MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/81

All past proposals are archived here. Please add archived proposals to the bottom of the page.

Large proposal: Merge form articles with their respective power-up ones

vetoed by the administrators
Proposed by a ban evader's account
To start off, I am aware that this would be a massive change and likely would take a long time to pass. However, I do still think it is a worthwhile topic of discussion. Currently, the wiki features power-up articles that list their appearances, with the notice that they transform the player into another form when they do, sometimes listing some basic info; not always, as sometimes a power-up appears but cannot be used. These sections (where the item appears as a usable power-up) are rather short, due to the lack of info to add, which makes the merge not a horrible idea that will massively inflate the length. I am also aware that occasionally, for example, a Fire-version of a character will appear without the flower itself (ie; Nintendo Comics System), but these are rare enough that it will not be too large of an issue, and it is also not unreasonable to treat a Fire form appearing as an indirect Fire Flower appearance. Some forms like Tanooki Mario have this be more common, but I still believe it is better to merge.

Now, I have explained why the merges can happen, but why should they? There are a few issues. Firstly, these form articles feature "Mario-defaultism", which is an issue due to the many games where multiple playable characters appear. This is especially strange when looking at the Infobox's title and then the "Applies to" section (Those sorts of sections would need to be added to power-up infoboxes after merging to avoid losing content). The size of the power-up articles are also often an issue, and provides little important info to the average reader. I will use Fire Flower as an example. Assuming the reader is looking for Super Mario content, they will look up the power-up to further understand it. They will then find out what games the flower appears in, and very basic info for each one, with no useful gameplay information to someone who has played the game. Then at Fire Mario, they will STILL get all that old information, and now also get useful information about the form. There is no reason to read Fire Flower outside of when it appears as just an item without a form; since the power-up is the article that will remain (to avoid the Mario-title issue), this is not an issue. For cases where they want info on the form's appearance in a game without an item, its location on the item page is understandable, and these form titles will remain as redirects. We have to take the average reader's experience in account as well. Power-ups provide a gameplay function, and are the actual interacted-with item. Someone searching them up will likely desire in-depth information.

Due to the immense amount of work required to fulfil this proposal, I believe that if passed, the merges should first be done on the shortest articles (ie: Bubble Flower and Bubble Mario)

In all, while I am certain this will be a controversial proposal that will likely fail, and that changing this will take a lot of effort, I still believe it is the right move for the wiki.

Proposer: Sylux (blocked)
Deadline: February 8, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Cancelled on January 23, 2026, 20:31 (UTC)

Support

#Sylux (talk) Support as creator.

Oppose

1. Altendo (talk) This will create a lot of problems. First off, these are distinct things, and I think these deserve their own pages. Second, overlap is an issue, but one that this wiki does often and often relies on (like characters and games). Third, some powerups can have different forms, and some forms can come from different powerups, creating a massive inconsistency, especially with the latter. (And no, we cannot merge the Tanooki Suit with the Super Leaf because they appear in the same game with different functions). A lot of these items also appear on their own without connections to the power-up (like the Mario Kart cups and how the Mushroom and Flower items don't transform the character like in the Super Mario games), and these forms also exist on their own without connections to the item (like Mega Mario in Super Paper Mario). The concept of this proposal makes sense, but it doesn't work fundamentally because these are separate things that can exist (and sometimes do exist) on their own, and overlap (which is already common on this wiki) can cross-cover information, but in a way that interconnects these pages while allowing them to stand on what they do without any connections to the other topic.
2. Wandering Poplin (talk) In the current era, Power-ups and Power-up forms are simply not interchangeable enough to share the same article, especially not in the manner presented here.
3. Camwoodstock (talk) The fact we have an entire proposal that is still ongoing about what even counts as Mega Mario should tell you all you need to know about how what counts as a form is not as clear-cut as "it comes from an item."
4. LadySophie17 (talk) Per all.
5. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.

Comments

@Sylux You forgot to vote support for your own proposal (yes, you're allowed to do that). Also you don't need to add a signature at the end of the explanation. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 16:09, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

Follow up on this comment, you need to format your vote as #{{User|[your username here]}}, follow by a comment with no signature. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 16:13, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

Given the proposal maker outed themself as a ban-evader, should this just be canceled? Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:07, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

---

Limit the amount of game series logos in their infoboxes to one

Move extra logos to gallery 7-2-0-1
I have noticed a major inconsistency with some of the game series pages, and that their infoboxes have multiple logos, whether to represent the multiple eras, different formatting, or both. While most game pages have only one logo in their infobox, some of them have multiple logos, creating a weird inconsistency, not to mention that only showing the latest version of the logo in the infobox would be enough to get readers to understand the franchise.

This proposal will aim to limit the amount of logos in their infoboxes to just one, and extra logos will be moved to the gallery. This will not only remove unneeded bulk from the infoboxes, but would also make them consistent with each other. Extra logos, like alternate formatting and historical logos, are important enough to keep on the page, but only in the gallery where they don't take up the main bulk of the page.

"But Altendo, these logos signify different eras of a game series and can give a look at the past!" Well, they can still get that look through the gallery, but even if this argument is taken into account, it still wouldn't be consistent. Take Mario Party (series), in which the logo used for the first three games and would inspire the logo for the future Hudson Soft-era games isn't even on the page. And don't even get me started with Super Smash Bros. (series), which has five logos, yet only the one used for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is in the infobox.

The affected pages include:

• Historical logos
  • Mario & Sonic
  • Donkey Kong Country (series)
  • Dr. Mario (series)
  • Mario Kart (the old logo in the "Creation" section)
• Different formatting (historical logos left of the infobox will also be moved to the gallery, for consistency with this proposal)
  • Super Mario (franchise)
  • Super Mario (series)
• International logos (the NTSC-U one will continue to be used in the infobox)
  • Donkey Kong Land (series)

Hopefully this will lead to more consistent series infoboxes without any additional bulk (good god, Donkey Kong Country has THREE logos).

Proposer: Altendo (talk)
Deadline: January 24, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Move all of the extra logos to the gallery

1. Altendo (talk) Per proposal.
2. Yoshi18 (talk) Per proposal.
3. Wandering Poplin (talk) Especially for any series that might've never had a consistent logo to begin with. (Not that I can think of any at the moment...)
4. Camwoodstock (talk) Makes sense to us. Per proposal.
5. SuperGamer18 (talk) Per all.
6. Mario (talk) The extra logos only serve to clutter the infobox. There may be special cases but I don't think they're enough to undermine the guideline being proposed here.
7. Mushroom Head (talk) Per all.

Move only the historic logos to the gallery, but leave the alternate formatting intact

1. Altendo (talk) Second choice.
2. Yoshi18 (talk) Secondary choice.

NUKE: Bring ALL of the logos into the infobox

1. Yoshi18 (talk) Tertiary choice.

Logo comments

Will passing the proposal add the note: "For alternate logos, see the related gallery." like box art in the infobox? LinkTheLefty (talk) 13:29, January 22, 2026 (UTC)

This is something I admittedly haven't thought about until you brought it up, but as of now, I'm going to have to say no. First off, there usually aren't as many series logos, regardless of era, formatting, language, or region, to dedicate an entire gallery page on these (this is something I might rethink if we do get an influx of new logos, but for now, there are not enough). Speaking of which, secondly, the game infoboxes link to these gallery pages because there are a lot of boxarts, with even the smallest of changes (like the Canadian Mario Kart World box art replacing the secondary ESRB text from Spanish to French) warranting a separate upload, but with logos, we don't have that small change between regions, and this is already true for game logos (where only three variations for MKW, the JP, KR, and HK/TW subtitles, exist), but for series logos, this change becomes even more trivial because we often don't have access to enough logos for a single series to warrant a series gallery split. I mean, we could just link to the gallery section, which is fine, but reason number 3 should let you know why I'm not doing this yet: the pages that already do what this proposal aims to do (like Mario & Luigi) for the pages that have yet to be affected (like Mario & Sonic) don't do this. I might consider a change to {{Series infobox}} if needed, but so far, I don't see the need for this yet, and adding this would likely require another proposal, as it hasn't been written into my proposal at all. That said, I don't think that such is needed overall, given my reasons, and especially the third one. Altendo 14:51, January 22, 2026 (UTC)

---

End the use of "new course" and "classic course" as universal definitions within the Mario Kart series

Define courses on a case-by-case basis 13-0
With the introduction of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass came Mario Kart courses which debuted in one game, but are known to have originally been developed for another. For example, data relating to Sky-High Sundae in both Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Kart Tour is labeled to suggest that it actually originates from the latter. Likewise, despite debuting in 8 Deluxe and Nintendo acknowledging 8 Deluxe as Sky-High Sundae's first appearance, Nintendo has also referred to all courses in the Booster Course Pass as "remastered courses". This has resulted in the definition of a "new course" becoming significantly less clear than it was previously (an issue which was also the subject of another recent proposal).

Likewise, the definition of a "classic course" also became muddied as Nintendo chose to not include returning Mario Kart Tour courses Merry Mountain, Ninja Hideaway and Piranha Plant Cove in that category (as evidenced by their lack of in-game prefixes and exclusion from the associated Nintendo Music playlist). Since Mario Kart: Super Circuit, there has been a trend of bringing back courses from previous titles, with each game using its own Nintendo-derived labels and terminology (such as "Extra Tracks" in Super Circuit and "retro courses" in Mario Kart 7). From Mario Kart 8 onwards, the line between returning courses and brand-new ones has become less and less clear, with Mario Kart World going as far as having no direct in-game distinction between returning courses and new ones.

With all of that in mind, I believe it no longer makes sense to rely entirely on such terms when they are either lacking the necessary nuance or are ultimately defined at Nintendo's discretion.

With this in mind, the goals of this proposal are as such:

• Redirect the New course and Classic course pages to the existing Course (Mario Kart series) page and include all relevant information there. The latter page already offers a sufficient overview of all courses across every title both debuting and returning.
• Use appropriate terminology depending on the courses and/or games in question, with official terminology such as "classic courses" only being used when its use verifiably applies to the situation (Mario Circuit 3 is an Extra Track in Mario Kart: Super Circuit, SNES Mario Circuit 3 is a classic course in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Ninja Hideaway is a returning course in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Sky-High Sundae first appeared in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass and later appeared in Mario Kart Tour).

A notable example of what I mean by "verifiably applies" in the latter point is with Block Fort in Mario Kart DS. Mario Kart DS itself makes no distinction between it and the new battle courses, in stark contrast to the race courses in the "Retro Grand Prix" (which one can reasonably refer to as "retro courses", or "classic courses" as they have been called in promotional material). As a similar case to the previously mentioned Ninja Hideaway, we would generally refer to it as a "returning course" rather than using specific official terminology, unless evidence is provided to support using said terminology.

Proposer: Polley001 (talk)
Deadline: February 2, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on January 26, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support: Define courses on a case-by-case basis

1. Polley001 (talk) Per proposal.
2. The Dab Master (Switch/Tour) Per proposal.
3. LadySophie17 (talk) Can't believe I'm here but I agree. It's natural for a wiki to have a tendency to "over-categorize" things that seem to fit within certain definitions, and it definitely irked me how the Extra courses from Mario Kart: Super Circuit were lumped in with the classic courses. Like our previous proposal to axe classic prefixes from page names, I think this change in mindset will go a long way to shifting the perception of what a classic course is. On that note I apologize for being somewhat bull-headed about this topic in the past, but this has given me some clarity.
4. Tails777 (talk) Still have my support here. I don't think we need a concrete dividing line to live by here; Nintendo has become far more loose with the distinction between new courses and classic courses and Mario Kart World was the final nail in the coffin. I feel not much else needs to be said.
5. Hewer (talk) This makes much more sense for organisation. I feel like "classic course" and especially "new course" have had no reason to be separate pages ever since the relatively recent development of the Course (Mario Kart series) page being created, which would be a handy centralised page to hold all the information.
6. Altendo (Switch/Tour) Per all.
7. Mushroom Head (talk) Per all.
8. EvieMaybe (talk) per all. our coverage of games should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
9. DS Kingoffire U (talk) Sure, why not.
10. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - Remembering when the wiki strictly used "Nitro" for new courses even though, as someone who doesn't have MKDS, that meant absolutely nothing to me. It's best to not try a "one size fits all" to this sort of classification.
11. Wii Yoshi18 (talk) Per proposal. Mainly considering how confusing courses like Sky-High Sundae are.
12. Dominoes (Mario Kart World) Per all - what I would have said had already been stated above.
13. SONIC123CDMANIA+&K(B&ATSA) (talk) Per proposal. And on the Sky-High Sundae topic, apparently there's evidence that it actually was intended for Mario Kart World from the beginning.

Comments (Mario Kart course definitions)

Back in 2023, a proposal passed to create Mario Kart course redirects with game prefixes for any course that lacks them, with the exceptions of Mario Kart 8, the Mario Kart: Arcade GP series and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, due to them not having an established course prefix. What do you propose would happen to the redirects Tour Sky-High Sundae, Tour Squeaky Clean Sprint and Tour Yoshi's Island? — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 21:51, January 19, 2026 (UTC)

I feel like they're probably popular enough with fans to warrant existing anyway, doesn't seem so different from how Intermission redirects to Route. Polley001 (talk) 21:58, January 19, 2026 (UTC)

I think the redirects should stay but we should also make redirects with a "Switch" prefix (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tracks are unofficially known (but well known) by that prefix) Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 17:35, January 20, 2026 (UTC)

---

Establish a "character article" structure

Establish a character article structure 17-0
This proposal is partially inspired by Nintendo101's proposal to standardize sectioning for Super Mario series game articles.

While our character articles largely already follow a decent structure, they aren't entirely consistent with each other. We have their creation, their history, their general information, then... everything else?... and then a nice and easy Naming, Notes, See also and finally References and sometimes External Links. Everything between the "General information" and "Naming/Names in other languages" sections is vaguely defined and usually varies in at least some way between articles. This also includes subsections of "General information". Mario and Luigi have their "List of game appearances" and "Profiles and statistics" swapped. Bowser has "Portrayals" between both of them. Mario and Princess Peach have sections about their most recurring themes in different places. Luigi also has his "See also" in the middle of the article between "Quotes" and "Voice samples", and had two creation sections until I merged them. Rosalina has her "List of appearances" all the way at the bottom.

Not to mention the inconsistent section names themselves. Sometimes "Creation" is "Creation and development", sometimes it is "Concept and Creation". "List of appearances" can also be "List of game appearances" and "List of appearances by date", among others.

So that's why I'm here. The aim of this proposal isn't to demand that every article have these sections but, but to provide a structure for the sections an article already has. For sections that are specific to only a few characters, their positioning can be decided on a case-by-case basis, such as Mario's cultural impact or Donkey Kong's identity. Without further ado, here's my proposed character article structure guideline, with further notes detailing wiggle room between them:

1. Creation: Presented first since it covers how they were first conceptualized and created.
2. History: The main bulk of information in most articles its own sub-structure is already well established in our guidelines.
3. General information: Usually the second largest section, and usually also divided into its own subsections
   1. Physical description: Perhaps the most objective, apparent and easy to glance information about a character. Should always come first unless a character needs a section talking about their overall identity as a whole, such as Donkey Kong's. Per article needs, can also have its own sections such as Alternate outfits.
   2. Personality: Should always follow physical description.
   3. Speech: Not the most common section to have, but a character's speech is almost always determined by their personality, physical appearance, or both, hence its placement here.
   4. Power and abilities: I don't have a strong reasoning for this section, but it ended up here and it feels like a natural progression from talking about how a character looks and acts.
   5. Other subsections: Other miscellaneous sections can fall here, such as Theme(s), Occupations, Gender, etc. Decided per article needs.
   6. Relationships: How a character relates to other characters should be the last subsection, as it no longer pertains to just the character itself. Relationship subsections generally go from family, to friends, to enemies.
4. Profiles and statistics: As profiles and statistics are kind of official "general information" about a character, this section follows it in the structure. Marks the start of the chunk of the article where lots of lists in various forms go.
5. Gallery: Not much to say, it falls here as it is one of the "big list sections"
6. Portrayals: Which actors and voice actors have portrayed a character should go close to the list of voice lines of that character, along with quotes they might've recorded themselves.
7. Quotes: See above.
   1. Voice samples: Contained within quotes as it is a very simple section by itself.
8. List of appearances: Usually one of the longest pages without much information. Placed at the bottom, out of the way of most of the article.
9. Naming/Names in other languages: Unless it relates to another section, information on their names should be moved here. If the name is related to a character's creation then it can be included in the top section instead, for example. By now everything is generally as you'd expect it. Not much else to say.
10. Notes: See above.
11. See also: See also above.
12. Footnotes and references: See above. Although unlikely to happen for characters, External Links would go below this section.

Once again, I'd like to emphasize that this structure is meant as a general guideline for the order of existing sections, and does not imply the creation or removal of any section. Character articles are often tailored to emphasize different aspects of them, so this proposal hopefully ensures a consistent standard while allowing room for variation when necessary. A big thank you to users in our Discord server who offered their feedback while I made this structure.

Proposer: LadySophie17 (talk)
Deadline: February 3, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on January 27, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support: Establish the structure

1. LadySophie17 (talk) Per proposal.
2. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal
3. The Dab Master (talk) Per proposal.
4. Jdtendo (talk) Per proposal.
5. Sorbetti (talk) Per proposal.
6. Nintendo101 (talk) Per proposal.
7. Camwoodstock (talk) Makes sense to us, and good to have this codified. Per proposal.
8. Mario4Ever (talk) Per all.
9. Tails777 (talk) Per proposal.
10. Yoshi18 (talk) Per proposal and Cam.
11. Mario (talk) This has irked me, Mario.
12. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) Per.
13. Sparks (talk) Yes!
14. Mushroom Head (talk) Per all.
15. Altendo (talk) I don't see why not.
16. Rykitu (talk) I like this structure. Per all!
17. TheFlameChomp (talk) Per all.

Comments (Character article structure)

Before voting, I have a question: what will happen to the Battle section used on some boss pages? Sorbetti (talk) 15:02, January 20, 2026 (UTC)

I can't think of many examples besides your namesake, but I imagine the section can just stay where it is, effectively replacing its History section. Any boss with more than one appearance should probably just have a History section instead. Not sure I even like the idea of a Battle section when it can be reworked into a regular History section anyway, but changing that section is outside of the scope of this proposal — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 16:03, January 20, 2026 (UTC)

I thought this proposal might remove it, but I see it won't, that will require another proposal. Thanks for the clarification. Sorbetti (talk) 20:04, January 20, 2026 (UTC)

Can the General information and History sections instead swap places? It irks me a little that the section giving a base description comes after the one telling the more specialized and exclusive to maybe one game info. SmokedChili (talk) 07:46, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

I prefer the History section to come first, since it is the most substantial and direct type of information that can be documented: Which games they appear and how they act in it. I'd say most people interested in an article are looking for that sort of information. It then also acts as sort of a build up to the General information section because it lays down all of the foundation we then use to describe their general traits, personality, etc. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 14:26, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

---

Change the order of media navigation templates at the bottom of pages

Keep strict chronological order 5-0-8

True story: Category:Super Smash Bros. series objects is oddly empty. There are like, 22 different stages within our purview as a wiki (inexact count), including monstrosities that are full of distinct objects like Super Mario Maker (stage), Rainbow Cruise, Golden Plains, and 3D Land. (Curse you scrolling and randomized stages!) There's no way there are only 30 or so objects that already have articles on the wiki that have appeared at least once in Super Smash Bros. So on October 10, 2025 I added about 14 more... then got too agitated to continue. Why?

Okay, so adding game categories to articles is dead simple: place the new category with the existing categories such that alphabetical order is maintained. Everyone understands that. But when I was adding the Smash object category, I also had to add the corresponding navigation template for each Super Smash Bros. game, since obviously interactive objects are important enough to have each game's navigation template even if they are not being listed within the navigation template. Let me tell you, adding a series worth of navigation templates to pages is a colossal pain. Navigation templates are placed on articles in the order of the release dates for each game. This means, to place the one to three navigation templates most of these articles required, I had to flick between the articles for the Super Smash Bros. games and games released around their release dates to make sure I was getting the order right. This was taking several orders of magnitude of forever, and I hate when things take forever. Admittedly, it would have taken a couple fewer forevers if I remembered List of games by date exists, so I would have only needed to use the Find tool to scroll up and down and all around one page, but that's still one forever too many.

Drawing board: Every Super Mario Wiki article has three different game orders to keep in mind when adding to it:

• History sections: MarioWiki:Manual of Style#History defines that each article's History section is ordered in two tiers. Series headers are placed in chronological order, with the date for each series being the first entry in that series the subject is featured in. Then, underneath series headers, the headers for each piece of media for that are in chronological order.
• Categories: MarioWiki:Categories#Order on pages says that categories regarding media should be placed in alphabetical order
• Navigation templates and Gallery images: MarioWiki:Navigation templates#Order on pages says that navigation templates for media should be placed in chronological order, with no tiering like History sections use. Galleries for articles work identically regarding the order their images should be placed, though I could find no corresponding policy.

I think that keeping track of three different orders is too much for the average wiki user, let alone me, and so I think we should change navigation templates to use one of the other two orders. (Yes this means that articles would still have three orders overall, but galleries benefit from strict chronological ordering because something's visual depiction in one series can very easily directly affect its visual depiction in a different series. Therefore, having galleries maintain strict chronological order is worth the cost of them using an order system that the rest of the wiki does not use. Also the galleries with the most entries, and therefore requiring the most release date comparisons, are on separate Gallery namespace pages anyway.)

Pros and cons of navigation template orders

V>	Pros	Cons
Chronological series, then chronological media	Wiki editors know this order by heart Easy to add to as long as the relevant media just released or an entry in the series already has a navbox on the article It is more likely for an editor adding content about media to an article to forget to add its navboxes than forget to add its History section, meaning an editor going through adding navboxes would be able to use the History section as a refererence for correct navbox order. Navboxes for media in the same series always stay together Could allow for navboxes for the same series to be hidden within a dropdown for that series, making articles with a large number of navboxes more manageable without having to use Template:Navboxes as quickly. Especially useful if the majority of an article's navboxes are for a single series, because then with a series specific dropdown for the offending series Template:Navboxes would not be necessary to use. This would make the navboxes unrelated to that series faster to access for the readers that need them, but not make accessing the navboxes for that series and slower to access than the current system.	Not intuitively understood
Alphabetical	Intuitively understood Extremely easy to add to Navboxes for media in the same series are usually kept together	Sometimes grouping is broken up by Nintendo's... quirkiness when naming their products Gets harder to add to when more media with similar names are released.
Strict chronological (current)	Intuitively understood Easy to add to if the relevant media just released	Hard to find specific games at times. While the coloring of navigation templates by series is supposed to help with this, it does not succeed on articles with a lot of navigation templates. Separates navboxes for media in the same series. Hard to add to if the relevant media did not just release, as in my Super Smash Bros. series anecdote.

Changing the order that media navigation templates are listed on pages will make it easier to add such templates to pages that mistakenly do not have them, which will make more people able and willing to do this wiki busywork. For instance, if this proposal passes, I would be able to finish categorizing all of the Super Smash Bros. series objects without it taking an inordinate amount of time compared to the comparatively not very impressive result of having a fully populated category. (Okay, technically I could just add the categories to the articles without adding the navboxes, but I dislike doing jobs halfway so therefore I cannot.)

Proposer: Salmancer (talk)
Deadline: February 2, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support: Media navigation templates are placed in an order matching History sections

1. Salmancer (talk) This proposal isn't just me trying to shirk work, honest! I just don't want to have "adding navboxes" be a task best performed by first memorizing the release dates of games relevant to the wiki. Plus, this change would make the wiki able to make navbox dropdowns specific to each series, which is a legitimate improvement over the current "if there are 10+ navboxes, hide all of them under Template:Navboxes."
2. The Dab Master (talk) Per Salamancer
3. LadySophie17 (talk) I like the idea, but I'd like clarification on when would series navboxes be collapsed, and what would happen if there are still 10+ rows of navboxes left in an article after series are collapsed.
4. Ahemtoday (talk) I like the consistency with history sections, and I think grouping navboxes by series is a much cleaner way to lay them out than a purely chronological one.
5. GuntherBayBeee (talk) Per all.

• EvieMaybe (talk) i wasn't sold, until you mentioned being able to collapse groups of navboxes by series. very much into this now

Status Quo: Media navigation templates remain ordered strictly chronologically

1. Hewer (talk) I'm not really seeing the issue here. I personally think chronological order for all games without having to worry about series classifications is much more intuitive and straightforward. You claim that "wiki editors know this order by heart" but personally I don't find this to be the case, I'd find strict chronological order more memorable (especially since it's always the same order, whereas the series order changes for each subject due to how it lists the series in the order that particular subject first appeared in them). If you don't know what order the games should go in when adding them, just look at List of games by date and all your problems are solved. And if you want to just look at navboxes of one series, you can do that fairly easily since they're colour-coded by series. History sections are different because the way they are written often assumes the reader to be familiar with the subject's previous appearances in that series (e.g. saying that an item works the same as it did in previous games without elaborating), which would be unreasonable if the sections for one series weren't all kept together; navboxes don't have this quirk.
2. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - I just find list of games by date works well rather than having to remember what order these subseries are meant to go in on a per-page basis. (Granted, I'm unclear why it's not the default list of games, but that's a separate issue.) Note that at this point, navtemps are mostly added for new games to existing pages, and it's a lot simpler to be able to just add them to the bottom in those cases, and is again fairly intuitive.
3. Camwoodstock (talk) Honestly, we have the opposite problem, where we could tell you games on, at the very least, a by-year basis, but couldn't tell you that same order if you divvied it up by series. We very much do not know that order by heart, and we've been lurking this site since around 2008 or so. Combined with the fact we already color code series navboxes anyways, the practicality of this is... Dubious, to say the least.
4. LinkTheLefty (talk) As much as I'd like the wiki to have One True Order, this doesn't affect galleries/categories and, as other have said, navboxes are already color-coded. I would think it's easier to maintain the current setup and add to it at the bottom whenever there's new media. Maybe add a small series note on navboxes if colors aren't doing it.
5. Altendo (talk) Yeah... no. Per all. I do not "know this order by heart", and I don't expect most people to do so either, regardless of their time on this wiki. Having the first game first and last game last is the most intuitive, and I feel like this would make it more confusing, especially if the series are sorted chronologically rather than with respect to the page they're on (for example, if Donkey Kong is placed first just because Mario debuted there, then Donkey Kong would take precedent over the actual Super Mario franchise, for every page, and if Super Mario is placed first, then this undermines that "chronological order" this proposal aims to do). If Camwoodstock, an editor for 9 years and a lurker for 18, struggles to memorize the games by date, I doubt other users will. Also, this might require a series split on basically everything else, as LTL said. I wouldn't want to cross the line, so I feel like the best solution is to leave this as is.
6. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) Don't fix what isn't broken. Also, long time editor from 2009 like hell I know any of this shit by heart, per all.
7. Mario4Ever (talk) Per all.
8. TheFlameChomp (talk) Per all.

Comments (Change the order of media navboxes)

I was thinking in a somewhat if statementy sense:

• If there are 10+ navboxes for one article (The current criteria for Template:Navboxes):
  • If four or more of those navboxes are for the same series and there are at least two navboxes of different series
    • Put the navboxes of each series that has four or more navboxes in a corresponding series specific dropdown.
    • If, after making series specific dropdowns, there are still 10+ combination of series specific dropdowns and navboxes that are not in dropdowns
      • Do not use series specific dropdowns at all, and use the single Template:Navboxes dropdown instead
  • Else put all navboxes under the single Template:Navboxes dropdown

The breakpoint of "four or more of those navboxes are for the same series" isn't set in stone, we could adjust up and down, but I think four is a good enough "series mainstay" criteria. The goal of these rules is to ensure users only ever have to open two dropdowns: one for revealing navboxes and one for opening navboxes, the exact same as how the wiki currently works. Allowing for series specific dropdowns in combination with Template:Navboxes could result users having to open three dropdowns reach the contents of their desired navbox, which would worsen the user experience.

So for some examples:

• Bumpty: All of the Yoshi series game navboxes would go under a Yoshi series dropdown. After doing so, we have 5 dropdowns and non-dropdown navboxes total, the one Yoshi series dropdown and the four navboxes for games that are not in the Yoshi series. So we would implement series specific dropdowns for that article.
• Muncher:All of the Super series game navboxes would go under a Super series dropdown. After doing so, we have 5 dropdowns and non-dropdown navboxes total, the one Super Mario series dropdown and the four navboxes for media that is not in the Super Mario series. So we would implement series specific dropdowns for that article.
• Whomp: All of the Mario Party game navboxes would go under a Mario Party series dropdown, and all of the Super Mario game navboxes would go under a Super Mario series dropdown. After doing so, we have 10 dropdowns and non-dropdown navboxes total, the two series dropdown and the six navboxes for games that are not in either series, and the two for Thwomps and Platforms So we would not implement series specific dropdowns for that article, there's still too many navboxes.
• Blue Space: While it has more than 10 navboxes, since all of them are for games of the Mario Party series, there is no point in adding a Mario Party specific dropdown for it.
• Shadow (character): All of the Mario & Sonic series game navboxes would go under a Mario & Sonic series dropdown. After doing so, we have 5 dropdowns and non-dropdown navboxes total, the one Yoshi series dropdown, the three navboxes for games that are not in the Yoshi series, and the one crossover characters navbox. So we would implement series specific dropdowns for that article. If a new Smash Bros. game comes out, the Smash Bros. series navboxes would go over the threshold of 4 and so a Sm Smash Bros. specifc dropdown would be added.
• Save Block: All of the Paper Mario game navboxes would go under a Paper Mario series dropdown, and all of the Mario & Luigi game navboxes would go under a Mario & Luigi series dropdown. After doing so, we have 4 dropdowns and non-dropdown navboxes total, the two series dropdowns, the one navbox for Super Mario RPG, and the one navbox for Blocks. So we would implement series specific dropdowns for that article. Salmancer (talk) 15:45, January 20, 2026 (UTC)

I really don't think colors are the best system for locating media on long list of navboxes. To explain this, please locate the following three navboxes on Mario#References: Mario Party DS, Mario Super Sluggers, and Paper Mario Sticker Star. The first two should be especially difficult. If Option 1 passes, they will be easier to find because they would form blocks with their series: so instead of hunting for the one Yellow Mario Party DS in a long list of games, you could look for the large yellow Mario Party block then within that much shorter group look for Mario Party DS. Salmancer (talk) 16:57, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

I mean, Ctrl+F exists. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:04, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

Altendo, this is matching the order that History sections use. The only times Donkey Kong game navboxes would be listed before Super Mario game navboxes would be for things that appeared in Donkey Kong (game), Donkey Kong Jr. (game), and/or Donkey Kong 3. The only entities where that's relevant are Mario, Donkey Kong, Hammer, Jump, and Barrel. Of them, the only ones where its theoretically a negative are Mario and maybe Jump, and its a negative that History of Mario already takes on the chin by putting the Donkey Kong franchise sections earlier than the Super Mario franchise sections. Salmancer (talk) 16:57, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

That is a good point, and one I will likely remove from my vote. However, I still agree with the opposition due to everything else they've brought up, even after removing my argument from the situation; I especially don't buy that "Wiki editors know this order by heart". That said, I don't really care about the outcome of the proposal as much as the other voters do, so I might revoke my vote and take on a stance of neutrality. Altendo 17:06, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

"Could allow for navboxes for the same series to be hidden within a dropdown for that series, making articles with a large number of navboxes more manageable without having to use Template:Navboxes as quickly."
You know, you can also solve this solution with the current standard of the strict chronological order if instead using dropdowns for each series, we use dropdowns divided by decade. It's also how we divide extremely large galleries such as Gallery:Mario. rend (talk) (edits) 23:29, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

---

Rename articles about forms used by multiple characters

Do not rename 2-1-10

EDIT: I have updated this proposal to take into account criticism I've received. I would appreciate y'all looking at the updates.

The recent proposal about forms, cancelled though it may be, inspired me to put forth this, finally — I'd been thinking about it for some time. I'm messing with a longstanding element of the wiki, here, but here goes:

A lot of form articles have titles that misrepresent their scope. They're named "[something] Mario" when they're actually about the form as it applies to anyone. Here is a fairly comprehensive but not necessarily exhaustive list:

• Small Mario
• Super Mario
• Fire Mario
• Raccoon Mario
• Tanooki Mario
• Statue Mario
• Frog Mario
• Hammer Mario
• Cape Mario
• Balloon Mario
• Superball Mario
• Bunny Mario
• Mega Mario
• Mini Mario
• Shell Mario
• Propeller Mario
• Ice Mario
• Gold Mario
• White Raccoon Mario
• Flying Squirrel Mario
• Power Squirrel Mario
• Big Mario
• Builder Mario
• SMB2 Mario
• Elephant Mario
• Bubble Mario
• Drill Mario
• Flower Mario
• Hoppycat Mario
• Goomba Mario
• Spike-Ball Mario
• Wubba Mario
• Sproing Mario
• Puffy Lift Mario
• Metal Mario
• Vanish Mario
• Bee Mario
• Rainbow Mario
• Boo Mario
• Ice Mario (Super Mario Galaxy)
• Spring Mario
• Flying Mario
• Cloud Mario
• Rock Mario
• Boomerang Mario
• White Tanooki Mario
• Cat Mario
• Double Mario
• Lucky Cat Mario

I propose this: rename these articles to "[something] form" to accurately reflect their scope, creating articles such as Fire form, Superball form, and Metal form. This entails rewriting the opening to these articles to reflect their new title, but rewriting other text like in the history section might not be as necessary. I recognize that this terminology is not officially used in all cases, but it is terminology for the thing the article is about. Some of these names will be conjectural and should be marked as such, but I still believe it is worth prioritizing these names over a misnomer. (And as conjectural names go, the naming scheme "[blank] form" is not much of a stretch. It's used officially for some powerups, and it's used in prose on this very wiki.)

Concern has been raised about the more general names making it seem as though the article's scope is wider than it is, but I do not think this will be an issue that can't be clarified through the power of {{distinguish}}, {{about}}, and the first paragraph of each article.

There is also the question of what to do about forms being treated as characters. After consideration, because all appearances of these "form characters" are appearances of the form and therefore would be covered on the form's article anyway; and because even Metal Mario, the most prominent of these, had a unanimously supported proposal to merge the "character" and "form" articles years ago; I believe these form articles are sufficient to cover these appearances. The likes of Cat Peach in Mario Kart 8 demonstrate that naming these articles after Mario doesn't solve the problem.

I would also like to acknowledge that this proposal will leave Dr. Mario intact, as it isn't a powerup-based form (arguably not a "form" at all) like the others, and the article currently focuses squarely on Mario, with other characters' doctor personas only peripherally mentioned in the context of traits they share with Dr. Mario.

One final note: Based on feedback, I'm including a second option to instead rename these articles purely after the involved adjective, with a "(form)" identifier only if necessary (as with the "(series)" identifier repealed, we no longer put identifiers on things they aren't necessary for), creating the likes of Fire (form), Superball, and Metal (form).

Proposer: Ahemtoday (talk)
Deadline: February 9, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on February 2, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support form

1. Ahemtoday (talk) Per proposal. I hope this goes well — these articles have been named this way since forever, so I'm a little spooked messing with that.
2. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - Look mon I just think that Fire Mario and Fire Luigi and similar subjects are at a point it makes sense to give them separate galleries, and the current naming kind of prevents that. To say nothing on how Pink Gold Peach gets an article despite being all but stated to be intended as the Gold Mario version of Peach.

Support (adjective only)

1. Ahemtoday (talk) Second choice. I'm not really fond of how opaque this naming scheme could be, and having the adjective alone like this is probably about as conjectural as the phrasology "[blank] form", but I would rather have an article title that reflects the scope of the article than not.

Oppose Mario

1. Dab Mario (talk) After reading Wandering Poplin's comment below, I think the cons outweigh the pros for me. While I understand the reasoning, stuff like "Mega Mario" would be a more well-known name than "Mega form" or just "Mega".
2. EvieMaybe (talk) while i could agree with the outcome in a vacuum, this proposal does not give me enough of a reason to vote for it. no acknowledgement that most of these forms have never been called "[blank] form", no protocol for covering forms that are also characters... these last few months we have seen a lot of slapdash proposals about overarching changes that seem to not understand the scope of what they are proposing, and i am not happy to say this fits right into that trend.
3. Hewer (talk) While it is a bit awkward having them titled "Mario" when other characters also use the forms, I don't think we should be replacing official names with fan names just to fix that. (Side note, my preference for linking when they appear as characters would be to link to both the form and the character, e.g. "Cat Peach").
4. Altendo (form) I like EvieMaybe's alternative in the comments (except remove the identifiers from the pages that don't need them), but for now, per all.
5. Wandering Poplin (character) Per all. This unfortunately doesn't seem like the ideal solution to the problem. (Which seems to be more complex than it may appear...)
6. Camwoodstock (talk) Per all. While certainly strange when trying to link to the form for a character other than Mario (or the character who primarily uses said form), that's a pretty niche case compared to... What the page itself is named.
7. Mario (form) Proposed solutions to a problem, that I believe is nomenclature hiccups and ultimately don't pose major issues with organization of the wiki, seem to create more problems down the line, as seen with discussions on how to deal with Metal Mario.
8. Salmancer (talk) This is just how the brand works, and we're stuck with it unless Nintendo decides that they want to stop doing that. When we're making articles in many cases so that official guidebook and wiki line up, this change making us not line up with official guidebooks makes everything more inconsistent. "Cat (form)" would be more awkward than "Cat Mario" when the article also has to cover Cat Mario and Cat Peach as they appear on The Cat Mario Show, because sometimes forms get used as characters like that.
9. Mushroom Head (talk) Per all.
10. Maw-Ray Master (talk) Not official = Oppose. Per all.

Pink Gold Comments

Before I cast any votes, I have a few concerns.

• How does this affect articles about powerup forms that were also treated as characters? Metal Mario may currently be merged to the form's article, (or was it the other way around?) but he's also been depicted as a character so many times that I'm very concerned about how that would affect his coverage if it's buried completely under "Metal form."
• There's also the fact that very few of these transformations were ever officially called "[name of power] form." Fire Mario was, Balloon Mario... sort of was, But Flying Mario? I don't recall any official usage of "Flying Form."
• I'm also concerned that the names may be vague enough that the ambiguity could easily create dozens of contradictions to our good writing policy. For example, the name "Mega form" is obtuse enough that some of the info previously purged from the Mega Mario article may erroneously be added back, and may make it harder to specify what info goes where.

Could you clarify how you plan to deal with these issues? Wandering Poplin (talk) 21:51, January 26, 2026 (UTC)

I have thought about these.
On your first point: characters such as this are the subject of the proposal's final paragraph. I initially considered an option wherein these "form characters" were given their own articles, but I felt such a solution would wind up untenable. To begin with, the line between "separate character" and "costume" is fuzzy, or at least must be to keep the amount of such articles reasonable: taking Mario Kart Tour into account (which the Mario Kart series page does not), we would have not just Cat form and Cat Mario but Cat Luigi, Cat Peach, Cat Toad and Cat Rosalina. Trying to come up with rules to surmount this just seems arbitrary. As well, I think Metal Mario is very much a unique case when it comes to these due to his repeated usages — I do not think most such articles would have much interesting on them. I feel the solution is splitting Metal Mario once more, to be honest.
As for terminology and ambiguity — one thing I considered but didn't implement into this version of the proposal was a title notice box template to go at the top of these articles to indicate when an article is using this naming scheme, since it would be a bit of an unusual situation. It could have a parameter for whether the specific "[blank] form" terminology has a citation, or whether it's conjectural. Which, yes, I do admit these names are conjectural — I think I prefer an unofficial extension of a naming scheme that has been used officially over naming the article after an official name that only refers to a subset of what the article is actually about. I didn't go for the title notice idea since I was worried it might be overkill, but if it strikes the voters as helpful, I can put it together. Ahemtoday (talk) 00:06, January 27, 2026 (UTC)

i've stated my thoughts on this proposal in my vote, but if i may suggest an alternative: "Fire (form)"? the load-bearing identifier is a bit of an issue (there's no page titled "Power Squirrel", for example), but it technically avoids any conjectural names. — eviemaybe (talk) 00:26, January 27, 2026 (UTC)

That "technically" is doing a lot of work there. I think entirely divorcing the adjective from any noun is only barely less conjectural and several times more awkward — and we would be forced to use the term "Fire form" in the article text anyway, at least during the articles. (As a side note, I take offense to being told my proposal is slapdash and I don't understand its scope because it doesn't acknowledge certain factors, especially when I had already mentioned them in the comments.) Ahemtoday (talk) 01:10, January 27, 2026 (UTC)

i'm sorry, but the fact that it had to be added in the comments instead of being in the proposal itself is a sign of its quality. i don't mean to offend, and i do not think it reflects on you in any way, but it is simply my opinion on the proposal at hand. — eviemaybe (talk) 01:32, January 27, 2026 (UTC)

Please understand: If clarifying comments do not count as an acknowledgement of an issue or improve the proposal's quality, then none of this is actionable feedback, especially because it doesn't give me reason to believe any amendments to the proposal itself would help if the charge is a "slapdash" initial state. I want to make the proposal better, but I feel that my responses to potential issues that could arise are not being engaged with. Having not received comments on them, if I were to make these things a formal part of the proposal, I would effectively be flying blind with only my thoughts on the matter, which is the same methodology that led to the initial proposal in the first place. Ahemtoday (talk) 04:02, January 27, 2026 (UTC)

have you considered discussing potential proposals in talk pages, the forums, or the Discord server before launching them? — eviemaybe (talk) 17:57, January 27, 2026 (UTC)

@Doc von Schmeltwick: What's wrong with just having "Gallery:Fire Luigi" be its own page currently? It wouldn't match the title of the Fire Mario page, but that would still be the case if this proposal were to pass. And when has it ever been suggested that Pink Gold Peach is the same form as Gold Mario? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 18:11, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

True. I don't think I've ever seen Princess Peach turn into/transform back from Pink Gold Peach. Nearly every appearance she's had thus far has portrayed her as a separate character, rather than a form. (We've also seen a few, more traditional, "Gold versions of Princess Peach" as well.) Wandering Poplin (talk) 18:39, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

She fits the Gold Mario/Silver Luigi system, and that comes off as very intentional to me; I can't imagine any other reason for her design and name (with it being paired with Metal Mario for the same reason Cat Peach is paired with Tanooki Mario as a "superficially similar but ultimately distinct powered-up form"). Every time a "normal gold" one is shown, the same also goes for Luigi. Anyways, regarding a gallery just for Fire Luigi, that still leaves the Toads, Princesses, and other "miscellaneous" characters on Fire Mario's gallery, which is rather asymmetrical. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:23, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

You were the one who suggested splitting Fire Luigi's gallery in your vote. My point is more that there's no reason that this proposal passing or failing should have anything to do with the galleries being split. And the Pink Gold Peach connection to Gold Mario sounds more like a headcanon than anything, especially considering the reason for her creation was discussed in a developer interview (as mentioned on her article) where they mentioned nothing of the sort. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 00:21, January 30, 2026 (UTC)

---

Create a {{parental advisory}} template

canceled by proposer
This proposal aims to create a {{parental advisory}} template. Rumor has it that specific articles and/or sections regard strong language, blood, sexual content, and strong violence, and those may be unsuitable for young readers. But luckily, I've made up a draft for the template that will inform young readers about the situation.

Take the List of references in film article for example. This article features sections for Super Mario references in film such as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Suicide Squad, and Zombieland: Double Tap, the foremost containing the term "Sex Bob-omb" and the latter two containing strong language. Once this proposal passes, the top section for the list of references in film will read as follows:

---

{{parental advisory}}
Due to the popularity of the [[Super Mario (franchise)|''Super Mario'' games]], they have been commonly referenced in pop culture. Below is an incomplete list of times Mario or anything relating to the series has been mentioned or seen in a movie.

This article contains material that may not be suitable for young readers.
Viewer discretion is advised.

Due to the popularity of the Super Mario games, they have been commonly referenced in pop culture. Below is an incomplete list of times Mario or anything relating to the series has been mentioned or seen in a movie.

---

There is also the Naming section for the Fronk article, which uses a vulgar slamg term. Once the proposal passes, the Naming section will read as follows:

---

==Naming==
{{parental advisory|section=yes}}
In his first appearance in ''[[WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!]]'', Fronk goes by the name of Shag in the English version, which is derived from his Japanese name Shaggy. Since ''[[WarioWare: Twisted!]]'', however, he has been known as Fronk in English, which is shared with [[Fronk (species)|the species]] from ''Mega Microgame$!'', because the word "shag" doubles as a vulgar slang term for sexual intercourse in British English.

Naming

This section contains material that may not be suitable for young readers.
Viewer discretion is advised.

In his first appearance in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!, Fronk goes by the name of Shag in the English version, which is derived from his Japanese name Shaggy. Since WarioWare: Twisted!, however, he has been known as Fronk in English, which is shared with the species from Mega Microgame$!, because the word "shag" doubles as a vulgar slang term for sexual intercourse in British English.

---

This section will inform young readers about this.

It is very important to tell that not all material from articles nor all of those from sections may be suitable for young readers. That way, Super Mario Wiki editors will be forced to learn about that whole "viewer discretion is advised" thing in the future.

Proposer: GuntherBayBeee (talk)
Deadline: February 17, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Cancelled on February 3, 2026, 20:30 UTC

Viewer support is advised

1. GuntherBayBeee (talk) Per proposal.

#Yoshi18 (talk) I'm totally into this idea. I got told that everyone reads at their own risks and we don't need this but still, trust me, we DO need this. I mean, just look at List of references in music. That page literally contains the N-word.

Viewer opposition is advised

1. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) This is an unnecessary template that makes the page look gaudy just because of its content (even if it's just a single, cut word like the whole "spastic" ordeal from Mario Party 8) rather than any sort of usable improvement or notices. The Super Mario Wiki is not a site for children, and a good amount of users regularly swear in their talk pages, and our communities have a good amount of older audience members who regularly talk about topics like this, whether it's on The Shroom, our forums, or our Discord. Plus, exactly where do we draw the line at being inappropriate? Saying a slur is one thing, saying the word "fuck" is another, saying "damn" is another thing, and saying the word "sex" is another thing. Are we going to add the tag to pages like Shitsumon Corner or Shitamachi Ninjō Gekijō because the words just so happen to contain the word "shit" in it? What about nudity? Where do we draw the line, since various manga series aimed at children does feature penises, a difference in culture? How much gore are we allowed to show before we have the template, some blood, a lot? We've also had massive discussions about something like this in the past, most notably on Talk:Bob Hoskins.
2. EvieMaybe (talk) Per Xiahou Ba. My main angle for opposition is that there is no good metric to determine what counts as "mature content". Our wiki's largest audience is from the United States, and that is a region that is famously overly squeamish and censorship-happy in areas such as violence, swearing, substance use, and body exposure. Our options are either:
   A: Bending our wiki to the whims and standards of the FCC;
   B: Constant, endless debates over whether some thing or another warrants or doesn't warrant marking as "mature";
   C: Simply not bothering, and letting users be responsible for the content they seek out and read.
   Out of these three, I know which I prefer.
3. Camwoodstock (talk) We're usually not this blunt, but: No. We've been over this before, as this isn't the first time something like this has been suggested, but a template like this is, at best, completely unnecessary, and at worst, comes off as senseless and almost insulting. By "controversies", per Xiahou Ba and Evie, to what end? Because if the result would be flagging Birdo and Vivian being trans as "sensitive content" for the "controversy" surrounding it, that is like, catastrophically bad... And is also the first entry on List of controversies, so, flag the page, and you flag that. Fundamentally, it is not our job to parent someone else's kids. Even ignoring our own gripes on the conceptual level, the proposal's suggestions leave a lot to be desired. With the stark red design (when we're actively in the process of removing it from Template:Lost) and how scattershot the list of pages it would go on is, it has the symptoms of a template that was proposed just for the sake of adding another template to the pool, rather than any particular interest in making a feature that makes sense to add to an encyclopedia like this.
4. Axii (talk) This template would most certainly be overused and only clutter the pages. No encyclopedia should ever need one of these.
5. Koopa con Carne (talk) Per all. Nothing shown on this wiki (even among the raunchier subjects) is a liability or otherwise something that particularly strikes me as youth-damaging. A child is not going to be scarred by a funny drawing of Mario's pecker, Wario being somewhat coprophilic, or the phrase "sex with a lobster". Beyond that, it's the adult's responsibility to keep their kid away from the Internet; the wiki has already taken all possible steps to reduce their accessibility, i.e. forbidding children under a certain age from editing the site
6. Nelsonic Shady (talk) There's a fair amount of pages that do feature some amount of questionable content, but, as has been said above, some of this just comes with the humor of the location it came from. Shitamachi Ninjō Gekijō features a fair amount of sex jokes, but those kind of jokes are more acceptable in Japan. Same for Ossan and his golf balls and Wario and his poop jokes. Ask Uncle Tusk mentions Tusk dumping bodies behind a McDonald's, a request for nudes of Dixie Kong, and Chunky Kong fan-worship, but that's British humor. Extreme British humor, but still British humor. Music references are extremely varied, thus cursing will likely occur in some of the songs. Bob Hoskins dropping an F-bomb is not inherently explicit, as he is not using the word in an explicit context. He's emphasizing how poorly the shooting of the Super Mario Bros. movie went. The issue that comes out of using the template, as stated above, is that it could either be used on only a few pages or be used on too many pages. For instance, Super Hornio Brothers is at the very bottom of the page it inhabits, so it is less likely to surprise anybody. This means that the template would likely not apply on this page, as there's not really any other explicit content. The only other explicit movie I can think of on that page is The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the reference listed in that movie is not explicit. Shitamachi and Tusk already convey the vulgarity of some of the content involved via prose, and the same can be done on other pages if absolutely needed, though most of the content on this wiki is not raunchy or explicit enough to warrant a warning. With the exception of slurs, curse words are still just words, and are usually not used on the wiki to shock or offend (which would make them explicit in the context they are being used). He's using the word as emphasis, not as a description of anything explicit - which is the main context in which that word counts as something explicit. Some of these things are also unlikely to be found by anyone too young to see them, as finding Shitamachi Ninjō Gekijō requires the user to type "Shit" into the search bar. Super Hornio Brothers, outside of reading through the page it inhabits and reaching that section, can only be accessed by searching for the film, which would require the user to know about it in the first place. And as said below, notice templates aren't meant to be permanent; what would happen if one of these articles became a Featured Article? In addition, mature content can be considered subjective; Deadpool or Shitamachi will offend some people and not others. In addition, if someone goes to one of these pages and sees the template, it does not appear to provide (as it is listed) a clear explanation of what the explicit content is. While it makes sense that this would be so in the event a younger person comes across one of these pages, mature content can be subjective and this can result in a reader steeling themselves for something that is relatively minor (i.e. some of the Shitamachi pages).
7. The Damn Master (talk) No offense, but I think this is a little dramatic. Per all.
8. Salmancer (talk) Problem 1: Almost no other page top templates are meant to be permanent. They're usually meant to be resolvable, even if the people who can resolve them aren't Wiki members. Template:New subject goes away when the subject is released, Template:Non-English title (and its various page name related friends across Category:Title notices) go away with sufficient research and/or Nintendo putting out new material. Template:Unreferenced and Template:Construction do go away when editors work to resolve problems with the article. The only exception to this is Template:Lost... which doesn't have unanimous support from wiki editors. I think we want to avoid having permanent block templates go across the tops of pages, and to make matters worse this uses the red from Template:Abandoned that we are about to remove from Template:Lost because the red is too harsh of a color for the purpose of being a notice emblazoned on mainspace pages. (Its actually kind of annoying as a section notice, where it will likely result in entire sections being marked for maybe a single sentence.) (In practice, many of the words this template is targeting are insults, which on mainspace should be being used as harmlessly as possible. Which further would make the presence of this template annoying) Problem 2: What... what are we to gain from doing this? Super Mario Wiki isn't for profit, so we don't actually care that much if children are running around pages or not. We don't need to "increase our audience size" or anything like that. Look, I get it, some things that the wiki writes down bug you personally. Some things that the wiki writes down bug me personally, outside of the morbid curiosity and/or terror of "Nintendo did that once!?" But you can do things to avoid those pages, be that making it a point to not visit the pages or blocking them from your browser. Problem 3: As pointed out by eviemaybe and Camwoodstock, the subjectivity involved in doling out this template is immense. The odds this template's usage blows up in everyone's faces as a full blown culture war are really high, and I'd rather avoid it. Problem 4: Riffing off of problem 3, this template is really handy for an unscrupulous editor to throw onto pages as an attack, both against the subjects of our articles and against other users. Also not great, we shouldn't make the lives of drive-by vandals any easier, especially when it also could contribute to a culture war. I think the best the wiki can do, if it even wants to do anything which this vote is demonstrating that it doesn't, is note the overall "this wiki contains some material from media that aren't appropriate for young children" on MarioWiki:About. (This is slightly lying by omission, but it would succeed in communicating to the most squeamish people that the wiki isn't about coddling.)
9. Fucking Yoshi18 (talk) Per all.
10. Scrooge200 (talk) I think a template like this would only bring more attention to the "inappropriate" content. A kid might not understand what's wrong with Necky's Nuts until they see the template. I also don't want pages to devolve into this, being an edit war over imitable behavior and morals. Hitting people with hammers in real life is bad, so we should warn Hammer Bro and Builder Mario. And characters like Bowser and Wario are bad role models for children, so they should be warned. It's for our own good.
11. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - Rather than writing a whole frog-ham essay like above, how about just.... 'no.'
12. PopitTart (talk) I am not interested in the complete hellstorm that would occur when some IP puts such a template on Vivian's page. Per all.
13. Mario (talk) If mama and papa don't wanna have their kids browsee this wiki about the great Super Mario, it's-a their responsibility, not Mario's. Mama mia.

Comments advisory

I named the proposal's the oppose section "Viewer opposition is advised" because the word "opposition" is related to "oppose" (to disagree) and "opposer" (someone who opposes). Am I right? GuntherBayBeee 15:45, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

...you really didn't have to explain it. I think everyone here understands that "opposition" is not only related to "oppose", but quite literally means the same thing as "oppose" (but as a noun rather than a verb). rend (talk) (edits) 16:19, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

I have mentioned twice before that I think a notice template warning its readers for mature/explicit, and/or sensitive material, so I do think it's a neat template proposal (for once); however, I personally think "parental advisory" is much too long of a template name. Calling it merely "mature" instead is much more concise, as it's shorter and gets the point across too. rend (talk) (edits) 16:19, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

For clarification's sake, the Haunter mentioned in Camwoodstock's vote has a viewer discretion template over it committing suicide, not for it draining souls. (bulbapedia:Black Fog) Shedinja do not commit suicide, and therefore do not merit the template. Salmancer (talk) 18:24, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

I understand people seem to feel rather strongly about this topic, but I urge some of you voters to consider moving at least some of your reasoning into the comments section because it is making the vote section seem numerous times larger than it actually is. There are currently 9 votes but almost 50 lines... — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 18:51, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

...Y'know, fair. We felt kind of bad inserting a whole line break for the logistics side of things. ;P ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 18:57, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

Per Sophie's request, moving a lot of our clarification over here:

Bulbapedia has one of these, and people that know us know how much we vehemently dislike it and its increasingly arbitrary and scattershot uses. (They give an advisory for a page about weapons in the Pokemon franchise, but not the episode of the anime that was banned because it had guns. One Haunter from a manga that's eaten souls has the disclaimer, Shedinja does not. They put a disclaimer on the page for the Nugget item because it mentions a balls joke.)

Even ignoring our own gripes on the conceptual level, the proposal's suggestions leave a lot to be desired. For one, the design, once again, recycles the stark red of Template:Abandoned, which, when we just had (and technically still have) a proposal about, among other things, removing that same color from Template:Lost for being too intense of a color relative to the subject matter, it feels very weird to suddenly be like "Actually, this one does deserve the harsh colors!" ...and still not give it to Template:Damage, the template about things that can cause actual, tangible harm (even if just to your copy of a video game.) Furthermore, the proposal's list of what pages would get it leave a lot to be desired. Even if we were to add this, why do we need to warn people about Fronk being named "shag", but Castle Bleck Interior, which has a note about how Nintendo changed the exact same word, is unquestioned? "Sex Bob-omb" in the Scott Pilgrim movie is too much, but bludgeoning your attempted murderer with a bloody copy of Mario's Cement FactoryMedia:AnthologyOfTheKiller MariosCementFactoryReference.png isn't even in the conversation?

~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 18:57, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

---

Replace profiles with infoboxes for enemies and bosses from the Paper Mario series

Replace profiles with infoboxes 6-0
This is something that has been bothering me for a long time and is about some enemies and bosses pages from the Paper Mario series. My problem lies in the inconsistency in which these pages are presented and some issues that they bring. A short example of my problem: why do Unicycle Shy Guys use an infobox for their page, but Animal Trainer Shy Guy doesn't use one? Why is Tape (boss) the only member of the Legion of Stationery that uses an infobox? These are some examples of this inconsistency that I have been noticing. But that is not all; the use of these enemy profiles does not provide good navigation. Look at the Hyper Bald Cleft page; it uses an infobox, and with that, I know in which games it appears, what enemies this one is a variant of, their notable members, and if it is a character or just common enemies. With all that info, I can navigate more easily through the pages, and I can understand the overall information better. But in the other case, with the Wild Dino Rhino page, I can't do any of that. And that doesn't make any sense, why use infoboxes on some pages and not on others? And if that were not enough, on mobile, the profile instead of an infobox doesn't look good and is too looooooong. I just want consistency between all these pages, and for that, I propose replacing all the pages of enemies and bosses that use profiles with infoboxes. With that, we are going to have consistency, better navigation, and a better mobile experience. So, just to understand the change that will be made, enemies and bosses that used profiles instead of an infobox will now use an infobox, and the profiles will be moved to Profiles and Statistics.

Proposer: Sorbetti (talk)
Deadline: February 3, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support

1. Sorbetti (talk) Per proposal.
2. Hewer (talk) Sure.
3. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - That's mainly a relic of when vertical statboxes tended to appear in the middle of prose and when single-game RPG enemies were more common due to remakes of them not being a thing yet. There was also a belief that the statboxes were equivalent to infoboxes, when really, they're not — for example, a good amount of SMRPG ones used artwork rather than sprites despite the visual clash that caused.
4. Jdtendo (talk) Per proposal.
5. Arend (talk) As Doc said, the vertical infobox is an artifact from the old wiki days, especially regarding the single-game enemies bit. Nowadays, though, they're more of a hindrance to make if anything - I know I struggled a little when converting a horizontal box to a vertical one as I was making {{SMRPG NS enemy}} out of necessity (we still need an equivalent for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope in the same style btw): and it's a completely pointless addition anyway since the Switch version of Super Mario RPG doesn't introduce any brand new enemies; it's only been included because all the other RPG enemy statboxes we got had a vertical version, too!
6. Camwoodstock (talk) Per Doc Von and Arend, this is a vestige of a long-gone era where vertical statboxes were far more frequently used in lieu of infoboxes.

Comments

I notice RPG items have a similar issue as well. I'd rather have all infoboxes two-way whenever possible. LinkTheLefty (talk) 13:29, January 22, 2026 (UTC)

@LinkTheLefty What about changing the scope of this proposal to be general? I had initially focused solely on Paper Mario because I thought a general approach would make it harder to discuss, but since I see no one is truly opposed to changing this, and most people find the use of profiles instead of infoboxes outdated, I can still change this proposal to a general scope according to Rule 20. If I do, I will obviously notify those who have already voted about the change. What do you think? Sorbetti (talk) 01:06, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

Honestly I dunno why we even have that type of infobox at this point, it covers multiple very specific games yet has nothing but sprites and in-game descriptions. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:06, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

We could move those descriptions to a dedicated Profiles section for each item instead; would also mean we get to cover the item description for Max Mushroom in SMRPG (which the infobox doesn't cover at all), as well as descriptions in other languages. I was thinking that we could maybe convert it into a vertical infobox for the Profiles section like with the enemy infoboxes, but the problem is that the infobox only covers images and item descriptions (which typically already covers its effects), not any other substantial information. rend (talk) (edits) 20:56, January 23, 2026 (UTC)

---

Add "Interestingly," "Unusually," and other synonyms therein to "Frequently misused terms"

Add said synonyms to Frequently misused terms 11-0
Lately, we've noticed that multiple different editors (usually anons) love to, for one reason or another, start various sentences, usually notes or other bullet points, with interjections such as "Interestingly," or "Unusually,". Now, this isn't a problem exclusive to random drive-by anon edits, by any stretch. You can search for yourself, and find that many pages use "interestingly" in their text before describing something, like (at time of writing) Star Point, Underwater Theme (New Super Mario Bros. Wii), Loading zone, Dr. Eggman, Petey Piranha... Heck, we'll admit it, we're not exempt from this. Likewise with "Unusually," there's Pharaoh Guy, Frustration, Louvre, or World 5-1 (Super Mario Bros. 3)... And, of course, you can search for more examples yourself.

EDIT PER COMMENTS: "Ironically," also has many of the same pitfalls of misuse, though in that word's case, so long as the point is about an actual use of irony as a literary device, it can be exempted. We would like to include this in the point added to the Frequently misused terms list.

But... In general, if it shouldn't fly for anons, we shouldn't be letting it fly in general. This sort of subjective writing is generally frowned upon as it is, yet these interjections have stuck around. What is interesting or unusual to a reader is, inherently, subjective. For every reader who is endlessly fascinated with weird things in the corners of the Super Mario franchise, there's someone who's seen it all and doesn't really care about how "interesting" something is over something else, or doesn't find something "unusual" as they feel they've seen weirder. It's the same sort of bug-bear that some people on the Discord have brought up with "for unknown reasons", which, honestly, that one could have its own proposal down the road.

Plenty of these points could be simply rewritten to not have the leading "Interestingly," or "Unusually," though, in cases such as Nastasia's article lead, a bit of rephrasing might be required; for instance, "Unusually for such a high-ranking villain, and unlike the rest of Count Bleck's minions, she is never fought directly[...]" into "Unlike the rest of Count Bleck's minions, and despite being one of his high-ranking minion, Nastasia is never fought directly[...]"

Proposer: Camwoodstock (talk)
Deadline: February 11, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on February 4, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Add Interestingly/Unusually/etc. to Misued Terms, and try to avoid it (How standard.)

1. Camwoodstock (talk) Amazingly, per our own proposal.
2. Yoshi18 (talk) Ironically, er proposal.
3. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal, if you could believe it
4. Salmancer (talk) Oddly, I don't have anything else to add here. Per proposal.
5. LadySophie17 (talk) Per proposal.
6. Maw-Ray Master (talk) Per proposal.
7. Scrooge200 (talk) Interestingly, this tends to be FANDOM slang, alongside "innuendo", "irony", and worst of all "coincidentally". Ironically, this should not be allowed on the wiki and should be phased out wherever it appears.
8. Mario (talk) "Interestingly" should be avoided. In most cases it's a case of telling rather than showing. If you think some fact is interesting to the reader, then let the fact speak for itself, don't preface it with how "interesting" it is. This is also the same for cases like "it is interesting to note". "It should be noted" and variants also fall into similar problems. While I do support the proposal to discourage the phrase whenever I can, I believe misused terms might not be the spot for it and instead should be a subsection of good writing that follow very general rules of writing.
9. Mushroom Head (talk) Per proposal.
10. Dominoes (talk) Per all... uh... supercalifragilisticexpialidociously?
11. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) Nastily, I would write to just avoid starting sentences with adverbs to begin with. "Humorously" is also another one.

Comments (Flabberghastingly...)

Hey @Camwoodstock, I have a question: What about the word "ironically"? (I like using that) Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 23:41, January 28, 2026 (UTC)

Irony is an actual literary device, though it definitely gets misused in the same ways as "Interestingly," or "Unusually,". It should also be included, with the caveat that "Ironically," is permissible so long as the situation describes is an actual use of irony. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 23:50, January 28, 2026 (UTC)

I'd say "for unknown reasons" is fine when describing technical oddities that have no clear explanation or changes between pre-release aspects and finalized aspects (including things like sudden delays in release schedules) that also seem to serve no transparent purpose. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:59, January 28, 2026 (UTC)

@Doc von Schmeltwick, I definitely agree with your statement. We can't explain every single development change (I mean we can barely explain a developmet change). Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 00:04, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

I fail to see the value. If there was a known or imply-able reason, we'd at minimum have a clause describing that reason. If there's nothing on the wiki describing a reason, then "the reason is not known or imply-able" is implied. Therefore, "for unknown reasons" isn't doing anything that leaving the string of text out wouldn't do. Its a waste of space. "For unknown reasons" is the packing peanuts of wiki text, borne through overthinking and having zero value as a phrase. Salmancer (talk) 13:17, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

I think any change (or any aspect at all) in a game exists for a reason and by default, we don't know that reason. Why should certain changes have their "unknown" motives highlighted but not others? Nintendo changed the green Pokey in Super Mario Galaxy "for unknown reasons". Nintendo included a Red Boo model in Mario Party 9 "for unknown reasons". There are two rows of blocks in this wall in New Super Mario Bros. 2 "for unknown reasons". Etc, etc, etc. Everything we describe is "for unknown reasons" until a reason is added next to it. If a glitch is so obscure and complex that it's unreasonably difficult to find its cause, then maybe the use of "for unknown reasons" could be warranted to emphasize the unclear origin, but even then it is completely unnecessary for the understanding of the information. We don't know why Wario sometimes uses the incorrect audio in Mario Power Tennis, but the sentence is perfectly fine without "for unknown reasons" added to it. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 13:27, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

@LadySophie17 I agree that it certainly can be bit overused, and your argument has convinced me that it probably should be avoided for pre-release and unused content for the most part, and using it for all but the most truly inexplicable level design choices (e.g. that random Dry Bones that's loaded as part of Starshine Beach Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2, but is impossible to see during normal gameplay and immediately dies upon being loaded) definitely seems like overkill. But I can see it perhaps being warranted for something like that as well as the types of glitches you mentioned, for instance, even if it's evidently not strictly necessary. I guess I'm just a bit hesitant about the phrase potentially being barred entirely, as I feel like it still might have its place in certain contexts. PaperSplash (talk) 22:29, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

@Mario - Would it be acceptable to create a general section for avoiding subjective writing (which, surprisingly, doesn't exist yet in the page about Good Writing yet!) and put the mention of avoiding "Interestingly,/Unusually," there, and just leave "Ironically," in the frequently misused terms? Or should we still bundle the trio together as misused terms, and just write a "no subjective writing" section that's independent of this proposal at a later time? (Mostly asking as this thought came into our heads... and just narrowly missed the window to edit the proposal outright to account for this, whoops. ^^;) ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 21:46, February 1, 2026 (UTC)

I'm fine with "interestingly" being culled since it's inherently subjective, but I'm not sure if I'd say the same for "unusually" in all contexts. The Nastasia article lead @Camwoodstock used as an example seems fairly objective, at least, and I wouldn't really consider it to be a particularly flagrant misuse of the term even if the proposed rephrasing might work a bit better. PaperSplash (talk) 22:29, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

We mean... We don't find it unusual that Nastasia isn't fought in the game's story. Games have villains that are a part of a team, yet you don't fight one member, all the time. It's only "unusual" if you are already expecting to fight every member of Count Bleck's team for whatever reason. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 22:46, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

It's not about being subjective or not that I take issue with, it's that the word choices don't add to the prose. I think you can use subjective terms to describe something, such as describing an odd behavior as "unusually". I didn't read this proposal as a way to eliminate descriptive adverbs, just more that "interestingly" and other adverbs that unnecessarily tries to highlight/emphasize text are almost never justified, like how "all of a suddenly" and "suddenly" aren't words you want to use when you write narrative. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 01:23, February 4, 2026 (UTC)

"Suddenly" could have some merit, since it's describing something actually objective rather than subjective, that being something happening at a fast speed. (Though, admittedly, we'd generally use "Quickly" or even "Abruptly" for those purposes...) This is in contrast to words like "Unusually" or "Interestingly" or "Weirdly", which are are strictly subjective, hinging on audience reaction rather than something that's a part of a sequence of events. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 02:09, February 4, 2026 (UTC)

@Mario, I'll admit: I've always been a bit skeptical about the idea of putting blanket rules on what constitutes "good writing" to begin with, use of "suddenly" in narrative prose included. I understand that as a professionally written encyclopedia, though, we have to have some standards and draw some proverbial lines in the sand. @Camwoodstock, I'm still not entirely convinced the word "unusually" is strictly subjective, though I suppose that the fact that I disagree with you regarding the Nastasia example (I do think it is fairly unusual for combat-heavy games to have villains that go completely unfought) proves that it is indeed subjective in that particular case. PaperSplash (talk) 04:42, February 4, 2026 (UTC)

---

Redesign the Lost template

This is a sort of quasi-sequel to a proposal we originally made for the template itself, but honestly, we have a very different vision in mind for how to roll things out, and we think it'd have direct enough consequences for the wiki as a whole that we feel like it's fair to propose it here this time.

To summarize, for the longest time, we've found the general form factor of the Template:Lost template questionable. It's currently positioned as this weird half-maintenance template, and it is clearly not fit for that. Our problems boil down to two things:

• The "documented" parameter, in general, does more harm than good. Given the nature of Lost Media, what makes a piece of media's coverage "adequate" is extremely varied, and in many cases, can come down to factors outside of one's control. When we first proposed this, and even now, Crazy Junior is presently marked as being Lost Media thanks to the absence of a ROM resurfacing in the modern day... Which, despite being wholly out of our control, still gets the section marked as having "inadequate coverage". Things are complicated by the existence of a maintenance category for these pages with "inadequate coverage", many of which are similarly out of control for editors, despite being listed alongside other, actual maintenance categories (yet, interestingly, not on the front page's to-do bar.)
  Considering many of these pages could only be improved by factors outside of our own control, we feel like it'd be far more reasonable to remove the parameter entirely. Having a "maintenance" category that can only be improved by factors outside of our own control isn't exactly the healthiest thing, and considering it's the only maintenance category that is seemingly absent from the to-do bar on the front page, a fact nobody seems to have remarked upon by now, we imagine most people would agree. When information actually does survive, but is not present on the page (for instance, Peach-hime no Princess Tanken Manga presently has a stub template on it due to the lack of information of what has properly surfaced from it, and is generally fairly short and requires expansion), that should simply be conveyed with a Template:Stub or Template:Rewrite--it shouldn't fall onto the template explaining the subject is lost media to convey the same thing, especially when many of these pages, such as Waluigi's Foot Fault, are about as complete as they'll ever be until the media in question is found.
• More subjectively, though, we just don't really like the visuals of it. It's in this strange in-between of a notice and a maintenance template, and the bright red in specific sticks out rather plainly. It gives a rather strange impression that the media in question being lost is far more urgent than it's likely meant to be, especially when Template:Damage, a template expressly meant to warn against save corruption or unwinnable scenarios, something that could cause harm to someone playing the game (however minor it may be) has a comparatively more neutral indigo.

Our solution? Well, for one, convert this from a maintenance template, into just a more standard notice, akin to what Template:Damage or Template:Non-English title are. The template should only really be putting the dedicated lost media or articles with lost media sections categories onto pages, nothing about how "inadequate" that coverage is or putting anything maintenance-related in there in the first place.

...Now, we don't know exactly how to write template script like this, so in lieu of that, we'll just showcase our best attempt to replicate the design we have in mind, and some details about how it should function.

Default

This article is about a work that used to be available to the public, but is now partially or entirely inaccessible.
Only remove this notice if the complete work is recovered and made available publicly.

Section

This section is about a work that used to be available to the public, but is now partially or entirely inaccessible.
Only remove this notice if the complete work is recovered and made available publicly.

With a reason

This article is about a work that used to be available to the public, but is now partially or entirely inaccessible.
Details: (reason text goes here)
Only remove this notice if the complete work is recovered and made available publicly.

This article is about a work that used to be available to the public, but is now partially or entirely inaccessible.
Details: No ROM has resurfaced, the company went under before it released, the developer was cursed by a warlock, we ate the paper the cover art was on, and really, we're just trying to demonstrate how text wrapping works on this thing.
Only remove this notice if the complete work is recovered and made available publicly.

As for why we set it up like this:

• Part of the reason we dislike the aesthetics so much are the color, and the un-capped width. The bright red is recycled from Template:Abandoned, meant for deprecated Wiki features, and on some pages where the explanation is a bit more involved, such as Donkey Kong 3: Dai Gyakushū or the recently-featured Super Mario Bros. Special, it can be this bright red banner going across the entire screen, and in pages where there is a foreign language notice, it also further calls attention by leaving a noticable vertical gap between the wide-as-heck Lost notice and the subject's infobox. We gave it a softer, more sepia-esque orange (or Donkey Kong-ish brown on Dark Mode), and hard-limited the width to 700 pixels, though realistically it should be fine up to 770 pixels on a 1280 pixel-wide display.
• We also gave the details their own line, just to more cleanly divide the template up and help it in terms of not being too wide. Even still, text wrapping should function as one would expect it to.
• While we didn't include the "documented" parameter in this sample, it would be trivial to re-insert it if people decide that should stay around--just add a line break, small text, and the thing to handle displaying the "the coverage is accurate/inaccurate", next to the "only remove this notice if the complete work is recovered and made public" notice.

And, lastly, we know someone will ask about which of the pages currently flagged with inadequate lost media documentation could have their "undocumented" status be swapped out for other maintenance tags. While we're by no means experts on all 200+ of the pages in there (seriously, this is a large category), so this isn't comprehensive, these are the ones that we were able to immediately detect. (If one isn't listed, assume it wouldn't get an extra maintenance tag, or it might've been slapped with one after we compiled all this...)

• In general, many pages for VHS and DVD releases of the DiC cartoons are flagged as inadequate for lacking images of their covers, despite having known episodes listed. These should be swapped out for Template:Image.
• Bug Race, Maestro Mario, Mario's Matching Madness are technically found, but rendered inoperable for one reason or another, suggesting the game would need to be datamined. This is kind of a weird edge-case, as one could argue they shouldn't even have the lost template, but we'd suggest a stub template if nothing else.
• Club Nintendo (French magazine), Club Nintendo (Italian magazine), Dr. Mario-kun, Famicom How-To Manga, Famicom Manga: Super Mario-kun, Ganbare Super Mario, Gimon? Kaiketsu! Mizumario, Mario & Donkey Daibōken, Miracle Peach, Nintendo-Magasinet, Oshiete! Kinopio, Otenba Peach-hime, Super Mario Wakuwaku Game Land, Super Mario-kun (Gakushū Yōchien), Super Mario-kun (Pikkapika Comics), Super Mario-kun (Shōgaku Ninensei), Super Mario-kun 2, Tobidase! Mario, are missing variable quantities of scans for relevant information, and should be given Template:Image. For a few of these, providing these scans would actually result in the media in question no longer being lost, and we're actually unable to verify off-the-cuff if some of these even qualify as Lost Media, under our rules for that.
• Donkey Kong 3: Dai Gyakushū needs a few more images of what has resurfaced of the PC-6601 version.
• Fruit by the Foot decoder machine could, in theory, have a webpage script left-over for the decoder machine's functionality, and if this can be proven (most likely by cracking into it with Inspect Element) it would warrant a stub template. However, if it can be proven that that wasn't archived, it would be about as complete as can be short of external influence, and can go without.
• In addition to needing scans, Gimon? Kaiketsu! Mizumario is a stub for what has been found.
• Workshop (Mario vs. Donkey Kong series) has a section with inadequate coverage! ...It's about something roughly equvialent to the contests held for WarioWare: D.I.Y., and, like the page for those, it should probably just get a stub.

Proposer: Camwoodstock (talk)

Do we use the new design?

Use the new design 9-0
Deadline: February 6, 2026, 23:59 GMT Closed early on January 30, 2026, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Camwoodstock (talk) Well, we made it, so we'd hope we'd like to.
2. Koopa con Carne (talk) Sure, why not? Per proposer.
3. Maw-Ray Master (talk) Per all.
4. Altendo (Lost) This vote is about a reason that used to be available to the public, but is now partially or entirely inaccessible... nah, just kidding. Per proposal.
5. {{The Dab Master|talk=y}} Per proposal.
6. SuperLostMedia18 (talk) The only thing I'm against is the color change, otherwise I don't mind the redesign.
7. Rykitu (lost edits from slightly known Super Mario Wiki editor: existence unconfirmed) (talk) Per all.
8. Lost Yoshi18 (talk) This is very well made, Cam! I don't see why not to use it.
9. Mushroom Head (talk) Per all.

Oppose

Do we deprecate the "documented" parameter?

Do not deprecate the "documented" parameter 3-6
Deadline: February 6, 2026, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Camwoodstock (talk) Per proposal. It's a little silly to have a maintenance category that can literally only be resolved by way of wholly external influence.
2. Altendo (Details) No reason has resurfaced, my reasoning went under before I could say it, because I was cursed into voting, I ate the internet router, and really, I'm just trying to get my two words out: per all.
3. Mario4Ever (talk) Per proposal.

#Maw-Ray Master (talk) Per proposer. The "documented" parameter can be replaced by a specific maintenance template(s), as the parameter itself is rather vague; what makes an article on lost media "adequately documented" anyway?

Oppose

1. Koopa con Carne (talk) When presented with lost or inaccessible media, readers should have the assurance that an article can or cannot act as a meaningful substitute for directly experiencing the work. This is most common with web games that were documented before they were preserved, like those at Nintendo Kids Club. The proposal additionally characterizes the linked category as a "maintenance" category, which is not really what it's designed to be. Well, at least, I didn't design it with that role in mind. However, somewhere along the way, it was turned into a meta category, which guest users cannot normally see in articles, so I do see why it's come to be viewed as maintenance-related. Honestly, I'd rather we repurposed the category to instead cover adequately-covered media so it loses that perception altogether.
2. SuperLostMedia18 (talk) Per Koopa con Carne.
3. Hewer (talk) Per Koopa con Carne, the information presented in this parameter is pretty important to not give the misleading impression that media being lost necessarily means we know very little about it. The solution to it being a maintenance category is to make it not be a maintenance category, not to delete the whole thing.
4. The 'Shroom (lost episodes) (DO NOT RESEARCH) (talk) Per all.
5. Maw-Ray Master (talk) (Lost edits of Super Mario Wiki editor; 2023-present) I view the "Articles with inadequate lost media documentation" category rather frequently, and it would be better to modify the Lost template so as not to suggest that an article on lost media is missing information rather that deleting the parameter entirely, so I can figure out which lost media articles I should attempt to do more research on.
6. Lost Yoshi18 (talk) Per all.

Comments (SCREAMING LUIGI IMAGE WITH RED EYES)

@Koopa con Carne, The category "Articles with inadequate lost media documentation" is expressly listed in the Maintenance category, and has been listed as such since Porplemontage's implementation of it. If it's meant to be designed for something else, it's... Doing a horrible job at being anything else in its current state, honestly. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 16:59, January 24, 2026 (UTC)

Why is deleting it the only solution? Just...remove it from the maintenance category. Problem solved. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 23:48, January 24, 2026 (UTC)

Well, the only other category on it is Meta categories... which is just an amalgamation of the Maintenance Category and the Administration Category (which, incidentally, has the Maintenance category as a subcategory.) It's roughly the same problem, just in a different spot. There'd have to be a fundamental shift in how the "inadequate" parameter is handled and what it actually means for it to not be just a maintenance category. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 00:59, January 25, 2026 (UTC)

Admittedly I was under the assumption that the "more standard notice" templates you mentioned in the proposal, such as Template:Non-English title (similar to this where the "problem" they denote isn't something we can really "fix" ourselves), were covered by some other non-maintenance category. But after checking I found that they go under this category, which...is also included in the maintenance category. Anyway, I still don't think a minor shortcoming with the wiki's categories is grounds to throw out this information altogether rather than actually trying to solve the issue. Even just leaving it in the meta categories list is better than deleting. I don't understand why solving this issue would need any "fundamental shift". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 03:40, January 25, 2026 (UTC)

We guess that's fair enough. We still don't see the need to work the "inadequate coverage" point into the Lost Media template when another maintenance template would be sufficient, personally, but we'll at least concede the category thing is a weak point. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 04:18, January 25, 2026 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that the degree of documentation these pages receive was not conceived of in terms of "adequacy" from the get-go. When I created the Lost template, the "documented" parameter revolved entirely around the thoroughness of the documentation, which does not put as much onus on editors as the other terminology. If you look at the code of that initial revision, the text displayed for leaving the parameter empty was more objective and didn't conjure an idea of adequacy ("It is advised to keep the subject's documentation up to date with available information.") "Inadequate" may give the impression that whoever covered said media was indifferent. "Unthorough" means that, well, the documentation isn't thorough, period. Doesn't necessarily imply the wiki responsible for the lack of content. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:39, January 26, 2026 (UTC)

I think text for the throughness of the documentation should say something like "Our information on this subject is therefore limited." That way, the impression would be that the information is limited because the media is lost, and not because the article is actually missing information. This would also involve a renaming of "Articles with inadequate lost media documentation" to "Articles with limited lost media documentation" to be more fitting with the modified description. As for lost media articles that are actually missing information, they can be tagged with the Stub template. Maw-Ray Master (talk) 09:42, January 31, 2026 (UTC)

I like this idea. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 14:55, February 1, 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, a conversion to just "Limited", putting the onus on "there's literally only so much we can do here" rather than "it's not good enough." would fix basically all of our problems. If the parameter sticks around (and it's looking like it will), we'd be happy to support a proposal to convert the "inadequate" parameter to a "limited" one. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 18:53, February 3, 2026 (UTC)

I just realized... there are a lot of other notice templates that also have the "Reason:"/"Specifics:" in the same line as the description. Should these be wrapped as well? The Dab Master 15:03, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

At least with more overt maintenance templates, like stubs or whatnot, having the uncapped width makes more sense, especially as maintenance templates don't appear for users that are logged out, and the colors are more neutral. In contrast, having a bright red banner going across the page for a casual browser, just to inform them that... The SPC-1500 has only 4 pieces of software that've resurfaced in the modern day, and the version of Super Mario Bros. Special for it is not one of them, is far more incomprehensible, especially since similar templates, like the ones for conjectural names or derived names, which are also visible to users that aren't logged in, are also width-capped. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 20:15, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

---

Use the world flag if a game/console releases nearly everywhere on the same day

Make all release dates use individual flags 1-1-9-4
After my previous proposals on this topic failed, I'm still wondering. Why did it fail again? There are a couple game pages that use the world flag right now, yet my proposal about them failed but the world flag was still kept in these pages. Is there something I'm not getting here or? Since this just creates major inconsistencies. Examples of pages still using the world flag are:

• Donkey Kong Bananza
• Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
• Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2
  • Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Switch)
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo Switch)
• Luigi's Mansion 2 HD
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch)
• Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition
• Dr. Mario World
• Mario Tennis Fever
• Hello, Mario! (game)
• Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park

Now I divide them into two groups because 2 out of the 12 games listed here do it in a different way compared to the others do it in a different way:

• Donkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Switch), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo Switch), Dr. Mario World, Mario Tennis Fever, Hello, Mario! and Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabell Park all just simply use the world flag and in Donkey Kong Bananza's case, it even uses the world flag despite the game releasing in another country at a later date (a reason why my previous proposal failed but it was kept there).
• Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch) and Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition use the world flag but have an "Hide"/"Expand" button that shows all the separate flags.

I know Mario Tennis Fever and Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabell Park may not count (since they're not released yet), but my point still stands. Adding the world flag would only be better for game/console articles since games/consoles are now more frequently released (nearly) everywhere on the same date.

Now, I have 3 options to offer:

Use the World flag and remove all other flags

This is the way how 10 of the 12 games I sorted do it (see above).

Use the World flag and hide the other flags under a "Hide"/"Expand" button

This is the way how 2 of the 12 games I sorted do it (see above).

Use the separate flags for all articles

Note that if this option, then that would mean more sourcing.

Status Quo

Leave as-is.

Proposer: Yoshi18 (talk)
Deadline: February 8, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support: Use the World flag and remove all separate flags

1. Yoshi18 (talk) Per proposal.

Support: Use the World flag and hide the separate flags under a "Hide"/"Expand" button

1. Yoshi18 (talk) Secondary choice.

Oppose: Use the separate flags for all articles

1. Ahemtoday (talk) Fundamentally, I think we need to have full lists of the regions a game was released in. And if we have that, the world flag isn't accomplishing anything at all.
2. Altendo (talk) THIS was what I was looking for. Anyways, per everything I said on the previous proposal (especially to adhere to this proposal).
3. Hewer (talk) Per Ahemtoday.
4. EvieMaybe (talk) per Ahemtoday
5. Shadow2 (talk) My reason for opposing is unchanged from previously. Unless the game was released in North Korea, it can't accurately be represented by the world flag.
6. Camwoodstock (talk) Secondary option. While we do think there are some edge-cases where a world flag makes sense (mostly for games that were distributed digitally, and thus, were uploaded all at the same time), this'd honestly be closer to what we want than what we currently have.
7. Wandering Poplin (talk) Secondary. But otherwise, per all.
8. Mushroom Head (talk) Using the UN flag entails it was released in the ENTIRE world (or rather, the 193 members of the UN), which is not true.
9. Maw-Ray Master (talk) Per all.

Status quo: Leave as-is

1. Camwoodstock (talk) As Altendo pointed out in his original vote in the previous proposal about this, using the World flag has a pretty obvious disadvantage of not actually saying what specific regions got the game; there still doesn't seem to be anything to handle the fact that Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope has released in fewer places than Super Mario Party Jamboree. The complete lack of any real attempt to remedy this already doesn't appeal to us much, but the list of games that use the World flag anyways all have pretty clear caveats. Some of them, like Mario Tennis Fever, literally have not released yet and only have one announced release date; that's why it gets the world flag for right now. Others, like Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, are tied with a console's global launch (and, to be honest, we think its usage of it is an oversight; the Nintendo Switch 2, as you might expect, has different release dates for different regions, and the Welcome Tour demo would have one in turn...) Others still, like Dr. Mario World, were digital only, and thusly, released at the exact same time, everywhere, due to their unique distribution method. These are all pretty clear exceptions, not particularly "inconsistencies"; the closest we can think of is the aforementioned errata with the Welcome Tour, but that's not a problem with the use of the world flag, that's just the date being mis-attributed... because it attempted to use the World Flag in lieu of more individualized dates, and fixing that probably shouldn't fall onto a proposal. We also, additionally, don't particularly like the idea of stowing away more specific dates under a collapsible, but that's more personal preference, admittedly. With the lack of anything to address our problems with the original proposal, we can't exactly support any of other options here.
2. Altendo (talk) Per Camwoodstock (and by extension, myself).
3. Ahemtoday (talk) Second option, per all — while I would prefer consistency, I do acknowledge how these exceptions more accurately reflect these situation. That said, I would like them more codified...
4. Wandering Poplin (talk) Per all.

Comments of the World

@Camwoodstock @Altendo, look, Donkey Kong Bananza literally has it the way it would be for every page. The game lists the world flag yet it also lists another flag because the game released. If we keep it like this it's just nothing else but inconsistent. We should either just use the world flag or separate flags but we can't leave it like this. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 07:15, January 26, 2026 (UTC)

Also, @Camwoodstock, what about Donkey Kong Bananza and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch) (mainly Bananza)? Bananza literally uses the world flag and under that another flag (meaning the game didn't release globally on the same date, meaning that using the world flag there makes no sense but we still continued to use it for 4 months without anyone really noticing or speaking up about it). Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 15:38, January 29, 2026 (UTC)

---

Have game navboxes and categories cover all music appearances rather than just debuts

passed 7-0
Currently, theme articles only have the navbox and category of their debut game (and also of any Donkey Konga games they're in).

This is not consistent with how we handle these things in any other type of article: characters, enemies, locations, and items all have categories and navboxes for all but the most minor appearances. This makes the bottom of the article much less useful for navigation on theme articles than most others, as it doesn't cover the full history of its usage.

If this proposal passes, navboxes and categories will include all themes that appear in a game rather than just ones debuting in it, and theme articles will have the navboxes of each game they appear in, bringing them in line with how every other article is handled. Arrangements with their own article (like Ground BGM (Super Mario Bros.) to Here We Go!) and minor quotes that aren't full appearances (like Underground BGM (Super Mario Bros.) in the ending of Luigi's Mansion) won't be included in this, in keeping with how the wiki handles similar situations on other articles.

Proposer: Ahemtoday (talk)
Deadline: February 20, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support (music navboxes and categories)

1. Ahemtoday (talk) Per proposal.
2. Yoshi18 (talk) I don't see anything wrong with this. Per proposal.
3. Hewer (talk) No reason these shouldn't cover all the music in the game. It feels pretty arbitrary to exclude music just because it happened to be in a different game first.
4. Scrooge200 (talk) Cutting songs because they happen to be rearrangements doesn't make sense, as they are still in the game. Should we remove Goomba from the navbox of every game that isn't Super Mario Bros.? Someone looking at the {{PMCS}} music list may wonder where "Your Answers, Please!" is... because it was removed for being an arrangement of "Slot Game BGM / Memory Game BGM", a completely different title.
5. Camwoodstock (talk) All the music in the game should, in fact, include all the music in the game. This is also kind of ignoring the fact that, if you remove non-unique tracks, for some games, you kind of remove... All music? Super Mario Bros. Special (the game, not the album) is a very straightforward example that immediately comes to mind for this, as all of its songs are direct lo-fi renditions of music from the original Super Mario Bros. While we do think that there could maybe be an edge case of its own for this since it's so overt in its music re-use (maybe getting a shared navbox with the original game and Lost Levels?), outright implying the game has no music at all in the navigation tools is at best extremely silly, and at worst actively misleading.
6. Super Altendo Kart Medley (Super Altendo Fighters Ultimate Soundtrack Edition) Come to think of it, the title of the song itself can be hidden as the name of the arrangement as it appears in-game in the navboxes, meaning that it wouldn't be misleading, and if we cannot do the same for categories, it is still fine to add them as is.
7. The Dab Master BGM (Electro Ver.) Per all

Oppose (music navboxes and categories)

#The Dab Master BGM (Electro Ver.) I don't know. It would be confusing to see something like "Ribbon Road (theme)" in Category:Paper Mario: Sticker Star music and {{PMSS}}, considering such a title is not representative of where the theme plays in the game. (Also see my comment below.)
#Super Altendo Kart Medley (Super Altendo Fighters Ultimate Soundtrack Edition) Per Dab.

Comments (music navboxes and categories)

@Ahemtoday You forgot to change your option titles. The Dab Master 18:19, February 6, 2026 (UTC)

Whoops. Fixed. Ahemtoday (talk) 20:09, February 6, 2026 (UTC)

How would this proposal affect the {{Themes}} template, which only shows themes with the games they debuted in? Altendo 18:37, February 6, 2026 (UTC)

{{Themes}} will be unaffected. Unlike game navboxes or categories, any theme in a game that debuted in a prior game would already be listed under that prior game. The games are moreso ways to break up what would otherwise be a massive hunk of themes, similarly to the groupings in the likes of {{Goombas}}. Ahemtoday (talk) 20:09, February 6, 2026 (UTC)

{{Goombas}} just lists the species, which is fine. Listing the themes by debut game would require the navbox to say so to reduce confusion, a type of confusion that I feel would only be exacerbated if this proposal sets the new standard for treating music as equals to in every game it appears in rather than just its debut game. [[c:a:t:s|Altendo]] 01:26, February 7, 2026 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the navbox for recurring themes should list the same themes multiple times for each game? Why would a navbox repeat itself? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 02:31, February 7, 2026 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that. I was just suggesting adding a notice at the top or bottom to indicate that the game a music page is in is just their debut game, if this proposal does pass. [[c:a:t:s|Altendo]] 14:49, February 7, 2026 (UTC)

@The Dab Master: This problem can be solved by including redirects in the categories that do reflect their title in that game. For example, a Super Mario Bros. Wonder category would have "Break Time! Raise the Stage (theme)" rather than "Secret Course". (And side note, there's certainly an argument that Paper Mario: Sticker Star shouldn't be on the Ribbon Road page anyway, it sounds more like a coincidental similarity to me. Run, Jump, Throw! 1 and Medley-Mix Wonder are more similar to each other and are split.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 19:45, February 7, 2026 (UTC)

That's already a thing and has been for quite some time. If this is the point for this proposal, then it's completely unnecessary. The Dab Master 23:55, February 7, 2026 (UTC)

It's far from the point of the proposal. The main point of the proposal is that, for instance, Ribbon Road's theme is entirely absent from Category:Mario Kart 8 music and {{MK8}}, which in turn is absent from the theme's article; and all this over a theme that is very obviously in the game. That's the reason why I made the proposal. Ahemtoday (talk) 00:49, February 8, 2026 (UTC)

But I can't think of any other instance where putting the main theme article on another game's music category would be preferable over doing this with a redirect to its corresponding section. The Dab Master 02:50, February 8, 2026 (UTC)

Any case where a theme returned with the same name (or possibly if it returned unnamed), since then there's no different name to make a redirect from. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 02:55, February 8, 2026 (UTC)

Ah well, we'll just have to see how this goes. I'm not changing my vote, though. The Dab Master 02:59, February 8, 2026 (UTC)

So if I'm understanding right, you believe that "GBA Ribbon Road" should be in the category for Mario Kart 8, but "Ribbon Road" should not be in the category for Mario Kart World, simply because the former is a redirect while the latter is not? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 03:25, February 8, 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure, which is exactly why I'm reluctant to supporting this. The Dab Master 18:09, February 8, 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, my problem with the categories is that not only are there multiple ways I can think of to implement them that this proposal doesn't account for, but they all involve some sort of downside or weird inconsistency.

• If an article is in all of the music categories of the games the theme appears in, it'll be confusing to see its title in the category of a game that does not feature any kind of theme with such a title (as I originally said in my vote). While "Fortress BGM" is used as a motif for Bowser in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and is incorporated into several themes related to him, the game doesn't actually feature any theme with the title "Fortress BGM", so it doesn't make any sense to see its article in Category:Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door music. (And honestly, I have this problem with the Wiki as a whole. Wouldn't it be confusing seeing "Bomber Bill" in Category:Super Mario Maker 2 enemies instead of "Banzai Bill", considering it's the in-game name and thus what people are more likely to look for when coming from the game?)
• If we rely solely on the title of a reappearance for whether to put the category link on a redirect page or on the article of what it's a reappearance of, some categories corresponding to certain media would be completely inaccessible from the main article, and navigation would be harder. Someone might read about "Mount Must Dash" from Super Mario 3D World in Mario Circuit (Super Mario Kart theme), and then want to read more about Super Mario 3D World's music, but can't because the link to that game's music category is in the redirect page Mount Must Dash (theme) instead. Also, section linking would be inconsistent; "Painting Mode 1" can link to the Mario Kart World section in Drawing Board 1 since it's a redirect, but not "Title Theme (Humming)" since the title of the arrangement matches the original themes's and thus a redirect linking to the Mario Kart World section would not be eligible. This then leads me to the next option:
• Make redirects to account for all appearances of a theme. I don't think I need to say why out of the three options, this is the most unnecessary and unrealistic to implement. If there's stuff like "Sky-High Sundae (Mario Kart Tour theme)" and "Sky-High Sundae (Mario Kart World theme)", would the main Sky-High Sundae (theme) article be moved to "Sky-High Sundae (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe theme)", per MarioWiki:Article naming § Musical theme titles? Or could an exception be made for these cases?

Honestly, I wish people more carefully thought about their proposals and what they would actually involve and entail.

(And P.S., all of these problems could be easily solved by combining all of a game's music into one big article, which is what this proposal aims to do.) The Dab Master 13:12, February 9, 2026 (UTC)

Seeing as the "problems" you've described are just as applicable to music as they are any other subject on the wiki (by your own admission), and the option you are voting for leads to far more weird inconsistencies than if the proposal passed, I think it's a bit unwarranted to suggest that the proposal is poorly thought out. That said, I agree with your point about redirect categories making navigation harder, I think my preference would be to just put all the categories on the article and let any "confusion" be solved by just reading the articles for clarification. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 08:30, February 10, 2026 (UTC)

Should categories such as "Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker music" on the Plucky Pass Beginnings (theme) redirect page be removed with this proposal? Should categories that do not apply to the original composition itself, such as "Grassland themes" which does not apply to "The Toad Brigade", be removed as well? B700465189a9 (talk) 03:56, February 10, 2026 (UTC)

@Ahemtoday I would like for these questions to be anwsered. The Dab Master 19:20, February 18, 2026 (UTC)

To be honest, music redirects in categories are a subject that may need their own proposal to set a solid precedent on them. I've put categories on redirects myself, but recently I've begun to reconsider the practice a bit. These redirect categories allow you to reach the article from the category, but not the other way around, effectively removing half of a category's functionality. I don't think that means it's never justified, but I do think we should do it sparingly with that fact in mind. As such... I would put all relevant categories on the main page, regardless of which appearance of the theme it applies to. Ahemtoday (talk) 20:50, February 18, 2026 (UTC)

I believe that having all compositions for a given game in a single category is valuable. For games with both compositions and arrangements, could a compositions subcategory be implemented? B700465189a9 (talk) 21:50, February 18, 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, but I feel like it would be best done after this proposal as a normal kind of subcategory update. Ahemtoday (talk) 23:41, February 18, 2026 (UTC)

---

Replace archive links from archive.today to web.archive.org

vetoed by the administrators
Per conversation on the Mario Boards and discussion between staff, this is to be put into effect immediately. archive.today links that need to be replaced can be found in the Articles with deprecated external links maintenance category.
Probably the hottest scoop on Wikipedia news over the past few days is Wikpedia blacklisting the use of archive.today and its similar links from the wiki after it found out that in addition to being used as a hub to DDOS a blog, it has since altered page snapshots in order to dox the blogger in question. The Wikipedia discussion towards finding proof of this can be found here.

“In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations were apparently fueled by a grudge against the blogger over a post that described how the Archive.today maintainer hid their identity behind several aliases.”

—Ars Technica

Currently, over 100 pages on the wiki has a link to archive.today or any of its related links, and I feel we should not be linking users towards known malicious websites that runs DDOS code without their permission nor alter webpages from their original presentation (for malicious reasons). Thus, I am suggesting the removal of these links, preferring to change them to Web Archive links if they're available, or otherwise try to capture the current version of the page and self-host it somewhere to archive.

Proposer: BF10 (talk)
Deadline: March 8, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support: Remove archive.today/archive.is/etc. links and replace them with web.archive.org equivalents or self-hosted versions

1. BF10 (talk) Per proposal.

web.Comments.org

A Mario Boards thread was made on this and it was decided to deprecate archive.today links with Wayback Machine/Megalodon equivalents, so this proposal is unnecessary. The only reason why the links are still there is because they haven't been replaced yet. 1468z (talk) 21:13, February 22, 2026 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the heads up with that. For reference, Special:LinkSearch seems to be the most reliable way to find all of their links and pinpoint to various websites as linked in the news article. BF10 (talk) 21:17, February 22, 2026 (UTC)

No problem, also, a new category was made just for this, so that one can be used to find all links to replace. 1468z (talk) 21:20, February 22, 2026 (UTC)

The proprietor has already added every archive.today link to the articles with deprecated external links category. Outside of the highly specific circumstance where the consensus is to keep these links, which seems extremely unlikely considering the stance in the Mario Boards thread and the proposer themselves wants the links removed, we feel like it's safe to cancel this as "put immediately into effect". ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 21:21, February 22, 2026 (UTC)

---

Upgrade this wiki's text to CC-BY-SA 4.0

Upgrade to CC-BY-SA 4.0 11-0
So, you probably know that this wiki has most of its text licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, right? Well, back in 2013 a more up-to-date version, called 4.0 was released, improving several things compared to the previous version, which you can see here. To recap the improvements, 4.0 no longer needs to be ported, addresses things beyond copyright, gives out a window of 30-days to fix copyright violations, etc. I am aware of the huge channge this is and that upgrading the license of this wiki requires user consent as outlined here, but I believe it's worth it. There's also quite a bunch of NIWA wikis that have their text licensed under version 4.0, including the ARMS Institute, the Dragalia Lost Wiki, the F-Zero Wiki, the Golden Sun Universe, the Hard Drop Tetris Wiki, Inkipedia, the Mii Wiki, Nookipedia, Pikipedia (and its fanon counterpart), the Strategy Wiki, WikiBound and the Xeno Series Wiki as well as some other wikis we have as part of the interwiki template, such as the JiggyWikki and Sonic Retro (albeit this last one does not have the ShareAlike requirement). I also don't personally mind if my prior contributions (including this one and future ones too of course) were upgraded to this version of the license.

Proposer: SuperGamer18 (talk)
Deadline: March 5, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on February 26, 2026, 23:59 GMT

Support: Upgrade to CC-BY-SA 4.0

1. SuperGamer18 (talk) Per proposal.
2. AL-TEN-DO (4.0) Easier licensing, better compatibility with our other language wikis, wider licensing scope, just a lot of benefits overall. The migration might take a long time (as shown in the comments) but I think that, like most migrations, this would be a positive change for the long-term.
3. Camwoodstock (talk) We genuinely don't know why this needs to be proposed if Porplemontage gave it the okay? So long as we gave a heads-up for any downtime during a migration period, we'd be fine.
4. TH-DB-MST (talk) Sure, why not? Per all.
5. GuntherBayBeee (talk) Per all.
6. EvieMaybe (talk) per Camwoodstock
7. MW-RY-MST (talk) Per all.
8. 1468z (talk) Per all.
9. DO-MI-NO (9.5) If Porple has given the green light, I don't see why not.
10. Pseudo (talk) Seems like a valuable change!
11. YO-SHI-18 (talk) Per all.

Comments (This section is licensed under Creative Commons)

I'm pretty sure this isn't something a regular user could start. This would have to be initiated by Porplemontage, who I believe is the only one who could do this. You also mentioned that this has been a thing for 13 years, so there has to be a reason why he chose not to upgrade the license when it has been this long since it existed. This proposal also kind of extends beyond the scope of a normal one, because it affects how every page on this wiki can be used. I'm abstaining for now, because I can definitely see merit in this move but I'm not sure if it's the right one for now. [[c:a:t:s|Altendo]]

I was planning to contact him if this proposal ever passed anyways. If an admin can indeed confirm that I'm not supposed to do a proposal like this, please veto it unless a better alternative is found/available. SuperGamer18 (talk) 02:22, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that some other NIWA wikis do indeed still use 3.0 or sometimes even lower versions. SuperGamer18 (talk) 02:26, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

I'd recommend you contact Porple; he is the one who decides this, with (or possibly even without) community consensus. Also keep in mind that just because this proposal passes does not mean that this move will be done instantly; Wikipedia (and the Wikimedia foundation) took 7 years from the migration vote (which was started by a person who was both an English Wikipedia and a Lead Trust and Safety Specialist at the Wikimedia Foundation) to its actual implementation (granted, Wikipedia and especially Wikimedia as a whole is much larger than the Super Mario Wiki, but this should still give a scope on how long a migration would actually take). So yeah, even if this proposal passes, the migration will not be guaranteed. [[c:a:t:s|Altendo]] 14:52, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

I never said I wanted this implemented immediately. I'm on my way to ask him for permission about this proposal. SuperGamer18 (talk) 15:15, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

Update: I have received permission from him to host the proposal, you may vote on it now. SuperGamer18 (talk) 15:23, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

@Altendo Keep in mind that this wouldn't apply to the German Mario Wiki, as that one's licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, unlike the French and Italian versions, which are indeed CC BY-SA 4.0. SuperGamer18 (talk) 15:44, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

That's fine, we still have compatibility with two other wikis. The German Mario Wiki moving to 4.0 is their decision, not ours. [[c:a:t:s|Altendo]] 16:30, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

Regardless, it's not like I speak or read German anyways, I didn't consider checking the other language versions of this wiki until recently for this proposal. SuperGamer18 (talk) 16:36, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

@Camwoodstock I have done this proposal before I asked Porple for permission, that's the thing. SuperGamer18 (talk) 19:11, February 20, 2026 (UTC)

I mean, you can still cancel it while it's fresh. The Dab Master 16:08, February 21, 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, but honestly I don't think I need to do that here. SuperGamer18 (talk) 16:39, February 21, 2026 (UTC)

---

Stop considering most asset re-uses as "references" (usually)

Remove from "references", create "recycled assets" section 5-9-3
So, music and voice clips have been determined to not count as references for the sake of the "references to previous games/references in later games" section. This leaves a few blind spots, though, which are all featured in Mario Party 5:

• Engine re-use: If a game re-uses the same engine as a previous game, is that a reference? ...This is the one we disagree with the most, because engines are explicitly made to be re-used between games all the time, and those games tend to vary wildly. It was already rather dubious in the era where proprietary engines were more common, but in an era where there are multiple Mario games that use Unreal Engine 4, it feels a bit absurd.
• Voice actor re-use: A weird edge-case the voice clip proposal didn't account for. Mario Party 5 asserts that the narrator being voiced by the same person as in Mario Party 4 is a "reference"... Is it?
• Sound effect re-use: If a game re-uses a sound effect from a previous game, is that a reference? Seeing as we don't consider music re-use a reference, and our coverage for sound effects actually borrows quite a bit in format with how we handle music, we feel like this is similarly fair game.
• Graphical re-use: If a game re-uses sprites, models, or even model animations from a previous game, is that a reference? There is a bit of an asterisk to this (namely about sprites, as those are far more frequently re-used), but, just see the paragraph below. Presently, Mario Party 5 gladly asserts that model animation re-use is a reference.
• Voice clip re-use: ...Now, admittedly, we're mostly including this in the conversation as, per a previous proposal, we already prohibit this. But, for the sake of including an option to not only allow the other instances we've listed, but to revert the results of the original voice clip proposal, we might as well bring it up again.

Now, obviously, there is a bit of an asterisk that we're borrowing from the voice clip proposal; in the event where the asset re-use is very much meant to refer back to exactly one game, a-la how Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 features the Tokyo 1964 events that expressly harken back to the original Super Mario Bros. (or really, all the times Nintendo brings back the Super Mario Bros. art style as an intentional throwback, from Mario Clock to Super Mario Maker), then those, obviously, are fair game to acknowledge as references. This is actually an edge-case that's worth keeping in mind, as sprite re-use done for the sake of a throwback is something that happens constantly; it's one of the most common references the series does! This is more-so about things that don't have that sort of pretense; there are many "model re-use references" that boil down to "both of these games released during the same console generation, and beyond that, we can literally only speculate as to why this model got re-used in this game".

(As an asterisk to the asterisk, we don't think this should count for engine re-use, though, since we... Don't imagine Nintendo would ever go out of their way to use an older engine for the sake of a throwback or a "reference." There are a few companies that'll go back to older hardware as part of re-releases of older games and make, effectively, fully-licensed homebrew, but Nintendo is not one of those companies. When they're done with a piece of hardware, let alone a game engine, they're done with it.)

EDIT: Per Arend (in his vote) and Yoshi18 (in the comments), we've added a bit of a median option; rather than removing these outright, we simply create a new section along the lines of "Recycled assets from other games", which is dedicated to tracking these more precisely while keeping the References section clean. For the sake of having an actual policy for this, we'll say that, if a re-used asset cannot be reasonably justified as being a deliberate throwback (such as Super Mario Bros. Special's Sidestepper sprites being based loosely off those in Punch Ball Mario Bros. in terms of how it shades it) it will default to the "recycled assets" section; however, something more clearly intended to be a throwback (such as Mario Calculator) would still be included in the references section. The "Recycled assets" section should be listed after the "References to previous/in future games" sections, to make this priority clearer to readers.

Proposer: Camwoodstock (talk) & Yoshi18 (talk)
Deadline: March 5, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

None of these should count as references (prohibit all)

1. Camwoodstock (talk) We doubt many people would argue Princess Peach: Showtime! is a reference to Yoshi's Crafted World because they use Unreal Engine 4, that every game featuring Charles Martinet is a reference to Mario Teaches Typing, that every use of the Coin sound is a reference to Mario Bros., or that New Super Mario Bros. U is referencing New Super Mario Bros. Wii by re-using that game's models. There are far, far more pragmatically-driven reasons for each of these than an intentional throwback.
2. Arend (talk) We're still doing this? Regardless, I've said this once before and I will say it again: we really should consider introducing sections for listing reused assets, rather than lumping them in with the intentional references.
3. Altendo (talk) Per proposal. I doubt that any of these would count as "references".
4. Rykitu (talk) Per all.
5. Wandering Poplin (talk) Like I said on the last proposal like this, unless the asset is specifically calling back to an earlier appearance, (such as the SM64 Mario model reappearing in Super Mario Odyssey), it is not a reference, it's reused assets and nothing more.

Track recycled assets in a separate section from the "references" section

1. Camwoodstock (talk) Secondary option. While we feel tracking recycled assets in general is a bit silly, it does happen relatively frequently, and Nintendo is known for re-contextualizing recycled assets in all sorts of weird ways. Cough cough, Majora's Mask.
2. Hewer (talk) Second choice. (What makes tracking recycled assets "sillier" than tracking references is beyond me.)
3. Arend (talk) This should be a nice compromise to list all these reuses without getting them mixed with the intentional references.
4. Yoshi18 (talk) Primary choice. Per Arend.
5. Wandering Poplin (talk) Very secondary. For this to work, we'll need some hard rules about what qualifies for this section, since I don't think listing "Yoshi's Story" for nearly every post 2000's appearance of the character would be that helpful, nor a very wise idea. (And the issue gets even worse for characters who only ever had one voice recording section, like Professor E. Gadd.)
6. Altendo (talk) Second choice, per all.
7. Scrooge200 (talk) I don't like listing them as references because they're just for budget reasons most of the time, so listing where assets are re-used would be better. We'd just have to ensure they're re-used, through direct comparisons, similar dev teams or being sequels, etc. over just "they look similar." (Also, would listing re-uses of assets that didn't originate from Mario count? I ask because Mario & Sonic Long Title 2012 re-uses a song from a Club Penguin Wii game of all things.)
8. The Dab Master (talk) Per all.
9. EvieMaybe (talk) this could be reasonable, too.

These should count as references, alongside voice clip re-use (allow all)

1. Hewer (talk) I think a game reusing assets like voice clips from a previous one is interesting and notable information, and the reference sections are a handy place to include it. I don't understand the desire to actively remove information like this from our coverage, or why it's so important to restrict the reference sections to only "intentional throwbacks". If we're really desperate to do that then I could maybe settle for an option that allows asset re-use to be covered in a sub-section or something, but I oppose outright removal of the information.
2. EvieMaybe (talk) per Hewer. while i think we could stand to be more judicious (stuff like miscellaneous voice clips and stock artwork aren't really REFERENCES, just assets that happened to be used in two games), this is still information that should be covered. i personally see the References section as "how does this game exist in relation to other games in the franchise?", and stuff like reused animations and sound effects very much fall under that.
3. Yoshi18 (talk) Secondary choice. Per all.

Comments (This section is a reference to "Delete Alternative Proto Piranha Images")

@Camwoodstock: The Charles Martinet and Coin examples in your vote reasoning would not be considered references for the same reason we already don't consider every appearance of Mario to be a reference to Donkey Kong. But I would be fine listing NSMBU's model reuse as a reference and don't feel strongly either way regarding engine reuse. (Also, FYI, the previous proposal you linked at the start of this one didn't actually determine reused music should not count as a reference, just that very commonly recurring themes such as Ground BGM shouldn't be considered references every time they appear.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:01, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

@Arend: The thing is that asset reuse often is an "intentional" reference, such as the reuse of classic sprites as was brought up in the proposal. And anyway, we didn't develop these games, so we don't necessarily know for sure what the "intent" was. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:40, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

1. Honestly, I think the reused assets from Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash to Mario Tennis Aces (most models), and then from Mario Tennis Aces to Mario Tennis Fever (several entrance animations) are less "intentional reference", and more "for the sake of convenience" and "to save on time or money" (actually, come to think of it, all three of these games have reused voice clips from Mario Power Tennis in one way, which I'm not sure is also an intentional reference).
2. "we don't necessarily know for sure what the "intent" was" Exactly. So why not go for the safe option and list them as reused assets, instead of lumping them in with the intentional references when we don't even know if they were intended to be as such?

rend (talk) (edits) 16:42, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

I don't know where this idea that the reference sections absolutely have to be limited to "intentional references" came from because nothing on the actual pages really seems to suggest that. My preference is for them to list any way in which a game acknowledges or reuses from a previous game. Even if the reasons for asset reuse in many cases probably are to do with saving resources, that doesn't make them less "intentional" or less deserving of coverage. For one reason or another, the developers still intentionally chose to reuse those animations from that game. That said, I already said in my vote that I'd settle for including asset reuse in a separate list, perhaps a subsection in the reference sections. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 17:41, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps we should make a voting option to give reused assets a specific section as @Arend suggested. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 16:47, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

Went ahead and added that! you didn't see us forget to vote in it at first you can't prove it ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 17:47, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Cam! Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 18:37, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

@Wandering Poplin, could you clarify on what you meant about listing Yoshi's Story for every post-2000s appearance of Yoshi? Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 18:36, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

Yoshi's voice recordings from Yoshi's Story have since been reused for most of his appearances since then, such as Super Smash Bros., Yoshi's Woolly World, Super Mario 64 DS, etc. It hasn't been literally every appearance, mind you. Titles such as Mario Party 1 & 2, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder are a few exceptions to that trend.

But my point is that I don't think it'd be very helpful to point out which game reuses Yoshi's voice clips from that game when it pretty much comprises all of his appearances with voice acting for the past 25+ years.

(While I was writing this, I did notice that my concern may have already been partially addressed by Hewer's first comment on this section, but I decided to respond to the question anyway.) Wandering Poplin (talk) 19:29, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

This is a problem we already have to deal with in reference sections, though. We don't list every appearance of Mario as a reference to Donkey Kong, or every appearance of Bowser as a reference to Super Mario Bros. And anyway, I do think this wiki could do a better job at explaining whether a character's voice clips in a given game are new recordings or reused from previous appearances. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 19:35, February 19, 2026 (UTC)

---

Prioritize whole integer upscaling for sprite displays

Prioritize whole integer upscaling 13-0
Here is a sample of two sprites of the Anchor from Super Mario All-Stars, as seen its infobox. The left one is sized to 96px and the right one is scaled to 100px.

As you can see, the right one has visible distortions, mixels, and generally looks uglier than the properly upscaled one. The sprite is 16x16, so multiplying by whole numbers makes sense. I do think upscaling for display purposes it makes sense because modern releases (like NES Remix, Nintendo Switch Online) almost never display at "native" resolution and the pixel art upscaling looks clean. All we'd really need to do to fix this is just adjust these displays to the closest proper integer multiplier scaling instead of the default "100px" or whatever is currently being used.

Proposer: Scrooge200 (blocked)
Deadline: March 20, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on March 13, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support: Don't stretch the pixels

1. Wandering Pixels (talk) I can't actually see any difference on the screen I'm currently using at the moment, (Perhaps it's because Dark Mode is currently activated?) but otherwise, I agree with everything said here.
2. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal. integer upscaling just represents the original sprite better.
3. Sorbetti (talk) Per proposal.
4. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - I really wish mediawiki allowed for "percentage" upscaling, but from what I can tell it does not. Anyways, per my general well-documented pixel-puritanism.
5. Camwoodstock (talk) Wait, this isn't already policy? We've fixed these as we've noticed them, and nobody's particularly cared to tell us to not do that. Using proper multiples takes maybe only half a minute of effort, and the results just look better, and are more sound. The only downside is that re-uploading a sprite may require fixing those multiples by hand, but fixing that would also only take about half a minute.
6. Ahemtoday (talk) Yeah, I thought we already had a proposal that established this. (Also, there's something really funny to me about having three massive discussion-generating proposals and then this little uncontroversial one at the bottom.)
7. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.
8. File:Altendo (7680x4320) Per all.
9. Arend (talk) Per all.
10. TheCatLover738 (talk) Per all.
11. Yoshi18p (talk) Per all.
12. Spencer PK (talk) Yes PLEASE make this a rule. I've gone around and fixed cases of these that I've seen; needing to do this tells me that there's potentially a lot of cases of this across the wiki that need fixing.
13. Mister Wu (talk) Integer upscaling for sprites is certainly very important to avoid unwanted upscaling artifacts.

Scrooge200 (talk) Per proposal.

Comments: Now in 4K

I think Camwoodstock and Ahemtoday might've been confused with either this proposal about the rawsize gallery class, or this one about a template for displaying images cropped. Unless there's something else I'm missing. rend (talk) (edits) 06:23, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

"As you can see, the right one has visible distortions" ....It does?? Shadow2 (talk) 14:19, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Look at the height of the second row of shining pixels on the upper ring compared to other pixels. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 14:42, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

It's more obvious what's going on when it's with a "multiple" that's between x1 and x2 scale. For example:
On desktop, some rows/columns are 1 pixel wide... and some are 2 pixels wide ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 17:37, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

---

Remove requirement to cite in-game NIOLs (names in other languages) for levels, missions, challenges, and other areas

Keep requiring NIOL citations 7-9-22
Over time, I grew more supportive of the policy that states all names in other languages should be cited, despite initially opposing the proposal that put it into motion. You'll see in my edit history that many of my recent edits have focused on improving NIOL sourcing. Indeed, this endeavor has clear benefits that my initial oppose perhaps didn't quite foresee--but I maintain that it also led to a lot of redundancy.

I've noticed a trend where certain articles, specifically NSMBU challenges and Donkey Kong Bananza sub-locations, technically fulfill the requirement, but in a superficial way: a simple "in-game name" statement that isn't all that meaningful. In my aforementioned oppose vote, I addressed this situation directly: many of these names are observable just by normally playing through a game or watching footage of it, and rather than forcing a mandated citation to signal self-evident info, one can use the "note" column of the NIOL table.

The reason I'm focusing on levels, missions, and challenges for this proposal is because these elements are almost always presented to players via dedicated selection screens. They're consistently, clearly, and somewhat predictably displayed as part of standard gameplay. It's a convention that characters, items, and even overarching places do not always benefit from. I think indiscriminately requiring citations for levels, challenges, and the like adds like value.

• What won't get removed?
  The proposal does not mandate that any and all existing NIOL citations for a level, mission, or challenge be removed, even if the names originate from the game itself. This proposal aims for a softer implementation of the described change that doesn't overwrite genuine efforts to highlight the name, either through a walkthrough video, a screenshot, or an internal string. Users can still cite level names if they so wish; it just won't be a requirement to do so, and the citations need to be meaningful and palpable.
• What gets removed?
  Any NIOL citation for the above that amounts to a plain "in-game name" statement. Automated citation checks will be disabled using this method, and names that do require a citation (see below) but don't have one will use a classic {{ref needed}} tag instead.
• What will still require citations?
  Any NIOL that originates from outside the game. Games where this extends to include Super Mario Land 2 (level names are derived from supplemental material), Donkey Kong Land (levels are only ever mentioned in the instruction manual), and Super Mario Sunshine (the bonus Shine Sprites that do not correspond to a designated episode are only named in player guides).
  • If the game itself follows a live-service model or is available for a limited time, but the level, challenge, or mission title is otherwise easily observable in-game during that timeframe, it is up to the editor to decide whether a citation is needed or not. I personally lean towards citing such cases, but, once again, in a way that references some actual evidence.

****

Update 20:44, February 28, 2026 (UTC)
The proposal has been updated with a middle-ground option. The policy will remain enforced in the cases outlined here, but will require more constructive referencing habits. By this I mean that rather than just slapping the game's title as a reference (which unaware or bad faith editors can always pass off as evidence, and the resulting citations would more easily fly under the radar), editors will need to provide more substantive material that clearly verifies a NIOL, such as a video, screenshot, or an official webpage.

Proposer: Koopa con Carne (talk)
Deadline: March 14, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Support (make it optional to cite in-game NIOLs for these particular cases)

1. Koopa con Carne (talk) Per proposal.
2. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) I know this option won't succeed but I've been increasingly souring with the increased editorial expenditure of effort required to source auxiliary names in other languages lately that I strongly feel any method to curb the ridiculous amount of unsourced statements that plague our articles which require editors to carefully scrutinize video footage from multiple separate languages (in which most readers wouldn't typically care much for because most of this audience are English speakers; only reason we don't have multi-lingual wiki to cover these tracks is just because of lack of interest/expenses required to host them) and learning how to use modding tools only to extract names in such languages from various text files would be appreciated.
3. Yoshi18 (talk) Secondary choice. Per Xiahou Ba.
4. Shadow2 (talk) If we don't have to cite the source of the English title when it's just the in-game name, I don't see why we have to for other languages if they're just the in-game names.
5. Blinker (talk) Per my comment below.
6. RickTommy (talk) I've never been a fan of citing in-game names. Not to mention that in the case of using YouTube videos as the citation, there's potential for subjectivity/favouritism.
7. SGoW (talk) Citing "in-game name" misses the point of actually having citations in my opinion, as no actual proof/evidence is provided. I also just generally believe that having to cite every single foreign name is overkill, so I'm cool with this option.

# ^ The Dab Master (talk) Secondary choice; per all.

Half-oppose (keep requiring NIOL citations for these cases, but discourage superficial referencing)

1. Koopa con Carne (talk) Per this.
2. Camwoodstock (talk) We don't really see why this is a "half oppose" when it's more of a double-down, as it's far more rigorous to demand a link of some sort over just "In-game name.", actually being more strict about how these should be sourced than the original opposition option is. But to be honest, culling these "In-game name." sources has been something we've wanted for awhile. Not only is it just as fallible to error as any other, but it feels similarly like kind of an admission of defeat when it comes to properly sourcing things. Just a link to a longplay with a timestamp, or a link to an image, will suffice. Also, per our rationale on our (now canned) vote for the oppose option, we feel like just throwing our hands up and just admitting we don't care to verify some sources is... Dismal.
3. Sorbetti (talk) Yes, this is what I was looking for. For me, there's really no difference between having no citations and a citation that only says "in-game name." In both cases, you're blindly trusting something you can't verify yourself most of the time. On the recent Hisstocrat page, the name is cited with an image, and that's how it should generally be, in my opinion.
4. Ahemtoday (talk) Per all.
5. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) This is the option that'll most likely to succeed, so I'll also voice support for this.
6. Yoshi18 (talk) Primary choice. While I do think that sourcing these foreigns names is annoying and most readers probably wouldn't even care, it's still somewhat important, but we should at least be more lenient with what we see as "deprecated sources".
7. Altendo^[2] Second choice.
8. The Dab Master^[3] (talk) Secondary choice; per all, specifically Sorbetti.
9. SGoW (talk) This also adresses my complaints about citing "in-game name".

#Jdtendo (talk) I typically think of these "In-game name" citations as "non-citations" because they don't provide more information than not having a citation at all.
#EvieMaybe (talk) also voting for this, per Camwoodstock. the harder a source is to falsify, the better.
#Maw-Ray Master (talk) First choice. While it is important that editors should cite all foreign names, a simple "In-game name" citation says very little about where the name can be found. I feel that editors should provide more information on where the name is found, such as the specific location where the name is found and possibly the localization, e.g.: "In-game name in the [location name] of the [localization name/language] localization of [game name]".
#Mario4Ever (talk) Per all.

Oppose (keep requiring NIOL citations for these cases)

1. EvieMaybe (talk) very recently, we've had to remove some completely made up Polish names a user added to various Mario Kart 8 tracks, and the only way we caught that they were made up was that they were not cited. for easily accessible names like these, i see citations as a verification step: a user that bothers to add a citation is most likely not a user who does not understand how NIOL tables works and is making stuff up. verifying and citing these names is quite easy, and the only reason it has not been done is the volume of the task; i would rather wait a bit until someone gets around to it and have the confirmation that all the names there are genuine, than to have another situation like MK8 above.
2. Altendo^[1] Per EvieMaybe. Having verification isn't always a bad thing; it can confirm names given to a subject. If a YouTube video isn't available on a game in another language, it's as simple as taking a screenshot of the game and then uploading it to the wiki for proof (or to another website then linking it afterwards). Case point (this is admittedly unrelated to the area example, but I thought I'd still bring it up), when I found the Japanese and Korean names for ? Candy and Candy Shop, I was able to get them by watching walkthrough videos of the subjects, then I cited them appropriately because I wanted to present evidence for the translations being real. Keeping the requirement works both ways; if proof of the name through an image or video exists on the internet (or it can be uploaded through a playthrough of a foreign game), it can easily be cited, it's as simple as that. But if no proof of it exists on the internet (which means it cannot be cited), then we shouldn't verify that a name in another language is real if no proof of the name exists.
3. Blinker (talk) Per my comment below. Anything but the so-called "half-oppose" option.
4. Maw-Ray Master (talk) While admittedly I believe that the "In-game name" citations are rather vague, I don't want to have be forced to cite a video for a name, especially when a certain localization of a game has little or no footage online. I also don't want to go through the effort of taking many screenshots just to cite a name; that's just excessive (and might risk breaching "fair use" for copyright). I think just having a citation that specify tells the reader where the name is found is sufficient enough; it's up to both the editors and readers to look at the source to verify if the name (alongside other information) has not been falsified.
5. LadySophie17 (talk) We are not required to spoonfeed citations to the reader. I don't know what is being considered "superficial referencing" but simply mentioning it is a name found in the game, when the name's location is self-evident, is enough. I don't prefer it, but I certainly prefer that to having to find playthroughs of every game in every language that show every name, and it's definitely better than uploading hundreds or thousands of the same screenshots to the wiki just to point at a name on the screen.
6. Cloudwalker (talk) Per all.
7. Reese Rivers (talk) Citing NIOLs is hard work enough, so this proposal is only going to make it worse. Per Evie, having the ref requirement at all weeds out fake names well enough on its own. We don't need to add even more work on top of the thousands of NIOLS yet to be verified.
8. ^ The Dab Master (talk) Primary choice; per all
9. Jdtendo (talk) Removing my "Half-support" vote. While I still think of these "In-game name" citations as "non-citations", if the "Half-support" option would require references "such as a video, screenshot, or an official webpage" as written, that's just too much. Something like "Name found in [location] of [game]" that at least contextualizes where the name is found would be sufficient in most cases.
10. Nelsonic<ref>[(Reference content)]</ref> (talk) Per all.
11. LinkTheLefty (talk) While I initially didn't like the citation requirement, on occasion I've run into wiki oversights that probably would have completely eluded us if we didn't have it. I'm just not sure I follow the "half-oppose" option. Anyone remember when the individual who uploaded the Perfect Ban Mario Character Daijiten scans on imgur with other rarities unpredictably privated their account because they didn't seem to appreciate the extra attention? Why would we want to risk repeating that and potentally be the cause of more broken references down the line? I'd rather just get rid of the citation double-standard and make English-language citations just as mandatory. It's not superficial to keep things a little more in-house/controlled.
12. Camwoodstock (talk) Re-instating as a secondary option, per EvieMaybe. While we dislike "In-game name."-type citations, having anything is better than nothing at all. It's very nice to have these sanity checks, weeding out made-up names, and we have had tangible cases where doing this has yielded benefits. We have a userbase that has already brought down the amount of sourcing issues (not just for foreign names, but all sourcing issues) down by over a thousand over the past 14 months of us keeping an eye on the to-do bar, from a high of 19,771 to 18,242 now. It's a long road getting there, but just because a task is long and time-consuming, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. We would sooner want to see a push for this task being more organized, rather than throw our hands in the air and say "make up whatever names you want in these cases, we're just too lazy!" just over 5% of the way in.
13. Polley001 (talk) Let me try to break this down for a moment. The main issue here is that people aren't providing adequate citations for these subjects, right? "Support" means making citations fully optional, "Half-oppose" means making citations even more strict. The former just outright discourages giving these things citations, so nothing particularly changes. The latter makes giving them any citation significantly more difficult, which I can only imagine would also discourage giving these things citations. Both just sound like we'd be trading inadequate citations for no citations at all, in which case I fail to see any benefit to either.
14. Wandering Poplin (Citation needed) Per all.
15. Arend (talk) I am fine with replacing simple "in-game name" citations with more specific ones, such as what I listed fir Music Bash (especially if there isn't a single video online that verifies it for us, making things rather difficult). The problem is that with the "half-oppose" (which sounds more like a full oppose than the actual "oppose"), some subject types (particularly levels, missions, challenges, etc) aren't allowed that treatment and still require a video or image source... meaning, if that doesn't exist, then we'd have to take hundreds of screenshots ourselves and upload it somewhere viewable. And in that case, I think I'd rather stick with the status quo option and allow simple "in-game name" citations.
16. Spencer PK (talk) While I do think that in-game citations could explain where a name is from better than just saying "in-game name", I cannot support this proposal. Removing the requirements to source NOILs just for "levels, missions, challenges, and other areas" I feel would cause confusion as to why a location like Rogueport would not need NOIL citations, but the character Goombella would still need comprehensive NOILs. I can see confusion caused by something like this to lead to more of the citation requirements to be removed and ultimately lead to NOILs not being trustworthy after attempts are now being made to make them trustworthy. The "half-oppose" option requiring something like screenshots (which would lead to a lot of screenshots being needed from how many games exist with each having multiple localizations) to be sourced instead of being able to say where in the game the name can be found sounds like an immense amount of work for editors that does not seem worth it.
17. Mario4Ever (talk) Per Jdtendo. Screenshots may not always be feasible (e.g. when playing games on older hardware), and playthroughs in the target language may not be online. If they are, tracking them down and finding the relevant name often requires enough familiarity with the game and language to know what to look for or what one is looking at, and further context may be needed for readers to make sense of the source provided. At that point, it'd have been better to have given the context from the outset, and I see no reason why that can't be done through text.
18. Sparks (talk) Per all.
19. Shoey (talk) Per all.
20. Sorbetti (talk) Per all. While I'd really like to implement references accompanied by screenshots, I can understand why others don't. Also, I think a proposal like this needs to be more specific to implement the change.
21. Ninja Squid (talk) Per all.
22. Mario (talk) Late vote. It's not sustainable to do it the current way, so I recommend exploring alternate means of documenting these names. We could upload it somewhere else secure (iffy on like an imgur album because what if imgur implodes) and cite it in some external database like what Nookipedia does with their furniture catalogue. Right now I guess the best way to check how a name in other language is cited is probably look at who added it. For instance I did verify the name of Candlelight Flight in French[1] but I couldn't really provide a decent concrete mean of citing it but I guess my name being attached to the edit should make it trustworthy?

Comments (remove requirement to cite in-game NIOLs for levels etc.)

@opposition, is is sufficient to simply add "in-game name" or "game title and publisher" as a citation, then? Had the user "referenced" those Polish names the way NIOLs are at Piranha Plant Hideaway, they would have technically fulfilled the requirement and would have made them harder for editors to catch. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 16:04, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

I think that's more of a problem with how in-game names are cited. Sorbetti (talk) 16:08, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

Would it be any less sufficient than if the Polish name was added with a citation that said "Official Polish Mario Kart 8 Deluxe guide, published 2023, page 46"? Anyone superficially glancing at the page would take both citations to be true. Anyone who bothered to verify them would just as easily find out they are both blatantly false. There is no Polish localization for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, that's evident and easy to prove. They are course names, making them also extremely easy to find in-game, so even for other languages, in this particular case, I think "in-game name" would be a sufficient citation (although I would prefer something like "in-game name in the course select screen"). — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 20:52, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

At that point, it comes down to whether the editor who adds that citation is acting in good faith or being deceptive. I don't think this is something that the current overarching NIOL policy can really solve. It's up to us to spot errors or wrongdoings. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 21:05, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

Exactly. So if a citation is clear and concise (e.g.: "in-game name" for something which appears in a main menu screen), then there's no need to demand video evidence or more complex wording. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 23:49, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

I've added a new option; please review the update note at the end of the proposal. Tagging current voters: @EvieMaybe, @Altendo, @Camwoodstock -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:44, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

Is there a preferred way to do this, even? A way to order the languages or what to say when you got it in-game? Would linking to my giant interlingual spreadsheets for proof help more than just saying "in-game display name"?

Also we shouldn't count on videos for everything because there isn't a single Dream Team Canadian French playthrough on YouTube. Scrooge200 (talk) 20:54, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

Obviously, not every game is going to have a longplay in every language it released for; in those cases, other avenues such as screenshots or text dumps will suffice. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 22:40, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

But where do we put those in the reference? I noticed Smoldergeist's Canadian French name was wrong, and since it had been there for a while, I uploaded a screenshot as proof. But I don't want to play through this 40 hour game again in a language I don't speak for a hundred screenshots, so I would prefer being able to somehow just reference this extensive text dump from every region that I organized myself. (Incidentally, this also caught an inconsistency with Mini Pi'illoid and Mini Pi'illoid X that I don't think had been discovered beforehand.) Scrooge200 (talk) 23:46, February 28, 2026 (UTC)

we currently cite a text dump for Mario Kart World names (see Lobster Roller). is this something you'd prefer better? — eviemaybe (talk) 01:55, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

Well, a Google Sheet is something that isn't stored on-site, cannot be reliably backed up, and can go down at the whim of a single person. Scrooge200 (talk) 03:10, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

the fact that it is a google sheet is not particularly relevant here. i'm talking about the format, not the medium. — eviemaybe (talk) 04:35, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

I think that would work, as long as we have something that's easy for people to contribute to (say I add item names for an RPG and someone else wants to add enemy names). Additionally, would just including a sample of relevant text and context in the translation be okay, like Mustard Café chef and snowball? Scrooge200 (talk) 06:41, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

that works for subjects named within dialogue, but the relevant text for the subjects this proposal is about, like Dolphin Shoals, is "Dolphin Shoals". — eviemaybe (talk) 19:09, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

That has no relevance to anything in this conversation. Scrooge200 (talk) 21:48, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

For sourcing, I'm thinking of doing something like this. You might need to download it to see. Scrooge200 (talk) 01:03, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

I honestly always thought the wiki should be more lenient with foreign name sources. I understand that they're still important but they're not so important as, say, game/console release dates. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 19:04, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

To be honest, I find it absurd, the idea of requiring that names in other languages not only be cited, but always have accompanying proof that the name is indeed used, when you would never apply that same logic to practically anything else. The purpose of a citation should be for other people to easily verify the information being conveyed, by knowing where they can look to verify it. Sure, if we can aid in that by providing a method of checking that doesn't involve owning the game, great, but it shouldn't be a requirement. After all, would we apply the same requirement to statements like "Goombas can be defeated by jumping on top of them"? If not, then I ask why foreign names of all things should receive that sort of treatment. Blinker (talk) 21:48, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

It ties into my overall gripe of having editors be ridiculously meticulous over what amounts to unimportant information for the vast majority of this wiki's audience. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 23:07, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

I look at the Names in other languages sections on articles and find it reassuring when a name has been properly cited. Abstaining from voting for now, but while I do believe that all foreign names should be cited (including in-game names), I feel that they should be properly cited, at the bare minimum including a link to a source, or at least providing sufficient information on the source where the name is found ("In-game name" is rather vague). By "sufficient", I mean that one should at least put the specific location where the name is found, such as a selection screen or in-game map, and possibly also the localization of the game ("iQue" for example). I don't think that the requirement for citing in-game names should be removed, as per EvieMaybe, citations are an extra step to prove that the name is real, and the only way I was able to verify a fake name was because it was unsourced; see here and here.

As far as I can tell, there's no consistent way to indicate whether a name is an in-game name or not, so I feel that removing the requirement would make it harder for one to verify whether a foreign name was made-up or not; someone can easily pass off a fake name as a real name by not including a Ref needed template next to the name. (Then again, English names can also be made-up, but the reason stated in the proposal requiring citations for foreign names was that these names can be more easily verified, as we are mainly an English-speaking wiki.) The proposed solution also seems somewhat redundant: If a named subject only appears in one game, what good does it do to highlight that the name comes from the game in the Notes section?

That said, I do feel that, though including a link to a source for an in-game name is helpful, it is not always practical, as not every game has a thorough playthrough of in every available language. In this case, an in-game name citation be can be used instead, but it needs to be more descriptive to allow others to easily verify it. Maw-Ray Master (talk) 00:57, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

So would all instances of a source providing no image, video or website but still provides which menu or location the name is found (such as what I've found for the international names of Music Bash) have to be deleted, or only the ones that only say "in-game name"? rend (talk) (edits) 19:39, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

I think @Maw-Ray Master meant only the ones that simply say "in-game name" without elaborating. Though I do wonder how you're supposed to elaborate for Mario Party minigames or Mario Kart courses. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 19:51, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

...o-kay, but I would like this to be said by the proposer, @Koopa con Carne, as well; especially him, being the one who made the proposal in the first place. There's always a possibility that the proposer doesn't share the exact idea from a regular voter even if they vote for the same option. rend (talk) (edits) 21:09, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

As stated in the proposal, level names tend to be consistently displayed where you'd expect them, i.e. by hovering your character or cursor over the corresponding icon in a level selection menu or map. A citation stating the exact level subset of this level wouldn't add much value since that should already be mentioned in the article's body. Readers can intuitively tell that "level X pertains to world Y" stays consistent across localizations; I can't think at the moment of any example where a level is reassigned to a different world between localizations, but if there were, I assume that's the kind of trivia you'd see in the article's lede.
I assume your question relates to how character or enemy names are sometimes cited using certain in-game lines of dialogue. That's not something a reader can deduce from sheer context, it's something you're compelled to point to as an editor and that makes those specific citations more substantive. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 21:36, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

...I'm not sure if that really answers my question at all, this seems rather related to Yoshi18's question.
What I wanted to know is whether citations such as what I've cited for for the international names of Music Bash (which sources what is essentially an entry in an in-game manual and in which menu and submenu it would be found; the citation reads: "Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit in-game Info menu, Gameplay section, Gate Features subsection."), would have to be removed, or if the removal only applies to citations that say nothing but "in-game name" verbatim. rend (talk) (edits) 22:06, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

The subjects I chose in this proposal are specifically symptomatic of bare, literal "in-game name" statements, which is why I find the "half-oppose" option to be especially applicable. Technically, other subjects are also susceptible to that kind of practice, but as someone who's been going over a lot of articles, I've honestly yet to see it happen; editors have been diligent enough to properly cite names for characters and enemies. This is why I am keeping such subjects out of the proposal's scope.
I think Music Bash's citation is sufficient; it's a host of directives on where one is supposed to find its name, although a link to a YouTube video wouldn't hurt. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 18:48, March 3, 2026 (UTC), edited 18:53, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I've resorted to this kind of citation because of the lack of YouTube videos and screenshots showcasing this; and I feel this way is at least better than simply stating only "in-game name", or having to take hundreds of screenshots (I've already been compiling Dutch names for Donkey Kong Bananza through a MEGA folder, and it's becoming rather disorganized. I don't want to do the same with other games or other languages, and I feel like uploading all these to the wiki is not much better, as Lady Sophie stated in a message below; I think the whole "need to verify with an image" thing was part of the reason why I opposed that prior proposal about citations for languages). While I'm super thankful that we don't have to take screenshots for characters and such, I'm a bit wary in retrospect about it being a requirement for levels or missions. rend (talk) (edits) 21:46, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

@Koopa con Carne, can you answer with a simple, single yes or no the following question? "Will the half-oppose option demand video or photographic evidence for every source? — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 16:42, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

For every single source on the wiki? No. For this specific case of levels, challenges, missions? Yes, with the addition of websites as acceptable sources, for the reasons I've laid out in the proposal + comments. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 18:29, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

@Koopa con Carne, just wondering but will the half-oppose option also demand video or photographic evidence for Mario Party minigames or Mario Kart courses? Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 18:31, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

@Yoshi18 I'm not sure about minigames because I'm not familiar with Mario Party. Mario Kart courses should be in this proposal's scope, because they're pretty much in the same situation: they're elements readily and consistently available in menus, where players are expected to see them and which the pertinent article should already cover (e.g. "Moo Moo Meadows is a course in the Mushroom Cup"), making a citation that states the same thing redundant. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 19:01, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict'd) "this specific case of levels, challenges, missions" Again, doesn't apply to my question, given that Music Bash is an enemy/character/obstacle, not a level/challenge/mission. I have no idea why you keep elaborating on what Yoshi18 is asking instead of what I asked, yet keep replying to my comments instead of Yoshi18's. rend (talk) (edits)

I replied to you above in the meantime. I just wasn't able to hit "send" in time. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 18:50, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of references that are just copy-pasting the exact same thing but with the language folder for the game changed, which feels like an unnecessary amount of work and bloats the reference list. Would you expect to source a German name from the Korean translation of the game? Scrooge200 (talk) 03:17, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I am removing my "half-oppose" vote. Super Mario Bros. Wonder has 131 named levels, localized into 16 languages. i will not vote for a solution that requires us to upload 2096 images to corroborate said names. — eviemaybe (talk) 19:36, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I think there's some confusion here. Nowhere did I state that images have to be uploaded to the wiki. Nowhere. These can also be linked externally. I've seen it done. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 19:39, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

that does not shrink the amount of images. my concern is less about wiki storage space and more about pure scale of labor. — eviemaybe (talk) 19:46, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

My thoughts essentially sum up to: is the tradeoff *really* worth it? Whether it's images or videos, it's a massive workload being proposed based on the concern that someone *might* make fake citations for incorrect names - a pretty unlikely scenario that even then would be dealt with relatively easily once caught. And anyway, there's nothing stopping you from improving "in-game name" citations on your own accord; enforcing it as a rule will just discourage people. It's overall just a pointless change to make for a problem that barely exists. Reese Rivers ^{(talk | contribs)} 20:06, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

The entire policy to cite every single NIOL is a massive workload to begin with. The current total of 15,633 articles (more articles than the wiki had around the mid-2010s) having this particular sourcing issue as of writing is testimony to that. If the solution to decreasing that number is to simply pad out citations with self-explanatory statements, it begs the question: why is the policy so extensive in the first place? -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:21, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

"The workload is already massive" is not an argument for this. To me, it gives an air of "does this really matter?" (yes, it does). We should be working on whittling it down, not augmenting it. Reese Rivers ^{(talk | contribs)} 20:29, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I'm the last person to downplay accuracy, so I definitely did not mean to give that air. My argument was that we're not really whittling the amount down with citations that contain obvious statements. The number shown on the front page to-do list, yes--but these ultimately don't add substance, and even people who disagree on using visual evidence, do agree that those pseudo-citations aren't really helpful. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 21:01, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I disagree. Even if a citation doesn't have explicit visual evidence, having one at all still gives me some assurance that someone looked into it in earnest, and that it's accurate. It doesn't make their contributions meaningless. Again, postulating visual evidence adds tons of work for little practical benefit. Reese Rivers ^{(talk | contribs)} 21:36, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

You did not "state" that but you were responsible for Category:Mario Kart Tour News screenshots (23 files), Category:Mario Kart Tour Mii Racing Suit Shop screenshots (297 files), Category:Mario Kart Tour special offer screenshots (428 files) and Category:Mario Kart Tour Spotlight Shop screenshots (1485 files) , for a grand total of 2233 files dedicated entirely to sourcing names and descriptions in other languages, and nothing else. What else would anyone expect from a similar plan coming from you? I know Mario Kart Tour is kind of a bloated mess in any aspect but imagine using even half of those files for any game that doesn't have a readily available playthrough online which also shows the necessary names. For every game in the wiki. Thousands and thousands of near identical screenshots hidden away under citations. References were never supposed to demand visual confirmation. They point readers to where they can verify this information if they want to. And yes, I agree "in-game name" is unhelpful at best, but I would much rather push for more specific wording instead. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 20:11, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

No need to be so accusative. I explained here why I thought those MKT screenshots were necessary. I find your tone disproportionate and I don't think I will respond to you further. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:21, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I am sorry that my comment came out more accusative than I meant it to be. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 20:31, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

That's fine! I do recommend that you and others read my explanation at Mario Kart Tour's talk page, if for the fact that it seems relevant to this discussion. While I can say that Porple was fine with it, I'm definitely not going to use that permission as a blanket approval for every single name-related citation on the wiki requiring an uploaded screenshot. I'm not a webmaster, but I realize bandwidth is a limited resource. Those MKT shop screen grabs are more of an edge case, as are the recent website screenshots I've been uploading to overwrite those archive.today snapshots. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 21:01, March 3, 2026 (UTC), edited 22:01, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I can see more of a rationale behind this because Mario Kart Tour is a very time-sensitive, live-service game constantly rotating out content. Meanwhile we don't need to source Iron Jump's descriptions because The Origami King will always be the same game and the text won't change. Scrooge200 (talk) 22:29, March 3, 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to abstain from voting until we can get a good read on what an "acceptable" in-game citation is. I saw an update for "It" that links to a Color Splash text dump, which is a good start, but:

• the actual dialogue is not included in the reference, you need to click and navigate the spreadsheet to see it
• the idea of "who says this and how can I see it in the actual game" isn't elaborated on
• this spreadsheet is AFAIK not maintained or owned by any wiki users and does not have the American French or American Spanish translations, so if someone wanted to add those we would have to clone the sheet to make a new one, edit it, and replace all the current links to the old sheet
• often people just looking at plain text out of context will misattribute its context or what it does, leading to wrong information (such as the person who wrote in multiple places that the museum descriptions in Origami King were Olivia's tattles, a term that is not used in the game nor can she actually do that)

Scrooge200 (talk) 00:25, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

@Mario, to me, your vote doesn't seem to match the option. I do argue in support of an alternative way to cite the NIOLs. Or do you mean that what is being proposed isn't sustainable? -- KOOPA CON CARNE 11:36, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

It's more like I think we need citations for these things, but the current system of uploading a series of images for the sake of citation is not efficient. I recommend changing the system, though, and not try to loosen requirements. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 20:09, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

References

---

Deprecate the Stub and Construction templates, and replace them with a new template

Implement the To-do templates; replace Stub, Construction, and the Rewrites 11-3-3
The {{stub}} and {{construction}} templates are not very... useful. The majority of articles that are marked as stubs don't even have any specifics on what information is missing, and the Construction template does not even have the option to display that. While one could sit down and attempt to improve them, I have decided to rethink the system from the ground up. Inspired by The Cutting Room Floor's "to-do" template and Wikipedia's stub message templates, this proposal aims to codify a new family of article notice templates: the To-do templates.

These templates would serve a similar purpose to Stub and Construction, featuring:

• A section= parameter, to mark only a section of the article as incomplete;
• A user= parameter, in case the article is actively being worked on by one or more users;
• A parameter to describe what the article needs, with room to add an entire bullet-point list. (at the time of writing, TCRF's Super Mario Bros. Wonder page is a good example of what that would look like.)

The key difference is that there would not be one template, but several. Series-specific sub-templates, such as {{to-do Mario Kart}} and {{to-do Mario vs. Donkey Kong}}, would mark the required editing as specifically corresponding to one series, and sort the page under a specific category named something like "Category:Articles needing Mario Kart-related information", allowing users with specific areas of expertise to focus their knowledge on the articles that need it.

The main benefit here is transparency: editors benefit from knowing exactly what articles need work and what that work needs to be, and readers benefit from being informed that there is information missing, and that the article currently does not tell the full story. Additionally, outright replacing Stub and Construction allows their presence to serve as a progress tracker for the proposal's implementation, as well as encouraging people not accustomed to the new standard to not use the old templates to make the switch; the templates will be marked as "deprecated" if this proposal passes, immediately telling anyone who uses them that they should not be used anymore.

However, I acknowledge that this would leave the {{rewrite}} family of templates mostly redundant. I am not sure if they should be deprecated as well or not, so I will create two options for it.

Proposer: EvieMaybe (talk), with help from Porplemontage (talk)
Deadline: March 15, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Implement the To-do templates; replace Stub, Construction, and the Rewrites

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.
2. Yoshi18 (talk) Secondary choice. Out of these three, the {{rewrite}} templates are still the most useful
3. PopitTart (talk) I have always been somewhat confused by the coexistence of stub, construction, and the various rewrite templates. For a long time i genuinely didn't know the latter existed, because the former two functionally overlap with it so much. I think it would be better to have one family that covers all their use cases.
4. Mario4Ever (talk) Per proposal.
5. Reese (to-do: add rest of name) (talk) Per proposal.
6. Camwoodstock (talk) We feel like the concerns about people just using the to-do as an excuse to be lazy are... A bit misguided. A lot of to-do entries that linger for awhile on The Cutting Room Floor stem from either "this is an abandoned user project", "someone speculated there might be more to one subject", or "someone simply doesn't know how to use the tools that The Cutting Room Floor's userbase uses frequently." For the most part, plenty of the currently-present stubs on our wiki could be easily resolved by simply engaging with the media in question and writing notes. This isn't like The Cutting Room Floor, where there's an entire barrier of entry to things in the form of knowing how to get, let alone operate, a bunch of datamining and asset-ripping tools, let alone how to write in the format they have standardized, let alone how to get the game in a state where those aforementioned tools can be used in the first place. With a far lower barrier to entry, it's far easier to sniff out when a to-do is being placed just because someone speculates there might be more when there isn't in truth, or is just lazy.
7. Blinker (talk) Per all.
8. Sorbetti (talk) Per evie in the comments.
9. LadySophie17 (talk) Per all. (To-do: Write a better vote).
10. PnnyCrygr (talk) Per everyone. I believe, the to-do encourages users to be more participative in article improvement.
11. Maw-Ray Master (talk) Per all. The template allows more flexibility in specifying what needs to be done in order to improve an article.

Implement the To-do templates; replace only Stub and Construction

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.
2. Yoshi18 (talk) Primary choice. While I think {{stub}} template is still somewhat useful, I can absolutely agree that the {{construction}} template isn't. A maintenance template like that should absolutely have a reasoning parameter and I always thought it's weird that the {{construction}} lacked such a parameter. Merging them into your {{to-do}} template idea would definitely fix that.
3. Rykitu (talk) Per Yoshi18. The to-do template also can provide specifics on what needs to be done. The stub template could also do that, but here it is more organized.

Do not implement the To-do templates

1. Alten (to-do: add Do) Per Scrooge. If you aren't able to create a proper page or section by yourself in the first place, that adding it in an incomplete state is not worth doing. We shouldn't expect others to finish our unfinished work if we cannot finish it ourselves. And if we really need something like that? We can allow other users to edit our sandboxes to work on a project that requires multiple collaborators. And as Scrooge mentioned, sometimes these notices can go unnoticed, often for years.
2. Wandering Poplin (Stub) Per all.
3. TheCatLover738 (talk) Per all. The purpose of the {{construction}} template is to communicate to the reader that the article/section is in development and incomplete.

Scrooge200 (talk) I really feel like this just encourages people to shove all their edits in a "someone else do this for me" list rather than implementing them properly. Every TCRF article has a ton of these on the top with more piling up and going unaddressed for years.
Maw-Ray Master (talk) Per all. I think what might happen is that users will place edits in the To-do template without actually adding them on to the page, in the hopes of someone else doing it for them due to the bystander effect. The edits in the To-do list will pile up over time, through repeated users adding to the To-do list without actually putting the information onto the article, to the point where there may be so many issues that editors might be discouraged from resolving the issues due the sheer quantity of issues. This would be different if this was wiki that didn't allow users to create their own sandboxes, in which this would be a way for users to point out problems present on the article. But since users are able to create their own pages, if they notice that the page has problems and want to rewrite the article, they can just draft a rewrite of the article in their own sandboxes instead of just pointing out problems.

To-comment

If I may propose another idea, maybe we could also have a template for if we need more languages. The {{stub}} never seemed to fit to me for that. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 18:58, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I believe what is causing the confusion of stub templates is some strange applications of them I've seen, including a relatively recent redesign of {{stub}} last year to make them appear nigh identical to {{rewrite-expand}}[2] except with different wording. What {{stub}} was meant to do, as far as I understood it from my experience (I'm not sure if there were any recent developments on how to apply stub, I wasn't always there to attend to policy matters), was reserved for incredibly short articles with significant expansion potential such as Sean where it barely qualifies as an article and there is almost everything inadequate with how the article covers information and not for articles that require more information but are substantial otherwise (in most cases this is the job for {{rewrite-expand}}). Koopa_Bros.#Gallery does not have the correct template ({{image}} should've been used). Neither do Banana Queen, Loading zone, Orbot & Cubot, Prince_Mush#Paper_Mario:_The_Thousand-Year_Door_.28Nintendo_Switch.29, Spoiled Rotten, Mario_Tennis_(Nintendo_64)#Controls, Ancient Record, ({{rewrite-expand}} is the correct one; and A LOT of these template ask for meager specifics which is NOT what the stub template is for). The proposal was built off understanding that the wrong application of {{stub}} I'm seeing is the actual practice. There can be debate if the legacy way of applying {{stub}} is considered impractical now, but I want to make it clear if the problem of the stub template is its design and not improper editor discretion before we take steps to deprecate stub all together (it's possible that a template of a to-do list instead of stub could wind up swamping the entire page, where either rewrite-expand, perhaps with a link to the talk page listing all the problems, or stub depending on how problematic the article is, could've been much better uses). It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 19:14, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

Just for the record, {{stub}} was redesigned per this proposal. --Steve (talk) 19:22, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflicted) I do admit that I mostly use {{stub}} if an article/section needs expansion, but I think that the reason why I (and many others) use {{stub}}, as opposed to {{rewrite}}, is because {{rewrite-expand}} wouldn't fit if an article/section only needs expansion but no rewrite. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 19:25, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

i feel like all of these points just serve to reinforce the idea of deprecating the Stub template. a to-do list swamping a very short page is a feature, not a bug; it clearly communicates exactly how much work needs to be done on it. replacing all the Stub templates will also help us find all those false positives you listed and replace them with something more useful, as well as letting us stay on top of any potential future misuses. — eviemaybe (talk) 19:28, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

I don't wholly agree. Stub is supposed to be used for articles that barely pass for actual articles or barren sections like in Pennington#Super_Mario-kun that have the bare minimum to at least find out if a character exists in a particular chapter, and if it was used properly, you could easily see a list of all the stub pages in Category:Stubs or WhatLinksHere for stubs and know right away that all of them have serious information issues while you're not getting this information immediately if you browse transclusions of {{rewrite-expand}} or the to-do list template which could vary more widely in problems but aren't as dire as stubs. Sean could get a to-do list that specifies the article needs information on a character's personality, a character's gameplay, a character's quotes, a character's sprites, a character's screenshots, a character's story relevance, but then if you have to list it all out, isn't that what {{rewrite}} / {{rewrite-expand}} with reason parameters for? Also there are articles or sections that have immediate problems even if you're not familiar with the content like Pennington#Super_Mario-kun; I don't think it's productive to be required to engage in a lot of research figuring out what's exactly wrong in the first place; this is what stub is exactly for, isn't it? Even if you could collapse every single problem the article has, I think a talk page is already supposed to be equipped for that, which is why we often employ links to talk pages detailing what's wrong with an article to the talk page. To-do list might be better equipped to deal with the current setup. I can see benefits involved such as specifying better what's wrong in a longer list. I'm not arguing against to-do lists on the front of a page, I just don't think they should be substitutes for {{stub}} and {{rewrite-expand}} especially when those two already have a strong presence in the wiki. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 19:47, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

I think there should be a version of "rewrite-expand" that's just "expand" (i.e., there's some information that needs to be added but what's already there is good enough that it doesn't need to be rewritten), and the way "stub" is currently used fills this niche. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:46, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

That's honestly kinda what I tried to say earlier. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 21:08, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps but I'm not fond of altering existing templates based on word choice? If we need to clarify the difference between {{rewrite-expand}} and {{stub}}, which in this wiki I don't believe we've ever codified the difference between the two, it's just something you pick up from experience, we can do this. But I don't like renaming templates and memorizing an new set of templates. I adjusted from moreimages to image|more=yes because editors decided it's better to have everything in one template, and I don't like introducing hassle with improvement tags unless necessary. It's another bit of why I'm not particularly keen deprecating more commonly used templates. I want to improve articles, not try to play scavenger hunt and look up which templates I need to use now. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 23:25, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

I don't see how this response relates to my comment? I'm saying that I think the current usage of "stub" fills a niche that is otherwise vacant, not that we need to rename or change any existing templates. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 23:44, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

My big concern with this is that it'll encourage people to be lazy with their edits and just pile-up to do lists rather than incorporating that information into the article themselves. Over on TCRF, I had found that someone added "Unused sound effects" with a link to a dead YouTube video, and now I can't add information on those sound effects because I don't know what they are. Scrooge200 (talk) 22:44, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

also a feature, not a bug. without the template, those "lazy" people wouldn't actually bother to add the info at all, and we'd be left with no awareness that there are unused sound effects in the first place. even if it's not a job well done, it's better than nothing. — eviemaybe (talk) 22:59, March 1, 2026 (UTC)

Per @EvieMaybe, also, just a reminder, but people can be lazy with their edits and just pile-up things that need to be fixed rather than incorporating that information into the article/section themselves with the existing templates as well (mainly {{stub}}, and to an extend {{construction}} since you can't even give a reasoning for applying the template). Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 18:07, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

Just used {{stub}} on some other articles; once again, a "{{more-languages}}" template would be welcome to me. Though perhaps it's something I should propose myself later. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 19:27, March 2, 2026 (UTC)

while i understand Scrooge200's vote, i do want to point out: the ability to notice a problem is not the same as the ability to fix it. you can see it in my still-not-fully-implemented "split the RPG locations" proposal: the two games that are left are ones i am not familiar with (and in the case of Mario + Rabbids, incapable of playing). does that mean that i should not have written that proposal? the goal of this change is to more easily connect articles with issues with editors capable of fixing them, and that connection often needs to go through a middle person that spots said issue. the idea that this will lead to people adding to the to-do instead of fixing issues themselves feels... quite cynical, and antithetical to the effort i have seen our users put into coverage. — eviemaybe (talk) 02:12, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

I want to ask the opposing team (@Scrooge200 and @Altendo), while I do understand your reasoning, it's not like keeping {{stub}}, {{construction}} and the {{rewrite}} family will fix anything either (mainly {{construction}}). So, in my opinion, making such a {{to-do}}, would still make the situation better than it is now. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs)

Good point. @EvieMaybe, I recommend that you add a fourth option to only deprecate the templates instead of adding the to-do templates, especially because I don't think we need one, let alone one per series. [[c:a:t:s|Altendo]] 19:40, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

Here's how I would resolve the problem concerning the {{stub}} and {{construction}} templates:

• Deprecate the {{rewrite-expand}} template, and replace it with an {{expand}} template. (This template is basically two templates in one.)
• Keep the {{stub}} and {{construction}}, but make it mandatory that a reason be included for the former template, similar to the rewrite templates.
• Add an extra parameter for the {{stub}} template that categorizes the stub articles into subcategories based subject types (e.g.: Character stubs, Enemy stubs, Location stubs, etc.)

I think the categorizing of stubs into smaller stub subcategories makes it more helpful for one to find out which article for certain type of subject are stubs. The {{expand}} template would serve a similar purpose to the current {{rewrite-expand}} template, but would not imply that an article's text be rewritten. The {{stub}} and {{construction}} templates will be kept, as I believe them to still be useful, but the former template will now require that a reason be included in the template to specify what information needs to be added to the article. Replacing the {{stub}}, {{construction}}, and rewrite templates with a to-do list possibly might encourage editors to add to the to-do list without actually resolving the issues, and doesn't really seem that necessary given that users are allowed to create their own sandboxes. On the other hand, just removing these templates means that we'll no longer be able to point out problems present on an article. Maw-Ray Master (talk) 21:14, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

@Maw-Ray Master, that is actually a very good idea. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 21:20, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

@Altendo if it helps, Porple originally suggested making the series marker a parameter inside the to-do template. i suggested changing it to separate templates (that share code with one another) because it would mean the available templates would get suggested by the autofill dropdown menu, rather than having to memorize the list of parameters. if you think Porple's implementation would be better, i'm fine with that; all i care about is that there is that the incomplete articles are categorized by series. — eviemaybe (talk) 23:24, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

@Camwoodstock, I see what you're saying, but TCRF does attract a lot of people just linking videos (which die) or saying "I got half of this written, someone add the rest for me." It's not that people don't know where to find the information, they know it's there, they just want someone else to add it for them because they can't be bothered. I don't want our coverage of upcoming games to be full of "TO DO: what does this enemy do, where does it appear, can you defeat it with a jump or not" because the editor got bored and want to play Fortnite. Scrooge200 (talk) 01:18, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Scrooge200, I see what you're saying as well, but it's not like keeping the templates we have now (mainly {{construction}}) will fix that problem either. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 16:51, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

The point of {{construction}} is already that you add it and 3 months later someone removes it because all the empty cells and half-finished sections look fine to them and they want to clear out maintenance categories without doing any real work. We don't need another template to do that tbh. Scrooge200 (talk) 00:25, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

this specific complaint of yours is why i came up with this proposal, actually. it's way easier to know if something is half-finished and what needs to be done when you can, y'know, read it. — eviemaybe (talk) 01:05, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Yes, except a lot of the time people barely even look at the page and think "if there is no bullet pointed list of everything that needs to be added I can remove this template". People don't add construction templates for no reason. To-do is going to be even harder to fix because most of the time it'll be "someone add this information only I know." Scrooge200 (talk) 01:48, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

if i may, who are these "people" you keep mentioning? your understanding of this proposal's effectiveness seems to be built on an idea that the average wiki user is some sort of maliciously lazy bum who wants to do as little work as possible and hoist it upon others, when all i've seen of this wiki's userbase in my years of contributing points towards the exact opposite. the aim of this proposal is to allow our hard-working editors to better focus their effort towards the wiki's least developed areas, and collaborate with eachother by communicating an article's needs. — eviemaybe (talk) 01:53, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Also I'm 30+ years old, and I have a part time job. It should speak for itself. I can't attend daily to these matters especially compared to younger editors, but I help around when I can. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 03:34, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Before this proposal is implemented, maybe there is a point in deprecating stub because I do have problems finding stubs that are truly barren articles and not lacking whatever minor content. I'd like to run a list of articles categorized as stubs deemed as stubs, but I'm not expecting to find much. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 03:34, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

after this is implemented, i'd be open to an "un-deprecate the stub template" proposal, reinstating it in its original purpose of marking Very small articles who need help quick. for now, however, i believe this is the best course of action. — eviemaybe (talk) 03:37, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

That's fair. I also am open to a possible reinterpretation of construction as "this part of the article is going through a drastic change in a due time". I've added it to a section to Mario's history[3] section where I completely revamped that part of the article, converting to a single-paragraph section to a breakdown of all major Mario Party installments.[4] Took me a couple weeks though, but I can vouch it's a construction template that actually did come and go like real construction projects. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 03:46, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

yeah, the templates are not inherently bad, and i do believe they have a potential to coexist with the to-do template. i'm down for reanalyzing it once we're all used to using to-do lists, to see if there's a benefit in bringing them back. — eviemaybe (talk) 03:55, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

The thing I don't get about the "It'll just encourage people to be lazy and put up templates without doing the work themselves" argument is, that already happens with the existing improvement templates. I made a whole-ass writeup because people would just slap rewrite-expand on things without explaining what exactly is the problem, doing nothing to improve it and let the template rot for years. --Glowsquid (talk) 03:58, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

I was going to bring up a concern that this to-do list, like trivia sections, might be bait for less committed users to just drop whatever problem they find (in a way that rewrite templates don't invite), that they would've otherwise brought up in a talk page, on to that list. I do think we should set what should get a talk page comment OR if you're going to add to the to-do list we encourage talk page comments first. But we should wait and see if that happens first before fretting anything. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 04:06, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

@EvieMaybe, do you have a draft of what this template what look like? I'd like to have an idea of what the template would look like so I can figure out whether I would approve its design. Also, if you're drafting the template (or already have a draft), is there a way to make the template collapsable? I think being able to collapse the template would be useful if an article has many things in its to-do list. Maw-Ray Master (talk) 04:28, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

i do not, but the Super Mario Bros. Wonder TCRF link on the main proposal shows what i'm picturing. the exact implementation will be up to Porple, but i don't see why making the list collapsible wouldn't be possible. — eviemaybe (talk) 04:34, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

One more thing; while I changed my vote to support the creation of the To-do template and the deprecation of the {{stub}}, {{construction}}, and rewrite templates, I'm unsure about the {{construction}} template being deprecated. What if an article is actively being worked on by a user, but it is not known what needs to be done to improve it? Maw-Ray Master (talk) 10:11, March 10, 2026 (UTC)

if a user is working on an article, they need to state what it is they are working on. if there is nothing to list, there is nothing to work on, and therefore the article is not under construction. — eviemaybe (talk) 14:36, March 10, 2026 (UTC)

Since this is going to pass, can we all agree that if the to-do doesn't fix itself in 2 days you're legally allowed to remove it without doing anything, just like every other construction template? Scrooge200 (talk) 23:04, March 8, 2026 (UTC)

Bad faith interpretations and strawmenning of proposals are not worth engaging discussion in. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 23:47, March 8, 2026 (UTC)

Allow key artwork on game infoboxes

canceled by proposer
This proposal aims to allow key artwork on game infoboxes. So far, we see the British Wii U and Nintendo 3DS boxarts on the Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars article's infobox, the United States boxart and Wii Wheel bundle box on the Mario Kart Wii article's infobox, and the Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure and Super Mario Bros. 35 logos on their respective games' articles' infoboxes.

However, in case of Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars, this is what Camwoodstock once said on the last proposal:

“We're a primarily American English wiki, and use American English in the actual article bodies (e.g. we use spellings like ‘color’ over ‘colour’, we use terms like ‘flashlight’ over ‘torch’, etc. etc.), so it only makes sense to prioritize American English releases for these too.”

—Camwoodstock, Decide how to prioritize PAL English names § NTSC>PAL

Because of that, I humbly ask if there's a possibility to allow key artwork on game infoboxes. Since we're a primarily American English wiki, I've come up with some interesting examples:

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars
Key artwork
Developers	Nintendo Software Technology Corporation Nintendo SPD Group No.3
Publisher	Nintendo
Platforms	Wii U Nintendo 3DS
Release dates	March 5, 2015[1] March 19, 2015[2] March 20, 2015[3][4] March 21, 2015[5]
Languages	English (United States) English (United Kingdom) Japanese French (Canada) French (Europe) German Italian Spanish (Latin America) Spanish (Europe)
Genre	Puzzle
Ratings	ESRB: - Everyone[?] PEGI: - Three years and older[?] USK: - All ages[?] ACB: - General[?]
Mode	Single-player
Format	Wii U: Optical disc Digital download Nintendo 3DS: Game Card Digital download
Input	Wii U: Wii U GamePad Nintendo 3DS: Gamepad
Serial codes	Wii U: WUP-WAFJ-JPN WUP-WAFP-EUR Nintendo 3DS: CTR-JYLJ-JPN CTR-JYLP-EUR

{{game infobox
|image=[[File:Tipping Stars artwork.jpg|x250px]]<br>Key artwork
|developer=[[Nintendo Software Technology Corporation]]<br>[[Nintendo Software Planning & Development#Group No.3|Nintendo SPD Group No.3]]
|publisher=[[Nintendo]]
|release={{flag list|USA|March 5, 2015<ref>{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20150306193259/http://www.nintendo.com/|deadlink=y|url=http://www.nintendo.com/|title=Nintendo - Official Site|publisher=Nintendo of America|language=en-us|accessdate=January 30, 2026}}</ref>|Japan|March 19, 2015<ref name="JP site">{{cite|url=https://www.nintendo.co.jp/wiiu/wafj/index.html|title=マリオvs.ドンキーコング みんなでミニランド|publisher=Nintendo Co., Ltd.|language=ja|accessdate=January 30, 2026|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20251003184806/https://www.nintendo.co.jp/wiiu/wafj/index.html}}</ref>|Europe|March 20, 2015<ref>{{cite|url=https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Wii-U-download-software/Mario-vs-Donkey-Kong-Tipping-Stars-893004.html|title=Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars {{!}} Wii U download software {{!}} Games {{!}} Nintendo UK|publisher=Nintendo UK|language=en-gb|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20251125064134/https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Wii-U-download-software/Mario-vs-Donkey-Kong-Tipping-Stars-893004.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite|url=https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-3DS-download-software/Mario-vs-Donkey-Kong-Tipping-Stars-954726.html|title=Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars {{!}} Nintendo 3DS download software {{!}} Games {{!}} Nintendo UK|publisher=Nintendo UK|language=en-gb|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20251125064208/https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-3DS-download-software/Mario-vs-Donkey-Kong-Tipping-Stars-954726.html}}</ref>|Australia|March 21, 2015<ref>{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20150326021413/http://www.nintendo.com.au/news|deadlink=y|url=http://www.nintendo.com.au/news|title=A BIG DAY LOOMS FOR NINTENDO 3DS THIS SATURDAY WITH NEW GAMES, LIMITED EDITION CONSOLES AND FREE THEMES|date=February 9, 2015|publisher=Nintendo Australia|language=en-au|accessdate=January 30, 2026}}</ref>}}
|languages={{languages|en_us=y|en_gb=y|fr_fr=y|fr_ca=y|es_es=y|es_latam=y|de=y|it=y|jp=y}}
|genre=[[Genre#Puzzle|Puzzle]]
|ratings={{ratings|esrb=E|pegi=3|usk=0|acb=g}}
|modes=Single-player
|platforms=[[Wii U]]<br>[[Nintendo 3DS]]
|format={{format|wiiu=1|wiiudl=1|3ds=1|3dsdl=1}}
|input={{input|wiiu=1|3ds=1}}
|serials='''Wii U:'''<br>{{flag list|Japan|WUP-WAFJ-JPN|Europe|WUP-WAFP-EUR}}'''Nintendo 3DS:'''<br>{{flag list|Japan|CTR-JYLJ-JPN|Europe|CTR-JYLP-EUR}}
}}

Mario Kart Wii
Key artwork
Developer	Nintendo EAD
Publisher	Nintendo
Platform	Wii
Release dates	Wii (original release): April 10, 2008[1] April 11, 2008[2] April 24, 2008[3] April 27, 2008[4] April 27, 2008[5] July 12, 2008[6] July 12, 2008[7] April 30, 2009[8] Wii (Nintendo Selects): October 18, 2013[9] November 7, 2013[10] August 28, 2014[8]
Languages	English (United States) English (United Kingdom) Japanese French (Canada) French (Europe) German Italian Korean Spanish (Latin America) Spanish (Europe)
Genre	Racing
Ratings	ESRB: - Everyone[11] CERO: - All ages[12] PEGI: - Three years and older[13] USK: - All ages[13] RARS: - All ages[14] ClassInd: - General audience[?] GRAC: - All ages[15] ACB: - General[16]
Modes	Single player, multiplayer, online play
Format	Wii: Optical disc
Input	Wii: Wii Remote Wii Remote and Nunchuk Classic Controller Nintendo GameCube Controller Wii Wheel
Serial code	RVL-RMCJ-JPN

{{game infobox
|image=[[File:MKWii Wallpaper.jpg|250px]]<br>Key artwork
|developer=[[Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development|Nintendo EAD]]
|publisher=[[Nintendo]]
|release='''Wii (original release):'''<br>{{flag list|Japan|April 10, 2008<ref>{{cite|url=www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/rmcj/|title=マリオカートWii|publisher=Nintendo Co., Ltd.|language=ja|accessdate=March 21, 2008}}</ref>|Europe|April 11, 2008<ref>{{cite|url=https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Wii/Mario-Kart-Wii-281848.html|title=Mario Kart Wii {{!}} Wii {{!}} Games {{!}} Nintendo UK|publisher=Nintendo UK|language=en-gb|accessdate=January 21, 2026|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20260122023355/https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Wii/Mario-Kart-Wii-281848.html}}</ref>|Australia|April 24, 2008<ref>{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430002332/http://www.nintendo.com.au/nintendo/news/|deadlink=y|url=http://www.nintendo.com.au/nintendo/news/|title=MARIO KART COMES TO Wii|date=March 7, 2008|publisher=Nintendo of Australia|language=en-au|accessdate=January 21, 2026}}</ref>|USA|April 27, 2008<ref>{{cite|deadlink=y|archive=web.archive.org/web/20071213031915/https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/WnjIJm5FSwjb8m39oUzkZvIqkRXZ6F-I|title=Nintendo :: Games :: Mario Kart Wii|publisher=Nintendo of America|language=en-us|accessdate=May 29, 2018}}</ref>|Mexico|April 27, 2008<ref>{{cite|title=''Club Nintendo'' (MX) issue 198|page=76}}</ref>|HK|July 12, 2008<ref>{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302014851/https://www.nintendo.com.hk/wii/wii_software.html|url=https://www.nintendo.com.hk/wii/wii_software.html|title=Ｗｉｉ遊戯軟體|publisher=Nintendo Hong Kong|language=zh-hant|accessdate=December 23, 2025}}</ref>|ROC|July 12, 2008<ref>{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20220415132451/https://www.nintendo.tw/wii/wii_software.html|url=https://www.nintendo.tw/wii/wii_software.html|title=Ｗｉｉ遊戯軟體|publisher=Nintendo of Taiwan|language=zh-hant|accessdate=December 23, 2025}}</ref>|South Korea|April 30, 2009<ref name="KR site">{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404003846/http://www.nintendo.co.kr/Wii/software/mariokartWii/main.php|deadlink=y|url=hwww.nintendo.co.kr/Wii/software/mariokartWii/main.php|title=마리오 카트 Wii|publisher=Nintendo of Korea|language=ko|accessdate=January 21, 2026}}</ref>}} '''Wii ([[Nintendo Selects]]):'''<br>{{flag list|Europe|October 18, 2013<ref>{{cite|url=https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/News/2013/September/Nintendo-Selects-line-up-for-Wii-to-expand-on-18th-October-805806.html|title=Nintendo Selects line-up for Wii to expand on 18th October|date=September 12, 2013|publisher=Nintendo UK|language=en-gb|accessdate=January 21, 2026|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20260122023154/https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/News/2013/September/Nintendo-Selects-line-up-for-Wii-to-expand-on-18th-October-805806.html}}</ref>|Australia|November 7, 2013<ref>{{cite|url=https://www.vooks.net/nintendo-selects-range-wii-finally-coming-australia/|author=Vuckovic, Daniel|date=October 17, 2013|title=Nintendo Selects range for Wii finally coming to Australia|publisher=Vooks|language=en-au|accessdate=March 15, 2026|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20250811124106/https://www.vooks.net/nintendo-selects-range-wii-finally-coming-australia/}}</ref>|South Korea|August 28, 2014<ref name="KR site"/>}}
|languages={{languages|en_us=y|en_gb=y|fr_fr=y|fr_ca=y|es_es=y|es_latam=y|de=y|it=y|jp=y|kr=y}}
|genre=[[Genre#Racing games|Racing]]
|modes=Single player, multiplayer, online play
|ratings={{ratings|esrb=E|esrbC=<ref>North American box cover</ref>|pegi=3|pegiC=<ref name="pegi-usk">{{file link|Mario Kart Wii Box EU.jpg|European boxart}}</ref>|cero=A|ceroC=<ref>{{file link|Mario Kart Wii Box JP.jpg|Japanese boxart}}</ref>|acb=G|acbC=<ref>{{file link|Mario Kart Wii Box AU.jpg|Australian boxart}}</ref>|usk=0|uskC=<ref name="pegi-usk"/>|grac=all|gracC=<ref>{{file link|MKWKOBoxart.jpg|Korean boxart}}</ref>|classind=L|rars=0+|rarsC=<ref>{{cite|title=Mario Kart Wii {{!}} Wii {{!}} Игры {{!}} Nintendo|deadlink=y|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722202431/http://www.nintendo.ru/-/Wii/Mario-Kart-Wii-281848.html|publisher=Nintendo of Europe GmbH|language=ru|accessdate=November 11, 2025}}</ref>}}
|platforms=[[Wii]]
|input={{input|wiimote=1|nunchuk=1|wheel=1|classic=1|wiigcn=1}}
|format={{format|wii=1}}
|serials={{flag list|Japan|RVL-RMCJ-JPN}}
}}

Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure
Key artwork
Developers	Arika[1] Nintendo SPD Group No. 2 TOSE
Publisher	Nintendo
Platform	Nintendo 3DS
Release dates	May 31, 2015[?] June 11, 2015[2] June 11, 2015[3] June 11, 2015[?] June 11, 2015[4] June 11, 2015[?] May 26, 2016[5]
Languages	English (United States) English (United Kingdom) Japanese French (Canada) French (Europe) German Italian Spanish (Latin America) Spanish (Europe)
Genre	Puzzle
Ratings	ESRB: - Everyone[6] CERO: - All ages[?] PEGI: - Three years and older[1]
Modes	Single player, multiplayer (local, online)
Format	Nintendo 3DS: Digital download
Input	Nintendo 3DS: Gamepad
Serial code	CTR-AX8A-JPN

{{game infobox
|image=[[File:DrMarioMiracleCureLogo.jpg|250px]]<br>Key artwork
|developer=[[Arika]]<ref name=UK>[https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-3DS-download-software/Dr-Mario-Miracle-Cure-1022623.html#gameDetails ''Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure'']. ''Nintendo UK''. Retrieved October 21, 2018.</ref><br>[[Nintendo SPD|Nintendo SPD Group No. 2]]<br>[[TOSE Software Co.|TOSE]]
|publisher=[[Nintendo]]
|release={{flag list|Japan|May 31, 2015|USA|June 11, 2015<ref name="Direct Micro">Nintendo (Nintendo of America). (June 1, 2015.) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5kXsTAUEHw Nintendo Direct Micro 6.1.2015]. YouTube. Retrieved June 1, 2015.</ref>|Europe|June 11, 2015<ref>[https://twitter.com/NintendoUK/status/605380898255695872 Post by Nintendo UK on Twitter]. (June 1, 2015.) Retrieved June 1, 2015.</ref>|Australia|June 11, 2015|HK|June 11, 2015<ref>{{cite|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20250124230119/https://www.nintendo.com/hk/3ds/eshop/downloadtable.html|url=https://www.nintendo.com/hk/3ds/eshop/downloadtable.html|title=Nintendo 3DS/Nintendo 3DS XL - 香港任天堂網站|publisher=Nintendo Hong Kong|language=zh-hant|accessdate=December 26, 2025}}</ref>|ROC|June 11, 2015|South Korea|May 26, 2016<ref name=Korea>{{cite|title=NINTENDO 3DS|url=nintendo.co.kr/3DS/eshop/ax8a/index.php|deadlink=yes|publisher=Nintendo of Korea|archive=https://web.archive.org/web/20160527221924/http://nintendo.co.kr:80/3DS/eshop/ax8a/index.php|language=ko|accessdate=September 5, 2024}}</ref>}}
|languages={{languages|en_us=y|en_gb=y|fr_fr=y|fr_ca=y|es_es=y|es_latam=y|de=y|it=y|jp=y}}
|genre=[[Genre#Puzzle games|Puzzle]]
|modes=Single player, multiplayer (local, online)
|ratings={{ratings|cero=A|esrb=E|esrbC=<ref>{{cite|url=https://www.esrb.org/ratings/10016640/dr-mario-miracle-cure/|publisher=ESRB|title=Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure - ESRB|accessdate=February 20, 2026}}</ref>|pegi=3|pegiC=<ref name=UK/>}}
|platforms=[[Nintendo 3DS]]
|format={{format|3dsdl=1}}
|input={{input|3ds=1}}
|serials={{flag list|Japan|CTR-AX8A-JPN}}
}}

This will possibly be a better fit, likened to match how we are primarily an American English wiki. That way, we'll be able to replace specific boxarts with key artwork if this proposal passes.

Proposer: GuntherBayBeee (talk)
Deadline: March 31, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Cancelled on March 17, 2026, 16:10 (UTC)

Support: Allow key artwork

1. GuntherBayBeee (talk) Per proposal.

Oppose: Keep as-is

1. Wandering Poplin (talk) Sorry, but this idea isn't really comparable to the PAL/NTSC naming proposal at all. While the concept may work for games which never received box art, (such as most Dr. Mario titles since Dr. Mario Online Rx.) I don't agree with the broader implications of this proposal. Why would we prioritize key art over box art just because there isn't a standard US release? I'm pretty sure the general policy is to only use key art if there isn't a viable alternative, and I can think of no good reasons why international box art wouldn't be considered a viable alternative. Especially for games which may have never even had an American release...
2. Camwoodstock (talk) That key art is "more universal" than box art is... Only mostly true, many games that are substantially different in terms of box art in terms of region are like that because the game's literal name is different, making a more "generalized" key art actually counter-intuitive to use over the North American one, when the page's name is already based on the North American one (hi, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon/2). Box art already serves the same practical key art would, and while only some games get a form of key art, almost every game under our coverage has a box art. The few that don't, like snd_test, also lack key art anyways. This feels a lot like a change made for change's sake, without considering what the ramifications of that change might actually be.

Make an article for the New Super Mario Bros. series

Create article for the series 14-0-2-3
This got proposed all the way back in 2014 and it failed, but we think that, now that everyone thinks differently (and the way the wiki handles series page is different than how the wiki handled them 12 years ago), it's time to make a page for the New Super Mario Bros. series. The article for the series right now is just a disambiguation with a "New Super Mario Bros. (series)" redirect. We initally understood why this was done (the reason being that the New Super Mario Bros. series is a subseries of the Super Mario Bros. series and that the series is quite small), but then we realized some series are even smaller than the New Super Mario Bros. series and that the Super Mario Advance series article actually contradicts these arguments (as it is a subseries of the Super Mario Bros. series as well). This is just all proof that the New Super Mario Bros. series needs its own article. It's pretty much the only (well-known) subseries that doesn't have one yet.

Proposer: Yoshi18 (talk) & Sargent Deez (talk)
Deadline: March 18, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

New Super Mario Yes: Make an article for the series

1. New Super Yoshi U (talk) Per proposal.
2. Sargent Deez (talk) Per proposal.
3. EvieMaybe (talk) i've been wanting this for a while. there is a lot to talk about of the series as a whole (a Reception section would be particularly juicy), and there is a LOT of links to the disambiguation page because discussing the NSMB games as a series is just useful! the fact that we don't have a page for it is insane.
4. Sorbetti (talk) Per evie.
5. New Rykitu U Deluxe (talk) Per all. Shocked we weren't already doing this.
6. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - Was proposed a lot more recently than what was linked above and failed by a single vote margin, but per my arguments then
7. Reese Rivers (talk) Per all, Evie in particular.
8. Tails777 (talk) Still in agreement to this. Five games and a deluxe port, all sharing identical gameplay, near identical visual aesthetics and reusing music for nearly every game. I still think there's nothing wrong with a sub-series page that focuses on a sub-series with so many recurring similarities.
9. Camwoodstock (talk) Considering once and only once dying means that we don't need to exclude the New games from the list of Super Mario games, we're a little shocked this hasn't been done already. The New games have a far more compelling case to be treated as a series than something like. DK (series), which is comprised of exactly 2 console games, 4 Flash-based advergames for those 2 games, and 1 single HTML thing.
10. SONIC123CDMANIA+&K(B&ATSA) (talk) Per proposal and all, but especially Camwoodstock. The fact that "once and only once" is dead (and surprisingly I didn't know about that at first) is a very good point in favor of creating this article.
11. New Dive Rocket Launcher (talk) Per all. If this proposal passes, I'd like to propose splitting the "Mario Kart Arcade GP" sub-series as well, since that also has distinct gameplay and a very different identity from its console/handheld cousins. I wouldn't support splitting any other sub-series though.
12. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.
13. Wilben (talk) Per all. If the Super Mario Advance sub-series can have its own dedicated article, then I don't see why not the (arguably) much more popular and important New Super Mario Bros. sub-series.
14. BMfan08 (Paah paah!) (talk) Per all.

Scrooge200 (talk) Per proposal. With the release of Wonder, I think it's pretty clear that New Super Mario Bros. can be classified as its own thing. Even otherwise, the fact that we have a Super Mario Advance (series) page despite those games being unambiguously "main-line" makes sense. We can cover all the traditions of NSMB and its legacy in one page... and also why New Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually the third game.

New Super Mario No: Don't make an article for the series, but also delete the Super Mario Advance series article

1. Fakename123 (talk) I'd rather not there be no sub-series articles, instead of just some having them.
2. Altendo Switch Second choice, per Fakename123.

New Super Mario Status Quo

1. Wandering Poplin Wii I have yet to see this officially treated as a separate series from the mainline Mario series. Unless there's definitive, recurring proof of that (Other than them all sharing the "New" moniker), I'm afraid I cannot support this proposition.
2. Hewer (talk) The concept of the New Super Mario Bros. series is officially recognised, but that's not my concern here. My concern is that it's a sub-series of the Super Mario series that should be covered on that page. My stance on sub-series is we should either split none (as we currently do) or split them all, not just pick the ones we want to split the most, and I lean towards splitting none in order to avoid information being split up pointlessly and unintuitively. Also the proposal's argument that this is "pretty much the only (well-known) subseries that doesn't have [an article] yet" is blatantly untrue. There are many other officially recognised sub-series we don't split, like the Super Mario Land series, Super Mario Maker series, Super Mario Galaxy series, Super Mario Bros. series, arguably the 3D Super Mario games, the Yoshi's Island series, probably others. What makes New Super Mario Bros. more worthy to split than all of these? An easy counterargument would be "just split all of those too" but I think it would be bad for organisation, particularly for the Super Mario series, to have all its games split up in sub-series articles rather than just covering the full series on one page. As for Super Mario Advance, the reason it has an article is because it has three games that are Super Mario series remakes and one game that is a Yoshi series remake, so it can't fully fit neatly into any other series article. I wouldn't really consider it a sub-series for this reason, at least not in the same way.
3. Altendo U Per Wandering Poplin and Hewer.

New Super Mario Comments

@Wandering Poplin, I understand your reasoning for opposition but Super Mario Stadium isn't really an official (at least not internationally) official series either. Neither is the Super Mario Advance series. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 21:50, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

True, and perhaps Super Mario Stadium should be re-assessed at a later date. Hopefully before someone tries to use it as precedent to create a Super Mario Galaxy (series) article. But I don't quite feel that the Super Mario Advance series is a 1-1 comparison. I'd also like to mention that, conversely, the Super Mario Land (series) currently no longer has a separate page either. Wandering Poplin (talk) 22:13, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

The Super Mario Advance series is officially recognised. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:14, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

What other sub-series (aside from Super Mario Advance) even have their own articles? I couldn't find any. Fakename123 (talk) 23:01, March 4, 2026 (UTC)

Well, the only loosely comparable things I could find at the moment are the DK (series) article, (Which has an ongoing discussion related to that issue), and the Mario Teaches Typing (series) article. Neither of which is a perfect match to this issue. I also considered mentioning pages like the Mario + Rabbids page, the Famicom Grand Prix (series), the Wrecking Crew (series) page, and the Mario Bros. (series) page, but those largely appear to be edge-cases, and some of them have been officially treated as a "series" at least once. Wandering Poplin (talk) 01:18, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

How are any of these "sub-series" (as in, a series contained in another series)? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:19, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

There's Donkey Kong Land, which is just a group of not-quite-demakes of Donkey Kong Country games. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 19:19, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@EvieMaybe What "juice" are you referring to as far as a reception section is concerned? Wandering Poplin (talk) 01:18, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

i mean that there's a lot to be said about the public perception of the NSMB series and its impact on the franchise's image. a lot of people seem to think that they're "the same game four times", or blame it for the Super Mario franchise's percieved "blandness" (this is less prevalent nowadays). it's a topic i'd love to learn more about, and what is a wiki if not a place to learn? — eviemaybe (talk) 01:25, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure that would be a good idea. Most of the major reviewers at the time have seemingly been generally favorable to the series, and mentioning these somewhat subjective opinions on that article would be about as bad an idea as creating a section mentioning the unfair reception to the non-Gamecube entries in the Paper Mario series in its own page. Wandering Poplin (talk) 01:42, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

if the contemporary opinion was positive, and then soured over time, i think that's an important part of their legacy, and worthy of coverage.— eviemaybe (talk) 04:08, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Wandering Poplin Still, I don't know if Nintendo acknowledges Super Mario Advance as a series either (yet the page for it is there) (and like I said, neither do they acknowledge Super Mario Stadium). It's literally just 3 remakes (while Super Mario Stadium is just 2 games). How's that a series? Yoshi18 (talk/contribs)

4, not 3. Anyways, that was answered above. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 19:05, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Hewer giving a subseries a page doesn't inherently mean its games would just not be covered in the main series page. we killed "Once and only once", after all. i think there is a lot of value in analyzing a subgroup of games together like this, while also keeping the main series page to analyze the whole group. — eviemaybe (talk) 15:23, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

I just think it unnecessarily complicates organisation and creates inconsistencies with other sub-series for little benefit. I'd be fine with including more sub-series-specific information on the Super Mario series page though. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 15:28, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Once again, the Super Mario Advance series article contradicts this statement as it has already been on the wiki for 17 years and the article is pretty barebones (because it's literlly just 3 remakes), yet nobody complained about it ("complained" may sound a bit rude here so excuse me for my phrasing). But the moment someone mentions (or has an idea of) making an article for the New Super Mario Bros. series (a series that's not just remakes and more than 3 games), it gets turned down (examples: in 2014 and once again in 2022). Doesn't make sense at all to me. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 16:46, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

I think they (not overseas) did actually call Super Mario Stadium a series at one point, otherwise, that article wouldn't even exist. (And probably still shouldn't, but that's an issue for another day...)

And I still don't think Super Mario Advance is a perfect comparison. This feels more analogous to re-spliting the Super Mario Land (series) page. Wandering Poplin (talk) 17:15, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

That being said, depending on how this issue plays out, I think it might be worth re-evaluating our coverage of Super Mario Advance and its sequels.

New Super Mario Bros. was very seldom given any distinction from the previous/subsequent Mario entries, but I haven't seen much about how Nintendo branded Super Mario Advance during its time period.

(They don't presently brand it as anything now. It's rare for Nintendo to acknowledge remakes after their time in the spotlight has concluded.) Wandering Poplin (talk) 17:25, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Yoshi18: I don't see how your reply relates to the arguments I've been making. Nowhere did I complain that the article would be "barebones" or even mention the number of games in the series. (And even if I did, Super Mario Advance has four games, not three, matching the number of original New Super Mario Bros. games. There are better examples you could have picked of series with pages that have a small number of games, like Mario + Rabbids, but I don't believe this is relevant to whether they should get pages.)
@Wandering Poplin: As I pointed out earlier, the concept of the "Super Mario Advance series" has been officially recognised: "The complete Super Mario Advance series is now available on Nintendo Switch!", "Three classic Game Boy Advance titles from the Super Mario Advance series", "These 3 Super Mario Advance games have arrived". But in fact, so has the New Super Mario Bros. series: "The New Super Mario Bros. series has come out sequentially for the Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U". The actual reason I believe Super Mario Advance should have an article is because it consists of three Super Mario games and one Yoshi game (meaning it is not technically a "sub-series"), whereas the New Super Mario Bros. series is entirely contained within the Super Mario series and should therefore be covered on the article for that series. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 19:18, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Hewer Ah. Thanks for the reminder. I don't use Twitter/X, so that's often an aspect of their marketing I'm not fully savvy to. Wandering Poplin (talk) 19:56, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Wandering Poplin well, as I said below, just look at the Donkey Kong Land series (Super Mario Stadium is also notable here since it literally consists of just two games (no Mario Sports Superstars' baseball mode doesn't count)); the series literally consists of nothing else than remakes demakes of the original 3 Donkey Kong Country games (thus having a total of 3 entries which are just remakes). This just proofs that the New Super Mario Bros. series are arguably a more solid of a (sub)series than most subseries we cover on this wiki. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 20:02, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Hewer, just look at the Donkey Kong Land series (also Super Mario Stadium as it literally ain't even a series. It's literally just "game + sequel"). That's a subseries (basically) entirely contained within the Donkey Kong Country series. The reason I say it's actually part of the Donkey Kong Country series, is because the series is literally just 3 remakes demakes (and no, this time the series doesn't have a game that goes about a different character). So once again, I may have not found a good example at first, but the Donkey Kong Land series article contradicts the arguments about not needing a New Super Mario Bros. article (an to an extend, an article for any subseries, as per @Doc von Schmeltwick below). The New Super Mario Bros. series is just arguably a more solid (sub)serie than most (sub)series we cover on this wiki. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 19:50, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Donkey Kong Land is a related series to Donkey Kong Country, but its games are not themselves part of that series (nor are they really "remakes"), so it's again not a true "sub-series". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:06, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Well it's not a true series (or in my opinion, weird to cover as a full-on article) either as the games are indeed not remakes. They're demakes. The whole series is just a demake "series" that Nintendo released to get more money from the original games by demaking them on the Game Boy for the ones who didn't have a SNES (or couldn't afford one but could afford a Game Boy). Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 20:33, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Besides, most of these series articles don't even have that much info on them (cough cough Super Mario Advance (series) (definitely the longest out of all of these but still pretty short) çough cough Donkey Kong Land (series) cough cough Donkey Konga (series) cough cough DK (series) (come on this article is literally just 3 sentences of info) cough cough Donkey Kong (series) (literally just 1 sentence of info) cough cough). Yeah, you probably already notice it but most of these are from the Donkey Kong franchise. That franchise ain't done any good. It's split inot a lot of unnecessary (sub)series (minus Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Mario vs. Donkey Kong (series)) that are all smaller than the New Super Mario Bros. series. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 20:33, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

They aren't exactly demakes (though they are very close to being them). Only 2 shares the plot and stage names, and even then, the actual stage layouts are different. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:36, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Yeah you're right, but my point still stands, these are the series that don't do deserve an article (mainly the Donkey Kong ones), not New Super Mario Bros.. That series is more solid than any of the ones I named in my earlier comment. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 20:53, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Super Mario Bros. 5/Super Mario World 2/Super Mario: Yoshi's Island is absolutely a Super Mario game: it was developed as one once its cast and gameplay was finalized, was marketed as one upon release, and its remake was marketed as one of the remakes of the classic Super Mario Bros. games. This whole "Yoshi's Island 1 isn't a Super Mario game because it's a Yoshi game" thing is objectively wrong by any metric that actually defines what a "series" is. The later Yoshi's Island games are not part of it, but the first one is just as much as Super Mario Land 3 is part of the Super Mario Land series. It's like one of those episodes of a TV series that acts as a pilot to the spinoff series. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:09, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Nintendo has repeatedly excluded it from the series every time they make any kind of list of games, and the official series classification takes priority on this wiki over how you'd personally classify it. (I also don't see why games like Yoshi's New Island would be considered less Super Mario than the original.) Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:19, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

It's well-known that Miyamoto said he counts it as a mainline Mario platformer in-interview. That's not "what I'd personally do." Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:24, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Meanwhile, it's excluded on all official websites for the series ([5], [6], [7], [8]) and has been excluded from the series in material for all of its big anniversary celebrations (such as the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia). Yoshi's Island is also excluded from the series in Nintendo Music, which instead groups it with other Yoshi games, and the Super Smash Bros. games similarly separate Yoshi's Island content from Super Mario content. Miyamoto's statement is the outlier here. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 21:00, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Many of what you listed very strictly lists only one source series; for example, Smash Bros. also features a SMW-based stage consistently listed as being for the Yoshi series. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 21:42, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

This would only have been a concern for Smash, the other things I listed could easily have included Yoshi's Island in the Super Mario series but consistently chose not to (and even in Smash, Yoshi's Island content is always listed under the Yoshi series, while Super Mario World content other than that stage is listed with the Super Mario series). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 23:39, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

I really question why giving a subseries its own article is a bad thing, or any different from splitting the series from the franchises in the first place. What is and is not included varies the context of what is being described significantly [ie, Super Mario series is the core group of platformers, Super Mario Bros. series is the 2D ones that generally feature both Mario and Luigi (and also features the original Yoshi's Island game), Super Mario Land is the Peach-and-Bowser-less 2D ones on the Game Boy with their own plotline (and also features the original Wario Land game), Super Mario 3D is the various 3D platformers, Super Mario Advance is the GBA enhanced ports of Super Mario Bros. games with voice clips and squash-and-stretch +Mario Bros. (and again includes the first Yoshi's Island via remake), New Super Mario Bros. is the 2.5D Super Mario Bros. platformers that serve to bring it back to basics, Super Mario Galaxy is the cinematic space-themed 3D platformers with spinning and gravity, Super Mario Maker is the DIY block-by-block platformer... they all fall under Super Mario as a platforming series, but they all have different specifics when listed without the others]. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 19:15, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

@Doc von Schmeltwick As previously stated, Super Mario Galaxy isn't a series. It's two games, 1.5 ports, and a movie with a similar name.

I don't think it really counts as a series any more than something like Super Mario 3D (series) for Super Mario 3D Land, it's sequel, and the Nintendo Switch port of said sequel.

Come to think of it, that also sounds like it'd make for a sufficient counterargument regarding the ongoing DK (series) discussion. Wandering Poplin (talk) 19:56, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Super Mario 3D also includes 64, Sunshine, and the related games, per Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:02, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Yeah when most people say Super Mario 3D, they're very often (or let's just say always) referring to every single 3D Mario game, rather than just Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 20:06, March 5, 2026 (UTC)

Much like New Super Mario Bros., the "Super Mario Galaxy series" is officially recognised: "Super Mario Galaxy series: A series of 3D action games released for the Wii console."; "Super Mario Galaxy series: The first game in the series was Super Mario Galaxy, a 3D action game released for the Wii console in November 2007. The second game in the series, Super Mario Galaxy 2, was released in May 2010."; "A character who appears in the Super Mario Galaxy series"; "this doesn't mean we'll never make another Super Mario Galaxy game"; "the Super Mario Galaxy games are the core inspiration for our story". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 00:21, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

...You got to be kidding. I hope nobody's going to try and make another proposal to split that series now... Very interesting find. Are there any statements like that for the 3D Land/World "series" as well? Perhaps the original Mario trilogy*? It'd be helpful to know what duologies Nintendo does and does not officially consider a series/sub-series as far as this matter is concerned.

*I'm aware that the classic Mario games aren't really a "trilogy", since Super Mario Bros. 4 Super Mario Bros. 5 and the other Super Mario Bros. 2 officially exist. Wandering Poplin (talk) 00:44, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

i'm not sure i like where this conversation is headed. in my eyes, articles exist to contain information; the reason i think an NSMB series article is a good idea is because there is a lot to say about the games as a series. the "if X is split then Y should be split as well" logic doesn't hold up if you don't have a reason to make an article for Y in the first place. we'd only need to split any of those sub-series if we deem it necessary to discuss their games as an exclusive group. — eviemaybe (talk) 01:09, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

And this ties in to why I'm opposing the proposal. I think we should either split all sub-series or no sub-series, not just the ones we feel like splitting. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 01:14, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

i think that is missing the point. not all sub-series are created equal. — eviemaybe (talk) 01:31, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

So what's the criteria to determine whether one gets an article or not (seeing as you've already dismissed the idea of official recognition determining it)? You've implied that the "Super Mario Galaxy series" is less worthy of an article than the "New Super Mario Bros. series" - why? Is it because of the number of games (despite the fact two-game series like Mario + Rabbids and Famicom Grand Prix have articles)? Is it just arbitrary? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 01:53, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

the criteria is whether they have enough to write about to hold up an article, and whether there is an organizational benefit in splitting it, same as any other article on the wiki. i'm sorry if that is an unsatisfying answer, but i don't think there is a way to numerically quantify an article's potential "worthiness", so to speak. so yes, you might say it is "arbitrary". — eviemaybe (talk) 01:58, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Why do you believe the Super Mario Galaxy series does not meet this criteria while the New Super Mario Bros. series does? Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 02:02, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I believe they both do. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 02:09, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

i do not believe that, i have never stated that i believe that, and i do not appreciate having words put in my mouth like that. nevertheless, i believe that a sub-series being split should be founded on whether it would make for a good article, rather than any "merit" of the series itself. show me a good article draft for any sub-series, be it Galaxy or anything else, and it's very likely i will be convinced it should be published. — eviemaybe (talk) 02:17, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have misinterpreted your comments. You came in saying you didn't like where the discussion was going when the topic of the "Super Mario Galaxy series" getting an article started being discussed, and when I said previously that you implied Super Mario Galaxy was less worthy of an article and asked why, you answered without refuting this, hence I was under the impression you didn't want the Super Mario Galaxy series to get an article. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 08:59, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

it's okay. my dislike wasn't about the conclusion, it was about the arguments being used to reach it. — eviemaybe (talk) 15:36, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

@Hewer, if I could still add something, most Donkey Kong (sub)series (minus Donkey Kong Country and Mario vs. Donkey Kong) aren't even worth to be articles as well, as they include just one-five sentence. For New Super Mario Bros., there would be a lot more to talk about. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 13:37, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

Again, your reply ignores the arguments I've been making. I'm not concerned about metrics like amount of information or number of games (as long as it's more than one), I think any series that has at least two games and is not a sub-series (as in, it is not entirely contained within another series) can have an article. Also, in many cases articles are small because people haven't developed them fully, not because they couldn't possibly have more to write about. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:48, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

I just don't really get the argument as a New Super Mario Bros. series page actually seems like a series page worth covering because there's much to talk about. If there's much to talk about: talk about it. Even if it's a sub-series, it will have 50-100xx as much info as one-sentence nonsub-series we cover now. I really don't get why we would allow a one-sentence nonsub-series article over a detailed sub-series one. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 21:36, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

My opinion is that this information should be covered on the article for the greater series, in this case Super Mario (series). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 22:21, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

I just don't see any reason for these one-line'd non-subseries articles to exist if more informative and descriptive subseries aren't allowed to. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 22:28, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

I don't know of any source that groups specifically just 3D Land and 3D World together as a series, but the 3D games as a whole are often referred to with general terms such as "3D Super Mario" in interviews such as the ones I linked earlier. There's also this official image that features all the 3D games up to Odyssey divided into two groups. As for other officially recognised sub-series that I know of (besides New and Galaxy): the "Super Mario Land series" is mentioned in Smash, the "Super Mario Maker series" is mentioned in Smash and Mario Kart Tour, and the "Super Mario Bros. series" apparently consists of "side-scrolling action games". Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 01:22, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

If New Super Mario Bros does indeed receive an article, would we also have to recreate the Super Mario Land (series) page? I think it's far more closely analogous to this situation than something like Super Mario Advance series, the Donkey Kong Land series, or the... ugh... Super Mario Galaxy "series."

Also, in terms of the infograph, I don't think that's meant to imply two different sub-series, so much as it's meant to showcase "two different design philosophies for our 3D titles." Kind of like the differing designs for the Yoshi platformers. (Which I recall actually were originally split at one point.) Wandering Poplin (talk) 02:29, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

I agree the infogfraph isn't suggesting those are two different sub-series, but you could argue that it's evidence for the 3D games as a whole being seen as their own sub-series of Super Mario in a sense. Here's some more: "3D Super Mario and Mario Kart series are evolving"; "a new 3D Mario game and Mario Kart game"; "Super Mario Galaxy will be the long-awaited addition to the 3D action Mario games"; "the true successor to the Mario 3D action game series". And this whole interview repeatedly refers to the 3D games as "3D Mario", "3D Super Mario", or even "3D Super Mario Bros." (but makes clear that they are part of the Super Mario series along with "2D Mario" or "2D Super Mario"). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:11, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Oh, here's another one: "3D Mario": "A term that refers to an action game in the Super Mario™ series in which Mario moves around in a 3D space. In contrast, 2D Mario games refer to side-scrolling 2D platformers in the same series." So maybe it's less a "sub-series" and more just a different kind of game in the same series. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 11:32, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Sorry to spam links but I found a better source for the "Super Mario Land series" that specifically lists the three installments (including Wario Land). Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 15:24, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

My goodness, this situation is highly confusing. Initially, I believed that New Super Mario Bros. hadn't consistently been treated as its own sub-series, now I'm not quite sure what is and isn't a series/sub-series at this point. Very interesting info though. Wandering Poplin (talk) 18:58, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

Quick question, if this split, why not Mario Kart Arcade GP? Check Mario_Kart#Arcade_games, there's quite a bit of games here and they play much differently than New Super Mario Bros. to the mainline games. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 03:28, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

I'd think so. Frankly, It probably deserves one more than a few of the other small sub-series pages previously mentioned in this discussion. Wandering Poplin (talk) 05:52, March 6, 2026 (UTC)

@Mario, this is because Mario Kart Arcade GP series is just four arcade games. I don't think the wiki has ever made a subseries solely for arcade games. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 13:37, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

I still feel that it deserves one regardless. It objectively fits the definition of a "series" better than, for instance, the Mario Teaches Typing series. Wandering Poplin (talk) 18:43, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

why are y'all still going on about "deserving" articles? if there's enoguh to write about, it gets an article. plain and simple. — eviemaybe (talk) 19:45, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

Fair point. I'm just wondering if there's enough to write about the arcade Mario Karts. Yoshi18 (talk/contribs) 21:12, March 10, 2026 (UTC)

Oh also, another question, how will this affect history pages? Will Mario's history for the Super Mario Bros. series be further split or not? It would be fine if this proposal meant a creation of the page and a couple templates but systemically restructuring history organizations is gonna be a harder sell. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 20:13, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

i don't think that's necessary, it sounds like it would just result in a worse reading experience. — eviemaybe (talk) 20:42, March 7, 2026 (UTC)