The 'Shroom:Issue 108/Pipe Plaza
Director’s Notes
Welcome 'Shroom readers to this March edition of Pipe Plaza.
Some bits and bobs for news this month. New Articles is not present in this issue alongside Forum Update and Birthday Wishes. Also, Lakituthequick (talk) will be writing Anniversary Announcements again. Hooray!
Section of the Month
| Pipe Plaza SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Forum Update | 5 | 29% | MrConcreteDonkey |
| 2nd | Poll Committee Discussion | 4 | 24% | Andymii |
| 3rd | Monthly Report | 2 | 12% | Paper Yoshi |
| 3rd | Retro Feature | 2 | 11% | Yoshi876 |
Wanna know what's been going on in the Poll Committee? Find out here.
[read more]
Monthly Report
Written by: Paper Yoshi (talk)
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the March issue of Monthly Report!! No news on the section just yet, so let's compare this month's stats to the ones from February!
Credit goes to Stooben Rooben (talk), Super Mario Bros. (talk), and Viper26 (talk) for the table coding (I based this on Stooben's coding, which was later modified by SMB, myself, and Viper26 when each one of us wrote this section).
| March Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Statistic | As of 13 March 2016 (19:15)* |
| Content Pages | 16,991 |
| All Pages | 136,696 |
| Files | 69,529 |
| Edits | 1,822,293 |
| Edits per Page | 13.33 |
| Registered Users | 21,244 |
| Active Users | 319 |
| Bots | 2 |
| 'Shroom Writers | 33 |
| Autopatrolled | 40 |
| Patrollers | 3 |
| Administrators | 10 |
| Bureaucrats | 3 |
| Proprietor | 1 |
| February — March Statistics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statistic | As of 13 February 2016 (15:10)* | As of 13 March 2016 (19:15)* | Percentage Change |
| Content Pages | 16,925 | 16,991 | +0.39% |
| All Pages | 135,953 | 136,696 | +0.546% |
| Files | 68,979 | 69,529 | +0.797% |
| Edits | 1,813,630 | 1,822,293 | +0.478% |
| Edits per Page | 13.34 | 13.33 | -0.075% |
| Registered Users | 21,099 | 21,244 | +0.687% |
| Active Users | 363 | 319 | -12.121% |
| Bots | 2 | 2 | 0% |
| 'Shroom Writers | 33 | 33 | 0% |
| Autopatrolled | 40 | 40 | 0% |
| Patrollers | 3 | 3 | 0% |
| Administrators | 10 | 10 | 0% |
| Bureaucrats | 3 | 3 | 0% |
| Proprietor | 1 | 1 | 0% |
Featured
Hello 'Shroom readers and welcome back to another edition of Featured, the only place this side of the Mario Wiki where you'll get news about the Mario Wiki Featured Articles.
Featured Articles
No new articles have been featured in the past month.
Re-Featured Articles
No new articles have become re-featured.
FA Nominations
There is one ongoing Featured Article Nomination.
- Mario Golf: World Tour was nominated on February 7th. It currently has one oppose vote due to a lack of description on the non-playable characters, low quality images for the items, some broken links and the references haven't been properly formatted.
Failed FA Nominations
No new articles have failed the featuring process.
Unfeatured Articles
No new articles have been unfeatured in the past month.
Unfeaturing Nominations
There is one ongoing Unfeature nomination.
- Wii was nominated on February 12th. It was nominated due to having three maintenance templates on it and missing imformation on the Wii Message Board.
Failed Unfeaturing Nominations
No new articles have failed the unfeaturing process in the past month.
Thanks for reading see you next month, for more Featured Articles news.
Tip of the Month
Tip of the Month: Have you ever started off a sentence with a few spaces from your space bar? It looks fine in your Microsoft or Mac programs, but on the Wiki, space bar spacing will leave
this lovely box
around your text until you hit the 'enter' key again. Which means if you tried to indent an entire paragraph using your space bar, your entire paragraph will appear in this gray box. Even if it's half a page long. So leave the indenting for your English papers and never begin a paragraph with a space from your space bar!
Poll Committee Discussion
Written by: Baby Luigi (talk) and the Poll Committee
Hello everyone! Due to a small change to how we write sections in the Pipe Plaza, Baby Weegee is currently writing this month's Poll Committee section! We're going to rotate between our members on who gets to write this section from now on, unless things change back in the future if this new system doesn't work out for us. Baby Weegee hopes you'll enjoy this month's section.
Recent Polls
Casual or hardcore (Andymii (talk), March 14, 2016)
| How often do you play video games? |
|---|
| Rarely. I'll play Wii Sports at a party, but not much more. 1.34% (35 votes) |
| Once in a while. Some Mario Kart or Candy Crush is fun when I'm bored. (Super Mario 3D Land) 6.67% (174 votes) |
| Quite a lot. Though I play video games often, I haven't really dedicated my soul to them. 40.31% (1,052 votes) |
| All the time. Without my daily dose of Mario, I cannot function. 49.92% (1,303 votes) |
| I don't play video games... why am I on this website again? 1.76% (46 votes) |
| Total Votes: 2,610 |
The Final Hard Levels (Baby Luigi (talk), February 28, 2016)
| Which of the final Mario hard levels do you have the most problems with? |
|---|
| The Perfect Run (Super Mario Galaxy 2) 32.51% (739 votes) |
| World Crown 8 (Super Mario 3D Land) 7.26% (165 votes) |
| Champion's Road (Super Mario 3D World) 27.63% (628 votes) |
| Mummy-Me Maze Forever (Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker) 4.97% (113 votes) |
| I find all of those equally difficult. 15.93% (353 votes) |
| None, but other levels in the games gave me more trouble. 12.1% (275 votes) |
| Total Votes: 2,273 |
Games you want to see in 2016 (Viper26 (talk), February 21, 2016)
| What Mario games do you want to see most in 2016? |
|---|
| Super Mario Galaxy 3 31.85% (1,157 votes) |
| Super Mario Sunshine 2 16.98% (617 votes) |
| Mario Kart 9 10.07% (366 votes) |
| New Super Mario Bros 3/ New Super Mario Bros U 2 4.84% (176 votes) |
| Mario Golf Wii U 1.57% (57 votes) |
| Mario Party 11 3.19% (116 votes) |
| Luigi's Mansion 3 5.78% (210 votes) |
| A brand new original game 20.45% (743 votes) |
| Other 4.84% (176 votes) |
| None 0.41% (15 votes) |
| Total Votes: 3,633 |
Nintendo Badge Arcade (Bazooka Mario (talk), February 14, 2016)
| In the free-to-start Nintendo Badge Arcade game, you can win Mario badges! Did you get any? |
|---|
| I get only Mario-related badges. 4.35% (80 votes) |
| Yes! They're the majority of badges I got! 15.05% (277 votes) |
| Sure, I got some Mario badges. 22.12% (407 votes) |
| I got badges, but no Mario badges. 0.65% (12 votes) |
| I have no badges. 1.14% (21 votes) |
| I haven't played Nintendo Badge Arcade. 31.36% (577 votes) |
| I'm not interested in Nintendo Badge Arcade. 25.33% (466 votes) |
| Total Votes: 1,840 |
Analysis
- The Final Hard Levels: The award for the most hair-follicle deaths goes to The Perfect Run of Super Mario Galaxy 2, but Champion's Road of Super Mario 3D World also has done an admirable job at massacring hair-follicles. Some hair-follicle right groups are upset to see that, seeing that the hairs were inhumanely yanked out rather than unethically pulled off. Lots of characters, the majority which consisted of Marios, were also harmed in the process of beating those levels as well.
- Games you want to see in 2016: Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are hardly representative of the entire universe (which is composed of billions and billions of galaxies), so people want a third one for a slightly more accurate picture of the universe. Will this galaxy be a lenticular, spiral, elliptical, or an irregular galaxy? As long as it avoids collision with the other galaxies and messing up all the star systems within it, it should be fine. Others just want the game to stay in its home planet and have an original new one. Not surprisingly, for a MarioWiki, few people "want" nothing. WELCOME NEW GALAXY.
- Nintendo Badge Arcade: Most people's Arcade Bunnies are going out of business, but mostly because they didn't advertise the game enough to its consumers. Most people haven't went to the Nintendo Badge Arcade and another good portion aren't interested in it. I guess tacky home menu icons aren't worth time on, and the game does have an army of evil claw machines.
- Casual or hardcore: According to the results of this poll, a good percentage of human beings require that they get a daily exposure to Mario, and that gives them the energy they need to stay alive. This unique breed of human beings contain extra, specialized mitochondria in their cells that convert time spent playing a Mario game into energy. It is currently unclear to how natural selection favored them to survive in the wild. Some beings have less need for the Mario games energy than others, but a good portion have evolved the mitochondria to an extent.
Well, only four polls this time around, mostly due to the release schedules and whatnot, but it's loads of fun to discuss these poll results! Next month, look forward to Baby Weegee's sockpuppet rerig twin, Bazooka Mario (talk), writing these.
Community Report
Hi, welcome to the March edition of the Community Report. It shows our the latest goings-on around the Super Mario Wiki — the promotions, the demotions, the recently passed and ongoing proposals of the Super Mario Wiki.
Credit to YoshiKong (talk) for previously developing this coded table system, with some alterations made by Crocodile Dippy (talk).
PROMOTIONS/DEMOTIONS
- None
RECENTLY PASSED PROPOSALS:
- None
RECENT TALK PAGE PROPOSALS:
| Proposer | Summary | Outcome | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| LudwigVon (talk) | Split Red Koopa Kid, Green Koopa Kid and Blue Koopa Kid from Koopa Kid. Proposal to split Red Koopa Kid, Green Koopa Kid and Blue Koopa Kid from Koopa Kid. The proposer argues that their appearance in Mario Party 7 and Mario Party Advance along with Koopa Kid are distinct enough to make a separate page for them. |
2-6 (read more) | February 24, 2016, 23:59 |
| Wildgoosespeeder (talk) | Merge stub contents with stub. Proposal to merge {{stub}} with {{stub}}. The proposer argues that it would be better to remember and keep track of one less template and keep consistency with other templates that have the function ( |
1-6 (read more) | February 27, 2016, 23:59 |
ONGOING PROPOSALS:
- None
ONGOING TALK PAGE PROPOSALS:
| Proposer | Summary | Link | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mario jc (talk) | Merge Wooden Block with Hard Block. Proposal to merge the Wooden Block, a kind of block that appear in Super Mario Bros. 3 with Hard Block, arguing that they are the same block with a different name and in Super Mario Maker, the Wooden Block replaces the Hard Block in the Super Mario Bros. 3 style. |
0-0 (read more) | March 24, 2016, 23:59 GMT |
NOTE:All stats and figures included in this section were correct as of March 11th.
That’s all for this edition of the Community Report! Thank you for taking the time to read it and take the time to look and participate in the only proposal.
Retro Feature
| G.narron | |
 |
|
| First article: | A History of Video Games / Monthly Report, Issue XXXII |
| Last article: | A History of Video Games / Monthly Report, Issue XXXII |
| Sections Written: | Main Team: 2 |
| Positions held: | Contributor |
Hello, readers! I'm your Spotlight manager and Pipe Plaza Director, Yoshi876. Welcome to Retro Feature, a section in which I delve deep into the archives to bring you the best blasts from the past. This time I bring a section from G.narron (talk).
G.narron joined the wiki on 12 October 2009 and joined The 'Shroom in Issue XXXII which was released on 10 November 2009. G.narron has a short history here with The 'Shroom as you can tell they only contributed two sections and both of them were for the same issue, however, both sections are quite important. Monthly Report is still written today and has its home here in Pipe Plaza, and A History of Video Games was a highly popular section back when it was being written.
However, you're not here for the history of G.narron, you're here to view an old section from years gone by, so today I bring you G.narron's A History of Video Games from Issue XXXII!!
Hello everyone this is my 2nd article i wrote for the shroom its the history of video games i hope you enjoy! Video games have been around since the early 1970s. The first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space by Nutting Associates, was introduced in 1971. In 1972, Atari introduced Pong to the arcades. An interesting item to note is that Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell, the man who developed Computer Space. He left Nutting Associates to found Atari, which then produced Pong, the first truly successful commercial arcade video game. That same year, Magnavox offered the first home video game system. Dubbed the Odyssey, it did not even have a microprocessor! The core of the system was a board with about four-dozen transistors and diodes. The Odyssey was very limited -- it could only produce very simple graphics, and required that custom plastic overlays be taped over the television screen. In 1975, Atari introduced a home version of its popular arcade game, Pong. The original home version of Pong was sold exclusively through Sears, and even carried the Sears logo. Pong was a phenomenal success, opening the door to the future of home video games. Although the Fairchild Channel F, released in 1976, was the first true removable game system, Atari once again had the first such system to be a commercial success. Introduced in 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), the 2600 used removable cartridges, allowing a multitude of games to be played using the same hardware. The hardware in the 2600 was quite sophisticated at the time, although it seems incredibly simple now. It consisted of: * MOS 6502 microprocessor * Stella, a custom graphics chip that controlled the synchronization to the TV and all other video processing tasks * 128 bytes of RAM * 4-kilobyte ROM-based game cartridges Systems like the Atari 2600, its descendant, the 5200, Coleco's ColecoVision and Mattel's IntelliVision helped to generate interest in home video games for a few years. But interest began to wane because the quality of the home product lagged far behind arcade standards. But in 1985, Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and everything changed. The NES introduced three very important concepts to the video game system industry: * Using a pad controller instead of a joystick * Creating authentic reproductions of arcade video games for the home system * Using the hardware as a loss leader by aggressively pricing it, then making a profit on the games themselves Nintendo's strategy paid off, and the NES sparked a revival in the home video game market that continues to thrive and expand even now. No longer were home video game systems looked upon as inferior imitations of arcade machines. New games that would have been impractical to create for commercial systems, such as Legend of Zelda, were developed for the home markets. These games enticed many people who had not thought about buying a home video game system before to purchase the NES. Nintendo continued to develop and introduce new game consoles. Other companies, such as Sega and Sony, created their own home video game systems. Let's look at the core parts of any current video game system. And thats my research on the history of videogames! By g.narron the #1 Koopalings Fan! |
The 'Shroom Report
HI, everyone! I'm your illustrious Statistics Manager, Tucayo, here with this month's installment of The 'Shroom Report, your one-stop for 'Shroom stats! As a reminder, in the Milestones section, writers will get mentioned every 10 sub-team sections and every 50 all-time sections, teams will get mentioned every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom will get mentioned every 500 sections. All information is based off our Historical Sheets. This section will cover Issue 107.
| First-time Writers | |
|---|---|
| Writer | Section |
| Midoro (talk) (ZeldaWiki profile) | Zelda Memories |
| Milestones | |
|---|---|
| Writer/Team | Milestone |
| Baby Luigi (talk) | 10 Palette Swap sections |
| Crocodile Dippy (talk) | 70 Critic Corner sections |
| 10 Strategy Wing sections | |
| Walkazo (talk) | 20 Palette Swap sections |
| Most Sections Written | ||
|---|---|---|
| Team | Writer | Number of Sections |
| Main/Staff | Super Mario Bros. (talk) | 125 |
| Fake News | Ralphfan (talk) | 97 |
| Fun Stuff | Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) | 121 |
| Palette Swap | FunkyK38 (talk) | 98 |
| Pipe Plaza | Paper Yoshi (talk) | 112 |
| Critic Corner | Crocodile Dippy (talk) | 71 |
| Strategy Wing | Stooben Rooben (talk) | 14 |
| Overall | Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) | 274 |
| 'Shroom Trivia | |
|---|---|
| These are the average sections on each team from their inception up to Issue 107: | |
| Team | Average sections |
| Main/Staff | 11.33 (1,235 sections in 109 issues) |
| Fake News | 7.21 (728 sections in 101 issues) |
| Fun Stuff | 6.48 (661 sections in 102 issues) |
| Palette Swap | 5.58 (446 sections in 80 issues) |
| Pipe Plaza | 6.38 (491 sections in 77 issues) |
| Critic Corner | 4.73 (208 sections in 44 issues) |
| Strategy Wing | 5.8 (46 sections in 8 issues) |
Since I love stats, and I found the ones above to be very interesting, I will provide some insight this month. It should be no surprise the Main Team has an average that high: after all, that's where most staff and special sections go and it used to host the vast majority of our sections until they were gradually moved to other teams. However, that number will be slowly dropping, as only Special Issues will have more than a handful of sections in the Main Team. To some it may come as a surprise that Fun Stuff has appeared on more issues than Fake News; this is because FN didn't feature on seven issues between Issue X and Issue XXII due to a lack of writers. Critic Corner has the lowest average, which could be due to the fact CC sections are usually lengthier. That's all from me, until next month!
Anniversary Announcements
Written by: Lakituthequick (talk)
- “Don't worry guys, I have enough Minecraft to play for the entire meeting.”
- —Uniju :D (Talk Page · Forum Profile)
Did you stay fresh?
Hello there, welcome back to Anniversary Announcements! To quickly recap on what this section does, Anniversary Announcements serves to inform you about the behind-the-scenes developments that drive the Awards. This involves everything from changes in the Awards and nominees to tournaments and prizes.
Lets meet the important people of the Awards Committee first.
- Hypnotoad (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Co-director since last year and Userpedia host since 2013, this man knows the job and gets it done.
- Gabumon (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – New co-director for the Awards and Sub-director for The 'Shroom since 2011.
- Twentytwofiftyseven (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – New sub-director and active in the AC since 2011, Programming Manager for The 'Shroom.
- Turboo (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – Fail Awards host, past Director and active in the AC since 2011.
- Super Mario Bros. (Talk Page · Forum Profile) – 'Shroom Awards host and Director for The 'Shroom since 2013, with a pause in 2014, as well as a past Awards Director.
A full list of all members of the Committee can be found here. You can contact any of these people if you have questions, if they don't know the answer, they will pass it through as needed. For questions or suggestions relating to Anniversary Announcements, you can contact me (Lakituthequick (Talk Page · Forum Profile)).
So what happened in February and the first half of March. Some general ideas and suggestions were coined, such as back-upping all images and other materials used in presentations should they go offline. Also coined is how to deal with favourite courses and levels from various different kinds of games. Super Mario 64 was released 20 years ago and has its courses put together with Super Mario Sunshine from 2002, galaxies from both Super Mario Galaxy games are put together in one award, and there are 117 levels in Super Mario 3D World, too many to make an easy or outstanding choice.
Several tournaments have also been mentioned, and some are already half-confirmed. Uniju :D (Talk Page · Forum Profile) and Toadbert101 (Talk Page · Forum Profile) have indicated that they are going to host a Minecraft tournament, DragonFreak (Talk Page · Forum Profile) is planning on hosting Yu-Gi-Oh again, Lakituthequick (Talk Page · Forum Profile) is planning a scavenger hunt, Cirdec (Talk Page · Forum Profile) has mentioned Pokémon, Stargazing (Talk Page · Forum Profile) plans to do Mario Kart 7 again and Groden (Talk Page · Forum Profile) is going to host Super Smash Bros. 4. Also listed are the Art Contest and Awesomenauts, hosted by Hypnotoad (Talk Page · Forum Profile), and Guess the Results.
During the first meeting, Mafia was also confirmed by Superchao (Talk Page · Forum Profile), to be co-hosted with Stooben Rooben (Talk Page · Forum Profile).
Other suggestions include Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8, several card games and Love Live School Idol Festival.
Now for the meetings that occurred in the last month. In the first meeting the bigger overall idea's were discussed first, before going on to the individual awards.
A25 Favorite Super Mario 64/Sunshine Level is going to be exploded/removed in its current form, potentially taking A13 Favorite Galaxy with it, the reason of which is mentioned two paragraphs up.
Tournament dates and durations are going to be enforced in such a way that everything is done before prize awarding starts. This is to prevent situations like last year where tournaments got extended too much and many.
After this, the Mario Awards could begin to be discussed. See the table below for detailed listings of additions and removals.
Refer to this document for a full list of nominees. All that is marked in yellow in this document is yet to be discussed.
| # | Name | Additions | Removals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notes (if applicable) | |||
| A1 | Favorite Game Soundtrack | Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam | Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars |
| A2 | Favorite Mario Kart Game | - | - |
| A3 | Favorite Mario Platformer | - | - |
| A4 | Favorite Mario Kart Course | Baby Park Big Blue |
Hyrule Circuit Toad Harbor Music Park |
| A5 | Favorite DK Game | - | - |
| A6 | Favorite Wario Game | - | - |
| A7 | Favorite Yoshi Game | - | - |
| A8 | Favorite Art Direction | - | - |
| A9 | Most Anticipated Upcoming Game | Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Paper Mario: Color Splash |
(Everything from last year) |
| The lack of entries for this award mean it is to be replaced with a new award, unless E3 reveals new entries. | |||
| A10 | Favorite Partner Developer | Rare Ltd. | - |
| A11 | Favorite Major Character | Bowser Jr. Toad |
- |
| A12 | Favorite Supporting Character | Birdo Kamek Poochy |
Bowser Jr. Toad |
In the second meeting the Mario Awards were continued, immediately removing Favourite Galaxy for the reasons mentioned earlier. The favourite levels for Super Mario 64, Sunshine and 3D World were also removed. Favourite Koopaling is now in the dangerzone. 
| # | Name | Additions | Removals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notes (if applicable) | |||
| A13 | Favorite Galaxy (Removed) | ||
| Removed in favour of a new 3D-level award. | |||
| A14 | Favorite Species | - | - |
| A15 | Hardest Boss | Kamek and Paper Kamek | - |
| Consensus about (Paper) Kamek has yet to be reached. | |||
| A16 | Favorite Item | Mystery Mushroom | Super Acorn/P-Acorn |
| A17 | Favorite Mario RPG | Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam | - |
| A18 | Favorite Mario Party Game | - | - |
| A19 | Favorite Super Smash Bros. Character | Ness Bowser Shulk |
Samus Pikachu Meta Knight |
| A20 | Favorite Sports Game | Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash |
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games |
| A21 | Favorite Puzzle Game | - | - |
| A22 | Favorite Koopaling | - | - |
| A23 | Favorite DK Character | - | - |
| A24 | Favorite Wario Character | - | - |
| A25 | Favorite Super Mario 64/Sunshine Level (Removed) | ||
Removed in favour of a new 3D-level award. 
| |||
| A26 | Favorite Super Mario 3D World Level (Removed) | ||
| Removed in favour of a new 3D-level award. | |||
| A27 | Favorite Boss Battle | Dark Bowser (M&L:BIS) Bowser/Meowser (SM3DW) Bowser (SMG) Shiny RoboBowser (M&L:PJ) |
Golden Diva (WL4) Magnus Von Grapple (2.0) (PM:TTYD) Shrooboid Brat (M&L:PiT) |
| Consensus about Shiny RoboBowser has yet to be reached. | |||
| A28 | Favorite Place | Super Mario RPG World | Mushroom Kingdom (SMRPG) |
And that will be it for this year's first Anniversary Announcements! I hope I got to inform you well and I look forward to seeing you in April. Be careful for Cake-in-the-boxes on the first of that month. Ciao!
All information above was correct as of 2016-03-15.
| The 'Shroom 108 | |
|---|---|
| Staff sections | Opening Statement |
| The 'Shroom Spotlight | |
| Sub-teams | Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner• Strategy Wing
|
| Closing Statement | |
