SmashWiki:Pool Room

Welcome to the Pool Room! This page is designed to help users get in touch with one another about issues on Smashwiki that they wish to discuss. It functions just like a talk page - as with any talk page, post comments below and sign with your signature (type ~~~~ or press the button). You should post here if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, or if you'd like to make a general announcement for others to see.

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Archives

Archives of previous Pool Room discussion can be found here:

• Previous Main Page talk*
• Archive 1
  
• Archive 2
  
• Archive 3
  

*this page was a general discussion that used to be on the Main Page, but was moved to the Pool Room archive.

Please archive the contents of the Pool Room when it becomes too long. Create a page with the title "SmashWiki:Pool Room/Archive2" and copy/paste the contents of this discussion onto that page. Then link to the page in this section by adding to the above list:
* [[SmashWiki:Pool Room/Archive2|Archive 2]]
Only archive the discussion - don't remove the overview or archive information.

Discussion

Talk below this line.

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Extension requests

Hi. I'm a newbie to this particular wiki, if not wikis in general; is there anywhere to request certain extension additions, or other server-stuff? --Sky2042 20:37, December 22, 2007 (EST)

Also, has anyone given thought to the policies regarding smashers in the global namespace? I find it a bit silly that people that I know aren't exactly premier smashers have their own pages in the main namespace; doesn't this seem odd? I doubt that a redirect to their userpage would kill them. It would make the "3,000" articles a lot less, considering how many smashers there are that have added their name to the global namespace. Obviously, names like NEO and Ken and such should remain in the mainspace... Thoughts? --Sky2042 05:55, January 1, 2008 (EST)

Every smasher who chooses to compete in an organized tournament that is sanctioned by the community has a right to an article. It's not so much that I disagree that some players aren't notable enough to warrant one, but rather that the logistics of administering and enforcing whether or not a player is notable enough are far too daunting for anyone to handle. I know an awful lot about a lot of smashers from a lot of different places, but not nearly enough to be comfortable with deleting articles with names that I don't recognize.

When I first came here, the smasher articles were in extreme disarray and in many ways they still are, but I've done a lot of work in helping to standardize a format and try to illustrate the difference between an article and a user page. Typical wiki communities frown on cross-namespace redirects and the reason for that is because there are two sides to a website that can be edited by anyone: a front-end, which is the presentation side and what the reader sees, and; the back-end, which is the discussions and consensuses that ultimately produce the front-end. MediaWiki software helps to keep these two platforms separate using namespaces to divide front-end and back-end work. Therefore, a user page is the place to go to find out information about a particular user at SmashWiki, but an article is the place to go to find out information about a particular smasher. User pages aren't even readily accessible to a front-end reader of the page and if they're coming to a smash-oriented wiki, they're looking for smash-oriented info, so if someone searched for my name, it wouldn't make sense to redirect to my user page because it really doesn't have anything to do with me as a smasher. Which is why I made Template:Userpage. *thumbs up* --RJM ^Talk 10:51, January 11, 2008 (EST)

The logistics shouldn't be difficult; we can go by people listed at Pro as being notable enough for a mainspace article, with all others having a mainspace redirect to their user page. Seeing as how pro is one of those pages that is maintained rather assiduously, that makes it easy to weed out the good from the bad.
True enough, they do frown on cross-namespace redirects, but that doesn't make them a bad thing. All SW needs to do is encourage players to create an article on them in the mainspace, and then all we have to do is move it to their actual userpage or a subpage of their user namespace. In fact, a subpage would be more ideal than moving them to the actual user's page, as you yourself have pointed out. Relevant policy might be (changed to) that "If you are going to have a redirect in the mainspace to a subpage of yours which deals with you as a smasher, it must be written in the same formal style that a normal article requires." Does that make sense? --Sky2042 17:40, January 13, 2008 (EST)

Now, you've lost me. It would be a stupid amount of administrative overhead to sift through smasher articles, redirecting to user pages and making unfair assumptions about the notability of players based on that list of Pros. I intend to delete that page eventually and streamline it into something that makes more sense for the current state of competitive play. That is not a reliable list of smashers who "deserve" to have an article in the main namespace. All smash-related articles go in the main namespace. Once again, I must stress the differences between the front-end of SmashWiki, which records smash-related information, community history and pertinent details for a player, and the back-end of SmashWiki which is an entirely separate entity that works as its own community to produce the front-end. The purpose of the user page and the User namespace is to have a place to identify yourself as a member of the back-end community and offer a place for other users to contact you. The differences between User:Randall00 and Randall00 are pretty clear in my mind. I think there are more pressing matters at hand than entertaining an idea like this. --RJM ^Talk 18:03, January 13, 2008 (EST)

Not really. A page history check, and we immediately know who the author is; the page is usually about said author. Then it's simply a matter of a page move. Once you've got all the articles in their correct places, then it simply becomes a task of watching either a) special:recentchanges or b) special:newpages for articles which should be subpages rather than main pages.
I clarified my ideas on it (maybe you missed it). Instead of having the information located at Randall00, have it located at User:Randall00/Randall00, with a redirect from Randall00. You still have your own user page at User:Randall00, with a more professional page at User:Randall00/Randall00 regarding your smasherness.
The reason I bring this up is because this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. It honestly doesn't look like one, with random Joe Schmoe in the main space. The articles on random Joe Schmoe are poorly written and and more often than not assert that they have "very good" characters.^[1] That one's just an example that was created in the past couple of days; I've seen others.
As to deciding who's notable and who's not, judgement isn't hard. Most of the names on Pros I recognize. I'm sure there are a few other names out on-wiki that are recognizable to the majority of people. This is only backed up by checking the page history; if there's more than one person editing a certain person's page, odds are, it's an ego thing, not a notability thing. To decide who stays and who goes is thus based on both of these things. Another idea related to that would be to redirect smasher articles to the crews they're in, if applicable.
All of this is part of running a wiki. You said it yourself; there's a "front-end" and a "back-end". Making SmashWiki look good through such tasks as these is part of the back-end. I don't want to be BOLD (to use a wikipedia term) without someone's blessing, as I know that the articles are allowed here for the time being. --Sky2042 21:18, January 13, 2008 (EST)

PS: Is there someplace or someone I can talk to about getting a few MediaWiki extensions installed? :( --Sky2042 21:18, January 13, 2008 (EST)

You're still talking about creating a whole bunch of extra work for no particular reason. Why would we want to actively commit ourselves to constantly watch for new pages and recent changes just to monitor what should and shouldn't be in the main namespace?? Then, as players become more notable through their competitive achievements, do you really expect us to go back and maintain a list of which ones should be moved back into the main namespace once this is all done?? Sorry, man, this idea is totally bureaucratic and accomplishes nothing. You make a lot of assumptions about the competitive community that are largely unsubstantiated. The "reason" you've cited is because this is "supposed to be an encyclopedia," which is true, but that's a broad definition. More specifically, this is supposed to be a smash-related encyclopedia and smash is a game that people play--how is it that the people who play the game and bring it to life are not notable enough to be sitting in the main namespace of a smash-related encyclopedia? You also say that "judgment isn't hard," with regards to their notability as smashers--as though the fact that you can recognize most of the Pros names means that you and other diligent editors are the authority on who deserves a recorded history of their competitive achievements. I'm not sure what you're trying to convince anyone of by saying things like "the page is usually about said author" and "odds are, it's an ego thing" when both specify subjective parameters that clearly don't have enough substance to be making community-wide procedural decisions. At one point, I had written about half the smasher articles in the main namespace, so checking your page history won't help much there; and as to the ego thing, well I've already pointed out that no one person has authority over who is a notable smasher and who isn't. I don't know where you got the notion that this is "all part of running a wiki," but there has to be a good front-end result in order to carry out a back-end procedure--moving things around namespaces and creating needless redirects doesn't change the front-end presentation so there's no need to do it.

I know that there's a lot of horribly written smasher articles in the main namespace, but sitting around monitoring the recent changes page isn't going to stop them from getting written. Leave them where they are, and tag the bad ones with {{cleanup}} and I'll try my best to get to them eventually. That way, we're left with articles that are identified as needing a clean up, plus all the good articles; instead of all the good articles, plus a bunch of redirects to terribly-written user pages. --RJM ^Talk 11:59, January 14, 2008 (EST)

Whatever. If it must be, it must be. And no, it's not a lot of extra work. It really is quite easy, once the overhaul occurs. But w/e.

"maintain a list of which ones should be moved back into the main namespace once this is all done?" Nope. We don't touch a thing. Firstly, the editor must be active, else we just have a bunch of dead articles, one way or the other (you can tag user pages as cleanup... -_-). If the editor (usually the self-author) wants his "smasher" article back into the main namespace, and can demonstrate that he has actually made a decent notability (set it at 1st place at a regional level tourny, or whatnot; this can be decided upon elsewhere), then he gets back in the main space by moving his article back. If he does not manage both of these items at the same time, then his article stays in the user space. It really is part of running/contributing to a wiki; the majority of it is presentation, rather than content writing, whether that presentation is copy-editing, categorizing items, or simply making new templates (not even using them). Again, whatever. I'll live either way; I didn't come here to article-write, but actually work on that "back-end (as you so term it)" which has seen little to no development and implementation.

And as for extensions and serverside stuff, should I contact Kirby directly, or not? Through PM or talk page? --Sky (t | c | w) 06:09, February 3, 2008 (EST)

You should work for a city office or something, they'd love you.

"Firstly, the editor must be active" is misguided right off the bat, so to open with a faulty argument only further buries a subject that is and always has been a dead one. Encyclopedias, even online ones, have nothing to do with whether or not the article's original author is active. What if the editor isn't active? What if he comes on, writes an article and leaves? How does it become OUR responsibility to MOVE his article off the main namespace based on some bogus notability criteria, all without his consent or awareness, which ergo deprecates his position as a smasher in the eyes of this fantasy SmashWiki community you speak of...? Then suppose he magically wins a regional tournament or something, comes back to find his article moved (which means "gone" to someone who's not an active editor), can't figure out how to update his results and then all of us SysOps end up with angry messages from users squealing about how their article was deleted. Those who are particularly disgruntled go on vandalism sprees on websites that push their buttons the wrong way.

This also doesn't account for any smasher article written by anyone other than the smasher themselves; am I to presume that this responsibility of tracking the notability of smashers and "managing both of these items at the same time" extends to the author then? What about ones written by someone else, but heavily edited and perfected by an additional seven people? Some of us have written HUNDREDS of these articles, some well over a year ago and many that we haven't touched since. I've probably written like fifty articles about smashers who, as far as I know, don't even know that SmashWiki exists, never mind visit it frequently, have knowledge of the backend community and a good understanding of how the namespace structure and policy relate to one another.

Listen, you have a thought process that is very valuable in communities like this and thinking in that manner can go a long way to making an encyclopedia what it should be. However, you have to account for what the end user is seeing and ensure that you don't get buried overthinking things that have no place in a project that demands effort in other areas. You said it yourself that you didn't come here to "article-write" and prefer to work in the back end. That's fine, I guess. But you have to be careful where you're stepping and distinguish between what you're seeing and what the readers of the wiki are seeing. If you don't write articles and don't really read them (which is the entire front end), are you really in a position to be making decisions about how to build the back end framework of a community whose finished product is largely of no interest to you? It's great that you think that the back end has seen little to no development or implementation, but I take it personally in this case because I've seen it go from having less than ten active contributors in a non-existent back end community to having thousands of decent articles produced by an active user base that cares enough and is large enough to make a difference. You're still talking about wasting the efforts of that user base on building a beautiful back end community for a below-average front end encyclopedia. It's like sending 4 mechanics to clean the engine on a car, when really all it needs is some more washer fluid. --RJM ^Talk 17:16, February 21, 2008 (EST)

unused files, templates

i just discovered those pages and sheesh, there are a lot of things on the site that we don't use. there's a bunch of outdated stuff, as well as unrelated stuff that shouldn't be on the site at all. can someone (preferably a sysop) run through and delete all those things? if not, at least more delete tagging? FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 07:23, January 2, 2008 (EST)

Deleted the ones currently in the category. User:Pyoro T/sig

Well, I'm helping out putting out deletion tags of images that we're not using anymore. It's either wasting space or bandwith. Magiciandude 08:09, January 17, 2008 (EST)

Ness, Lucario and Jigglypuff?

i'm the last one you'd find speculating. that's why i need some feedback from you guys. apparently during this video http://wii.com/jp/movies/smashbros-movie1/, icons depicting the three characters show up. apparently it pops up around 4:20. i'm still loading the video, but here's screenshots someone took. what do you guys think? 'shopped, too little evidence, or mention it anyway? FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 23:35, January 20, 2008 (EST)

I'd say that's no doubt a leak. Instead of jumping into creating articles however, we should mention them in their general pages (for Jigglypuff and Ness), as for Lucario, we could mention it in the Pokemon universe in Brawl. I can go ahead created these articles as redirects and put a note on the talk pages to not have the articles created until Dojo!! has put updates on these characters. Just so to prevent people from creating articles so fast. Magiciandude 00:31, January 21, 2008 (EST)

EDIT: Um, apparently, the images of Ness and Jigglypuff are pretty clear, you don't need a source to know who they are. This really can considered leaked info. Lucario's head is somewhat blurry, so we can wait with him. Magiciandude 00:48, January 21, 2008 (EST)

in case nobody knew of this already: Nintendo confirms accidental leak FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 06:09, January 24, 2008 (EST)

The icons weren't actually removed, though (which is why I reverted your edits, FNW). If you pause the video on the Wii website and skip to 4:20 and 4:21, you can still see them in the initial frames. Nintendo just did a sloppy edit that made it impossible to see the icons while watching the video. – EP (Talk • Edits) 07:22, January 24, 2008 (EST)

i didn't check the vid, i just gleaned the info from the Joystiq article. i guess i should have double-checked. FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 03:06, January 26, 2008 (EST)

Cleaning up fighter pages

A few days ago, when I was adding a special moves template to entries about special moves, I noticed that many of our fighter articles contain information that is only relevant or useful to the more professional players among us. For example, see Zelda (SSBM) - several sections there deal with information that only experienced Smash players will find interesting/and or even be able to understand. I think we should remove such content from these articles as not only does it tend to bloat the sizes of said articles, but it also isn't something that I'd consider to be encyclopedic in nature.

To put things into perspective, for those who aren't extremely intimate with SSB, reading these sections is akin to any one of us reading the Wikipedia entry on aerospace engineering and being greeted with several complex formulas and concepts that only people who work in the field would be able to comprehend. When stumbling upon terms like dair and L-canceling without having any previous knowledge of their meanings, it just leads to an incredibly confusing experience. – EP (Talk • Edits) 12:50, January 28, 2008 (EST)

I strongly disagree with that. I neither have the game, nor remember playing much of it, but the wiki gives links to how the techniques are performed, and I'm sure many if not most learn these techniques from the smash wiki. Learning what a dair and L-canceling are can improve one overall knowledge of the game. As for it not being encyclopedic, remember that is targeted audience isn't the world, it's those wanting information about smash, it's similar to saying that an encyclopedia for snowboarding shouldn't have a paragraph saying that "snowboarder X" can do a trick that 97% of snowboarders cannot do. By reading that, people will know how to do said trick, even if they cannot accomplish it. – Enshoku (Talk • Edits) 12:50, January 28, 2008 (EST)

As I was browsing the Brawl profiles, I noticed something: the order of the info is inconsistent. Some have "Short Intro Bio," "Role in the SSE," and "Attacks"Specials" at the end. Others have "Short Intro Bio," "Attacks"Specials" and then "Role in the SSE" last. I think there should be an organized form of "Intro Bio," "Pros and Cons," "Attacks"Specials" and "Role in the SSE" so people can avoid spoilers when searching for basic info. Would this be a beneficial idea, or is it too trivial and tedious?--Metal 23:02, February 9, 2008 (EST)

more character confirmations?

sorry, i'm really too lazy to get all those little links and stuff, so i'm just linking to someone's deviantART journal. [1]
Scott of VGCats compiled the leaked screenshots in an album. [2] and there's a leaked intro video [3]. now, my questions are:

• how valid/trustable are these screenshots? are we sure they're all leaks? could any be 'shops?
• what do we do about them? do we add it, but list as unsourced?
• can someone find valid sources that confirm these?

FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 08:33, January 29, 2008 (EST)

It's all definitely legit. Several videos of unseen SSE footage and screenshots of characters have posted all over the internet (see here). I see no reason to add this newly revealed material as anything other than verified (i.e. there's no reason to add the speculation template to any new character articles that may be created as a result of this). – EP (Talk • Edits) 08:40, January 29, 2008 (EST)

... as an aside, SOME ROB has just been confirmed, proving the 35-character roster true. – EP (Talk • Edits) 09:06, January 29, 2008 (EST)

well. oh snap. time to undo those edits i just made on the pages for Toon Link and ROB. FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 05:28, January 30, 2008 (EST)

leaks turn to floods

http://kotaku.com/350347/super-smash-bros-brawl-leaks-turn-to-flood i'm really too tired to keep up with these updates, but here's the link for anyone else to use. i'm listing most things as "still not confirmed" but the screenshots look pretty good. FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 05:40, January 30, 2008 (EST)

Well as you must know by, know these are true screenshoots --- Kaz 21:52, February 4, 2008 (EST)

Insomnia

Can do this to a person. Anyway, all templates are categorized (have a few more to finish up the template category tree). Have a couple admin-editing requests that are listed local to their relevant pages:

• Template:Namespace number MediaWiki needs to have what's requested there done so that nothing breaks (I'm positive some of you will notice...)
• Talk:Professionals#need protected edit
• Template talk:User admin
• SmashWiki talk:Site support
• SmashWiki talk:Privacy policy

Thanks! --Sky (t | c | w) 05:56, February 3, 2008 (EST)

Universes New Templates

Hello everyone im bringing a new proposal for the Universes instead of Template:F-Zero Smash, Template:F-Zero Melee and Template:F-Zero Brawl I am changing them into just one Template:F-Zero. Let me know what you think, btw if this is given the green light, please remove the other templates. --- Kaz 20:00, February 4, 2008 (EST)

I further edited F-Zero (talk•edit•history) to show how I think it should look. Much as I'd love to have something like wikipedia:template:Navbox on smashwiki, the wiki doesn't have ParserFunctions (extension) installed, as well as a couple other things. --Sky (t | c | w) 02:47, February 5, 2008 (EST)

ObjectsRejected Brawl

There was a hack where unused files were found in Brawl. I propose a template should be made for beta stuff. For example, Rosalina was going to be Assist Trophy, but was removed for unknown reasons. We can also the template to include the characters who do return from Melee. Magiciandude 09:22, February 7, 2008 (EST)

Never mind, I added them in the Brawl article. Magiciandude 16:12, February 9, 2008 (EST)

smasherbeta

i've noticed people using the smasherbeta chart like it's for Brawl. unfortunately, it was designed for Melee and causes weird links and stuff. can someone with the knowledge update the smasherbeta so it links to Brawl character pages? FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 17:31, February 11, 2008 (EST)

well dur. i should have figured that making the page and redirecting would have been easier. looks like i need more sleep. FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 16:27, February 13, 2008 (EST)

Well, I did make a template titled "Smasherbeta2" a while back for this sort of case. Whether it may be useful or not, I cannot say. It's available if anyone wants to help. It's right here Template:Smasherbeta2. Magiciandude 15:26, February 16, 2008 (EST)

Just add a new parameter(s) to smasherbeta with names like "brawlcharacter", instead of creating a whole new template. :) I personally haven't looked the templates over, but that would seem the easy way to me. --Sky (t | c | w) 16:03, February 16, 2008 (EST)

i just wanted to say that the people who updated the smasherbeta did a very cool job. looks very slick and aesthetically pleasing. great job! FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 18:34, February 23, 2008 (EST)

clean out this stuff...

Special:Unusedimages, Special:Unusedtemplates, and Special:Unusedcategories are taking up space. can someone clear out all that useless stuff? FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 05:23, February 25, 2008 (EST)

wait, what just happened?

the site crashed when i was moving pages. now there's two Lucario Side-B pages and no Lucario Up-B page. i don't know which one originally had what, so can someone help me fix them? thanks! FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 00:03, February 27, 2008 (EST)

The site's been crashing on and off for my dial-up browser for a while now, sometimes preventing me from logging me in because of all these ugly-lookig SQL errors, sometimes getting logged out without warning because of "losses of session data", and a page that ominously says "THERE ARE NO SUITABLE NODES TO SERVE YOUR REQUEST". To be frank, my browser views the Super Mario Wiki much more easily and less glitchily. Anyway, I wouldn't know anything about how the special moves of characters not yet put on the DOJO, and I don't often look at any YouTube videos with my dial-up connection, sorry. (BTW, I really don't think it was warranted to yell threats to ban a user that was putting speculative titles onto a topic possibly in good faith, unless that was some sort of established vandal you were yelling at just now. :/) Erik, Lord of Universes 00:10, February 27, 2008 (EST)

i fixed that (and Lucario's Down-B), but there are no pages now. i need people to fill them in, and not with speculation. also, there's been constant edit wars between speculators and people trying to keep it open until a real name shows up! it's not over-reacting when you realize how many times it's happened. @__@

also, my bad. i swear a lot and typing swears comes just as naturally. i didn't even realize that i typed that until i went back and looked! it won't happen again! FyreNWater - (Talk • Contributions ) 00:13, February 27, 2008 (EST)

Oh. Well, that's something I never paid much attention to I guess, so I wouldn't know how much of a problem that might have been for you and all the other users around here the past months. Just so long as you're only being strict and harsh against intentional deviants and not some new kid who made a fair mistake... Well not to worry about any of that. :) Anyway, I'm sure there's a general issue with the SmashWiki software that applies more to dial-up users like me than Broadband users, but can possibly be helped on the SmashWiki technical dudes' side nonetheless. Erik, Lord of Universes 00:20, February 27, 2008 (EST)

...oops. Yeah I was messin' with the template and for some odd reason that happened...Sorry for any inconviniece, it was early in the morning so i didn't think anyone noticed. I fix it immeadiately, so....yeah. The site has been going down alot, and since I have restricted computer time (I'm only 14, and my mum says "Only half an hour of computer a day) that is bad.--Oxico 06:17, February 27, 2008 (EST)

Merge with Wikia

Hello everyone! First off, I think that everyone has done a fantastic job on the SmashWiki; it has really turned into a great resource for Smash Bros! As many of you have noticed, lately we have been having some serious server problems. When Brawl was released in Japan, our servers just about died. You can imagine what it will be like in a week here when it is released in the US. SmashWiki has crashed several times and has suffered lots of downtime, and I'm sure it's been frustrating.

A while back a company called Wikia contacted Kirby King and I about merging SmashWiki with their Smash Bros. Wiki. After much thought and consideration, we have decided that this is the best option to keep the wiki running smoothly and free of downtime. Wikia has an impressive record of treating communities well and running all wiki software updates smoothly. They have merged with lots of wikis already, and I'm confident the process will be smooth and rather pain free.

By merging with Wikia, SmashWiki will have better servers, less downtime, faster software upgrades, and exposure to many other gamer communities.

I'm excited about the merge and hope that you're all just as excited to begin working with Wikia. Wikia truly cares about its communities, and so if you guys have any concerns or questions feel free to voice them here! Gideon 00:24, February 28, 2008 (EST)