Talk:The Princess Peach

Shouldn't the name of this page be "Princess Peach (Cruise Ship)" or something along those lines?
I know saying "The" helps distinguish it from the character and they say it every time, but they only do because it's a ship, it's not actually part of the name since it's lowercase (when it's not at the start of a sentence, of course).
As is this is just including the definite article of the subject of the page.--Kombatgod (talk) 18:17, December 11, 2020 (EST)

Also, maybe it's not noted in the in-game description, but should the name be italicized as names of other cruise ships? Anyhow, yeah, it should probably be renamed to Princess Peach (Cruise Ship) if "The" isn't part of its name, as you said. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 18:22, December 11, 2020 (EST)

It is part of the name, in the map, in the on-screen name when visiting the area, and in the Collectible Treasure.

If we're going to italicise the name then we should do it for every other ship as well like S.S. Flavion. Mario JC 18:52, December 11, 2020 (EST)

The ship is officially called "The Princess Peach" everywhere in-game. And there are already distinguish templates at the top of both this article and the actual character's article, so that should hopefully be enough. As for italicising ship names, the Kingdom Hearts Wiki does that too but to be honest, I don't think it's absoloutely necessary here. Nightwicked Bowser

I think you're wrong in saying that's the name of the ship: everytime they mention its name in dialogue the "the" is lowercase. I am convinced that the page should probably be called "The Princess Peach" since that's the name of the in-game location, but I still don't think it's the name of the ship itself, I think the distinction should be made. Basically "The Princess Peach" is the name of the gameplay area including the Princess Peach.--Kombatgod (talk) 06:35, December 12, 2020 (EST)

There's a similar discussion here, but what I take is that since "the" is part of the location label and "prefixed" in other mentions it is technically part of the title. I'm also going to add that I strongly disagree with italicizing boat names, including S.S. Flavion, because that's just not how it's formatted in the source. At the very least, it needs to be up to a proposal first. This is fiction, not the real world, and the same rules don't always apply, much less by Nintendo. LinkTheLefty (talk) 10:07, December 12, 2020 (EST)

When I asked Ray Trace about it, he responded with this link, but I agree that it could actually use further discussion. Nightwicked Bowser

Yes, but that's regarding a real-life subject. A title of a game would be italicized for instance, but not a title in a game (by most of Nintendo's standards), if that makes sense. Consider also that following capitalization conventions opens issues with many in-game names as well, like "the Princess Peach". It's not really up to us to "correct" the nomenclature. LinkTheLefty (talk) 11:24, December 12, 2020 (EST)

In any case I'm fairly certain that "The" shouldn't be italicized like Ray Trace did, I mean it doesn't even do that in the link he provided. The page you pointed to, The Sweet Stuff, actually goes according to what I thought: the page is named "The Sweet Stuff" after the in-game area but the ship is "the Sweet Stuff". That's beside the question of should it be in italics at all which I don't see the point in doing... but I don't have a strong opinion about that.--Kombatgod (talk) 14:15, December 12, 2020 (EST)

I think even for fictional entities, we need to italicize boat names per formatting. I recall in other fictional works, boat names are italicized. Even if in-game formatting doesn't do italics, I don't think that might be relevant. For instance, hypothetical game bios that don't italicize game names probably don't matter for this wiki's formatting. Anyhow, even if this gets italics, wouldn't this mean fictional book entries like Dark Prognosticus get them? Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 14:53, December 12, 2020 (EST)

The thing is that it contradicts our own policy: "Italics are used in main and gallery namespace page titles in the same way that they are used in text." I did notice that the "Super Luigi series" is italicized here, but if memory serves, it isn't italicized either. LinkTheLefty (talk) 15:26, December 12, 2020 (EST)

Nope, not seeing this supposed "contradiction". I feel the changes are indeed correct, and are dictated by standard MLA format at that. ^(T|C) 15:35, December 12, 2020 (EST)

(Edit conflict) I'm not sure exactly how it contradicts. The sentence quoted appears to deal with the title of the article requiring italics as well as the instances within the body of the article. Just for clarification, you mean it's not italiczed in-game? This can be true, but I'm also sure that some in-game bios from other games don't italicize either. See Smash Bros. Trophy descriptions. Anyway, if the fictonal Super Luigi series is in italics despite the in-game description showing a lack of italics, then this one should be too. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 15:36, December 12, 2020 (EST)

We have our own Manual of Style, however, and it says nothing of MLA format. LinkTheLefty (talk) 15:37, December 12, 2020 (EST)

Our Manual of Style doesn't explicitly require other media (such as books, album titles, magazine articles) have certain formatting either. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 15:42, December 12, 2020 (EST)

But it does? LinkTheLefty (talk) 15:43, December 12, 2020 (EST)

I see. My follow-up question would be, isn't this just adhering to MLA formatting? Why not extend this to fictional entities that also require italics? Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 15:49, December 12, 2020 (EST)

Because we adhere to Nintendo's spelling, so if they wanted to italicize fictional ship and book titles, it should be incumbent on them to do it, not for us to do it for them. I hope I'm making sense with this. LinkTheLefty (talk) 15:55, December 12, 2020 (EST)

I have to disagree. Video game text is not in the same standards as wiki documentation, so they do not have to do this (again, Super Smash Bros.does not italicize games in their tips) while we probably have to. I think that if we have to do formatting in respect of MLA, which is already not consistent with how in-game text deals with game titles, we should be italicizing these items (Super Luigi, Dark Prognosticus, S.S. Flavion, and more; see List of implied entertainment in addition). Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 16:10, December 12, 2020 (EST)

Again, though, I really think this at least deserves a proposal because policy only specified italicizing real-life products and generally leaving names as they are within media, which is how we've done things. LinkTheLefty (talk) 16:15, December 12, 2020 (EST)

Sure, we can shoot a proposal, perhaps asking if policy should be extended to include any titles covered in MLA formatting but not covered in our policy (as long as it's relevant) so we can avoid future confusion and disagreements over interpretation of the policy. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 16:25, December 12, 2020 (EST)

Yes. Just a small question: why MLA in particular? Certain style guides, such as the AP Stylebook or U.S. Navy Style Guide, don't italicize such things. By those standards, the previous implementation doesn't necessarily need fixing. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:15, December 12, 2020 (EST)

I'm not 100% sure. I actually believe wikis come with their own styling guidelines but I feel something like Wikipedia is good to follow as well as here, which do advocate italics for them. I do believe MarioWiki's Manual of Style is written with less in mind about the specifics of styling, but Wikipedia's styling standards seem more obvious than using the AP Stylebook or the U.S. Navy Style Guide since we follow closer to that than we do with those two guides. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 17:25, December 12, 2020 (EST)

I don't think Wikipedia's Manual of Style is the greatest model when it comes to video game material, like the infamous "NiGHTS into Dreams..." to "Nights into Dreams" move. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:33, December 12, 2020 (EST)

That might be one example, but I don't think this detracts from the argument that ship names need to be italicized. Anyway, I made a proposal called "Italics formatting of boat names, fictional products, and others" (so once it's archived, anyone else that happens on this discussion can at least find the name of it in our archives), so we should move discussion to there. Mario^-HOHO! (Talk / Stalk) 17:39, December 12, 2020 (EST)

(resetting tabulation) I made an edit to adhere the format used in other pages. When it comes to the italicization it's my opinion that when quoting the game directly we should use the same format used in the game. For instance the area in the game is called "The Princess Peach", not "The Princess Peach" nor "The Princess Peach" so it shouldn't be italic there. For the text itself we can have a discussion and come to a decision; it can be different, kinda like when we talk about "Kamek" being in Super Mario RPG despite technically being called "Magikoopa", we're talking about the game so we can do that in the way we think is best which may or may not include italicization of ship names. Regardless though, the zone or level is called "The Princess Peach", but the ship itself is called "Princess Peach", without "The".--Kombatgod (talk) 08:06, December 16, 2020 (EST)

Regardless, I'm sure it will be a lot more helpful to readers if we use the name of the level itself. Nightwicked Bowser

The article title matches location label "The Princess Peach" and all mentions in dialog as "the Princess Peach" - as far as I know, it's never not prefaced with "the" in any text, so it technically stays as part of the title, making no real need for an identifier to differentiate it from the other subject. Anyway, as mentioned by Bazooka Mario, talk of italics has shifted from this discussion into a writing guideline proposal. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:22, December 16, 2020 (EST)