MarioWiki:Featured articles/Unfeature/N/Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii, a featured article, was nominated to be unfeatured on January 14, 2026, 15:00 (UTC). If the nomination does not pass by March 15, 2026, 15:00 (UTC), it will be considered failed.

Current time: January 18, 2026, 00:23 (UTC)

Remove featured article status

1. Nintendo101 (talk) Mario Kart Wii is amongst the most recognizable video games ever released and is the sixth console entry of the culturally ubiquitous Mario Kart series. Surely everyone seeing this page knows that, but I emphasize it here to convey how articles covering significant releases like these are particularly important for a broad readerbase interested in video games, Nintendo, and Mario specifically. Our article for it is one of the oldest game articles on the site, and anyone reviewing the featured article page will know it has been featured, unfeatured, and refeatured over the years, the last time being in 2018. Since then, the Mario Kart Wii article has, in my view, eroded. This is not uncommon for large sites with transient communities and priorities. That is okay in itself. However, the featured articles that rotate on the main page are to represent the best quality work our userbase can produce, demonstrating what we can do and the general quality readers can anticipate on other articles on the site. I do not think the article reflects that in its current state. I encourage other people to look at it before weighing in. It is a very detailed and well-written article, which are its biggest strengths. But it is difficult to appreciate these aspects because of other issues, namely: (1.) confusing and unintuitive order of subsections (e.g, why are the tables for items and courses below internal stats?); (2.) unnecessary details within subsections (e.g, while interesting, I don't think the point system for Mario Kart Wii needs to be compared directly to prior entries, especially in the gameplay section at the top. Mario Kart Wii should be discussed largely in isolation here and for its own merits, because the reader should not be expected to have played any other Mario Kart game when visiting the article. If this table is to be retained, it should probably be later on in the article); (3.) the inconsistent alignment, spacing, designs, colors, and layouts of tables throughout the page (for example, compare the aforementioned "Point Spread Comparisons (GP)" table to the controls table below it, or the default drivers table to the unlockable drivers table, and both of them to the vehicles tables and the course elements tables); and (4.) the inconsistent scaling of images between tables (again, compare the drivers tables to the ones for vehicles and course elements). Different tables have different requirements to best illustrate their contents and information, but the significant inconsistency between these tables makes the article and uncomfortable read and difficult reference of information. There are smaller issues I personally take issue with that are not deal-breakers (namely, as some others know, I still think it would be nice for the courses to have some sort of description in their tables, not dissimilar to what is done for courses for the platformers or even what Nintendo themselves have provided in their instruction booklets from years past). However, until these more substantive issues I describe are resolved, I do not think it should retain its featured status.
2. The Dab Master (talk) Per Nintendo101. This whole article is just kind of weird and not that well-organized.
3. Camwoodstock (talk) Admittedly, we figure the internal stats point is kind of unfair, as Mario Kart: Double Dash!! does the exact same thing (although, in that game's case, it's naturally smaller, as it's just for karts), we'll be real here; the formatting of this page is all over the place. Multiple different eras of how the wiki formats things are all on display here, and that's not exactly a good thing. Why is the gallery for Pre-release and unused content... Like that, with 2 distinct sizes of gallery image sharing a gallery. We don't really do "Music and sound" sections like this anymore, why is this not more properly integrated into the article? Why is the Gameplay section... Like that. We think we counted no fewer than 4 types of table here and that's excluding the Reception table, and literally only Course elements got it right. All of the other ones hate each other, but the internal stats section hates you in particular if you use light mode. Add to that unsourced dates, unsourced ratings, unsourced foreign names, and you have a pretty messy article, even if you try to ignore the obvious formatting anachronisms and tables being. Messy as sin.

Comments

Most of the driver images are at said images' raw size, so that's essentially the "official" scaling for those images; the issue with the columns mis-aligned is entirely due to how the Miis work, it seems. I would love if those kart/bike images all got recaptured by placing the models over each other in Blender or a similar program and capturing them one-by-one with the camera in one place to keep proper sizing scale (and preferably with proper normals+shine mapping), but I don't know how viable such a thing would be. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 11:24, January 14, 2026 (EST)

I am not familiar with any principle that artwork should be kept at their "official" scaling when displayed on article pages. It certainly isn't a principle Nintendo holds for their guidebooks, nor any other reference website or book I have seen on any topic that I am familiar with. (With the exception of those novelty "to scale" books sold to children and for coffee table tops, which would not be marketed as novelties if they were commonplace.) But even if this principle did exist, we should not follow it anyways. It does not make the article look any less uneven or make for an uncomfortable read. It hurts it. - Nintendo101 (talk) 13:40, January 14, 2026 (EST)

I never said it was, though my own subjective opinion is it neither "helps" nor "hurts" it tangibly, but does make that particular column appear neater than most other games' given they're around the same parameters as each other. At the very least, the columns on the default and unlockable vehicle tables align perfectly with one another, at least on my monitor, with the same not being true for the character ones due to the aforementioned Mii system. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 15:50, January 14, 2026 (EST)

Anyways, I've attempted to condense the Mii system a bit to better align the columns, does that work better? Or is it too confusing? Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 16:05, January 14, 2026 (EST)

@Nintendo101, just wondering but what could we do to make the article better? I mean, you technically already said but can you do it again in an easier and shorter way? Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 14:05, January 14, 2026 (EST)

My apologies, I tend to be long-winded. For me, one would, at minimum, need to:

1. Change the order of the subsections to be more intuitive, so topics flow into one another and the most important information is easy to find.
2. Revise details to be more specifically about Mario Kart Wii and not other games, particularly towards the top.
3. Give the majority of the tables a more unified and tidy look.
4. Make the images for drivers, karts, courses, and objects scaled around the same size (preferably 200x200px).

I hope that is more clear. - Nintendo101 (talk) 14:20, January 14, 2026 (EST)

It's fine! I completely get it! You of course need to have good (and sometimes (or mostly) long) reasoning for why you no longer want MKWii to be a featured article (even if the "long" part is sometimes a bit unnecessary). I'm still kinda struggling with it but I completely get why your support reasoning had to long-winded! Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 14:24, January 14, 2026 (EST)