Template talk:Infobox Smasher

Archive

1. 1

The top-level smasher category

In the same way that we don't put someone in both Category:American smashers and Category:New York smashers, why should we automatically put every smasher into Category:Smashers? It's basically a category containing the entire namespace (plus images, those are fine). I propose we delete the auto-inclusion of the top-level smasher category. Toomai Glittershine The Celeritous 17:58, 18 October 2013 (EDT)

Support for removal of the Category:Smashers on the smasher pages With the smasher pages already having the title, Smasher:X person, the Smashers category is redundant on their page as well. Dots The Meta Knight 18:41, 18 October 2013 (EDT)

So that if someone's looking for articles on a bunch of smashers, they can find them. I don't see what's wrong with a category containing every single smasher article just for organization purposes. Awesome Cardinal 2000 00:15, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

Assuming that every smasher page has the top-level smasher category (which is clearly the intent of having it in the template), the category pretty much becomes a duplicate of Special:AllPages for the Smasher: namespace in addition to being a parent category. It might have been useful before the namespace was added; it certainly isn't now. Toomai Glittershine The Brass 00:43, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

Having a category for the smasher articles is simpler and easier to find than using AllPages. Awesome Cardinal 2000 13:52, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

That's like saying it's okay to have a page called "Characters (SSBB)" that contains all the info found on every Brawl character page. Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 17:40, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

The Smashers category does not contain full information on every smasher, it just lists them. I don't see why every character can be categorized into Category:Characters, but smasher articles cannot be categorized into Category:Smashers. If someone wanted to find a page listing all the characters that appear in Smash, they could go to the category, and if someone wanted to find a list of every smasher, they could go to Category:Smashers. Awesome Cardinal 2000 19:40, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

Fixing Category:Characters is the next step then. Toomai Glittershine The Sharp 22:07, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

Would you mind giving a reason or two why you think having the categories there is harmful? Awesome Cardinal 2000 23:32, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

1. Having both "New York smashers" and "Smashers" (or "Characters (SSBB)" and "Characters", etc) in the categories list of a page is redundant. This is hopefully obvious.
2. Bots don't care either way, as long as they're smart enough to recurse (XL is).
3. We don't have to do things just because Wikipedia does, but for the record, they say pages should only be in both a category and a subcategory when the subcategory is not part of a group of mutually-exclusive sets.
4. We currently list all smashers in three ways: everyone in one namespace, everyone in one category, and everyone split into regional subcategories. Usually if you're doing one thing in multiple ways you're doing it wrong. The namespace is kind of a historical artifact that would probably be extremely tedious/difficult to remove. Having regional subcategories is common sense. What's the odd one out here? Toomai Glittershine The Metroid 00:31, 20 October 2013 (EDT)

Support for removal of the Category:Smashers on the smasher pages There's no reason for them to be there when they're /automatically included/. Scr7(talk · contribs) 04:15, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

I hope you understand the idea here is to delete both the manual inclusion and the automatic inclusion. Toomai Glittershine The Golden 09:12, 19 October 2013 (EDT)

Anybody else want to say something about this before I remove the Smasher category include on the smasherbeta? Going to do it in like a few hours if no one else opposes, not to be jumping the gun but. Dots The Arceus 18:32, 24 October 2013 (EDT)

Adding a Project M mains to the template

Something I'd like to propose, as many Smashers play different characters in Project M than in Melee or Brawl. --Timson622222 (talk) 22:38, 4 November 2013 (EST)

Former mains

Some pro players drop notable characters such as UmbreonMow dropping Mewtwo --TheLegendaryKRB (talk) 23:59, 15 February 2014 (EST)

Skill level field

We used to document as many smashers as possible, but now we're more specific and only cover notable players. Is this field really needed if it's always going to say "professional" or a variant thereof? - Ceci n’est pas un Smiddle. 12:38, 19 February 2014 (EST)

Yes it's needed, we're still covering players of varying skill, and it serves as a nice shorthand for the player's particular level at each game they play. Omega Tyrant

March

March doesnt work in the template. Look at my page. Its proof. --TheLegendaryKRB (talk) 13:10, 2 March 2014 (EST)

If you actually look at the template, you'll see that it uses numbers instead. Scr7(talk · contribs) 13:14, 2 March 2014 (EST)

ok --TheLegendaryKRB (talk) 13:52, 2 March 2014 (EST)

Years Active?

Would it make sense to add a section in the Smasher Template about a Smasher's Activity in the Smash Scene, or is it just really unneeded? I can understand by the fact you can just put retired in parenthesis or mention that they are retired in the body of the article itself, but think we'd be able to give the readers an idea of when they were active? ~C_Mill24 —Preceding unsigned comment added by C Mill24 (talk • contribs) 19:30, 7 March 2014 (EST)

This seems to me like the kind of thing that is fine in the article body, since it tends to be more complex than just a range of years. Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 22:11, 7 March 2014 (EST)

Other Doubles Characters

Since we have other characters for everything else why not for Doubles players??? JCaesar could use it for Wario. Also even if you have one doubles main it will still say Doubles Mains. Just saying. --TheLegendaryKRB (talk) 09:46, 4 April 2014 (EDT)

I wonder if anyones gonna answer??? --User:Myth|<font color="yellow">'''Myth'''</font> File:Myth Kirby.png|19px|link=User talk:Myth (talk) 17:26, 8 April 2014 (EDT)

Combined SSB4 Parameter

Would it be sensible to add combined SSB4 parameters? I'm sure many people are just going to have the same things listed twice for smash 3ds and smash wiiu. It would be nice to have an option to simply add SSB4 parameters, but also leave the individual 3ds and wiiu parameters for people who have them different. ♡FirstaLasto♥ 21:47, 6 November 2014 (EST)

I'd wait till SSB4-Wii U comes out, to see whether people go with their mains in 3DS or not before making a decision. Qwerty (talk) 22:01, 6 November 2014 (EST)

I now have the Wii U version and I can confirm that pretty much every character bug not related to stages is shared between the two versions (even bizzare ones like Dark Pit Kirby being able to float proceeding a throw, and minor animation jitters like Jigglypuffs aerial turning animation.) Seems pretty same to assume that the character are identical between the versions because of this. Besides, even if some people did change their mains due to something other than controller options, I dont see why thats a reason not to include optional mixed SSB4 parameters here. ♡FirstaLasto♥ 00:43, 22 November 2014 (EST)

The game has been out for a while now, so I'm gonna bump this. ♡FirstaLasto♥ 17:24, 4 December 2014 (EST)

Line breaks

The forced line break at “Other SSB4 (Wii U)<br />characters” (and possibly others) causes strange formatting because there may already be a soft break before (there is one after “Wii” on my current browser). I think it should be removed. —Fenhl 03:38, 13 February 2015 (EST)

Skill demotions

Is it possible for one smasher, say he used to be a "top professional", gets demoted to "professional" in skill for not being as dominate as he used to be in the past? Dots (talk) The Omega 17:55, 20 March 2015 (EDT)

Debatable, as we should make clear the highest rank in the scene the smasher in question achieved. Although it's worth noting: I don't think we have set criteria for what distinguishes those two ranks you mentioned, so I'm not sure where one would draw the line. Miles (talk) 17:57, 20 March 2015 (EDT)

How I see it: To be a "professional" is a player who is notably skilled enough to win locals and regionals, while "top professionals" means that a player is notable for being one of the best in his/her region or even his/her country and can often win locals and regionals and is able to place decently (if not highly) in nationals. Dots (talk) The Meta Knight 18:08, 20 March 2015 (EDT)

Customs mains

I propose new parameters for listing customs mains in Smash 4. Many smashers main different characters when custom moves are enabled, so with the rising popularity of customs I think this is something we need. —Fenhl 20:21, 1 April 2015 (EDT)

That seems unnecessarily complex for the purposes of an infobox. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 21:52, 1 April 2015 (EDT)

Crew vs. sponsor

Since the affiliations of professional Smash players nowadays are called "sponsors" instead of crews," I propose that a new section called "sponsors" be added to this template, and any other relevant section of the wiki have its terminology changed from "crew" to "sponsor." (such as creating categories for sponsors instead of crews, etc.) Awesome Cardinal 2000 17:06, 17 April 2015 (EDT)

Isn't there a distinct difference between a "crew" (bunch of players that get together and call themselves a group) and a "sponsor" (company says "we'll give you money if you use our tag")? Toomai Glittershine The Superlative 17:17, 17 April 2015 (EDT)

Several sponsors treat their group of players as a crew of sorts, as well. I think the two are often conflated because of the ambiguity in definition. Miles (talk) 17:34, 17 April 2015 (EDT)

The sponsors here are still categorized as "Crew" under the smasherbeta template. Awesome Cardinal 2000 19:47, 17 April 2015 (EDT)

Move

Strong support "Beta" indicates that it's a prototype that may need some kinks ironed out. This is not the case, as the template appears to be final and works perfectly fine. Berrenta (talk) 09:39, 10 July 2015 (EDT)

Support per Berrenta —Fenhl 09:52, 10 July 2015 (EDT)

Support as per the above as well as reducing page size (I know it's insignificant, but over a good number of pages). Can we get a bot (XL) on this? ScoreCounter 10:11, 10 July 2015 (EDT)

As the poster, I strong support this, per Berrenta. Serpent King (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2015 (EDT)

Support per all. How hasn't it been moved yet? Nyargleblargle (Talk) 12:33, 13 July 2015 (EDT)

I'm assuming the only reason this wasn't done ages ago was because of the hassle of fixing all the associated usages, although given we can use XL I'm not sure there's a reason not to go forward with the move. Miles (talk) 12:52, 13 July 2015 (EDT)

Strong Support if it's not a hassle to do this with a bot, neutral if it is. I don't know how wikibots work, but I think they can be automated to replace {{Smasherbeta with {{Smasher (assuming this is the desired result). - EndGenuity (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2015 (EDT)

Even though it's a longer name, I would recommend Smasher Infobox instead of just Smasher, to match the format of all our other infoboxes. Toomai Glittershine The Sphere 13:18, 13 July 2015 (EDT)

I didn't think of this. We should probably move it there, in that case. Nyargleblargle (Talk) 13:20, 13 July 2015 (EDT)

2 changes suggested:

1. We break the skill parameter into games.
2. We ditch the brawlcode parameter as it is now obsolete. Serpent∞King (talk) 16:30, 13 September 2015 (EDT)

here is what I came up with. Only parameters that were skipped in the example were the 2ndmain, other, 2ndother, moreother, doubles, and 2nddoubles parameters for each game. Serpent∞King (talk) 17:17, 13 September 2015 (EDT)

sr.eu links

For European players, it could be relevant to include a parameter for linking to their page on http://smashranking.eu, which has data on just about every tourney since two years. – Smiddle 06:59, 2 February 2016 (EST)

Bump. Maybe we could do some thing that imports results from the site as well. – Smiddle 02:45, 2 March 2016 (EST)

I would like that Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 13:24, 25 March 2016 (EDT)

Yeah, for these players we could list only the most important tourneys, and let the rest of the results be linked. – Smiddle 10:28, 31 May 2016 (EDT)

Former Mains?

Can i add that to the code for something like Mango's Jigglypuff, Hax's Falcon, Plup's Samus, etc. Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 14:01, 27 March 2016 (EDT)

Bump Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 09:15, 28 March 2016 (EDT)

Bump Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 19:21, 30 March 2016 (EDT)

Bump Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 16:06, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

And how would that work? Toomai Glittershine The Quiet 16:09, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

What do you mean by that? Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 17:20, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

Well players often have several, several dropped characters...The section would end up getting clustered. Serpent King 17:30, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

I see your point, but then we could do Notable mains instead Poultry(talk) the Team Liquid 17:34, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

That's the point. I know of a number of Smashers who notably mained multiple characters they ended up dropping. It'd still be quite clustered. Disaster Flare (talk) 17:37, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

We'd also have to have a section for SSB, SSBM, SSBB, SSB4, SSB4-Wii U, SSB4-3DS, and PM, overly lengthening the infobox in some cases. Serpent King 17:38, 31 March 2016 (EDT)

We already have "other [game] characters" which works fine. For the record, the infobox doesn't have to contain all the info. If someone was famous for playing one character, just write it in the article. – Smiddle 10:26, 31 May 2016 (EDT)

Move

Support because tag Poultry(talk) the God-Slayer 18:32, 14 May 2016 (EDT)

Oppose A change like this would affect literally every smasher article on the entire wiki, and we'd have to go through the trouble of tracking down every single one and updating it. That's more trouble than it's worth imo. Disaster Flare (talk) 18:36, 14 May 2016 (EDT)

We have XL Poultry(talk) the God-Slayer 18:38, 14 May 2016 (EDT)

Support per Poultry and the tag. Consistency in template names is always a good thing. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 22:21, 14 May 2016 (EDT)

Should have been that name in the first place, Support. Serpent King 22:37, 14 May 2016 (EDT)

Support. As long as the bot can take care of fixing all templates. -- Ethan(Discussion) 22:58, 14 May 2016 (EDT)

Support. Ganonmew, The Evil Clone 12:50, 15 May 2016 (EDT)

Support as long as we don't have to fix it manually. BaconMaster 12:57, 15 May 2016 (EDT)

Multiple alias layout

Example: Smasher:Simna ibn Sind

Does this layout look okay for multiple aliases? Or should they be de-emphasized a bit, smaller font, maybe underneath on a new line? I could try putting the commas back in, too, if that's preferred. ライケン Rigel Kent (talk) 05:36, 29 July 2016 (EDT)

My first reaction is "why do we have aliases in that part of the infobox at all?". If someone goes by that many names, it makes more sense to have an entry in the infobox for them, not stuff them all into the title. Toomai Glittershine The Different 09:49, 29 July 2016 (EDT)

Yeah, that's the extreme example, it has more aliases than any other article at the moment. Most look more like Smasher:Wobbles. I'll sketch out some possibilities:

Wobbles "Honorbound"

SSB4 main	Wario

Wobbles

"Honorbound"

SSB4 main	Wario

Wobbles

"Honorbound"

SSB4 main	Wario

Wobbles

"Honorbound"

SSB4 main	Wario

Wobbles

Also known as	Honorbound
SSB4 main	Wario

ライケン Rigel Kent (talk) 17:17, 29 July 2016 (EDT)

First and third look best to me. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 18:40, 29 July 2016 (EDT)

On second glance, the fourth one is confusing, it looks too much like an image caption. I like the third one too. I'll style it that way for now. Thanks! (As for Smasher:Simna ibn Sind, maybe the aliases could be trimmed down a little.) ライケン Rigel Kent (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2016 (EDT)

I agree with Toomai. The primary alias is enough in the infobox. Additional aliases may be covered in the article. – Smiddle 09:19, 15 October 2016 (EDT)

Social media links

How about adding these to the template? Feels a lot more relevant than 3DS / Miiverse info tbh. – Smiddle 09:19, 28 December 2016 (EST)

Character -> Fighter

Please see my move request on Main character's talk page. Fighter is just overall a better, more proper term and I would like to see it used in this infobox. I'm unsure if I'm supposed to get permission before editing such a widely used template, so here I am, awaiting approval. It'll only take me a few minutes and nobody'll care, really. Sincerely, Samuel the BANjO-KAZOOiE Boss. 13:08, December 7, 2020 (EST)

Changes to the Skill parameter

This is a closed discussion about an accepted proposed change on SmashWiki. It remains for archival purposes.

Since this infobox's inception in ye olden days of SmashWiki, there has been a Skill parameter, with the acceptable entries being "Professional" and variations of it. However, the usage of "Professional" seems to be a relic from the MLG era, where MLG would call its qualifying players "Professionals", which was picked up by the Smash players at the time, and we have since been stuck using terminology that has never really sat right:

• While "Professional" can be used to refer to someone who is just good at something, the more prominent definition is to refer to someone who has made a legitimate career out of a thing. There are very few Smash players who could legitimately be called "Professionals" in that regard, and while the terminology doesn't need to be strictly used that way, we repeatedly have had issues where people have taken the Skill parameter to mean that rather than just "Professional means good player", as well as some mockery over the wiki's usage of "Professional".

• It just isn't prominent terminology within the Smash community. People don't say "Top professional", they just say "Top player"; people don't say "Pro-amateur", they just say "Mid level player", and so on.

• The current terminology accepted within the Skill parameter doesn't really give us room to expand our options to use within the parameter, "Top professional" itself isn't actually a formal term, and it could be argued that we could use another designation or two on top of what we already have, given for how many players "Top professional" gets thrown on that are still clearly below the actual top echelon but clearly above what we typically call "Professional" level players (e.g. there's a difference between higher end and lower end PGR players, and there's a difference between the lower-end PGR players and good players who aren't PGR'd). If we were to add another option between "Top professional" and "Professional", what could we even call it that still fits within the terminology? "Higher professional"? "Upper professional"? "Almost top but not quite professional"? It would get silly.

With all that said, I'm formally proposing we change the terminology we use, as well as opening discussion on adding additional options. I'm open to hearing ideas, but to start with, what we have now could be changed to:

• Top professional -> Top level
• Professional -> High level
• Semi-professional -> High-mid level
• Pro-amateur -> Mid level
• Amateur -> Low level

We could also do a simple 1 to 10 numeric scale, with 10 being reserved for like the top 5-10 range of players, but we might not want to get too varied with options, so as to not make deciding skill designations more difficult and more prone to argumentation. Plus a numeric scale may be less immediately obvious in its meaning to readers, and may require them to read supplemental material on how the wiki bases its scale in order to understand it. In any case, lets discuss this. Omega Tyrant 09:26, May 2, 2022 (EDT)

Support going with the new "level" moniker, though it'll be a major pain to probably change it from the thousands of Smasher pages we have at the moment. Also as mentioned in Discord, I support changing the "professional" categories into "player" categories and splitting them up by skill level. CookiesCreme 12:18, May 2, 2022 (EDT)

Support Let's go with "levels." --Meester Tweester (talk) 05:46, May 3, 2022 (EDT)

Support yeah I do think the Smash community wouldn't use some of the terms we currently have. More distinctive skill levels for smashers would be cool as "better pro/better top players" exist but it is hard to come up with new skill levels. NPM Morr!? 10:57, May 4, 2022 (EDT)

Support The professionals thing felt very confusing to me, as no matter what players are better than the other they're just simply called professionals. With the Top Level, High Level, etc, I believe that this could definitely make it easier for people to understand the players' skill. Howplayz 11:11, May 4, 2022 (EDT)

Not 100% sure about this one. To me, it feels like another "Most historically significant players" situation where the proposed name would technically be more suitable, but feels a little awkward and doesn't get the point across as quickly to an average reader who doesn't follow the competitive scene. With that being said, right now I can't think of anything better, so I guess I will leave my Consent to the "levels" terminology, and if I come up with something I will get back to you. (Although I vehemently oppose the numeric scale idea, as that presents itself as though we had some kind of algorithm or formula to figuring out exactly how well someone performs.) Sincerely, Ender Reeve Musk. 23:43, May 29, 2022 (EDT)

I personally don't mind the changes to level, the problem for me relies on my perspective towards Amateur and Mid Level. For me, an amateur or Pro Amateur player normally means someone that does not play competitively but played the game casually, or someone that attended tournaments mainly for content like Alpharad. The use for Semi-pro is normally used for players that attend tournaments but rarely get Top 16 at regionals/weeklies. That's not a pro-amateur player, is just a player with experience but not as good as those that are consistent or really good at the game. In my opinion, there should be a change in relation to the difference between Professional players within a region, Professional players known more as Hidden Bosses, and worldwide known Professional players, but not Top Level (ex. Peanut). The change from Level instead of Professional is not bad, but it seems more confusing. Kind regards, Tacho99. 13:10 June 14th, 2022 (EST)

@Ender: I would say the current setup is harder to grasp for non-competitive readers, "professional" would give them the idea of someone who makes a living playing Smash when that's the case for so few players, and the lower levels are just esoteric, while "high level" gives them the more appropriate idea of "this guy is good at Smash", "high-mid level" gives the idea of "someone above the competitive average", "mid level" is simply average, and "top level" is literal in meaning they're at the top level of competitive play.

@Tacho: Respectfully, I really do not understand what you're trying to say here, especially the tangent about semi-pro and pro-amateur. And trying to change the skill level parameter to be relative to region is a no-go, when that will just make things more complicated to manage, one's skill relative to the absolute scale is more relevant information (especially when people regularly compete in other regions or move to other regions), and one's ranking on their local/regional PR already shows their relative-to-region ability. Omega Tyrant 07:44, August 19, 2022 (EDT)

On second thought, you're completely right. Support. --Ender Ryzen Musk. 09:26, August 19, 2022 (EDT)

Support. Very much needed update and is definitely a lot more straight forward than the current standards. Señor Mexicano (talk) 21:44, August 20, 2022 (EDT)

Support. I also agree with the idea of adding another level between "top professional" and "professional" (and possibly one between "professional" and "semi-professional"), since the concerns very much apply to edits suc h as this user's. RickTommy 20:55, January 13, 2023 (EST)

New terms for the inbetween skill levels

It has been a while, but this proposal is not dead. The biggest sticking point is we're in agreement that we need a new skill level between top level/top professional and high level/professional, but there is no clear answer on what to name it. So I'm making a vote here of the options I thought of, so I can get a clearer consensus for which option people think is the best. On another note, whatever option is decided here, will also be used to replace semi-professional rather than my earlier suggestion of "high-mid", as it is functionally the inbetween of high and mid level, and the terminology should be consistent (so for example, if "Borderline top level" wins here, "Semi-professional" will become "Borderline high level").

If anyone has any suggestion for a term not among the options, leave a comment and it may be added to the votes if other people think it's a good suggestion. Omega Tyrant 12:56, March 17, 2023 (EDT)

Borderline top level

1. ...

Upper high level

1. Support for this, since I think this is the best term out of the four we have at the moment, plus it also emulates how we handle the tier lists as well. CookiesCreme 13:02, March 17, 2023 (EDT)
2. Support, I believe this "upper" term is indeed the best one out of the four too. Others either sound a bit weird or unheard of. NPM Morr!? 13:30, March 17, 2023 (EDT)
3. Support for this, I think it easily works with other terms such as high level and top level, and as long as readers know that there is a term above upper high level, it can easily show where someone's skill level at the game lies, even to more casual readers. Seems pretty straight forward. Ninja1167 (talk) 12:59, March 18, 2023 (EDT)
4. Support for this. I think it makes more sense to have a level between Top Level and High level, than one between High and Mid. Kind regards, Tacho99. 23:36 March 18th, 2023 (EST)
5. Support --Meester Tweester (talk) 19:52, March 30, 2023 (EDT)

Sub-top level

1. ...

Semi-top level

1. ...

Comments

Bumping this, I will be making a decision this weekend, so if anyone else wants to voice their input, do so ASAP. More input would be appreciated, don't want to pass this and then a lot of people come out of the woodwork complaining one of the other options would have been better. Omega Tyrant 19:43, March 30, 2023 (EDT)

I'm declaring this proposal passed. The new skill levels we will be officially using:

• "Top professional" -> Top level
• New skill level -> Upper high level
• "Professional" -> High level
• "Semi-professional" -> Upper mid level
• "Pro-amateur" -> Mid level
• "Amateur" -> Low level

I'll see if we can get a bot to make the change to the infoboxes on all smasher pages, but we will have to go through manually with the players labelled "Top level" to see if they should be re-labelled the newly available "Upper high level" instead. Omega Tyrant 05:44, April 2, 2023 (EDT)

The Skill parameter, again

This is a closed discussion about an accepted proposed change on SmashWiki. It remains for archival purposes. The closing administrator adds: "This proposal has majority support, and the opposition has failed to provide compelling arguments for keeping the Skill parameter."

Recently we changed our skill level terminology and introduced a new skill level between "top level and "high level" called "upper high level", to distinguish between the players that are truly a threat to win majors, and the rest of the top 100ish players, while drastically cutting down on the wiki's overuse of labelling players "top level" (or "top professional" as they were called before). However, where the line is drawn for "top level" has been controversial, with frequent edit wars over it and complaints from outside the wiki. With "skill level" being so subjective, there is no remotely universally agreeable answer for it, so no matter where we draw the line for our skill levels, trying to maintain them will continue to be a big headache, especially when people are so invested in seeing themselves, their friends, and their favorite players being called "top level" or whatever the most desirable skill level rating is. There is also the issue between "peak skill level" and "current skill level", where it's not immediately clear what the skill rating in the infobox is for, and trying to maintain them as separate infobox parameters would add another layer of complication with maintaining an already highly contentious infobox parameter.

I still think the skill level rating was useful as a quick shorthand to let readers know about how relatively good a player was at each given game without the need to delve into rankings, especially so for players that got underranked for whatever reason or are no longer ranked at all. It's clear though that trying to maintain them is more trouble than it's worth, and there's nothing we could do with them that would alleviate the edit wars or complaints, whether it be loosening/tightening standards, adding more skill levels, changing the terminology, etc. So I propose the following changes:

• Just remove the skill level rating parameter entirely from infoboxes on Smasher pages
• Add a "best historical ranking" parameter, where the best ranking a player ever achieved is listed for each game. "Best" ranking would prioritize global rankings if available, then superregional rankings, then regional rankings, etc.
• Add a "best tournament result" parameter, where's the best tournament result a player ever achieved is listed for each game. This would be based on a combination of the tournament's prestige and the quality of wins/losses the player got in the tournament, not necessarily just the biggest tournament the player ever won nor their highest sheer placing, and anything below a major likely shouldn't be considered for this parameter unless the player never competed in a major or did exceedingly poor at them.

Adding these two parameters will largely fulfill the primary intention of the skill level rating in letting readers immediately know how relatively good a player was at their peak, while ridding us of the neverending quagmire that maintaining the skill level ratings is. While there is still subjectiveness involved in what would constitute a player's "best ranking" and especially "best tournament result", at least there is much more objective points to argue over than what arbitrary Top X cutoff is "top level", and people won't be so emotionally invested in which rank or tournament result is listed as their best unlike with what the wiki rates their skill level to be. Do you support this change, oppose it, or have any farther suggestions to it? Omega Tyrant 22:50, January 25, 2024 (EST)

Support, as someone who has been increasingly siding towards the "remove skill level" side of the argument, especially since I've been dealing with a lot of it this week. I think the replacement also works well, if not a significantly less pain in the ass to deal with. CookiesCreme 22:57, January 25, 2024 (EST)

Oppose, as much of a controversial terminology of the player's skill and overall performance, it's distinctively important to determine a player's overall ability/level, whether it would be at the current state of the game's meta or most notably at the peak of their career. Every Competitive game uses it, everyone with their own set of setbacks and controversies to determine someone's skill level. As arguable as the terminology based on skill is, it is used for casual fans to understand the game's overall and historical Meta, aswell as for other FGCs/eSports players to search for the best representatives of the Smash scene as a whole. As it was shown during this explanation, it is hard to determine a player's skill based on results, and it can be overall toxic for the Meta as a whole. But it is still the fairest and simplest way to compare a player's overall ability and results with/out factoring skill.

I do want to argue for the skill parameter at the InfoBox to be solely at the peak of the player's career and not in line with the Current Meta, as a lot of editors have argued that it is important to check for both. --Tacho99 (talk) 20:21, January 26th, 2024 (EDT)

Oppose. I agree with what a lot of Tacho said about the skill level being a quick shorthand and I don't think the replacements would be nearly as useful or intuitive for readers, especially the "best tournament result" parameter. The vast majority of the debate right now is what is considered "Top level" and I think the parameter is useful enough that that we'd be better off attempting to change it's requirements to match the community's wider interpretation of the term rather than scrapping the whole thing. Something like a blanket top -number- on global PR = Top level I really don't see any issues with and is way easier to point to as objective. Could be top 50, 30, 10, 100, or whatever depending on the game, and could even change based on the year, ex. top 30 SSBBRank 2014 but only top 10 for 2023 -- the "backend" can be as convoluted as it needs to be so long as it makes the actual presentation good. The old requirement would still be used as a default if someone isn't ranked/hasn't been ranked yet. Only problem I could see with this is that the cutoff is arbitrary, but so is the term "top level" itself, and there has to be a cutoff somewhere. Levii (talk) 03:21, January 27, 2024 (EST)

Oppose. As much as the skill level parameter has been a headache, a controversial topic that causes multiple discourses I don't believe it should be completely axed. It is still somewhat a quick and easy indicator of sombody's skill at their peak. Is it possible for these new parameters to co-exist with the current skill one? Or maybe we should implement another new label "Botherline top level" to compromise anyone that's barely off but honestly idk at this point. NPM Morr!? 06:21, January 27, 2024 (EST)

SSBWiki has been pretty chaotic these days. With all that said I'm considering abstaining my vote for this proposal. It's not like my "opinions" are ever real or valid anyways. NPM Morr!? 03:16, January 30, 2024 (EST)

@Tacho:

"it's distinctively important to determine a player's overall ability/level"

Which is what showing the player's best ranking and tournament result will do.

"As arguable as the terminology based on skill is, it is used for casual fans to understand the game's overall and historical Meta"

How is it any better for casuals than showing them the player's best ranking and result?

"As it was shown during this explanation, it is hard to determine a player's skill based on results, and it can be overall toxic for the Meta as a whole. But it is still the fairest and simplest way to compare a player's overall ability and results with/out factoring skill."

I do not understand what you're trying to say here. How is something "fairest" and "simplest" if it as subjective as it is and causes constant edit wars? It's far more "fairer" and "simpler" to just put down their best ranking and best result, and let readers interpret how good they think it is.

@Levii:

"I don't think the replacements would be nearly as useful or intuitive for readers

How is a subjective skill rating that people constantly edit war over and everyone has their own definition of any more "intuitive"?

"The vast majority of the debate right now is what is considered "Top level" and I think the parameter is useful enough that that we'd be better off attempting to change it's requirements to match the community's wider interpretation of the term rather than scrapping the whole thing."

And as stated countless times in the Discord server, there is no "community accepted standard", everyone has their own definition of "top level". Some like myself believe only those who are actual threats to win majors can be called top level. Some would go as far to say only someone in like the top 5 would be top level. Some want to say it's "top 50". Some want to say it's any top 100ish player. Not to mention that the already cited issues of people's egos being tied up in seeing themselves and any player they're invested in be called "top level".

"Something like a blanket top -number- on global PR = Top level I really don't see any issues with and is way easier to point to as objective."

This is completely arbitrary and there is nothing objective about choosing an arbitrary ranking cutoff to be "top level", not to mention you would get silly things like saying #50 is "top level" but #51 isn't because of said arbitrary cutoff, even though they're virtually on the same level.

"but so is the term "top level" itself"

This is a major reason why we should just ditch the skill ratings.

@NPM:

"As much as the skill level parameter has been a headache, a controversial topic that causes multiple discourses I don't believe it should be completely axed."

Don't you ever get tired of edit warring people wanting to call themselves and their favorite players "top level"? You and the rest of us have better things to be doing on the wiki than constantly having to edit war and argue with people over this.

"It is still somewhat a quick and easy indicator of sombody's skill at their peak.

Which the new suggested parameters do, making the skill parameter redundant.

"Or maybe we should implement another new label "Botherline top level" to compromise anyone that's barely off but honestly idk at this point."

Adding another skill level, aside from muddling the terminology farther, doesn't address the problems that where the the "line" for each skill level is drawn is so subjective and that people are going to constantly push it to get rated as "top level", "borderline top level" isn't going to satisfy the people who having been causing these edit wars and making complaints over being labelled "upper high level". Omega Tyrant 16:16, January 27, 2024 (EST)

I can be convinced that the skill level parameter is arbitrary and has clear downsides. And, while I do think that we should attempt to reform it first, if that isn't going to happen, I'm fine with it going if there is a good replacement. I'm still not really in support of the best tournament result replacement, though. I'll list my main grievances with it.

Maintaining. Compared to the headache of maintaining people's skill levels, I truly think that maintaining people's best tournament result would be worse. I don't mean just the process of adding these to smasher pages initially, which in and of itself would be a herculean task, but maintaining it over time as new results come in. I could easily see situations where whichever result is added to the infobox just sticks there even if the player has gotten a better result since, due to editors not adding them when they should. I see this as bad as someone wrongfully changing a skill level or adding a character, with the added downside of not being able to be tracked in edits. Also, in many cases a player will have results which are very comparable, and it will essentially be to the editor's discretion to decide which one is best, even if it isn't "correct". Someone could then come and swap it to a different result because they think it's stronger. I see this as as arbitrary as skill levels, and I say this as one of the editors who adds smasher results. I can't imagine the headache if last month when I was going through about 6 months of Melee results I had to also check the smasher's best result and have a debate in my head every time.

Crowded infobox. I fear that listing someones best result, current ranking, and best ranking for multiple games (3+) would be too much information and could get really crowded to the point where it hurts readability.

Not indicative of someone's skill. It is true that most competitors will place around the same level over a set period. A competitor's best placement will then likely be an outlier and to an extent I see as meaningless information. Someone may usually place 97th, 65th, etc. at majors but if they go to enough they may eventually get a 13th, either due to bracket luck or simple overperformance. That 13th will stick on their infobox and affect how people perceive their skill.

The only way I see this paramter being an improvement over skill level if the best ranking parameter is also implemented is if someone is not ranked. Keeping the skill level parameter solves this issue. My current proposition is to change "Top level" to "Globally ranked", or something similar in MOST cases. The exception being that if someone is inarguably Top level according to the current guidelines but has never been globally ranked, they can stay Top level instead of Upper high (this is a very small number of people). This maintains the positives of the skill level paramater for those those who aren't ranked, from Low to Upper high, while avoiding the edit wars around Top level which began this in the first place. (I would also like to change "Skill" to "Peak Skill" on infoboxes since it's not really clear, as an aside.) Levii (talk) 16:26, January 28, 2024 (EST)

"Maintaining."

This is incredibly simple though? Any new result has to be added to the player's tournament result table in the first place, you can easily take that time to replace the best result listing while doing that, not to mention that standout performances at majors generally get highlighted and so it's not something people will "forget" to do. Compare this to maintaining skill ratings, where aside from the constant edit warring, there is no clear time to "upgrade" a skill level (aside from a player winning a major outright).

"with the added downside of not being able to be tracked in edits."

What? Edits to this parameter aren't going to be magically hidden in the edit history, they're "trackable" just as much as any other edit.

"Also, in many cases a player will have results which are very comparable, and it will essentially be to the editor's discretion to decide which one is best, even if it isn't "correct"."

People nitpicking about which supermajor win for a few top players was their best is far more preferable to deal with than people constantly bitching and moaning that they or their favorite player aren't labelled "top level" and edit warring us over it. Not to mention that if there are any serious arguments over which result was someone's best, we got the aid of the global ranking algos to give a strong objective basis, and even for tournaments that we don't, you still actually got objective points of arguments to use, whereas the lines of skill classification are inherently completely subjective with no concrete definition.

"Crowded infobox. I fear that listing someones best result, current ranking, and best ranking for multiple games (3+) would be too much information and could get really crowded to the point where it hurts readability."

Each ranking and result listing only adds a single line or two in an organized manner, and players that played several Smash games at a high level are already going to have large infoboxes, not to mention that Wikipedia has articles with far larger infoboxes than we have without issue (hell the infobox on M2K's Wikipedia article is about as large as the one on his Smasher page despite Wikipedia not covering the indepth information we do). As long as the information isn't being displayed as a big blob of text (like having several "Other characters" does) and the information has merit, I see no issue here. The only thing I'm thinking is the infobox could be modified to have separate headers to separate character information, team information, and ranking/result information into distinct sections for better organization, like how Wikipedia organizes its infoboxes into separate sections.

"Not indicative of someone's skill."

But that is indication of a player's peak skill? And as stated before and before, best ranking and best result are meant to supplement each other, as there are many players that only use one of wouldn't represent the skill level of as well as having both together would. I also rather have some players with fluke major performances look slightly better in their infobox than have major winners that never got properly ranked like Etsuji in Brawl end up looking much worse, as having only best ranking would do.

"My current proposition is to change "Top level" to "Globally ranked", or something similar in MOST cases."

This is completely redundant with the proposed best ranking parameter, that will already show a player was "globally ranked", and how highly the player was actually ranked.

"The exception being that if someone is inarguably Top level according to the current guidelines but has never been globally ranked, they can stay Top level instead of Upper high (this is a very small number of people)."

This is just introducing inconsistency that is completely unacceptable, and it still is not going to solve the issue of people constantly trying to edit war over who should be labelled "top level" (or even "upper high level" or "high level" for players that were never globally ranked but still want their skill listing to present them as good as possible). Omega Tyrant 19:58, January 28, 2024 (EST)

What I mean by "not being able to by tracked in edits" is that if someone added a tournament result but didn't change the best tournament result parameter, and the parameter is now wrong, you can't see that it's wrong in the difference between revisions. Unlike if someone changed a skill level, which is an easy check and revert. Also, the whole point of listing "Globally ranked" would be so that it is redundant for ranked players but still a usable parameter for non-ranked players. I also don't see how it would be inconsistent. "Globally ranked" would supersede Top, Upper high, and even High level while they would still exist. So someone could still be any of those if they are not ranked, just "Globally ranked" goes first, which would naturally get rid of most Top level smashers, solving the bulk of the issue IMO. Levii (talk) 20:52, January 28, 2024 (EST)

People not updating skill levels when they actually need to be, or a player's current ranking, or a player's character usage, or anything else on their page is just as "untrackable" in that regard, that is not at all something unique with a best result parameter. And having complete redundancy in the infobox with a skill parameter that only uselessly says "Globally ranked" is what actually bloats an infobox, while having different sets of skill ratings across different Smasher pages (or even on the same Smasher page) depending on if the player was formally ranked or not is inconsistency (not to mention that keeping around the subjective-based skill parameter system in any capacity is not addressing the problems I brought up here and many others have brought up within the Discord and outside the wiki). Omega Tyrant 19:47, January 29, 2024 (EST)

I believe our main issue right now is how to define "top level", and really I think the way the wiki looks at it is different than what the larger Smash community sees it.

At least from my perspective, when the community talks about "top level", it's not necessarily saying "that player's skill is top level" but rather "the player can compete successfully at the top level". That is why the community's range for top level seems to be rather lax compared to the wiki's range: anyone ever ranked in the top 50 can find continuous success at the highest level. On the other hand, the wiki needs to make a distinction between those that can compete successfully at the highest level and those that are the best of the best, and we cannot equate #50's skill to #1's skill (eg for LumiRank, Aaron v acola). That is why we have it separated into "upper high level" -- any player who does well at majors consistently -- and "top level" -- any player that can or comes close to winning majors.

I think that's the issue right there: the wiki and the community look at the term "top level" in different perspectives. In that regard I don't believe it's possible to satisfy any side. If we stick with what the community thinks, it removes the separation between the really good players and the best players, which I believe is crucial to list on the wiki so newcomers can have a quick reference to who are the best players of a game. On the other hand, our current system clearly does not align with the rest of the community. For example, just this month alone we had players complain about Ouch!? skill level being changed to "upper high"; an IP arguing why Professor Pro should be top level (although the reasoning isn't necessarily correct, it's still another example as to what the general audience thinks "top level" means); and Stuart, the person behind the LumiRank algorithm, criticizing how our current system does not properly represent what the community thinks. Our explanations don't seem to work as well because it's not how the community sees "top level", and we cannot change how the community thinks.

I also don't believe a skill metric is necessarily useful in determining how good a player is especially when you can theoretically separate it into so many sections: even among major winners there's still a noticeable skill gap between players like Quidd and Bloom and players like MkLeo and acola, yet they are all grouped under "top level" just because they all won majors. With this in consideration, it's very possible that a player who just looks at the skill level will fail to capture the skill level difference because all four players were grouped under the same skill level. Even if we create a new parameter like "top top level" we still have to address the same issue in each skill level, and at that point it becomes too messy to deal with. In addition, for games with a much longer lifespan "top level" can also misleading. Can we really equate Ken's peak with Hungrybox's? Is peak PC Chris necessarily on the same skill level as peak moky? The skill level in context to the era a player was competing in is therefore lost.

One final thing, although in my opinion not as relevant, is that Liquipedia does not have a skill level parameter either. Of course, we are not Liquipedia, but the fact that they are still doing just fine indicates that skill level isn't necessarily something that is too important to list.

I remember a conversation I had with someone in the UltStats Discord in which they question whether the skill level parameter is even necessary if a player could just get that information from the data below, specifically rankings and placements. Funny enough, that general idea is basically what is being proposed by OT. I believe the "best historical ranking" parameter is better in giving context to a player's position at the peak of their game, while the "best tournament result" parameter allows those snubbed by the rankings to have their peak performances properly addressed. There are certainly issues with it and I understand everyone's concerns, but I believe this system, possibly after being refined a bit, is at least better than what we have right now, because right now not only is there no effective compromise between what the wiki needs to report versus what the community thinks, but a simple description like "top level" lacks so much context that it's also ineffective in really determining a player's skill level compared to the rest of the scene. CookiesCreme 20:38, January 27, 2024 (EST)

Support While I'm not sold on replacing the parameters with new ones, I think it's an improvement and I'm full supportive of removing the skill parameter. Wiifitkid (talk) 12:33, January 28, 2024 (EST)

Support The old skill framework was unworkable in all of its forms. I'm not enamored with the new proposal but it's a big step up. Stuart98 (talk) 14:32, February 11, 2024 (EST)

Passive Support for either the new framework or scrapping entirely. I am personally ambivalent - on one hand, the current way it works is exceedingly subjective and is vulnerable to becoming outdated, and on the other, the skill evaluation entirely is incredibly subjective and arguably a bit unprofessional. If you think about it, results shoooould speak for themselves, especially with participation counts being accounted for? --Plague von Karma 15:20, February 11, 2024 (EST)

Support It would be interesting to see how this turns out. Rankings/tournaments are more objective than just "high level" or the like. The only issue would be in regards to implementation (there's a lot of smasher pages, "best tournament" could be subjective, but still less so than skill level). It probably would be best to have some policy, such as where majors are favored unless there is a regional that clearly passes them, or something like that. Ninja1167 (talk) 16:22, February 11, 2024 (EST)

Oppose I don't think this will solve our problems and will lead to a lot of subjective arguments in editing. The skill level is a straightforward way for casual readers to know the rough skill level of a player without having to know about tournaments, or how stacked the specific tournament was, so it should at least be kept in the infobox. Trying to determine what a player's best tournament run will be very subjective for a lot of players, and might lead to more arguments than before. Not only do we have to gauge something like if winning a superregional or a certain run at a major is more valuable, we will have to evaluate the best tournament run for several players for every single tournament we add. If a historical ranking or tournament is notable for a player, that can be mentioned in the introduction of the article. Working on the skill level parameter, like introducing borderline top level, would be a better approach. --Meester Tweester (talk) 08:55, February 13, 2024 (EST)

So you're opposing because... "too subjective", even though the skill levels are entirely subjective on all facets? Have you actually read what I and Cookies wrote, or even paid attention to all the edit warring and complaints with the skill levels that we have to put up with? How do you quantify "top level" in any sort of objective way that won't have people perpetually edit warring, complaining, and trying to constantly push the line for it? And you seriously want to add more skill levels? You claim simple concepts like "best ranking" and "best result" would be too hard for casuals to grasp, yet introducing more and more cumbersome terminology with skill levels is doing anything but. Nevermind that labelling people "borderline top level" is not going to be doing a damn thing to satisfy the people who want to see themselves or their favorite players be labelled "top level".

If you're going to try delaying this proposal when it's on the edge of passing, provide an argument against it that isn't self-contradictory. Omega Tyrant 12:09, February 13, 2024 (EST)