Forum:Rankings categories

Back in 2015, a user named started creating categories for each iteration of SSBMRank on their own imperative, and outside of mild questioning on his talk page, other users just started following suit with creating categories for the other annual/biannual global rankings whenever those rankings got made, with no one really challenging their existence. Me and several other users however, have expressed in the Discord server for the past couple years how these categories should be purged. There are two main problems with these categories:

1: For the purpose of cataloging the players that made each ranking, they're useless; you can simply just go on the actual article for the ranking to see the players who were on that particular ranking, and not only will it be more neatly organized, you'll also get additional important information that won't be displayed on the category page, such as the player's ranking and the character(s) they used for that ranking period.

2: These categories just serve to cause massive category bloat; top level and near top level players will often make several iterations of these rankings, so such players will often have their categories bloat to eyesore levels, the majority of that bloat being these mostly redundant categories. For example, currently has 25 categories, yet 11 of these categories are for specific iterations of these rankings. Or, who has a whopping 33 categories, yet these make up 14 of those categories.

A single category for each type of ranking (e.g. one for SSBMRank, one for PGR, one for UltRank, etc.) would suffice, showing all the players that once made that ranking, providing useful cataloging information that isn't immediately accessible elsewhere without bloating each player's categories with several redundant ones. The only other type of useful categories with these rankings would be for players that once surpassed a certain threshold on the respective rankings (e.g. "SSBMRank Top 10", "UltRank top 50", etc.), since it could be useful to catalog players who were once "Top X in the world according to this ranking", and would be of clear interest to readers, while also not necessarily being immediately accessible information elsewhere. If those ranking threshold categories are added, they would carry the caveat of "on smasher articles, only include the category of the highest threshold the player has surpassed on that ranking" (so for example if a player was once top 10, don't include any of the other lower threshold ranking categories for them, as it would be redundant).

The only benefit I see of the current setup with the specific iterations ranking categories is that they do let you know what iterations the player made that particular ranking on, when you would otherwise need to manually check each ranking to see if they were ranked that specific iteration. However, this information would be much more effectively shown by creating a new "Rankings" section on smasher articles, which would show each ranking the player ever made. This would be immensely better than the current setup with the categories for the following reasons:

1: It would be much neater than a big blob of categories at the bottom of the page.

2: It would show the player's actual placing on that ranking, instead of requiring you to go to the ranking's article to see it.

3: It would display other information that would not be shown in the categories, such as the time range the ranking covered and the characters used by the player to make that ranking.

4: It can cover all other sorts of rankings instead of just global rankings.

Here is a very partially complete example table for Dabuz showing what it could look like, using just the Smash 4 PGR:

Like with results, you can make subsections for each game in this new rankings section, and I can iron out later how to organize multiple different rankings within a single game subsection, but I think we can all agree this looks way better than having categories for each of these individual rankings and throwing them on Dabuz's page.

So with that all said, here are the following options for what we'll do going forward. Omega  Tyrant   06:53, April 3, 2023 (EDT)

Have a single category for each global ranking and nothing more

 * 1) Support. The rankings section will be a more useful replacement. --Meester Tweester (talk) 14:50, April 3, 2023 (EDT)
 * 2) Support. I don't know how well the threshold-based categories will work since I feel like our skill parameters already do a better job at noting the skill level of a player, and will be the ones that most players would look at since it's at the start of the page. Cookies CnC Signature.png Creme  16:00, April 3, 2023 (EDT)
 * 3) Support. I forgot about my talk page post on Dinodomain's post, but I think my concern back then was that it felt very unnecessary and would only get worse as time went by (which ended up becoming true). Things started to get really problematic with the introduction of the entirely arbitrary "Top 25" categories for each individual ranking. I think this would definitely be a much better alternative. PokemonMasterJamal3 (talk) 09:04, April 4, 2023 (EDT)
 * 4) Support. Those "top" categories pretty much bloat up a lot of smasher categories because there are multiple thresholds and iterations of rankings. I think they are rather unnecessary and a ranking table will get the job done better. Grand Dad.png NPM    Morr!?  NaughtyPigBoi.jpg 01:10, April 6, 2023 (EDT)
 * 5) Support. Long overdue. Señor Mexicano   (talk)  17:22, April 7, 2023 (EDT)
 * 6) Support, this is a great idea and will get rid of some bloat. Wiifitkid (talk) 17:05, April 8, 2023 (EDT)
 * 7) Support, nothing more to add. Rdrfc (talk) 13:37, April 11, 2023 (EDT)

Add a rankings section to smasher articles
"Vote" on this separately from the category issue, I don't see a reason to not do this regardless of what we do with the categories, but I should open it up to a formal proposal anyway since we never done it on smasher articles before. Omega  Tyrant   06:53, April 3, 2023 (EDT)

Support

 * 1) Support. --Meester Tweester (talk) 14:50, April 3, 2023 (EDT)
 * 2) Support. Liquipedia has been doing this for a while and I found it really useful. Cookies CnC Signature.png Creme  16:00, April 3, 2023 (EDT)
 * 3) Support. As stated above, Liquipedia has been doing it for a while and it's very convenient. PokemonMasterJamal3 (talk) 09:04, April 4, 2023 (EDT)
 * 4) Support. A ranking table is a more convenient and less bloated way to demonstrate each player ranks. Similarly, I tried making a Smashmate ratings table for a player because the info is available. Plus having so many categories can only get really messy for some long-term players. Grand Dad.png NPM    Morr!?  NaughtyPigBoi.jpg 01:10, April 6, 2023 (EDT)
 * 5) Support. Would make a very useful addition. Perhaps longer sections should be collapsible to avoid bloat. (For example M2K) Señor Mexicano   (talk)  17:22, April 7, 2023 (EDT)
 * 6) Support, this is a great idea. Rankings are very annoying to navigate and this provides a lot of useful information to the reader. Wiifitkid (talk) 17:05, April 8, 2023 (EDT)
 * 7) Support, gives a good way to see a player’s ranking history which is quite helpful info Ninja1167 (talk) 11:24, April 11, 2023 (EDT)
 * 8) Support, this should probably be implemented as a new template similar to the one used for PR tables, so it can be easier to use. Rdrfc (talk) 13:37, April 11, 2023 (EDT)

Comments
I've brought this up in discord but only concern I may have with is some ranking systems (such as braacket or Smashmate) don't include all the information above. Smashmate also has information that is useful and pertinent (ratings) which is unique to it and other ladders, that should be incorporated. Wiifitkid (talk) 17:05, April 8, 2023 (EDT)

Bumping this for a last call, I'll be passing both parts of this proposal within 24-48 hours if no serious opposition arises to the consensus. Omega  Tyrant   11:04, April 11, 2023 (EDT)

I put this off for a while, but this proposal is officially going through and the following actions will be taken:


 * All categories for rankings will be removed from smasher pages and deleted. In their place, we will have only one category for each global ranking, which will be applied to the smasher articles of all players who were ever officially on at least one iteration of that ranking.


 * We will start adding rankings sections to smasher articles. I'll update our smasher article guidelines shortly to reflect this.

If there are any more questions, I can be asked here or on discord. Omega  Tyrant   09:28, May 5, 2023 (EDT)