MarioWiki:Main Page talk archive 18

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Citation Policy

Hello all philosophers of the SMWiki, who like to talk in nice, long paragraphs about Mario continuity and other issues (you know who you are :P).

With the citation proposal winning 16-3 and expiring in less than 19 hours, I'm going to go ahead and put this out: what exactly are we citing? As it stands information straight from a game is self-explanatory and has no need to be cited. So what about when unreleased games, with references to websites with confirmed info, becomes released? Do we get rid of all of those citations?

I invite anyone to discuss this matter (even those non-philosophers who make quick edits to user talk pages all the time :P) who has ideas for it. I'll take care of the templates to be used and the help pages for the inexperienced (aka all the coding I always do); I only need guidance on this so we can get started citing hopefully in a few days. Wa _T^C_@^Y 22:10, 21 January 2008 (EST)

Right, so here we go. Stumpers, activated. Wayo, you know that I'm for citation but too much will cost us a bunch of users, so... here's what I'm thinking. Traditional, real-life citation requires the citer to cite what he or she does not know from the beginning. That's for writing where someone can cite you personally. However, as an encyclopedia, we need to be a little more specific than that. How about this:

Citation is there to prevent vandalism and people adding false information. It important because it increases credibility. The more specific you are, the more credible you are. However, the more focused a Wiki is, the less specific citation it requires, IMO, because everyone is pulling generally from the same sources (games, TV shows, etc.) SO! Here it is. Stumpers' Numbered Citation Extraveganza.

1. Citing games/shows/movies/comics: Unnecesary to the extent of Wikipedia. You should not have to quote the individual line that is evidence, right? However, I do feel that a quick note would be nice. Example, "Princess Peach has been known to use her charms on villains, but only for the purpose of being a detriment to their plots." Of course, this comes from Peach's initial relationship to T.E.C., but did you also know that it's from the the Mario Anime movie? But, anything beyond this would be over the top.
2. Citing official sites and material: A must for pre-release games like Brawl. If Nintendo has realeased a new press release or Nintendo Power magazine, this will save a lot of time. For Nintendo Power, we should provide the issue, article title, pg. number, etc. where available. You know, traditional stuff. A URL should be sufficient for citing web sites. Maybe a retrival date if we want to get picky. This includes instruction booklets and boxes, by the way, because not everyone is familiar with 'em.
3. Citing 3rd party sources: Same thing, but... we need to be extra careful about what we do here, because this is where things get sticky. I feel that, with any print source, the book/magazine title and pg. number (article title, too if it's an article) should be put down. For a website, put as much down as possible. Even a quote from the site if it's really, really weird.

Bottom line: the farther your source is from an official game or other medium, the more information should be placed in the citation. Let's say you get a paragraph based off of something you got from a game in a character's article. The citation should go at the end. In other words, "MC Ballyhoo hosts the Star Carnival blah blah blah a year's worth of candy." and then you would cite your source.

For citing, we should pick a uniform method. I'm going to go with Wikipedia on this one. Here's [wikipedia:Mario#References an example] of how they cite. It looks pretty simple actually. Of course, no reason to get as in depth as some of their crud, like the whole quote from a certain video game thing. I'm also leaning towards using their numbered source system, where you click a citation and it brings you to the bottom of the page. It should be like that so only people who want to question your source can see it.

Ok, that's what I'm thinking. Let me know if there's a gaping hole in this idea. Stumpers! 22:37, 21 January 2008 (EST)

The Transformers wiki have good guidelines when it come to sourcing. We could use a similar policy. --Blitzwing 06:51, 22 January 2008 (EST)

When using Wikipedia's own citing environment, citing can be made very easy, apparently. You could cite like this:

''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' has been delayed up to January 31st in 
Japan<ref>[http://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/release/2008/080115.html Press 
Release of the Official Nintendo Website (in Japanese)]</ref>.

Then, at the end of the article, you add a section which reads:

== References ==
<references/>

All <ref></ref> tags' content will automatically be listed at <references/>, you don't have to create extra links for it. This is, at least, how Wikipedia's system works. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 06:53, 22 January 2008 (EST)

Blitzwing, I think you're right about your transformers... and you said it with a lot fewer words than me! ;) I think we should be using Cobold's Wikipedia system for anything that is not a primary source (game, etc.) and something similar to the "Storylink" for the primary sources... maybe. I could also see not copying TransformerWiki on that, because it looks like two kinds of citations may be a little inconsistent. Stumpers! 12:32, 22 January 2008 (EST)

Oh, I thought I added this last night...yes, we are using the <ref> & <references/> system. Wa _T^C_@^Y 16:53, 22 January 2008 (EST)

Okay, I've put up a demonstration in the Sandbox, looks cool. :) - Cobold (talk · contribs) 16:58, 22 January 2008 (EST)

I used Cobold's citation thing on the Snufit page. Is that how it's supposed to look?Knife (talk) 20:00, 22 January 2008 (EST)

Yep, good job. I have one template up for use, but it's currently in beta and not working: {{ref}}, to save a little bit of time hopefully when I get it working. I don't think the multi-column thing for the references list is necessary since we will never have 30+ references on one page, most likely, so we're going to stick to just <references/>. Help page, fix of that template, and maybe the policy all throughout this week, at latest done by Friday. Wa _T^C_@^Y 20:59, 22 January 2008 (EST)

Hey, Wayo, be sure you decide on what information you want in each reference. I just did up the Masahiro Sakurai article, but I think I cited wrong, so... anyway, you can kinda see another multiple-source article there. I think your system is working well! Stumpers! 23:08, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Well the Sakurai article looks great, but you completely screwed up on Peach (item) – we explicitly said here to NOT cite games themselves, it's self-explanatory! Wa _T^C_@^Y 17:52, 24 January 2008 (EST)

I understood when you said this on the Peach (item) page. But, please don't get rid of all my changes because this is the difference I have made. I'm very good at editing when I know the criteria for what is good and bad. I was still waiting for the word on games when I wrote that article, so please keep that in mind. Don't publically flog me Wiki-style...! *cowers*. Did I miss the new help page or something? Anyway, good luck with all of this citation stuff. Stumpers! 18:23, 24 January 2008 (EST) EDIT: Sorry if I came across as rude the first time. Today hasn't been so good for me.

Image Galleries

There was a proposal about this a few weeks ago and while I don't remember what the outcome was, I would like to correct something I stated.

A while back, I tried to add images to categories, which creates an image gallery within each category. Well, it didn't work for one or more reasons that Wayoshi pointed out. Well, it seems that it's working now and that might be something to think about.

As an example, I've added Image:NSMBDS 1-Up Mushroom Artwork.png and Image:Volt shroom.PNG to Category:Mushrooms. Take a look when the chance permits. -- Chris 08:27, 27 January 2008 (EST)

As an afterthought, the one problem I see with this is that many images will be cross linked to various categories (IE: Super Mushroom to Power Ups, Mushrooms, Items, etc.). For that purpose, images could be categorized based direction on what they are (IE: Super Mushroom is a Mushroom first and an Item second). -- Chris 08:30, 27 January 2008 (EST)

I've tried solutions with DPL, but apparently, "<gallery>" is an evil word for DPL which makes the DPL go haywire or turn and run away. ("<g4llery>" "works") - Cobold (talk · contribs) 09:01, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Ok? I've already found a solution, as evident in the first paragraph. -- Chris 11:33, 27 January 2008 (EST)

The problem is, we are planning to use this on gallery pictures (like on Princess Peach), putting all these images in a category. And then remove them from the article. Then these images are marked unused! This is a major problem, you can put as many "don't delete" notices on unused pictures, we've had incidents in the past where sysops didn't actually look at the image, just saw that it is unused and deleted it. Being unused is very dangerous for any image on this wiki. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 11:35, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Cobold, are you trying to use a custom format for DPL to output? If so, I highly suggest you give a look at this section of this page. Wa _T^C_@^Y 12:47, 27 January 2008 (EST)

I put up some tests in the Sandbox, they didn't work. Anyway, thanks, I'll look at the site. :) - Cobold (talk · contribs) 12:49, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Ah yes – \n is much easier to do than <br>s, and apparently the only way. Also, %PAGE% = %NAMESPACE%:%TITLE%. Wa _T^C_@^Y 13:02, 27 January 2008 (EST)

That's what I thought. But for images, %PAGE% gives :Image:Imagename, but %NAMESPACE%:%TITLE% gives Image:Imagename, which I want to have. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 13:04, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Ah ah yes, the cat/img escape link by default. I think I used Image:%TITLE% before or something, OK Wa _T^C_@^Y 13:18, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Headers

Why don't we use =Header Name= before doing ==Header Name==? They also work.
The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shroobario (talk).

Yes, but =Header Name= creates a headline that is as big as the name of the page at the very top. And this is too big. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 09:33, 27 January 2008 (EST)

Ya, I know it creates a header in the size of the page title, but they could be good for pages that for example are merged because they are stubs or etc. Then it would be like other page. Shrooby ^Talk

Notablity

Some "minor" article get kept while others are deleted without question. Since I made that soon-to-be infamous proposal, can we PLEASE deside WHAT GET'S SOMETHING AN ARTICLE??? HyperToad 20:46, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Ok, well, affects game play is a bad thing, because that would include platforms, which isn't so great... I think we've argued that into a hole... how about this: a series of questions.

(1) How long would the article be for the subject? If more than one paragraph, create a separate page. If not, go to (2).

(2) Does the subject belong on a pre-existing list list or can if fit as a sub-section on a larger article? Example: Snufit Ball could fit under Snufit. If the answer both is no, create the article. If the answer to the list question is yes, go to (3). If the answer to the larger article question is yes, go to (4). If the answer to both is yes, go to (5).

(3) Create/expand an entry on the list. Note: if you can expand the subject to more than a paragraph, make a separate article: subjects can be on both lists and individual articles.

(4) Create a sub-section of the article's page.

(5) Create a sub-section on the article's page and make an entry in the list.

Does that look good? If you want to edit is and then propose it, you're free to do so. Stumpers! 23:17, 28 January 2008 (EST)

I'm sorry to say I have no clue, let's wait for someone else's opinion, like Cobold or someone. HyperToad

IMO, The notabillity of a subject should be decided by mutiples factor, not just “it affect Gameplay“ or “It have an official name”. Here's my thought on the subject.:

• The subject should be officialy named: Not a prerequisit, but it sure help. Having an official name show that Nintendo cares about the subject. Of course, conjectural stuff can still have theirs own articles. Mecha-Zinger is separate enough from Zinger to have it's own article.

• The subject should affect Gameplay... in revelant ways.: Impacting the game world is another sign of nottability. However, it isn't everything. The afro-mentioned Snufit Ball (More on it later) affect Gameplay (It hurt Mario), however, this is only really marginal. In comparison, Cheese allow you to see a rare enemy in Luigi's Mansion, which is elaborate.

• If creatures/objects/things similar to the subject exist, make sure there's enough to write about these separatly.: The various Isle Delfino Birds may have a few differences, but it only varies in their coloration and what they give when you kill 'em. In comparison, the various Mushroom have more varied appearances, effect (The Mega Mushroom and the plain Mushroom don't do the same thing), are obtained differently (Some Mushroom in the Paper Mario series can only be obtained by cooking various items), ect.

• Having a different name doesn't mean the subject is itself different.: The Super Mario Land instruction manual refered to the Pirahna Plant enemy as “Pakkun Flower“. While a different name can be an indication of being a separate species, the Pakkun Flower look and act exactly like the garden variety Pirahna Plant. Futhermore, the ­SML instruction manual is notorious for it's rushed translation, and the japanese name of Piranha Plant is bassicaly written in English as “Pakkun Fura“. Because of these overwhelming evidences, Pakkun Flower was merged with Pirahna Plant, despite having a separate name.

• It should have enough distinctive feature: OK, Snufit Ball affect gameplay, and..? It doesn't have an official name, it look like every generic firearm projectile, and it's generic. Do we have an article about the Fireball shooted by the Autobomb?

• Implied articles are fine... as long as there is signifiant content: Having article on stuff that are mentioned but not seen is fine. Scarlette, despite being never seen, play a small role in PM:TYD since her letter is what make Bomberry join you. In comparison, Old Man Skoo from the same game is some dude who is mentioned to have been eaten by Hooktail, and is never heard from again.

• Random Cameo by other videogames characters shouldn't have articles.: See List of Cameos.

• We allow out of Universe article.: However, random voice actors don't get their owns articles since theirs isn't much information about 'em. Obliviously, Charle Martinet is an exception.

• It's great to be different, but...: Young Cricket is a notable character with speaking lines and a proeminent role. Not so much for Master Mantis, who has no speaking lines and don't really do anything, making a separate article for Master Mantis would be a stub that couldn't be expanded. Since both characters are almost exclusively seen together, it make sense to have the two articles merged. --Blitzwing 08:27, 30 January 2008 (EST)

That sounds good, now, to act upon it and make it an offical policy. HyperToad How do we do that?

Knife has started something and I'm helping him this weekend on it. It will go at the start of the Manual of Style, or on some other MarioWiki page, to make it official.
The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wayoshi (talk).

Yeah, and what Blitzwing said helps a lot with what were planning. Be sure to see it after the weekend!Knife (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2008 (EST)

When I first joigned, I'd never thought I would help with something that would go in the frickin' Manual of style :O. Blitzwing (talk · gnome work)

Link

Will I get in trouble for linking to Userpedia in my welcoming template? HyperToad

I'm sceptical about personal welcome templates - they have a big problem, not getting updated. For example, we now have a link to the glossary in Help:Contents and {{welcome}}, because a proposal complained about that the abbreviations on the wiki were explained nowhere, but the personal welcome templates didn't get an update and thus don't link to the Glossary themselves, so as more personal welcome templates are in use, the less we can successfully update the Help section. So I wonder whether it's actually a good idea allowing personal welcome templates in the first place.

When you put a link to Userpedia in your template, you should make sure that it is pointed out that it is not part of the Wiki itself and we have no responsibility for it. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 15:32, 30 January 2008 (EST)

Preview

I find it annoying how people won't bother pressing the preview button when editing. Not only does it fill recent changes, but it adds to the persons edit count when they shouldnt have that. Once I have seen the same page being editing by the same person like 7 times in a row on recent changes maybe more. Alphaclaw11 16:24, 2 February 2008 (EST)

It's possible Media-Wiki wise to force users to preview the page once before submitting it, but it might also be in the way - for example, when you've created a new category and have to add it to a lot of pages, you have to preview every single of them. Or, when you've fixed a minor typo on a page like Princess Peach which takes very long to preview. I wouldn't advise using it. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 16:42, 2 February 2008 (EST)

Vandals

I notice that recently there have been alot of troll incidents where this users keeps spamming user talk pages, and shall we discuss about this?F g

discuss what? <_> McWolf 19:11, 5 February 2008 (EST)

I meant what shall we do about this? Spammers Can't continue to do this or things will turn out to be ugly...F g

Add new user protection? It's not like that many new users talk to higher ups in their first few days, right? Stumpers! 19:23, 5 February 2008 (EST)

Doesn't seem like much can be done really. -- Sir Grodus 20:00, 5 February 2008 (EST)

Status/Notices

I can't see the status or the notices! There's an ad blocking it D:
The preceding unsigned comment was added by Master Crash (talk).

Well then you'll have to check MediaWiki:Sitenotice manually.  Caps Lock LORD 14:04, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Well that stinks.

Master Crash

Only Steve can change it. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 14:33, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Bear with it for a while. Steve is increasing ad space so we have more funds to get a server move.Knife (talk) 18:42, 6 February 2008 (EST)

What happen to the brawl page?

Someone changed the Brawl page and said bad stuff about the game and cobold
The preceding unsigned comment was added by Luigi-Tron 3000 (talk).

We have a vandal who returns from time to time and blanks pages. Don't worry, the damage can be undone easily. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 11:15, 7 February 2008 (EST)

Brown Yoshi

I was thinking a while back that I have never seen artwork for Brown Yoshi. Would someone give me a link? I believe his last appearance was Super Mario World 2. I would ask this on the talk page, but it doesn't get much traffic. Stumpers! 18:37, 10 February 2008 (EST)

New user's pages and talkpages having blank content

I find it rather odd having new users blanking up the content in their own pages for a while; blanking their own content but the sig that user just made... I am very concerned about it as this will result of having leftover junk of pages that have no content whatsoever as I just found out in Special:Patrol. We can't watch every new user coming by in this wiki such cases, in well avoiding messes. Here is some examples of one of the new user's pages; 1) This is the user's page 2) This is the user's talk page. (I am using links instead of article links to avoid build up in wanted pages) It's just... odd... even if they are not going to contribute to the wiki well often, just look at their contributions. Any comments are welcome here in this section. RAP... Just hanging out in Hooktail's stomach. :P Adding item entries until something pops up... *shifty*

If you look at the history (before it got blanked) of User talk:Yoshi Fan 911, the user with blank userpage is said to be one of Yoshi 911 sockpuppet. Yoshi 911 was the one to blank the talkpage of various users that were said to be his sockpuppets. Otherwise, I don't think a new user has even blanked his talk, (except for perhap the occasional odd guy that create an userpage but otherwise never edit) --Blitzwing 07:07, 16 February 2008 (EST)

Yes, it's one of the three sockpuppets of Yoshi Fan 911, all of "them" blanked their talk pages after I gave him a warning for sockpuppeting, then a final warning for removing the first warning from his talk page. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 11:41, 16 February 2008 (EST)

Ads

Can we please get rid of the ads?!?!?! Superjustin 11:15, 16 February 2008 (EST)

Nay. The Ad's is what gives Steve the money nesscesary to pay the hoster of the site. --Blitzwing 11:19, 16 February 2008 (EST)

Why are so much of the ads porn
The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zanramon (talk).

8,000 Articles

We have reached 8,000 articles on the Super Mario Wiki. This does not count stub articles, however. The 8,000 article is BS Super Mario USA made by Red.Tide on February 16, 2008. I would like to thank all of the people who have helped the wiki grow to what it is today. Now, let's all keep editing! Paper Jorge ( Talk·Contributions)·

Wha-what? I thought it was Hog! Wa _T^C_@^Y 13:52, 17 February 2008 (EST)

If I'm correct, it's BS Super Mario USA...ugh. CONFUSING. Paper Jorge ( Talk·Contributions)·

Chat Rules

Recently, a few Users on Chat got into a huge flame war over religion. The argument turned very rough, and I was getting really close to banning the Users. It took me, like, half-an-hour to stop them, and it only stopped because I threatened to ban them for flaming. My point being, I think any talk about religion should not be allowed on the Chatroom. It causes too much conflict and chaos, and creates massive flame wars that completely ruins the fun of Chat for the rest of us. We had a discussion about this before on the Forums, but nothing was ever officially decided, so... I'm bringing it up here. I'm not sure if this type of content is allowed on this talk page or not... But, I took the chance. In case it isn't, please don't remove this comment completely, but instead, please move it to a proper talk page for this kind of content. My Bloody Valentine

I don't see why it shouldn't be here, as the chat is hosted on the wiki. Flaming is generally prohibited, but that shouldn't limit freedom of speech. Thus, the flaming persons should find a private place to settle their disputes. And if we have to ban (for a short time, a day?) them to make them look for it. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 08:51, 29 February 2008 (EST)

let 'em discuss, just don't let 'em flame. Use the logic McWolf

Easier said than done, though. I'm not for limiting free speech, but there's gotta be some other option. It's unfair to DP to expect him to use his time putting out flames. Stumpers! 10:58, 29 February 2008 (EST)

DP: If you think back, we did decide on how to handle this. Problem was, certain users got in the way of anything constructive happening.

Stumpers: I don't think it's unfair in the least. He accepted the responsibility of chat ops, he accepted all the crap that goes with it. -- Chris 15:38, 29 February 2008 (EST)

Database Errors

Whenever I submit, the Wiki says I have an error... is this happening to anyone else? Might it be related to my promotion? Here's the text:

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "SearchMySQL4::update". MySQL returned error "1194: Table 'searchindex' is marked as crashed and should be repaired (localhost)".

I can submit even though I get this error, but it makes it very hard to preview pages and such. I hope I'm the only one having this problem! Stumpers! 21:09, 3 March 2008 (EST)

I seem to be having this problem too. Twink 21:12, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Yeah, sometimes it occurs with me as well. Time Questions 06:30, 4 March 2008 (EST)

Doesn't happen all the time for me, but it happens on occasion. Its annoying, at the very least. My Bloody Valentine

This happen to everyone. It's really annoying because you can't do search with it, you get a Database error even thought the rest of the wiki work fine. --Blitzwing 07:19, 4 March 2008 (EST)

Ditto to DP!-Informant 19:53, 6 March 2008 (EST)

Font

Does anyone know the name of the font used for the title screen of Super Mario World??-Informant 19:45, 6 March 2008 (EST)

The forum is a craphole

There, I said it.

I would have posted this on said forum, but its freakin' obvious the administrator gave up on it. The whole thing is a battleground for petty flamewars and spam topics. Sure, the spambot's are gone, but the situation is as worse as it was two months ago. I think the forum need more moderators and that said moderators enforces the darn rules for once. I'm not the only user to thinks the forum is going downhill, something must be done about it. Blitzwing (talk · gnome work)

In the last month, I've only had to delete a few topics (most by the same user) and end a few flame wars. As no mod can be expected to go post for post through each and every thread, we have this handy report to moderator function. That said, is there currently a problem thread that has not been addressed yet? -- Chris 21:14, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Blah, when there's a thread about to pronouciate Mario name, you know that your forum is going downhill. --Blitzwing 07:25, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

RudnickiMarioX01 is being a total idiot. He's causing a lot of problems; the rest of us are using it as a playground. o.0 3D, SPAM SPAM SPAM

It seems that most of these problem that people are complaining about revolve around Rudniwhatever. I've given him a warning. -- Chris 07:46, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

FAs

What are we waiting for? Christmas? I guess we have to do something about either rotating FAs or continue the system but anyways why aren't you guys doing something about this?F g

Maybe we need to get more aggressive about nominations? Let's think of some articles that deserve FAs... Brawl will be pretty soon, I'm sure. Stumpers! 17:03, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

We shouldn't aggressively try to make articles featured which aren't really good enough. There's no need for having a new FA, like, every week. If we find new articles worthy of FA status, that's fine, but we don't have to. But I agree that we should do something about the article featured on the main page. I suggest that as long as there are no new FAs, we put one of the old FAs on the main page every week. Time Questions 18:06, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

I didn't suggest that we nominate low quality articles. As you know, each FA is nominated, then goes through a scrutinizing that ultimately makes the article FA status, hopefully. There are lots of articles out there that I feel would make FAs with that kind of scrutinizing, but haven't been nominated for whatever reason. For example, Mario Strikers Charged or Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Stumpers! 12:53, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Brawl can't be nominated, is has construction templates on it. One of the requirements for nominations is that there are no templates like that on the page. (For the same, reason, Boo gets nominated all the time, but the nomination gets deleted because of the rewrite template.) - Cobold (talk · contribs) 12:55, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Please read what I've written: "Brawl will (ready for FA nomination) pretty soon, I'm sure." Stumpers! 13:02, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

MarioWiki Map not working...

As I recently checking during my limited time of my very night, I checked that special page Special:FrapprMap once again, this time the page is actually not working. It's possible that it actually expired for some reason, but I think Steve didn't have time to check this. In the looks towards the screen is completely blank, not running at all, no questions asked. :( Any suggestions, compliants, comments would be welcome here. Should we recover this special page or will Steve remove the extension for a reason to annouce with? RAP... My wand can't work on that special page! Even if I burn, melt, or even torn it! ;_; So do Hooky! :P

Uhm, it works for me. Be sure to enable JavaScript when viewing it. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 08:20, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Oh, it is running. Hmmmm, I can't seem to enter it when it's during the night, even if I have my JavaScript on. I wonder why... RAP... LOL and I thought the map's crashed. XP

Bad Jokes archives

Per this proposal, we are now supposed to create an archive for poor writing and funny vandalism. However, the name of the archive as well as the specific rules haven't been decided yet, anybody involved in the vote want to discuss it? --Blitzwing 07:49, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, we could simply call it the humour archive if you can't think of something else. What should not be in there is outright spam, but the Beezo article perhaps? - Cobold (talk · contribs) 07:57, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Uh, do you mean that we should put the (old) Beezo article, or not put it? I'm confused. --Blitzwing 08:03, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

I was talking about what is here. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 08:22, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Duh, I know it was about the revision I keep on my Userpage. What I meant is did you mean that we should put that Beezo article on the Humour archive, or not put it at all? Your comment kinda confused me. --Blitzwing 08:24, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, of course that's the kind of content that would fit for it. (AKA put it in) - Cobold (talk · contribs) 08:28, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Ah, OK, I agree. I wonder if proposals can also be put in the Bad Jokes archives, things like "Pie for everyone" and the (in)famous "LET'S RECREATE SNUFIT BALL AGGRESSIVELY" proposals seems worthy of being in that archive. --Blitzwing 08:30, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

And of course, we're not forgetting Pirate Goomba is a Pirate Goomba. That would be the best, perfectest example of what not to do. Paper Jorge ( Talk·Contributions)·

Just my two cents: pure, mean-spirited vandalism doesn't belong here. These are "messed-up" / botched edits or pages whose end results were funny, some of which serving as examples for newbies not to do. One of the concerns of the opposers was to promote trolls, so anything of that nature should NOT go here. I'll help set up the rules in the common light green box when the archive is created...the title should be one word after the namespace: MarioWiki:Nonsense, MarioWiki:Omissions...yeah, I'm stuck too. I'll find something :P Wa _T^C_@^Y 14:11, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

There it is.

Any opinion? Thoughts? Comments? --Blitzwing 19:40, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

What about the foreign-language names?

I see an increasing number of articles where the names from other languages (mainly French and German) are mentioned. Is it now offcially allowed to add the non-English names? --Grandy02 11:30, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

I don't see a reason against it. There was never a rule concerning that subject. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 11:31, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

So I assume we can also make foreign-language redirects, such as Teresa redirecting to Boo. Time Questions 11:35, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

So if nobody complains I'd like to add German names of the various creatures - there are a lot. --Grandy02 11:42, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Well, things like Koopa are untranslated, especially the Paper Mario series had an awesome translation though. Großfrostheim is such an obvious pun on the seat of Nintendo of Europe. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 11:46, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Not to mention that "Koopa Troopa" isn't the original name anyway. I wonder how many of the names in the Mario series are internationally unchanged (like Luigi, Donkey Kong and Wario)? I guess less than half of the names, since already major characters like Bowser (Koopa) and Toad (Kinopio) have changed names. --Grandy02 15:32, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Please read my suggestion: Some characters like Professor Elvin Gadd do really have a lot of different names. If you look at the Gadd article, four non-English names are mentioned in the very first sentence. Looks a bit overcrowded, doesn't it? What about a seperate section for the non-English names within the article? We could make a list for every of the affected articles plus the names' meaning next to every name. Like that (but in a table, of course):

• Japanese: Professor Oyama – Named after the game designer Yoshiyuki Oyama
• French: Professeur Karl Tastroff – Pun on "catastrophe"
• German: Professor Immanuel Gidd – Pun on "igitt", meaning "egad"

Comments? --Grandy02 15:05, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

We could also add a section to the character and species templates. Articles that don't have such templates could still have the foreign-language name in the first sentence, like it's been done in the past. Time Questions 15:09, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

Hum, I think then some of the templates would get too long. I still think that a seperate section under or above the Trivia section would be the best compromise, it's also an effective way to include the meaning of the names and it wouldn't disturb the readability of the article. But that's only my humble opinion, of course. --Grandy02 15:20, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

The Trivia section itself seems best for such notices (see Fahr Outpost). - Cobold (talk · contribs) 15:25, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

Possible, but e.g. Elvin Gadd has five more names (the Italian one isn't mentioned so far). Wouldn't that cause five additional points for the Trivia section, but a Trivia section shouldn't include too many points? --Grandy02 15:30, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

Depends on how much points of a trivia section would fit better into the main article (purpose of {{Trivia}}). - Cobold (talk · contribs) 18:04, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

I made a page to visualize my thoughts on the topic how the non-English names could be mentioned: User:Grandy02/Test. Comments? --Grandy02 10:55, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Looks good. Petey's German name should have a note about the "Tyranha". - Cobold (talk · contribs) 14:29, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Thanks! :-) I would like to know whether this is now acceptable for the MarioWiki? And if yes, could someone make a template (including the different languages, namely Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Swedish so far), since a completely static table wouldn't be that good? --Grandy02 14:47, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Looks good to me as well. I'm a n00b in making templates though, so I can't do it. Time Questions 14:59, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, too! I could make a template with only one editable column per row, but not with two editable columns per row (Name and Meaning). Anyone who could do that? --Grandy02 18:00, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Sounds like a job. How many different languages should be featured on it? - Cobold (talk · contribs) 18:42, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

As I told, there are currently names in Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Swedish on the Wiki, that are 6 languages. But it should be easy to add new languages to the template. --Grandy02 09:06, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Okay, Template:Foreign names should be ready, maybe someone can fix that description though, not the best explanation there from me. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 18:33, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Thank you very much for your effort! :-) First I've used the article in the E. Gadd article, please look if I used it right. I was unsure whether I should make an additional headline under the Trivia section. --Grandy02 14:54, 29 March 2008 (EDT)

FA

Uh...hasn't King K. Rool been a featured article already? — Stooben Rooben

He has but there isn't a rule that articles can't be FA twice. Paper Jorge ( Talk·Contributions)·

We had a rotation for previously featured articles, it just got forgotten out of general Main Page laziness. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 05:26, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. — Stooben Rooben Thanks for telling me!

Possessive Linking

I've been noticing two distinct methods of linking to articles when a possessive form of the subject is used. We really should have a concensus for this, and we probably already do: If I'm writing, "Mario's brother Luigi asked for Princess Peach's help," how should it be linked?

1. "Mario's brother Luigi asked for Princess Peach's help,"
2. "Mario's brother Luigi asked for Princess Peach's help,"

Which should it be? Stumpers! 22:32, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

In my opinion, it should be the first-mentioned. It's linking to Mario, not Mario's. — Stooben Rooben  ?

Yup. Easier to write, and also more intuitive imho. You can also argue grammatically, that the 's is not a case ending but rather a clitic, which means it is grammatically independent from the noun. Time Questions 06:56, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

The first one is better because its easier to write and to understand. Though for bold text, Mario's should be used. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 07:05, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

Templates

We have quite many different navigation templates on this wiki, and all seem to be created from scratch every time. The result is a template list like at the end of the Dry Bones article. Templates with different sizes, colors and what not, which don't match with each other at all and are lined up in any random fashion. It simply looks ugly. I think we should go for a single template scheme for at least related templates (like SSB Characters, Stages, Items, etc.), and make everything collapsible. On Wikipedia templates, it is possible to give templates a parameter as to whether they are hidden or shown on the page. This could be used to make templates always visible on pages who only have one, but not on one who has twenty. The current style is just chaos. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 08:51, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, you're right about that. (And since I've made a lot of navigation templates lately, I take a lot of blame). Templates shouldn't be random colors thrown together. "Ghostwhite" and "whitesmoke" are probably the best link backgrounds, and the best label backgrounds are probably "lightskyblue", "steelblue", "tomato", and "gray". Also, the templates at the bottom of a page should be arranged according to size. Example:

{{stub}}

{{DKKOS}}
{{Galaxy}}
{{SMB}}
{{MP}}

The Stub Template should always be at the top of end-of-page templates. Then, small nav. templates would go next. If a template has a "showhide" on it, then it only takes up a certain amount of lines. The wider and deeper a template gets, the farther down it should be. — Stooben Rooben Sorry if I've made a lot of mistakes. :(

Rather, we should probably just keep one label color, and one background color. Two tops. — Stooben Rooben