MarioWiki talk:Generic subjects

Shouldn't this be protected? It used to be protected, but the protection stayed on the redirect when it was moved.--TheFlameChomp (talk) 22:41, 6 July 2017 (EDT)

Thanks, it's been protected now. Mario JC 23:47, 6 July 2017 (EDT)

Change the parameters of this rule to not include living, moving creatures

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit any of the sections in the proposal. If you wish to discuss the article, do so in a new header below the proposal.

leave as is 1-6
Oh, this rule. The rule that's caused the loss of so much information. Why don't the birds in front of Peach's Castle get an article or even a mention under a greater article but a tree with a name originating from a tie-in toy does? The former can be interacted with, as in they fly away in a panic when they're approached, but nope! They have no "gameplay purpose," which somehow matters more than definitively existing, and they have no official name. But I digress. My main problem with this rule is that it tends to be arbitrarily executed and is completely open to interpretation, something we really should avoid on a wiki. Cow, Bird, Frog, Butterfly....yes, they're all generic subjects, but so are coins when you get right down to it, as they've had different purposes and appearances throughout the different franchises, as have Bananas and Mushrooms, and they haven't really been scrutinized like this. Hence "arbitrary." This rule is simply obstructive and annoying.

EDIT: I'm changing this from "delete entirely" to "lessen the effect this has on living, moving species," because I'll admit articles for chairs, hills, and every stinkin' thing with eyes in Double Dash!! is a tad excessive. This was, things like the bluebirds in 64 and the butterflies and frogs in Yoshi's Island would still get a mention.

Proposer: Doc von Schmeltwick (talk)
Deadline: "October 14, 2017, 23:59 GMT"

Support

1. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) Per above. I can not express how much this rule annoys me. Other than say where part of it deserves to go.

Oppose

1. TheFlameChomp (talk) I feel that covering every bird, beehive, and butterfly in the series would be excessive, as some games would have no more than "Butterflies appear in Paper Mario: Color Splash, where they fly around flowers." I feel it is better to have restrictions than nothing.
2. Time Turner (talk) Per all. We do not need to cover every tree branch that appears in the background.
3. Niiue (talk) Per all.
4. LuigiMaster123 (talk) Per all.
5. Chester Alan Arthur (talk) Per all.
6. SuperYoshiBros (talk) This would just end up creating articles for things that it's so obvious what they are they don't need articles. Per all.

Comments

@Time Turner that's not what I'm saying. And you know it. I mean things that are creatures and actually move around and stuff. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 22:48, 30 September 2017 (EDT)

The generic subjects policy covers inanimate objects. You want to delete the generic subjects policy. Ergo, you're leaving the wiki open to covering every tree branch. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 22:50, 30 September 2017 (EDT)

Not every single one. Maybe tree branches in general. I'm still in wonder over why Rock doesn't have a page, especially given that the ones in Super Mario Galaxy can be interacted with. How about this: If a thing exists in a gameplay-affecting form in at least one game, other appearances shall also be noted? I still think the birds in 64 and the various small animals in Yoshi's Island should be noted somewhere. And this rule (which happens to be the unholy mixture of Stonk, Attacky Sack, and Stinky Kong) is preventing that. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:34, 30 September 2017 (EDT)

OK....can I make changes to the proposal at this current juncture? I'll modify it so stays, but doesn't affect living, moving creatures. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 03:38, 1 October 2017 (EDT)

"Not every single one. Maybe tree branches in general."

Bruh.

Shokora (talk · edits) 07:54, 1 October 2017 (EDT)

I meant like grabbable ones. What I'm saying now is if it has a gameplay-affecting appearance once, it should get coverage for all. And I've specified it to be for creatures now, like Bees and Cows and Sheep and such. I no longer care about tree branches and all of that, because I've decided that's silly. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 03:48, 2 October 2017 (EDT)

"X appears in Z as a Y" is awkward sentence structure, and I do not understand why we are integrating it

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There has been a trend on the wiki for articles about subjects with real-world analogs to have their opening sentence structure changed from "X is a Y in Z" to "X appears in Z as a Y", and I don't know how other folks feel about this, but I dislike it and I do not understand why it is being used. It reads very awkwardly to me and needlessly delays telling the reader what the subject really is. And for what benefit? Because the subject is "generic"? Why should that even remotely matter?

I remain unconvinced that any human being would come to the Super Mario Wiki, see an article titled "Trapeze" and assume the article is covering its real-world analog. No, it is about what a trapeze is in the Super Mario franchise. I think it is absurd to believe anyone would come here and think it was about anything else. So the only true effect a structure like this accomplishes is presenting an awkward sentence structure that has been coldly and clinically applied throughout Super Mario Wiki, even if the previous sentence structure was superior, and at the disregard of how other users choose to write.

Further, even if we agreed it is of vital importance to convey to our reader "No! Nintendo did not invent the trapeze!", how does having an awkward choice of words at the beginning make that at all more apparent? It does not to me. It just reads oddly. I think a more organic and seamless thing to do would be to just apply the Wikipedia template at the end of the article, right after where the NIWA affiliate links would go, or something to that effect.

Finally, what we consider "generic" seems to be subjective call in the first place. Why is a Grate, an object discretely called the "Flip-Flop Wire Netting" in Japan and thus truly named for the fictional location it occurs in, generic, whereas the pipe – an object that looks identical to its real-world analog and shares the same name as it in Japanese and English, not? I could not imagine anyone arguing pipes are generic subjects in good faith because of the entire mechanical context of how they work, but the same is true of the Grate from Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the slew of other objects that have had their opening sentences needlessly changed.

I hope I do not come across as aggressive or heated. This is something that has been bothering me for a while now, and I do not like how widely it has been integrated, especially when the prior sentence structure it replaces was better. - Nintendo101 (talk) 21:35, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

I am still in favor of the new style of opening sentences. Numerous generic subjects have unique roles in the Super Mario franchise, especially interactable, and it's treating the reader like they have no life outside of Super Mario if the default opener for all of the sentences are "Crates are objects in the Super Mario franchise" or "Dinosaurs are a species in the Super Mario franchise" or "Horses are animals in the Super Mario franchise" or "Apples are red fruits in the Super Mario franchise," to give a few examples. Super Mario RPG (talk) 21:49, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

I agree that I would not open articles for any subject, generic or otherwise, that vaguely, but it is because it does not really tell the reader anything of note. I would, for example, say something along the lines of "Horses are rideable animals in Mario Sports Superstars." It is immediately more informative and is structured intuitively. The idea that someone would come to this wiki, see an article about a culturally ubiquitous livestock animal, and either think "this article is about real-world horses" or that "dang. Nintendo invented such a cool animal"... I'm sorry. I don't think readers like those really exist. Why break sentences as if they did? - Nintendo101 (talk) 22:04, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

I didn't suggest that such readers exist. "Horses are rideable animals in Mario Sports Superstars" treats them as fictional on an equal or similar tier to like "Yoshis are rideable creatures in platforming games of the Super Mario series". The same point about horses be made by saying, for example, that horses appear [from real life] in Mario Sports Superstars as rideable animals, not "the starting point is that they were conceived as rideable animals in Mario Sports Superstars" Super Mario RPG (talk) 22:13, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

Why is that valuable to distinguish for readers? That has not been substantiated. No one is going to reasonably interpret that Nintendo invented the entire concept of a horse for Mario Sports Superstars from my example, and I think it is obtuse to suggest that is a plausible interpretation. Further, and this remains the key point I wanted to delineate, why does a subject being generic necessitate the application of poor syntax? These subjects are not better served by this structure. It reads as awkward and strange. - Nintendo101 (talk) 22:54, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

Personally, I don't see how the X-Z-Y format is any better or worse than the X-Y-Z format. Neither of them read as "awkward and strange"; they're both natural syntax constructions that would be used by people as openings to a topic. I feel like it's a bit extreme to call one "awkward".

As for why X-Z-Y is being used in generic subjects now; I'm not the one who decided that, but I would take a look at your prior statement to see why it might be considered optimal. "No, it is about what a trapeze is in the Super Mario franchise." - "Trapezes appear in Z as platforms" may accomplish this better than "Trapezes are platforms that appear in Z", if your priority is discussing what a trapeze is in the Super Mario franchise in the context of it as a generic object. The latter is better if you're discussing what it is in the context of a uniqueobject. But again, the difference is nowhere near as big as you're making it out to be, in my opinion. ^S _o ^m _e ^t _h ⁱ _n ^g _o ⁿ _e ! 23:06, July 7, 2024 (EDT)

I don't see such article openers as inherently awkward. They presuppose that readers already know what a certain subject is, which is a natural consideration with regard to an object as ubiquitous in the real world as, say, grape or soccer ball. To use grapes as an example: though it's true that their appearances in games are merely virtual symbols of the real world fruit, and not the actual fruit that you can just grab from the screen using your actual arm and eat, the identity of the object remains the same by virtue of being a representation of grapes, and you'd expect anyone with the requisite mental faculties to access this site to make this difference on their own. Frankly, "Grapes are fruits in the Mario franchise" sounds more awkward because it implies they're an invention of Shigeru Miyamito et al. Sure, no one would believe that to be the case, but it's precisely the absurdity of that statement that occasionally makes the wiki an object of ridicule and I'd like to avoid that where possible. (The Super Mario Facts twitter account is also a trove of statements of that ilk taken out of context; you should see the replies to those.)
With all that said, I only apply this sentence structure to things with some degree of ubiquity in the real world, and not to just about any real world thing that is immortalized in the Mario franchise. I wouldn't agree on using it on an article such as Abraham Lincoln because (a) not everyone knows who this person was in real life, even if they've seen references to him in pop culture (god knows I learned about his role in American history long after I saw him in cartoons as a child), and (b) he ought to be contextualized the same way other real world people are in the wiki, otherwise there would exist an inconsistency, especially since sometimes, real world people with involvement in the making of Mario media also end up being represented in said media.
As for where I'd place a cutoff between "generic" and "not generic enough", I don't exactly know. In a brief convo with Super Mario RPG (the user) I mentioned "avalanche" as being situated somewhere in that ballpark. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 03:14, July 8, 2024 (EDT)

Perhaps this is me, but I do not think we should be making writing choices because of bad-faith actors, which is my interpretation of Super Mario Facts or that YouTube video. I disagree that the original phrasing in the grape article at all implies the concept was invented by Nintendo. I struggle with the idea that people come to that impression organically or in good faith. (I would not literally say "Grapes are fruits in the Super Mario franchise" because that is not particularly informative within the context of video games. Telling me it's a consumable object would be more valuable, I think, but it would not be due to worry that folks would sincerely think Nintendo invented grapes.)

Further, I did not even say I am opposed to noting a subject is of conceptual real-world origin, just that saying "X in Z is a Y" is poor syntax. Part of the subtext of my problem is that I think it mitigates user choice. Additionally, I think many of the articles where this syntax has been integrated cover subjects that are not generic. For example, the seesaw article is not about playground equipment and they do not look like it either. What is localized into English as "seesaws" are categorically a type of Lift, which are discretely defined platforms in the Super Mario series, and they are often floating in the air above bottomless pits. Snow sculptures are Bowser Statue analogs. The trapeze article is about a platforming tool in the 3D Super Mario games, not about the concept of a trapeze wherever it may arise in the franchise. There are plenty of other examples like this as well, where I think a subject is assumed generic due to its available English name, at the disregard of its design, mechanical or spatial context, or categorical intent.

For subjects I would agree are generic or are at least intended to be viewed as the same as their real-world analogs like the T-Rex article I have written, I still would not lead with this syntax. I would rather specify its real-world analog later in the opening paragraph. I think it reads more organically that way. I appreciate what Somethingone (talk) said yesterday, but I disagree. I lack the terminology necessary to articulate my point and I may be in the minority, but I do not encounter openings where a subject is said to be from or within another subject before being directly told what it actually is. It reads comparably to saying "Lions from Narnia are big cats" or "Basilisks in Delicious in Dungeon are monsters."... in companion books about Narnia or Delicious in Dungeon, respectively. - Nintendo101 (talk) 13:32, July 8, 2024 (EDT)

Having it "read organically" is vague and subjective. It's not grammatically incorrect to say that something is from elsewhere that appears in Super Mario, and it's definitely not assuming readers won't know that crates, apples, and other things are not from Super Mario. I agree with Somethingone that issues with this change is nowhere near as big of a deal as it's being made out to be. It's just structuring the sentences to say that something generic that is not from Super Mario appears in such media, and it acknowledges the distinction instantly with the first sentence. Super Mario RPG (talk) 13:46, July 8, 2024 (EDT)

Keep in mind that poor implementations of this syntax can occur and I have tried my best to correct them as they cropped up. Take this sample from a revision of the Whale page, which I find strikingly similar to the "Lions in Narnia" example you gave:
"Whales in the Super Mario franchise are large aquatic mammals that first appear in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic and Super Mario Bros. 2.
This sentence introduces whales that are specifically from the Mario franchise, as though it primes itself to describe what makes those unique in comparison to real life or other fictional whales... only to then describe what everyone's image of a whale is ("are large aquatic mammals"). You and me would both agree here that this accomplishes just as much as simply saying "Whales are large aquatic mammals that appear in the Super Mario franchise", except it does so in a passive manner that feels kind of strange to read.
Otherwise, I'm in agreement with Somethingone's and Super Mario RPG's comments above: not only you'd achieve more in the way of respecting your reader's intelligence by *not* reiterating a generic object's most mundane traits, but there are no grammatical concerns to be had over such a sentence as "Soccer balls appear in Mario games as interactive objects." I admittedly don't yet have a word to say on the seesaws and snow sculptures, because those that appear in Mario games are indeed constructed quite distinctly from their general concepts, but Super Mario 3D World's trapezes are direct analogues of the real world equipment used at circus shows and I believe the lead sentence of their page should undergo the "generic subject"(tm) approach. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 17:53, July 8, 2024 (EDT)