User:EleCyon/Proposal Draft

This is a draft of an upcoming proposal. Unless if you wish to edit typographical errors or grammatical errors, please refrain from editing this userpage without consulting EleCyon (talk) first.

Overhaul titles of generic-named level/course/stage pages

With the recent release of the Nintendo Switch remake of Mario vs. Donkey Kong, we have already seen the introduction of two new worlds - Merry Mini-Land and Slippery Summit, as well as their plus variants. However, while I was documenting levels for the remake, I have noticed an issue - since these worlds also change the numbering for Spooky House, Mystic Forest, and Twilight City's level pages, this causes several concerns for me in regards to naming level articles with generic-named stage numberings in games where worlds are named:

• Right now, the level numberings for the various levels in Mario vs. Donkey Kong are correspondent to the GBA version. If I attempt to move those pages to match the Switch numbering (for example: "Level 4-1 (Mario vs. Donkey Kong)" (Spooky House 4-1) to "Level 5-1 (Mario vs. Donkey Kong)" (Spooky House 5-1, Switch version)), this can cause several issues with us cleaning up all the links to other level pages, and is especially the case for links to various Mystic Forest (5-x > 7-x) and Spooky House (4-x > 5-x) pages.
• Related to above, the new Merry Mini-Land and Slippery Summit pages have a slightly conjectural variation of the game's title. Take a look at this for example: "Level 4-1 (Mario vs. Donkey Kong for Nintendo Switch)", aka the first stage of Merry Mini-Land.
  • As a reminder: nowhere in any circumstance has the remake been titled "Mario vs. Donkey Kong for Nintendo Switch", it is simply titled "Mario vs. Donkey Kong" (box art, trailers, website, etc.). Even the wiki itself also titles it as such, with the "(Nintendo Switch)" modifier to differentiate it from the original GBA version. It could be seen as confusing especially as there are some reissues of games that are officially titled the same way too (like Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS).
  • I attempted to get around this by initially naming the title of the article as "Level 4-1 (Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Nintendo Switch))", but it caused issues with rendering the title on top of the page.

What I wanted to propose is to overhaul the titles of generic-named level/course/stage pages. Level articles that fall under this description are:

• Levels with generic numbering identifiers in worlds that are not named in any circumstance (including in-game and supplementary material like Nintendo Power). Example is World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros..
• Levels with generic numbering identifiers in named worlds. Examples include Level 1-1 in Mario Toy Company (from Mario vs. Donkey Kong), and World 2-3 in Desert Land/Desert Hill from Super Mario Bros. 3.
• Levels with names do not count, regardless if the world is named. This is true for various levels in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Make Eggs, Throw Eggs). These article names are kept as is.

After brainstorming for a while, these are the possible formats we're going to aim for when making level pages, see below.

Option 1: "(World/Game Name) - (Level Code)"

This is the new page naming format for levels which is based on the naming format used for WiKirby (note for reference: levels in the Kirby series are called "stages", while worlds are called "levels".) Examples of articles on WiKirby that follow this format are Cookie Country - Stage 1 (Level 1-1 or Stage 1 of Cookie Country in Kirby's Return to Dream Land), and Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble - Lvl 7-2 in Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble].

This makes it easier to update a level's numbering designation should any circumstances of adding new worlds in-between happen again (like how Merry Mini-Land and Slippery Summit were handled in the Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong). It can also make it easier to identify levels from each other easily without having to look up the name of the world first. This will also ensure moving articles if new worlds are added in remakes are made easier as well. Additionally, this will prevent game name confusion from occurring, specifically my issue with the Merry Mini-Land stages using the identifier "Mario vs. Donkey Kong for Nintendo Switch".

With this format, this is how it will work:

• For levels that use generic numbering (1-x) and are from a named world, they will be named "(World Name) - X-X". For example, in the Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong, we can call Level 5-DK and Level 8-2 as "Spooky House - Level 5-DK" and "Twilight City - Level 8-2".
  • As a side note - if two worlds from different games happen to share names, the newer game's level page can have the newer game's title in parenthesis. For example, hypothetically speaking, we get two worlds named "MarioWiki Land" in two games. It can go like this "MarioWiki Land - Level 2-2" for Game A, and "MarioWiki Land - Level 2-2 (Game B)" for Game B. To my knowledge, something like this has not occurred in any official games and upcoming content.
  • Depending on how the game may call the level code, it can be formatted differently. For example, in Hotel Mario, levels are named as "Stage #", and Super Mario Wiki refers to their level articles with the title ("Stage # (Hotel Name)"). It can be changed to be something like "Lemmy's High-ate Regency Hotel - Stage 1".
• For levels that use generic numbering and are in unnamed worlds (eg. Super Mario Bros.), they will be named "(Game Name) - X-X". For example, take World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros.. This can be named as "Super Mario Bros. - World 1-1" instead. The "world" designator can be renamed to "Level/Area/Stage/Course" depending on how the game calls it.
  • Some of you might be concerned with it conflicting with a certain job name in Super Mario Maker 2 - "Super Mario Bros. W1-1?". It shouldn't conflict at all - the format of the title is seemingly close but in the end it's fairly different.
• Redirects can be made based on the original names of the articles. For example, if "Level 6-3 (Mario vs. Donkey Kong)" is moved to "Twilight City - Level 8-3", the former can be turned into a redirect that leads to the latter new title of the article itself, to make it easier to search for wiki readers who are more used to the old format. Another example is if "World 1-2 (Super Mario Bros. 3)" is moved to "Grass Land - World 1-2", where typing in "World 1-2 (Super Mario Bros. 3)" still leads to the article with the new name.
• Levels with names are already kept as is. If some level names from two or more games conflict due to them being the same, the name of the game should be placed in parenthesis for the associated articles, while the level of the game that is released first chronologically will keep its name as is (no game title in parenthesis after it.)

Option 2: "(World Name) - (Level Code)" and "(Level Code) (Game Name)"

This is a variation of the first option which incorporates itself with the old level article naming system to make it more flexible to some situations especially for tackling commonly-searched terms like "World 1-1". This is how it will go:

• Levels that use generic numbering and are from a named world will be named "(World Name) - Level X-X". Ex. Level 4-mm (Mario vs. Donkey Kong for Nintendo Switch) becomes "Merry Mini-Land - Level 4-mm".
  • If two worlds from different games happen to share names, the newer game's level page can have the newer game's title in parenthesis. For example, hypothetically speaking, we get two worlds named "MarioWiki Land" in two games. It can go like this "MarioWiki Land - Level 2-2" for Game A, and "MarioWiki Land - Level 2-2 (Game B)" for Game B. To my knowledge, something like this has not occurred in any official games and upcoming content.
  • Depending on how the game may call the level code, it can be formatted differently, whether it would be "Stage X-X", "Area X-X", or even simply "X-X".
  • For redirects, the original names of the articles may serve as redirects, however this may be handled differently depending on certain circumstances (shifting of world number for various worlds in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake, for example).
• Levels that use generic numbering and are from worlds with no names will follow this format: "World X-X ('Game Name')". Examples of such are World 1-1 (Super Mario Bros.) and World 18-1. The game name is used to differentiate the level from other games featuring a level with the same name, as per usual.
• Levels with names are already kept as is.

I believe that identifying generically-named levels with numbered coding from each other should be made easier, especially if we need to look up information quickly for a friend struggling to find a level or its information. Right now, the current method of using game titles in parentheses makes it hard for such information to be easily looked up, and it has become more of an issue when we tried to fix up the level number coding and the articles for the new levels when documenting the Switch remake of Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I hope this proposal serves to change this for the foreseeable future.

Proposer: EleCyon (talk)
Deadline: April 29, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Option 2

1. EleCyon (talk) - First choice, per proposal.