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WiKirby:Proposals

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Revision as of 19:35, 8 February 2023 by Trig Jegman (talk | contribs) (& strikes again jegmouth)
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Your opinions matter!

Welcome to the Proposals page. Here, WiKirby's editors may propose changes to the way the wiki operates, including how to handle certain categories of content, quality standards, or even just making aesthetic suggestions. Any user who has Autopatrol status or above may make a proposal or vote on one, and after two weeks of voting, if it passes, it will be incorporated into policy. Please see below for the specifics on how to make and/or vote on a proposal.

How to make a proposal

Please use one of the following templates to make a new proposal:

Single vote: This is for proposals which only propose a single change to the wiki.

==(insert proposal here) (insert date here)==
(insert details of proposal here and sign with ~~~~)
{{Support}}
{{Oppose}}
{{Neutral}}

===Discussion===

{{clear}}

Multi-option vote: This is for proposals which include many possible changes to a particular element of policy. One option should always be to keep things as they were. It is recommended that no more than 8 options are given in a single proposal, including the "no change" option.

==(insert proposal here) (insert date here)==
(insert details of proposal here and sign with ~~~~)
{{Option|1|(option title 1)}}
{{Option|2|(option title 2)}}
{{Option|3|(option title 3)}}
{{Option|etc.|(option title etc.)}}
{{Neutral}}

===Discussion===

{{clear}}

Multi-facet vote: This is for proposals which want to make several smaller changes to a single element of policy (for instance, making several changes to how the main page looks). Each change needs to be voted up or down individually. There should not be more than 5 parts to a proposal like this. This type of proposal should not be made without approval from wiki administration.

==(insert proposal here) (insert date here)==
(insert summary of proposal here and sign with ~~~~)
===Change 1===
(insert details here)
{{Support}}
{{Oppose}}
{{Neutral}}
====Change 1 discussion====

===Change 2===
(insert details here)
{{Support}}
{{Oppose}}
{{Neutral}}
====Change 2 discussion====

===Change 3===
(insert details here)
{{Support}}
{{Oppose}}
{{Neutral}}
====Change 3 discussion====

etc.

{{clear}}

Once a proposal is made, the voting period begins (see voting regulations below). Voting period for a proposal ends two weeks after it starts, at 23:59:59 UTC on the 14th full day of voting. An administrator can veto a proposal at any time, although such action should always be justifiable and agreed upon by multiple admins. Administrators should not use this right to add more weight to their own opinions.

Restrictions

Users may propose many different changes or additions to the wiki. The following things, however, may not be voted on:

  1. Proposals which target specific users (such as bestowing or removing ranks or rights).
  2. Proposals which violate the law, as specified in the general content policy.
  3. Proposals which seek to overturn a recently (within the last 8 weeks (or 56 days)) approved proposal.
  4. Re-submitted proposals which were recently (within the last 8 weeks (or 56 days)) rejected, and which have not been significantly altered.

Current Proposals

Solidifying character names and attributes in article writing (January 29th, 2023 - February 12th, 2023)

So, I've noticed recently that there's been some edits made to character and enemy pages in regards to gender pronouns. In particular, there was a push on the Kracko and Dyna Blade pages to refer to them by different genders based on which game was being discussed (since genders are not always consistent in in-game flavor text). I find this to be highly inappropriate for any characters that have been established as individuals (unlike, say, Broom Hatter, which refers more to a class of characters rather than a single entity). This incident has brought up a larger issue with how to treat attributes of characters and other entities which span multiple games and whose names and other characteristics may differ from one to the next. I come to you now offering a new standardized way to handle this, though it needs to be done in multiple facets which can be voted on individually. I will introduce each particular point and describe the proposed change in its own subsection. Cheers. --Samwell (talk) 14:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Change 1: Solidifying character gender

To summarize what was said above, I believe we need a clause in place to prevent established characters from being referred to by different genders in text based on erroneous or inconsistent in-game flavor text. As such, I'd like to add this to the writing standards:

"For characters established as individuals, their gender must be consistent throughout article text and based on the most consistently-used pronouns in games ("he/she/they" generally takes priority over "it"). It is not appropriate to refer to these characters using different pronouns based on the game unless there is a specific special story or lore-based circumstance for doing so. Note that this rule does not apply across different canons (For example, Kracko in the games VS. Kracko in the anime.), only within canons."

Support
  1. Kracko: "While his pause screen flavor from Kirby Fighters Deluxe, implies that he fights Kirby to get a comeback for his previous losses, however, in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, it appears it attacks Kirby because of Taranza's command." <= possible shenanigans that could occur with changing pronouns by appearance. Thus, I support to make it an official rule. Superbound (talk) 15:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
  2. I 100% agree with this. I was looking at the idle animation page and noticed that Driblee was referred to with female pronouns, while on the actual Driblee page the enemy is referred to with it as pronouns. And it doesn't help that Driblee is referred to with all types of pronouns as well. GoldenDragonLeaf (talk) 03:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  3. Agreed. The devs being inconsistient doesn't mean that we need to be inconsistient. ---PinkYoshiFan 16:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  4. I support consistency and clarity, regardless of minor developer errors. Both the first and second parts of this proposal will prevent readers from becoming confused. --kirb 17:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
  5. At first I was worried that in some cases two or more pronouns would be used simultaneously back and forth between games, (Broom Hatter comes to mind), and so we wouldn't be able to decide which one should appropriately be used. The more I thought about it the more I realized that wouldn't happen all that often, but it still could be a concern so I will bring it up in the discussion here. Aside from that, this will definitely be good to help prevent confusion and I'm all for it. -- Jellytost (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
  6. I prefer to keep things consistent. Yoshi's Island 11:18, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Oppose
Neutral
  1. I don't think enough guidelines are set for me to warrant voting on this. There may be cases where use is too inconsistent to officially suggest one path or another. Trig - 16:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  2. For what it's worth, I don't feel like this particular issue "deserves" a strict guideline. As Trig said, cases of great inconsitency, which I consider to be fairly likely, could arise. Infinite Possibilities (talk) 20:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Change 1 discussion

the most consistently-used pronouns in games

So just to clarify, if we were making Kracko's page in 2014, even though Triple Deluxe refers to Kracko by "it" and it's the most recent Kirby game, considering Kracko had been consistently been referred to as "he" before, we would still use "he", and if the next games started to use "it" for Kracko we would change the whole page to refer to Kracko as "it", but if it didn't, we would just keep using "he"? - Gigi (talkedits) 16:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I think if we got to the point where so many subsequent games started using "it" consistently, then we'd have to conclude that "it" is what they intend, so yes, in that case we would change the whole article to "it". That would be an extreme outlier case, though, as far as I am concerned. --Samwell (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

So for the point I brought up in my support comment (the same one Trig and Infinite are likely worried about), how would we handle having a character who switches pronouns very regularly and one doesn't seem to take priority over the other?
"this rule does not apply across different canons"
I figured that this meant that pronouns used in the main-series games would overall take priority (and so maybe that would resolve this issue). I would still like to ask about it though. -- Jellytost (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Change 2: Solidifying entity names

This part of the proposal has already passed. See the Successful proposals archive for details.

Change 3: Infobox representation

Admittedly, this one's not really an issue right now, but I still think it's important to have a firm decision on this point. For the main infobox of the page, the image used of a character or other entity should be the most representative/consistent image, not necessarily the most recent one. This rule has largely been followed in practice, but a formal clause should be put in place so nobody thinks to put whatever temporary makeover King Dedede gets in the next game up as his main infobox image like what was attempted when Kirby and the Forgotten Land was the upcoming game. :P

Support
  1. Not much to add here other than I completely agree. It's been an unwritten rule for a while so I fully support making it an official one. - Gigi (talkedits) 15:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
  2. Agree as well, provided that accompanying the policy is a document with a few different example entities showing examples of representative and un-representative images for each. —willidleaway [talk | edits] 15:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
  3. Agreed. The infobox is meant for the character as a whole, not for the character in one game specifically. ---PinkYoshiFan 16:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  4. Kind of surprised we weren't doing this already, to be honest. Trig - 16:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  5. As long as we the editors can come to a consensus on what is the most "representative" image of a character, I support this. Epic Yarn is a good example of why using the latest official artwork of a character is not always the best action. --kirb 17:58, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
  6. Not a lot for me to say here. This sounds good to me. There will be some discussions on what the "most representative image" is sometimes, but that's natural. -- Jellytost (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
  7. Not a lot for me to say here outside of consistency. Yoshi's Island 11:18, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Oppose
Neutral
  1. Similar to change one, there may come up some things where a "most representative" image would need proper deciding between editors first. So while I'm not exactly opposed to the idea to make it a real guideline, I can't say I'm really convinced either. Infinite Possibilities (talk) 20:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Change 3 discussion

So, at the risk of opening a can of caterpillars but just to have a point of reference ... with the example of Dedede, what would be considered the most representative/consistent image? (It's definitely not the KatFL design, true.)

And for enemies that only appeared in sprite-based games, would we consider official out-of-game artwork to be more representative than the in-game sprite where appropriate, or vice versa? It seems like Twizzy (my beloved) is a good case study in that (in my eye) the official KDL artwork is clearly inconsistent but the KNiDL artwork (which is the current infobox image) is reasonably consistent with all of the in-game sprites and much higher-resolution (and thus should stay the infobox image). —willidleaway [talk | edits] 15:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

We can probably formalize some finer details, but basically right now an image like that would be any artwork when available, from the most recent game that accurately represents the character. Sure the specifics of that is hard to put into words, but using Dedede again as an example, he is using File:KRtDLD King Dedede.png which accurate represents him. We didn't use File:KatFL King Dedede artwork.png when FL was his latest appearence because that's his appearance as a boss only, which for an article about Dedede as a whole would be innacurate as he's more often an ally than foe lately. Another examples of images that wouldn't fit his main infobox would be File:King Dedede SSBU.png (as it's from Smash), File:Buff King Dedede KSA artwork.png (again, boss form), and File:K30AMF King Dedede artwork.png (using a design from a real world event and not a game). - Gigi (talkedits) 15:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
I actually like this way of framing it—in ambiguous situations like this, counterexamples are often the best way to suggest what is acceptable. (Tangential example: one might show an example of an acceptable photo for a passport or ID card, followed by several mildly amusing examples of clearly unacceptable photos, suggesting regions of acceptable and unacceptable images without actually having to draw the border.) To that list of Dedede counterexamples I would also add File:King Dedede ball KCC artwork.png, potentially also to argue that designs should be from mainline Kirby games as opposed to spin-off games wherever possible, and File:KDB_Character_Treat_Kirby_riding_King_Dedede_artwork.png, since it's low-res and an indirect appearance (even if the most recent one out of all the released games—this would also preclude a Keychain somehow ending up as the infobox image). —willidleaway [talk | edits] 15:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with this, since it has long been an unwritten rule, but I have one small question, what if the design stays same, but the artstyle is different (both minor, like everything having thick outlines as it is seen in KRtDLD, but also more major, like Kirby: Canvas Curse or Kirby and the Rainbow Curse)? Superbound (talk) 15:40, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

IMO we should probably treat it case-by-cases, but minor artstyle changes I would say should be fine to use, drastic ones probably not, but for example I'm not sure if I consider Rainbow Curse a major one, but Canvas Curse and Epic Yarn I would. - Gigi (talkedits) 16:25, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Delete spam account talk pages 020823—022223

I think we should delete the welcome template-only talk pages of obvious bot/spam accounts. There is no need to have pages for accounts that clearly will not edit the site or be used again, and it may make searching for valuable talk pages difficult in Special:AllPages. Given the current way WiKirby handles new accounts, this number of account talk pages should not increase. My criterion for deletion would be the following:

*User names must follow the following format:
FirstnameLastname
or
FirstnameLastnameNumbers

*There are no contributions for the user.

*There is no main user page

*The talk page consists solely of the welcome message.

*The account is older than Jan 1, 2021.

I'd be happy to make a list and hand it to admin team or temporarily regain my admin role wiki-only and do it myself, whichever is more comfortable for staff. Trig - 19:35, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Option 1: Support—Continue as listed


Option 2: Support, but devise stricter criteria for deletion


Option 3: Do Nothing


Neutral


Discussion

Proposal Archive

Successful proposals
Failed proposals
Withdrawn proposals

KSA Parasol Waddle Dee Pause Screen Artwork.png