Forum:Competitive namespace reorganization

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

I feel there's been a lot of interest lately over tweaking the dissonance between the current treatment of smashers, crews, and tournaments. There's a couple ways we can go about this. Let's have an official on-wiki discussion.

The historical situation

Way back when SmashWiki merged into Wikia in 2008, it was decided to create a Smasher: namespace to place players into. You can read the discussion here but honestly I wouldn't recommend it; it's mostly the two wiki camps butting heads over what the merged wiki's focus and identity should be. Suffice to say that the Smasher: namespace was created with strong support.

Crews remained rather undiscussed for another year until this. Again, I don't recommend you actually read the discussion unless you like walls of text. But the gist was that there were too many unnotable crews that needed to be cleaned up, which made the problem of "too many crews in mainspace" mostly go away.

I'm not aware of any previous on-wiki discussion about a tournament namespace. It's a recent issue.

The current situation

First of all, Category:Crews is a mess that needs to be properly split up like we did with Category:Smashers. But once you fix that, we have a total of 80 crew pages. Is that worth a namespace? My gut says no, but I wouldn't veto it on principle.

On the other hand, we have 324 National tournaments and 135 Regional tournaments, plus whatever else isn't in those two categories. That certainly could be deserving of a custom namespace.

The possible courses of action

The way I see it, we have several options, presented alongside the opinion that drives it.

1. Create a Tournament: namespace.

Crews are too minor to care about, but tournaments aren't.

2. Create a Tournament: namespace and a Crew: namespace.

It doesn't matter how minor something is, if it's too specific to be ignored, we need to accomodate it.

3. Create a Tournament: namespace. Place crews into the Smasher: namespace.

Crews are too minor to be alone but need to be somewhere, and among smashers seems most logical.

4. Create a Tournament: namespace. Rename the Smasher: namespace to something like Competitor: and put crews into it as well.

Crews are too minor to be alone but need to be somewhere, and among smashers seems most logical, but then we can't still call them "smashers".

5. Create a Competitive: namespace. Put both crews and tournaments into it.

Crews are too minor to be alone but need to be somewhere, and among tournaments seems most logical.

6. Rename the Smasher: namespace to Competitive:. Put smashers, crews, and tournaments into it.

One namespace to rule them all, neatly containing everything related to competitive play.

Ø. Do nothing.

Maintain status quo. Is it really a big deal what's in what namespace anyway?

X. Delete the Smasher: namespace.

Just put everything in mainspace. They're articles on the Smash Bros. series, why keep them segregated?

The discussion: Part 1

There's too many options right now for a typical #'''Option Q''' ~~~~ to be effective. I think the best idea at the moment is to thin the herd. So instead, vote for which options you do not want to see. Don't just vote for everything except what you do want to see; this is for eliminating the bad ideas and leaving two or three good ones. Once we've cut it down I might make a new page for the "yes" process. You could theoretically raise an idea I haven't thought of, and that's okay too, it just might get things a little messy.

And one more thing: Assume for the moment that all plans are equally technically feasible. We'll deal with that hurdle once consensus becomes clearer.

Toomai Glittershine The Trumpeteer 20:16, 29 August 2017 (EDT)

Collapsed part 1 votes in here

Exclude: 3, 4, Ø, X I don't like the idea of squishing crews in with smashers. I do think something should be done. Toomai Glittershine The Trumpeteer 20:16, 29 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude: 3, 4, possibly 6, Ø, X Deleting the smasher namespace sounds like the worst idea possible, I agree with all of Toomai's points above, and 6 just seems like a lot of work for relatively little gain. Serpent King 20:33, 29 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 6, Ø and X. If the point of this vote is to 'weed out the bad ideas', these three options are definitely the worst. Black Vulpine of the Furry Nation. Furries make the Internets go! :3 20:55, 29 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 5, Ø, X, and maybe 4. I would prefer a streamlined, logically constructed competitive namespace (so my preference goes to 3 or 6), but lumping only crews and tournaments together seems pretty arbitrary IMO. Crews and Smashers make sense together, but "competitors" is a bit of an awkward namespace. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 21:50, 29 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 4, 5, 6, Ø, and X. I think a Tournament: namespace is long overdue, and crews can end up in Smasher: or elsewhere; they're barely on my radar in this situation. I'm not a fan of Competitor:/Competitive: composite names, so I'd skip those. Dumping Smasher pages back into the mainspace seems like a terribly bad idea. Miles (talk) 23:19, 29 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude everything except 6. I seriously could give less of a crap about the scene as a whole, but for the better of the wiki, I'm gonna throw my hat into the ring. If things are inconsistent, then they should be made consistent. Put the competitive stuff over in its own little corner, and keep it from the rest of the information about the games themselves. It seems pretty simple, in my opinion. Aidan, the Wandering Dragon Warrior 20:09, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude: 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø, X. Per SK and Toomai. EDIT: As for point 5, a "Competitive" nameplate sounds like a good idea on paper, but is in fact a bad idea: while it compresses a lot of work to do, it makes keeping track of it hard for some people, and would be hard for people to get used to it. -- Beep (talk) 20:13, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude: 3, 4, 5, 6, X. 3: Crews in the Smasher namespace seems messy and misleading. 4: Smasher namespace is simple yet specific, and works really well, so why change it? 5: "Competitive" doesn't sound right, it seems like it would be confusing and vague. 6: See 4 and 5. X: I think we can all agree that that is a horrible idea. Alex Parpotta the flying lobster! 20:15, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude: 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø, X. I honestly don't have too much of a problem with tournament pages and crews being part of the mainspace. However, I would prefer a distinction between pages made about the game and pages made about the community, which is what the Smasher namespace already does, and what I feel tournament and crew pages should fall under as well. Exclude Ø. I don't like lumping certain aspects of competitive play together into one namespace, as there can be overlap between the names of crews, tags of Smashers, and names of tournament series (see KTAR), making it a nightmare to keep track of everything. This excludes 3, 4, 5, 6, and X. -- Yellow of the Grove 20:21, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 1, 3, 4, Ø, and X. In all honesty I forgot we ever had articles on crews, I don't really see them as a significant thing in their own right separate from the Smasher articles, but that's going a little too far off-topic. In the knowledge that they will be kept on the wiki, they will at least need a namespace, thus ruling out Option 1. Toast ltimatum 20:22, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø, and X. Renaming and merging some things are unnecessary, and I'd rather keep things separate and organized as their own things. I can see things like "Competitive" ending up misleading. Solareon (talk) 20:23, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø, and X. The ones I excluded are pretty much the ones I believe will maintain or make more of a mess of disorganization. MHStarCraft 20:36, 30 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø, and X. Only add not modify. Well we have to do something. ZeldaStarfoxfan2164 (talk) is made in America 00:05, 31 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø and X. Changing the existing namespace would be a time-consuming, and merging crews in with Smashers sounds a bit silly. They'd be best on their own. BaconMastre 08:43, 31 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø and X. I'm gonna go down why I think each other option shouldn't be done. 3) It makes no sense to put crews with smashers, they're completely separate entities 4) see 3. 5) It seems a logical idea at the first glance but again, crews and tournaments are completely separate and under a "competitive" banner, it would most likely become cluttered and confusing. 6) It would DEFINITELY become cluttered and confusing then. Ø) something DOES probably need to happen as tournaments are taking over mainspace. X) No, no chance. BSTIK (Talk) 09:57, 31 August 2017 (EDT) Just want to note that 1 or 2 seem to be the most acceptable paths for most people at this point. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 09:42, 31 August 2017 (EDT) I agree but I am going to let Toomai make the final call on this one. This is his thing after all. Serpent King 10:09, 31 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 6, Ø, and X. To explain exactly why I disagree with those... For 3: It makes absolutely no sense to me to put crews under the smasher namespace. "Smasher" has always basically implied one to me, not a group of people. For 4: Admittedly, there may be some bias surrounding this one, but I just feel like the smasher namespace is already pretty tight as is. It just fits in so well, and to change it would just be....strange, for lack of a better word. For 6: Basically same reason as 4. For Ø: While I will say things have seemed fine to me as is, I can't deny I feel like the way we deal with tournament articles has been a little haphazard, to say the least. For X: Same reason as 4 and 6. Plus, it's overall just a stupid idea in general and anyone who agrees with that idea should be ashamed of themselves. Disaster Flare (talk) 23:44, 31 August 2017 (EDT) Exclude 4, 6, Ø, X Late to the party on this. And I am partly responsible for this vote's creation, so it seems even worse for me to be behind. Anyway, my stance is that Smashers: needs to be unchanged semantically. This has been the system for about a decade. Therefore, anything that needs to be put out of the mainspace shall be placed into the new category. It should not be a catch-all group since that would scrap Smashers. In terms of 3 and 5, I see another option which is essentially a hybrid of the two put together. So. At the very least creating Tournament: seems like the best option in my opinion. What dictates an article being placed under it needs to be ironed out. For example, Tournament would look really odd if it were not kept in mainspace or had its display title adjusted to hide the category (defeating the purpose). As a closer/side note, whether it is regional or national is less relevant than if it's directly on the subject of a specific tournament or series in my opinion. (Such as if it uses a tournament-related infobox template) RobSir zx 00:17, 1 September 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 6, Ø, and X. I like the idea of an overhaul but I have a problem with most of these plans. 3. is potentially misleading, 4. implies that all Smashers are competitive players (some, like Toomai, are not. 6. is a bad idea for the same reason, Ø is bad because we need a change, and X is a bad idea because people could be led to believe that aspects of the competitive community are an actual part of the games themselves. The other proposals are great though. John HUAH! 15:34, 7 September 2017 (EDT) Exclude 3, 4, 5, 6, Ø. Squishing things into one big thing seems like a bad idea, but making more or simply getting rid of the namespaces altogether seems like a better idea. If you put them together, it seems confusing to me to people who try to use our site. F0rZ3r0F0r (talk) 17:36, 13 September 2017 (EDT)

Part 1 is over. Here are the results:

• Options 4, Ø, and X have near-unanimous dislike. They are rejected immediately.
• Options 3 and 6 are less-heavily disliked but are also clearly eliminated.
• Option 5 has a lot of dislike, but much less so than the above options.
• Options 1 and 2 are clearly preferred.

The discussion: Part 2

In essense, we've already decided that tournaments will be put into a new namespace. Now we just have to decide what to do with crews - and that basically means by itself we're down to options 1, 2, and 5. So time for the more traditional vote.

Option 1: Create a Tournament: namespace.

Vote here if you think crews are (currently) best left alone in the mainspace.

1. To Be honest here, do crews really need a namespace, I don't see why they need one. Sure, they're a fairly large part of the Smash community, but I still don't think they meet the importance of Smasher and tournament namespaces, therefore Option 1 is probably the best way to go. Skittles03, the scummy fox main (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2017 (EDT)
2. Frankly, I have to agree with Skittles. Since we're fairly strict as to what constitutes a crew as notable, we don't have a lot of Crew articles to begin with, which kind of renders giving them a namespace to begin with pointless in my eyes. Disaster Flare (talk) 03:48, 17 September 2017 (EDT)
3. Agree with the 2 users above me, I think crews are not important enough Patzui (talk) 04:22, 17 September 2017 (EDT)

Option 2: Create a Tournament: namespace and a Crew: namespace.

Vote here if you think crews should get their own namespace.

Extra note: Please include in your vote (ideally at the beginning) what you think the crew namespace should be called. The options are Crew, Group, and Team, but you can suggest something else if you think you can get others to agree.

1. Just call it "crew" I guess. Alex Parpotta the flying lobster! 13:38, 16 September 2017 (EDT)
2. Namespace as Crew. MHStarCraft 13:47, 16 September 2017 (EDT)
3. Slight preference is for this over option 1, but I consider "Competitive:" unacceptably awkward. I guess "Crew:" would be the best choice here, although we should consider ahead of time whether this includes sponsor pages. Miles (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2017 (EDT)
4. I'm reluctant in general about separate namespaces, however it seems we are down to only these 3 options. This seems like the only good option in my opinion, because if we're going to have a Tournament: name space, a Crew: should also be made, since those don't feel like they belong on mainspace. A Competitive: namespace could work, but smashers are also important in competitive, aren't they? So this is the only rational decision in my opinion. F0rZ3r0F0r (talk) 19:28, 16 September 2017 (EDT)
5. Call it "Crew" and I will approve! Dragonfirebreath25 (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2017 (EDT)

Option 5: Create a Competitive: namespace. Put both crews and tournaments into it.

Vote here if you think crews should share the tournament namespace, which would be named appropriately.

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