MarioWiki:Proposals

Current time: Tuesday, November 5th, 18:51 GMT

Proposals can be new features, the removal of previously-added features that have tired out, or new policies that must be approved via consensus before any action is taken. Voting periods last for two weeks. Any user can support or oppose, but must have a strong reason for doing so (not, e.g., "I like this idea!"). All proposals must be approved by a majority of voters, including proposals with more than two options. For past proposals, see the proposal archive and the talk page proposal archive.

A proposal section works like a discussion page: comments are brought up and replied to using indents (colons, such as : or ::::) and all edits are signed using the code {{User|User name}}.

How to

Rules

1. If users have an idea about improving the wiki or managing its community, but feel that they need community approval before acting upon that idea, they may make a proposal about it. They must have a strong argument supporting their idea and be willing to discuss it in detail with the other users, who will then vote about whether or not they think the idea should be used. Proposals should include links to all relevant pages and writing guidelines. Proposals must include a link to the draft page. Any pages that would be largely affected by the proposal should be marked with {{proposal notice}}.
2. Only registered, autoconfirmed users can create, comment in, or vote on proposals and talk page proposals. Users may vote for more than one option, but they may not vote for every option available.
3. Proposals end at the end of the day (23:59) two weeks after voting starts (all times GMT).
   • For example, if a proposal is added at any time on Monday, August 1, 2011, the voting starts immediately and the deadline is two weeks later on Monday, August 15, at 23:59 GMT.
4. Every vote should have a strong, sensible reason accompanying it. Agreeing with a previously mentioned reason given by another user is accepted (including "per" votes), but tangential comments, heavy sarcasm, and other misleading or irrelevant quips are just as invalid as providing no reason at all.
5. Users who feel that certain votes were cast in bad faith or which truly have no merit can address the votes in the comments section. Users can ask a voter to clarify their position, point out mistakes or flaws in their arguments, or call for the outright removal of the vote if it lacks sufficient reasoning. Users may not remove or alter the content of anyone else's votes. Voters can remove or rewrite their own vote(s) at any time, but the final decision to remove another user's vote lies solely with the administrators.
   • Users can also use the comments section to bring up any concerns or mistakes in regards to the proposal itself. In such cases, it's important the proposer addresses any concerns raised as soon as possible. Even if the supporting side might be winning by a wide margin, that should be no reason for such questions to be left unanswered. They may point out any missing details that might have been overlooked by the proposer, so it's a good idea as the proposer to check them frequently to achieve the most accurate outcome possible.
6. If a user makes a vote and is subsequently blocked for any amount of time, their vote is removed. However, if the block ends before the proposal ends, then the user in question holds the right to re-cast their vote. If a proposer is blocked, their vote is removed and "(banned)" is added next to their name in the "Proposer:" line of the proposal, which runs until its deadline as normal. If the proposal passes, it falls to the supporters of the idea to enact any changes in a timely manner.
7. No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old.
8. Any proposal where none of the options have at least four votes will be extended for another week. If after three extensions, no options have at least four votes, the proposal will be listed as "NO QUORUM." The original proposer then has the option to relist said proposal to generate more discussion.
9. If a proposal reaches its deadline and there is a tie for first place, then the proposal is extended for another week.
10. If a proposal reaches its deadline and the first place option is ahead of the second place option by three or more votes, then the first place option must have over 50% approval to win. If the margin is only one or two votes, then the first place option must have at least 60% approval to win. If the required approval threshold is not met, then the proposal is extended for another week.
    • Use the {{proposal check}} tool to automate this calculation; see the template page for usage instructions and examples.
11. Proposals can be extended a maximum of three times. If a consensus has not been reached by the fourth deadline, then the proposal fails and can only be re-proposed after four weeks (at the earliest).
12. All proposals are archived. The original proposer must take action accordingly if the outcome of the proposal dictates it. If it requires the help of an administrator, the proposer can ask for that help.
13. If the administrators deem a proposal unnecessary or potentially detrimental to the upkeep of the Super Mario Wiki, they have the right to remove it at any time.
14. Proposals can only be rewritten or canceled by their proposer within the first six days of their creation. However, proposers can request that their proposal be canceled by an administrator at any time, provided they have a valid reason for it. Please note that canceled proposals must also be archived.
15. Unless there is major disagreement about whether certain content should be included, there should not be proposals about creating, expanding, rewriting, or otherwise fixing up pages. To organize efforts about improving articles on neglected or completely missing subjects, try setting up a collaboration thread on the forums.
16. Proposals cannot be made about promotions and demotions. Users can only be promoted and demoted by the will of the administration.
17. No joke proposals. Proposals are serious wiki matters and should be handled professionally. Joke proposals will be deleted on sight.
18. Proposals must have a status quo option (e.g. Oppose, Do nothing) unless the status quo itself violates policy.

Basic proposal and support/oppose format

This is an example of what your proposal must look like, if you want it to be acknowledged. If you are inexperienced or unsure how to set up this format, simply copy the following and paste it into the fitting section. Then replace the [subject] - variables with information to customize your proposal, so it says what you wish. If you insert the information, be sure to replace the whole variable including the squared brackets, so "[insert info here]" becomes "This is the inserted information", not "[This is the inserted information]". Proposals presenting multiple alternative courses of action can have more than two voting options, but what each voting section is supporting must be clearly defined. Such options should also be kept to a minimum, and if something comes up in the comments, the proposal can be amended as necessary.

---

===[insert a title for your proposal here]===
[describe what issue this proposal is about and what changes you think should be made to improve how the wiki handles that issue]

'''Proposer''': {{User|[enter your username here]}}<br>
'''Deadline''': [insert a deadline here, 14 days after the proposal was created, at 23:59 GMT, in the format: "November 5, 2024, 23:59 GMT"]

====Support====
#{{User|[enter your username here]}} [make a statement indicating that you support your proposal]

====Oppose====

====Comments====

---

Users will now be able to vote on your proposal, until the set deadline is reached. Remember, you are a user as well, so you can vote on your own proposal just like the others.

To support, or oppose, just insert "#{{User|[add your username here]}}" at the bottom of the section of your choice. Just don't forget to add a valid reason for your vote behind that tag if you are voting on another user's proposal. If you are voting on your own proposal, you can just say "Per my proposal".

Talk page proposals

Proposals concerning a single page or a limited group of pages are held on the most relevant talk page regarding the matter. Proposals dealing with a large amount of splits, merges, or deletions across the wiki should still be held on this page.

For a list of all settled talk page proposals, see MarioWiki:Proposals/TPP archive and Category:Settled talk page proposals.

Rules

1. All active talk page proposals must be listed below in chronological order (new proposals go at the bottom) using {{TPP discuss}}. Include a brief description of the proposal while also mentioning any pages affected by it, a link to the talk page housing the discussion, and the deadline. If the proposal involves a page that is not yet made, use {{fake link}} to communicate its title in the description. Linking to pages not directly involved in the talk page proposal is not recommended, as it clutters the list with unnecessary links. Place {{TPP}} under the section's header, and once the proposal is over, replace the template with {{settled TPP}}.
2. All rules for talk page proposals are the same as mainspace proposals (see the "How to" section above), with the exceptions made by Rules 3 and 4 as follows:
3. The talk page proposal must pertain to the subject page of the talk page it is posted on.
4. When a talk page proposal passes, it should be removed from this list and included in the list under the "Unimplemented proposals" section until the proposed changes have been enacted.

List of ongoing talk page proposals

• Remove "(series)" identifier from titles that don't need it (discuss) Deadline: November 5, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Split sections between Tanooki Mario and Kitsune Luigi (discuss) Deadline: November 10, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Determine what to do with Jamboree Buddy (discuss) Deadline: November 12, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Split Cursed Mushroom from Poison Mushroom (discuss) Deadline: November 12, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Merge Orbs that share names with pre-existing Mario Party series items with those items (discuss) Deadline: November 14, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Create a number of articles for special buildings in Super Mario Run (discuss) Deadline: November 15, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Consider Deep Cheeps' appearance in the Super Mario Maker series a design cameo rather than a full appearance (without Blurps being affected) (discuss) Deadline: November 15, 2024, 23:59 GMT
• Merge Mushroom, Dash Mushroom, and most of Super Mushroom (discuss) Deadline: November 18, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Unimplemented proposals

Proposals

Break alphabetical order in enemy lists to list enemy variants below their base form, EvieMaybe (ended May 21, 2024)

Standardize sectioning for Super Mario series game articles, Nintendo101 (ended July 3, 2024)

^ NOTE: Not yet integrated for the Super Mario Maker titles, Super Mario Run, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Create new sections for gallery pages to cover "unused/pre-release/prototype/etc." graphics separate from the ones that appear in the finalized games, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended September 2, 2024)

Add film and television ratings to Template:Ratings, TheUndescribableGhost (ended October 1, 2024)

Use the classic and classic-link templates when discussing classic courses in Mario Kart Tour, YoYo (ended October 2, 2024)

Split articles for the alternate-named reskins from All Night Nippon: Super Mario Bros., Doc von Schmeltwick (ended October 3, 2024)

Clarify coverage of the Super Smash Bros. series, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended October 17, 2024)

Remove all subpage and redirect links from all navigational templates, JanMisali (ended October 31, 2024)

Prioritize MESEN/NEStopia palette for NES sprites and screenshots, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended November 3, 2024)

Talk page proposals

Split all the clothing, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended September 12, 2021)

Split machine parts, Robo-Rabbit, and flag from Super Duel Mode, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended September 30, 2022)

Make bestiary list pages for the Minion Quest and Bowser Jr.'s Journey modes, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended January 11, 2024)

Allow separate articles for Diddy Kong Pilot (2003)'s subjects, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended August 3, 2024)

Split Banana Peel from Banana, Doc von Schmeltwick (ended September 18, 2024)

Merge Spiked Thwomp with Thwomp, Blinker (ended November 2, 2024)

Writing guidelines

None at the moment.

New features

None at the moment.

Changes

Discourage drive-by templating part 2

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

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

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

The following templates will be affected:

• Template:Merge to
• Template:Merge from
• Template:Split
• Template:Move

Proposer: Waluigi Time (talk)
Deadline: May 4, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Waluigi Time (talk) yeah
2. TheFlameChomp (talk) Per proposal.
3. 1468z (talk) Per proposal.
4. Glowsquid (talk) Per...
5. Ahemtoday (talk) "Yeah" indeed. (To be honest, I thought this was something the previous proposal did...)
6. 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.
7. Platform (talk) Per proposal.
8. 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.
9. BBQ Turtle (talk) Per all, I've seen so many instances of this with no discussion to be found anywhere.
10. 7feetunder (talk) This is exactly what I had brought up on the previous proposal.
11. Camwood777 (talk) - Please? (because a "per proposal" doesn't drive home the urgency.)
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. Mario (talk) All per
15. 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.
16. Koopa con Carne (talk) per all
17. Somethingone (talk) Glad we are adding clarity to our templates now.
18. SeanWheeler (talk) Sure, I guess we could add reasoning to those templates.
19. Shokora (talk) – Per all

Oppose

#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! Waluigi Time! 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. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 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! Waluigi Time! 17:24, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

Miscellaneous

None at the moment.