Forum:Attempt to fix the Notable Players sections number 2

Forums: Index → Proposals → Attempt to fix the Notable Players sections number 2

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

The wiki has known this to be a problem for several years now, yet the notable players sections has continue to persist in being bloated in the character articles for every game (except for Brawl's, guess that's one upside of few people still caring about that game), and it has become quite the overwhelming problem to manage. These sections were originally made with the intention of noting each characters' "most historically significant players", not as a place to throw every pretty noteworthy player on there, however this clearly was not achieved. I blame a part of this for how poorly this idea is communicated through the title of these sections (you just need to be considered "notable" to have an article at all, how does that differ from being "notable" for these sections?), the fact the guidelines for these sections are buried in our general notability policy page and thus most random part-time editors responsible for the bloat will never see it, and the lack of a strict limit that allows the "line" for what's acceptable to be pushed farther and farther. So I propose implementing the following:

• Rename the sections. I'm unsure of this now, but even just going with "Most notable players" will convey the idea of what they're for better. If you have any suggestions, please tell us.

• Put a hard limit to listing no more than ten players on these sections for each character; when a reader is presented with a long list, they're naturally going to get overwhelmed and gloss over what's written there, while for most characters there isn't going to be more than ten players that are especially important to their current history. It's an arbitrary limit, but one that's high enough to cover who really merits it in most cases, while setting a hard line to save wiki editors the work of having to keep out the riffraff. Note that this limit will not be required to be filled, so substandard inclusions shouldn't be accepted just because the character doesn't have ten players listed yet.
  • However in the case of characters with especially huge playerbases like Melee Fox where the ten player limit would clearly not do them justice, they can get an exemption to increase their limit to say 15 or even 20 players. This will be decided by a case-by-case basis, and can be proposed on the relevant characters' talk pages.
  • Daisy, Richter, Dark Samus, and Dark Pit will have their sections shared with their respective parent character, it would be silly to maintain separate lists for what are essentially the same character (or nearly the same in the case of Dark Pit), and not doing this would effectively give those characters essentially double the player limit. Not doing this could also allow someone to try "gaming" the system to get their name in one of these sections ("Oh I'm not a significant enough player to crack the top ten for Peach? But I'm actually a Daisy player, so put me on the Daisy list that isn't filled up yet").

• In every section for every character of every game, put an editing notice that lists the player limit for that character, and directs people to read the guidelines before adding or replacing anyone. It might be a pain adding such a notice to every single character article, but it'll be the only way to get the driveby IPs and the non-invested part time users to see what our standards are, and save us a lot of bad edits in the process.

• In controversial cases where wiki users can not decide if a player truly belongs or who to have on when two or more players are heavily contested for the "final spot" in one of these sections, we'll try to defer to the characters' respective discord channels for an "official" ruling (or some other authority if the discord is non-cooperative or if any problem is raised against that specific discord).

• New characters will not be allowed these sections at all until six months after their release, and at that point they'll be given a default five player limit, which will only be increased to ten a year after their release. This standard will additionally be applied to future Smash games. It's common sense, early results are always the most dubious and tend to have little if any lasting impact on the character's competitive history, while many players will drop the character within that timeframe. So this will save us from having to deal with a lot of questionable rapidly-changing crud and from having to try splitting hairs between similar low-sample early results.

• I'm going to rewrite the aforementioned guidelines to be more clear on the standards (and add what this proposal does), but one big amendment I plan is to no longer entirely dismiss online results. With Covid, about half of Ult's competitive life has been online now, and both Ult + Melee are going to have over a year of their competitive history be pretty much entirely online. Of course online results will naturally be given less weight, and big offline players prior to Covid who don't play online won't be removed (such as Light), but we shouldn't be pretending this online era didn't happen, nor inherently give players from weak isolated regions more weight to their "notability claim" just because they got to play in some restricted offline tournies, compared to an online player competing against and achieving wins against stronger competition.

Well that's it, state your support/oppose, and suggest any additional ideas you have. Omega Tyrant 15:20, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Support

1. you have my sword. —-Lattie (talk) 15:32, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
2. Immensely support. I will probably never be able to find it, and I've probably brought this up before, but I'll never forget seeing a Facebook post in a Smash Bros. group where the OP asked about getting onto Smash 4 Pit's notable players section, and the comments were absolutely filled with "lmao add yourself". I'm hoping that communications both between the wiki and the greater community as well as inside the wiki itself will help solidify exactly what these sections are supposed to be for, and give players who deserve a spotlight exactly that. Aidan, the Rurouni 15:32, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
3. Yeah, this is pretty much perfect. Go for it. -Plague von Karma 15:46, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
4. Sounds good to me. Hitbox Enthusiast Zeck (talk) 15:49, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
5. I like most of it. Though I'm still somewhat wary on the Wi-Fi results I'm honestly not too against adding in notable online players to the section after discussion on Discord. CookiesCreme 16:13, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Oppose

1. Soft oppose I agree with most of the ideas behind this but I do feel this is too black and white of a take. I'm open to reconsidering and thing OT did a great job with this. But for now I don't back the policy. Wiifitkid (talk) 17:18, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
2. Soft oppose: Agreeing with wiifitkid on this. Most of the notable players sections are fine the way they are, though I would be open for similar ideas. Right now I'd probably be focusing more on international players, as they have significant impacts overseas as well. MemeDedede (talk) 17:21, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Neutral

1. Certainly an improvement over the other proposal, although I'm still not sure how I feel about setting hard limits. Regarding the name change, I'd suggest something along the lines of "Top players" or something to that effect. Alex the Weeb 15:37, March 24, 2021 (EDT)
2. While some things here are quite worthy of support, I think you seriously overstate how big a deal it is to list clones' competitive usage together. Let's just acknowledge in the main text when two characters are similar in competitive play and not make the fully disingenuous move of listing somebody who exclusively plays Richter as a Simon player. I feel that, as you have currently stated it, I cannot support this proposal as a whole because of this. Miles (talk) 15:40, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Comments

I'm assuming the echo sections would basically be "Peach and Daisy professionals" and specify which character they use more. CookiesCreme 15:26, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

The players' summaries can still note if they largely or only play one of those Echo pairs, we just won't treat the playerbases as entirely separate for this purpose and we'll judge the results with the characters the same (which will also save us the trouble of eschewing say a noteworthy enough Paisy player that uses them in about equal usage, just because their results are "split" between the two and thus they have less results with each "individual character" than whatever tenth string players we have listed for Peach and Daisy). Omega Tyrant 15:54, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

A couple pieces Im not sure about. First, I don't think a final arbitration is a good idea as that gives a sense of a finality. While I do think it's a good idea to ask discords, I can tell you from experience a top 10 list will cause a lot of debate and disagreement (even if there are commonalities). I do like like the idea of a hard limit but I'm not sure if 10 is too limiting. We would need to see how it played out. That said, I like the idea of expanding the number beyond 10 for popular characters (see Palutena). Finally, it's not a huge deal but I'm not a fan of merging the echos. I don't feel that gaming the system is really going to be problematic as Daisy already has like 10 players listed and more importantly I don't feel like players will care enough to switch their main to an alt just to get listed. I don't feel it's our place to determine which characters should get sections and which ones shouldn't because their too similar to one another. The game already considers them separate characters. Otherwise I agree with this proposal. Wiifitkid (talk) 15:33, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

"First, I don't think a final arbitration is a good idea as that gives a sense of a finality."

I would rather defer to some authority when wiki users are split and there's no clear consensus, as often these things aren't fully objective.

"While I do think it's a good idea to ask discords, I can tell you from experience a top 10 list will cause a lot of debate and disagreement (even if there are commonalities)"

We're not going to be asking them to be making "top ten lists", simply if there's an especially contentious player to add or there's a dispute on who to add between two or more players for whatever remaining spots there are, we'll simply defer to them on if the player should be there or which of the disputed player(s) should be listed.

"I do like like the idea of a hard limit but I'm not sure if 10 is too limiting."

Ten is certainly more than enough for most characters; besides the list itself getting painfully long, once you get to that point you're often listing players of a clearly lower level of impact, and we want these lists to be strict, both to list the information readers are actually interested in and save us the arguments that get more contentious the lower you go.

"Finally, it's not a huge deal but I'm not a fan of merging the echos. I don't feel that gaming the system is really going to be problematic as Daisy already has like 10 players listed and more importantly I don't feel like players will care enough to switch their main to an alt just to get listed."

Like I said, you're essentially doubling up and giving the same character twice the limit, just because they happened to be given a glorified alt, and as stated to Cookies, it creates more complications for evaluating results to judge who belongs if you're going to try judging the results of these equivalent characters separately, while leaving the scenario possible where you leave out a deserving Paisy player from being listed on either section for an inferior Peach player and inferior "Daisy player" because the former "split" their results. And you underestimate how much people care, you can see what some people tried doing to their smasher articles over the years to know there are some people who do care about what the wiki has about them (and I would bet a non-negligible chunk of this bloat is from people covertly adding themselves).

"I don't feel it's our place to determine which characters should get sections and which ones shouldn't because their too similar to one another. The game already considers them separate characters."

SmashWiki is not official, we're not binded to what the game "decided" for all cases, and we have a clear cut objective reasoning here for doing so, while about everyone outside the wiki treats their playerbases and results as the same. Omega Tyrant 15:54, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

There's no harm in listing competitively-similar clones separately and cross-linking them for those who wish to gauge their results together, and in my opinion this is far more reasonable and accurate than conflating multiple characters' playerbases together even if said characters are clones. Miles (talk) 15:59, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

But like I said in discord, there is harm, when you're doubling up the lists for essentially duplicate characters and thus causing bloat we're trying to get rid of in the first place, creating complications in trying to pretend their results are different that makes the lists more contentious and potentially leave out deserving players (e.g. the player who plays both characters of an Echo pair equally being left out for the inferior "specialist" who technically has greater "individual results"), opening the possibility for egocentric players to try gaming us to get listed, and making the wiki act in a way that no one else in the competitive community does (no one else when making tier lists, matchups, rankings, and anything evaluating results try to pretend these characters are separate meta entities). Omega Tyrant 16:52, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

I agree their input should be valued and brought in. But what I meaning is that their is going to be bias even with them as players that actively engage their characters discords are automatically going to get more favoritism that one not. I've seen a lot of people include wii fits that are marked semi-professional on this wiki as a top 10 wii fit (some even have compelling arguments like adding grafetti) over players deemed professional on here. Whereas if you asked the same question to the Japanese or French wii fit discords you make a different answer simply because different wii fits engage those communities. Regardless, I don't think it will be a huge deal but I'd rather we just use the discord/expert info as a piece to the puzzle so to speak.

On the 10 player limit, Smash has a huge competitive international scene, I'm not seeing how there isn't the possibility 10 could be too limiting. Wiifitkid (talk) 16:10, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

"I agree their input should be valued and brought in. But what I meaning is that their is going to be bias even with them as players that actively engage their characters discords are automatically going to get more favoritism that one not."

Bias is unavoidable no matter who you ask, and frankly I'm going to trust the actual players on who they think the more historically significant player of their character is than the wiki users that can't come to consensus.

"I've seen a lot of people include wii fits that are marked semi-professional on this wiki as a top 10 wii fit"

The "skill rating" on the smasher articles are rather irrelevant here and should be taken with a grain of salt anyway (they're rather vaguely defined as is).

"On the 10 player limit, Smash has a huge competitive international scene, I'm not seeing how there isn't the possibility 10 could be too limiting."

Frankly just being "best X player from Y country" really isn't "historically significant" in a lot of cases, as most countries do have substantially smaller + weaker scenes, and trying to force representation for every country will just lead to huge bloated lists of marginally noteworthy information that few would want to actually read. If a player from a smaller country hasn't done enough to merit being listed over whatever ten players are currently listed, then it's just too bad, we need a strict standard and anyone interested in those other players in those lists can go follow the category link to read about the rest of them. Omega Tyrant 16:52, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

This does also go off my concern that I noted in my support statement: should we start labeling certain Wi-Fi Warriors as "professionals" if they're going to be listed in the notable players section? CookiesCreme 16:42, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

I don't see the big deal with listing any especially successful wifi warrior a skill rating of "professional", and am baffled at how it started being enforced that online players have to be called "semi-professional" at best. Omega Tyrant 16:52, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

So would it be safe to say that anyone ranked on the WWR can be rated "professional"? CookiesCreme 16:55, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Potentially, depends on the player exactly but in either case I don't like restricting the "professional" skill rating from online players that are clearly that good. Omega Tyrant 17:25, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

@Wiifitkid: We need some black and white limits on this, the alternative is what led us to the mess we have on our hands now.

@Alex: "Top players" runs into the same issue of being too broad as "Notable players" did, and also conveys the idea that any top player who has played the character should be listed, while also conveying the wrong idea for lower tier characters that often don't have many true top players (if any) but do have players that clearly significant to the character's history. Omega Tyrant 17:25, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

@MemeDedede: I don't know how you can look at most of these ridiculously bloated sections and think they're "mostly fine" as is, while wanting to add even more players to them. Remember those sections are meant to be directing readers to the most historically significant players of the character, not just be a list of every pretty good player the character ever had. For a list of all players, that is what the character-specific player categories are for. All the added fluff serves to do is undermine those categories, dilute the information actually interesting to readers, turn off readers when their entire monitor screen is filled up by a huge list of marginally-significant players, and makes those sections a lot harder to enforce (the lower the bar, the murkier cases will get and the more often people will be trying to insert their favorite player/friend/themselves into these sections). Omega Tyrant 18:27, March 24, 2021 (EDT)