MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/71: Difference between revisions

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:::::::Those cameos are [[Talk:Costume Mario#Create articles for all Costume Mario characters|not notable enough to warrant their own articles]], though. You're suggesting that being in Smash doesn't automatically make a character relevant to Mario, but also that being in Smash is what makes a character whose other appearances are a few cameos worthy of an article. {{User:Hewer/sig}} 02:44, November 21, 2024 (EST)
:::::::Those cameos are [[Talk:Costume Mario#Create articles for all Costume Mario characters|not notable enough to warrant their own articles]], though. You're suggesting that being in Smash doesn't automatically make a character relevant to Mario, but also that being in Smash is what makes a character whose other appearances are a few cameos worthy of an article. {{User:Hewer/sig}} 02:44, November 21, 2024 (EST)


===What to do with [[Steve]] and [[Ike]]===
===What to do with [[Steve (NES Open Tournament Golf)|Steve]] and [[Ike (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)|Ike]]===
{{proposal outcome|passed|10-0|Remove identifiers}}
{{proposal outcome|passed|10-0|Remove identifiers}}
Despite that now the ''Smash Bros.'' characters don't get their own articles but instead grouped into lists by game, the actual ''Mario'' characters that have the same name as ''Smash'' fighters (being [[Steve]] from ''NES Open Tournament Golf'' and [[Ike]] from ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'') don't have their identifiers removed. [[Talk:Steve#Identifer|This has been brought up before]], however no actions have been taken. I think there is some good points to these identifiers being removed.
Despite that now the ''Smash Bros.'' characters don't get their own articles but instead grouped into lists by game, the actual ''Mario'' characters that have the same name as ''Smash'' fighters (being [[Steve (NES Open Tournament Golf)|Steve]] from ''NES Open Tournament Golf'' and [[Ike (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)|Ike]] from ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'') don't have their identifiers removed. [[Talk:Steve (NES Open Tournament Golf)#Identifer|This has been brought up before]], however no actions have been taken. I think there is some good points to these identifiers being removed.
*[[Roy]], [[Alex]] and [[Zombie]] don't have identifiers despite also sharing names with ''Smash Bros.'' characters.
*[[Roy]], [[Alex]] and [[Zombie]] don't have identifiers despite also sharing names with ''Smash Bros.'' characters.
*If a casual user wanted to find information on Steve from ''Minecraft'', they'd go to the Minecraft Wiki. If they wanted more detailed information for Steve in ''Smash'', they'd go to the Smash Bros. Wiki, ''not here.''
*If a casual user wanted to find information on Steve from ''Minecraft'', they'd go to the Minecraft Wiki. If they wanted more detailed information for Steve in ''Smash'', they'd go to the Smash Bros. Wiki, ''not here.''
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====Comments====
====Comments====
===Do not surround song titles with quotes===
{{proposal outcome|failed|4-2-8|Continue using quotation marks}}
This is a change to [[MarioWiki:Manual_of_Style#Italicizing_titles|this section of our Manual of Style]]. Currently, our policy is to surround song titles with quotation marks whenever they appear. However. We are a Mario wiki, and the Mario series overwhelmingly ''does not'' do this.
The comparison arises to italics, but I feel there's quite a difference between that (an effect applied to text) and the inclusion of punctuation marks, which ''are'' text in and of themselves. Not to mention, unlike italics, which would require special programming to implement, quote marks are supported by anything that supports English text, meaning it's not a question of technical limitations — every game that names its songs is perfectly capable of listing them inside quotation marks, and yet they make the choice not to.
As such, surrounding song titles in quotes is questionable as adherence to an unofficial naming scheme over the original one. Not to mention the effects this can have on lists of song titles — their inclusion on [[Template:DDRMM]] fluffs up the width of the song section by the width of ''several'' song titles.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to mention how inconsistently these quote marks are applied across the wiki already — many entries in [[:Category:Music]] do not use them in their article, none of the lists of songs from the shows or of WarioWare DIY records use them, [[Starring Wario!]] and ''only'' Starring Wario has had its article title changed to have the quotes. I take this to mean the rule is not serving the wiki as it stands.
The one exception to everything I've mentioned thus far is ''Paper Mario: The Origami King''{{'}}s music discs: [["Deep, Deep Vibes"]], [["Heartbeat Skipper"]], [["M-A-X Power!"]], and [["Thrills at Night"]]. These are the only time the names of songs are formatted this way (possibly due to the items being CDs ''of'' the songs and not the songs themselves). Therefore, '''these will be the only exception if this proposal passes, and will keep their quote marks'''.
To circle back around to my original point: I think the nail in the coffin for displaying music this way is [[Nintendo Music]]. This application, specifically meant to play music, does not surround their names with quote marks. And yet [[List of Super Mario tracks on Nintendo Music|this article]] surrounds them in quotes anyway, stringently adhering to our unofficial way of formatting these over the way Nintendo Music actually formats them. It's almost ''lying'', frankly.
So, our options:
* '''Option 1: Exclude quote marks from song titles in all cases.''' Our manual of style will remove the mention of song titles from the section of italicizing titles. Just for clarity, this excludes Origami King's CDs.
* '''Option 2: Keep quote marks when song titles are used in a sentence, but exclude them from standalone appearances of the title.''' Such standalone appearances would include article titles, navboxes, infoboxes, track listings, and table entries. Just for clarity, this option, too, excludes Origami King's CDs.
* '''Option 3: Do nothing.''' I guess this option ''includes'' Origami King's CDs.
'''Proposer:''': {{User|Ahemtoday}}<br>
'''Deadline''': November 24, 2024, 23:59 GMT
====Option 1====
#{{User|Ahemtoday}} My primary choice. I've firmly laid out my reasons why here.
#{{User|Jdtendo}} I prefer to think of each music as a work in its own right rather than a part of some "greater whole". ''[[Jump Up, Super Star!]]'' is more than just a piece of ''Super Mario Odyssey''{{'}}s OST. Therefore, song titles should be italicized like any other work and not be in quotation marks as if they were merely chapters.
#{{User|Hewer}} Per proposal, and there's [[MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/56#Italics formatting of boat names, fictional products, and others|precedent]] for following Nintendo's official formatting in spite of usual conventions. The inconsistencies described in the proposal ought to be fixed regardless of the outcome, though.
#{{User|Biggestman}} While I to a degree understand the entire thing with the songs simply being a part of a greater thing, that isn't really fair when I would make an argument some of these songs are a larger part of the series' history than those "greater" things. For example music from Yoshi's Story is still used relatively often to this very day, but Yoshi's Story as a whole is just kinda there. Per all, too.
====Option 2====
#{{User|Ahemtoday}} I will settle for this — part of my ire toward the quotemarks is that I find them highly unsuitable for these particular usages.
#{{User|Nintendo101}} Secondary option, per my comment below in Option 3.
====Option 3====
#{{User|Nintendo101}} The purpose of the quotation marks is to quickly convey to the reader that a "named subject" is part of a ''greater whole'' (that is italicized), and/or what type of subject it is in the context of where it is discussed in an article. For music, that whole is typically an album or CD (or in this case, a video game), but it is not exclusively used for musical pieces. For example, "Chicken Man" is the fourteenth chapter in ''{{wp|The Color of Water}}''. "The Green Glow" is the seventh episode in season one of ''{{wp|Resident Alien (TV series)|Resident Alien}}''. One of the benefits of doing this is that music, chapters, episodes, etc. sometimes share the same exact name as the whole they are a part of, or something related in the whole (like the name of a character or place), and discrete formatting mitigates confusion for readers. This is readily valuable for many pieces in the ''Super Mario'' franchise, because most of them are given utilitarian names. Wouldn't it be valuable for readers to just recognize that "[[Gusty Garden Galaxy (theme)|Gusty Garden Galaxy]]" (with quotation marks) is a musical piece and [[Gusty Garden Galaxy]] is a level? Because that is what the quotation marks are for. I think it is a good and helpful tool, one that is used almost everywhere else when discussing music, and more would be lost than gained if we did away with it.
#{{User|EvieMaybe}} per N101. quotation marks are a writing convention! most mario games also don't have italic titles, but we italicize them anyways because it's a formal writing convention that makes sense
#{{User|Waluigi Time}} Strong oppose, per all. This is a well-recognized writing convention, the fact that Nintendo doesn't typically follow it within their products is irrelevant.
#{{User|Camwoodstock}} Per all, especially Nintendo101. These quotes are here for a reason, no matter how remote it may seem.
#{{User|Ray Trace}} Quoting songs is from the manual of style itself, it's the same reason we italicize game titles. I would go even further and quote song titles as a display title like I did in "[[Starring Wario!]]"
#{{User|ThePowerPlayer}} Per all.
#{{User|Axii}} Per all.
#[[User:Doc von Schmeltwick|Doc von Schmeltwick]] ([[User talk:Doc von Schmeltwick|talk]]) - "Because game writing" is what leads to wikis encouraging jokey sarcastic writing, which I'm pretty sure is not the direction we want to go.
====Comments====
If this passes, how would it affect coverage of non-Mario music? Our only options are either to have two standards, or ignore established convention based on what Nintendo does for media they had no hand in actually producing. Neither seems ideal to me. --{{User:Waluigi Time/sig}} 20:24, November 10, 2024 (EST)
:We'd treat non-Mario music the same as Mario music. Established convention doesn't mean much when we're always saying on this page that we're not other wikis and we don't necessarily need to do things the way other wikis do them. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 08:01, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::I don't think anyone is advocating to hold onto a convention just for the sake of it. Rather, that we should hold onto the convention because it is useful and the proposal doesn't provide persuasive reasons to abandon that usage, or at least it does not for me. - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 08:44, November 11, 2024 (EST)
In addition, I wouldn't use applications such as Nintendo Music as proof that we shouldn't abide by formatting either. Neither music metadata nor files themselves quote song names, neither does [https://open.spotify.com/track/433JymbpWnRMHXzp1oTRP7 Spotify] nor [https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Bother-Shakira/dp/B000BUEG9U Amazon Music]. Yet {{Wp|Don't Bother|Wikipedia still does}} because that's how it's standardized in writing articles. In addition, you pointed out how "Starring Wario!" is the outlier as your point, I've '''only just started working on those articles''' mate. {{User:Ray Trace/sig}} 21:01, November 10, 2024 (EST)
:Even Wikipedia doesn't use the quotes in article titles though. {{User:Hewer/sig}} 02:17, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::I would support an option that called for just removing the quotation marks in the header for articles (as done {{wp|I Am the Walrus|here}}, which should be compared to {{wp|Magical Mystery Tour#Track listing|here}}). This is not uncommon in written books on music. But there currently is no voting option to do just that. - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 08:44, November 11, 2024 (EST)
{{@|Ray Trace}} I'm aware it's in the manual of style. That's why the proposal is about changing the manual of style. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 08:01, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:I'm not talking about the wiki's manual style. I'm talking about general guidelines especially [https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_other_common_sources.html MLA] {{User:Ray Trace/sig}} 15:41, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::If it's not ''our'' manual of style, then there's no reason for us to care about it because we don't use it. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 18:04, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:::''Our'' manual of style '''is based on this manual of style.''' {{User:Ray Trace/sig}} 18:11, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::::If it's only ''based on'' it, then it ''isn't'' it. The manual of style is ours, so this quote mark convention has to survive on its own merits, not just by virtue of being in someone ''else's'' manual of style. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 18:22, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:::::Not using general formatting standard guidelines solely because "we shouldn't just because we're not them" is not a good argument. {{User:Ray Trace/sig}} 18:24, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::::::Well, then — '''Nintendo doesn't do this either, so there's no reason for this wiki to ''pretend'' like they do.''' That's been my argument this whole time. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 18:35, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:::::::The main difference is that they're a video game, and they're inherently informal in their presentation. They're not trying to write things and bios formally, they're trying to present writing to players, so formatting like italicizing game titles is optional, because that's what it's set out to do. On the other hand, we're an encyclopedia, our writing formatting is far more similar to Wikipedia which observes these things and MLA writing guidelines, and how to format sourcing, and it's something we ''should'' emulate over a video game's script. {{User:Ray Trace/sig}} 18:47, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:::::::{{@|Ahemtoday}} I don't think that is the strong argument you think it is, because almost no piece of media where it has become conventional to include quotation marks include them themselves. They are not on the back of most [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ab/e1/7e/abe17ef61a737df53498f93487668213.jpg albums], [https://images.template.net/89102/novel-table-of-contents-template-wvzrz.jpeg books], or [https://addbcdbimages.s3.amazonaws.com/nick/sbsp_fish_bowl.jpg title cards for television shows]. But they are all still presented with quotes arounf them in reference material like Wikipedia and physical books. What makes the Nintendo music we cover here so different that warrants unique treatment? - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 18:53, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:::::::Nintendo doesn't always italicize game titles either, this site does. To be honest, though, I'm not sure how consistently this wiki observes MLA. There's some superficial basis in it (mostly coming off of Wikipedia's style guide, which is sprinkled with some MLA), what with the titles of whole works being written in italics and those of constituent parts of a work being surrounded by quotes, yet the manner in which citations are formatted, arguably a priority of any academic style guide, seems rather peculiar to Wikipedia's house style. Take any citation formatted using the {{tem|cite}} template on this wiki and compare it to how [https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html MLA proposes it is done] <small>(owl.purdue.edu)</small>. There's also been at least [[MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/56#Italics_formatting_of_boat_names.2C_fictional_products.2C_and_others|one attempt]] at explicitly adopting a standard purveyed by MLA that got shot down. Not to digress too much, I just wanted to point out that MLA is not currently as pervasive here as it's made out to be and can't be appealed to solely because of a few instances that (happen to) observe it. {{User:Koopa con Carne/Sig}} 19:20, November 11, 2024 (EST), edited 19:24, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::::::::I am personally forgiving on how we structure citations in that template, because many academic journals don't adopt the MLA structure either. Everyone does something a little different from one another. The information included in a citation is more important than how it is organized, and things like ISBN are pretty helpful for an online reference like Super Mario Wiki.
::::::::But I also don't believe in supporting conventions just for the sake of them ''being'' conventions. I'd rather support them if they are beneficial. What are your thoughts on what I said in my vote above? - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 19:33, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:::::::::I cannot argue with your vote. If a writing standard promoted by outside guides can harmonize with the needs of Mario Wiki, there's no reason not to adopt it. Quotation marks serve their purpose well in this case. so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. {{User:Koopa con Carne/Sig}} 20:10, November 11, 2024 (EST)
::::::::::Cool! I was just curious. I value your perspective. - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 20:14, November 11, 2024 (EST)
I'm realizing I haven't given my full thoughts on {{@|Nintendo101}}'s vote yet. I agree that there are benefits to formatting song titles in this way (particularly in sentences, which is why I have the option to keep the quote marks exclusively ''in'' sentences) — but this formatting scheme misrepresents how the actual works in question are referred to by official media. I had to ask a friend who had Nintendo Music to find out whether or not the app displayed song titles in quotes, because I couldn't trust this wiki to tell me — and, like I said, Nintendo Music ''doesn't''. Yet [[List of Super Mario tracks on Nintendo Music|this article]] writes the song names as if it ''does'', because apparently this convention is more important than this kind of information. I know this is a minor piece of information, but this formatting convention causes me to be '''unable to trust the wiki about it'''. No benefit can counterbalance that. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 20:13, November 11, 2024 (EST)
:I am sorry that you felt mislead, but are you sure it is not because you were unfamiliar with this being a convention for music pieces in the first place? - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 21:12, November 12, 2024 (EST)
::I was well familiar with the convention and how this wiki used it at the time, which is why I knew to ask a friend instead of taking the wiki's word for it. I take such a hardline stance against it not because this untrustworthiness has personally wronged me, but because untrustworthiness is a failure of the wiki on principle. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 00:02, November 13, 2024 (EST)
:::I am sorry, I was not referring to Super Mario Wiki in isolation. I was referring to the convention at large. In books and articles on music, regardless of topic, individual pieces are placed within quotation marks. I know I myself first learned one is supposed to put quotation marks around music titles while I was taking English class in middle school. So while I am sympathetic that this bothered you, I do not agree it is misleading. Maybe the issue lies with folks who do not have a lot of experience reading or writing about music. - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 13:05, November 13, 2024 (EST)
::::Whether or not readers are familiar with the convention doesn't change the fact that the convention is not reflective of what is being talked about. The only reason wiki readers know [["Thrills at Night"]] and its ilk are actually surrounded in quotes officially is because we haven't been thorough in applying this convention. If we ''did'', then the distinction would vanish completely, because the wiki currently considers adhering to this guideline more important than this kind of information. You can't pin that on readers being unfamiliar. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 22:17, November 13, 2024 (EST)
:::::I have contacted the director of the Purdue OWL at Purdue University to ask them how one should cite music tracks that already has quotation marks rendered in their name. However, to be honest, I am still not really sure what the issue here is. How are the quotation marks any different from italicization of video games and albums? The name ''Paper Mario: The Origami King'' is not displayed anywhere in Nintendo's official material italicized, but we do it for the same reasons one puts quotation marks around music tracks - because it is a useful MLA convention. For music, it is unclear to me on what is being miscommunicated or lost when they are accurately displayed between quotation marks, especially since articles for "Thrills at Night" and other tracks are accompanied with [[:File:PMTOK Thrills at Night.jpg|screenshots that show how they are rendered in-game]]. Is this not sufficient? - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 14:22, November 14, 2024 (EST)
::::::It is not sufficient. To begin with, not every use of song titles is accompanied by images showing that the music titles are formatted without quotes — the majority of articles in [[:Category:Sound tests]] do not have such images. (Not to mention that to use these images to establish the formatting of every song title in a given game would require a comically excessive amount of images.) Furthermore, even if they ''did'', this information would be entirely invisible to users of screen readers, raising accessibility concerns. This information can't be conveyed by images alone. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 15:14, November 14, 2024 (EST)
:::::::Couldn't it just be clarified in the article itself that a piece of music is displayed with quotations mark around it? It is not a very common thing to do. - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 16:22, November 14, 2024 (EST)
::::::::Writing in an explicit note clarifying that ''this'' time the article is actually reflective of how the music is referred to officially is a much more convoluted way of going about this compared to just referring to them in the official way to begin with. [[User:Ahemtoday|Ahemtoday]] ([[User talk:Ahemtoday|talk]]) 16:50, November 14, 2024 (EST)
Biggestman: The formatting of quotes in songs aren't discussed from a cultural relevancy angle, they're in context of being part of an album. It's the same reason short poetry gets quotes, but novels get italicized, we'd quote "The Raven" but still italicize ''The Day My Butt Went Psycho''. {{User:Ray Trace/sig}} 21:40, November 15, 2024 (EST)
===Create a category for "catch-all articles"===
{{proposal outcome|failed|1-4|Do not create}}
By "catch-all article" (tentative term; please suggest names) I mean those that describe elements that are not related, but share an article because they boil down to the same generic, '''often''' real world object. Many of them fit what the [[MarioWiki:Generic subjects|guidelines]] call a "generic subject". Examples of this kind of article are:
*[[Hook]], which includes the object from ''[[Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest]]'' and the hooks on poles from ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]'';
*[[Lift]], which includes the yellow lifts seen in ''Super Mario'' games, elevators from ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'', Moving Platforms from ''[[Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis]]'', among others, all just basic platforms;
*[[Bubble]], which includes the underwater bubble from ''[[Super Mario 64]]'', the player-carrying bubble from ''[[New Super Mario Bros. Wii]]'', the Bubble trap from ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'', among others;
*[[Banana]], which includes the bananas from the [[Mario Kart (series)|''Mario Kart'']] series, the bananas from the [[Donkey Kong Country (series)|''Donkey Kong Country'']] games, the bananas from ''[[Yoshi's Story]]'', among others;
*[[Heart (item)|Heart]], which includes the heart item from ''[[Super Mario Odyssey]]'', the one from ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'', the one from ''[[Dr. Mario World]]'', among others.
They may also boil down to a similar ''fictional'' basic concept, which are their own distinct thing, despite all of them taking a similar form:
*[[! Block]], which includes the red blocks from the [[Yoshi's Island (series)|''Yoshi's Island'' games]] games, the block-spawning yellow blocks from ''[[Super Mario Maker 2]]'', the ! Block switches from the [[Wario Land (series)|''Wario Land'' games]];
*[[Poison Mushroom]], which includes the mushrooms from ''[[Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels]]'', the Poison Shroom item from the early [[Paper Mario (series)|''Paper Mario'' games]], among others;
*[[? Panel]], which includes the panels from ''[[Super Mario Kart]]'', the ones from ''[[Paper Mario: Color Splash]]'', and others.
Compare subjects to which this category would '''not''' apply, like [[? Block]] or [[P-Switch]], where every reappearance of the subject is really a deliberate revisitation of a specific concept that already existed.
This category would be applied to articles on concrete subjects only (most of which, if not all, would be objects).
'''Proposer''': {{User|Bro Hammer}}<br>
'''Deadline''': November 24, 2024, 23:59 GMT
====Support====
#{{User|Bro Hammer}} My proposal.
====Oppose====
#{{User|Hewer}} I don't see how such a category would be useful, and I don't like that it's pretty subjective and is based on a trait shared by the articles rather than the objects themselves. Even if there was value in distinguishing these pages, I don't think a category like this is the way to do it.
#{{User|ThePowerPlayer}} Is [[History of Mario]] a catch-all article because it covers both a fictional character and [[Bob Hoskins]]? We would have to have that sort of debate for too many articles to count. This is too subjective and doesn't really accomplish anything.
#{{User|Super Mario RPG}} Unnecessary, and the word "generic" alone is unclear whether it goes by the definition of real-life or ''Super Mario''.
#{{User|Arend}} Honestly, the inclusion of fictional items like Poison Mushroom, ! Block and ? Panel would make it more confusing for me what a "catch-all article" is supposed to be; if it's supposed to be about generic subjects, then their inclusion would definitely muddy the concept quite a bit. Not to mention that the term "catch-all article" isn't clear enough as it is.
====Comments====
My gut reaction is that I disagree that the Poison Mushroom and Lift articles encompass generic subjects. They are supported as discrete in the paratext for these games. But even if narrowed to articles I agree are generic, it is not inherently clear to me what the benefit of having a "catch-all category" would be. My general view is that there are quite a few subjects that we consider to be generic which really are not. - [[User:Nintendo101|Nintendo101]] ([[User talk:Nintendo101|talk]]) 15:45, November 10, 2024 (EST)
:What would be some subjects you don't consider generic? My case for the Lift is that it's an article that encompasses almost all types of flat, moving platforms (a basic platforming game object), many even with their own distinct names; I believe you could even argue for some of the versions to get their own articles. And yeah, I agree that there's no huge benefit to having this category, as it would be there mostly for the sake of acknowledgement that "this article does not describe the history of a single idea, but it's instead an aggregation of the histories of various ideas that fit under this umbrella". {{User:Bro Hammer/sig}} 16:25, November 10, 2024 (EST)
===Split off the Mario Kart Tour template(s)===
{{proposal outcome|passed|11-0|Split off}}
''Mario Kart Tour'' has quite the reputation on this wiki in terms of pages, at one time nearly forming the top ten of the largest pages here in terms of bit size. However, what was glossed over was the size of Tour's template, being large enough to hold several templates within itself, and making the page, should the user click on it, almost double in length, more so with the other templates open. Using [[DS DK Pass]] as an example, a page for a race course that doesn't have a lot of information on it making for a relatively quick read, is now nearly half taken up by the monstrously large ''Mario Kart Tour'' template.
A total of four sub templates exist within the ''Mario Kart Tour'' template: Characters (and their skins), Vehicle Parts, Courses, and Other (miscellaneous). For example, if the Courses template were split off and applied to DS DK Pass' page, it would make for a much more palatable experience for those looking for courses found in ''Tour'', rather than making the reader scroll for a centuries and looking for it amongst a sea of numerous skins and kart parts.
'''Proposer''': {{User|MightyMario}}<br>
'''Deadline''':  November 24, 2024, 23:59 GMT
====Support====
#{{User|MightyMario}} I heartily endorse this proposal.
#{{User|Tails777}} I kinda agree with this. I feel this would be a bit more organized too, so people don't have to scroll through loads of characters, karts and other things just to find the tracks section. I have found myself on numerous occasions jumping from track articles and with ''Tour's'' template, it was rather irritating searching through massive sections of characters and tours just to find tracks. I support this idea.
#{{User|Waluigi Time}} We've split navigation templates for [[Template:NSMBW levels|much less]], this makes sense for the sheer amount of content in the game.
#{{User|ThePowerPlayer}} A navigation template that buries content in an area larger than an entire computer screen defeats the purpose.
#{{User|Super Mario RPG}} Agreed with all.
#{{User|EvieMaybe}} per all
#{{User|Dark Jonathan}} I didn't know Tour templates gave so many problems, but hey, that's a good proposal.
#{{User|BMfan08}} I was just thinking about this the other day when I was changing tense on tour articles. It's definitely a lot to take in, and it's also overlooked because people don't put into a template quite as much as they do a page. I agree with this idea.
#{{User|SeanWheeler}} Per all.
#{{User|PnnyCrygr}} This will make page-by-page navigation of MKT articles more efficient or convenient. Supporting.
#{{User|Mario}} The size of this nav template would make Wario proud, but I'm sure this complaint has already been forwarded to a lot of aspects of Mario Kart Tour content on this wiki.
====Oppose====
====Comments====
I think alternatively, they could be given different collapsible sections, like we do with the galleries template. But I agree it is overwhelmingly enormous. [[User:Doc von Schmeltwick|Doc von Schmeltwick]] ([[User talk:Doc von Schmeltwick|talk]]) 12:58, November 10, 2024 (EST)
We're talking about the navigation template at the bottom of these pages, right? Because that's the only Tour-related template on the DS DK Pass article (subpages notwithstanding) and it's indeed quite huge. If we do split it off into several subtemplates, I suppose it'd be comparable to various levels from specific platformer titles having a navbox template for themselves instead of sharing a primary nabvox template with the rest of that game's content (e.g. [[Super Bell Hill]] featuring {{tem|SM3DW levels}} instead of {{tem|SM3DW}}); or the existence of various navigation templates for the various microgames or minigames in specific ''WarioWare'' or ''Mario Party'' title. So while it's atypical for us to split ''Mario Kart''-specific nav templates, it's not unheard of for us to split off nav templates in the first place. {{User:Arend/sig}} 17:04, November 10, 2024 (EST)

Latest revision as of 19:11, November 24, 2024

All past proposals are archived here. Please add archived proposals to the bottom of the page.
Previous proposals

Consider Super Smash Bros. series titles for recurring themes low-priority

Do not consider 5-10
Something I noticed late yesterday was that the page for "Flower Fields BGM" from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Or just Yoshi's Island from now on for simplicity) is still titled Yoshi's Island (theme), even after Nintendo Music dropped, and then I realised that some other song titles (Most notably Obstacle Course, also from Yoshi's Island) just don't make a lot of sense. Then I feel it's important to note that even though this is a Mario Wiki (What?!?!?!? Huh!?!?!?) we should also take a look at the Super Smash Bros. titles for themes from other series, with the biggest example I can think of being "Meta Knight's Revenge" from Kirby Super Star, which is actually an incorrectly titled medley of the songs "Boarding the Halberd" and "Havoc Aboard the Halberd". It's also good to look at songs Super Smash Bros. is using a different title for than us, like how it uses the Japanese titles of the Donkey Kong Country OST instead of the correct ones. Between all these facts it should be obvious the track titles in Super Smash Bros. are not something the localisation team puts a whole lot of thought or effort into (Though the original Japanese dev team also mess these up sometimes). Going back to the original point that gave me this realisation, "Yoshi's Island" is a very nondescript track title for a random stage theme which most people would look for by searching for something like "Flower Stage" or possibly even "Ground theme" (Even though that would lead to another song but still), this is especially considering the title screen theme from the game is ALSO called Yoshi's Island, and that's not even considering the Yoshi's Island world map theme from Super Mario World, which I don't know if it even has an official title (Yet, it is coming to Nintendo Music eventually) but I would bet that's ALSO YOSHI'S ISLAND. So I am suggesting to just make Smash Bros. a VERY low-priority source for this specific small aspect of the Wiki to avoid confusion and potentially future misinformation if things go too far.

Proposer: biggestman (talk)
Deadline: November 18, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

  1. biggestman (talk) Did you know there's a theme titled "Per this proposal" in Super Wiki Bros. Ultimate but the original title is simply "Per Proposal"? INSANE! (Per proposal)
  2. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - the theme names given in Smash (particularly Brawl and previous) are more just general descriptions of the contexts they play in rather than actual names. Hence why DK Island Swing became "Jungle Level."
  3. Jdtendo (talk) Per all.
  4. Super Mario RPG (talk) Per Doc and proposal.
  5. LadySophie17 (talk) Per proposal. To me this feels like making a non-Mario game determine the name of a Mario-article.

Oppose

  1. Hewer (talk) The names are from an official source whether we like them or not. Not only that, they come from within the games themselves, putting them at the top of the naming priority list. Tracks that have gone by different names more recently can use those, but those inconsistencies shouldn't invalidate the whole source. We also accept "inconsistent" names from Smash for other subjects, e.g. Propeller Piranha, so it would be odd to single out music. (Also, I'd argue "Meta Knight's Revenge" isn't incorrect, but is the name of the medley rather than of either individual song. On the topic of Kirby music, I'm pretty sure "A Battle of Friends and Bonds 2" from Kirby Star Allies was first called that in Smash before the name appeared in other sources, which would suggest Smash's names aren't all bad.)
  2. Nintendo101 (talk) The names used in the Super Smash Bros. series are from first-party games, are specific localizations of Super Mario specific material, and are localized by Nintendo of America. In my view, that is all that matters for citations, especially given most of these music tracks have not been officially localized into English through other channels. I similarly would not support a proposal to discredit the names for music tracks used in games like Mario & Sonic. However, I do think this proposal is in the ballpark of a reality, which is that melodies that sometimes incorporate multiple compositions (like "Meta Knight's Revenge") and specific arrangements sometimes are given unique names. (This is not unique to the Smash Bros. series — a cursory view of the Video Game Music Database or of officially published sheet music reveals Nintendo is often inconsistent with these names in the West.) In some installments, what is given a unique name for a particular arrangement (like "Princess Peach's Castle" from Melee and labeled as such in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U) is attributed to just one piece in a subsequent game (in Ultimate, this piece is named "Ground Theme" despite interlacing the "Underground BGM" in the piece as well, so while more simplistic for the Music List it is not wholly accurate, and I do not think "Ground BGM" should be called "Princess Peach's Castle" in any context other than this Melee piece). So I think it is worth scrutinizing how we name pieces that are "misattributed." However, I do not support a blanket downground of first-party Nintendo games just because we do not like some of the names.
  3. Salmancer (talk) If I recall from Miiverse correctly, the reason many songs are not given official public names is that naming songs does require spending very valuable developmental bandwidth, something that not all projects have to spare. (Sometimes, certain major songs have names because of how important they are, while other songs don't.) Given this, I am okay with Smash Bros. essentially forcing names for songs out early because it's interface requires named songs. Names don't have to be good to be official. My line is "we all agree this uniquely identifies this subject and is official".
  4. Waluigi Time (talk) See my comment below.
  5. Tails777 (talk) Per Waluigi Time
  6. Killer Moth (talk) Per all.
  7. Koopa con Carne (talk) per Nintendo101 & Waluigi Time. Some scrutiny is warranted, but let's not entirely discredit Smash Bros--a series of games published and sometimes developed in first-party capacity--as a source of information.
  8. Axii (talk) Per all.
  9. ThePowerPlayer (talk) These are still the most recent official names. Let's not unnecessarily overcomplicate things.
  10. SeanWheeler (talk) If we've got a song from a crossover game, information from that crossover matters more than the non-Mario source.

Comments

I'm not sure if this is a necessary proposal, or what it's going to accomplish in practice that isn't already handled with current organization and policy. As far as I'm aware, the Yoshi's Island examples here are just the result of no editor taking the initiative to move those pages to the new titles yet. The Nintendo Music names are the most recent and I think also fall under tier 1 of source priority, technically, so the pages should have those names, end of story. We don't need a proposal to do that.

Additionally, "Yoshi's Island" and "Obstacle Course" do not refer to the original themes from Yoshi's Island - they're the names of specific arrangements of those themes from the Smash games. Maybe it's not cemented into policy, but our current approach for theme articles is to use a title referring to the original theme when available. Take "Inside the Castle Walls", for instance. There's been several different names given to arrangements of this track over the years, including "Peach's Castle", "A Bit of Peace and Quiet", and most recently in the remake of Thousand-Year Door, "A Letter from Princess Peach", but we haven't and most likely aren't going to move the page to any of those. (And that doesn't mean any of those games got it wrong for not calling it "Inside the Castle Walls". It's perfectly valid to give a different name to a new arrangement.)

Basically, I don't think this would be beneficial and could potentially cause headaches down the road. I can't think of any actual examples where we're stuck with a "worse" name from Smash based on everything else I've said here, especially with Nintendo Music being a new and growing resource for track titles in the context of the original games. --Waluigi's head icon in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 14:17, November 4, 2024 (EST)

Indeed, Ground BGM already got moved to its Nintendo Music name, despite being called "Ground Theme" in Smash (among other sources). Nintendo Music should already take priority over Smash just for being more recent. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 14:29, November 4, 2024 (EST)
@biggestman I recommend skimming through our naming policies for some clarity. The only reason why "Yoshi's Island (theme)" has not been moved to "Flower Fields BGM" is because no editor took the initiative yet, and another one had already turned "Flower Fields BGM" into a redirect page. That must be deleted by an admin first before the page can be moved, but that is the only reason. Super Smash Bros. and Nintendo Music are at the same tier of coverage, and because Nintendo Music is the most recent use of the piece, it should be moved. - Nintendo101 (talk) 15:50, November 4, 2024 (EST)

@LadySophie17: What do you make of Propeller Piranha, Fire Nipper Plant, Nipper Dandelion, etc., which are named based on what Viridi calls them in Smash? And more generally, why does Smash not being strictly a Mario game matter? It's still an official game from Nintendo that uses the Mario IP, and the Mario content in it is fully covered even if it's exclusive to Smash (e.g. Mario stages and special moves all get articles). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 17:29, November 4, 2024 (EST)

There's also the fact that Nintendo Music, which this proposal aims to prioritise, is not a Mario game either. It has a collection of music from various different franchises that just so happens to include Mario, much like Smash. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 08:10, November 5, 2024 (EST)

A lot of you have made good points, but one I don't understand or like is the one that those are the names of specifically the Super Smash Bros. versions, which is just painfully inconsistent. With very little exception remixes in Super Smash Bros. almost always use the original title in one of two ways, either using the name completely normally or by titling it (SONG NAME 1 HERE)/(SONG NAME 2 HERE) for remixes that are a relatively even split between two songs. Outside of this the only examples of "Well it COULD be the name of specifically the Smash version!!!" from every series represented are "Yoshi's Island", "Obstacle Course" and "Meta Knight's Revenge". Out of these Yoshi's Island and Obstacle Course theoretically COULD be original titles, but Meta Knight's Revenge is (probably) just meant to be named after Revenge of Meta Knight from Kirby Super Star, which is where both of the songs represented debuted, but was mistranslated. However I can't prove anything because none of these 3 Smash Bros. series remixes Japanese titles are anywhere online as far as I can tell so there's nothing to compare any of them to. There might also be examples from something like Fire Emblem or something idk I play primarily funny platformers. The point though is that if they were to name some remixes after the originals while making original titles for some it would just be so inconsistent I simply can't see a world where that's the intent. BiggestManMario dead in the arcade version of Donkey Kong 13:19, November 5, 2024 (EST)

I believe the Japanese name of the track was the same as the Japanese name of "Revenge of Meta Knight", but I maintain that translating it as "Meta Knight's Revenge" is not necessarily a mistake, the translators might have just thought that name was better suited for the theme specifically, especially since medleys in the Kirby series are often given different titles to the included themes ("Revenge of Meta Knight" is still not the title of either of the individual tracks included). For example, a different medley of the same two themes in Kirby's Dream Buffet is titled "Revenge of Steel Wings". Even if "Meta Knight's Revenge" is an error, though, that's one error in over a thousand track names, and one not even from the Mario franchise. One or two errors aren't enough to invalidate an entire source, especially one of this size. As for the Yoshi's Island tracks, as has already been pointed out, they should be changed anyway because Nintendo Music is the more recent source (Flower Field BGM already has been changed since this proposal was made). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 13:49, November 5, 2024 (EST)
FWIW, that point isn't meant to be an argument against this specific change anyway, it's "we already shouldn't be prioritizing those names for article titles regardless of the outcome of this proposal, and here's why". --Waluigi's head icon in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 18:13, November 5, 2024 (EST)

Ok so now that it's been a few days I have very quickly realised that I very much said a bad reason this change should be implemented. I just realised that all of these titles have already been moved but I have since realised a somewhat more understandable reason for it. If a new Smash game came out and reused these titles then according to our rules they would need to be moved back to those titles again, wouldn't they? Would it make sense to move Flower Fields BGM back to the less descriptive title just because a game reused a (debatably) worse title? Overall though I don't care too much about the result, even when I started this proposal, my impatience just got to me too early. BiggestManMario dead in the arcade version of Donkey Kong 11:09, November 7, 2024 (EST)

Yes, that's how recent name policy works. We should choose what name to use based on what the most recent official source says, not what we subjectively prefer. I personally feel like "Flower Field BGM" isn't much less generic than "Yoshi's Island". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:38, November 7, 2024 (EST)
Not a simple yes/no answer, actually. If they're just arrangements again, then no, we wouldn't move the pages. If they added the original tracks from the SNES version and used those names, then they would probably be moved. (However, you might still be able to make a decent argument for keeping the Nintendo Music names on a recency basis considering it's a live service?) --Waluigi's head icon in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 11:48, November 7, 2024 (EST)

I've actually been mulling over a proposal like this, but for names in general, not just themes. We generally don't consider out-of-franchise content as a source of a recent name if the original Super Mario franchise supersedes it; for example, Podoboo, which is still in use over Lava Bubble in The Legend of Zelda franchise. I don't see why the same thing can't be said for Super Smash Bros., especially now with its reduced coverage. For that matter, possibly breaking it down to a per-series basis (like how "Gold Goomba" was the most recent name in the Super Mario series despite being "Golden Goomba" in the most recent Mario Party)? It might not be a bad idea to establish a new rule over this. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:24, November 8, 2024 (EST)

Decide how to prioritize PAL English names

Prioritize NTSC names 6-4-0-0
As with my previous proposal, this one aims at getting a consistent method of how PAL names are used alongside NTSC names. One thing that I noticed is that the priority of some of these names are inconsistent, like Mini Bowser, which redirects to Koopa Kid rather than link to the name actually used in NTSC countries. Other pages, like Bowser Party, are disambiguations between the Mario Party 10 game mode and the Mario Party 7 event that is only known as "Bowser Party" in PAL regions.

This map shows which countries use these different systems. The terms go beyond just color conversion; in terms of English, the PAL system is used in countries like the United Kingdom (and correct me if I'm wrong, but I also think Australia and New Zealand too), while the NTSC system is used in North America, specifically in the United States and Canada. MarioWiki:Naming says that the North American name takes priority, which means that Mini Bowser would link to the toy and Bowser Party would redirect to the section in Mario Party 10, potentially among other pages, although tophats linking to pages with alternate PAL names will remain.

Therefore, I am proposing four options:

  • NTSC>PAL, in which when linking pages, the page with the name in NTSC English or all-English takes priority over other pages sharing the same PAL name, even if it isn't as significant. If another page with the same name in PAL English exists, it can be linked to in the tophat.
  • NTSC=PAL, in which pages that share the same name in both NTSC and PAL English appear in a disambiguation page regardless of whether the name is used in NTSC English multiple times or not. This is already done with Bowser Party.
  • NTSC<PAL, in which pages that share the same name in PAL English have the highest priority name linked to it, even if it doesn't have that name in NTSC English but the other pages does, in which case it will redirect to the higher-priority PAL name and the lower-priority NTSC (or all-English) page will be linked to in the tophat in the Redirect template. This has been done with Mini Bowser.
  • Do nothing - do I even have to explain this?

Proposer: Altendo (talk)
Deadline: November 18, 2024, 23:59 GMT

NTSC>PAL

  1. Altendo (talk) I think that abiding by SMW:NAMING is the best option. Yes, Koopa Kid is more notable than Mini Bowser toys, but if this is an American English wiki, might as well make pages link to the one that actually are named like that in NTSC.
  2. Mari0fan100 (talk) I've seen courses and vehicles in Mario Kart Wii that have names that differ between the NTSC and PAL versions. If the articles to those courses and vehicles use the NTSC version, shouldn't other things use the NTSC version as well?
  3. YoYo (talk) This would have to expand into other games too, like Mario Kart. Now, there are entire courses in Mario Kart with different names between PAL and NTSC, like Cheep Cheep Cape, Wario's Galleon, Piranha Plant Pipeway and DK's Snowboard Cross. How would one make there be no priority here? One would have to occupy the article name, an article cannot have two names. That, by default, means making both equal priority is impossible. - YoYo Yoshi Head (light blue) from Mario Kart: Super Circuit (Talk) 13:19, November 12, 2024 (EST)
  4. Camwoodstock (talk) We're a primarily American English wiki, and use American English in the actual article bodies (e.g. we use spellings like "color" over "colour", we use terms like "flashlight" over "torch", etc. etc.), so it only makes sense to prioritize American English releases for these too.
  5. ThePowerPlayer (talk) If we prioritize American English for the article names and the article content, it makes logical sense to also do so for links and redirects.
  6. MeritC (talk) Although this is an international wiki with English as the primary language, this was primarily founded by the proprietor who apparently resides in the U.S. in which the NTSC names of Super Mario and related franchise materials are used. IMHO, it's best to stick with this kind of naming as the primary (while other naming versions can still be mentioned in certain portions of respective articles too).

NTSC=PAL

  1. Ahemtoday (talk) I think this is the best solution — completely deprioritizing the PAL names doesn't quite seem right to me.
  2. Jdtendo (talk) This is an international wiki, not an American wiki. Whilst prioritizing NTSC names for naming makes kinda sense (an article can only have one title), there's no need to prioritize a specific region when it comes to linking.
  3. Biggestman (talk) Per all. This is not an american wiki.
  4. EvieMaybe (talk) we dont need to relegate PAL names to a footnote

NTSC<PAL

Do nothing

Comments

can i ask for some more examples? i'm having a bit of trouble fully grasping what you mean EvieMaybe (talk) 20:11, November 4, 2024 (EST)

The Mini Bowser situation, for instance:
  • NTSC>PAL: Mini Bowser would link to the page actually named "Mini Bowser" instead of Koopa Kid (who is known as Mini Bowser in PAL English)
  • NTSC=PAL: Mini Bowser would be a disambiguation page between Koopa Kid and the Mini Bowser toy
  • NTSC{{<}}PAL: Mini Bowser would continue to redirect to Koopa Kid.
  • Do nothing: Nothing changes.
Hope this makes more sense. Altendo 21:07, November 4, 2024 (EST)
So in the first option, "Mini Bowser (toy)" would lose its identifier? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:19, November 5, 2024 (EST)
Basically. The tophat will say, "This article is about the toy. For the characters known as "Mini Bowsers" in Europe, as Koopa Kid." I prefer abiding by SMW:NAMING by prioritizing NTSC names over PAL names. Basically, the current Mini Bowser (toy) page will be moved to Mini Bowser, which will no longer redirect to Koopa Kid. For people who have only owned NTSC copies, this is more straightforward, as many would be unaware that Koopa Kid is known as Mini Bowser without having a PAL copy. As for Bowser Party, if Option 1 passes, it will redirect to the section in Mario Party 10, with a tophat leading to Bowser Time. If Option 2 passes, Mini Bowser would become a disambiguation page between Koopa Kid and Mini Bowser (toy). If Option 3 passes, Bowser Party would redirect to Bowser Time and would have a tophat leading to the Mario Party 10 section. If Option 4 passes, well... nothing changes, making everything remain inconsistent.
So, to answer your question, yes, the identifier will be removed. The only other page with the exact same name minus the identifier is simply the redirect to Koopa Kid, who is only known as "Mini Bowser" in European English, and SMW:NAMING prioritizes American English names. Altendo 07:15, November 5, 2024 (EST)
Now that I think about it, couldn't the identifier for the Mini Bowser toy be removed anyway? There's no actual article named Mini Bowser. For that matter, I thought it was discouraged to use the terms NTSC and PAL now in regards to English, especially now that region-locking is mostly a thing of the past. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:24, November 8, 2024 (EST)
I'm pretty sure whether the identifier can be removed for that reason is what this proposal is trying to decide. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 17:06, November 9, 2024 (EST)
Hewer: Not necessarily just that - it's to decide if NTSC or PAL names should take priority when linking to a page that might have the same name in a different coded region. If Option 1 passes, it doesn't matter if a page with the same PAL name as another page with an NTSC name is more prominent; if that name isn't used in NTSC, then the page with the actual NTSC name takes priority, and the page with the PAL name is linked to with a tophat (take my Koopa Kid and Bowser Party examples above for instance). SMW:NAMING says, and quote:
  • "The Super Mario Wiki is an English language wiki, so the name of an article should correspond to the most commonly used English name of the subject, which, given our user and visitor demographics, means the North American name. For example, the North American title of "Mario Strikers Charged" takes precedence over the PAL region's "Mario Strikers Charged Football" title."
If this is true for naming, why isn't it true for linking, specifically and especially for subjects in which they are the only ones with a specific name in NTSC? I don't have a problem with mentioning other English games in the top of a page, but I feel like linking to a page that is either a disambiguation page between a mode named "Bowser Party" in all regions and a gimmick only named "Bowser Party!" in PAL and as "Bowser Time!" in NTSC, as well as "Mini Bowser" linking to Koopa Kid over the actual toy even though only the latter is used in NTSC, would make extra steps for people who type it in the URL or even wiki search expecting to see the term only used in NTSC regions. Linking to these pages will also be easier, as, take the Mini Bowser case for instance, they don't have to use the identifier, which not only removes identifier space, but also visible text space. If multiple names continue to share the same NTSC name, then the most prominent one will continue to have no identifier, and if there is no dominance, then a disambiguation page will remain. For example, the Mini Mario form continues to be used because it is more prominent than the toy, and even then, the toy's name is slightly different, and both names are used in NTSC English. I understand that some people are from PAL countries and have PAL-configured systems, but seeing as this is an NTSC English wiki, and according to the quote above, how the majority of the views are from NTSC countries, whether from IPs or registered users, I feel like NTSC names should take priority over PAL names, even if the subject itself has a lower priority. I would rather give extra steps to PAL names than to NTSC names due to the fact that NTSC English viewers are more prominent and therefore would see "Mini Bowser" as the toy rather than Koopa Kid. Priority should be given to the most prominent visitor group, so the names that appear in the version shown to the majority of these visitors should be linked there instead of a more prominent character with the same name mainly used by a less prominent group.
LinkTheLefty: Except for Nintendo Switch consoles sold in Mainland China, region-locking does not exist on the Switch, and the region is not actually set based on where the console is purchased - instead, it is configured during setup, and can be changed at anytime, unless a Nintendo Account is connected, in which case, the region for each game is set to the region the Nintendo Account is based in (it doesn't have to be based in the country of setup, it can be based in any country as long as the user has an applicable credit card using the same currency as the Nintendo eShop) per each user that plays it. Game Cards also don't have region locking (IDK if this is true for those purchased in Mainland China), and also use settings based on either system region or Nintendo Account region, not based on where the game was bought in (exceptions are likely made for region-exclusive games, for which I have none, so I cannot test this out). This does mean that setting up PAL English in NTSC regions is possible, and vice versa, but due to the fact that most people only have credit cards for currencies of their home country, it is almost always that their Nintendo Account (and therefore their game region) is set in their home country, meaning that the majority of people who view this wiki, which are Americans, have their region set to the United States, and therefore play NTSC versions of their games regardless of where the console or games were purchased. Altendo 23:49, November 9, 2024 (EST)

@YoYo: I think you may have misunderstood the proposal (which I don't blame you for, it's a bit confusing). It's about what names get priority in terms of identifiers and redirects in cases of different things sharing a name, not which name gets priority as the article title. None of those Mario Kart courses share their names with any other thing, and their titles will continue to prioritise the American name regardless of this proposal's outcome. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 03:40, November 13, 2024 (EST)

Allow certain proposals to close after one week

vetoed by the administrators
Slightly different version put into effect by the proprietor
Alright, hear me out.

Recently, a proposal has passed, making all proposals last for 2 weeks instead of 1. Though I was opposed to this change, I can definitely now see the benefit of giving proposals more discussion time. However, not all proposals need that extra week. Some proposals leave zero room for discussion, because everyone already agrees with the proposer. So the proposal just sits for another week and the outcome obviously isn't going to change. I propose to introduce a rule that would close proposals with high participation and unanimous consensus after one week, like it was before that. Let me explain:

  1. If a proposal has 10+ votes with no opposition or 12+ votes with 1 oppose vote by the end of the first week, it passes.
  2. Same applies to proposals with unanimous opposition, 12+ oppose votes with only 1 support vote (that being of proposer, or 10 if the proposer didn't vote) closes a proposal at the end of the first week.
  3. If this condition isn't met, a proposal runs for two weeks as expected, even if it gets 10 votes after one week. In short, the proposal only has one opportunity to get closed early: at the end of the first week.
    Proposals with more than two options also abide by this rule, though they're very unlikely to ever close early. Though it can happen! If the proposal has multiple options, it probably needs more discussion time anyway, so I decided not to touch those at the moment.
  4. If the proposal has an ongoing discussion in the comments section or the proposal may for any other reason benefit from running for two weeks to generate more discussion (e.g. writing guidelines, wiki policy changes, etc.), both the proposer and the admin team have the right to add the "Do not close early" tag below the deadline (they then need to state their reasoning for doing so in the comments). This will ensure proposals with unanimous support that need that extra week of time can still get it.
  5. When closing the proposal early, the deadline needs to be crossed out and "Closed early on ..." needs to be added instead:
Deadline: November 27, 2024, 23:59 GMT Closed early on November 20, 2024, 23:59 GMT

This rule will not apply to talk page proposals

I believe this change to be a good compromise between giving proposals more discussion time and eliminating proposals that can do without it.

Proposer: Axii (talk)
Deadline: November 27, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

  1. Axii (talk) This can be a good compromise
  2. Nintendo101 (talk) Per proposal.
  3. Altendo (talk) Why drag on proposals that already have anonymous support? Per proposal.
  4. Camwoodstock (talk) This makes sense to us! We are a little on-the-fence about the exact thresholds, but this is definitely a pretty elegant system to help unanimous proposals pass sooner, and given it has only one method to proc, it leaves it pretty shenanigan-proof.
  5. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Sounds good!
  6. EvieMaybe (talk) per!
  7. Killer Moth (talk) Sounds like a good idea. Per proposal.
  8. OmegaRuby (talk) An idea I and others brought up in the initial proposal that made proposals two weeks long. Yes!

Oppose

Comments

Would this also apply to talk page proposals? Never mind, I can't read. I do think this could apply to TPPs though. What's your reasoning for it not? Technetium (talk) 14:09, November 13, 2024 (EST)

Talk page proposals just aren't as visible to the community as mainspace proposals are, so I believe they should still last for two weeks regardless. They also do not clutter the proposals page. I may consider adding it as a third option. Axii (talk) 14:13, November 13, 2024 (EST)
Axil, I think it's a better idea to replace a direct URL ([https://www.mariowiki.com/MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/70#Revise_how_long_proposals_take:_.22IT.27S_ABOUT_.28how_much.29_TIME_.28they_take.29.22 proposal]) to a direct wikilink ([[MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/70#Revise how long proposals take: "IT'S ABOUT (how much) TIME (they take)"|proposal]]) so that it removes bytes on the archive page and doesn't always open a new window when clicked. Just my recommendation, though.
Also, what happens with proposals that somehow retain the aspect ratio of at least 12 to 1 (like 25 support votes to 2 oppose votes)? I feel like the case for closing proposals after one week with oppose votes should be changed to a ratio of at least 12 to 1, not at least 12 support votes and only 1 oppose vote. Altendo 15:07, November 13, 2024 (EST)

I think clause 2 needs to explicitly account for proposals where the proposer does not vote in support of their own proposal. It's not the least common thing in the world, after all — and if we miss it, we could have people retracting their solitary vote to buy more time, which would not be an intended feature of this. Ahemtoday (talk) 02:59, November 14, 2024 (EST)

This proposal only considers two-option proposals. We could adapt rules 1 and 2 to take into account any proposal, regardless of the number of voting options: "A proposal must meet these criteria to be closed early: the first place option must have at least 10 votes and at least 92% approval, and the second place option must have at most one vote". This is equivalent to rules 1 and 2 for two-option proposals (though I don't quite understand what would happen in rule 2 if the only support vote is from a user who is not the proposer), and it would work well with {{proposal check}}. Jdtendo(T|C) 08:00, November 21, 2024 (EST)

It is too late to modify the proposal now, though I like your idea. Axii (talk) 08:36, November 21, 2024 (EST)

Since there is support for an early close rule, I'm going to add one, but I'm canceling this proposal since I want it to be a little different than what's proposed. 1) It should be applicable to all proposals regardless of the number of options. 2) Let's go with a margin of 8 or more votes with at least 80% approval. It's a little more lenient, but given that up until recently many big proposals ended after a week with much closer margins, I don't think we should shy away from closing heavy-consensus proposals after a week. This will further help to reduce clutter and process our proposals more efficiently where it is reasonable to do so. 3) Let's leave the "Do not close early" stuff up to wiki staff only. Allowing proposers to use it when their proposal is failing but there is no real hope would enable them to drag things out and defeat the whole point of having this rule. This is all about retaining the benefits of both two-week and one-week proposals simultaneously: Heavy-consensus proposals simply become one-week proposals, and for that not to happen should be a somewhat rare staff decision. 4) Even though I was unsure about making all proposals two weeks, one thing that I do like about the change is that there are fewer arbitrary differences between proposals and TPPs. In that spirit, this rule should apply to TPPs as well. If it's a good rule, then I think it's a good rule for both. I'm not concerned about TPP visibility because the required vote margin handles that: If a TPP falls under the radar, then it will fail to get the number of votes needed in a week. But if it is able to get the required votes, then it must have been visible enough to do so. 5) The #5 part about noting the early close in the archive sounds good. 6) I also need to reduce the proposal editing timeframe of six days since now that it's possible for a proposal to conclude after seven days, there needs to be a larger window than one day between the editing cutoff and a proposal's potential closure to ensure that people have enough time to be made aware of any edits and adjust their vote if needed. Let's try four days. 7) We will monitor and make further adjustments if needed. Thank you --Steve (talk) Get Firefox 16:28, November 21, 2024 (EST)

Would this change apply to currently ongoing proposals? Axii (talk) 01:21, November 22, 2024 (EST)
I think it already does. Altendo 09:43, November 22, 2024 (EST)

Move "Princess Peach" and "Princess Daisy" to "Peach" and "Daisy"

Do not move 15-11-19
Earlier this year, I made a proposal suggesting that the article "Princess Daisy" should be moved to "Daisy". That proposal was rejected, with one of the main reasons being that people were concerned about the inconsistency this would cause with Princess Peach. Since then, another similar proposal has passed that suggested moving the Koopaling articles to just their first names. So, I would like to suggest once again that I think "Princess Daisy" should be moved to "Daisy", except that this time I'm also including the option to move "Princess Peach" to "Peach".

This proposal is not suggesting that we stop using these titles for these characters completely. We should continue to do as we have done: use whatever name is used in a specific work when talking about a character's appearance in that work. I am only suggesting that the articles themselves be moved to "Peach" and "Daisy", which I believe to be their primary names.

The case for moving Daisy's article

You can read my full argument for Daisy in my previous proposal about this subject, so I'll be brief here. My key point is that Daisy has never been called Princess Daisy in any game as her primary English name. It's certainly not an unofficial title by any means, but she is and always has been called "Daisy", with no honorific, considerably more often and more prominently than her full title.

The case for moving Peach's article

The case for Peach is much weaker than the case for Daisy. Unlike Daisy, Peach is actually called by her full title in-game as her primary English name sometimes. In fact, as was pointed out in the comments of the previous proposal, Nintendo has on occasion used the names "Princess Peach" (with the honorific) and "Daisy" (without) together.

Nonetheless, her highness is called "Peach" in-game considerably more often than "Princess Peach". (To be clear, my point is not that she's never called "Princess Peach", just that "Peach" appears to be her primary in-game name, which is what the naming policy recommends.) I believe the strongest example here is Mario Kart Tour, which uses "Peach" despite having no shortage of playable drivers with excessively unweildy names.

Proposer: janMisali (talk)
Deadline: November 21, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Move both princesses

  1. JanMisali (talk) First choice, as proposer.
  2. Tails777 (talk) Primary choice. Even if Peach uses her title more often, MANY games usually relegate to just calling the princesses by their names without their titles. And since Bowser is also referred to as just "Bowser" over "King Bowser" (a titled name used about as often as Princess Peach), I feel all three can just use their names without titles.
  3. Ahemtoday (talk) Only choice, per proposal. I was part of the opposition to the previous proposal, but this one fixes the issue I had with it. And anyway, in basically any game where Peach is playable, the thing written under her on the character select is just "Peach", same as Daisy, so this feels like the natural solution.
  4. Super Mario RPG (talk) "Princess" is just a title of Peach's name, and most appearances refer to her as simply Peach. The name for "Daisy" is very seldomly preceded by "Princess". Compare to Dr. Mario, where the "Dr." is an inherent part of his name, rather than a full title.
  5. Altendo (talk) If we can remove names from Sonic characters, the Koopalings, and even named identifiers like Sir and Admiral, there is no reason to not do this. Per all.
  6. Camwoodstock (talk) Per proposal, and the original proposal that spurred this one.
  7. LinkTheLefty (talk) Things are headed in this direction, let's rip the bandage off.
  8. Arend (talk) I'm more comfortable with removing the "Princess" title from both articles rather than just Daisy's. Yes, Peach is often called "Princess Peach", but I find it comparable to Koopa minions referring to Bowser as "Lord Bowser" or "King Bowser" (or, in the case of game titles such as Super Princess Peach or Princess Peach Showtime, it's comparable to the Super Mario games, which bear this title even if there's no Super Mushrooms to turn Mario into Super Mario).
  9. SolemnStormcloud (talk) Per all.
  10. Hewer (talk) Fine, second choice.
  11. Cadrega86 (talk) Per all.
  12. Jdtendo (talk) Per all.
  13. Blinker (talk) Per proposal.
  14. WayslideCool (talk) Per proposal. Consistent with how we've handled this sort of thing in other contexts, would feel weird to make an exception here specifically.
  15. GuntherBayBeee (talk) Per all.

#Pseudo (talk) First choice, per proposal. The princess titles for both characters can definitely be seen as their full names, but it seems to occupy a similar space to "King Bowser" in most games.
#EvieMaybe (talk) per Altendo, specifically

Only move Peach

Only move Daisy

  1. JanMisali (talk) Second choice, as proposer.
  2. Pseudo (talk) Second choice, since Daisy has stronger reason to be moved.
  3. Tails777 (talk) Secondary choice. Daisy is referred to as "Princess Daisy" far less than Peach is referred to as "Princess Peach", with some modern games still using Peach's title. Daisy is almost always just referred to as "Daisy".
  4. Koopa con Carne (talk) per the case being made for Daisy. Games and other media as recent as Princess Peach Showtime and the Mario Movie alternate between naming Peach with and without the honorific, so MarioWiki:Naming cannot enforce one over the other based on recency, frequency, or source priority. None of this can be said about Daisy, however. Some have argued that "Daisy" is chosen for functional purposes within games, i.e. is an attempt to keep the character's name short in areas where you can allocate a piece of text only so much memory--and I'd understand the argument, if it weren't for cases like "Light-blue Shy Guy (Explorer)", "Yellow Shy Guy (Explorer)", and "Purple Koopa (Freerunning)" which push that memory limit much further than "Princess Daisy" ever could. I also question why the naming scheme of either character has to remain consistent with the other just for the sake of it; if their patently similar appearance and roles is the sole thrust behind this point of view, what's stopping Rosalina from being moved to "Princess Rosalina", then? That's an official title, too. Better lock in and make the facts readily apparent on the fan encyclopedia.
  5. Hewer (talk) Per Koopa con Carne. I see the argument for moving Peach as well, but feel more strongly that Daisy should be moved since she's rarely called "Princess Daisy".
  6. Super Mario RPG (talk) Secondary choice.
  7. Camwoodstock (talk) Secondary choice. We need to do something about Daisy, at least.
  8. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Per Koopa con Carne.
  9. Cadrega86 (talk) Secondary choice, Daisy is pretty much never referred to as "Princess Daisy" as her primary name.
  10. Shy Guy on Wheels (talk) Per Koopa con Carne.
  11. UltraMario (talk) Per all. I voted on the other one so that both Princesses could not get changed, but I'm also going to vote this because I agree that Daisy should just be called Daisy, specifically.

Keep both princesses the same

  1. SeanWheeler (talk) Stop shortening names! Seriously, I knew this was next after the Koopaling proposal.
  2. Mario (talk) I don't think any these moves are great (especially the one where "Shadow the Hedgehog" was shortened, I dislike that one). They greatly hinder searches on the wiki (in Peach's case, it's going to conflict with the fruit), and more people online are going to search "Princess Peach" and "Princess Daisy" to find the character. What these moves are going to do, like with those older name moves (which I am not on board with) is going to have searches rely on redirects. I'm not sure how much SEO and search engine discoverability is going to be impacted (Porple confirmed with me on Discord that it will certainly hinder discoverability on search engines but it's not catastrophic, just something to keep in mind) but I think there is a great reason we chose Chuckster over Pianta Thrower. These are distinct, recognizable names. Don't fix what isn't broken, and the current method of piping and using redirects for the shortened, overlapping names seemed to serve us well enough.
  3. Waluigi Time (talk) Per Mario. I don't think focusing in so heavily on the exact places or times the full names vs. the shortened names are used is beneficial if those names are still in frequent use. Some of these make sense (E. Gadd is rarely called Elvin, the Koopalings' full names seem to be mostly phased out these days), but the Sonic proposal was a misstep IMO. Princess Peach is still very commonly used, the average person knows her by that name, I don't see a need to change it. I feel less strongly about Daisy, admittedly.
  4. UltraMario (talk) Per all.
  5. Pseudo (talk) Upon further thought and seeing Mario and Waluigi Time's votes, I'm inclined to think that moving pages like this is probably not such a wise idea, especially as it hurts searchability. I've removed my original vote for merging both and now consider this my primary one, though I think that moving Daisy would still be alright with me.
  6. FanOfYoshi (talk) Yeah, no; per all. We'd need a counterproposal... That Sonic proposal already was a pretty bad enough decision as-is and this... this is no different.
  7. MeritC (talk) Per all; first of all, in terms of a fan managed encyclopedia like this, it's still the best route to keep the "Princess Peach" and "Princess Daisy" article titles for this Wiki, even though certain and recent games like the sports, kart racing, and Mario Party games just address the two as "Peach" and "Daisy" in their names. Plus, in terms of linking their names to the respective articles, we're already making sure that "Peach" links to the "Princess Peach" article and "Daisy" links to the "Princess Daisy" article anyway.
  8. Arend (talk) Secondary choice, the current names are fine too.
  9. Dwhitney (talk) Per all. Also, Daisy is referred to as Princess Daisy in Mario Tennis Aces.
  10. Lakituthequick (talk) Per all, in particular Mario and WT. As for the SEO point, while that certainly does matter (even outside of "corporate" contexts), in this case it's just clearer to denote the princesses with their titles. SEO happens to be a happy by-product of that.
  11. SmokedChili (talk) Per all. Since these proposals are made with following the rules in mind, then the obvious alternative is to change the rules. The naming guidelines have nothing about full names and titles, that should be changed so that conditions pertaining to them to allow use of extending their titles based on official material over (identifiers). Let's use Princess Peach as an example. "Princess Peach" was first seen in Yoshi's Safari then later in Mario 64 and here and there ever since. Thus "Princess" is part of Peach and should be kept as "Princess Peach" to distinquish from Peach the fruit. Same with Roy Koopa and Roy from Mario Golf, the latter doesn't really need an identifier if the former is moved back to his full name. On the other hand, I've been also thinking such a policy would have to be restrictive: "Princess Peach Toadstool" wouldn't be legit because it wasn't seen in Yoshi's Safari first, "King Bowser" wouldn't be either for similar reasons, "Boo Diddly" wouldn't count because it's only seen in Mario 3 and its remakes, and Mollusque-Lanceur's full name won't because it comes from a secondary source and its length may be an issue. There's probably a lot more that needs to be figured out, those are just examples that came to my mind.
  12. MCD (talk) Per all.
  13. Killer Moth (talk) Per all.
  14. Sdman213 (talk) Per all.
  15. LadySophie17 (talk) Per all. And don't move my username to just Sophie.
  16. DesaMatt (talk) Per all, but not strongly.
  17. Shoey (talk) Per all
  18. PnnyCrygr (talk) Per all. Removing the princess prefix could confuse them for the actual fruit and the actual flower, respectively. We have also an article about the LM ghost knows as Daisy. The "Peach Blossom" move involves Peach summoning literal Peaches, to give an example. Better to keep them "Princess Peach" and "Princess Daisy".
  19. Ray Trace (talk) I really want to move Sonic back to Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog.

#EvieMaybe (talk) per Waluigi Time

Princess Comments, Peach

@SeanWheeler: Why is shortening names a bad thing? If the shortened name is the more current title of a character or game, shouldn't the article be moved to the more current title? The length of the titles of the characters is not the main issue here; it's how current those titles are. Mari0fan100 (talk) 20:41, November 9, 2024 (EST)

@Mario: Given "Peach" and "Daisy" are very commonly used names, and also shorter (thus easier to type), I can't imagine it being that bad for searches. The shortened names are also "distinct, recognizable names", and the ones Nintendo is fine to use for the characters (as well as what I usually hear fans call them), so why shouldn't we follow suit (especially given all the other renaming proposals, some of which, e.g. Bobbery and TEC, had literally no opposition)?
@Waluigi Time: I would argue Princess Daisy isn't really "still in frequent use". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:13, November 10, 2024 (EST)

I think if I wanted to look up the Mario character named "Daisy" in Google, I would use "Princess Daisy" to try to get more results that aren't daisies. Mario's popular, but not the center of all reality. (Though a company selling BB guns somehow beats out the plant.) Google suggests I may also want to use "Daisy mario". Bobbery is unique enough to be the main topic of that name. TEC has technology companies beat out the character unless "TEC-XX" is used.
Super Mario Wiki appears to be far enough ahead in results that if Google recognizes the search is for a character this site is first up, even in cases like Bobbery, TEC, and Ludwig. But I'm no search engineer, so I don't know if changing the article names can impact this.Salmancer (talk) 06:29, November 10, 2024 (EST)
I was more referring to searches on the wiki itself. Google searches shouldn't really be what determines page names in my opinion, or we'd have a good case to move Pauline to "Mayor Pauline" (or to add "mario" in brackets to a ton of article titles). Either way, I feel like having to search "daisy mario" instead of "princess daisy" (as I imagine many people already do) isn't that big a deal. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:44, November 10, 2024 (EST)
As I alluded to, my reasoning mostly concerns Peach, but I don't really want to put my official support behind a Daisy move either, which is why I chose that option. IMO, external searchability absolutely should be something taken into consideration when it's relevant, but not the deciding factor. At the end of the day, a wiki is here for its readers, so let's not make it needlessly harder on them to find things if we can help it. --Waluigi's head icon in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 12:56, November 10, 2024 (EST)
I'd think using the name the character most commonly goes by would make it more intuitive to find. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 13:15, November 10, 2024 (EST)
I'm not convinced that switching to a shorter name has any negative influence on external searchability regardless of if that should be a priority or not. We're still on the front page of Google results for "Shadow the Hedgehog wiki", and the only results that come up before our "Shadow (character)" article are from Wikipedia and dedicated Sonic wikis. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 13:51, November 10, 2024 (EST)
I don't understand why the topic of SEO is still part of the debate. It's a misplaced priority. This site is a community-run educational resource, not a corporate product that you're incentivized to optimize every little aspect of in the name of clicks. Look at Fandom--outwardly, it provides the former, but it's also an ad-ridden hellhole artificially planted on the front page of Google results with no regard to the quality or accuracy of the content herein. I'm questioning whether it's worth compromising accuracy so the wiki could compete with such actors. Not to say this site would exist without traffic and participation at all, every project needs funding and other manners of support, but, like
guys,
This is the biggest resource on the Internet for the most popular video game franchise on the planet.
Do you really believe losing 0.005% of total searches because Glup Shitto got renamed to the less popular but more accurate "Shart Faqeer" is such a big deal in the grand scheme of things? -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:33, November 10, 2024 (EST), edited 10:55, November 11, 2024 (EST)
I think "corporate product" is a bit of a misread. Rather, there is little value in maintaining an encyclopedia that people cannot find. I do not know if it impacts this particular case (i.e. when I last searched "wendy mario" or "wendy o. koopa" on Google, our article still shows up near or at the top, regardless of name), but I do not think it is invalid to keep in mind.
I think it is worth keeping in mind that the Super Mario Wiki has different goals than a character-selection screen or a level-selection screen, which typically prefer simple truncated names. New Super Mario Bros. U refers to a boss as "Larry" in one context and as "Larry Koopa" in another. An encyclopedic reference that encompasses many series and subjects may similarly best support its information by adopting fuller names with discretion. - Nintendo101 (talk) 15:22, November 10, 2024 (EST)
The character select screen name shortening argument has already been addressed: names like "Light-blue Shy Guy (Explorer)" are longer than "Princess Daisy", yet the former is used while the latter is not. Clearly Nintendo just has a preference for the shorter name, so we should too. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 17:59, November 10, 2024 (EST)
This is not consistent though. On the character-selection screen in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, you can select "Light-Blue Yoshi." The standees for this character's name is truncated as "L. Blue Yoshi." The Star Fox protagonist goes by "Fox" on the character-selection screen for the Super Smash Bros. titles, but goes by "Fox McCloud" on the costume list for Super Mario Maker. Our pink princess character goes by "Princess Peach" on the box for her standalone game, and simply as "Peach" in the game itself. Is it invalid to suggest whether a character goes by a truncated or full name is really context dependent, and less about the phasing out of monikers or surnames for certain characters? If the former, is Super Mario Wiki inherently not the platform where full names would be helpful? And if it is not, why? - Nintendo101 (talk) 19:07, November 10, 2024 (EST)
The length of a character's name can undoubtedly be subject to technical limitations in a game. I personally just don't think this is necessarily the case with Daisy's name as of today, and my view is that the wiki should be observing what the most current official consensus on those names is. The standees in Wonder are a highly particular instance of name rendering even within the game; the character selection screen otherwise uses "Light-Blue Yoshi" and "Daisy" simultaneously, and I'd hazard a guess that players are more likely to make better note of those than how they are rendered in the standee menu. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 19:41, November 10, 2024 (EST), edited 19:50, November 10, 2024 (EST)
As people have related in this discussion, Mario Wiki tends to be pushed forward in Google results for a Mario character. It is decidedly not an encyclopedia people cannot find. Porplemontage can probably conjure some projections, he has the data for this sort of thing after all, but I'm confident given the wiki's size and popularity that Mario Wiki will remain in the top search results for "peach mario" and "daisy mario" whether the characters retain or lose their mantle titles. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 19:04, November 10, 2024 (EST), edited 19:12, November 10, 2024 (EST)
@JanMisali Same with googling "shadow sonic wiki". Even just "shadow wiki" still brings up his Mario Wiki article on the second page on my end, which is pretty impressing considering the breadth of coverage either of the words "shadow" and "wiki" have on the Internet. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:48, November 10, 2024 (EST)

@MeritC: "We'd have to change links" is never a good argument. If this passes, a bot will take care of fixing all the links. That's how we were able to rename the "Super Mario (franchise)" page, probably one of the most linked to pages on the entire wiki, with no issue. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 17:59, November 10, 2024 (EST)

@Dwhitney Where in Mario Tennis Aces is the name "Princess Daisy" used? I can't find any evidence of her being called anything but "Daisy" in that game. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 10:27, November 11, 2024 (EST)

It's right there in the beginning of the story mode. This video, around the 5:15 time mark. ArendLogoTransparent.pngrend (talk) (edits) 11:19, November 11, 2024 (EST)
Ah, missed that. Thanks! But regardless, it's definitely not her primary name in that game. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 12:25, November 11, 2024 (EST)

It should also be noted that the Super Mario Land manual consistently refers to Daisy as "Princess Daisy" in the story section and gameplay section; the character section is the only place in the manual where she's referred to as just "Daisy" (plus mistakenly calling her "Daisy Princess" as well). The manual of Mario Kart: Double Dash refers to her as "Princess Daisy" once, too. I get that these aren't exactly "in-game" materials, but that should put "Princess Daisy" on the same level as the Koopalings' full names.
Do Super Smash Bros. games count too, btw? Palutena has referred to her as "Princess Daisy". ArendLogoTransparent.pngrend (talk) (edits) 11:43, November 11, 2024 (EST)

I mentioned Smash Bros. in my previous proposal about this. She's called Daisy everywhere else in that game, including elsewhere in that same Palutena's Guidance conversation. But yes, I agree that "Princess Daisy" is a name used on the same level as the full names of the Koopalings, and I think we should use it the same way we use the Koopalings' full names (ie. not in the article title). jan Misali (talk · contributions) 12:25, November 11, 2024 (EST)

@SmokedChili: There is no universe where peach the fruit that made minor appearances in five games could get naming priority on this wiki over Peach the major character with hundreds of appearances. That's why Peach already redirects to the character, and Peach (fruit) already has an identifier - shortening the name wouldn't change that. The same goes for Roy - the Mario Tennis character always had an identifier for years before Roy Koopa's name was shortened, because the former is significantly less prominent and less likely to be what people searching "Roy" are looking for. (Also, Mollusque-Lanceur's full name recently appeared in Nintendo Music, which I don't think is a "secondary source", and length wouldn't be an issue.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 12:35, November 11, 2024 (EST)

Why would the fruit need an identifier if Peach being in the "Princess Peach" page frees up the "Peach" page? And why use conveniences this wiki made up over what's found in official material? Wiki-made identifiers should thus be used as sparingly as possible. And my argument for Mollusque-Lanceur is that by using naming priority, since his short name comes from the in-game music player while his full name comes from the Prima guide, the latter shouldn't be qualified for use as a page title even if it comes up later. SmokedChili (talk) 13:13, November 14, 2024 (EST)
The reason "Peach (fruit)" needs an identifier is that a user who goes to www.mariowiki.com and types "Peach" into the search bar is more likely to be looking for information about one of the main characters of the Super Mario franchise than the fruit. It's the same reason Mario 1 (level) needs an identifier. Even if the thing it's disambiguating itself from isn't the name the wiki actually uses for that subject, one subject is simply so much more notable than the other that we choose to disambiguate other articles from even its unofficial names. This is a strictly positive thing for the user experience of anyone using this wiki, and I strongly disagree with the implication that we should stop considering "which subject is a user who searches for this term on this wiki more likely to be looking for?" to be a priority. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 14:25, November 14, 2024 (EST)
The difference is that Mario 1 (level) references SMB (and even then adding an identifier sounds like an overreaction) while Peach got her name from the fruit. Your assumption also ignores the possibility that readers may know about peach fruits and/or call Peach "Princess Peach" in their heads regardless of how formal the source is, so the search result argument wouldn't be as reliable because how many actually search for "Peach" over "Princess Peach" when they want the character? SmokedChili (talk) 04:55, November 17, 2024 (EST)
I think you're missing the point of identifiers and redirects a bit. Plenty of people would search "Peach" instead of "Princess Peach" (after all, it's shorter so easier to type), and I can't imagine the positives could outweigh the negatives of making it not redirect to the obviously more likely intended result. It would just harm the wiki's usability. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:11, November 17, 2024 (EST)

@SmokedChili Peach is not called "Princess Peach" at any point in Super Mario 64. She is called "Princess Toadstool", "Peach", "the Princess", and "Princess Toadstool, Peach". jan Misali (talk · contributions) 12:48, November 11, 2024 (EST)

For clarity, this is not true. According to our own article Toad says "Hold on to your hat! If you lose it, you’ll be easily injured. If you lose it, look for the course where you lost it. Speaking of lost, Princess Peach is still stuck in the walls somewhere. Please help, Mario! Oh, you know there are secret worlds in the walls as well as in the paintings, right?" And in Super Mario 64 DS, the narrator also refers to her as "Princess Peach." People should do with that what they will. "Peach" is still more commonly used in the game, but it is not in isolation from "Princess Peach." - Nintendo101 (talk)
That article contains a mix of quotes from both Super Mario 64 and Super Mario 64 DS. The corresponding Ukikipedia article, which has a direct textdump of the raw text files from the Nintendo 64 game, has the original dialogue and does not contain the name "Princess Peach". jan Misali (talk · contributions) 14:40, November 14, 2024 (EST)
We should most certainly revise our naming conventions, since it's warranting proposals for every character to be moved to just their first names. And now that we have the Sonic restaurant, the hedgehog should definitely get his full name back. And with Shadow and Big, their full names would be better page titles than identifiers. And after opposing the proposal to add identifiers to similarly named pages, I might advocate for Peach (fruit) to get it's identifier removed just for the princess to keep her title. That page already has the {{About}} template linking to the princess anyway. SeanWheeler (talk) 23:52, November 13, 2024 (EST)
Are you suggesting that someone who types "Peach" into the search bar on mariowiki.com and presses enter is more likely to be looking for the fruit than the character? jan Misali (talk · contributions) 00:29, November 14, 2024 (EST)
Sonic Drive-In also changes nothing, it's called Sonic Drive-In and not just Sonic. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 02:53, November 14, 2024 (EST)
Alright, whose responsible this? Still, it's not like "Princess Peach" completely disappeared after being seen in Yoshi's Safari first. SmokedChili (talk) 13:16, November 14, 2024 (EST)

@LadySophie17 To be clear, the purpose of this proposal is not simply a preference for shorter names. I wrote the proposal to move our article about The Old Psychic Lady with the Evil Eye Who Reads Fortunes and Knows Everything Before It Happens to her full title for the same reason I think it makes sense for our article about Daisy to be moved to "Daisy". We should prioritize the most common current primary name of a subject regardless of if that's a shorter name than their most formal full name or a longer name than what most fans would rather call them. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 14:07, November 14, 2024 (EST)

I'm aware. My comment was a just a cheeky remark at the fact that simply "Sophie" is the most common current primary name of the subject that is me. — Lady Sophie Wiggler Sophie.png (T|C) 14:19, November 14, 2024 (EST)
Joke's on you, I'm writing a proposal for your name as we speak. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:23, November 14, 2024 (EST)

@PnnyCrygr We don't have an article about Daisy from Luigi's Mansion 2. That character is covered in a subsection of a longer article. Lower on this very page there is currently a proposal that has literally no opposition that's suggesting that it's unnecessary to use the title to disambiguate between a subject that has an article and a subject that only has a subsection of an article. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 08:51, November 16, 2024 (EST)

Thanks for the heads-up. Now I remember. Don't click Penny PnnyCrygr User contributions 09:07, November 16, 2024 (EST)

Where did the "Drive-In" part of the name come from? The logo only has the word "Sonic" and every commercial I've seen simply called it Sonic. At least with Sonic the Hedgehog, his full name has been the title of many games and media, and he was called such quite frequently in his franchise. Sonic Drive-In is just advertised as Sonic. I only saw that full name as a wiki page title. If a crossover character has the same common name as a restuarant, who gets the short name? SeanWheeler (talk) 20:47, November 17, 2024 (EST)

The character? This is a problem this wiki has already solved. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 21:39, November 17, 2024 (EST)
How had the wiki already solved that problem? By the fact that Sonic the Hedgehog was already moved to Sonic by the time the Sonic Drive-In got an article? Considering the Sonic Drive-In article is about Sonic's promotion of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam in 2016, it was created eight years late. SeanWheeler (talk) 16:38, November 18, 2024 (EST)
The way the wiki solved the problem is that "Sonic" is the article about the character (and in fact already redirected to the article about the character before it was moved) and "Sonic Drive-In" is the article about the restaurant. Unless you're suggesting that we should change this (and I legitimately cannot think of a single good reason why we would), there isn't really anything else to say about the matter. That just factually is the solution that is currently in place to the problem being asked about. jan Misali (talk · contributions) 17:29, November 18, 2024 (EST)
Why do you bring up the Sonic Drive-In page being "eight years late" like it's relevant? Sonic the character was relevant to the Mario franchise years before Sonic the restaurant anyway. The idea that the character can't be called just "Sonic" despite generally being called that in his several Mario appearances but the restaurant that has an article because of one promotion in 2016 must be called just "Sonic" sounds biased to me. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:04, November 18, 2024 (EST)
Well, with the proposal to rename the princesses by their shorter more common referred names failing, it would be good to rethink some of the earlier renaming proposals. Especially the one about the crossover characters being moved, because I feel like a lot of these characters would lose their identity without their full names here, a few of them like Shadow got the unnecessary "(character)" identifier, because Shadow is a Super Mario RPG enemy, and there are still other users wanting to overturn that proposal. And if Zelda were to get her article back, I would want it to be consistent with Peach and Daisy. I do want to overturn that proposal that put the Smash characters on list pages, because I am not a fan of having articles stacked together as a list like we did with the Banjo and Conker series pages long ago, the sections for Mario characters and characters who made more Mario appearances linking to their own pages making those pages even less about the franchise we're about, and because of the amiibo having them appear in Super Mario Maker and other games. SeanWheeler (talk) 23:37, November 19, 2024 (EST)
And yet proposals like this, that, and the other passed with no opposition. Not sure how the Smash list pages are relevant, but the point of them is to cover the fighters not relevant enough to Mario for their own pages, so naturally they'll be some of the less Mario-relevant pages. If your problem is them not being relevant to Mario, I don't see how splitting all the characters back out will help. At this point I feel like outright deletion is probably the more likely eventual fate of those list pages, to be honest. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 03:54, November 20, 2024 (EST)
Those list pages for the fighters aren't just covering Smash, but other appearances they had with Mario such as Super Mario Maker. Pit has so many Mario appearances that I'm wondering why he's on the Brawl list instead of getting his own article. The fighters who didn't appear with Mario outside of Smash would definitely be deleted, unless the majority votes to keep all of them. But I'm voting to split the ones with Mario cameos and delete the rest. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:16, November 20, 2024 (EST)
Those cameos are not notable enough to warrant their own articles, though. You're suggesting that being in Smash doesn't automatically make a character relevant to Mario, but also that being in Smash is what makes a character whose other appearances are a few cameos worthy of an article. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 02:44, November 21, 2024 (EST)

What to do with Steve and Ike

Remove identifiers 10-0
Despite that now the Smash Bros. characters don't get their own articles but instead grouped into lists by game, the actual Mario characters that have the same name as Smash fighters (being Steve from NES Open Tournament Golf and Ike from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!) don't have their identifiers removed. This has been brought up before, however no actions have been taken. I think there is some good points to these identifiers being removed.

  • Roy, Alex and Zombie don't have identifiers despite also sharing names with Smash Bros. characters.
  • If a casual user wanted to find information on Steve from Minecraft, they'd go to the Minecraft Wiki. If they wanted more detailed information for Steve in Smash, they'd go to the Smash Bros. Wiki, not here.
  • This could easily be distinguished with the "about" template.

With these points, I really don't see any reason for these identifiers. They're pointless if anything. This is a Mario wiki. Mario elements should take priority over things we don't fully cover anymore.

Proposer: Starluxe (talk)
Deadline: November 28, 2024, 23:59 GMT Closed early on November 21, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

  1. Starluxe (talk) Per proposal!
  2. EvieMaybe (talk) i feel some ways about the level of coverage we give Smash stuff. per proposal
  3. Nintendo101 (talk) Per proposal.
  4. Ahemtoday (talk) Very straightforward update to these article names given the merging.
  5. UltraMario (talk) Per all.
  6. Camwoodstock (talk) Makes sense to us. Per proposal.
  7. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Per proposal.
  8. Jdtendo (talk) Per proposal.
  9. Killer Moth (talk) Per all.
  10. BMfan08 (talk) Per all.

Oppose

Comments

Do not surround song titles with quotes

Continue using quotation marks 4-2-8
This is a change to this section of our Manual of Style. Currently, our policy is to surround song titles with quotation marks whenever they appear. However. We are a Mario wiki, and the Mario series overwhelmingly does not do this.

The comparison arises to italics, but I feel there's quite a difference between that (an effect applied to text) and the inclusion of punctuation marks, which are text in and of themselves. Not to mention, unlike italics, which would require special programming to implement, quote marks are supported by anything that supports English text, meaning it's not a question of technical limitations — every game that names its songs is perfectly capable of listing them inside quotation marks, and yet they make the choice not to.

As such, surrounding song titles in quotes is questionable as adherence to an unofficial naming scheme over the original one. Not to mention the effects this can have on lists of song titles — their inclusion on Template:DDRMM fluffs up the width of the song section by the width of several song titles.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to mention how inconsistently these quote marks are applied across the wiki already — many entries in Category:Music do not use them in their article, none of the lists of songs from the shows or of WarioWare DIY records use them, Starring Wario! and only Starring Wario has had its article title changed to have the quotes. I take this to mean the rule is not serving the wiki as it stands.

The one exception to everything I've mentioned thus far is Paper Mario: The Origami King's music discs: "Deep, Deep Vibes", "Heartbeat Skipper", "M-A-X Power!", and "Thrills at Night". These are the only time the names of songs are formatted this way (possibly due to the items being CDs of the songs and not the songs themselves). Therefore, these will be the only exception if this proposal passes, and will keep their quote marks.

To circle back around to my original point: I think the nail in the coffin for displaying music this way is Nintendo Music. This application, specifically meant to play music, does not surround their names with quote marks. And yet this article surrounds them in quotes anyway, stringently adhering to our unofficial way of formatting these over the way Nintendo Music actually formats them. It's almost lying, frankly.

So, our options:

  • Option 1: Exclude quote marks from song titles in all cases. Our manual of style will remove the mention of song titles from the section of italicizing titles. Just for clarity, this excludes Origami King's CDs.
  • Option 2: Keep quote marks when song titles are used in a sentence, but exclude them from standalone appearances of the title. Such standalone appearances would include article titles, navboxes, infoboxes, track listings, and table entries. Just for clarity, this option, too, excludes Origami King's CDs.
  • Option 3: Do nothing. I guess this option includes Origami King's CDs.

Proposer:: Ahemtoday (talk)
Deadline: November 24, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Option 1

  1. Ahemtoday (talk) My primary choice. I've firmly laid out my reasons why here.
  2. Jdtendo (talk) I prefer to think of each music as a work in its own right rather than a part of some "greater whole". Jump Up, Super Star! is more than just a piece of Super Mario Odyssey's OST. Therefore, song titles should be italicized like any other work and not be in quotation marks as if they were merely chapters.
  3. Hewer (talk) Per proposal, and there's precedent for following Nintendo's official formatting in spite of usual conventions. The inconsistencies described in the proposal ought to be fixed regardless of the outcome, though.
  4. Biggestman (talk) While I to a degree understand the entire thing with the songs simply being a part of a greater thing, that isn't really fair when I would make an argument some of these songs are a larger part of the series' history than those "greater" things. For example music from Yoshi's Story is still used relatively often to this very day, but Yoshi's Story as a whole is just kinda there. Per all, too.

Option 2

  1. Ahemtoday (talk) I will settle for this — part of my ire toward the quotemarks is that I find them highly unsuitable for these particular usages.
  2. Nintendo101 (talk) Secondary option, per my comment below in Option 3.

Option 3

  1. Nintendo101 (talk) The purpose of the quotation marks is to quickly convey to the reader that a "named subject" is part of a greater whole (that is italicized), and/or what type of subject it is in the context of where it is discussed in an article. For music, that whole is typically an album or CD (or in this case, a video game), but it is not exclusively used for musical pieces. For example, "Chicken Man" is the fourteenth chapter in The Color of Water. "The Green Glow" is the seventh episode in season one of Resident Alien. One of the benefits of doing this is that music, chapters, episodes, etc. sometimes share the same exact name as the whole they are a part of, or something related in the whole (like the name of a character or place), and discrete formatting mitigates confusion for readers. This is readily valuable for many pieces in the Super Mario franchise, because most of them are given utilitarian names. Wouldn't it be valuable for readers to just recognize that "Gusty Garden Galaxy" (with quotation marks) is a musical piece and Gusty Garden Galaxy is a level? Because that is what the quotation marks are for. I think it is a good and helpful tool, one that is used almost everywhere else when discussing music, and more would be lost than gained if we did away with it.
  2. EvieMaybe (talk) per N101. quotation marks are a writing convention! most mario games also don't have italic titles, but we italicize them anyways because it's a formal writing convention that makes sense
  3. Waluigi Time (talk) Strong oppose, per all. This is a well-recognized writing convention, the fact that Nintendo doesn't typically follow it within their products is irrelevant.
  4. Camwoodstock (talk) Per all, especially Nintendo101. These quotes are here for a reason, no matter how remote it may seem.
  5. Ray Trace (talk) Quoting songs is from the manual of style itself, it's the same reason we italicize game titles. I would go even further and quote song titles as a display title like I did in "Starring Wario!"
  6. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Per all.
  7. Axii (talk) Per all.
  8. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - "Because game writing" is what leads to wikis encouraging jokey sarcastic writing, which I'm pretty sure is not the direction we want to go.

Comments

If this passes, how would it affect coverage of non-Mario music? Our only options are either to have two standards, or ignore established convention based on what Nintendo does for media they had no hand in actually producing. Neither seems ideal to me. --Waluigi's head icon in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 20:24, November 10, 2024 (EST)

We'd treat non-Mario music the same as Mario music. Established convention doesn't mean much when we're always saying on this page that we're not other wikis and we don't necessarily need to do things the way other wikis do them. Ahemtoday (talk) 08:01, November 11, 2024 (EST)
I don't think anyone is advocating to hold onto a convention just for the sake of it. Rather, that we should hold onto the convention because it is useful and the proposal doesn't provide persuasive reasons to abandon that usage, or at least it does not for me. - Nintendo101 (talk) 08:44, November 11, 2024 (EST)

In addition, I wouldn't use applications such as Nintendo Music as proof that we shouldn't abide by formatting either. Neither music metadata nor files themselves quote song names, neither does Spotify nor Amazon Music. Yet Wikipedia still does because that's how it's standardized in writing articles. In addition, you pointed out how "Starring Wario!" is the outlier as your point, I've only just started working on those articles mate. BabyLuigiFire.pngRay Trace(T|C) 21:01, November 10, 2024 (EST)

Even Wikipedia doesn't use the quotes in article titles though. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 02:17, November 11, 2024 (EST)
I would support an option that called for just removing the quotation marks in the header for articles (as done here, which should be compared to here). This is not uncommon in written books on music. But there currently is no voting option to do just that. - Nintendo101 (talk) 08:44, November 11, 2024 (EST)

@Ray Trace I'm aware it's in the manual of style. That's why the proposal is about changing the manual of style. Ahemtoday (talk) 08:01, November 11, 2024 (EST)

I'm not talking about the wiki's manual style. I'm talking about general guidelines especially MLA BabyLuigiFire.pngRay Trace(T|C) 15:41, November 11, 2024 (EST)
If it's not our manual of style, then there's no reason for us to care about it because we don't use it. Ahemtoday (talk) 18:04, November 11, 2024 (EST)
Our manual of style is based on this manual of style. BabyLuigiFire.pngRay Trace(T|C) 18:11, November 11, 2024 (EST)
If it's only based on it, then it isn't it. The manual of style is ours, so this quote mark convention has to survive on its own merits, not just by virtue of being in someone else's manual of style. Ahemtoday (talk) 18:22, November 11, 2024 (EST)
Not using general formatting standard guidelines solely because "we shouldn't just because we're not them" is not a good argument. BabyLuigiFire.pngRay Trace(T|C) 18:24, November 11, 2024 (EST)
Well, then — Nintendo doesn't do this either, so there's no reason for this wiki to pretend like they do. That's been my argument this whole time. Ahemtoday (talk) 18:35, November 11, 2024 (EST)
The main difference is that they're a video game, and they're inherently informal in their presentation. They're not trying to write things and bios formally, they're trying to present writing to players, so formatting like italicizing game titles is optional, because that's what it's set out to do. On the other hand, we're an encyclopedia, our writing formatting is far more similar to Wikipedia which observes these things and MLA writing guidelines, and how to format sourcing, and it's something we should emulate over a video game's script. BabyLuigiFire.pngRay Trace(T|C) 18:47, November 11, 2024 (EST)
@Ahemtoday I don't think that is the strong argument you think it is, because almost no piece of media where it has become conventional to include quotation marks include them themselves. They are not on the back of most albums, books, or title cards for television shows. But they are all still presented with quotes arounf them in reference material like Wikipedia and physical books. What makes the Nintendo music we cover here so different that warrants unique treatment? - Nintendo101 (talk) 18:53, November 11, 2024 (EST)
Nintendo doesn't always italicize game titles either, this site does. To be honest, though, I'm not sure how consistently this wiki observes MLA. There's some superficial basis in it (mostly coming off of Wikipedia's style guide, which is sprinkled with some MLA), what with the titles of whole works being written in italics and those of constituent parts of a work being surrounded by quotes, yet the manner in which citations are formatted, arguably a priority of any academic style guide, seems rather peculiar to Wikipedia's house style. Take any citation formatted using the {{cite}} template on this wiki and compare it to how MLA proposes it is done (owl.purdue.edu). There's also been at least one attempt at explicitly adopting a standard purveyed by MLA that got shot down. Not to digress too much, I just wanted to point out that MLA is not currently as pervasive here as it's made out to be and can't be appealed to solely because of a few instances that (happen to) observe it. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 19:20, November 11, 2024 (EST), edited 19:24, November 11, 2024 (EST)
I am personally forgiving on how we structure citations in that template, because many academic journals don't adopt the MLA structure either. Everyone does something a little different from one another. The information included in a citation is more important than how it is organized, and things like ISBN are pretty helpful for an online reference like Super Mario Wiki.
But I also don't believe in supporting conventions just for the sake of them being conventions. I'd rather support them if they are beneficial. What are your thoughts on what I said in my vote above? - Nintendo101 (talk) 19:33, November 11, 2024 (EST)
I cannot argue with your vote. If a writing standard promoted by outside guides can harmonize with the needs of Mario Wiki, there's no reason not to adopt it. Quotation marks serve their purpose well in this case. so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:10, November 11, 2024 (EST)
Cool! I was just curious. I value your perspective. - Nintendo101 (talk) 20:14, November 11, 2024 (EST)

I'm realizing I haven't given my full thoughts on @Nintendo101's vote yet. I agree that there are benefits to formatting song titles in this way (particularly in sentences, which is why I have the option to keep the quote marks exclusively in sentences) — but this formatting scheme misrepresents how the actual works in question are referred to by official media. I had to ask a friend who had Nintendo Music to find out whether or not the app displayed song titles in quotes, because I couldn't trust this wiki to tell me — and, like I said, Nintendo Music doesn't. Yet this article writes the song names as if it does, because apparently this convention is more important than this kind of information. I know this is a minor piece of information, but this formatting convention causes me to be unable to trust the wiki about it. No benefit can counterbalance that. Ahemtoday (talk) 20:13, November 11, 2024 (EST)

I am sorry that you felt mislead, but are you sure it is not because you were unfamiliar with this being a convention for music pieces in the first place? - Nintendo101 (talk) 21:12, November 12, 2024 (EST)
I was well familiar with the convention and how this wiki used it at the time, which is why I knew to ask a friend instead of taking the wiki's word for it. I take such a hardline stance against it not because this untrustworthiness has personally wronged me, but because untrustworthiness is a failure of the wiki on principle. Ahemtoday (talk) 00:02, November 13, 2024 (EST)
I am sorry, I was not referring to Super Mario Wiki in isolation. I was referring to the convention at large. In books and articles on music, regardless of topic, individual pieces are placed within quotation marks. I know I myself first learned one is supposed to put quotation marks around music titles while I was taking English class in middle school. So while I am sympathetic that this bothered you, I do not agree it is misleading. Maybe the issue lies with folks who do not have a lot of experience reading or writing about music. - Nintendo101 (talk) 13:05, November 13, 2024 (EST)
Whether or not readers are familiar with the convention doesn't change the fact that the convention is not reflective of what is being talked about. The only reason wiki readers know "Thrills at Night" and its ilk are actually surrounded in quotes officially is because we haven't been thorough in applying this convention. If we did, then the distinction would vanish completely, because the wiki currently considers adhering to this guideline more important than this kind of information. You can't pin that on readers being unfamiliar. Ahemtoday (talk) 22:17, November 13, 2024 (EST)
I have contacted the director of the Purdue OWL at Purdue University to ask them how one should cite music tracks that already has quotation marks rendered in their name. However, to be honest, I am still not really sure what the issue here is. How are the quotation marks any different from italicization of video games and albums? The name Paper Mario: The Origami King is not displayed anywhere in Nintendo's official material italicized, but we do it for the same reasons one puts quotation marks around music tracks - because it is a useful MLA convention. For music, it is unclear to me on what is being miscommunicated or lost when they are accurately displayed between quotation marks, especially since articles for "Thrills at Night" and other tracks are accompanied with screenshots that show how they are rendered in-game. Is this not sufficient? - Nintendo101 (talk) 14:22, November 14, 2024 (EST)
It is not sufficient. To begin with, not every use of song titles is accompanied by images showing that the music titles are formatted without quotes — the majority of articles in Category:Sound tests do not have such images. (Not to mention that to use these images to establish the formatting of every song title in a given game would require a comically excessive amount of images.) Furthermore, even if they did, this information would be entirely invisible to users of screen readers, raising accessibility concerns. This information can't be conveyed by images alone. Ahemtoday (talk) 15:14, November 14, 2024 (EST)
Couldn't it just be clarified in the article itself that a piece of music is displayed with quotations mark around it? It is not a very common thing to do. - Nintendo101 (talk) 16:22, November 14, 2024 (EST)
Writing in an explicit note clarifying that this time the article is actually reflective of how the music is referred to officially is a much more convoluted way of going about this compared to just referring to them in the official way to begin with. Ahemtoday (talk) 16:50, November 14, 2024 (EST)

Biggestman: The formatting of quotes in songs aren't discussed from a cultural relevancy angle, they're in context of being part of an album. It's the same reason short poetry gets quotes, but novels get italicized, we'd quote "The Raven" but still italicize The Day My Butt Went Psycho. BabyLuigiFire.pngRay Trace(T|C) 21:40, November 15, 2024 (EST)

Create a category for "catch-all articles"

Do not create 1-4
By "catch-all article" (tentative term; please suggest names) I mean those that describe elements that are not related, but share an article because they boil down to the same generic, often real world object. Many of them fit what the guidelines call a "generic subject". Examples of this kind of article are:

They may also boil down to a similar fictional basic concept, which are their own distinct thing, despite all of them taking a similar form:

Compare subjects to which this category would not apply, like ? Block or P-Switch, where every reappearance of the subject is really a deliberate revisitation of a specific concept that already existed.

This category would be applied to articles on concrete subjects only (most of which, if not all, would be objects).

Proposer: Bro Hammer (talk)
Deadline: November 24, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

  1. Bro Hammer (talk) My proposal.

Oppose

  1. Hewer (talk) I don't see how such a category would be useful, and I don't like that it's pretty subjective and is based on a trait shared by the articles rather than the objects themselves. Even if there was value in distinguishing these pages, I don't think a category like this is the way to do it.
  2. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Is History of Mario a catch-all article because it covers both a fictional character and Bob Hoskins? We would have to have that sort of debate for too many articles to count. This is too subjective and doesn't really accomplish anything.
  3. Super Mario RPG (talk) Unnecessary, and the word "generic" alone is unclear whether it goes by the definition of real-life or Super Mario.
  4. Arend (talk) Honestly, the inclusion of fictional items like Poison Mushroom, ! Block and ? Panel would make it more confusing for me what a "catch-all article" is supposed to be; if it's supposed to be about generic subjects, then their inclusion would definitely muddy the concept quite a bit. Not to mention that the term "catch-all article" isn't clear enough as it is.

Comments

My gut reaction is that I disagree that the Poison Mushroom and Lift articles encompass generic subjects. They are supported as discrete in the paratext for these games. But even if narrowed to articles I agree are generic, it is not inherently clear to me what the benefit of having a "catch-all category" would be. My general view is that there are quite a few subjects that we consider to be generic which really are not. - Nintendo101 (talk) 15:45, November 10, 2024 (EST)

What would be some subjects you don't consider generic? My case for the Lift is that it's an article that encompasses almost all types of flat, moving platforms (a basic platforming game object), many even with their own distinct names; I believe you could even argue for some of the versions to get their own articles. And yeah, I agree that there's no huge benefit to having this category, as it would be there mostly for the sake of acknowledgement that "this article does not describe the history of a single idea, but it's instead an aggregation of the histories of various ideas that fit under this umbrella". Bro Hammer (TalkCont) 16:25, November 10, 2024 (EST)

Split off the Mario Kart Tour template(s)

Split off 11-0
Mario Kart Tour has quite the reputation on this wiki in terms of pages, at one time nearly forming the top ten of the largest pages here in terms of bit size. However, what was glossed over was the size of Tour's template, being large enough to hold several templates within itself, and making the page, should the user click on it, almost double in length, more so with the other templates open. Using DS DK Pass as an example, a page for a race course that doesn't have a lot of information on it making for a relatively quick read, is now nearly half taken up by the monstrously large Mario Kart Tour template.

A total of four sub templates exist within the Mario Kart Tour template: Characters (and their skins), Vehicle Parts, Courses, and Other (miscellaneous). For example, if the Courses template were split off and applied to DS DK Pass' page, it would make for a much more palatable experience for those looking for courses found in Tour, rather than making the reader scroll for a centuries and looking for it amongst a sea of numerous skins and kart parts.

Proposer: MightyMario (talk)
Deadline: November 24, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

  1. MightyMario (talk) I heartily endorse this proposal.
  2. Tails777 (talk) I kinda agree with this. I feel this would be a bit more organized too, so people don't have to scroll through loads of characters, karts and other things just to find the tracks section. I have found myself on numerous occasions jumping from track articles and with Tour's template, it was rather irritating searching through massive sections of characters and tours just to find tracks. I support this idea.
  3. Waluigi Time (talk) We've split navigation templates for much less, this makes sense for the sheer amount of content in the game.
  4. ThePowerPlayer (talk) A navigation template that buries content in an area larger than an entire computer screen defeats the purpose.
  5. Super Mario RPG (talk) Agreed with all.
  6. EvieMaybe (talk) per all
  7. Dark Jonathan (talk) I didn't know Tour templates gave so many problems, but hey, that's a good proposal.
  8. BMfan08 (talk) I was just thinking about this the other day when I was changing tense on tour articles. It's definitely a lot to take in, and it's also overlooked because people don't put into a template quite as much as they do a page. I agree with this idea.
  9. SeanWheeler (talk) Per all.
  10. PnnyCrygr (talk) This will make page-by-page navigation of MKT articles more efficient or convenient. Supporting.
  11. Mario (talk) The size of this nav template would make Wario proud, but I'm sure this complaint has already been forwarded to a lot of aspects of Mario Kart Tour content on this wiki.

Oppose

Comments

I think alternatively, they could be given different collapsible sections, like we do with the galleries template. But I agree it is overwhelmingly enormous. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 12:58, November 10, 2024 (EST)

We're talking about the navigation template at the bottom of these pages, right? Because that's the only Tour-related template on the DS DK Pass article (subpages notwithstanding) and it's indeed quite huge. If we do split it off into several subtemplates, I suppose it'd be comparable to various levels from specific platformer titles having a navbox template for themselves instead of sharing a primary nabvox template with the rest of that game's content (e.g. Super Bell Hill featuring {{SM3DW levels}} instead of {{SM3DW}}); or the existence of various navigation templates for the various microgames or minigames in specific WarioWare or Mario Party title. So while it's atypical for us to split Mario Kart-specific nav templates, it's not unheard of for us to split off nav templates in the first place. ArendLogoTransparent.pngrend (talk) (edits) 17:04, November 10, 2024 (EST)