SmashWiki talk:Smasher article guidelines

I thought about creating this long ago, but never got around to it, until now. Simply, it's a guideline putting into words what we already enforce with smasher articles, into an easily referenced guideline. Discuss it here, talk about any changes and polishing that should be done before making it official, or speaking any objections you have. Omega Tyrant 16:07, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Yes, yes, 1000 times yes! Support. ---Preceding unsigned comment added by a turkey! Or maybe DatNuttyKid. 16:11, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Support After a long history of vanity articles and non-notable ones, this is long overdue. Disaster Flare (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Support per Disaster Flare and the fact that it would relieve us of some smasher stubs. Nyargleblargle (Talk | Contribs) 16:21, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Support. Exactly what we need. This will hopefully prevent any vanity articles from appearing in the future. However, it may be difficult to find some of the desired information for TO pages and other articles. John PK SMAAAASH!! 16:24, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Support This should have been here long ago. The article is also very well-written and straightforward. If there are any imperfections, I honestly can't see them right now. Drill Blaster Mark 2 (talk) 16:33, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Support What everyone said, etc. etc. --MeatBall104 16:44, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Very Strong Support. I honestly think this is our first pivotal guideline that is 100% flawless. It's well written, concise, necessary, and quite frankly overdue. There is no reason to oppose this. Ganonmew, The Thankful Evil Clone 19:34, 17 November 2015 (EST)

Support, although I do have a question about one element that may be worth considering including as well. Do we want to have some kind of criteria on SW:NOTE or elsewhere for tournament notability? That way we could specifically clarify which tournaments on a Smasher page are worth having as an internal link (because the tournament deserves a page) and which need nothing more than a link to a SmashBoards thread or similar. Miles (talk) 14:57, 18 November 2015 (EST)

That's a very good point. I personally feel it is unnecessary to include tournaments that are just Smashboards links, since most of those are probably not notable. John PK SMAAAASH!! 15:27, 18 November 2015 (EST)

@Miles: As I see it, pretty much any offline tourney with a tangible prize that isn't extremely minor (say like some house tourney between a crew) is notable enough to have it on the wiki in some form. However, the tourney should be regional-sized to get its own article, while for less significant local tournies, we should instead have an article on the tourney series they're a part of, with each individual tournament's result listed on the series page (like I did for the old BEST series my region had, which speaking of I need to update). Online tournies should be considered not notable for SmashWiki documentation nor tourney result listing by default, unless they're really major like that global Smash 4 wifi tourney Zero won or the Brawl-era AiB ladders.

@John: Barring the exceptions I covered above, every tourney goes into a smasher's PR, earnings, reputation, etc., and thus their result in them is necessary to record. Omega Tyrant 07:49, 19 November 2015 (EST)

SUPPORT TO THE MAX what is not to love about this idea? Nintendofan1653 (talk) 06:37, 19 November 2015 (EST)

Support although I'm going to have to change the copy-paste table I have referenced on my userspace to include the winnings... ugh. Winnings in itself should probably be clarified a bit more; what happens if there isn't any data available, should it be left blank or put as 0 or — ? kenniky 22:19, 21 November 2015 (EST)

Tournament earnings can be reasonably deduced if the results page doesn't list them; simply find out the entry fee of the tournament, the total amount of entrants, and the prize split, then some simple math will deduce the amount that was won by each players. Tournaments also mention when they have pot bonuses and such that increase the earnings beyond the prize split. As such, the information can still be filled out. Omega Tyrant 19:35, 23 November 2015 (EST)

Support It seems to be unanimous. I'll let OT do the honors though, if he's ready. Serpent King 20:19, 22 November 2015 (EST)

Indeed it is.. I mean, who would oppose this after hundreds of vanity articles? Ganonmew, The Thankful Evil Clone 07:29, 23 November 2015 (EST)

Given that we have no way of knowing when OT is coming back now that he seems to be done with his activity spree, can an admin implement this? ---Preceding unsigned comment added by a turkey! Or maybe DatNuttyKid. 16:46, 23 November 2015 (EST)

Would it be worth it to extend this in some fashion to deal with crews, tournaments and the like? -Menshay (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2015 (EST)

I would say we probably could. It would require a rename... probably "Competitive article guidelines" or something ---Preceding unsigned comment added by a turkey! Or maybe DatNuttyKid. 16:52, 23 November 2015 (EST)

Dagnabbit guys. Serpent King 16:54, 23 November 2015 (EST)

Well the article as it is can exist. Any additions will have to be in the form of an amendment proposal. Serpent King 16:56, 23 November 2015 (EST)

Update to the policy regarding online tournaments

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

Hey all. So, over the past couple of months or so, smasher articles have been seeing a lot of work done thanks to SmashWiki's ever-hardworking contributors and lack of new Smash content to cover. However, there's one thing I've noticed the community being pretty divisive on when it comes to Smasher articles, and that is whether online tournaments are viable for inclusion or not. As it stands right now, all the policy states is "all verifiable tournament placings should be added", which indicates that if it can be verified that it was them, it should be added. I initially did nothing about this, but this is clearly starting to become an issue, with a few users outright trying to remove online results entirely and one smasher even private messaging me on Twitter asking for their removal. After quite a bit of thinking, I think I have a plausible way we can address this:

1. Smaller articles with not very many tournament placings in general, but still have notability backing them up should keep any online results.
2. Online results will remain for cases where a chunk of the competitive scene revolves around online play (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain a majority of competitive Smash 64 is Netplay-based)
3. On articles with a lot of tournament placings will have any confirmed online tournaments removed, but any big online tournaments should remain (i.e., tournaments with a lot of entrants, including some big name competitors; big prizes are optional). Basically, if it's an online tournament with only like maybe 12 people and only the smasher in question is notable, it can be removed.

Now, despite this proposition, I would like to also offer my two cents, mainly so I can shed some light on why I personally think online results shouldn't be ignored. Look at it this way: SmashWiki's competitive side has always strived to record as much information as possible. Granted, we've lost a lot over the years due to us losing sites like Nintendo Dojo and I'm guessing TioPro, since I can't access the site, but we've always tried to add what we can. I personally feel like purposefully going out of our way to remove online placings completely defies what we've always stood by when it comes to making these articles, and it almost kind of makes us hypocrites if we did do it. It'd be like if you said you were going to collect all the Batman comics ever printed, only to say "I won't collect these issues because I don't like this story arc". This endless list of results is almost like our personal collection. The collector's job is to strive for completion, even if it means collecting the things you don't necessarily like or the things you don't think have much significance. I consider myself a collector when it comes to certain things, so this is just the way I see the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm neither here nor there when it comes to whether this goes through or not, but I just wanted to tell you what I see from my eyes. I put my suggestion and this paragraph here so people have a choice, and will have a bit to think about before voting. Disaster Flare (talk) 00:40, 19 August 2017 (EDT)

Support

1. Sounds good not a lot to say on this one. Serpent King 15:16, 19 August 2017 (EDT)

   Well, you could explain if you support the plausible way to address it or my paragraph on why they shouldn't be ignored. XD My intention was if you agree with the solution, support it, and if you agree with my paragraph, oppose it. Disaster Flare (talk) 15:23, 19 August 2017 (EDT)

   That's confusing. I agree with the given solution though. Serpent King 15:38, 19 August 2017 (EDT)

2. Support per Serpent King. Ganonmew, The Evil Clone 23:15, 19 August 2017 (EDT)

Oppose

1. ...

Neutral

1. ...

Comments

Just to clarify for anyone confused, my intention for this was if you approve of my suggested change, support this, but if you agree with me on my paragraph about why online tournaments shouldn't be ignored, oppose it. If this does go through, however, I'll still be keeping track of online results, most likely in my userspace. Disaster Flare (talk) 17:07, 19 August 2017 (EDT)