Template talk:ArticleIcons

I have an idea of how we can make the process of putting this on articles smoother than going to random pages. We can each choose a letter of the alphabet and go to Special:AllPages and add this template to all of the articles that begin with the letter we chose. DoctorPain99 11:55, 14 June 2011 (EDT)

If that's what you want to do, fine, but personally I don't think it's necessary at this stage. Toomai Glittershine Da Bomb 11:58, 14 June 2011 (EDT)

What is featured article?Lucas-IV- Paper Tosser 05:12, 19 June 2011 (EDT)

Category

How about we let all articles be added automatically to categories such as Super Smash Bros.? – Smiddle_T 09:57, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

I would support that idea. Omega Tyrant 10:51, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

No, because that would result in the core SSB/SSBM/SSBB categories becoming useless, drowned in thousands of articles. Subcategories exist for a reason. - Reboot (talk) 11:35, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

We could add a parameter that allows the article to be put into [[Category:<type> (<game>)]], such as Category:Items (SSB). Too bad that wasn't thought of before the template was created. – Smiddle_T 11:52, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

Well, quite. There's no way to pull that information out of the template as it stands, and no point in making the >1500 edits (...all over again...) it would take to bung that sort of thing in. Smarter & more efficient just to make sure pages are categorised properly the old-fashioned way.

One related point actually - right now, there's a fair amount of redundant categorisation (stuff like pages being in Category:Techniques *and* Cat:Techniques (SSB)/(SSBM)/(SSBB), that sort of thing). Something to consider fixing? - Reboot (talk) 12:28, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

It's rewarding in the long run. The question seems to be, as you said, whether it's reasonable almost to redo everything. Myself, I'm not sure. – Smiddle_T 16:22, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

I don't even think that this instance is rewarding enough in the long run. Essentially, we're talking about a set far too large - at least, what, three-quarters of the 2k pages on the wiki? - and prone to vary in the future to viably set as a #switch list in the template itself (or a meta-template connected to it).

That means doing it as an #if [i.e., "if the category and ssb/ssb64 variables are both filled out, then add to "Cat:*category* (SSB)" and similar #ifs again for the other games]. Which involves just as much work/risk of typos/risk of miscategorisation as simply adding the category/ies to the bottom of each page and thus works against the natural way the categorisation system is built without a clear benefit (whereas the Unofficial lingo and Featured article categories should always be present when the icons are and vice-versa, and so it makes things simpler rather than more complicated to include them in the template). - Reboot (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

Right. – Smiddle_T 03:47, 1 July 2011 (EDT)

Namespaces

In which namespaces should these be placed? Main only? ^Smiddle 君怒る? 13:13, 9 August 2011 (EDT)

Main definately, Smasher as well. Image possibly, though that would be a pain to set up and might not be practical or useful enough to enforce. Anything else seems irrelevant. Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 13:32, 9 August 2011 (EDT)

I see. How about categories? ^Smiddle 君怒る? 14:49, 9 August 2011 (EDT)

Categories I don't see why not. Toomai Glittershine The Inconceivable 18:52, 10 August 2011 (EDT)

Protection icon

Had an idea from Wikipedia that we could add an icon of a (bubble) shield, denoting that the article is protected. The rollover text could say "This article is (semi-)protected until [when]", and/or different shield colours could denote different kinds of protection (full, semi, temporary, permanent) or a common protection reason (vandalism, edit war, high-risk, etc). The main downside would be the extra job of making sure the icon is added and removed as the page's protection changes. Toomai Glittershine The Metroid 23:03, 5 October 2011 (EDT)

I think that this is a good idea. Mr. Anontalk 23:07, 5 October 2011 (EDT)

We don't have this yet? wat. Support ReiDemon 23:09, 5 October 2011 (EDT)

Support BlindColours FALCON... 23:22, 5 October 2011 (EDT)

Yep Miles (talk) 23:45, 5 October 2011 (EDT)

While I don't see this as necessary, I see no good reason to oppose it, and it would make protected pages more identifiable to non experienced users. Omega Tyrant 00:11, 6 October 2011 (EDT)

Um...

I'm assuming the Articleicon template is different? Just asking so no screw-up happens when we start using the icons, whenever that will be. BlindColours FALCON... 19:18, 6 October 2011 (EDT)

Minor fixes

The bright yellow of the "highrisk" icon is difficult to make out against the equally bright white of Monobook. Usually, traffic lights are red, green and amber, so I suggest toning it down to an orangy-amber color. Also, the "[dismiss]" button to the right of the sitenotice overlaps with the icons. PenguinofDeath 08:58, 17 October 2011 (EDT)

Crew

Would it be a good idea to have an article icon for crews? Smashers have their own namespace, while crews are in the mainspace. This also means that a crew article could be selected by Random page, whereas a Smasher article could not. We have an icon for pages with an unofficial name, so the same could probably apply for crews. If, say, a reader of SmashWiki was not interested by an article about a crew, a quick glance at the article icon would get the point across straight away, and for aesthetic sakes, it would probably be nice for an article to get an icon, as crew pages do not apply to any of the current icons. In terms of images that could represent a crew icon, Rotation mode in Brawl uses groups of small faceless characters, ala the ones I have linked to in the below image. Of course, doing this would take a lot of work, but that's why I'd like to know whether you guys feel it's worth it.

File:Brawl Rotation.jpg Toast ltimatum 09:53, 25 January 2012 (EST)

I'm a bit dubious about this idea, mostly because it highlights the inconsistency between crews being in mainspace and smashers having their own namespace. It's also not completely in line with the other icons - they all tell you something that may not be obvious from the article's text, while any crew article would probably say "this is a crew" in the first sentence. Toomai Glittershine The Hammer 13:50, 25 January 2012 (EST)

SSB4 placeholder

While I'm sure many people don't agree with the idea, it irks me somewhat how the SSB4 article has nothing but a protection icon. Just a half-visible Smash Bros. symbol with a "4" in the middle or something. Toomai Glittershine The Incomprehensible 11:13, 13 February 2012 (EST)

Either that or the U from my signature. Most likely the former. Either way, I Support this proposal. Toast ltimatum 12:00, 13 February 2012 (EST)

I think a 4 is a better choice since the game isn't solely on the Wii U; it'll have a 3DS version, too. Miles (talk) 13:29, 13 February 2012 (EST)

This is the kind of thing I was thinking of: [[Image:SSB4 Icon.png|24px]] Obvious enough to be useful; hopefully nonspecific enough that moderately intelligent users will know it's a placeholder. Toomai Glittershine The Ghostbuster 17:22, 13 February 2012 (EST)

Hmm, not a fan of that font, but if you say you did it on purpose to imply that it is a placeholder, then I shan't question it. The sooner it's implemented, the sooner it can go on Super Smash Bros. 4, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS. BTW, if you're going to add the icon to the SSB4 page, it could still do with links to Wii U and 3DS. Toast ltimatum 18:26, 13 February 2012 (EST)

We're going to need one in the future anyways, so we might as well create a placeholder now and then replace the image when SSB4 actually comes out. Mr. Anontalk 20:17, 13 February 2012 (EST)

I'm going to go ahead and implement this now that development on the game is confirmed to be underway. Toomai Glittershine The Superlative 16:07, 21 February 2012 (EST)

"Generic game" icon

It's a bit hard to put, but there are many 'meta/game-general' elements which have more to do with the game engine itself (and such) than the games themselves. What if we had one icon for this instead of slapping on the four different icons for the individual games? (I'm referring to articles like character, menu, and so on) - Ceci n’est pas un Smiddle. 06:33, 17 February 2013 (EST)

I had been thinking about something like this but had trouble coming up with an icon that looked generic but not generic enough that it was purposeless. Maybe I'll try again since someone else has now had the idea. Toomai Glittershine The Brazen 10:42, 17 February 2013 (EST)

"Competitive play" icon

Since we have now, should we throw that in here for use in articles like John and friendly, which don't really fit into the current available icons? Toomai Glittershine The Pan-Galactic 18:50, 23 June 2013 (EDT)

I was thinking about some kind of "outside" (hard to name) icon for articles that don't directly relate to the games but are still relevant, such as YouTube. Since this partially covers that, I support it. - Ceci n’est pas un Smiddle. 19:11, 23 June 2013 (EDT)

If no other comments are made soon I'm doing this. Toomai Glittershine The Interspacial 12:58, 6 July 2013 (EDT)

The "allgames" function

I'm considering removing the "allgames" function of this template. It's a useful shorthand most of the time, but right now there's a bit of a problem: Its meaning will change once SSB4 comes out, changing from "all three games" to "all four games", which will require a page-by-page review to determine if it's still valid. (This would then repeat for the next game, and so on.) I think we should bin it and do said review now while things are still calm. Toomai Glittershine The Superlative 12:41, 26 April 2014 (EDT)

I agree. It will also be nice so people will stop using it when they should be using the "series" icon instead. DoctorPain99 12:44, 26 April 2014 (EDT)

Agreed, and should there be more games after the Wii U/3DS ones it saves us from having to manually check every time whether it's still appropriate. Miles (talk) 14:15, 26 April 2014 (EDT)

I agree with you guys. I don't see what's the point of having the "all games" function while you could simply use all four of them separately. Since it doesn't really matter which you choose anyways, I prefer the latter method for putting all four game icons since you can also remove a game icon easily if needed to. Dots (talk) The Silent 16:07, 26 April 2014 (EDT)

As an administrative note, if this happens (which it likely will), there cannot be bot edits made to get rid of it for the very same reason it's being removed (i.e. could be either all three games or all four games, and a bot can't tell the difference). Toomai Glittershine The Sphere 18:57, 27 April 2014 (EDT)

Last call to dispute this. Toomai Glittershine The Indescribable 12:07, 5 May 2014 (EDT)

New Smash games come out so infrequently that concerns of updating aren't really valid (and since when did we get rid of something just so we wouldn't have to update a few pages every 5-7 years?), and there's a remarked difference between something that just happened to be in all the games (such as Pikachu's Thunder) and something that is integral to the series (such as recovery), enough so that I think distinguishing between the two is necessary. Omega Tyrant 20:50, 5 May 2014 (EDT)

I'm not entirely sure about the extent of what templates can do, but what if allgames simply changed itself to each game individually yes'd rather than simply displaying that, if you get what I mean. Would let us use it as a shortcut without it becoming a problem later on. ♡FirstaLasto♥ 00:15, 6 May 2014 (EDT)

Competitive icon

It should automatically add any page using the icon into Category:Competitive play to save changing everything. Scr7(talk · contribs) 11:01, 10 May 2014 (EDT)

Technical page icon

How about we add an icon on technical data pages (i.e. moveset suppages)? It would probably link to SW:MSP or something. It might have to be different than the related template's to be more recognizable at small size. Toomai Glittershine The Prismatic 18:33, 9 June 2014 (EDT)

I would agree with you that we might need a link of why were doing this project. Dots (talk) The Sandvich 19:15, 9 June 2014 (EDT)

Perhaps instead of an article icon, we'd be better off using a header like we do for SW:1226? Just a small-ish notice that says it's part of that project. Miles (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2014 (EDT)

Hmm maybe. The reason SW:1226 pages have a header as opposed to an icon is because a legend for the accuracy colours is necessary on the page itself and it seemed like the best way to do so; data pages on the other hand are mostly self-explanatory outside silly cases. I guess an advantage to a header would be that we could say something like "please don't touch the numbers unless you have experience with this sort of thing". Toomai Glittershine The Sphere 00:22, 10 June 2014 (EDT)

Subspace Emissary icon

I'd like to request a separate icon for articles dealing specifically with Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary to use in place of the standard Brawl icon. I've been mulling this over for a while, so I'll give my reasoning as to why. Here's how I see it: SSE is almost a completely separate entity from the rest of Brawl.

Y'see, while Melee's Adventure Mode was certainly bigger than the other two campaigns the game had - Classic and All-Star - it wasn't by much and ultimately fit in neatly with all the other solo modes as a quick, single-sitting challenge. Adventure was basically one of two successors to SSB64's 1P Game: Classic kept the basic fight-after-fight "rise through the ranks" format but randomized all the encounters, while Adventure kept the fixed order of the original but its platforming stages were more numerous than the handful of bonus stages Classic had and themed the platforming around the game universes, like little bite-sized, Smash-ified chunks of the other games in between each fight. It's still not very expansive, however, and all of Adventure's content sits almost entirely on one page on this wiki.

SSE on the other hand eclipses Classic and All-Star if not the entire rest of the Solo section combined, and was a huge portion of Brawl's total content and a huge chunk of the SSE stuff is SSE-specific. Unlike the few original characters in campaigns past, SSE created a fully fleshed-out Smash universe with its own aesthetic, locations, concepts, and a whole slew of new characters in service of an actual storyline, to the point that there are dozens of pages on the wiki just to document it all. But the important thing is that it's almost completely self-contained from the rest of Brawl. Pretty much none of the thematic stuff shows up anywhere else in Brawl aside from the Boss Battles fights or files on it in the vault, and even mechanically: it has its own save files, the characters have been modified from how they play in the rest of the game, there's the whole sticker equip business, the cutscenes, the world map and all the levels, and it even switches to its own title screen and menu system when you click the SSE icon on the Brawl menus.

Again - it's almost like a whole other game crammed onto the disc rather than just another Brawl mode, and that's why I feel it needs its own icon. If you're up for making it, Toomai, I already gave you that suggestion for how it should look on your talk page. VinLAURiA (talk) 04:01, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

I'm opposed to this, for a couple of reasons.

1. While the SSE has some differences from the rest of Brawl in terms of structure and gameplay, most of it overlaps. It has the same playable characters with the same movesets, the same items, and even a good chunk of its music. The gameplay tweaks in terms of physics, while present, are relatively minor.
2. Things in the SSE aren't SSE-only, even within the context of Brawl. Stickers are both a category of collectibles outside the SSE and powerups within it, for example, and SSE-related trophies and music can appear in other game modes as well, even before the SSE is first played.
3. SSE content is freely intermixed with non-SSE content in both Brawl's Boss Battles and Smash Run.

Overall, I think it's fair to say that the SSE, while a notable part of Brawl, hardly deserves equal footing with the full games of the series. It should be thought of more as an expansion of how previous games used Battlefield and Final Destination in their single-player modes (original locations to fight original enemies), rather than a game of its own. Miles (talk) 04:18, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

I'd counter that what happens in Smash 4 shouldn't necessarily affect how something is categorized in respect to Brawl (for example, the Poppant page would be listed as rather than ), and that something that is also significant in the rest of Brawl such as stickers or Boss Battles would be just given the overall icon, with relating to something that is primarily only seen in SSE. Here's how I'd say to think of it: if is equivalent to as an overall game, then would be equivalent to or . The latter would still imply the former, just as a subcategory. Note that I'm just using the Subspace universe symbol as a placeholder; what I've suggested to Toomai is a modified for the SSE article icon that would still clearly denote it as a part of Brawl. VinLAURiA (talk) 04:40, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

I'm not convinced. The SSB4 icons are split because you have to actually buy a different physical game to get stuff of the opposite side; the PM icon exists because the hack is so comprehensive it makes little sense to leave it undifferentiated (and the userbase voted to have one). I don't see how it's useful to use icons to differentiate what's fundamentally just a story mode. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 10:31, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

Would you consider it any less significant than the icon? VinLAURiA (talk) 16:16, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

Very very very much so. In my opinion, this template's main purpose is to quickly answer the question "in what game is this?" Each game icon says "In this game." The competitive icon says "In the out-of-game construct that is tournament play." The series icon says "In every game by definition." (or similar) A Subspace Emissary icon would just be too specific. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 17:03, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

And your proposal above I'd assume shares a similar purpose, being a competitive reference? Out of curiosity, what's the reason for that having a separate icon from the basic , then? VinLAURiA (talk) 20:26, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

I think the idea was similar to that of the unofficial lingo or featured article icons - they tell you something about the article itself (in this case, that it's focused on technical data) rather than its content. I dropped the idea though, because it's probably a good idea to try and keep the number of icons as low as possible, and am considering a template at the bottom of such pages, like how Bulbapedia has several "this page is part of project X" notices. Toomai Glittershine The Incomprehensible 23:18, 27 July 2014 (EDT)

"Allgames" usage

I think it shouldn't be used, I didn't mind it originally, but then another user reverted some edits I made with them saying "What if for some odd reason he (Captain Falcon) was removed? Best to avoid allgames on fighter characters.", and it got me to thinking, what's stopping anything from being removed? Every time we get a new game we're going to have to remove the template from every single page it's on until they're confirmed for the game. (Which is going to be a lot of low-brow edits) So I ask, what's the point? It clears up about 22 bytes from the page, but will give more heartache later when we get a new game announcement. There will never be a good time to use it, I mean, what if we get a spin-off of Smash (say a Pokemon or Mario Character based spin-off) that'll affect it as well. And if there is a good use for it (i.e. A Button, or something, but still the A button could be removed for some odd reason), it should be mentioned in this article. But overall I think we should just stop using it. Laikue (talk|contribs) 18:37, 8 September 2014 (EDT)

Yeah, it seems pretty redundant. I don't think we should have it either; if there's something that applies to Smash as a whole, we already have the 'series' symbol for that. VinLAURiA (talk) 04:34, 1 November 2014 (EDT)

Not using Project M outside of Project M-only articles

I don't understand why we are not allowed to use the Project M icon if the article doesn't apply solely to Project M. Project M is one of the most popular Smash games ever, if that's the reasoning. I have been very impressed so far by the recognition Project M has seen on here lately. Vegerot (talk) 14:25, 20 September 2015 (EDT)

We made the decision not to a couple of years ago, I believe. I'm personally against it, as it's highly likely that anything that applies to Melee applies to Project M as well. Nyargleblargle (Talk · Contribs) 15:20, 20 September 2015 (EDT)

The "allgames" removal debate

I noticed in a couple of sections above that there was some talk about removing the allgames parameter and having relevant articles list all four icons individually, and that there was some support for this idea. Having just spent a lot of time organizing the Techniques category and dealing with a very similar issue recently, allow me to just put out there that I would heavily oppose any removal.

In general, whenever a new game comes out, the number of elements carried over from previous games (e.g. short hop, most characters) is much greater than the number of elements that are lost (e.g. edge-hogging, cut characters). With the allgames parameter, only the latter significantly smaller number of articles need to be gone back to and changed, while without it, every single article that had all the games listed would have to be changed. Additionally, it's easier to identify and enumerate all the articles that need removal, compared to all the articles that need updating to include the new game. Why pick the option that both increases the clutter at the top of a page source (only ~22 bytes, but still) and causes a greater number of articles to be outdated/inaccurate for a longer time? (For a side example, see some of my recent edits - there are loads of pages here whose explanations still imply that Brawl is the most recent game. It's the difference between manually specifying everything and using more general terms, such as "In Melee and Brawl" compared to "From Melee onward".) Zowayix (talk) 04:45, 25 December 2015 (EST)

Oppose removal because some mechanics are core to the series and probably will never be removed (like knockback). Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 10:27, 25 December 2015 (EST)

That's what the "series" icon is for though. "allgames" is for characters and items and such. Because of this, I say that it should be removed, as it just majorly increases our workload, whereas if we abolish it, we save a lot of time and work initially as we can just add the new game icon as things are revealed. I support removing it entirely. Laikue (talk | contribs) 10:56, 25 December 2015 (EST)

I'm fully aware of the difference between allgames and series. My exact argument is that removing the allgames parameter will cause more workload than keeping it. Just using the techniques page as an example, there's loads of techniques and countless other pages that are naturally carried over from previous games, like the aforementioned short hopping. Who's going to remember every one of them, and go back to manually add the hypothetical Smash 5 icon to each individual article one by one? That's going to leave a large number of articles outdated for an indeterminate amount of time, and it's certainly not the case that everything can be covered just by adding things as they are revealed. (As I mentioned earlier, even now you can find a bunch of articles with sections that still imply Brawl is the latest game.) The list of things that are cut as opposed to carried over is much shorter. Would you rather have to manually remember to stick the Smash 5 icon on everything from Training Mode, CPU mode, List of voice actors, Freeze frame, How to Play, Team Battle, teetering, and so on, or remember to revert pages like Target Smash? My argument is that it's much easier to remember everything that's been removed, compared to everything that's still there.

I will state that there's a case for avoiding the allgames parameter for specific article types that are specifically easy to enumerate, such as characters, stages, and items. But removing allgames entirely from all pages would be a very bad idea. Zowayix (talk) 21:22, 25 December 2015 (EST)

Whoops, my bad. I still oppose per Zowayix. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 21:37, 25 December 2015 (EST)

Oppose: Seems like a lot of unnecessary work. Serpent King 07:44, 4 January 2016 (EST)

List instead of table for performance

I've got a rewrite of this template as a list instead of table. Using a list with sitewide CSS instead of a table with inline styles cuts the HTML output on a typical use case {{ArticleIcons|allgames=y}} by 137 bytes. Not huge, but the template is common enough that it'll add up.

Proposed changes:

• User:Rigel Kent/ArticleIcons draft to Template:ArticleIcons
• User:Rigel Kent/monobook.css to MediaWiki:Monobook.css
• User:Rigel Kent/vector.css to MediaWiki:Vector.css
• User:Rigel Kent/minerva.css to MediaWiki:Mobile.css

I took out the "Click for more information" tooltip, but can put it back in if people think the tip is needed. Also fixes some skin-specific issues, positioning the icons in Vector, and hiding the list while the mobile skin has the article hidden for menus or search. Monobook users should see no visual changes other than the "Click for" tooltip. For testing, please see User:Rigel Kent/ArticleIcons tests with the CSS installed to personal CSS, Special:MyPage/monobook.css etc. ライケン Rigel Kent (talk) 20:35, 17 August 2016 (EDT)

I understand the need for cutting load times...but I don't really think such is an issue on SmashWiki. Loading never really takes that long. In this case, I would say that we should prioritize simplicity over a little shave off load time. Same goes with the other templates. Serpent King 20:54, 17 August 2016 (EDT)

I agree simplicity is good. And a list is simpler than a table. ライケン Rigel Kent (talk) 23:39, 17 August 2016 (EDT)

include Ultimate in "allgames"

We'll have to do it eventually, and removing it from articles where it does not work anymore will probably take a certain amount of time, so should we just get started, or is there any reason to wait? Ponyshment 13:49, 16 November 2018 (EST)

I would tend to agree, but the template info does state "the allgames parameter will show icons for all released games." In any event, I don't think many articles currently using allgames will need to be manually adjusted, since it's primarily used for original 12 characters and other broad subjects that will serve source material for all Smash games in the foreseeable future, like Mushroom Kingdom. SuperFalconBros (talk) 14:07, 16 November 2018 (EST)

Bump. Ultimate has already released for a good while now. Nokii — 10:51, 26 December 2018 (EST)