MarioWiki:Proposals

Proposals can be new features (such as an extension), removal of a previously added feature that has tired out, or new policies that must be approved via consensus before any action(s) are done. Any user can support or oppose, but must have a strong reason for doing so, not, e.g., "I like this idea!" "Vote" periods last for one week. All past proposals are archived. 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}}. Signing with the signature code ~~~(~) is not allowed due to technical issues. How To Actions that users feel are appropriate to have community approval first can be added by anyone, but they must have a strong argument. Users then vote and discuss on the issue during that week. The "deadline" for the proposal is one week from posting at: Monday to Thursday: 17:00 (5pm) Friday and Saturday: 20:00 (8pm) Sunday: 15:00 (3pm) Every vote should have a reason accompanying it. At any time a vote may be rejected if at least three active users believe the vote truly has no merit or was cast in bad faith. However, there must be strong reasons supporting the invalidation. "# " should be added under the last vote of each support/oppose section to show another blank line. Any proposal that has three votes or less at deadline will automatically be listed as "NO QUORUM." The original proposer then has the option to relist said proposal to generate more discussion. 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 a sysop, the proposer can ask for that help. There are two topics that cannot be decided on through a proposal: the first is sysop promotions and demotions, which are decided by Bureaucrats. Secondly, no proposals calling for the creation of Banjo, Conker or Sonic series articles are allowed (several proposals supporting them have failed in recent history). The times are in EDT, and are set so that the user is more likely to be online at those times (after work/school, weekend nights). If a proposal is added on Saturday night at 11:59 PM EDT, the deadline is the next Saturday night at 8:00 PM. If it is a minute later, the deadline is a day plus 15 hours (Sunday), as opposed to a day minus 4 hours. CURRENTLY: 18:36, 21 November 2024 (EDT) New Features None at the moment. Removals None at the moment. Splits & Merges Removal/Merging of non-Mario articles This sort of follows up on my Melee enemies proposal. I noticed articles like Leon Powalski, Mei Ling, Otacon, Colonel Roy Campbell, etc, of articles that have nothing to do with Mario himself, but rather created from interest of the Super Smash Bros. Series. Those characters never interact with Mario in any of his games, nor do they affect them. I say they should either be completely removed, or Merged into their respective Stage/Character articles (Character meaning Snake, Fox, etc. Stage meaning, Lylat Cruise, Shadow Moses Island, etc.) Those articles make it seem like Super Smash Bros. is secondary importance or something. (Not, of course) Proposer: Garlic Man (talk) Deadline: August 20th, 2008, 17:00 Support Garlic Man (talk) - Once Again, Per my Proposal. Magikoopa67 (talk) - I agree. This is a mario wiki, not a super smash bros. wiki. WikiMario (talk) - I say they should be completely removed from the site since this is a Super Mario Wiki. Oppose Walkazo (talk) - See below comments. Also, the proposal is a bit too vague about how the removals/merges will be handled, and I don't want to see any useful information scrapped. Stumpers (talk) - It would be a confusing concept, especially for new readers/contributors. No other character articles on the Wiki would also be about other characters. For example, if a user looks up Mario, he won't learn about Princess Peach's birth. However, if a user looks at Solid Snake, they would learn about Mei Ling. If a user looks up Mushroom Kingdom, they won't find information about Piranha Plants. However, if a user looks up Termina Bay, they'll learn about the turtle. This is going to not only cause confusion in the new readers, but also new contributors, meaning that experienced contributors like you, Walkazo, and me, would now have to also be on the lookout for confused people adding information about Banzai Bill to the Princess Peach's Castle article and information about Zelda to the Link article. On the other hand, if we make series articles, we can merge all of the minor subjects into one, much like we do on List of Implied Characters. In the event that a subject from the series is major, like Link, for example, we could include a short blurb and link users to Link's article (no pun intended) using the main article template. Not only does this solve the problem of whether Link, Zelda, Sheik, or Ganon will get information about Legend of Zelda content, but it also is much simpler. There's no need for a lengthy set of rules to read just to figure out where a bit of information should go and where to link the redirect pages. Booster -- Per Stumpers. At least merge the minor non-playable non-Mario characters onto their own pages or something. InfectedShroom (talk) - Per Stumpers. And my opposal in the first place. Pikax (talk) - They're all characters in their own right, therefore they should have their own articles. End of. tanokkitails (talk)-per all Yoshikart (talk)-F***! I hate this proposal. PER ALL! Dryest bowser (talk)- I agree with Stumpers 100%. it would be really confusing Arend (talk) - What Dryest bowser said. Also, if we do this, then we can remove EVERY template what has any mean with the SSB series! Thanos6 (talk) - This isn't Wikipedia, we shouldn't be merging anything. Bob-omb buddy (talk) - Even if this is a mario wiki, SSBB is a mario game. Comments How will you decide to merge or remove the articles? I'd just split the support sections into "Remove" or "Merge". Cuz I really don't want those articles removed. :\ InfectedShroom (talk) Problem here: an article about Sonic is about the character, not the series. Same with Snake. The article is about the fictional individual rather than the series behind him. Also, that's going to create a monster of an article for characters like Samus, and how do you propose that we decide whether to deposit the Legend of Zelda series on Link, Zelda, or Ganon? The entire Pokemon series on the Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Pichu, Mewtwo, or Lucario articles? Here's a solution to that problem: series pages. We could create a page for each series that has crossed over. There could be a short blurb up top regarding when the series crossed over, and then the article would have all the content from that series that crossed over, with each character, item, etc. getting its own section. Any subject, such as a playable Super Smash Bros. character, could get a short blurb as well, with a "main article" link to their larger article. Stumpers (talk) 15:01, 13 August 2008 (EDT) I like Stumpers' idea. In fact, I've always wondered why we don't have series pages: we might be the Mario Wiki, but it's still felt like a glaring omission. - Walkazo (talk) I like that idea. InfectedShroom (talk) I don't. Seems like it could easily be used as a way to shoehorn in Banjo and Conker article(s). -- Ghost Jam (talk) Stumpers: I wasn't talking about the biggies (Sonic, who was in Olympic games and Brawl), but rather those characters who don't even really show up, but rather just make codec calls from somewhere, and have nothing to do with anything. Sonic and Snake and Samus and all those people can still have own articles; just not "Otacon", and those others. Garlic Man (talk) The problem is what to do with those minor characters. As Stumpers said, merging them with the main characters and the stages will result in large, unruly articles, and confuse navigation surrounding those series. Yes, the minor characters shouldn't have articles, but a better way to deal with them are series articles. - Walkazo (talk) Should I make a proposal for merging into series lists? Stumpers (talk) 16:30, 16 August 2008 (EDT) Yeah, something like that would be great. -- Booster Once this one ends. - Walkazo (talk) I have a feeling a bunch of people misunderstood my proposal; oh well. Anyway, could we at least merge Colonel Roy Campbell, Mei Ling, Otacon, Slippy Toad, Peppy Hare, Krystal and Navi into List of Cameos? Garlic Man (talk) NO!!! Arend (talk) - well, in my opinion... Wasn't the proposal about whether to merge Roy Campbell with Snake, etc.? Don't you worry, though. Based on how many people supported the series links idea, you'll probably get your wish. Here's my idea: we don't truncate the articles at all, we just merge. The original articles will then become redirects to their section on the "Metal Gear Solid" (or whatever) pages. Trust me, I know from the list of implied characters, this method works very well when implemented correctly. Stumpers (talk) 13:58, 17 August 2008 (EDT) Wow. Your argumentation is mind-blowing, Arend. I don't like the series page idea. As Ghost Jam said, it could be used to shoeorn in unrelated series. And beside, do we really need to have a page on Metal Gear because Snake happened to be in the same game as Mario? i think something among the line of "List of minor Crossover characters in Super Smash Bros" would work better. Blitzwing (talk) Or perhaps even a "List of minor Crossover characters" in general. (e.g. Big the Cat and other Refs in Mario & Sonic). Garlic Man (talk) I'd just like to say now that I object to WikiMario's vote. Yes, we are a Super Mario Wiki, not a Super Smash Bros. Wiki, but the reason we have Super Smash Bros. articles is because Mario plays a significant role in the series and even some of the minor characters from other series (such as Otacon and Slippy Toad) still have certain roles that cannot be overlooked. Pikax (talk) So let me get this straight before I vote. Stumpers, your idea is to merge articles based on the series they come from? Such as merging Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and other Pokemon themed things into one big article? I would be in for that. I see nothing wrong with unimportant Sonic articles or other Nintendo Series into one thing for each series. So like all the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games characters and refs like Vector, knuckles, Cream and all the others would merge into one big Sonic page? Moonshine (talk) Not quite, but I'll spell it out completely when I propose the idea. For now, let me tell you what I'm thinking. First, we would create several articles about series, such as "Sonic the Hedgehog (series)," "Legend of Zelda," and "Metroid (series)." These articles would both outline the way in which the series has crossed over with the Super Mario series. Then, it would have one section for each character, location, item, etc. that has ever crossed-over with Super Mario. On the "Sonic the Hedgehog" article, that would include Green Hill Zone, Sonic the Hedgehog, Big the Cat and others. These sections will be complete replications of the current articles. All the text from "Big the Cat" will be transfered to the "Big the Cat" section on the "Sonic the Hedgehog (series)" page. The Big the Cat page will then become a redirect to the Big the Cat section. However, major characters, such as those playable in Brawl and Mario & Sonic, will keep their pages. Instead of simply copying over their entire articles for the series page, we will write a short blurb and link to the subject's main article. From there we can deside through more propsals if characters are major enough to deserve their own article, and of course if a character is wrongly merged we can easily revert the merge because no text is lost. For your examples: Pikachu and Jigglypuff will have their articles still because they are playable characters in Smash. Palkia, Entei, and other non-playable Pokemon will be merged with "Pokemon (series)." The referies of Mario & Sonic will be merged to "Sonic the Hedgehog (series)" while Tails and Shadow retain their articles because they were playable in Mario & Sonic. If you think that "playable = article" is not a good guideline, let me know. Stumpers (talk) 17:41, 18 August 2008 (EDT) Alright. I see what your saying now. I like the idea. Sonic referees are indeed very minor, so yeah, those should merge. Same with Pokeball Pokemon. What about stages from brawl that come from minor franchises like Hannebow(sp?), Pictochat, and other like that? Moonshine (talk) All stages qualify for their own articles. -- Booster Well, from what I understand I think Stumpers means that we would merge the stages with the series pages. Such as Brige of Eldin and Termia Bay going to the new Zelda series page. That would still leave articles like Pictochat, Battlefield, and others, though. - Moonshine (talk) Speaking from observations regarding "merge" proposals, the less that is merged, the more likely the proposal is to succeed. We don't want the Smash Bros. editors to think that we are negating the importance of their edits. For the purpose of this "experiment" I would say we should merge little cameos and references first, then step back and assess whether stages should be merged as well. Right now, I'd say not because, in a series like Mario or Zelda, we're looking at something like 8 stages, and stage articles are rather long. I think items would be merge-worthy, though. What do you think? Stumpers (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2008 (EDT) I see your point. I think right now own main concern should be items, Pokeball Pokemon, cameos, and the trophies already mentioned in the wiki. Depending on the outcome of the proposal we should then turn our attention to the stages like you said. -Moonshine (talk) E.T. Templates Currently, we have both Template:Alien and Template:Cosmic Species, and Garlic Man and I have had some disagreement over how it should be dealt with. I say the Alien template should be used for all species and characters not originating on the Mushroom World, while Garlic Man feels we should keep Cosmic Species. My rationalle is that typing {{Template:Alien}} is easier than {{Template:Cosmic Species}}, his is that the Cosmic Species template was around first. To avoid edit wars, I've brought the issue here, for more feedback over what we should do. Also, I feel it would be best to use this instead of the current configurations for whichever template we decide to use: it uses terms from both existing templates, and improves organization overall. Proposer: Walkazo (talk) Deadline: August 23th, 2008, 20:00 Use Alien Template Walkazo (talk) - Per myself. Stumpers (talk) - "Alien" is an in-universe term. "Cosmic Species" is not. InfectedShroom (talk) - I personally think this is a ridiculous proposal, as it is mostly about what name to use, but I like the fact that "alien" is easy to write. Oh, and if that's not enough reason, per Stumpers. The Writing Guy (talk) - Per all. For instance, Cosmic Species is just changing the name. Use Cosmic Species Template Garlic Man (talk) - Sort of contradicting on what Stumpers said; Alien, in fact, the dictionary definition is: "a resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization", or a "Foreigner", or "a person who has been edtranged or exluded". What this means, is that Aliens are always something invading from somewhere else, so for instance, Shroobs are aliens, because they invaded Earth, and the Mushroom Kingdom. However, Luma is not an alien, due to the fact that it is in it's designated "home", where it belongs to be. In fact, if we twisted the definition of "Alien", we could even say Sonic is an "Alien" to the Mario series. Alien does not necessarily mean outer space, but Extraterrestial does. By saying extraterrestrial, we are signifying that the species/characters can be either ally or enemy. Aliens, although not neccesarily enemies, show that they are somewhere where they do not belong, and thus are invading, or there without permission of some sort. So, the "Extraterrestial Characters and Species" template seems more appropriate. I hope that makes my point clear. Hemu (talk) - I agre with garlic man "Alien" is someone from a different place that doesn't neccesarily mean other plent like Cosmic Beings Arend (talk) I've seen that the Cosmic Species and characters template appears to have more links then the Aliens template. So, yeah... Purple Yoshi (talk) In proper Mario games, they never use the word Alien. Anyway, Cosmic Species is more...mario-ish. Comments I've only included options for one or the other now, as we can't have two templates about the same thing. Another idea I had was to limit Cosmic Species to Super Paper Mario extraterrestrial enemies, as then we might be able to include variations of the species that are found in other dimensions, but I felt this would confuse the issue a bit too much. - Walkazo (talk) Garlic Man: just because something is not native to a certain place doesn't mean they don't belong there. A Luma came to the Mushroom World, but it was born in space: it's not a native species, ergo, it is an alien. If you want to get into semantics, we can't even call these things Extraterrestrials because we're not talking about Earth we're talking about the Mushroom World. Arend: the only reason Cosmic Species has more links was because Garlic Man added them, after reverting my edit on "Aliens" that bolstered its link count, I decided to come here instead of retaliate on my own. Anyway, I stand by my assertuion that writing "Alien" is easier than "Cosmic Species", though I've designed a new template (see the last line I added to the Proposal) compromising between the two sets of terminology. - Walkazo (talk) Oh, no, Luma was NOT in the Mushroom kingdom, except at the very end of the story, if my memory is correct. Mario was the one who went to outer space to chase Bowser and Peach, and met the Lumas. The Lumas never actually went anywhere besides the observatory. Mario was the "alien" in this case. Also, saying that "Writing Alien is easier" is a lame reason, and has nothing to do with the proposal itself. Garlic Man (talk) And at the very beginning; but the point is, Lumas were on the Mushroom World, and that means they can be labeled as "aliens". This is why I suggested the compromise-template - so people won't get bent out of shape over the words. For example, Template:Fire included things that aren't actually fire, yet the name is used because it is descriptive and simple. If you want to add a template about "extraterrestrials", you'd try trying in {{Extraterrestrials}} or {{Aliens}} long before {{Cosmic Species}} comes to mind. Yes, I know you can always seek out a different article that has the template to find out the proper code, but people are lazy, and they get side-tracked (myself included). "Alien" seems like a more natural title for these creatures. - Walkazo (talk) Actually, the Cosmic species template was originally made for creatures like Cosmic Bullet Bills, Cosmic Goombas, Cosmic Bloopers, Cosmic Toads, Cosmic Tox Boxes, most of which later got merged into their respective articles. So, it became a template for any kind of species found in outer space, whether alien or non-alien, covering a wider variety of species. Garlic Man (talk) like i said in my vote aliens can refer to anything not from the same place as such Beanish are aliens to Toads Hemu (talk) Exactly. The Beanbean Kingdom and the Mushroom Kingdom were two different places; When cackletta sneaked into Peach's castle, she was an "alien"; but, not from outer space. Garlic Man (talk) Garlic Man: your template is not called, "Extraterrestrials" - it's called "Cosmic Species." So why were you arguing that extraterrestrials is better than alien if your template is called "Cosmic Species"? I'd be supporting you if you were using extraterrestrials. As to the word cosmic: "–adjective 1. of or pertaining to the cosmos: cosmic laws. 2. characteristic of the cosmos or its phenomena: cosmic events. 3. immeasurably extended in time and space; vast. 4. forming a part of the material universe, esp. outside of the earth." As you can see, cosmic has four definitions, where as extraterrestrial is, "–adjective 1. outside, or originating outside, the limits of the earth. –noun 2. an extraterrestrial being: a science fiction novel about extraterrestrials conquering the earth." In other words, extraterrestrial is much closer to what you are thinking of, especially if we use, "Extraterrestrials," because that is always a noun, and that always means "an extraterrestrical being" To the user that said aliens are not mentioned in a proper Mario game, you're wrong, but it doesn't matter: it appeared in an official Nitnendo published title (actually, all throughout the Mario Party series) and therefore should be considered official, canon, or what have you. I'm fine with using an unofficial term, but just make sure that it actually applies to the subject at hand. Stumpers (talk) Changes None at the moment. Miscellaneous None at the moment.