Talk:Main Page/Archive 20

H4X0R

A Warning from KP Blue: H4X0R is in town, we must knock him out, kick him in the balls 25 times, and finally, shoot him in the balls-KP Blue

Unless we can alternate between kicking and shooting, I don't care. -- Chris 23:44, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

Featured articles

Featured articles have a major problem - many of them seem to have been identified as such only because of mass voting, but not because they were actually good enough. For example, the Luigi's Mansion isn't even done, and the incomplete Plot section is nine paragraphs about the first ten minutes of the game. That would mean that the plot, if the whole thing follows suit, would be more than 100 paragraphs long. On top of this, featuring articles on Wikipedia often leads to the articles decaying because of lack of interest (as a result of the editors deciding that once they've reached the highest rank the article can receive, there's not much left for the article). Imagine what happens to FAs here - they're nominated quickly, promoted quickly, and abandoned quickly.

Another problem is the images. A Wiki should be usable by anyone - including 56k users. Any images at all would be a problem for some, but at this point, me being a broadband user notices the insane load times for many of the articles because of images.

And the lack of sourcing creates a poor situation for an article. From what can be seen, lack of references only leads to articles being featured, it doesn't lead to them being of featured quality, and in fact allows people to sneak false content in, knowing that sources are not necessary. - A Link to the Past 02:10, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

First of all let me say welcome back! I can actually answer several of those questions for you. I hope Luigi's Mansion is causing you the biggest trouble, because there's a story behind that. I noticed it was featured but felt it wasn't ready, so I began working on the story section, which was currently a one paragraph overview. It's on my massive to-do list (see my user page) to cut down on the heavy detail and finish the rest of the story. Unfortunately, the article went on to being featured with that not-even-half-done story section because no one opposed it. The rest of the articles are of much higher calibur, although there are still many problems with several, yes, but LM is the biggest problem. As to interest in the articles waning, Princess Daisy and others are still must active pages on the Wiki. You don't so much see the quick nomination and acceptance problem here. Like I said, LM was a weird case that wasn't debated at all -- while others such as Mario work better. That article has been nominated twice in recent memory and each time it has been fought over and ultimately scraped. None of this is to say that there isn't a problem, because there definately is. As you know, the smaller a Wiki is the lesser the quality of its featured articles are on average. The same thing is happening here, although it is improving.

Images are a big problem, yes. According to a proposal a while back, images should all be categorized by game, character, etc. to remove the need for extensive bandwidth-killing galleries. However, they are still included on the pages because we encountered a problem where the images showed up as unused when they were only in categories. This could be solved by separate image pages, but if I remember right a proposal turned that down.

You may have noticed that sourcing is present to a certain extent on the Wiki. It was mainly used for "controversial facts" and new information such as a game's release date or Princess Peach being Daisy's cousin (it appeared in an official guide). The decision to limit the requirement of sources was made so that users would be more accepting of source citations, but I really couldn't agree more that we need references. False content usually isn't that big of a problem with the more major articles or the featured ones -- it usually gets weeded out quickly (I remember a dispute over whether Mario was Italian - the point was removed until someone quoted Chales Martinet saying that Nintendo's representative asked him to voice an "Italian plumber from Brooklyn") I think right now what should be done is that we should make citing sources encouraged and make a rule that citations should not be removed even when information becomes commonplace (such as an announcement of a new game, eventually it gets released and then someone removes the citation). Anywho, good luck and see you soon! Stumpers! 02:40, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

I think we do have a problem with featured articles. They are seen as an award or something. You can see the problem at the nomination of Alien (Club Nintendo), which is a very minor subject, yet the creator fights for it to be featured. I guess it is his opinion that the article is worth less when it can't get featured like the big ones. But going to the Main Page isn't a right given out to every tiny article. They should represent what the Wiki has to offer, a bit like advertising to those who view the page for the first time. Luigi's Mansion also didn't really work. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 13:17, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

If our community ever matures enough and enough of the userbase becomes not obsessed with Userpedia and actually works on the articles, I'd shoot myself. That's how certain I am that this is infixable. Wa _T^C_@^Y 18:18, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

• ignores Wayo's comment* I agree with what ALTTP said. The FA system is mostly a joke. --Blitzwing 18:31, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

I can't remember how many times I've said this since FA's were first suggested, but they are a stupid idea. For an encyclopedia the size of Wikipedia, sure, they work out great. Here on a smaller wiki were we really only have a handful of active competent users, it process breaks down rather quickly.

While I can't say much about images (someone please link me to one of these problem articles), some of the pressure will be taken off the server once Wayoshi teaches us how t use the Mass Delete function.

And on the point of sources, I seem to remember that we were using them. Did that break down too? -- Chris 20:23, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

New on the Mario Wiki scene, but with one question

Hi all, the name's M. C., and I'm on a mission to help the Mario Wiki the best that I can (created my account yesterday)! However, there's one small prob -- I was hoping to see about editing the Mario Super Sluggers article page to add in materials, but I found that the page is semi-protected. Any reason as to why this is so? All right; take care, everyone -- and thanks. --M. C. - "Mario Gals" Enthusiast! 12:42, 24 June 2008 (EDT)

As with all of the popular Upcoming/Recently released games article, that page got frequently vandalized, I think. --Blitzwing 12:45, 24 June 2008 (EDT)