Category talk:Game series

Remove "(series)" identifier from titles that don't need it

This talk page section contains an unresolved talk page proposal. Please try to help and resolve the issue by voting or leaving a comment.

Current time: Wednesday, December 18, 2024, 19:18 GMT

It seems that every game series on this wiki has a "series" identifier. This makes sense for game series that actually need the identifier, however, there's some that just completely don't need it. I've heard many say it's for "consistency", but that doesn't make any sense. Identifiers are used to distinguish pages with titles of the same name, not just to make it similar to pages that actually need the identifier. I believe the "series" identifier should be removed from the pages that don't need it. The pages that don't need this identification yet still have it are;

• Just Dance
• Mario & Sonic
• Mario + Rabbids
• Mario Discovery (I'll talk more about this one later)
• Mario Kart
• Mario Strikers
• WarioWare

Per a discussion on the Mario Discovery page, the series' logo refers to it as the "Mario Discovery Series", therefore, the "Mario Discovery" name isn't the full title. If this proposal gets through, I'd like for that page to be named as so too.

Proposer: Starluxe (talk)
Deadline: October 15, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Starluxe (talk) Per proposal
2. 7feetunder (talk) I don't understand this whole argument about "clarifying" things at all. Yes, having the identifier there "clarifies" that it's a series, but so does the first sentence of the article. Why does the Paper Mario article not need to "clarify" that it's about the game and not the series until you actually start reading it, but Mario Kart has to let you know right away that it's a series even though none if its installments share a title with it? If someone seriously searches "Mario Kart" looking for a specific installment, they already have to read the series article to find the installment they want anyway, so the identifier isn't actually helping the reader, it's just making the article slightly more annoying to link to.
3. Koopa con Carne (talk) per feet.

Oppose

1. Nightwicked Bowser (talk) Even if these titles are not shared with other articles, the identifiers still serve to straight-up show it's about the series as a whole.
2. Nintendo101 (talk) I agree we should not employee consistency for consistency's sake - only if it is beneficial. In this case, individual video games and books are italicized as well as series and franchises, and I don't assume readers will immediately know the difference when they look up a page's name. Many people call individual games WarioWare in shorthand and may not know the names of individual titles, for example. I think "(series)" is immediately clarifying and harmless, and I would prefer it is retained.
3. Sparks (talk) Per all.

Comments

I mean, what makes the game series so important that only they need the specification if it doesn't have a shared name? At that point, we'll have names like "Mario (character)". But I could get behind WarioWare and possibly Mario Kart becoming disambiguation pages. Starluxe 16:51, October 1, 2024 (GMT)

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "importance?" My position here is that incorporating "(series)" is immediately clarifying, helpful, and harmless. — Nintendo101 (talk) 12:24, October 1, 2024 (EDT)

What considers a subject in need of clarifying no matter what? What makes game series different to other subjects? I don't see any reason why game series that don't share titles need identifiers, but other pages don't. Starluxe 21:08, October 1, 2024 (GMT)

Okay, I understand. To me, clarifying that the subject of the article is a "series" in the title is one of the ways the systematics of the franchise are communicated to readers, and that is not trivial in my view, in part because we are a video game wiki first and foremost. How games are organized and how the relate to each other is valuable and contextualizing to understand, and important to communicate. It is not quite the same as distinguishing the things in the games (i.e. characters, enemies, items, etc.) that happen to have the same name. That is my view, at least.

More substantively, for a lot of players and potential visitors to this site, Mario Kart is the name of whatever game they had most recently played, so in a conceptual sense a Mario Kart article is already occupied by Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, etc. So including "(series)" at the end of the Mario Kart (series) article is just immediately clarifying that: 1.) there are multiple related games called "Mario Kart" and 2.) the one you are looking for is listed here (which also means it is already serving the same role a disambiguation page would). I think including "series" in the title makes that all the more readily apparent. I have not really heard a persuasive reason that removing "(series)" would be an improvement. - Nintendo101 (talk) 17:24, October 1, 2024 (EDT)

Another thought I've had: take the word "series" out of the identifier having the title be like "Paper Mario series". Nightwicked Bowser 16:57, October 1, 2024 (EDT)

I don't think I would be opposed to that. - Nintendo101 (talk) 17:24, October 1, 2024 (EDT)