Forum:General proposals/Archive 5

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Former Mains for smasher pages

I'm for adding "former mains" parameters (for each game) to the Template:Infobox Smasher. For example Armada would have Pit as former main for Project M (right now Pit is in "other") and Mang0 would have Jigglypuff as former main for Melee (right now his Jiggs isn't there). I don't like both current options for former mains. Also, instead of solely text-based, which can get really long and have a lot of rows (just look at Armada's infobox), more symbols like a table with stock & game icons would be nice... Something like this:

	Current/Last	Other	Former

Patzui (talk) 08:32, May 9, 2019 (EDT)

I don't see the difference between "former mains" and the "other character" sections, especially since a lot of the "other characters" are former mains. Plus, if they were former mains, it would have been stated in their opening blurb somewhere. CookiesCreme 15:36, June 2, 2019 (EDT)

Changing PAL terms to “British English”

Smashbrosfan99 seems very adamant about changing this, but in my honest opinion, I think the way it is now is fine. PAL also refers to Castilian Spanish replacing Mexican Spanish, and regular French vs. Canadian French (if there even is any difference) so I think generalizing it as PAL is fine. Lou Cena (talk) 01:55, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

Have to agree. Even if it's technically inaccurate terminology, it's effective shorthand for the European standard versus the American one. DryKirby64 (talk) 03:17, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

Perhaps there could be a page that explains the difference, as well as why the Wiki uses "PAL" over "British English"? Wolff (talk) 03:22, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

This page goes over it briefly. DryKirby64 (talk) 03:32, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

Then perhaps when PAL and NTSC are mentioned, they should probably link to those pages if they don't already. unfortunately, I don't think they explain the supposed problem of "PAL" vs "British English". Wolff (talk) 11:55, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

Might as well unveil the elephants in the room - only the Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii use the NTSC and PAL connections for their original releases so using those terms would make sense for those games. The 3DS, Wii U and Switch use HDMI connections, so stating NTSC or PAL to refer to releases in those countries would be not only inaccurate but also outdated as well. Aside from the 3DS and Wii U, the Switch is region-free, meaning any game from any country in any continent can work on the Nintendo Switch in question; also helps that most first-party games don't have a drastic change between the English in the Americas region setting and the English in the Europe or Australia/New Zealand setting. Apparently, using the term PAL region for the 3DS, Wii U and Switch games is perfectly acceptable at the moment when it isn't for everything I just described. It's even used for the pages that talk about Spirit Board events, when the pages in question are literally "websites," which, need I remind you, can be viewed literally "anywhere." So, what should we do? I have a few options, which were the same ones I used to figure out what to do on the Mario Wiki (sure different wikis have different rulesets, but hopefully we can come to an agreement):

1. Use the American and British terminology for everything.
2. Use NTSC and PAL when talking about Super Smash Bros. 64, Melee and Brawl and use the American and British English terminology for 3DS, Wii U and Ultimate.
3. Use NTSC and PAL for basically everything.

In my honest opinion, we should absolutely not consider doing choice 3. Going with choice 1 should simplify matters in the long run, almost choice 2 isn't a bad idea either. What do you guys think? – Smashbrosfan99 (talk) 19:37, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

I said something to this effect on you talkpage but I'll paraphase it here: Yes it's technically obsolete to use "PAL" in the sense of "regions that use the PAL technology". But players don't really use the term like that anymore, and in some ways they never have - its current place in the gamer lexicon is "the Europe/Africa/Oceania region". In fact, Wikipedia's page on the PAL region covers how the region is defined independently of its page on the PAL technology, specifically going over how the game industry uses the term; the page on regional lockout does very similar.

Therefore, because the internet at large is continuing to use NTSC and PAL for gaming regions, we should also continue to do so. Toomai Glittershine The Producer 20:29, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

I'm in agreement with Toomai. The gaming community still uses NTSC/PAL, as does much of the rest of the internet. Our terminology here should be based on what the Smash community uses; hence, NTSC/PAL should stay. DarkFox01This is horrible… 21:05, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

Just found this now, but on the Substitute page, it mentions an error in the Wii U version but not the 3DS version in the European Portuguese version. It doesn't even use "PAL," it literally uses European Portuguese to describe it. All the more reasoning why the usage of NTSC and PAL should be limited to the first three Smash Bros. games...for the most part as these games often have different language options, so mentioning "This change is not present in the PAL version," seems to imply it isn't present in all language options, when we're really only focusing on the American and British differences of the English language only. – Smashbrosfan99 (talk) 23:59, May 7, 2019 (EDT)

Perhaps the accepted usage of NTSC and PAL is better when viewed as a type of "slang". Although "incorrect" or better yet, outdated, it is acceptable depending on its usage. PAL is considered a "term" (Term: "a word or expression that has an exact meaning in some uses or is limited to a subject or field"), in which it refers to the region of Europe, Asia (minus Japan), Africa, Australia and some of South America, while NTSC refers to the region of North America and small parts of South America and Asia. In English, its perfectly acceptable for people to use "don't" incorrectly. For example, the sentence "don't you think?" would actually be "do not you think?" What I'm getting at, NTSC/PAL have meanings other than what they originally meant or refer to. For games, they just mean refer to differences/changes in/from specific countries/regions. It does not just refer to differences between the U.S.A and England versions. (Extra Tidbit: Although their usage is less common now, they still teach the differences between PAL from NTSC in school/collage) Wolff (talk) 00:56, May 8, 2019 (EDT)

Honestly till reading this discussion i had no clue pal meant a video encoding technology, i just knew it as the Europe, Africa and Australia region. there is no reason to change it as the definition has basically shifted from a video encoding technology to a region.XtraTalk Edits 08:14, May 8, 2019 (EDT)

"Not to be confused with..."

This has been copied over from Template talk:Disambig2, as I realized the discussion belongs on this page.

Several pages currently have a disclaimer at the top of the page reading:

Not to be confused with [[X]], {{{descriptor of variation from X}}}.

There is currently no template used for such disclaimers. Variants of {{disambig2}} have been created in the past, including for and redirect. What should be the course of action for Not to be confused with...?

Possible solutions include:

• Replacing the Not to be confused with... cases with {{disambig2}} or {{for}}.
• Creating a new variant of {{disambig2}}, perhaps named {{confused}}, to deal with the cases.

Using pre-existing templates may provide additional clarity, but may also appear redundant in some cases. I'd appreciate the community's feedback on this issue before any action is taken. DarkFox01:D 21:18, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

This seems like a good idea, but it feels like it’s just going to be more work to change everything to the template instead of keeping it as is. It seems like you want future proofing, but we can’t really speculate about the future. Also, the regular disimbag template is more helpful in most situations in my opinion. The one situation where I can see this being helpful is with Galeem and Galleom. Lou Cena (talk) 22:24, May 4, 2019 (EDT)

Put tabbers in the quote sections for multiple games

I believe that articles with different quotes in multiple games, such as Pokémon Change and Fireball (the latter of which does actually use one), should have tabbers, as they look rather cluttered without. Awesomelink234, the Super Cool Sonic Fan Leave a message if needed 18:33, May 11, 2019 (EDT)

It looks neater with the tabs, since it takes up less physical space. I agree with this notion. Lou Cena (talk) 18:36, May 11, 2019 (EDT)

My problem with it is that it stands out and looks somewhat awkward when actually implemented. That doesn't mean that using quotes changes the issue, because having multiple quotes does also look awkward, however there's definitely a better idea for this other than tabber. CookiesCreme 18:39, May 11, 2019 (EDT)

The page looks really messy when it doesn't have the tabs. The tabs were already slowly being added since the beginning of last month without a problem before. If you believe there is a better substitute for the tabs, then unless that substitute is found/suggested, we should use the tabs. Without the tabs, the pages with multiple quotes (Like Pokemon Change or Counter) push the article down and makes it look messy. I don't know which one looks better (possibly the second for multiple characters), but it looks a lot more organized than just having all the quotes by themselves. (Unless someone thinks it'd be better if the quotes were on their own page) Wolff (talk) 23:03, May 11, 2019 (EDT)

How about we just not have stuff getting in the way of the opening paragraph? Put quotes down in their own content section on the page where they belong. Then we don't even need to mess around with tabs. Toomai Glittershine The Superlative 09:39, May 12, 2019 (EDT)

But wouldn't it still bloat the page that way? It would just be in a different spot, and the problem would still be present. Wolff (talk) 17:41, May 13, 2019 (EDT)

Very late from me, but in my opinion it's better for it to be bloated on the bottom of the page than the top of the page, since the introduction of the article wouldn't look as messy, plus properly formatting it on the botton won't make the page massively bloated anyways. CookiesCreme 12:23, June 8, 2019 (EDT)

Now that you mention it, I actually agree that it’s better to bloat the bottom than the top. The issue is where to put it exactly. Do we just make a section for the quotes? Lou Cena (talk) 13:20, June 8, 2019 (EDT)

Split all pages for moves that are shared between characters

I feel like this is the only way to end the debates. And by all, I mean ALL. Lucina's specials, Daisy’s, Chrom’s, the five counters. Split all of them, just so that we can have something consistent going on. Lou Cena (talk) 12:28, May 15, 2019 (EDT)

This is actually the wrong page for that. You're suppose to make a new proposal from here. That's what SerpentKing was referring to from before. And according to the rules, you are not suppose to restart a discussion that is ongoing somewhere else. You've already had been warned for doing that before. Wolff (talk) 18:29, May 15, 2019 (EDT)

I’m suggesting something different, which may not be appropriate for that page because it doesn’t relate to it. But you’re right. I’ll move this to its own page. Lou Cena (talk) 19:28, May 15, 2019 (EDT)

The idea you are suggesting "so that we can have something consistent going on", is technically already ongoing somewhere else and would technically go against the first rule. Wolff (talk) 19:33, May 15, 2019 (EDT)

Differences from... sections only for the official clones.

As the page suggest I think only the characters that are officially defined as clones should have "differences from" sections - to prevent bias and clear up confusion in circles. Particularly these characters.

		Luigi has a "differences from Mario" list on the website.
		Listed as model change characters by Sakurai himself.
	None
		Were balanced relative to original characters only.
		Nintendo put up a definition of echoes on their website.

--5.81.67.51 15:01, June 2, 2019 (EDT)

We have stated multiple times, no. CookiesCreme 15:29, June 2, 2019 (EDT)

Bumping this up, it seems like a reasonable idea to handle clones with as little bias as possible. The other clones who have too many gameplay differences can be handled in a different manner. Perhaps a mini summary on their attributes pages? --86.180.117.90 10:41, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

This discussion is closed and has been shut down multiple times. CookiesCreme 10:57, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

"Frozen Rayman" rumor to be added?

I was on SmashBoards and I saw people bringing up the "frozen Rayman" rumor, but it wasn't on the List of rumors and I can't edit the page. I was wondering if it could be added.

"Frozen Rayman" rumor

On May 8, 2019, a tweet from Pouchabaka pointed out what appeared to be Rayman frozen in the ice on Battlefield. This led to speculation about the possibility of him joining the roster.

- Mega Mario Man (talk) 21:21, June 5, 2019 (EDT)

No this isn't really a rumor just a little illusion with battlefeilds textures. this is 100% not a rumor and i don't think many people seriously took it as a sign of rayman coming since its just a illusion XtraTalk Edits 07:23, June 6, 2019 (EDT)

Change R.OB.’s icons across the wiki to reflect his non-japanese default

We’re an english-speaking wiki. Aside from the Famicom colors not existing in Brawl (which doesn’t stretch out to later games outside of japanese, Chinese, or Korean languages in all games after that), or the highest quality version on SSB4’s website and the only one with his shadow is the Famicom colors (which doesn’t stretch out to Ultimate), there’s no reason to have R.O.B.’s icons use the japanese default. I did list two reasons, but neither of them apply to Ultimate, and if I’ll be honest, both are lackluster reasons when compared to the fact that new non-contributors may be confused as to why the “wrong” default costume is everywhere. Lou Cena (talk) 00:47, June 17, 2019 (EDT)

Hm, what do you mean by the Famicom colors not existing in Brawl? Both the Famicom and NES palettes are there, it's just that Famicom R.O.B. is the default. Either way, this has been discussed a bit before, though there really wasn't much of a conversation when SSB4 came out. The main reason as far as I'm aware is just for consistency with Brawl. On one hand, there isn't really anything preventing us from switching the default to NES R.O.B. other than tradition, but on the other, it's well-known that Famicom R.O.B. is the default in Japan anyway, so it's not like it feels like the "wrong" one. (It's mentioned in for Wii U and Ultimate as a tip, for one.) Plus, the consistency just looks nicer, I think. DryKirby64 (talk) 00:59, June 17, 2019 (EDT)

The “not existing” part was an unfortunate mistake. My point is that it doesn’t make sense to mainly showcase the japanese ROB if we’re an english wiki, regardless of what past games use. Lou Cena (talk) 02:28, June 17, 2019 (EDT)

Mii costume pages

An IP recently brought up whether Mii costumes should have pages. I have no opinion on this matter, but I just want to bring discussion about that over here before it clogs up Navi’s talk page. Lou Cena (talk) 23:19, June 30, 2019 (EDT)

SK did say what he said, but Miles, Disaster Flare, and I discussed with him the fact that we've had them since Smash 4's DLC. Aidan, the Rurouni 23:21, June 30, 2019 (EDT)

That it no reason not to fix an almost 5 year mistake. 172.58.173.88 23:33, June 30, 2019 (EDT)

Fine then. You want us to play fair, at the very least, I will.

• Taunt characters have minor appearances, and, in the case of Navi, it's sometimes never explicitly stated to be the specific character. Characters who appear as taunts have less going for them than a character who appears as a Mii costume.
• With that said, characters who appear as taunts are also part of gameplay; I will fully concede this. They are, for all intents and purposes, as much a part of a character's appearance as a character in Smash as their alternate costumes are. A Mii costume should therefore be able to have a page, as should taunt characters.
• However, since both are such a minor appearance in the grand scheme of things, maybe the pages who are for characters who don't have a major appearance (such as an Assist Trophy or something else) should be deleted, since it's a minor appearance.

If we're absolutely playing it fair here, then I'm going to lean for the second option. Feel free to discuss. Aidan, the Rurouni 23:43, June 30, 2019 (EDT)

There isn’t a reason one can have over the other to have a page. I’d rather lean towards the taunt and mii costume characters, like Navi, Ribbon-Girl, Slime, and K.K. Slider, to have pages. I feel those appearances are MUCH MORE prominent then a trophy or spirit. Keep the Taunt and Mii costume characters’ pages. 172.58.173.88 23:55, June 30, 2019 (EDT)

I would say to keep them as appearing as a taunt or Mii costume does seem more notable when compared to background cameos or trophies. However, although I'd much rather like to keep them, I can still see them being deleted just as much. Wolff (talk) 11:29, July 2, 2019 (EDT)

Mii costumes should have pages, many of the Mii costumes of SSB4 became AT or Fighter in Ultimate. --Capstalker (talk) 14:03, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

To be honest, I've never fully seen the reasoning behind "a character gets a page if they affect gameplay", because that led to a bunch of Smash Tour items getting pages even though they're really the least notable thing possible. They could all go on a "List of Smash Tour items" page with little to no loss of information. But regardless, I agree with the idea that Mii costumes and taunt characters are about the same level of notability, so both are worth receiving their own pages. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 15:02, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

I feel like we need some kind of definition to help justify their pages. Yes, gameplay, as strange as it may seem, works for taunt characters and Tour Items, but what definition can we give the Mii costume allusions so they are not grouped with cameos? 47.199.39.81 15:35, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

They affect gameplay because they affect how the Mii Fighters look? I guess? I'm not sure if they change hitboxes or anything. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 16:32, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

Mii costumes are completely aesthetic, meaning it’s only looks different. It’s basically the Mii Fighters’ pallets swaps. They’re unfortunately pretty much just glorified cameos. They’re more so allusions as they are not actually the characters in question. I don’t want to delete the pages for the base characters of the Mii costumes, but I can’t think of a justified reason to warrant their pages. 47.199.39.81 21:44, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

Get rid of disambiguations for minor characters

We have a lot of disambiguation pages. And a lot of them are for a single character that's been spread between multiple trophy/sticker/spirit lists. I don't think a character who doesn't have a page here should have a disambiguation page. Especially not one that just links to lists where the character is present in. There shouldn't be an Amy Rose (disambiguation) when there's no actual Amy Rose page. If someone makes a recurring cameo in the Super Smash Bros. series, I think they should have a page on Smash Wiki. Or if they are just not relevant enough, maybe they should be deleted altogether. SeanWheeler (talk) 19:35, July 1, 2019 (EDT)

It's a tough spot because some characters are too minor to note in the context of Smash, but are major enough within their own series to warrant individual pages. At least from my experience, these disambiguation pages are mostly for the convenience of someone using the search engine to look for a particular character. For instance, someone who knows that Silver the Hedgehog appears in Smash, but doesn't recall where, can just type in "Silver the Hedgehog" and direct themselves to the proper appearance. For characters who only have one appearance (for example, Jingle), it just redirects to the sub-page that covers their appearance. I don't think it's the best solution, but getting rid of the disambiguation pages probably isn't a good approach either. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 19:43, July 1, 2019 (EDT)

They’ll still get results for characters like Silver and Amy just by searching their names, as long as their name are mentioned on a page. That would cover their cameos, trophies, stickers, and spirits. Because of that, the disambiguation pages doesn’t seem entirely necessary. Any page that have the same, or similar, names has a mention of it, or are suppose to, at the top of the page to avoid confusion. Being if those were actual pages. I think it would be necessary only if there was four or more pages that shared a name, not counting Final Destination and Battle Field. 47.199.39.81 19:57, July 1, 2019 (EDT)

I was always confused why some characters without pages tend to link back in on themselves when viewing their collectibles. (as in, they go back to the section of the page where I had just clicked the link) Shouldn't they just link to their respective wikis if possible? (or not at all) Their respective wikis already note their Smash appearances (Silver, Marin) so we don't really need to if we are not going to give them pages ourselves. Wolff (talk) 11:29, July 2, 2019 (EDT)

Here's an idea: How about each series could have a list of minor characters that have cameoed at least once in Smash but aren't relevant enough for their own articles? Like Amy Rose and Silver the Hedgehog can have their own sections in List of minor characters (Sonic series) and their names could redirect to their sections in the minor character list instead of the unnecessary disambiguations? It could be a similar thing that we did with List of minor universes and List of companies with minor representation. SeanWheeler (talk) 01:08, July 9, 2019 (EDT)

That’s good, but we don’t even need to make new pages either. We can just redirect all of them to Non-playable character. Lou Cena (talk) 02:07, July 9, 2019 (EDT)

Non-playable character doesn't exactly give any information on the characters who were just trophies, stickers and spirits. A user looking up Goron would not find him there. But if we make a List of minor characters (The Legend of Zelda series) and include a section for him, we could redirect Goron there. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:06, July 9, 2019 (EDT)

That's a good idea, like List of Pokémon, but should we make lists for each series?--Capstalker (talk) 13:42, July 25, 2019 (EDT)

Make UpdateList templates for Ultimate

Similar to the ones that were made for SSB4. It'll make it easier to ensure the list of updates pages match the individual character pages. Alex the Jigglypuff trainer 06:40, August 6, 2019 (EDT)

Quick warning that those are a lot of work. SerpentKing 17:14, September 9, 2019 (EDT)

Ultimate Character Presentation Videos

I noticed that the "livestream-style" presentations done for Hero and Banjo & Kazooie don't have a page anywhere. Considering those presentations are meant to be for them what "The Masked Rebel" was for Joker, and that video has a place on the list of Ultimate character trailers, should we put the Hero and BK videos on that page as well? I was considering branching them off into their own page, since we're likely going to see at least 7 more of them, but since "The Masked Rebel" is already covered on a page, any thoughts? Mega Mario Man (talk) 17:15, September 7, 2019 (EDT)

I'm confused on this proposal, since Hero and Banjo have their presentations listed on the page you linked. CookiesCreme 16:49, September 9, 2019 (EDT)

He proposes to add the presentation videos, the "new format" ones where Sakurai, while playing the game, goes over every aspect of the their gameplay. YoshiRyu (talk) 17:12, September 9, 2019 (EDT)

^ Exactly. Sakurai's informal "mock livestream" character presentations aren't covered anywhere, despite being Hero and BK's equivalent of Joker's "The Masked Rebel" trailer. I'd also like to discuss whether they should be on their own page or not, as the list of character trailers for Ultimate is composed entirely of character reveal trailers, aside from "The Masked Rebel". Mega Mario Man (talk) 22:44, September 9, 2019 (EDT)

"The Masked Rebel" isn't the full presentation, it's just the second Joker trailer. The full presentation, which explains Joker's moveset and Mementos in detail and covers also Mii costumes, stage builder and other changes isn't covered anywhere on this wiki. --Rdrfc (talk) 05:59, September 10, 2019 (EDT)

Would rather put these in new article called "List of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate video presentations" OR put under "Miscellaneous video presentations" (most non "Direct"-named video presentations) in the Nintendo Direct page, since we had a section for "50-Fact" video for Smash 4 (an example of a video presentation that doesn't have a "Direct" in its name). And speaking of which the other video presentation, like the SSBU segment in E3 2018 Direct, was already covered in the E3 page. Infinite8Bros64 (talk) 08:21, September 10, 2019 (EDT)

I think "List of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate video presentations" works pretty well. Take "The Masked Rebel" off of the list of character trailers and put it on this new page under the full version (which includes the other sections on Video Editor, Smash World, etc.), and put "Mr. Sakurai Presents “Hero”" and "Mr. Sakurai Presents "Banjo & Kazooie"" plus any further "Mr. Sakurai Presents" videos on that page. (On second thought, based on the titles of the latter two videos, maybe "Mr. Sakurai Presents" could also be a good title.) Mega Mario Man (talk) 18:34, September 11, 2019 (EDT)

Languages

With the ease of switching languages in Smash Bros. Ultimate, I've been curiously looking at the names of various subjects in the different languages, like playable characters, special moves, spirits, etc... Unless it's hidden somewhere I didn't find, I don't think we cover much of anything on this wiki regarding different languages, aside from Japanese and the Spanish version of the wiki. Would there be any interest in bringing the names of stuff in different languages here? I have a minor fascination with other languages, so I don't mind doing some of the work and transcribing the names of stuff for here. I just don't want to do it if nobody here wants it, y'know? Shadow2 (talk) 00:03, September 22, 2019 (EDT)

We cover these things in the List of regional version differences pages (the one for Ultimate is currently a draft), but we indeed don't cover the international names for moves anywhere. I am neutral about starting to do things Mariowiki or Bulbapedia style; it's nice and doesn't really detract from anything, but it is also a big undertaking and one that wouldn't have much of an audience because most smashers (myself included) are so used to English names as opposed to the names from their native tongue. Rdrfc (talk) 03:32, September 22, 2019 (EDT)

I like the different language boxes on Mario Wiki and Bulbapedia. --Meester Tweester (talk) 14:35, September 23, 2019 (EDT)

I agree with this; I think it's a good idea. Aykrivwassup (talk) 11:08, March 10, 2020 (EDT)

Stretch Offsets on Ultimate Hitbox Tables to be put next to the usual ones, as well as adding a heading for them to the default template.

Ultimate has a LOT of stretch hitboxes compared to previous games, and in editing the King K. Rool attack pages I had a lot of issues putting them in. I attempted to do "xstretch=x" on the USmash page and it wound up jutting out with no header, so I had to compromise with the Special S4 Hitbox table. There are also other pages for K. Rool with these offsets simply omitted due to the problems with presentation. Could some kind of modification to the template be made to accommodate for this? --Plague von Karma (talk) 19:03, December 9, 2019 (EST)

With the amount of extended hitboxes, it would be good to have the second offsets with the firsts. Having them to the other side of the table is just inconvenient. - Hitbox Enthusiast Zeck (talk) 19:06, December 9, 2019 (EST)

Merge Phantom Thief pages to Phantom Thieves of Hearts

I'm not sure whether to make this a standalone proposal or not, but since someone just created a page for Goro Akechi that's up for deletion, I'm wondering if it'd be a better idea to merge all of the Phantom Thieves into a single page. Besides Morgana (who's a Mii hat and part of Joker's actual moveset), none of them really have enough of a role in Ultimate to carry their own pages, but I think it'd be more worthwhile as part of a singular page. Give brief biographies for each of the members in list format (maybe similar to Hero?), and then sum up their in-game role in a simple and easy way: "The Phantom Thieves appear in Joker's Final Smash, along with their voices in Joker's victory poses. They also cameo on Mementos, aside from Futaba." The page art could use the group Spirit artwork, and Goro could be mentioned as an aside. Does that sound like it'd work out? ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 01:20, May 19, 2020 (EDT)

Oppose. All the other Phantom Thieves have more representation than Goro (background character, victory screen quotes, spirts, and All-Out Attack). They are also, for the most part, not represented as the collective group, but individually. I believe it would be more accurate having them separated than only having the Phantom Thieves page. CookiesCreme 10:23, May 19, 2020 (EDT

Support. Even though it is true that the Phantom Thieves have more forms of representation than basically any other non-playable character in Smash, I believe that because all of them share variations of the same form of representation, it would be feasible to simply cover them all at once and list what is unique between each character. It would lead to a much longer article than either of the Thieves have individually, yes, but I think that the largest component of that article would be the condensed spirit table itself. From what I see on all of their articles, there are comprehensive character biographies in their Origin sections. This does contribute to strengthening an encyclopedic record of these characters in general, but the way I see it: basically nothing recorded there has anything to do with how these characters actually appear in Smash. For every single Phantom Thief, especially the (from what I hear) half-member Goro Akechi who only appears as a Spirit, we can just give a short character summary - not a history that feels like a Persona Wiki excerpt, but a summary of general information to create a basic understanding of the character. Plus, they're all already part of a team anyways, with said team having a group-shot spirit itself.

A point which has been brought up before is that their comprehensive Origin sections help establish context for their Spirit battles, which have many references to the characters and their experiences in Persona 5. Well, that's absolutely true!.. and each spirit battle there already contains either simple facts about the character that a reader can just take for face value there, AND links to comprehensive articles on the Persona wiki about things from Persona that don't appear here in Smash. We can do that for each Thief's origin on a Phantom Thieves article too - just say that "Persona Wiki has an article about [character]". It really, really doesn't seem that hard or out of the question to merge these articles together. Yes, each thief has an appearance in a Final Smash, and as a background character, and on a victory screen, and as a Spirit! And they do each and every one of these things in the exact same way, which in my eyes really could give us leeway to cover these things all at once while recording the minor variations between how each character does them. I don't want to come off as too stubborn on this, so soon I'm going to work on a draft to just see if my convictions about the feasibility of this are well-placed. Acgamer28 13:47, May 19, 2020 (EDT)

I would agree with cookies on this. S3AHAWK (talk) 15:09, May 19, 2020 (EDT)

Oppose. They’re different characters and also what if one of the human characters got Mii costumes it would be out of place for one of the phantom thieves (not counting Joker) to have page but the others don’t. Thegameandwatch (talk) 03:30, May 20, 2020 (EDT)

Oppose, per what Cookies already said. No offense, Acgamer, but I have read your draft and it did not convince me that merging them would work. You did a good job at slimming down their biographies though, which were admittedly a bit too long for minor characters (this is a problem that doesn't apply only to them btw). --Rdrfc (talk) 05:42, May 20, 2020 (EDT)

Thanks, Rd. Slimming down their bios feels like it was the hardest part so far. However, can I ask what what sort of things you may have taken issue with in the draft? It isn't 100% complete atm - I still have to add info on their in-game appearances and a few other things. Is there any way you think I could further improve the draft or are you just opposed to the idea in principle? (Asking this more as constructive criticism than trying to defend my draft. At the end of the day, it's is mainly practice for myself as an editor). Acgamer28 09:37, May 20, 2020 (EDT)

I have to agree after seeing the draft that it might be a little bit too much to merge them into one page. I was thinking it could work like the Koopalings, but seeing it in practice, it's just too much info to condense. It's a structurally sound draft, just not a good idea in general. But I'd be in favor of implementing the more abbreviated biographies you did, Acgamer. Thanks for your input, everyone. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 18:45, May 20, 2020 (EDT)

Well, it is what it is. I'll still complete my draft as practice, but if I get a green light I'd definitely love to at least condense each character's backstories on their main articles. If there are other character articles with the same problem, as mentioned previously by Rdrfc, I'd help take care of them as well. Acgamer28 00:42, May 21, 2020 (EDT)

On a related note, I think Phantom Thieves of Hearts could be made into a disambiguation page.--Rdrfc (talk) 10:48, May 22, 2020 (EDT)

That would be a good idea. Nice way to at least group links to each individual Thief without a user having to go to an article with the Persona universe table at the bottom. Acgamer28 13:56, May 22, 2020 (EDT)

Merge Smash Service, Share, and Shared Content into new general article

I am unsure if this should be made a general proposal, but seeing as how another propsal about a multi-article merge was recently created, I figured I would do the same about a smaller case I've noticed recently. The Smash Service, Share, and Shared Content articles were each tagged for merging almost a year ago by a user who stated that they're all generally the same feature with variations across each installment (Brawl for SS, SSB4 for Share, and Ultimate for Shared Content.) I agree with what this user has said, and even though a case can be made that they are each different ways of publishing content, we may benefit from having an article about shared Smash content in general. It seems much more practical to mention all these features on one page (I've already created a basic draft of what such an article could look like in my userspace. The Smash Service article in particular is a stub which may not be easily fixed after its discontinuation, as explained by a message left by Omega Tyrant on its talk page. Currently I've only moved the content of these three articles directly into my draft, so I think that effectively writing a general article will require a fresh perspective on the topic - but how does everybody feel about this idea? Acgamer28 01:40, May 20, 2020 (EDT)

Thanks for the input, everybody! The article's up at Content sharing. Acgamer28 16:21, June 19, 2020 (EDT)

Removing comments about character buffs/nerfs in “changes” sections

I brought this topic up to Disaster Flare a few weeks ago, and he suggested that a proper vote on it should probably take place before action is taken. I feel that statements such as the following that are found on character pages should be removed:

“Possibly as a result of being ranked #_ out of #_ in __, (insert character here) has been buffed/nerfed in the transition to __.”

To my knowledge, it’s never been proven or confirmed that the developers change every single character based on their tier status in the previous game. Thus, I feel as though statements like these fall under speculation, especially due to words like “possibly” being used. OmegaToad64 also brought up a good point when I asked Flare about it. Characters that were higher-tiered in previous games can still be buffed, and vice versa as well. Examples in Ultimate include Pikachu, Peach, Ness, and Little Mac. However, some more drastic cases, such as Bayonetta and Pichu in Ultimate, I feel are more understandable regarding these statements and probably could be left as is. Gizmo (talk) 20:35, May 27, 2020 (EDT)

Support Everything I said here applies to this as well. Also at the same time, I would suggest removing statements like "Despite being ranked (tier#) in (previous game)'s tier list, (character) has been buffed/nerfed in the transition to (new game)". These statements have always sounded somewhat opinionated to me, I even removed it several times from articles but they keep being added back in. OmegαToαd64 • the Best Kαrter 20:56, May 27, 2020 (EDT)

Support While there is generally evidence for those, the buffs and nerfs to a character are not solely based off of their placement on a tier list. CookiesCreme 22:13, May 27, 2020 (EDT)

Support. For 99% of cases, tier lists / competitive placings do not dictate how a character is changed. This seems like a generally good idea. Acgamer28 00:36, May 28, 2020 (EDT)

Just giving this a slight bump. I’m not sure when consensus is allowed to be reached for general proposals. Gizmo (talk) 13:30, June 8, 2020 (EDT)

Support per reasons above. 46.229.158.109 15:37, June 8, 2020 (EDT)

Support, this has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. It feels like some extreme self-insertion since there are way more tier lists than just the Smashboards ones. It's really annoying.

I also feel that competitive play sections of articles should be more objective about whether nerfs actually affected a character. There's a lot of times where pages say "on top of all these issues this character was nerfed" in competitive play sections without considering the context of the changes. There's times these changes are extremely minor or are part of a rework, yet they're really overexaggerated. If buffs/nerfs are to be considered in these areas, they should be very well-explained. For example, did a nerf remove a valuable combo, or did it hurt their movement or advantage state? Things like that are critical in assessing viability. -Plague von Karma 15:49, June 8, 2020 (EDT)

To be honest those should be listed on the "changes from Smash 4" sections instead. The competitive play section is generally used to explain the character's metagame. CookiesCreme 15:53, June 8, 2020 (EDT)

Agreed. It isn't just that though, I'm also talking about patches. A lot of pages tend to really gas up those. For example, Palutena and Joker have been nerfed, but are both still omnipresent meta characters. King K. Rool has been buffed, and while he's no longer bottom tier, he's at the low end of mid tier at best. However, some would cite his early meta nerfs when if anything the Vacuum nerf did nothing and the down throw "nerf" was more of a buff than anything. These kinds of non-context patch citations are all over the wiki. They should explain why they mattered. -Plague von Karma 16:01, June 8, 2020 (EDT)

K.Rool's 2.0.0 nerfs were quite relevant in lower level play, where K.Rool could get quick and easy kills using his down throw, and threaten the ledge for a very long period of time. Those shouldn't be downplayed. --MrMHM (talk) 12:54, June 11, 2020 (EDT)

K rool was only considered overpowered in low level play, and even then not to a huge extent. More experienced players could still take advantage of his weaknesses (slow moves, predictable recovery, suspectable to combos, etc) to where he was never seen as an actual threat. I'm not a top professional yet I could still take advantage of his weaknesses before his nerfs (PK Flash=gimping machine). OmegαToαd64 18:36, June 11, 2020 (EDT)

Create policy on the handling of Origin Sections on Move Pages

The Wiki Discord had a large debate about this, but I have a bunch of issues myself with how these are handled. There's a lot of inconsistency, and a lot of things that don't make sense. I feel something should be appended to the Manual of Style in regards to how origin section images should be used to avoid this in the future. This can also help add consistency to how the pages are made and handled, making everything more uniform.

In my opinion, the origin section of a move page should do the following:

• Show when the source material version of the move was introduced into its series.
  • If a specific incarnation of the move is being referenced, specify this as well.
• Provide information on what the source material version of the move does.
• Give an image of the source material version of the move that fits with the above points.

A lot of the time, however, the last point here seems to be ignored. Some of the pages that show move origins use images that are seemingly random or just don't fit. Shinryuken says that it was introduced in Street Fighter Alpha, but uses a move GIF from Marvel VS Capcom. Marvel VS Capcom is a crossover series and not a great representation of where Shinryuken came from. I can understand Hadoken and other moves using Street Fighter II Turbo, as Sakurai specifically stated that he based Ryu and Ken on their Street Fighter II appearances, but Shinryuken is odd. These discrepancies are very widespread across move pages, and I've been meaning to make a proposal about this for a long time.

So to solve this, I think that there should be policy in the Manual of Style designed to make these sections more consistent. Personally, I feel that when an origin page talks about where a move came from, it should use an image that qualifies as one of the following;

1) Is the move's original appearance.

• eg. Confusion used by Mewtwo in Pokemon Red and Green.
• I feel this helps in the instance I talked about before specifically. If the origin section says "this came from here", I expect to see "here" to better illustrate the reference. It's a nice helpful touch that better gets across the point. In Confusion's case, an image of Mewtwo or Kadabra using the move in Red and Green would help to better show how the move has evolved, no?
• Cross Chop is a good example of this being done badly; it talks about the move being introduced in Pokemon Gold and Silver but uses an image from Sun and Moon. I feel this is a bit incoherent. If a move's series origin is being specified, I feel that an image showing it would make a lot more sense. In this case, a Pokemon like Machamp using Cross Chop in Pokemon Gold would show the series origin a lot more clearly.

2) Is clearly where the move was referenced from, by official statement, being an obvious reference or otherwise. In the case of it being "obvious", it should be from a time period where it could have been referenced at all.

• eg. Petey Piranha is specifically the Brawl incarnation, given the Cages.
• This is something Voqéo and a few others bought up. The Origin sections should use images that Smash clearly could have been referencing at the time. For example, for a Brawl special move, the images used should be from that time period or before. It's called an Origin section, and thus it should specifically use the actual origin. I don't see how images from games far and away after a Smash title was released make sense to be on the origin sections.
• There are some niche instances where it makes sense, such as Grappling Hook and Byleth's moves, as there are times where Masahiro Sakurai and other developers will play games before release. This is part of the development cycle.
• Rebel's Guard is an example of this being done well. It specifies that the stance Joker takes is identical to the Persona switching stance during battle, and also notes that the Tetrakarn/Makarakarn sound effect is from the game.

In the case of handling remakes, I feel there should be some kind of clear-cut policy. Some bought this up and it opened up a massive can of worms. The main one being whether they're the same game or different ones. The scale of remakes can vary greatly; there's Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition which is mostly enhanced graphics, while there's also Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen which completely changed the graphics, mechanics and everything. I feel an easy way to avoid this would be to bring up Point 2 and disregard remakes, but the argument that they are the same game can be made. I personally believe that the scale of remakes makes it difficult to judge outside of a case-by-case basis, which inherently adds inconsistency to this kind of policy, not to mention the idea of ports with enhanced graphics or something like that.

A blanket way of handling remakes feels like one of the only ways to maintain consistency: only consider originals unless the source material is officially specified to come from a remake. This seems like the best way to go about these issues without opening this rabbit hole topic. One alternative was proposed by Zeckemyro that talked about having both on a page, but in the cases of a game being remade multiple times (such as the Generation 1 Pokemon games; RGBY, FRLG, LGPE), this can get messy. I also think that it would lead to a lot of file space being taken up.

In the case of implementing this, I am more than happy to help with every Pokemon page, and possibly a few others. I have access to a ton of save editing tools to greatly streamline the process. They could be done within a day. --Plague von Karma 01:53, June 12, 2020 (EDT)

I agree; this is something that's bothered me for a while and I'd like to have some consistency about this. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing if remakes or newer games are used alongside the originals to further illustrate the point. It's very case-by-case, but the blanket policy should be use the earliest pre-Smash origin unless it's specifically referencing a particular game. For example, Psystrike more clearly resembles its Smash iteration in Sun/Moon, which in turn is reflected in its Ultimate appearance; therefore, using both Black/White and Sun/Moon would be valid. Peach Parasol is a good example of this in my eyes, as it uses both reasonable pre-Melee origins—Peach's parasol in Super Mario RPG and the Mario Party 3 Parasol Plummet minigame—and then elaborates on how it evolved after it first appeared—Peach gaining a parasol in later games like Super Paper Mario that was then matched by Smash. Besides that, I can't say much that isn't reiterating points already raised, but allow me to provide my support. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk)

Support Plague von Karma and Serena Strawberry have pretty much summed up my take nicely, so I don't have anything to add at the moment. VoqéoT 05:11, June 12, 2020 (EDT)

Support. Even though I'm not as concerned about this matter as other editors, I understand there's a lot of room for improvement on many Origin sections, especially when it comes to general consistency. The guidelines proposed by Plague seem very good to me - in my opinion, they should be common sense when creating Origin sections. I'm all for revising wiki policies to be more clear-cut and definitive, and this seems like a step in the right direction. Acgamer28 13:05, June 12, 2020 (EDT)

Support, though I don't have much to add. CookiesCreme 12:29, June 20, 2020 (EDT)

Support per all 46.229.158.109 14:42, June 26, 2020 (EDT)

Dont Support While I am ok with changes only Pokemon or really any JRPG franchise should remain the same as right now because unlike other games these games don't have great animations in their origin game and Pokémon that came from Red and Green suffer the most from this proposal Thegameandwatch (talk) 17:50, June 26, 2020 (EDT)

Sorry for the late reply here, I don't use the wiki as frequently as I used to. Anyway...mmm, I don't feel inclined to agree here. Aesthetics aren't necessarily the name of the game here. The purpose of an origin section is to provide, well, the origin of a move. The issue that these sections have right now in serving that purpose is, long and far, the consistency factor. If there is to be new origin section policy, it must be uniform and precise. Specifically excluding Pokemon and RPGs from this, solely due to the subjective opinion that they look bad, is not good policy. Some individuals may think that the old aesthetic looks good, and that opinion is extremely popular among retro gamers. That alone already makes this idea shaky. We cannot go with opinion when enforcing this kind of policy, it just doesn't work. I hope my explanation was clear. --Plague von Karma 12:53, June 28, 2020 (EDT)

Bumping this. I really want to see this get put through. --Plague von Karma 17:13, September 2, 2020 (EDT)

Spirit type template

I propose a simple template that simplifies the type icons for Spirits. Something similar to Template:TypeIcon where all it needs is the type and size, perhaps even an option to display the type's name like the "Fighter Battle" tables do.

Here are my reasons:

1. It would save on bytes. The current format is [[File:SpiritType<Type>.png|20px|center|<Type>]] which uses 44-50 bytes. Something like {{SpiritType|t=<Type>}} would use 21-24 bytes; +5 to specify size. With over 1300 Spirits it would save at minimum 26k bytes on the complete list alone, double that to include the series lists, and more than double it again for the Spirit Battles, events, individual pages, etc.
2. Minimize paste errors. It is pretty easy to only change one part of the file and not the other when new Spirits are added, leading to a Spirit with either the wrong type icon or wrong alt text.
3. Standardizing. This one is more personal, but to me it feels like Spirits didn't receive the same treatment as the other collectibles. I feel this would be a step towards getting Spirits to the same level of cleanliness as Trophies and Stickers.

--CanvasK (talk) 10:17, June 18, 2020 (EDT)

Support per proposal. 46.229.158.109 11:01, June 18, 2020 (EDT)

Support, definitely would cut down on bytes, and would be more convenient. Alex the Weeb 10:55, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

Support per what Alex bought up, and the proposal. --Plague von Karma 09:33, July 22, 2020 (EDT)

Bump, I guess. How much does it take for a general proposal to pass? If this is enough I'm willing to create and implement the template. --CanvasK (talk) 15:14, October 20, 2020 (EDT)

Creating an article on the July 2020 sexual misconduct allegations

Simply put, these allegations have had a massive effect on the community, and have changed the way certain smashers will be viewed forever. It has also noticeably affected the player base, with many high level players permanently dropping out or being banned due to their involvement or participation in sexual misconduct/harassment. Currently, finding information on this is a messy process, as it's all scattered on individual smasher articles, making it difficult to pinpoint who is and isn't involved, which highlights the need for such an article, and we definitely have a responsibility to clearly present the information that is known about this serious situation, both for current and historical purposes. Alex the Weeb 10:55, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

Staff discussed this while preparing the general response to how the wiki is handling it, and the unanimous decision was that it will not have a page for the moment. Toomai Glittershine The Pan-Galactic 10:57, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

I think it's a good idea that we wait for at the very least half a month after all of the allegations seem to die down before we even start evaluating the idea of making an article. We should probably even have a disclaimer on this hypothetical article denoting it as sensitive, indefinitely prone-to-change material related to a controversy. There's no way to handle an article about these allegations that isn't touchy. But, I still firmly believe that in terms of notability alone, these allegations are absolutely worth recording - they've rocked the whole Smash community to say the very least. Acgamer28 13:11, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

While I don't think this is a good idea to do right now, if/when we are going to do it, it might me a better idea to make a general "List of Smashers accused of sexual misconduct" which would allow us to include cases that have been brought to light since before (or afterwards, in the future) this last wave of allegations happened. I also think this should include only smashers that were already notable prior to being outed as sex offenders. --Rdrfc (talk) 13:45, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

That sort of list article is an even worse idea because it actively draws negative attention. Toomai Glittershine The Rainbow 17:59, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

Then again, we could name that page "fallen Smashers" and protect it immediately after creation to deter said negative attention. Or something. JustSomeCloudMain who ain't interested (talk) 20:20, July 5, 2020 (EDT)

It's probably a bad idea to make a page right now because the allegations could be mentioned in the "Smashers" pages. Thegameandwatch The Nerd 11:15, July 15, 2020 (EDT)

Wi-Fi Warrior Category

As the name says, a category for players who are considered "Wi-Fi Warriors." A basic guideline for this can be the Wi-Fi Warrior Rank, which itself should have its own category as well. CookiesCreme 13:32, July 7, 2020 (EDT)

Support per nominator. 217.149.243.2 15:31, July 12, 2020 (EDT)

Support. The WiFi support the wiki has been doing recently would benefit a lot from this. It's basically the WiFi PGR. --Plague von Karma 22:07, July 18, 2020 (EDT)

Support. --Meester Tweester (talk) 19:39, July 22, 2020 (EDT)

Support. Not much to add. Señor Mexicano (talk) 20:45, July 22, 2020 (EDT)

Support. Seems like a no-brainer in the name of organization. Acgamer28 02:24, July 24, 2020 (EDT)

Totally as shown above, sounds like a good idea to make a wifi warriors category. S3AHAWK (talk) 02:27, July 24, 2020 (EDT)

Support, even though the category is already created. NPM Morr!? 03:12, July 24, 2020 (EDT)

Support, Its great idea not much to say. Thegameandwatch The Nerd 22:36, July 24, 2020 (EDT)

Policy on objective, informed handling of Buffs/Nerfs

SmashWiki has a bit of a bad reputation for how it talks about character changes. I propose that proper, clear-cut policy is made for handling these. Pages such as Ultimate Kirby and Mr. Game & Watch have had some spectacularly bad reviews on changes that can even be considered laughable. This is particularly prevalent outside of changelogs; eg. Attributes, changes from previous games, and competitive play. I believe there should be a much higher quality standard for these pages.

This is the policy I want put forward;

1) When reviewing changes, said changes should be of competitive relevance and explain how they affected the character.

2) Just listing off changes without explanation in some Chewbacca Defense style should just be banned as a whole, that's for the changelog.

3) Sensationalism should be just cut out (eg. Talking about how Judge 9 has a 2× SDI multiplier as if it remotely affects the kill power should just not be a thing)

I'll go over each of these, point by point.

Point 1

Here's Snake's ground game changes from Brawl; "In addition, while his ground game still remains strong, it has been nerfed in several ways; his neutral attack has less range and is significantly weaker, his forward tilt has less range, deals far less damage, the first hit has been altered removing its ability to trip and the second hit is slower and weaker. His up tilt's infamously deceptive horizontal range has been reduced, and the explosions from his explosion-based attacks can now be absorbed, worsening his matchups against Ness, Lucas, and Mr. Game & Watch."

The explosion-based attacks part? Great, that's what I want to see. It cites character matchups made worse as a result of the changes. I believe more detail could be used though, as the explosion-based attacks are hardly isolated to ground game.

However, the rest of this just falls apart. Jab, FTilt and UTilt are severely lacking in the explanation we see for explosion-based attacks. I think this is partly due to the explosion stuff being low-hanging fruit. Jab, imo, was hardly a relevant change for Snake and is better suited for the changelog. FTilt's damage nerf actually made it connect into itself much less often, and less safe on shield, resulting in less in-context kill power; that would be a competitively relevant change that needs citing here. UTilt is still deceptively large, and in terms of how it's noted, it's very sacky and just kind of forced in.

Here's the thing, when a character is changed, the following should be analyzed in order:

• The move's actual changes
• What the numbers mean; hitstun, safety on hit/shield, cooldown, etc.
• How this affects the character in-context (eg. Is the move now safe on whiff? Does the move combo?)

This is a basic overview, but you can put together what I mean now, right?

So for example, with Snake's FTilt...

"Forward tilt's damage was decreased, and the first hit's trip chance was removed, making it connect into itself less consistently. This also removed its trip-centric combos. The second hit was also made slower, further increasing the inconsistency. The lessened damage and increased lag overall also reduced its shield safety."

While this isn't the best explanation, it should be a good example on how this kind of change is analyzed. Notice how entirely new points are bought up from simple analysis of what's there.

There's also the issue of little to no explanation being given on a nerf, when there should be. One example of poor explanation can be seen on Pichu's page, in the Changes from Melee section;

"Combined with it being the lightest character in the game and its fast falling speed, Pichu is also easy to combo despite having a small hurtbox size. However, this weakness became more exploitable in patch 3.1.0 as Pichu's hurtbox size increased, making it easier to hit as well."

Not only does this have a double-parallel written in that makes it read worse than a low-level Falcon player trying to DAir in neutral, this doesn't explain what hurtbox was increased, thus leaving it with no context to the reader. Pichu's ear hurtboxes were what was increased (making Pichu overall bigger than Pikachu), and the shifts from Pichu's animations to make it slightly more difficult to hit than what's being represented here. This leads to a sensationalized "damage report" that makes the character look worse than they actually are. Why is this in the Melee changes section, by the way?

In addition, the Pichu case doesn't actually explain how big the hurtbox change was. Moves that involve Pichu's ears (eg. USmash, NAir, FAir, Skull Bash) are made far less safe to throw out. It just says "easier to hit", when there are ways for Pichu to work around it. Moves such as DSmash have tons of intangibility, shield is a thing(!), etc. This should also be cited to show how the nerf affected Pichu's game plan. The surface-level analysis seen here has no place here.

Point 2

God, I hate this. A lot of pages have a tendency to bloat the changes section just listing off changes without much attention. It's almost as if people who have never played the characters in their lives wrote them. They just list off the issues as if they were some kind of changelog, when said changelog is usually close by. It's redundant, uninformative and does nothing to show what the changes meant.

For instance, let's look at Duck Hunt's changes from Smash 4, specifically regarding their aerials and Trick Shot setups.

"Some of their aerials have also been worsened: clean neutral aerial's noticeably lower knockback growth hinders its KO potential, forward aerial has a slightly shorter duration, and down aerial no longer auto-cancels with a short hop."

"Lastly, Trick Shot has lost some of its set-ups into Clay Shooting, while the latter is harder to destroy and its shrapnel can also damage Duck Hunt."

Notice a problem? Yeah, these sentences don't explain anything after the note on clean NAir. What does the shortened hitbox duration for FAir mean? What does the SHAC DAir removal mean? What setups were removed? What bearing do these have on DH's competitive relevance? You can't just list off the nerfs as if they all actually matter. You need to go over what these nerfs actually did to the character, the context needs to be there. The changelog is there for listing off this stuff. The part about setups here is almost what I want to see. The setups removed should be more detailed and explained, going over why these don't work as a result of the nerfs. That's what should be talked about, not just the numbers.

Now here's Diddy Kong's Ultimate page, which should have a very good analysis on what happened to him, right? After all, this is a fallen top tier.

His staple moves have all been worsened in various ways, hindering his once excellent neutral game; the most notable example is his Banana Peel, which cannot be grabbed as quickly due to himreleasing it at a higher arc, and although it can now be thrown twice at opponents before disappearing, this also gives them more opportunities to use it against him. Among other examples, Monkey Flip has more ending lag, up aerial is harder to hit due to possessing a large blind spot in front of Diddy, and his up tilt and down tilt, the latter having been previously infamous for easily setting up combos and KO setups into his up smash, have shorter range that makes them harder to take advantage of.

...the hell is this? Typos, weasel words, and what's basically a vague version of the changelog afterwards. Banana Peel is explained decently well, but then sensationalizes the part about it being thrown twice meaning it makes it easier to use against him. You know he has ways to confirm both hits, right...right? Monkey Flip's lag increase doesn't explain anything about its old movement utility, how it adversely affected his recovery prepatch, or anything. Then the writer added UAir, UTilt and DTilt into what should be different sentences entirely. UAir's blindspot citation doesn't go over decreased combo utility or anything. DTilt is talked about well, but UTilt is written in a very forced way, with attention directed away from it, making it out as if it shouldn't be noted at all. It's all extremely messy that makes it hard for me to even explain why it's bad.

Point 3

This one toes the line of objective VS subjective, but I think we can easily go over this. Many character change overviews have a severe issue with going over a few minor changes as if they're the end of the world or god's gift to mankind.

"Judge 9 has a much higher SDI multiplier (0× → 2×), allowing the opponent to manipulate their launch position to improve their chances of surviving, and shift their position when shielding the move to make it easier to punish, due to its high hitlag."

I believe we can agree that this is a reach, since this move can still easily kill at what, 15%? Hell, human reaction time is hardly going to react to this...it's insane. This is in the changelogs for Mr. Game & Watch from Smash 4 to Ultimate. A friend of mine who's basically the authority on this character tried to edit this once only for it to come back with the text you see now.

This bit from Little Mac's Smash 4 to Ultimate changes also deserves some scrutiny.

"However, the removal of perfect pivoting, the universal reduction of jumpsquats and landing lag are the changes that hinder him more than any other character; the former change eliminates his extremely strong micro spacing tactics, while the changes to dash-canceling do not fully compensate for this. Meanwhile, the latter two changes benefit his terrible aerial game far less while strengthening most of the cast's aerial games to varying degrees, making him more vulnerable to combos and aerial rushdowns, which limits him more to shielding a move or directly contesting them by making use of his smash attacks’ super armor to muscle through them, which can be risky."

My issue here comes from "hinder him more than any other character". The explanation given is actually alright and provides something that many of these analyses have: greater metagame relevance. The talk about mechanical changes is great. But, the issue here is it uses the subjective opinion of Little Mac being hindered by all of those removals the most, as a definitive. I could argue Shulk's loss of perfect pivoting hurt him the most due to how long it was, or that Samus losing perfect pivot Charge Shot is problematic. I could also argue that the universal landing lag and jumpsquat decrease hurt King Dedede the most as it makes his already poor shield game easier to abuse. This, in my opinion, comes off as a sensationalist approach to analyzing Little Mac's changes.

So read this, and tell me if you think this is a changelog note on Joker's page, or in the overview prior.

"In patch 3.1.0 a few game bugs were fixed, and Eigaon's hits now connect more reliably."

Difficult, innit? It's actually in the overview, with no explanation. No analysis, no explanation on relevance, nothing. Just a vague repeat of what can just be...read in the changelog. If anything it's just taking up bytes. I hate it.

While I don't have the time or energy to get more, DracoRex can just talk about the absolute ridiculous history of the SSBU Kirby page where some guy tried to say Hammer's changes made it a camping tool.

---

I'm sure I missed bits and there could easily be more policy, but it's 11 PM and this is more just a hall of shame / mad rant at this point. --Plague von Karma 18:07, July 25, 2020 (EDT)

Bumping this. I really want to see this get put through. --Plague von Karma 17:13, September 2, 2020 (EDT)

Link to game specific character pages in type pages

Generally, when referring to moves that fall under a specific category (such as the Effect pages), moves that are only used by a character in one game (i.e Ultimate newcomer moves, custom moves in Smash 4, moves that only appeared in one game) link to the game specific character page rather than the general character page. However, this is not the case for the type pages, making an inconsistency.

It is arguably best for type pages to link directly to the game specific character page when a move is only used in one game for the following reasons:

• Consistency with other pages.
• Allows the reader to easily find a detailed description of the move they are looking for.
• If the reader is looking for the general character page, it is linked at the top of the game specific character page.
• Navigating from the game specific character page to the general character page is easier to navigate than the other way around, as the general character page can link to up to five game specific character pages, with only one of them containing the information the reader is looking for.

For a visual on how this is formatted, I recommend scanning over the character links on the Electric and Flame pages. Both have various examples of how this is format is used. RandomUltimate (talk) 13:34, September 3, 2020 (EDT)

It very much seems to me as though linking to pages differently for some fighters than others, as you are suggesting, is in itself inconsistent. Contrary to what you have claimed, it is remarkably easy to find the game specific articles for fighters, as you can just click the links at the very top of the general fighter articles. Also, I really don't know what you're talking about when you say that it's not as easy to get to a game specific article from a general article, as the reasoning you give is that there can be up to 5 games linked to, but you're only proposing we link to game-specific articles for fighters who are only in one game, in which case there'd only be one link anyway, making your argument invalid. Finally, if you wanted further information on a specific move, you'd likely only find significant detail on it if it has its own article, in which case we can simply link to the relevant article in the column with the move listed.

Frankly, I think the effect articles should adopt the convention of the type articles, and not the other way around. Alex the Weeb 13:59, September 3, 2020 (EDT)

I can see where you are coming from, but first off we should not assume the intellect of the reader, nor how well they know how to navigate the wiki. Regarding details on a move's article, not all information on that page is always present, such as % given which is always found on game specific character pages. Also, some move pages do not exist, such as various get-up attack pages. Your statement about linking to the the article on a move can be a problem in cases where you would have to link more than one article (for example, linking Mario's f-smash to their own articles on the flame article would require 4 or 5 links. Your statement about linking to game-specific articles for fighters only Ultimate ignore my statement about custom moves and moves that have been removed or replaced. For example, pit's Final Smash in Smash 4 would be found in the flame article, but not his Final Smash in Brawl or Ultimate. Therefore, you would link to Pit (SSB4) since it refers to a move he only uses in Smash 4. Finally, I'd like to point out that special move articles are already linked to in the articles. RandomUltimate (talk) 14:23, September 3, 2020 (EDT)

I don't think you properly understand what I have said. It is very easy to get from general articles to game specific articles, so if you are concerned about users being unable to figure this out, you should also be concerned about getting to general articles from game specific articles. You are correct that some move pages do not exist, but in which case it's even less likely that you'd be able to find much detail on the game specific articles, but this doesn't matter because, again, it is very easy to get to these articles. Also, due to the way that tables are laid out, it would still be impossible to link to SSB4 character articles, as we would link to the general article, due to all SSB4 characters being in Ultimate, and thus there aren't any cases where this would apply. Alex the Weeb 14:36, September 3, 2020 (EDT)

I understand what you mean about how easy it is to get to articles but not all readers will recognise the abbreviations or the names of the smash games, however getting from a game specific character page to a general character page is much easier since there is only one link as opposed to up to five, which like I said, not all readers will recognise the abbreviations used. And I have no clue what you mean about it being impossible to link SSB4 articles. For example, the paralyse page lists a decent amount of custom moves that are only in Smash 4, and in those cases it links to the game specific character page for Smash 4. If it were to link to the general character page, readers may have a problem looking for that specific move since it is exclusive to one game. If it were to link to the Ultimate page, that would put the reader off track. RandomUltimate (talk) 15:33, September 3, 2020 (EDT)

For me it is less about ease of getting to the fighter page and more about consistency. I think many would find it jarring to, for example, be going through arm, clicking through the fighters and be confused why Wolf took them to his general page and Zelda took them to her Brawl page. There's also the less important editing side. In the event that Smash 6 comes out then some fighters introduced in Ultimate that reappear will need to have their links changed. (It's also easier to but the square brackets than to check the game for each fighter) --CanvasK (talk) 18:12, September 3, 2020 (EDT)

The editing side won't be a problem, like in all previous games, the newcomer characters would get announced in advance before the game is released, allowing us to create their character pages and game specific character pages in advance. When the game is released to the public, the wiki would be put in the red zone, and plenty of articles would be edited daily. Changing the characters links is not hard, as the only thing required is changing the "[" to a "{" at times, as well as adding the abbreviation of the game.RandomUltimate (talk) 12:02, September 4, 2020 (EDT)

Which is why I mentioned it was less important. I think I was tired of making the tables that specific links wasn't on my mind.

I would like to mention the tables for the Attack pages. Dash attack, floor attack, and neutral special move all have tables which link to the general fighter page, even for fighters who've only been in one game (ie Ultimate DLC fighters). --CanvasK (talk) 12:37, September 4, 2020 (EDT)

Those pages should be left that way since it lists all characters in all iterations, rather than specific moves that may only apply to one game. All of the Ultimate newcomers in those pages would link to their general character page. However the type and effect pages list only certain characters that apply, with only certains moves that can sometimes only be found in one game. If this only applied to Ultimate newcomers, linking to general character pages would not be a problem because that page only links to one game specific character page. However, this also applies to custom moves and moves in previous games, where linking to the general character page could lead to confusion. Linking Ultimate newcomers to their game specific character page on type and effect pages is done just for consistency. RandomUltimate (talk) 17:03, September 4, 2020 (EDT)

I've been reading your back and forth about this. I don't have any particular opinion about it, but seeing you all caught up in that debate about what option is the best, I think you forgot something: Why not both? The wiki could simply propose, each time a fighter is mentionned, both a link to its general page and a link to each game related page, something like this:

Mario (SSB, SSBM, SSBB, SSB4, SSBU) (or rather the same thing with the game icons instead, would be cleaner)

A template could even be made for that so every time a character is referenced, the users have direct access to any page they want. And I'm going the lazy way here, but if someone is motivated enough to make it, the template could even be designed to be a lot more fancy, like putting the name of a fighter as a direct link to its general page, but adding next to that name a single sub-menu icon which, when clicked, open a pop-up list with the links to each game specific fighter page. YoshiRyu (talk) 03:37, September 5, 2020 (EDT)

I think the only way something like that could work is to do something like this with the game icons: . Alex the Weeb 03:57, September 5, 2020 (EDT)

I thought about suggesting listing all of the games, but something rubbed me the wrong way originally. Anyways, here's my idea on how to do that. Also wouldn't this be better discussed on the Type talk page since that is the only thing of concern? --CanvasK (talk) 06:52, September 5, 2020 (EDT)

I agree that this is the best way to handle the situation, and it does not take up much space on the article. RandomUltimate (talk) 10:22, September 8, 2020 (EDT)

How to name Lucario and Charizard's Smash 4 final smash articles

The discussion for this is extremely fragmented (and confusingly executed) on the respective articles, so I figured I'd put this here. Most final smash article names follow the official final smash names, but Mega Charizard X and Mega Lucario are an exception to this. It has been argued that these should not be exceptions to this rule, however both final smashes share the same official name, "Mega Evolution", which means that some form of unofficial distinction between the two titles would need to be made.

So far, one solution has been suggested: we name the articles "Mega Evolution (Charizard)" and "Mega Evolution (Lucario)". This would be consistent with the method used for distinguishing the trophy names in Smash 4. What are your thoughts on this, and do you have any alternate suggestions for how to handle this? Alex the Weeb 06:32, September 26, 2020 (EDT)

Personally I believe SmashWiki is not official should only be applied to fan terms, so I agree with the split. CookiesCreme 23:43, October 17, 2020 (EDT)

Create interwiki templates for non-NIWA wikis

I brought this up on the Discord, but seeing as there are now many characters in Smash from series that do not have NIWA wikis, I would like to ask if there's room to consider adding non-NIWA wikis to the interwiki templates. This would allow for, for example, infoboxes and such to link to these wikis. The primary ones I'm sure can be added with no drawbacks are the Banjo-Kazooie wiki (Jiggywikki; independent and high-quality) and the Minecraft wiki (on Gamepedia; official and also high-quality). Most others only have Wikia/Fandom wikis, which would be more tenuous to include without further discussion. I think this would be worthwhile for streamlining and avoiding having an "External Links" section at the end of every third-party character's article. Would it be worth considering, and does it follow the current policies in place as of now? ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 19:05, October 2, 2020 (EDT)

Support. I really see no downside to this, though I wonder how far we should go into this. For example should we also link to series exclusively tied to a Mii Fighter costume? Señor Mexicano (talk) 20:44, October 2, 2020 (EDT)

I would say playable universes only, since the rest wouldn't have enough representation for a template to be useful. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 20:49, October 2, 2020 (EDT)

To add onto this a bit, the Minecraft wiki feels like it'd be the most natural one to partner with, and I was considering asking them if they would like to make it a formal partnership—cross-referencing where possible and so on. I'm guessing that'd require permission from people higher up than me, though. The others would just be useful to have links to. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 21:53, October 2, 2020 (EDT)

Bump for this, as more people are active now. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 16:57, October 3, 2020 (EDT)

Support. We can't just be limited to NIWA wikis especially with Smash introducing more and more 3rd party characters. CookiesCreme 23:41, October 17, 2020 (EDT)