much context to it the Mario characters.
Camwood777 (talk) - The Sticker article is definitely a holdover from a pre-SmashWiki era, so like, that's needed to be trimmed awhile ago. The spirits article should also probably be trimmed down for the same reason. And, y'know, the fact that the 501-1000 spirit list literally has zero Mario spirits on it is borderline comical.
#SeanWheeler (talk) Let's keep the focus on Mario. The 501-1000 Spirit list has nothing Mario-related in it.
Only trim/merge spirits
Only trim stickers
Second option (Edit)
SeanWheeler (talk) Changing my vote to allow keeping stickers that affect specific Mario characters and the Spirit battles that involved Mario opponents and stages, but it still needs to be trimmed, especially the 501-1000 spirit list.
No sticker left behind
Koopa con Carne (talk) I assume this is the "Do nothing" option; the wording isn't too clear. Anyway, many stickers in Brawl, even non-Mario ones, can be used on Mario fighters. Same with practically all spirits in Ultimate, which have the added aspect of spirit battles that may involve Mario opponents, stages, items, and music; see, for instance, the 593rd spirit, Pico, who is represented by Bowser. I wouldn't be opposed to handpicking and trimming the few completely irrelevant stickers, but I think this proposal has much the same shortcomings as the concurrent stage proposal in that it tries to paint the whole situation in broad strokes instead of taking a more nuanced view on the matter.
Glowsquid (talk) - Unlike trophies which are just logs of text copy-pasted straight from the game irrelevant to the whole "Mario punching Link" aspect, these things affect gameplay (see KCC's reasoning above and below). Admitelly I'm not sure I like the spirits page being xbox-hueg but I don't think this is the way to go.
The proposal was updated on 09:11, April 13, 2023 (EDT) -Spectrogram (talk)
I think all the Ultimate spirits have some relevance to Mario, seeing as how Mario characters can equip and benefit from any of them, thus making them coverage-worthy. To put it another way, readers may visit the spirit pages on this wiki with the intent of finding out, for example, which spirit works best with a given Mario, DK, Yoshi, or Wario series fighter. This is consistent with the currently-enforced principle that non-Mario fighters still deserve some coverage here by virtue of the fact that Mario fighters can interact with them. On the other hand, some stickers are restricted against Mario fighters, and it's reasonable to expect readers of Mario Wiki not to find these immediately relevant to their interests. Oddballs need to be accounted for too: despite the previous statement, the Crazee Dayzee and Mario Power Tennis Bowser stickers, which are exclusively usable by Pokemon Trainer and Ganondorf respectively, should still be covered for the simple fact that they depict Mario subjects. -- KOOPACONCARNE 09:48, April 13, 2023 (EDT)
I do not believe this is a good reason to keep them anyway. Spectrogram (talk) 09:59, April 13, 2023 (EDT)
Anyone can equip spirits and stickers. That doesn't mean they are all noteworthy on a Mario Wiki. Mario himself could throw a Poké Ball to summon a random Pokémon, but the Pokémon article is proposed for deletion with nobody defending the page. The spirit list is divided into three pages, and the middle page doesn't have a single Mario-related spirit. A few possessed Mario fighters, and a few take place on Mario stages, but there's still a lot of non-Mario clutter. If readers want full information on the stickers and spirits from Super Smash Bros, they should check Smash Wiki instead. Our Smash coverage has been practically competing with Smash Wiki and it's time to stop that. For one, Smash Wiki is a member of NIWA that specializes in Super Smash Bros. while we cover Mario. Our full coverage of Donkey Kong had led to the closure of the Donkey Kong Wiki. So just like the other NIWA wikis that only cover their universe's part of Smash, we should focus on the Mario aspects of Smash. SeanWheeler (talk) 01:10, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
I agree. Although, to be honest: I'm not sure even the Mario stickers and spirits are major enough to cover here. Fighters, I get. Stages, I get. But trophies and stickers and spirits are such a minor thing. It's like covering what everyone's taunts are. The Smash Wiki has an obligation to do that, yeah, but we don't. Ahemtoday (talk) 01:40, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
But that's directly Mario-related information, there's really no room to argue otherwise. By all means, we should cover the Mario characters' taunts because they're Mario characters. Should we also remove information on collectibles from Mario games because it's too minor? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 03:21, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
We should have kept Mario taunts Spectrogram (talk) 03:52, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
@SeanWheeler: "Anyone can equip trophies and stickers" Straight up false information and disingenuous argument. Trophies are aesthetic collectibles with virtually no gameplay purpose, and stickers can have restrictions on which characters they can be applied to. "Mario himself could throw a Poké Ball to summon a random Pokémon, but the Pokémon article is proposed for deletion with nobody defending the page." That proposal states that Poke Ball Pokemon will remain on the wiki precisely because they can interact with Mario, they'll just be relocated to the Smash items page; it's the general Pokemon page that will be deleted since it has no relevance to Mario whatsoever--it's as if the wiki had an article on the Aegis blade because two Smash fighters are personifications of this object. "So just like the other NIWA wikis that only cover their universe's part of Smash, we should focus on the Mario aspects of Smash." The Mario Wiki is not beholden to some mysterious NIWA-wide standard on how to cover Smash information. It is free to exercise its own discretion in that regard, and the situation definitely has more facets to consider than "these concepts weren't made for a Mario game". -- KOOPACONCARNE 07:17, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
I don't think "can interact with Mario characters" is a reasonable criterion for coverage. Surely, then, we should be listing all the characters' moves - up tilts, down smashes, back airs, and all - on the basis that Mario characters can be hit by them? Ahemtoday (talk) 14:07, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
They already are, they're just condensed into the fighters' Super Smash Bros. appearance sections--see for instance Mr. Game & Watch. No essential information is lost from these fighter merges, it just isn't being described in as much detail as it used to be (e.g. aesthetic aspects). -- KOOPACONCARNE 14:13, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
Just fixed the typo where I accidentally said "trophies." Still, there's hardly anything noteworthy about an interaction with Mario characters in gameplay when you can use any other character with no difference. The amount of damage from attacking Mario with Samus Aran's back-air would be no different from hitting Fox McCloud with the same move. The weights may vary a bit, but we'd be overanalyzing non-Mario moves. SeanWheeler (talk) 19:21, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
They interact with Mario characters in a crossover game and that makes them fully eligible for coverage, period. Note that by "coverage" I don't necessarily mean "dedicated page" as the organisation of non-Mario subjects should be decided on a more case by case basis, but it is certainly not at all intuitive or conducive to start splitting hairs on just how minor these gameplay interactions are. -- KOOPACONCARNE 19:32, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
You've made the proposals that merged the Smash fighters into lists and you supported the proposal to trim the trophy list. Why are you against trimming the stickers and spirits? The list of spirits was so big that it was split into three, and the middle page completely lacked Mario spirits. Shouldn't the stickers be trimmed away for the same reason the trophies were? So what if Mario characters can equip them? Trophies are items in Brawl and Smash 4 that can be picked up by Mario characters. I think the non-Mario stickers that are useless to Mario characters and the non-Mario spirits that doesn't use anything Mario related in their battles should be trimmed away. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:08, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
Stickers and spirits have a gameplay purpose that can affect the stats of Mario characters, however small that effect may be. I don't know where you got that I'm against trimming the stickers, because I clearly said right at the start of the discussion that I'd encourage them being trimmed away as long as they depict a non-Mario subject and are usable only by non-Mario fighters. As for the trophies, if I remember correctly from Brawl, you pick up generic trophy stand-ins whose character is only revealed by the end of the battle or minigame, certainly this being the case with Smash for 3DS--and the wiki already has an article for the general trophy item, which Mario, indeed, can interact with. -- KOOPACONCARNE 20:34, April 18, 2023 (EDT)
You voted "No Sticker Left Behind" as the "do nothing" option. Are you going to change your vote to the Second Option? SeanWheeler (talk) 23:59, April 19, 2023 (EDT)
Not quite. The proposal states that the second option involves "keeping [...] spirits if they also have any relevance to Mario in their statistics", but it's unclear to me what "statistics" means: is it just a Mario fighter's overall power (thus all of the spirits would be kept), or the kind of statistics such as shield durability, magic power, fist power etc.? In the latter case, there are some spirits that boost the power of abilities only certain characters harness, such as Ness and Lucas' PSI attacks, and those have no link to Mario, meaning these spirits would be removed unless they have other Mario-relevant aspects to them. To reiterate, I'd be for keeping all spirits, because they all can affect Mario fighters in some way. There exist no fighter restrictions with spirits as there do for stickers, and keeping them in lists is by that very nature consistent with List of The Subspace Emissary stages and "List of fighters debuting in X game", contrary to what the proposer claims. -- KOOPACONCARNE 07:35, April 20, 2023 (EDT)
Create an article for Punch-Out!! (NES)
do not create 1-6 Punch-Out!! and its original version Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!are currently considered cameos on this wiki. What separates cameos from guest appearances is that cameos have no overall effect on the game. It's when the thing lacks any role in the gameplay or story. The Zelda games may have a Mario enemy appear. Still, they are non-Mario enough to be somewhat distanced from the Mario games, so the games do not get a page, except for Awakening, which only got it because of Mamu's involvement in giving one of the items to Link. As for the NES version of Punch-Out!!, Mario appears in this game as the referee, which means whenever one of the boxers is down, Mario will come up and start counting down from ten. He tells the fighters to fight once the match begins.
So why is this considered a cameo? Mario blatantly appears and plays a role in the gameplay: being Little Mac's referee. His appearance would easily be a cameo if he had just been in the background watching the fight. But because Mario does have a significant role in being the referee, a rather important thing in boxing, the wiki underplayed Mario's role in this game. Sure, he isn't playable or is a boss, but he isn't just in the background. I always wondered why the wiki considered this role unimportant when it's more than just a background appearance. I guess it's because he isn't playable. Still, not all guest appearances have to make a Mario character playable, as recently proven with Sonic Lost World. (And on a minor note, Punch-Out!! Wii is weirdly in the references section despite being a guest appearance).
This proposal aims to reclassify the NES version of Punch-Out!! as a guest appearance. This option would mean that we get a general page detailing the game and detailing Mario's role as the referee. The page will also cover both game versions since they are the same in terms of Mario content. We won't create pages for Little Mac or all the fighters that appear in the game. Sorry, Mike Tyson.
Hewer (talk) Per Spectrogram, I'm not sure why you're emphasising so much that Mario being the referee is a major role in the gameplay when all he really does is stand at the side sometimes and wave his hands.
Camwood777 (talk) NES Tennis is very similarly considered just a "cameo" game, despite Mario's active role as the referee in that game. Heck, in that game, he's not only always on screen (albeit not always proactive), he's also on the Game Boy version's cover art! Since NES Tennis is still just a "cameo" game (at least, as of writing it is), it feels only fair to keep this game on even footing with it considering Mario's similar role across both games. (Besides, Mario characters have made cameos in other Punch-Out!! games, both before and after the NES game, and the sole exception for "ones that got articles" was Wii, since Donkey Kong is a full-on opponent.)
SeanWheeler (talk) Mario's wearing a completely different outfit. And in Wreck-It Ralph, Tapper looks exactly like Mario. What if the referee was just a knock-off character?
Tails777 (talk) The role of the referee in boxing doesn't really impact the fact that Mario doesn't play any role other than just appearing as the ref. He doesn't truly impact the gameplay like Donkey Kong does in Punch-Out!! on the Wii.
I feel the example for Sonic Lost World is flawed since there's an entire theming going around this to make this more of a guest appearance. I still think Mario is a cameo in this game despite having a tangible gameplay-related role here. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 01:18, April 14, 2023 (EDT)
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! is not the original version. The original version is the gold Famicom cartridge that was given to some contestants of Family Computer Golf: U.S. Course. This one lacked Mike Tyson and had Super Macho Man as the final opponent. There are three versions of the game with three different bosses. That being said, would this proposal also affect Tennis? Mario is a referee in that game as well.--Platform (talk) 05:54, April 14, 2023 (EDT)
Merge every Super Smash Bros. stage into game-specific lists
merge 9-3
It's official, the premise is that the Super Mario Wiki is not a Super Smash Bros. wiki. I was wondering if we can merge every stage into game-specific lists:
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros.
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros. Melee
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
List of stages debuting in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Spectrogram (talk) Per updated proposal. Please make sure to also explain what would be done with all that extra information (if anything).
SeanWheeler (talk) Actually, as I'm looking at those stage pages, they are pretty short, and far more suitable for a list page than the characters. The longer ones can be trimmed a bit.
Shadic 34 (talk) I mean... we have made everything else in Smash into a list, how about stages too?
Mario (talk) I'm gonna support but I have a good feeling that these resulting list articles are stage 3 terminal versions of our Smash Bros. coverage.
Ray Trace (talk) tbh im not a huge fan of the lists either. i would just kill them entirely and have the subjects externally link to smashwiki
#Wikiboy10 (talk) We have merged the fighters, items, and other stuff from this series, we might as well do this. Since the supporter didn't do a good job of explaining why this needs to happen, our stance on Super Smash Bros. is that it's not in the same vein of crossovers in comparison to Mario & Sonic. Honestly, I feel the opposition's reasoning is just based on how poorly this proposal is written, rather than because we shouldn't do it.
Oppose
Killer Moth (talk) Per all. I get how we are trimming down our Smash Bros. coverage, however you are going to need to be more specific on how this is going to work.
#Koopa con Carne (talk) You have made zero effort to elaborate on various aspects of this merge, such as whether this merge involves minutiae like pertinent images, song tables, profiles etc., but most outstandingly, the proposal, intentionally or otherwise, makes a tacit statement that the Mario series stages themselves would also be merged together with the others, which is basically where my opposition is most strong. I assume this is a follow-up to the fighter proposal, which would imply that it aims to round up non-Mario Smash subjects of a particular nature into one page, in which case even a simple statement along those lines would have gone a long way towards clarification. You're basically relying on your voters' guesswork to sort this thing out. #Hewer (talk) Per Koopa con Carne, and lumping 3DS and Wii U into the same page is also a strange decision since they introduced almost completely different stages to each other. #Swallow (talk) Per Koopa con Carne, this needs some serious elaboration rather than just "merge everything". #Spectrogram (talk) Proposal fails to even mention Mario-related stages and what would be done with extra information. #TheFlameChomp (talk) Per Koopa con Carne, this proposal is unclear on too many aspects currently to consider supporting. #SeanWheeler (talk) While I like that we're cutting down on Smash Bros. content, those lists of fighters give me flashbacks of the Banjo and Conker series pages, so I don't want the stages to be given that treatment. I'm honestly quite confused about which non-Mario characters gets their own pages and which ones are sections of the fighter lists. And it's unclear with this proposal about what happens with the Mario stages.
Comments
@Teh Other, note that you still have three days to edit the proposal. Spectrogram (talk) 09:15, April 13, 2023 (EDT)
@Wikiboy10 It's not only poorly written, even this needs specifics on what exactly will happen. The proposal reasoning implies it will impact absolutely everything which is not a very good way of going about this sort of thing. Nightwicked Bowser 15:07, April 13, 2023 (EDT)
Funnily enough, I just removed my vote because now I realized the biggest flaw with this proposal: Would this include the Mario, Donkey Kong, Wario, Yoshi, and Wrecking Crew stages too? Please clarify that. Wikiboy10 (talk) 15:10, April 13, 2023 (EDT)
Why should the stages be merged and not playable characters? I think the stages are like the second most visible aspect of Super Smash Bros. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 01:16, April 14, 2023 (EDT)
@Teh Other Could you clarify what exactly you intend to happen with the 3DS and Wii U stages? The proposal is still unclear about that. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 10:20, April 14, 2023 (EDT)
Yeah, I think that's important too. I'm about to revote for this once it's more clear. We definitely need to merge the stages now, but we need better information. Wikiboy10 (talk) 11:26, April 14, 2023 (EDT)
Classify Just Dance series as a guest appearance
guest appearance 5-3
In Just Dance 3, there is a song named "Just Mario" with a whole theming around it. Spinies on the background, horsetail plants, and Mario Mario himself, dancing at the center of the screen. Exclusively for Just Dance 2018 Switch version, there is... Rabbid Peach, dancing next to Peach's Castle. With a whole theme going around these two songs, I believe it's fair to call the series a guest appearance.
Proposer: Spectrogram (talk) Deadline: April 27, 2023, 23:59 GMT
Wikiboy10 (talk) If we aren't going to consider Punch-Out!! (NES) a guest appearance, then we should also treat this as a cameo. The Mario elements play no role in the gameplay. If you're going to use the argument that the character blatantly appears in it, so did Mario in Punch-Out!! (NES). Even if I would classify these games, I think we should create two different articles on it.
SeanWheeler (talk) Why create a series page for two games Mario guest appeared in? We should only do series pages for Mario spinoffs. We'd might as well do a Sonic series page or a Legend of Zelda series page if Just Dance gets a series page here. The Just Dance guest appearances should have a page for each game instead.
Hewer (talk) Per SeanWheeler, but I'd support an option to make individual pages for the games with Mario content.
Comments
i mean, if its got mario stuff in it then yeah its a guest appearance. my question is does this really need a proposal? - YoYo (Talk) 22:02, April 20, 2023 (EDT)
SMW:CV "Please note that a proposal should be made before a game is classified as a "guest appearance", as this is a somewhat tricky distinction and there could easily be disagreement in the community about the extent to which coverage should be granted to any given non-Mario game."Spectrogram (talk) 01:21, April 21, 2023 (EDT)
So would this classify the whole series as a guest appearance or just those two games with Mario content? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 08:19, April 23, 2023 (EDT)
The whole series because: a) stand-alone articles on two of these games just wouldn't be a good idea, and b) it's just better to keep all Mario content on one page for the whole Just Dance series. If Nintendo ever partners with them again and another Mario song gets released, would we need to make a third page? These games are way too similar. Spectrogram (talk) 09:16, April 23, 2023 (EDT)
So I'm assuming the page name would be "Just Dance (series)"? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 09:19, April 23, 2023 (EDT)
Why not just Just Dance? Spectrogram (talk) 12:01, April 23, 2023 (EDT)
Not sure I agree with this rule, but in this case, yes Spectrogram (talk) 13:06, April 23, 2023 (EDT)
@WikiBoy10, Punch Out literally only has Mario as a referee (and that's it). These two songs clearly have tons of effort put into, combining elements from two separate Mario games. Comparing this to Punch Out is just fractally wrong. Spectrogram (talk) 14:57, April 23, 2023 (EDT)
There's already a precedent for lumping multiple "Guest Appearance" games with the Skylanders: SuperChargers page, which covers the title game, the "Racing" version for last-gen consoles and the character's appearance in Imaginators. Making a separate page for each Just Dance game that has a Mario song in it is an insane suggestion to me, they're very iterative games. --Glowsquid (talk) 13:57, April 27, 2023 (EDT)
Remove articles about Sonic characters
canceled by proposer
This is a wiki covering the entirety of the Mario franchise, and as such, full articles about every Sonic character are unnecessary (at least put a mention to them with the sonicretro: appender between double square brackets). Also, the articles themselves are somehow, poorly written (Dr. Eggman has one large paragraph for London Olympic Games, and one-liners for every other game he has appeared in).
I propose that the Sonic character articles should be reduced to a list featuring a brief description of each character, like "List of fighters debuting in [insert Smash title here]", or mention them with the sonicretro: appender.
Proposer: PnnyCrygr (talk) Deadline: May 7, 2023, 15:05 EDT Date withdrawn: April 30, 2023
Swallow (talk) The Mario and Sonic games are fully within our coverage and the Sonic characters should definitely still have articles covering their appearances in those games.
Hewer (talk) Although I've mentioned this idea before, after thinking about it more I've decided against it because I don't see a reason to exclude the Mario & Sonic games from full coverage. This shouldn't happen unless we decide to make a big change to the coverage policy, which would probably require us to cut down on other crossover content as well, for example the Dragon Quest characters who we cover because of Fortune Street. Articles being poorly written is a bad reason to delete them, it just means we should rewrite them to not be poorly written. Also, making a list page for them and externally linking them are two very different solutions, so you probably shouldn't be lumping them into the same support option.
Comments
I think this proposal should be vetoed; i now understand Hewer's points. PnnyCrygr (talk)
This proposal is new enough that you can remove it yourself as long as you add it to the archive. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 05:52, April 30, 2023 (EDT)
Discourage drive-by templating part 2
passed 21-0
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.
Ahemtoday (talk) "Yeah" indeed. (To be honest, I thought this was something the previous proposal did...)
Spectrogram (talk) 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.
Tails777 (talk) 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.
BBQ Turtle (talk) Per all, I've seen so many instances of this with no discussion to be found anywhere.
7feetunder (talk) This is exactly what I had brought up on the previous proposal.
Camwood777 (talk) - Please? (because a "per proposal" doesn't drive home the urgency.)
Shadic 34 (talk) 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.
Killer Moth (talk) 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.
Swallow (talk) 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.
#Wikiboy10 (talk) 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. --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 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. -- KOOPACONCARNE 15:40, April 28, 2023 (EDT)
I will admit, I barely started my own wiki and I am currently trying to get rid of spambots at the moment. I feel you guys are more experienced and nuanced on this stuff than I am. I have a hard time adapting to major changes and I tend to see maintenance templates as a rather important thing on wikis; they save a lot of behinds. When I read this proposal, I felt the idea could be difficult to implement and would require tons of back and forth. I haven't seen a wiki that does tells people to make propsoals for labeling a template, I love to see it; it might help me think about the issue here.I apologize for the misinformed information; I misremembered reading something from Glowsquid in regards to NIWA wikis doing X. I reread it again and it was completely different than what I remembered. It was this qoute, "But the "we shouldn't base ourselves on other wikis" goes both ways; just as the fact NIWA wikis don't cover Smash Bros anywhere as rigolously as we do is not an argument in itself for scaling back our coverage, the feeling that the main Smash Bros ressource is lacking in some respects is not an argument to keep it either." You guys win. Wikiboy10 (talk) 17:17, April 28, 2023 (EDT)
Oh, to clarify, a proposal wouldn't be necessary to place one of these templates. There just needs to be somewhere on a talk page where the reasons are provided to discuss the change (which may or may not be a TPP). --Too Bad!WaluigiTime! 17:24, April 28, 2023 (EDT)
Create interwiki link templates to current and former NIWA wikis and other wikis
do nothing 1-4
Whether they're current or former, the NIWA wikis have interwiki links. I was wondering if we could make interwiki link templates to the current and former NIWA wikis' pages.
That's a lot of templates, and additional shorthands to remember, when the prefixes themselves work just fine. If you don't want to type things twice, just do [[zeldawiki:Link|]]. --Steve (talk) 18:58, May 5, 2023 (EDT)
Link. Oh! That does work. Makes your templates pointless doesn't it? SeanWheeler (talk) 21:11, May 5, 2023 (EDT)
So are you going to protect these templates from creation? GuntherBayBeee 19:27, May 11, 2023 (EDT)
I don't think that would be necessary unless those templates are constantly deleted and recreated. SeanWheeler (talk) 22:42, May 11, 2023 (EDT)
