I suggest doing for Super Smash Bros. what we have been doing for Pokémon. That is, create tags for characters introduced in each SSB game.

• ssb_1_character = all super_smash_bros. posts with Pikachu, Mario, Luigi, Fox McCloud, etc.
• ssb_2_character = all super_smash_bros. posts with Ganondorf, Peach, Ice Climbers, Mr. Game and Watch, etc.
• ssb_3_character = all super_smash_bros. posts with Diddy Kong, Solid Snake, Wario, etc.
• ssb_4_character = all super_smash_bros. posts with Bayonetta, Wii Fit Trainer, Rockman, Palutena, etc.
• ssb_5_character = all super_smash_bros. posts with Incineroar, Daisy, Ken Masters, etc.

These names are just suggestions. Feel free to use other naming system.

See also list of super smash bros. characters.

Examples:

• post #1439927 is Wii Fit Trainer, Peach, Fox, and Mario, so it would get tagged ssb_1_character, ssb_2_character, and ssb_4_character.
• post #3445205 is just the full roster of SSB 1, so it would get tagged only ssb_1_character
• post #3339682 seems to be a full character list as of Ultimate (which includes characters from all the previous SSB games), so it would get all the 5 tags.

For comparison, our Pokémon generation tags are:

• gen_1_pokemon
• gen_2_pokemon
• gen_3_pokemon
• gen_4_pokemon
• gen_5_pokemon
• gen_6_pokemon
• gen_7_pokemon
• gen_8_pokemon
  

How is this any different from tagging the individual games in the series, one of which we just aliased away? Who benefits from these tags? Do people exactly care that Diddy debuted in Brawl, Zelda in Melee, etc.?

Hillside_Moose said:

How is this any different from tagging the individual games in the series, one of which we just aliased away? Who benefits from these tags? Do people exactly care that Diddy debuted in Brawl, Zelda in Melee, etc.?

This is just an idea, feel free to judge if it's good or not.

Past experience suggests that SSB individual game tags like super_smash_bros._ultimate are very subjective. As discussed before, when we used super_smash_bros._ultimate, it was often not "tag what you see".

For instance, post #3419291 (which is just Palutena) used to be tagged super_smash_bros._ultimate. This seems wrong to me, because she debuted in SSB 4, not 5 (Ultimate). But perhaps she was tagged Ultimate because of external reasons such as the art being published after the release of Ultimate, or author comments about Ultimate, or just the fact that Palutena also appeared in Ultimate. (that last reason arguably would cause all current SSB posts to be tagged Ultimate, because all characters from previous games also appear in Ultimate)

Using generation tags is supposed to be an objective and "tag what you see" way to organize characters by their individual games. That Palutena post would get tagged only ssb_4_character and that's it.

In forum #155722, someone mentioned post #3276152 as an example of post "that specifically reference[s] Ultimate". It's a collection of many characters that appear in Ultimate. If I understood correctly, that person basically wanted to keep super_smash_bros._ultimate to tag posts like these. In my opinion, it would be better to use tags like ssb_5_character for the reasons above.

I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think many people will search for them, and thus they will serve no purpose other than creating unwanted tag clutter.

I can see what you're trying to do, but this isn't the way to do it. The Pokémon tags aren't a good comparison due to the far larger amount of individual Pokémon. Additionally, I would guess that there are many more posts featuring only Pokémon from one generation of the Pokémon games than posts featuring Super Smash Bros. characters that were only introduced in one of the Super Smash Bros. games. Super Smash Bros. is supposed to be one big crossover, which is why I think people are more interested in the interaction of all the characters rather than fencing them off into which game they were introduced in.

Content-wise, the Pokémon series usually makes a big deal about new Pokémon "belonging" or "coming from" a specific region in its universe. Meanwhile, new characters introduced in Super Smash Bros. games are sort of just lumped into the roster. The focus is not on which characters come from which game in the series, but rather who is in the most recent one. Smash Ultimate sort of made a fuss over it, but in the end the most notable references in the game itself ended up being the order of the fighters you face in Ultimate's All-Star mode and the order of the character selection screen.

As I've previously stated, it would be better to create pools for posts referencing certain games in a series. As we saw with the old super_smash_bros._ultimate tag, using tags for this leads to many posts that aren't referencing a specific game being incorrectly tagged. I feel that users who would add posts to such pools would also be the sort of users who care about them being used correctly.

Danielx21 said:

This is just an idea, feel free to judge if it's good or not.

if you're going to make a thread for an idea you should actually believe in it, not make it in the hopes that someone else will. otherwise you're advocating for changes no one wants. if you wanted this to be a replacement for super smash bros. ultimate then you should've made the case in that thread, rather than follow it up after it was decided that any distinction between games is worthless.

AngryZapdos said:

I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think many people will search for them, and thus they will serve no purpose other than creating unwanted tag clutter.

I can see what you're trying to do, but this isn't the way to do it. The Pokémon tags aren't a good comparison due to the far larger amount of individual Pokémon. Additionally, I would guess that there are many more posts featuring only Pokémon from one generation of the Pokémon games than posts featuring Super Smash Bros. characters that were only introduced in one of the Super Smash Bros. games. Super Smash Bros. is supposed to be one big crossover, which is why I think people are more interested in the interaction of all the characters rather than fencing them off into which game they were introduced in.

Content-wise, the Pokémon series usually makes a big deal about new Pokémon "belonging" or "coming from" a specific region in its universe. Meanwhile, new characters introduced in Super Smash Bros. games are sort of just lumped into the roster. The focus is not on which characters come from which game in the series, but rather who is in the most recent one. Smash Ultimate sort of made a fuss over it, but in the end the most notable references in the game itself ended up being the order of the fighters you face in Ultimate's All-Star mode and the order of the character selection screen.

As I've previously stated, it would be better to create pools for posts referencing certain games in a series. As we saw with the old super_smash_bros._ultimate tag, using tags for this leads to many posts that aren't referencing a specific game being incorrectly tagged. I feel that users who would add posts to such pools would also be the sort of users who care about them being used correctly.

I understand. I think you have good points. The gen tags really work better for Pokémon than they would for SSB.

As mentioned in the previous discussion, using pools for posts that reference certain SSB games looks like a good idea.

Maybe we could at least use pools for SSB character groups:

• post #3276152 = a group of SSB 5 (Ultimate) characters
• post #3445205 = a group of SSB 1 characters

Rampardos said:

if you're going to make a thread for an idea you should actually believe in it, not make it in the hopes that someone else will. otherwise you're advocating for changes no one wants. if you wanted this to be a replacement for super smash bros. ultimate then you should've made the case in that thread, rather than follow it up after it was decided that any distinction between games is worthless.

Wait a minute. I really believed the use of tags like ssb_1_character was a good idea, although I'm willing to change my mind because of AngryZapdos' arguments above.

I for one like to obsess over the differences of SSB games and I'm interested in which SSB games each character was introduced. I've been editing and formatting list of super smash bros. characters with this in mind.

If we had tags like ssb_1_character, I'd most certainly use them. When I said "This is just an idea, feel free to judge if it's good or not.", I was just trying to know what others think. I would only want to introduce this major change if others were interested as well, not just for my personal use.

I've argued in favor of deleting super_smash_bros._ultimate in topic #15981. I disagree with the statement that "it was decided that any distinction between games is worthless". I for one don't think that, and I don't think that was the result of the discussion.

It was specifically about super_smash_bros._ultimate, which was a very problematic tag. The idea of using tags like ssb_1_character was actually briefly mentioned there (forum #155277). We also talked about using pools for things like SSB campaigns which vary by game.