Forum:Limiting American bias in Notable Player Sections

Forums: Index → Proposals → Limiting American bias in Notable Player Sections

This discussion is in regards to a proposed change on SmashWiki. The discussion must first meet with a consensus before it is implemented.

This is loosely tied to this proposal, and I ranted a bit there too, but this a sufficiently different topic to the point that I want to elaborate on it here. I want a new policy to be added to SW:NOTABLE regarding how to handle countries with individual regions, particularly the US.

Here is my issue: I believe that SmashWiki has a large issue with Americans causing bloat in the Notable Player sections on various character pages.

I will never dispute that America is a hive of Smash activity, and is where many world-class competitors have made their mark or otherwise been born. However, I find the notable players sections of many character articles to be severely bloated with American players. For example, on the Mario SSBU page, I had to add Aluf to it recently, replacing one of 14 American players, despite them being among the more well-known international Mario players that has competed in both New Zealand and Australia. I trust the wiki to not be biased towards American scenes, and there will be playerbases centralised around specific regions of the world, but I find it hard to believe that you're having so much difficulty finding international players that you find the need to bloat pages with 14 Americans. And god, don't get me started on Young Link, Falco has a similar problem too.

So here is my proposal: In the event of multiple American players in high-competition, limit notable American players to those who have won in macro-regions (eg. Midwest). To put it simply: if you have American players who see macro-region level — or ideally, international — success, do not add any more unless they see equal or more success. This would add a much-needed entry barrier to American Smashers, allowing for only the best players in the country to be put on the page. This wouldn't hit many of the players who deserve to be on there, while a guy who wins exclusively in their region and never travels won't be given an eye. I don't see how regional success in America, unless it is absolute domination that involves winning against even world-class competitors who try to take them down (eg. Awestin), can be remotely compared to being #1 in a European country. On that note, I do want situations where this can be relaxed. For example, if a player lords over a stacked region and has a genuine reason for not travelling, then sure, I would agree to have the policy relaxed for those situations. Additionally, if there are no macro-region competitors or those seeing international success, then this policy should not affect the page at all.

I want to put emphasis on multiple American players in high-competition. When noting this, I mean when you have like 5-6 players and are looking to limit it. You should default to having the world-class and macro-region competitors put here, and cut out the rest. When you're putting forward good players from a country, they should be the best, and the standards for future players should be increased according to their relative skill. If you have world-class or macro-region-level competitors, regional winners inherently won't compare, and thus fall short. That is the nature of competition. If the character doesn't have any world-class or macro-region-level competition in the US, then sure, place a region's king there, but for god's sake don't bloat the Mario page with 14 Americans.

When I look at notable players — while this is an anecdote — I want to see a diverse selection of notability. Look at the Terry page, for example; a diverse range of players, two of which are #1 on their country's PR, WiiASE and Anality. I'm not out to see the best sweats from America, I'm out to see the best sweats from many areas around the world. Yes, many of the strongest players will be from America, and I'm not out to take from that: I don't want to see America suddenly Thanos Snapped from notable sections. I will never be shocked to see 2, maybe 3 players on a list to be from there. Being the best player in the US Midwest doesn't suddenly make you better than a good player from France; in fact, Midwest has an overall smaller and less competitive scene than France. Did you know Yatta has an 85% set win rate in that country, despite moving between regions and even being drunk for some 1st places? And this is in the country that's arguably the best in Europe in regards to Smash. This is pure talent, not a sign of an uncompetitive or weak country.

Again, none of this is to disparage or otherwise discount the skill of American regions. All I seek is to limit the overwhelming American representation on the wiki. As competition increases, it becomes more centralised, and thus, the notable players section should reflect that. Achieving notability in America will naturally be more difficult because of this, that is reality. When you're competing alongside the big guys, becoming notable will naturally become more difficult. The notable players section on a character page is not a charity to help get that "exposure", it's a part of competitive history. We should be documenting the players who are making history.

I also agree that some playerbases will be tied to specific countries, and America will be one of them for some, maybe even many characters. I do not see how this takes from my point if a character is seeing such explosive success, as again, you should be noting the best players who are actively making history on a national, maybe even international scale. If you want to find these other American professionals, you have the category linked thanks to the efforts of Rdrfc, which acts as an expanded version of notable players to some degree. With the continued integration of this category, I believe that this gives ample opportunity to ramp up the requirements to be on the notable player section.

As an example of this policy in practice, on Captain Falcon's page, you would likely limit the players listed to Fatality, NickC, and Marss. Seems good, yeah? They are the notable Falcons, and that's more than enough American representation. I believe the inactive Falcons, CRUP!!!!, and LeafFC are much less important here. On the Mario page, I'd say you should only have Dark Wizzy, Prodigy, MastaMario and Lui$, then cut out the rest. Then, for both of these pages, you would look for non-American players of notability.

As an example where nothing would change, well, let's look at the King K. Rool page. 808 and KirbyKid are both macro-region-level competitors, as was Onua during her time, I believe. No other Americans are noted; in fact, Tropical was removed recently to reduce bloat for a similar reason to my proposal. I find this to be a perfect balance of representation. In the case that a character does not see macro-region or international success from any given player, then I'd say that this policy shouldn't have any effect on the section at all.

If you need some illusion of equality, I will compromise to a similar, albeit more relaxed, policy for other regions. However, from my research, I have never seen an influx of Mexican or Japanese Smashers on any page, except maybe Toon Link and Greninja for the latter, which doesn't appear to be a large issue. This seems to be a particularly American issue and this policy seeks to reduce the (oft ill-informed) criticisms of bias on this wiki. States in America are treated very differently to, let's say, regions in Germany and France. Perhaps this would help the Toon Link and Greninja pages, though, and could be worth exploring. To give some proper wording to this compromise, for a generic version of this policy, in the event of a specific country having multiple notable players on international or national-level success, limit to players who reach that level of success for future additions from the said country.

Thanks for hearing me out on this, and I'm eager to hear a response. --Plague von Karma 07:47, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Support

1. Obviously. --Plague von Karma 07:47, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
2. i've seen lot of english speaking folks on twitter discussing adding themselves to these notable players lists. it's often ego driven and unnecessary, and imo contributes to this bloat. I feel like we're dealing with a case of too many folks trying to get in on the US side, resulting in documented players that don't really have a place in there; and not enough players outside of the US even knowing these lists exist, resulting in a drought of international names. Having restrictions like these would help fix the US representation bloat side of the equation, even if more work will be needed to fill these lists with names that the US public don't really hear much about. --Lattie 13:47, March 24, 2021 (CET)

Support the Compromise

1. I also support this alternative in the case a specialised solution is undesirable. --Plague von Karma 07:47, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
2. Same. --Lattie 13:48, March 24, 2021 (CET)

Oppose

1. This should not be an enforced rule in any capacity. Aside from the fact that I'm skeptical of the notion that it's a problem for an English language Wiki to have better coverage of the American scene than other scenes, this really just seems more cruel than anything. We already have pretty high standards for who can be considered a notable player, all things considered, and I don't really think we should be raising them even higher, and we absolutely should not be doing so only for American players, as this really comes across more as trying to enforce some sort of quota, more than anything. Alex the Weeb 08:12, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Neutral / Comments

@ Alex the weeb - I covered most of your point in my proposal, but I'll bite. I do not believe that language should have an impact on player notability or coverage, considering the purpose of a wiki is to be a representation of a greater community. As I mentioned in my proposal, I am open to compromise on having the policy impact other regions, my only concern was whether it would necessarily have an impact or mean anything long-term, as states are so different to regions in other countries. This isn't about quotas but ensuring that non-American countries are not shot down because of perceived bloat; it's often the overrepresentation of American players that's the actual issue, often with lower representation relative to the country the shot-down player is from. I don't have anything on hand right now, but I have seen this happen in the Discord server multiple times prior to my temporary leave. While I agree that standards are high, I don't believe it's cruel to reduce bloat when you have amazing players that just so happen to dwarf regional-level competitors. That's how competition is, it's a tough world, and the notable player section is about recording the premier players that have made history with the character. See the Melee sections. As I said in my proposal, this is not a quota! I'm wanting to make better use of the Character Professional Categories that are being put where they should be. And, with that, take the opportunity to improve the quality of the notable player sections. To meet that quality, you should have the cream of the crop, no? If you want to add more American players that excel on a regional level while higher-skill players are in the notable player section, make their pages and categorize them accordingly. I don't think this is much to ask. --Plague von Karma 08:41, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

As I said, this isn't something that should be enforced as a rule. If you think that any specific American player does not deserve to be listed as notable, you are already free to remove them from the notable players section, with an explanation, but if they are a well known player among mains of that character, with a good number of results to demonstrate they are skilled and proficient with said character, then I don't think they should be removed from the notable players section simply based on their results not being from "marco" regions (which itself can be a blurry line).

If it's not meant to be a quota, I would strongly advise against phraseology like "for god's sake don't bloat the Mario page with 14 Americans". When you bring numbers into the discussion, then you give the impression that once the list reaches a certain number of American players, it needs to be cut down.

Saying that the language of the Wiki shouldn't impact its coverage is naive at best, and potentially even detrimental to the Wiki. The fact is, the majority of our user base is American, and so is the majority of our viewer base. Thus, viewers of our Wiki are more likely to be familiar with the American players, and more likely to be knowledgeable about the results of American players. Isn't this what constitutes notability, after all? Of course, players from other regions who are well known to American visitors to the site would also be notable, but it is to be expected that there would be more representation of American players on the Wiki, and I would argue that that's a good thing. I would make the same argument for, say, a Japanese language Smash Wiki having better representation of Japanese players.

Let me make it clear. Applying your standard to more than just American smashers is NOT a "compromise", it should be a necessity if this were to be enforced at all. If you really think that the Wiki being biased towards American smashers, then the solution should not be bias against them. That's absurd. Alex the Weeb 08:58, March 24, 2021 (EDT)