Talk:Shadow (character)

Here is some evidence that Shadow will be in Brawl: at 1:24 (Or maybe Shadow will just be another color of Sonic)? Theryguy512 17:04, 8 January 2008 (EST)

I smell something fake. Ness wasn't revealed yet, the graphics are a bit messy, and the icons at the bottom are wrong.~Μαριοθανικαλ 17:13, 8 January 2008 (EST)

Also, the Beam Sword is the old version. The icons are different as shown in the image below.~Μαριοθανικαλ 17:15, 8 January 2008 (EST)

Thats actually a fake melee image, both Sonic & Shadow are taken straight from the game Sonic Heroes User:Kamicciolo

Brawl

Shouldn't someone add something about his cameo as an assist trophy?
— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Theused (talk).

Go to Assist Trophys Green Guy Talk!^E

Introduction

I'm not sure how PokemonDP wanted me to contact him, but here seems fine since this should be a public decision. I was doing exactly what everyone has said was okay: give a brief outline (ie, one paragraph) over the character's role in their own series prior to entering the Mario series. According to you on that proposal, a short intro should be given as per Wiki policy, however the length seemed to be decided by you alone. Not to be obnoxious, but I only got approval for my example about Sonic the Hedgehog from everyone who commented except you. Then, when I actually put that in the article, I shortened it because I knew you were worried about the length. You'll also note that per Wiki policy we are allowed to write in-depth about a cross-over character so long as the information we're writing about comes from a crossover title (ie Brawl or Olympic Games). You'll notice that in the Shadow and Tails articles I took care to use a very large majority of information from the SSBB trophy profiles. If I remember right, there were something like one or two sentences that weren't brought up in Brawl. According the Wikia policy, having one or two sentences to explain a character's history in his/her own series is acceptable.

Then we have that proposal. As far as I can determine, the proposal was an attempt to make each crossover article something like the character discription section here: [1]. You'll remember that at the beginning I told the proposer that I would be in favor of it if he meant only a short profile, like my example I then gave. He was positive about that idea, but then never changed the official profile description. In other words, the official proposal that people were voting on was still to include information from titles such as Sonic Rush, not to include short summaries like what I suggested. Thus, when the opposition won, that meant the following: we are not expanding the amount of non-Mario/Smash series info that is allowed on the Wiki -- it stands at a short description at the very beginning, which is exactly what you see now on the Sonic articles and saw on the Tails and Shadow articles. Stumpers! 13:28, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I never EVER agreed to that much information. I never said a paragraph. I never said that. I only said one or two lines briefly detailing outside information. What you added was what MegaMario wanted to happen; But if memory serves, the Support side - MegaMario's side - lost, and the Oppose side - the side voting for the short descriptions that were always there - won. So please leave it be. If you want to rewrite it, that's fine, but please don't go overboard, like what you did just before. Tho, removing your expanded Brawl and Mario & Sonic information was a mistake I made. My Bloody Valentine

No problem about the info, that's what history is for. That proposal was rediculously vague, and please remember -- I did not support it. Let's look closely at the proposal: to add information from games like Sonic Rush. Unless I made a generality, there is no information from Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic Heroes, Sonic Adventure 2 or another such game. Let's work with hard data here:

Shadow the Hedgehog is a prominent anti-hero in the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games. He was created to be the ultimate life-form by Dr. Eggman's grandfather. Since then, Shadow has struggled to find the meaning of his existence and rectify his past. He acts with his goals in mind, doing whatever is necessary to achieve them. Because of this, Shadow has fought both alongside and against Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends. Shadow's primary abilities are his supersonic speed and ability to use Chaos Emeralds to manipulate time and space. Shadow participated in the 2008 Olympic Games in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and later appeared as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

That's my edit copied directly from the history section. The first sentence is a generality. The second sentence comes from Brawl. The third sentence is a generality. The fourth is from Brawl. The fifth is a generality and is meant to establish his relationship with other crossover characters. The sixth sentence is from Brawl (although if you want to get picky, and we should, the part about supersonic speed is not specifically, but he does have speed equal to Sonic's in Olympic Games, which means supersonic speed according to Brawl -- not a direct source, so I'd be fine taking it out.) The next paragraph is information from crossovers as you know.

We can't use lines as a specification for length of generalization of outside information because of window size differences. So, can I ask: what is so bad about three sentences of generalization, especially when the first of them simply states his archytypal role from the series, which is something supported by Brawl with less specific wording?

Don't worry, I wasn't claiming that you approved of a paragraph. What I said was that you were the only opposer who didn't agree with the length of my example, which was a paragraph long. However, this is really a non-issue, since the only power of the oppose side is to keep things as they currently are: and there is currently no set policy, only proposals that say not to include specific information from outside games. When the proposal in question fails Thursday, it won't establish anything we didn't already know. Stumpers! 02:08, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

While I still think that's too long, something mentioning his relation to Sonic and Gerald Robotnik could be useful. His supersonic speed abilities could easily be merged with his Mario & Sonic information. The Chaos Control information, obviously, should go with his Brawl information. The "ultimate life-form" is definitely something that can be put into the very first sentence. I'm just trying to shorten it now, but also moving information to Mario-based appearance sections so we don't go overboard. And by all means, PLEASE stop making such long rants. It's such a drag reading them. XD My Bloody Valentine

Ha, ha! You know me, once I get beyond 500 characters there's no stopping me before I get to 2,500! How about we remove the bit about him trying to rectify his past? Would that help? Stumpers! 02:59, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, that would work. Edit it once again, Stumpers. We'll see if it's perfect this time. My Bloody Valentine

Should we rename the page?

His full name is Shadow the Hedgehog, and he is referred to as such in many Sonic games. We also have pages like Knuckles the Echidna, which use the full name of the character. Shadow (character) is really generic and it implies that he is from the Super Mario series, not the Sonic the Hedgehog series. I just think it's strange, that's all. (I may put up a proposal on this.) -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 00:03, July 15, 2024 (EDT)

Oh wait, no...I had the title for Knuckles' page wrong. Sorry. Still, does anyone else think that we should rename this? I'm too busy to do a proposal at the moment. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 16:39, July 15, 2024 (EDT)

The pages were moved to their current names due to this proposal. Blinker (talk) 17:27, July 15, 2024 (EDT)

"No proposal can overturn the decision of a previous proposal that is less than 4 weeks (28 days) old." Well, that proposal is over six weeks old, so maybe we could do a new proposal to reverse it? SeanWheeler (talk) 03:07, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

I'd be up for reversing it. -- FanOfYoshi 05:20, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Okay, that makes complete sense now that I've seen that proposal. I still have a problem that we call him Shadow (character), though. It's a little vague. I think the best decision would be to rename it to something like Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog) or Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog series), but we don't have to use his full name. Is that a good compromise? Also, renaming this page would make it a lot easier for readers to find the page that they're looking for, because there is already a page named Shadow on the wiki. The names are just too similar right now in my opinion. I think I'll make a proposal for this. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 14:33, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Rename to "Shadow"

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

keep as is 6-6-9
Okay, hopefully this is better than my first time around. Upon reflection and reading people's comments on this, I think it would be best to rename this page to just "Shadow," or maybe "Shadow the Hedgehog." Based off of this proposal, Shadow would get priority over the current Shadow page, which would be renamed to "Shadow (enemy)" if the first option for this proposal passes. I still believe that the name "Shadow (character)" is really generic, because all of the other "shadow" characters covered on this wiki are video game characters as well. He is also mostly referred to as just "Shadow" both in the Super Mario series and his home series. Renaming this page would keep it consistent with how he is referred to in most video games, and it would also line up with the other Sonic the Hedgehog characters' current page titles on MarioWiki.

Proposer: FanOfRosalina2007 (talk)
Deadline: July 31, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Rename to "Shadow"

1. FanOfRosalina2007 (talk) As proposer and per Arend's original vote. This is my secondary option.
2. Arend (talk) Primary option, see oppose vote
3. FanOfYoshi (talk) Per proposal.
4. SolemnStormcloud (talk) Per proposal.
5. Blinker (talk) Secondary option (I don't care much about the identifier).
6. Hewer (talk) Secondary option, since I'd take this over the blunder of going back to "Shadow the Hedgehog".

Rename to "Shadow the Hedgehog"

1. FanOfRosalina2007 (talk) Primary option.
2. SeanWheeler (talk) I really don't like that proposal that shortened the crossover characters' names. The shortened names made it harder to disambiguate. He is still Shadow the Hedgehog in Smash and the Olympic Games even if he's known simply as Shadow.
3. FanOfYoshi (talk) My preferred option. Also, per SeanWheeler, we should really reverse that proposal. The proposal NEEDS and SHOULD be overturned.
4. BubbleRevolution (talk) I think NOT referring to him as such is honestly pretty silly. The character is officially fully named "Shadow the Hedgehog". I would have opposed the previous proposal had I been aware of it.
5. Ray Trace (talk) Shadow the Hedgehog is immediately more clear to who he is (and is his official name), and is much more searchable. He's never not going to have extra context required as a crossover character, regardless if the games shorten his name, and I believe most of our traffic knows who he is and what is full name should be.
6. Memoryman3 (talk) I also agree that the proposal regarding crossover characters should be reversed.

Keep as is

1. Arend (talk) Recently, a proposal (in regards of how to handle crossover characters and identifiers) has passed with a vast majority for the outcome to prioritize identifiers for only less culturally-prominent subject and give priority to the most prominent one. Renaming this article to the proposed Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog), literally goes against that. If anything, this article should be renamed to just Shadow, while the current article with that name should be renamed to Shadow (enemy) or Shadow (Super Mario RPG), because according to that proposal outcome, one of the most prominent Sonic the Hedgehog characters that makes a playable appearance in every single Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games entry from the start clearly should have priority over a random Super Mario RPG enemy that only appeared in that one game and its remake. And so should Jet the Hawk have priority over a random golfer from Advance Tour, btw.
2. Hewer (talk) The current name perfectly follows identifier rules - in fact, it already did even before the proposal Arend is talking about, as this is the only character using the title "Shadow" on this wiki. The highest priority identifier in policy is "type of thing" (character in this case), and since that already adequately distinguishes the subject, we have no need to make the identifier more specific than it needs to be. The argument that this could "cause confusion" is also weak in my opinion - no one will look up "Shadow character", and if they look up "Shadow" they get taken to the Mario RPG enemy's page with its handy disambiguation at the top. "Shadow Characters" is an especially weak argument as it's an unofficial name and is a redirect anyway (to another unofficial name). Jet the Hawk also doesn't work as an argument - unlike Shadow, we can't use "character" for him since the other Jet is also a character. Retracting those arguments as they were in reference to the original version of this proposal.
3. DryBonesBandit (talk)Per all.
4. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.
5. Sdman213 (talk) Per all.
6. Blinker (talk) Per all.
7. Super Mario RPG (talk) Per points raised by Arend and Hewer.
8. GuntherBayBeee (talk) I tell you what.
9. Jdtendo (talk) Per all. I would rather turn the "Shadow" page into a disambiguation page and move the current "Shadow" article to "Shadow (enemy)".

#SeanWheeler (talk) I would only be up for moving this page if it's back to Shadow the Hedgehog. I don't want Sonic in his page title. Sonic was one of the titles shortened by that proposal, so it makes no sense that his friends get his full name in their titles when Sonic himself doesn't. And if Sonic would be the next character to get the "(Sonic the Hedgehog)" series tag, he'd be Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog). Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog) is so close to his original name, that putting Sonic in the title would just make me mad. I don't think anyone who voted to shorten the names of the Sonic characters and Fox McCloud really thought it through. But I'll settle for Shadow (character) over slapping Sonic on his name.

Comments

The page should be named "Shadow the Hedgehog". I read the above discussion and I still disagree. Shadow2 (talk) 17:02, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Would need another proposal to overturn this one. All of his Mario-related appearances primarily call him just "Shadow". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:59, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

I think it's a bit baffling that there's not an option to rename this to "Shadow" and rename the original Shadow article to "Shadow (enemy)" or "Shadow (Super Mario RPG)". That would be most in line with the option that passed in this proposal... the option that the proposer of THIS ONE voted for, too. rend (talk) (edits) 17:55, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Seeing as there's a bunch of different shadows, and Mario RPG isn't too obscure a game (especially with the pretty recent remake), I could see "Shadow" without an identifier being the disambiguation, similar to Red. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:59, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Wow, okay. Umm...I don't know what to do. I obviously have a really bad handle on all of this, so...I guess this is gonna fail. I'll let it play out. I'm really sorry. :( -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 21:38, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Huh? What are you sorry for? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 22:10, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

For not knowing and understanding wiki stuff. I mean, look at Arend's above comment; I literally contradicted myself!! Look at my vote for that proposal they linked! My last proposal (in Talk:Sparkle) failed because I hadn't correctly understood and thought through everything, so...I dunno. I just feel stupid, that's all. I'm going to see how this proposal goes, and I'll probably make another proposal that correctly renames this page in accordance with the proposal I mentioned in my argument and hope that it goes better. (I'm also just naturally hard on myself whenever I make mistakes.) -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 22:22, July 17, 2024 (EDT)

Well, talk page proposals can still be edited within the first 6 days of their creation, according to the proposal rules. You can still add an option or two to your proposal until July 22 has passed. Also, I'm sorry for making you feel terrible. rend (talk) (edits) 01:20, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

We should have made a MarioWiki proposal to overturn that proposal that shortened crossover character names. I mean, Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog)? Shadow has the same surname as Sonic. We're just inserting Sonic and parenthesis to the original page title. Feels unnecessary if you ask me. Shadow the Hedgehog is a better name and anyone could tell that he's a Sonic character. Will we have to wait another month after this talk page proposal to change it back? SeanWheeler (talk) 17:57, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

"Sonic the Hedgehog" is a valid identifier for other articles where "character" doesn't distinguish the subject enough (e.g. Ring (Sonic the Hedgehog)). It's because Sonic the Hedgehog is the name of the franchise, not because of the character, who is more commonly called just "Sonic" in the games we cover (we should prioritise accuracy in that regard). It's just like how Mario is the main character of the Super Mario franchise. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:19, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

Sonic deserves to be referred to as Sonic the Hedgehog just like Daisy should be referred to as Princess Daisy. Super Mario is the form Mario takes when he eats the Super Mushroom, not his name. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:22, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

I say Sonic deserves to be referred to in the same way the games refer to him just like the vast majority of subjects on the wiki that are named in games. "Super Mario" is the name of the form, but is also sometimes used as an alternate name for the character Mario, I don't think they named the Super Mario series/franchise after specifically the form (it's probably more the other way around). Point being, the name of Sonic's franchise being Sonic the Hedgehog doesn't mean that has to be the primary name of the character too. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:42, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

"I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog." Yeah, he's been referred to as Sonic the Hedgehog very often in his games. And his trophies, sticker and Spirit is named "Sonic the Hedgehog," so we've got a source within the Mario crossovers of Sonic himself being called "Sonic the Hedgehog." If we go literally by the name most used, every page would just use their first names. When distinguishing between different subjects, it would be better to use more of the characters' names than just their first name. While Ring (Sonic the Hedgehog) works because they are just called rings and nothing else, for Shadow, his name is Shadow the Hedgehog so why add the Sonic the Hedgehog tag when we could just call him by his proper name and have his title about seven characters shorter? You voted to move Talk:Princess Daisy to just Daisy. You seem to be all for the shorter names. And adding the "Sonic the Hedgehog" tag to the Sonic characters actually make them longer than their full names. Jet the Hawk is shorter than Jet (Sonic the Hedgehog) by 12 characters. In fact, Big the Cat is even shorter than Big (character) by 4. SeanWheeler (talk) 21:56, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

Sure he's been Sonic the Hedgehog often in his games, but those aren't the games we're covering on this wiki. His trophies (which are actually just titled "Sonic" anyway), stickers, and spirits don't outweigh the name used for him as an actual playable character, both in Smash and (perhaps most importantly) in all the Mario & Sonic games. I'm not necessarily all for shorter names specifically, I'm just all for commonly used official names, the exact length of the name doesn't really matter to me as long as it's accurate to official sources (note that I supported this proposal). And anyway, "Shadow (character)" (the name I actually think this article should use) is slightly shorter than "Shadow the Hedgehog", so the length differences aren't consistent enough to be a good argument. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 22:23, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

I just checked my trophies in my Smash games. His trophies aren't actually titled "Sonic." They are "Sonic the Hedgehog." Also, if player names outweigh any other names then the princesses would not have "Princess" in their page titles and the Koopalings would just go by their first names. Also, it doesn't make much sense to shorten Sonic the Hedgehog (character) to just Sonic but keep his full name as a parenthetical. Even if you're referring to his series, the series name is often called just "Sonic" and every video game that includes "Sonic the Hedgehog" in the title would often have "the Hedgehog" omitted in conversation. Like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 would be referred to as Sonic 2. I remember a time when the Fire Emblem character Roy had his page titled Roy (Super Smash Bros. Melee) because Mario only met him in Melee at the time. He was later moved to Roy (Fire Emblem) some time before he was released as DLC for Smash for Wii U/3DS. At least the Fire Emblem series had been referred by name in Smash. But if Sonic the character was just Sonic, shouldn't the series with his exact same name also be just Sonic? Why not call this page Shadow (Sonic)? SeanWheeler (talk) 23:40, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

...I don't think so. The official title of the series is Sonic the Hedgehog, and it is used pretty much everywhere, including in the Super Smash Bros. series. When casually talking, people may refer to the Sonic the Hedgehog series as just Sonic, but this is supposed to be an encyclopedic wiki and encyclopedias usually use the full, official titles of subjects in this case. And I think I have an idea about what I'm going to do. I am totally up for renaming this page to "Shadow the Hedgehog" or even just "Shadow." Shadow (character) is super generic, because all of the other "shadow" characters covered on this wiki are characters too! He is referred to as "Shadow" more often in his home series, and he introduces himself as "Shadow" more often than he does "Shadow the Hedgehog" (in his debut game, he introduces himself to Eggman as just "Shadow," and that's only one example). Sonic, in contrast, tends to introduce or refer to himself as "Sonic the Hedgehog" WAY more often (Sonic '06 and Sonic Adventure 2 being notable examples). So I don't think we should bring Sonic into this, as he does things differently than Shadow does. If we rename this page to "Shadow," it would be in line with pretty much all of the other Sonic characters, including Sonic himself. It would also comply with how Shadow's name is used in the Super Mario series. We can just rename the current Shadow page to something like Shadow (enemy). I can rewrite this proposal accordingly, or make a completely new one. I screwed up in my thinking for this proposal, so I should fix my mistake. We have to rename this page one way or the other. does what I proposed sound good? Or does anyone have a better idea? Also, my thanks go out to everyone who has commented on this! You helped me realize a better way to do this, and I'm really grateful. Thank you. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 23:57, July 18, 2024 (EDT)

Shadow is consistent with the other Sonic characters as long as we don't call him "Shadow the Hedgehog". Identifiers are a separate matter from the rest of the name - we include them purely for disambiguation. "Shadow (character)" is, as I explained in my vote, exactly as specific as it needs to be per the rules. Calling him "Shadow the Hedgehog" makes it totally and needlessly inconsistent with all the other Sonic characters. And again, what they do in the Sonic games does not matter, because we're only covering their Mario crossover appearances, in which the shorter names are consistently preferred for all of these characters. My actual suggestion for what to do is keep this page as "Shadow (character)", but make just "Shadow" the disambiguation, like we do with Red and Ninja. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:09, July 19, 2024 (EDT)

Well, that's why I put a option to rename the page to just "Shadow," and that's my preferred name. I support moving Shadow to be the name of the disambiguation page like how we did it for Red and Ninja, but can we please wait until this proposal's over to think about that? I agree more with Arend's vote than anything else, to be honest. Shadow (character) is just a weird name considering how often Shadow has appeared in Super Mario media. Why should an enemy that has only appeared in one game and its remake get priority over a character that has appeared multiple times in both the Mario & Sonic series AND the Super Smash Bros. series? By keeping this page as Shadow (character), we would not be acknowledging the proposal that I mentioned. We can't just dig our heels in and ignore it. (Also, some of his Mario & Sonic bios call him Shadow the Hedgehog, and he is referred to as "Shadow the Hedgehog" very often in the Super Smash Bros. series. I think that renaming this page to "Shadow the Hedgehog" is acceptable as well, although I still think just plain Shadow is better.) -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 13:55, July 19, 2024 (EDT)

It would only be inconsistent because of that proposal that shortened the crossover character names. My next proposal is going to overturn that. And because of the four week wait for overturning proposals, the results of this talk page proposal will determine how soon I could make the proposal. If Shadow the Hedgehog wins, I could make the proposal to return the Sonic characters, Fox McCloud and Samus Aran to their proper names ASAP. But if not, I will have to wait a month to make that proposal because Shadow's article would be affected and the proposal rules say I can't overturn it in 28 days. But if Shadow the Hedgehog wins, it would be at the perfect page title for me to do my proposal without overturning the results of this talk page proposal. We had just had Knuckles moved to Knuckles (Sonic the Hedgehog) and back, so this new rule of shortening crossover characters to their player names isn't working. In fact, it's stripping them of their identities. A new user could mistakenly link Fox as a species without checking that the Fox article was about the Starfox character. Basically every Sonic character is named after things except Amy who has a common girl's name. And on a wiki about Mario, people would expect Mario-related content. And having names like Sonic the Hedgehog and Fox McCloud would help people identify the non-Mario characters before they get to the page. With Shadow (character) or just Shadow on a Mario Wiki, there could be confusion with the Super Mario RPG enemies or Shadow Mario. Or Shadow Queen. I don't like how generic that proposal made the crossover characters. And that other proposal to prioritize the crossover characters over Mario-related subjects in disambiguation actually makes things worse. SeanWheeler (talk) 02:49, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

"this new rule of shortening crossover characters to their player names isn't working" - no? The Knuckles case was a small complication that came up over a year after the name shortening proposal passed. And since "Knuckles" always redirected to "Knuckles the Echidna" even before my proposal, the problem would have come up anyway regardless, it just happened to take until last month for someone to finally make a page for the obscure Knuckles from Saturday Supercade.
"In fact, it's stripping them of their identities" - No, it is making them accurate to their identities in the crossover appearances. If Nintendo/Sega thinks just "Sonic" is enough to adequately identify the character, we have no reason not to follow suit.
"A new user could mistakenly link Fox as a species without checking that the Fox article was about the Starfox character" - Then that's on them. We don't even have a page about foxes as a species, so there's no reason they'd want to link to such, and once again, "Fox" was always a redirect to the character anyway, so the destination of links to "Fox" never even changed. And besides, the names were shortened a year ago and nothing's broken yet.
"Basically every Sonic character is named after things except Amy who has a common girl's name" - So? Pauline is a girl's name. Would you suggest moving it to "Mayor Pauline" so there's absolutely no doubt who it's referencing? Calling the article "Amy Rose" would arguably lead to more confusion because it's her less common name in Mario games.
"And on a wiki about Mario, people would expect Mario-related content" - And they'd be in luck, because that's precisely what we're covering on those pages. All the Sonic character pages only exist because of Mario & Sonic, and covering that series is their main purpose (which is all the more reason to follow its naming of the characters).
"With Shadow (character) or just Shadow on a Mario Wiki, there could be confusion with the Super Mario RPG enemies or Shadow Mario. Or Shadow Queen" - I could make the same argument for any page with "Shadow" in the name, and arguably, since Shadow the Hedgehog is more often called Shadow in his crossover appearances, people might be more likely to expect that name on the wiki. It's not our fault that there's so many things called "Shadow", the only thing setting apart the hedgehog is your apparent bias against non-Mario characters.
"I don't like how generic that proposal made the crossover characters" - It's our duty to use the names that official sources use, not the names we like. And personally I wouldn't even call them generic (all the results if you google "sonic" are about the hedgehog, all the results if you google "samus" are about the bounty hunter), so that's a subjective matter of opinion and shouldn't determine how we name things. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 07:16, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

(reset indent) Calling her Amy Rose would not make things confusing. The Sonic fanbase knows her as Amy Rose. And since her article was Amy Rose for a long time, long time editors on this site would know her last name too. We got a WarioWare character named Amy. With one-named characters like Pauline and Rosalina, they are popular Mario characters so users would know what they are looking for. SeanWheeler (talk) 16:03, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

The Sonic fanbase isn't relevant, we're talking about Mario appearances. Amy and Mimi are a pair of one-off supporting characters from a single scene in a single WarioWare game, while Amy Rose appeared in six (at least, depending on how you count them) Mario & Sonic games as a playable character named "Amy". By the same logic as Pauline and Rosalina, Amy is also a "popular character so users would know what they are looking for". Hence "Amy" already redirected to Amy Rose before my proposal last year, not to the WarioWare characters. Incidentally, the other character in the pair, Mimi, shares her name with a Super Paper Mario character, but I don't see any calls to move that page to "Mimi (Super Paper Mario)". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 17:03, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

I completely agree with SeanWheeler's statements. Also, if you look at Shadow's page, his profile for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, his trophy and sticker for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, AND his Super Smash Bros. Ultimate spirit all use the name or title "Shadow the Hedgehog." That's more than half his Super Mario-related series profiles using that name. Only his Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and his Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS/Wii U use "Shadow" as his name. So, you can't use his profiles as an example. Also, his real name is Shadow the Hedgehog, and this being an encyclopedic wiki, I believe that we should use official names (in the case of non-Super Mario characters), not shortened versions of them, even if the shortened names are more commonly used. I very strongly agree with SeanWheeler's statement about "and on a wiki about Mario, people would expect Mario-related content. And having names like Sonic the Hedgehog and Fox McCloud would help people identify the non-Mario characters before they get to the page. With Shadow (character) or just Shadow on a Mario Wiki, there could be confusion with the Super Mario RPG enemies or Shadow Mario. Or Shadow Queen." Not all people who come onto this website know all about video games. In fact, they may not know about them at all, and visitors to the site may want to learn more about the characters of the Super Mario series. By just using the first names of these crossover characters, it could create confusion over if they are Super Mario characters or not, especially for those who are not fluent in English. Also, Shadow's quote at the top of his page literally has him introduce himself as "I'm Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog." I mean, that's what he calls himself! And also, unlike the first line of Sonic's page, the first line of Shadow's page does not specify that he is casually called Shadow. It just says Shadow the Hedgehog. Frankly, Hewer, I think that you're biased. Just because these characters do not originate from the Super Mario series doesn't mean that we should cast them off to the side and not use their real names, because the Sonic the Hedgehog characters are just as well-known and they deserve to have the same treatment as all other pages on this wiki. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 17:41, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

Don't put words in my mouth. What I have been arguing this whole time is that the crossover characters should be given equal treatment to non-crossover characters (that was my main argument in this proposal), and that we achieve that by using the shortened names since they're more often used in the official sources we cover (names mentioned in profiles do not take priority over the names predominantly used in their actual roles as playable characters). It is hilariously ironic that you accuse me of being biased against crossover characters a few sentences after implying we need to give crossover characters special treatment because "visitors to the site" don't care about them (not to mention your earlier suggestion that "we should use official names (in the case of non-Super Mario characters)", also implying crossover characters are for some reason worthy of special treatment). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 19:11, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

Okay, I'm sorry. I take it all back. I just don't understand all of this back-and-forth; it's getting too complicated for me to follow. I'll just sit back and let it play out from now on. I didn't mean to be ironic or put words in anyone's mouth. I just don't have enough wiki knowledge to truly follow all of this. I still agree with SeanWheeler, but I take back all the rest of what I said. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 21:25, July 20, 2024 (EDT)

@BubbleRevolution It isn't too late to reverse that proposal, anyway. I was aware of its existence, it's just that i did not vote. I should've opposed. -- FanOfYoshi 07:42, July 23, 2024 (EDT)

If we had another vote on it I'd support overturning it. BubbleRevolution (talk) 18:41, July 23, 2024 (EDT)

@BubbleRevolution and Ray Trace: "Official name" is a very flimsy argument for "Shadow the Hedgehog" as the title, since his primary official name in Mario media is just "Shadow". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:50, July 23, 2024 (EDT)

I think a better idea is to just move this article to Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog). That way, it'll be less confusing to clarify. GuntherBayBeee 15:30, July 24, 2024 (EDT)

That was my original idea, but Arend and Hewer both made very strong an sensible arguments against that. See Arend's oppose vote and check this page's history for my original proposal. I re-wrote it because it made a lot more sense to me to do it this way. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 16:50, July 24, 2024 (EDT)

@Hewer: His name in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is Shadow the Hedgehog. He also introduces himself as Shadow the Hedgehog in Mario and Sonic at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. His quote at the top of Shadow (character) makes that VERY clear. "Shadow the Hedgehog" is his official title in most, if not all, Super Mario-related media. He is called that at least once in pretty much every game. So you can't make that argument. "Shadow" is simply a nickname of sorts, even in Super Mario media-- just like Sonic the Hedgehog is called "Sonic" most times for the sake of redundancy and not having to write out his full name. It's like how Princess Peach is called simply "Peach" in most games. I don't see why you're so dead-set on the nicknames for characters-- their full names are just as acceptable in most cases. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 16:54, July 24, 2024 (EDT)

Well, sometimes calling characters by nicknames is the better option, like with Johnny (Jonathan Jones), Professor E. Gadd (Professor Elvin Gadd), Squirps (Prince Squirp Korogaline Squirpina) or Colored Pencils (Jean-Pierre Colored Pencils the 12th). Okay, those last two are deliberately silly examples, but you get the point. Blinker (talk) 17:24, July 24, 2024 (EDT)

The quote at the top of the article is a useless source because it literally has both names ("I'm Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog."), so it could be used to argue either way. It may be true that "Shadow the Hedgehog" is used at least once in most of his appearances, but that's a moot point because so is "Shadow", and "Shadow" is the primary name in each game as far as I can tell. "Shadow" is the name used for his actual playable character role in every Mario & Sonic game (remember that that's at least six games and is also the reason we even have a page on him), regardless of whether the full name is given a mention in an out-of-the-way profile. Similarly, in Smash Ultimate, while his spirit is named Shadow the Hedgehog, his Assist Trophy is just named Shadow, as seen in the Assist Trophy menu in training mode (and the spirits are inconsistent here anyway, e.g. Knuckles is just called that). So no, the full names do not have equal weight to the short ones in these sources, they are always given less weight. Super Smash Bros. Brawl from a decade and a half ago is the only Shadow appearance we cover where I'm not sure "Shadow" is his primary name, and it loses in recency to every Mario & Sonic game except the first one, plus the other two Smash appearances. Whether you see them as "nicknames" or not, that's a subjective assessment in defiance of their usage as the primary official names - again, we should be using the names used officially, not the names we like. (Also, to be honest, part of the reason I'm so strongly in favour of the short names is that I find it hard to believe more people know Tails as "Miles "Tails" Prower".) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:40, July 24, 2024 (EDT)

Okay, I give up. Those are clear reasons, so I'll stop fighting you on it. Thanks for putting up with my constant counterpoints; that must have been frustrating, and I'm sorry for my stubbornness. I'll remember this if another proposal similar to this one pops up, as it will let me deal with it in a non-biased way. I do admit, I have some bias towards full names, and I let that get in the way of my logical reasoning. So, I'm sorry for that too. Thanks, Hewer! You really helped me out! -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 15:05, July 25, 2024 (EDT)

Maybe I'll consider making the proposal referring to subjects by full names, even Mario Mario and King Bowser Koopa just so that the naming conventions could be consistent enough to end the fighting over page titles? I considered the proposal that reverses the crossover character names to reword the naming convention to say "best known name" rather than "most commonly used name." But maybe "best known name" would rely too much on bias even worse than the "most commonly used name" which is the one that's making people do proposals for shortened names. Or if you don't want Mario to be renamed Mario Mario because Nintendo had been inconsistent on whether or not Mario has the last name Mario, I could use a compromise of the full name as used in recent games, while older names that weren't referenced recently wouldn't get moved. I don't know. Would Geno have to be moved to that untypeable name? I would be totally on board with moving the characters Blinker named. "Johnny" sounds generic while "Jonathan Jones" sounds cool. I would want Professor E. Gadd to be moved back. Colored Pencils sounds like the kind of pencils you color with. And Prince Squirp Korogaline Squirpina might sound better than Squirps. But we'd have to include his middle name or we'd get Prince Squirp Squirpina. Okay, maybe just Squirps would be fine. And is Pauline a mayor? I haven't played Mario Odyssey. But I doubt she would be mayor in the original Donkey Kong, was she? So if she was mayor for one game, Mayor Pauline wouldn't work, unless we split Mayor Pauline from Pauline like how Dr. Mario is separate from Mario. But I'm pretty sure Dr. Mario was only separate from Mario because they've been playable together. Removing honorific titles would cause problems with King Boo, King Bob-omb and other kings of their species. It's really tough figuring out this naming convention. At least the alternative names could be used as redirects. SeanWheeler (talk) 17:53, July 25, 2024 (EDT)

Most commonly used official names should always be prioritised. Beyond that, there isn't and shouldn't be a convention favouring long or short names, as the official preference is different in each case. Laughable move ideas like "Mario" to "Mario Mario" reinforce this. Similarly, note that this isn't necessarily about "removing honorific titles"; characters like King Boo have, to my knowledge, never even had their names shortened officially, so of course they shouldn't be moved. Also, once again, our personal preferences are not a factor, it doesn't matter at all what you think is "generic" or "cool", and such assessments are inherently subjective. (Also, in response to "Colored Pencils sounds like the kind of pencils you color with", that's literally what the character is, so I don't see the issue.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 19:37, July 25, 2024 (EDT)

Well, we need to fix the naming convention. We just had a talk page proposal where Daisy was almost stripped of her Princess title. Kind of hard to go by the "commonly used" name as a rule without forcing almost everyone to go by their given names, due to a lot of characters using their shorter names as player characters and nobody would say full names in a casual conversation. How do we determine a "commonly used name?" Do we count how many times each game use their names? In that case, Peach and Daisy would have been more common than Princess Peach and Princess Daisy. I think that rule should say instead of "commonly used" should say "best known." That would provide a loophole for Peach and Daisy to use their Princess titles and for the Sonic and Smash characters to go by their well known names instead of their player names. And to keep Pauline from being moved to Mayor Pauline, because I didn't know she was a mayor until you told me. SeanWheeler (talk) 22:15, July 25, 2024 (EDT)

I did and still do support that Daisy proposal. Our personal preferences shouldn't get in the way of abiding by official sources, regardless of whether the names are full names or not. And the more commonly used official name is usually obvious (it certainly is in Daisy's case). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 04:13, July 26, 2024 (EDT)

Personally I think it makes the most sense to, for the most part, prioritize names in labels (enemy targets, playable character selectors, dialogue boxes, etc.) over the ways characters are referred to in full sentences. Think Johnny vs Jonathan Jones. Blinker (talk) 06:19, July 26, 2024 (EDT)

Yeah that makes sense. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 10:13, July 26, 2024 (EDT)

@SeanWheeler: I only support using the full names of crossover/lesser known characters. Characters like Mario and Luigi are so well-known that at this point in time, it would be quite confusing to move Mario's page to Mario Mario, even if it is the most accurate name. (I might not have made that clear in my past comments, but that's how I feel about it.) However, you do you. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 18:18, July 26, 2024 (EDT)

I don't like having to move pages to Mario Mario, Luigi Mario, Princess Peach Toadstool, or King Bowser Koopa either. I would much prefer the pages to stay where they've been for a long time. But it's tough to find an unbiased way to name the articles. And going by the "most commonly used" literally should mean Peach and Daisy should lose their princess titles and the Koopalings should go by their first names. But even if we go by the commonly used name route, I think characters that need distinguishers should still use their full names. Shadow (character) is not enough to distinguish from the Shadow enemy from Super Mario RPG, the Shadow Queen or Shadow Mario. A name so commonly used that it's used for other characters would not be a good page title. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:57, July 26, 2024 (EDT)

Oh, and there's Shadow the Dog as a recurring WarioWare character, which should be a higher priority than a Sonic crossover character. SeanWheeler (talk) 21:04, July 26, 2024 (EDT)

But that article isn't called just "Shadow" and thus is already sufficiently distinguished (and I do think it should stay as "Shadow the Dog", since that's most common in that case). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 05:07, July 27, 2024 (EDT)

@SeanWheeler: I think it does distinguish the character enough from the enemy or similarly named characters. Shadow Queen and Shadow Mario are clearly different from the hedgehog, as "Shadow" isn't even their full name. The point on the dog character I'll say is more applicable, but still is distinguished by full name. This is me, D-B-B! 12:44, July 27, 2024 (EDT)

Yes, the dog is distinguished by his full name, but Shadow the Hedgehog used to be distinguished by his full name until that proposal that shortened crossover character names passed. I'm guessing Kat & Ana would just call their dog just "Shadow," right? What's to say with these constant proposals shortening page names that nobody would propose to cut "the Dog" part of his name? Then both of these pages would be competing for the Shadow name. And they are both characters, so "(character)" won't work as a distinguisher. And the full names help future-proof these crossover characters much better than their current names. We don't have a page on foxes as a species now, but we'd never know if someone would eventually create a Fox species page. Sure, we could propose it's deletion, but if it was ever decided on a proposal to create articles on real world animals that appeared in the Mario universe or if Nintendo makes an enemy species called "Fox," I would want the Starfox character to be called Fox McCloud. SeanWheeler (talk) 20:53, July 29, 2024 (EDT)

I already tried to pre-empt this argument, but to repeat myself again, Shadow the Dog should stay at that name because it's more commonly used than just Shadow in that case. For the umpteenth time, this isn't about picking a preference between long names and short names, it's about using whichever one is more common officially. "Future-proofing" arguments are also very weak in my opinion - we're making the wiki based on the present, we can't see into the future. Just "Fox" was a redirect to the character for years before it became the article name, so we would've had to change something anyway if a problem arose (which it never did). Nothing leads me to believe that there is a great likelihood for another subject on the wiki arising that's just called "Fox", and if it ever does happen then we should cross the bridge when we come to it rather than making our current coverage less accurate to account for a random hypothetical we made up. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 07:52, July 30, 2024 (EDT)

Shadow the Hedgehog is very commonly used anyway. He even has his own game with his full name. But looks like this page is going to stay at Shadow (character), the name with the distinguisher that was never used. Unless we get a few more votes tomorrow, looks like this proposal failed. And we can't start the proposal reversing the crossover name proposal until August 28th. SeanWheeler (talk) 01:00, July 31, 2024 (EDT)

You seem to be struggling to introduce any new points I haven't already countered repeatedly, but to reiterate: "Shadow the Hedgehog" is not as commonly used in the games we cover, we don't cover Shadow the Hedgehog's own game, and identifiers are just that, they're not actually part of the name but have to be used for wiki disambiguation purposes (no one's claiming that the official name of Red from WarioWare is literally Red (WarioWare series)). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:13, July 31, 2024 (EDT)

I agree with you, SeanWheeler. Let's just hope that no other proposals like this come up in the next four weeks. -- FanOfRosalina2007 (talk · edits) 17:22, July 31, 2024 (EDT)

Move to "Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog)"

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: Monday, December 30, 2024, 18:35 GMT

It's been four months, one week, and two days since the last proposal by FanOfRosalina2007 was declined. As you can see, both "Shadow" and "Shadow the Hedgehog" are article names that are too confusing. Like I said, "Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog) is a better name of the article focusing on Shadow the Hedgehog. That way, once this proposal passes, we'll be able to replace the link to Shadow (character) with the link to Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog).

Proposer: GuntherBayBeee (talk)
Deadline: December 23, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. GuntherBayBeee (talk) Per proposal
2. ThePowerPlayer (talk) I agree with the first part of Hewer's opposition vote, but not the second. Shadow the Dog from the Mario franchise is just as much of a character as Shadow the Hedgehog, since he is categorized as such. That means using (character) as the distinguisher for Shadow the Hedgehog isn't sufficient, but (Sonic the Hedgehog) would be.
3. PrincessPeachFan (talk) It's Shadow the Hedgehog.
4. Rykitu (talk) Per all.
5. Pizza Master (talk) The article should be simply Shadow or Shadow the Hedgehog. Per PrincessPeachFan and Hewer's first sentence.

Oppose

1. Hewer (talk) What I do think we should do is move the current Shadow article to "Shadow (enemy)" and have just "Shadow" be the disambiguation. This particular move, though, feels unnecessary since there is no other character called Shadow, so the identifier doesn't need to be any more specific than "character" per naming policy. (Also may be worth noting that this move was originally suggested by the above proposal before it got changed, and I argued against it then.)
2. DryBonesBandit (talk) I agree with Hewer on his points. Besides, I don't see any good arguments suggesting why it's better to move it.
3. Waluigi Time (talk) Per my thoughts in the Peach/Daisy proposal, I'd rather reverse the proposal that shortened these titles in the first place.

Comments

@ThePowerPlayer: But Shadow the Dog is not just called Shadow, so there's technically not a shared name between the two. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:07, December 10, 2024 (EST)

@Hewer: Shadow the Hedgehog makes it more obvious as to who he is. If the article's just "Shadow", people might not know we're referring to the Sonic guy. PrincessPeachFan (talk) 09:03, December 10, 2024 (EST)

This proposal isn't about moving the page to "Shadow the Hedgehog", it's about changing the identifier from "(character)" to "(Sonic the Hedgehog)". Seeing as we've had the former debate quite a few times already, I'd rather we stayed on topic this time. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 09:40, December 10, 2024 (EST)

@GuntherBayBeee I believe you should consider adding an option to vote for removing the identifier and adding the identifier, (enemy), to the character from Super Mario RPG and an option to move Shadow (character) to Shadow the Hedgehog.-- Pizza Master 12:35, December 10, 2024 (EST)