Template talk:Mario forms

Delete this template

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: Sunday, January 5, 2025, 13:12 GMT

I'm not convinced that this template is necessary when Category:Mario's Transformations already exists. Ideally, navigation templates exist in lieu of categories because they allow for specificity: Template:Bandits, for example, specifies which entries are characters and which are species, which couldn't be done with a category. I imagine that numerous users would only want to search for the species and not the characters, or vice-versa, so having this distinction is good. With that in mind, what value is there in this template's distinctions? I seriously cannot imagine anyone who is scrolling through Mario's power-ups based on whether or not they are temporary or permanent for the player (and also "other", whose entries seem arbitrary). If a user is looking for the effects of every power-up, then the List of power-ups is infinitely more useful and practical than the template because it fully details what everything does. This templates uses a level of specificity that doesn't help anyone and just adds more clutter to the pile of navigation templates at the bottom of the page.

Proposer: Time Turner (talk)
Deadline: March 5, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Time Turner (talk) Per proposal.
2. YoshiFlutterJump (talk) Per Time Turner.
3. BBQ Turtle (talk) Per proposal.

Oppose

1. Alex95 (talk) - "navigation templates are used for navigating between related pages, as an alternative to categories. Both nav templates and categories are placed at the bottom of pages, but while categories must be clicked on in order to get to a list of related pages, navigation templates contain the links themselves, making the other pages directly accessible from the article that the reader is currently on." Per MarioWiki:Navigation templates. Yes, we have a list of power-ups that is definitely more helpful than both the category and nav template, but the two seem to go together. If it needs to be restructured, however, then it should be done.
2. Toadette the Achiever (talk) Per Alex95. Also, have you addressed {{Morphs}}?

Comments

@Alex: Users having to click on one extra link to get to the category is not a substantial reason to create a navigation template. If they're so convenient, why haven't we ditched categories entirely in favour of them? Navigation templates are only useful if they actually provide a tangible benefit, and no matter how this template is restructured, I don't see how such a benefit would surface. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 12:18, 19 February 2018 (EST)

I'll admit that the category is small enough that all the pages can fit on one page, so navigation wouldn't be that difficult. Thing is that the nav template is easier to access, I've seen many users not know what categories are or how they are used. A collective list on the pages is easier to find and read. The template does have structure issues (shouldn't Lucky Cat Mario be a regular transformation?), but unless there's a good way to link to the List of power-ups on every page aside from an ugly "see also", I can't support the deletion of this template. 12:31, 19 February 2018 (EST)

The List of power-ups page is accessible by anyone searching "power-up" or "power-ups", which is intuitive, and if categories are so remote and foreign to users that many of them don't know how to use them, why do we have them in the first place? Again, why don't we replace every category with navigation templates if they're that much of a problem? I personally don't even understand how categories are a problem in the first place, considering that any user can figure out what they do just by clicking on them. Even then, if users don't know what they do, our solution should be to educate them. Hello, I'm Time Turner. 12:36, 19 February 2018 (EST)

I'm not saying categories are a problem or unnecessary, they group subjects together in a way nav templates don't. Power-up even redirects to the list, so there's that, but Super Mushroom doesn't. Maybe having a link to the list in the nav template's header like Mario's Transformations? ...But then that would just defeat the purpose of this whole thing, wouldn't it? List of power-ups does list more that aren't listed, like 1-Up Mushroom, and I can't find a way to fit that in the template either, and then there's things like Template:Mushrooms and Template:Flowers that would ultimately just make the template redundant anyway... Okay, maybe this template is unnecessary, but I still think restructuring is possible, so I'll just adjust my vote.

As for educating, perhaps if the "Categories" on the bottom of the screen lead to MarioWiki:Categories rather than Special:Categories? 12:53, 19 February 2018 (EST)