Talk:Greatest of all time

Deletion for this, along with other pages

I agree with the deletion tag, and also would like to simultaneously nominate Top 100 Melee Players of All Time and Top 100 Smash Bros. Players of All Time for deletion as well, on account of all three being entirely subjective (with the "top 100" flat out saying they're subjective to begin with). Not every little detail has to be covered, Ac2k. Aidan, the Festive Rurouni 00:34, December 8, 2020 (EST)

First of all, just because information is subjective doesn't mean it can't belong on SmashWiki. SW:NPOV clearly says that subjectivity is allowed as long as it reflects the consensus of the Smash community, which this article does. Name a Melee player who believes that one of the four players mentioned isn't the GOAT, or name a Brawl player who believes that Mew2King isn't the Brawl GOAT, and maybe I'll agree with you.

Also, every single power ranking system ever created is subjective by definition, including SSBMRank and the global Ultimate rankings. They're decided by a panelist of several players, who rank each competitor based on a variety of subjective factors. Are you suggesting we delete those too?

In addition, I don't think it's fair to describe the idea of the GOAT of Smash as a "little detail," when there is a significant amount of discussion within the Smash community surrounding it. Google "goat melee" and you will find countless videos on YouTube 1 2 3 4, discussion threads on reddit 1, and news articles 1 2 3 4 5 6 talking about the greatest of all time in various Smash games. Awesome Cardinal 2000 02:50, December 8, 2020 (EST)

Subjectivity aside, I fail to see how this article is even necessary. The phrase "greatest of all time" is very self-explanatory, and frankly the article as a whole reads more like an elaborate April Fools joke than a serious article. Alex the Weeb 10:21, December 8, 2020 (EST)

The phrase "button mashing" is very self-explanatory, do you think it deserves a page? How can you claim to have a non-biased view of the subject if you immediately go off claiming that it reads like an "April Fools joke?" You've seen what SmashWiki actually looks like on April Fools right? Awesome Cardinal 2000 15:11, December 8, 2020 (EST)

Button mashing does deserve an article because it has an effect on gameplay, that is being able to get out of grabs, sleep, stun, etc. It can be useful to know what effect it has at all levels and know the specifics at competitive levels. --CanvasK (talk) 15:30, December 8, 2020 (EST)

I understand, I'm just arguing that it's a bad reason to delete an article. Awesome Cardinal 2000 18:17, December 8, 2020 (EST)

I have to agree with Alex. There's a difference between "even non-competitive Smash players know who the best at the game are" and "not everyone who plays Smash knows about this mechanic that actually has an effect on the game".

Also, to go back to your initial response to my comment (apologies for getting to this so late):

• Alright, I'll concede that. I could probably make a case for M2K being a GOAT in Melee, but, given that my competitive knowledge is lacking (though not nonexistent), I don't know how well that case could be made (and I definitely wouldn't be able to tell you who would agree with me).
• I'll concede this too, though I would like to reemphasize my nomination for the deletion of the "top 100" pages, as, frankly, going outside of a top 10 makes things way more subjective than it needs to be (as in, there's much more room for debate and argument).
• Practically every competitive game ever, fighting or not, video game or not, has their discussions about who's the best at the game, but not everyone notes it as a major point. Yes, we, unlike a lot of other wikis regarding competitive games, actually cover the competitive scene behind our games, but not everyone focuses on it because it's not as important as other aspects. That is not to say it is unimportant altogether—by all means, note that Isai, Armada, M2K, ZeRo, and MkLeo are the best at each respective Smash game—but there is no reason to spell it out on a full page when it can be covered in one sentence to get its full meaning across.

Aidan, the Festive Rurouni 19:03, December 8, 2020 (EST)

"not everyone focuses on it" is not the same as "absolutely nobody cares about it." This page goes into far more detail than any of the smasher articles, because there is significant debate in Melee over Armada vs. Mango, which this page explains. Also, SW:NPOV states "Avoid giving undue prominence to certain views". This would keep fringe opinions like Mew2King being the GOAT of Melee from cluttering the page. Awesome Cardinal 2000 02:27, December 9, 2020 (EST)

In addition, SmashWiki is not ranking the 100 players on that list ourselves, we are only reporting on a well-known and reputable source from the community, which is not the same. (This is basically how all global power rankings work.) Awesome Cardinal 2000 02:28, December 9, 2020 (EST)

I strongly question the need for this kind of article, never mind the fact that it looks a mess. Reading this talk page hasn’t answered my questions either. Support Black Vulpine of the 🦊Furry Nation🐺. Furries make the internets go! :3 21:04, December 8, 2020 (EST)

I agree to delete this page, and the others too. Too much subjectivity, article is hard to take seriously. I fail to see much reason for these articles to exist. Omegɑ Toɑd 21:38, December 8, 2020 (EST)

Ok I'll frame my argument as follows:

I think that as established users on this site, we often forget why random people on the internet use SmashWiki. People (including fans of competitive Smash) come to SmashWiki to receive an organized and collectible source of information. Information in the Smash community tends to pretty disorganized because it gets scattered all over Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Smashboards, Facebook, and other sites. SmashWiki solves that problem by putting important info all in one place.

There's a reason why almost every YouTube video about Smash Bros. uses screenshots of the Tier list article (look at videos like this as an example). Also why when you Google something about Smash Bros. SmashWiki is almost always at the top spot. This page is less than 48 hours old, and already if you Google "smash bros greatest of all time" this article is the top search result.

In addition, past experiences have suggested that increasing our competitive-related content is beneficial to the well-being of the wiki, while removing/deleting competitive content hurts the site.

• Three years ago I made the article Universal Controller Fix, which was nominated for deletion by an administrator. Even though the admin argued that the topic wasn't notable, the SmashWiki article is still the first Google hit when you search "universal controller fix" and even appears above the dev team's official website.
• The "Super Smash Bros. in competitive play" articles (which I largely helped author), have taken off to become some of the most popular, collaborative, and highly edited pages on the wiki.
• I created the first "tier placement and history" section seven years ago. Since then, SmashWiki editors have added these sections to every single fighter page across the whole series. (To me this indicates that adding competitive content makes the wiki more collaborative.)
• SmashWiki's greatest PR moment of the past five years was when an administrator reached out to the competitive community and made a reddit post discussing our coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations earlier this year.
• Meanwhile, SmashWiki's worst PR moment of the past five years was when we tried to get rid of the Project M character pages (you can read some of the community response in this thread). The proposal was supported by tons of inaccurate and poorly researched information, and was clouded by a lot of users' personal bias against PM and the competitive community.
• SW:OFFICIAL and SW:SPEC both state that reporting on widespread opinions held by the Smash community do not count as subjective material.
• In addition, since this article was published, at least three other users have added new content (beyond just spelling mistakes and formatting), including an IP address, which is indicative to me that the topic is at least somewhat notable, and not entirely lacking in notability as suggested in the opposition.

Given the examples I listed above, I think it's pretty clear that expanding our competitive coverage is only beneficial for us. Considering SmashWiki's previous mixed-bag handling of competitive content, do you still feel that my judgment here is completely 100 percent wrong?

If you don't really care for competitive Smash, I hope you can agree to leave the article up to support the people that do care about competitive Smash. The ultimate goal of SmashWiki is for readers to learn something, which, given the articles numerous citations (including quotes from the people mentioned in the article themselves), this article clearly achieves. Overall this article does a good job of separating itself from the mainspace content. Right now the article "Greatest of all time" is linked to from exactly five places: three redirect pages, and two smasher articles. If you choose not to click on any smasher/competitive articles, you will probably never encounter this page in your lifetime.

Answer me honestly: do you truly feel that SmashWiki would be a better place if this page was deleted? Awesome Cardinal 2000 02:24, December 9, 2020 (EST)