MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/72

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Add an abbreviation template to type out full game titles

Add template 8-0
This proposal is about creating a template that it makes it easier to type out full game titles. Although The Legend of Zelda games generally have longer titles (and Zelda Wiki even has templates for some of their shorter titled games, like Hyrule Warriors, here), there have still been cases in which some game titles are uncomfortably long, such as Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! or Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and while it may seem like not a big deal to some, it would be a small quality-of-life improvement if we could have a template where we input the abbreviation, and the output becomes the game title.

For example, {{a|M&LSS}} would result in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (complete with italics formatting). Meanwhile, {{a|M&LSS|l}} to link to the game, outputting Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, although depending on who creates the template, it could be vice versa, like it links by default and {{a|M&LSS|n}} would prevent a link.

Since Super Mario has several releases, it may get difficult maintaining with all the abbreviations, and there have been cases where two games have shared the same abbreviation. (e.g. SMS for both Mario Sunshine and Mario Strikers). In that case, either {{a|SMS|2002}} (with the year of release) or a custom abbreviation (e.g. {{a|SMShine}}) would be needed (personally I'd prefer the latter).

Consider we already have similar templates for Princess Peach and Princess Daisy (i.e. {{Peach}} and {{Daisy}}), and both of their full titles (with "Princess" included) is a lot shorter than the two game titles in the first paragraph.

Proposer: Super Mario RPG (talk)
Deadline: January 1, 2025, 23:59 GMT Closed early on December 25, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Super Mario RPG (talk) Per.
2. Camwoodstock (talk) We don't see the harm in this, even if it would admittedly be fairly niche. The only real complaint we have is the lack of an additional parameter for changing the displayed text, so if we need to say something like "in the remake", we have to write that out the old-fashioned way.
3. EvieMaybe (talk) might make some link-heavy pages lighter!
4. Salmancer (talk) Words cannot express the relief that my fingers would feel if they never have to type out "Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey" again.
5. Tails777 (talk) Mario already took my example, but it still stands; the amount of times I've had to type out that title (or even the abbreviation for it) was incredibly annoying. Per all.
6. Scrooge200 (talk) Yes, these titles can be a pain to write out in full. Per all.
7. Technetium (talk) Per all.
8. Sparks (talk) Per all.

Comments

@Camwoodstock Such a parameter can always be added to the template. Super Mario RPG (talk) 18:18, December 18, 2024 (EST)

Salmancer: Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games might be the other worst game title I've had to type out. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 00:59, December 20, 2024 (EST)

Damn it, that was gonna be my example! Tails777 Talk to me!15:34, December 20, 2024 (EST)

Stop integrating templates under the names of planets and areas in the Super Mario Galaxy games

Do not put templates underneath names of planets and areas 14-1
The aims of this proposal is to repeal this one that passed earlier this year. I will reiterate my position here:

The planetary bodies in galaxies do not just "lack" publicly accessible names - they are straight up not supposed to have names. The Shogakukan guidebook for Mario Galaxy does not give planets name. The game does not give planets name. The instruction booklet does not give planets name. The only "source" that applies discrete names for planets are from the developers and we have no reason to think these were intended to be the planets. These galaxy articles are generally a bit outdated, and I think the mistake in the first place was suggesting that some of the planets have real names "except where otherwise noted." They largely do not. I think it would would healthier to recognize that they are just different sections of a greater whole, much like areas in courses for the earlier 3D games, and apply titles accordingly.

To elaborate on my perspective, I think using dev data to provide names for these planets is completely fine, and I understand the desire to do so. Citing the Prima Games guidebooks for potential names for these areas is fine. That is not what this proposal is about. Rather, integrating the templates themselves - be it for conjectural or dev data-derived names - underneath the individual headers for each planet, in my view, looks very poor, as you can see here for Yoshi Star Galaxy and Honeyhive Galaxy. They are detractingly eye-catching and break these articles without substantive benefit. I think having a nonintrusive note at the top or bottom of these articles - as was the case before the proposal I link to above passed - is perfectly sufficient and healthier for these articles.

I provide two options:

1. Support: Do not put conjectural and dev-data name templates beneath the names of individual planets and areas in the Super Mario Galaxy games: This is a full repeal of the proposal I link to above.
2. Oppose: Change nothing

Proposer: Nintendo101 (talk)
Deadline: January 1, 2025, 23:59 GMT Closed early on December 25, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support: Do not put templates underneath the name's of planets and areas

1. Nintendo101 (talk) Per proposal.
2. 1468z (talk) Per proposal.
3. Waluigi Time (talk) The previous solution looked a lot nicer. I also agree with Nintendo101 that we should rethink how we approach planet names in general. They don't necessarily "need" names any more than specific portions of levels in other games do.
4. Jdtendo (talk) I still don't agree with the "planets are not supposed to have names" argument, but I do agree that having templates beneath every section heading is excessive.
5. Camwoodstock (talk) Per all, especially Waluigi time. The overall assumption that the planets have names unless otherwise stated feels like the consequence of a decision made very, very early on into the wiki, that's just kind of gone unquestioned or unnoticed until very recently. This won't stop that particular case of WikiJank™ completely, but it's a step in the right direction.
6. Sparks (talk) Per all.
7. EvieMaybe (talk) if all the names are unofficial, then we only need to say it once. if there's an official name, we can just say "all names are unofficial unless specified" and specify in the one planet that has a name (is there any planets with names even???). having the template on each individual section is both ugly and inefficient
8. Mario (talk) Yeah, the setup before this was satisfactory. Per Evie, but I also agree with Waluigi Time that we probably don't need to require naming these parts of the level either.
9. Ray Trace (talk) I always thought assigning these objects meant to be part of the environment conjectural templates has always struck me as odd and I don't know why only Super Mario Galaxy gets singled out out of all games. We don't name the rooms the Mario Party minigames take place in.
10. Tails777 (talk) I was sincerely confused when I saw the templates put back on the various galaxy articles and questioned "Why? It was better beforehand." Per all.
11. Hooded Pitohui (talk) In the longer-term, WT and Nintendo101 bring up points which ought to be considered. In the shorter term, this would be a beneficial first step to de-cluttering these sections for better readability.
12. Ninja Squid (talk) Per all.
13. Technetium (talk) Per Nintendo101, Waluigi Time, and Porple's comment below.
14. MCD (talk) Per N101, WT and Porple below. I also agree our attitude on what counts as "conjectural" when it comes to naming planets needs a rethink, i.e. it's not conjecture to call the planet the player starts on the "starting planet" because that's just a factual description. (Also, why does Starting Planet just redirect to a random galaxy? lol)

Oppose: Keep the templates

1. Ahemtoday (talk) I'm opposing this proposal as currently slated to be implemented — as in, just removing Template:Conjecture and Template:Dev data from these sections and leaving it at that. These need to be marked, and I don't feel that an "unless otherwise noted" disclaimer is an elegant way to do that. However. There is a way of accomplishing this that I would be amenable to: replacing those templates with Template:Conjectural or a new dev data equivalent to it. This is the same way our glitch pages do it, for exactly the same reason you want to get rid of these templates on the galaxy pages. I think it makes perfect sense to use this convention here as well to solve this problem.

Comments on the planet template proposal

I agree that we don't need the repeated templates, and the whole naming situation of the planets is a bit odd. Rather than giving the planets capitalized "names" (e.g. "Starting Planet") and noting them as conjectural, they should just be described in sentence case, at which point it should be somewhat obvious that it's a description and not a "name". For example, section heading "Starting planet" and text "The starting planet has..." You could do a single {{conjecture|subsections=yes}} under the "Planets" heading if you really wanted to, but I think if we removed all the inappropriate capitalization then even that wouldn't be necessary. --Steve (talk) 20:11, December 19, 2024 (EST)