Updates on wiki policy / Current staff

Re: Wiki Policy Updates

As discussed on the proposals archive, we're not expecting all those users who had usershops to suddenly be very active in mainspace, but we're hoping for at least an improvement from the mean of them.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

MarioWiki:Galleries has been created to explain how to format and organize the gallery pages.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

MarioWiki:Navigation Templates (MarioWiki:Navigation_Templates#Colouration) has been updated to reflect the new way to code and colour templates. It's got some instructions, but as always, the best way to figure out what to do is by looking at stuff that's already been coded (in this case, check out templates that have already been updated).
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Lately there has been an influx of entire songs (and even whole albums (The Year of Luigi Sound Selection)) being uploaded as OGG files, as well as efforts to create full scripts (Template:Scripts) for various games. However, the goal of the wiki is not to become an alternative to the games (and other media) themselves. We can provide summaries of plots, compilations like the regular quotes pages, small (~15 seconds) clips of music, still images and artwork from games and other screen media, and select scanned covers and pages from publications, but we should not be copying full scripts, full music tracks, complete scans of comics, and anything else that's more than merely sampling the content. Not only is it going overboard and far beyond the scope of the wiki, but there are also concerns among the staff that we could be drifting towards iffy legal territories.

There are plenty of places on the internet for full scans, scripts and soundtracks, but the wiki is not one of them, and the staff has decided to put a stop to these worrying trends before they go too far. Our apologies to those who have already sunk a lot of time into creating the script pages and OGG files - we will leave the content up for a little while longer before we start deleting it, but please be aware that this sort of content is no longer permissible.

If you have any questions about what sorta content is or isn't allowed, by all means, ask away.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

We will give a short period to back up all content, and then it will be deleted. For OGG files, short clips of each file can be reuploaded in their place.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

I have a question: what if some said music tracks aren't even used in the final game, and there is no other means of "legally" obtaining them other than a direct rip of a game (ie there's no CD released). Shouldn't that even qualify under "fair use" if there is no released soundtrack of the game?
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Right now we're just disallowing uploads of entire soundtracks or having media on soundtrack pages. We were going to clip the songs, but since none of the other soundtrack pages have media, we might as well just delete them and be consistent there. Music from games is still allowed as it was before, but there's no need to upload an entire soundtrack just for the sake of having it.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

A large amount of articles were moved from having their game title as an identifier to simply having a generic (character) or (place). Is this a change in the policy?
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Yeah, that policy was established back in February but was never really implemented. I have begun said implementation.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

To be honest, I kinda prefer having the game names as the identifier, but there's not really much reason for doing that other than "I like it".
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

"Don't Shoot Your Foot" off? Kinda ridiculous sounding for a policy but I'm ok with ridiculous sounding stuff. Good idea making that so users can't get away with doing obviously stupid things.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Baby Luigi said:
"Don't Shoot Your Foot" off? Kinda ridiculous sounding for a policy but I'm ok with ridiculous sounding stuff. Good idea making that so users can't get away with doing obviously stupid things.
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Yeah, "don't shoot your foot off" is used in the context of stating something that we don't actually need to tell people.

So officially, MarioWiki:Don't Shoot Your Foot Off is a new policy which fills the smaller gaps in other policies with an overall statement of "if most people see it as unreasonable, it doesn't need to be written down in policy to not be allowed". Rather than listing every single thing users can't do.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

It's not so much a policy as a disclaimer that gives us official grounds to put an end to nonsense that no specific policy page addresses due to the fact that it's so obviously ridiculous we didn't think we needed to say "don't do this". The point isn't to go around saying "hey, you're being unreasonable so by the power of MW:FOOT, I order you to stop", but rather, to bring it out if someone decides to be clever and retort with "but there's no rule against it" after you appealed to their better nature - and ONLY if it's absolutely clear they're being ridiculous, otherwise it could turn into a "because I say so" situation, which is even worse. (Ideally, you'll actually have more than one person weighing in, which is how admins have always dealt with these "this is crazy" situations: we discuss it amongst ourselves.)

Of course, in a perfect world we wouldn't ever have to refer people to the page, which is why it's got such an eye-grabbing title: we want everyone to be aware that "no rule against it =/= not a bad idea" right from the start.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Walkazo said:
Of course, in a perfect world we wouldn't ever have to refer people to the page, which is why it's got such an eye-grabbing title: we want everyone to be aware that "no rule against it =/= not a bad idea" right from the start.
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In a perfect world, we don't need any policy page at all :/
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

The Featured Articles page's been updated to specify that the staff reserves the right to veto poor nominations.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Glowsquid said:
The Featured Articles page's been updated to specify that the staff reserves the right to veto poor nominations.
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Best decision we've made in a while ;d
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Daskarzine said:
Glowsquid said:
The Featured Articles page's been updated to specify that the staff reserves the right to veto poor nominations.
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Best decision we've made in a while ;d
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Yes, we needed this so crap like this will cease
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Just a quick question, what about the 3D World nomination, considering it's nomination reason was 'That shall be featured. I never saw it featured.' That reason applies to probably more than 99% of the articles on the wiki
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Glowsquid said:
The Featured Articles page's been updated to specify that the staff reserves the right to veto poor nominations.
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Does that mean that this monstrosity will be vetoed? Y876's above reasoning is sound, and I'm guessing that it (along with all of the other bad fa nominations that have cropped up recently) were the cause for this change.
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Minus World could also go, considering its reasoning is 'We need this featured or it will be an abomination.' But my proposal should take care of the Kirby nomination
 
Re: Wiki Policy Updates

Well, sometimes, the original nominator doesn't provide good reasons to be nominated but someone else comes and fixes it. AHEM I think I did that before.

But if there isn't a clear cut support and counter-argument and if the nomination is obviously stupid, then it should be vetoed.
 
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