Talk:Bumper (Yoshi Touch & Go)

Merge Bumper (Yoshi Touch & Go), Bumper (Pinball) and Bumper (Mario Kart series), into a general Bumper article

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

Merge bumpers 11-5-0
Okay, let's be honest: before this month, the Bumper situation has been a mess (and so is the Flipper situation, actually, but that's for another time).

Prior to Sorbetti's proposals, the Bumper (Super Mario Maker series) (back then Bumper (Super Mario series)) had a serious case of identity crisis. What once was a simple article for the recently-unveiled, donut-shaped Bumpers for Super Mario Maker, had over time become a hodge-podge of anything in the Mario platformers that was bouncy or had "bumper" in the name, all starting with this edit and resulting in something like this. On the surface it sounded okay, but when you peel a little underneath and dig a bit deeper, you will realize that none of them should actually share an article, as it consisted of: the donut-shaped objects that in most languages wasn't even called "bumper" (instead referring more to its roundness or ring shape) and was initially meant as an antithesis to the Grinder, an orange bubble thing with a weird shape within that also had a different name in Japanese and Italian, TWO objects that not only aren't even round but also whose Japanese names invoke Mushroom Trampolines instead, a slab of meat that the wiki already covered on the Meat article, and most bafflingly of all, some spherical object that, admittedly, WAS at one point called a bumper, but, as it turns out, had literally NONE of the bounciness of a bumper and was essentially just a wall!

Now thankfully, all of these have now been split off or removed thanks to Sorbetti's second bumper proposal, but there was one more spanner in the work prior to the creation of this proposal: Xiahou Ba added yet another bumper to the article, the one from Yoshi Touch & Go, although this was a more traditional-looking pinball bumper. She also added in the summary that "the article should be renamed to encompass more series", essentially turning it into a general Bumper article. Logically sound, but as I explained earlier, this was NOT the article to turn into a general Bumper article.

And all while we still have two other articles on a pinball bumper that are still separated!

Now, the Touch & Go bumper has also been split off thanks to Sorbetti's proposal, but as you can see, it's quite short.

So, here's what I propose: we take the Touch & Go bumper, the Bumper from Pinball and VS. Pinball, and the Mario Kart bumper, and merge those into a general Bumper article. Not one that is a frankenstein'd hodgepodge of bouncy obstacles, but one that is more focused on the traditional idea of a pinball bumper.

In the past week, I have drafted such a page with some feedback of other users such as Eviemaybe and Nintendo101, through the wiki's Discord server. As you can see, a couple more bumpers have been incorporated into this article, such as the Bumper from Super Smash Bros. (meaning that certain redirects to List of Super Smash Bros. series items will be re-redirected to this one), and different object from Super Mario Bros. Wonder that is more deserving of the "bumper" moniker.

Bumper (Super Mario Maker series) and Bumper (Sonic the Hedgehog) will not be included in the merge. Not only do they have different Japanese names (Marumaru and Bobbin respectively), but the Mario Maker Bumper is clearly not meant to be a pinball bumper, while the Sonic one is obviously from a different franchise altogether.

I also envision that the Bumper article I drafted up will be the primary Bumper article and won't get an identifier, meaning that our current article with the name "Bumper" will have to be moved to "Bumper (disambiguation)"... if there'll be anything left for a disambiguation page, that is. I mean, aside from the Mario Maker and Sonic Bumpers, the only other Bumper that would be left is the guy from Diddy Kong Racing.

(EDIT 06:46, May 29, 2025 (EDT): Added an option to not include the Super Smash Bros. Bumper in the merged article due to concerns of that specific variant not being a Super Mario-related item. Fair enough, although I would question why we do cover the Smash Bros. version of Party Ball on our Party Ball article then...)

Proposer: Arend (talk)
Deadline: June 12, 2025, 23:59 GMT

Support: Merge Bumpers

1. Arend (talk) Per proposal.
2. Xiahou Bump-Ba (talk) Per proposal.
3. Bumpetti (talk) Per proposal.
4. Salmancer (talk) Per proposal
5. EvieMaybe (talk) the state of this has me tilted! per proposal.
6. Camwoodstock (talk) That seems to fair to us. Per proposal.
7. Blinker (talk) Per proposal. I don't particularly care about the Smash Bros. Bumper, but articles like Barrel and Crate include Smash Bros. appearances, so this would be consistent with that.
8. Albumpo (talk) Per Blinker.
9. Nintendo101 (talk) Bumpity bump.
10. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.
11. Jdtendo (talk) It makes sense to merge pinball bumpers into the same article, regardless of the game series they come from.

Support: Merge Bumpers, but leave the Super Smash Bros. Bumper out

1. Hewer (talk) Per my comment and my vote here. All of this Bumper's trophies identify it as being from Super Smash Bros., with its trophy description in Brawl explicitly calling it "an item that originally appeared in Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64", and its page on the official Brawl website leans even further into this, proudly promoting it as "the Bumper from the Nintendo 64 version of Super Smash Bros." and treating it like a cause for nostalgia, so I think it's clear that this is intended to be seen as a Smash-original item. This option would also be consistent with how CD was handled.
2. LadySophie17 (talk) Per Hewer and the CD article. If we're keeping the Sonic bumper out, we should keep the Smash bumper out for the same reason. (And as for the Party Ball, maybe we should look at splitting that for consistency too)
3. EvieMaybe (talk) secondary option
4. Arend (talk) Secondary option, given the Smash Bros. Bumper is not so much a Mario thing, of all things considered (although it might have a mention on the page still, considering its appearance on the Peach's Castle stage)
5. Rainbow Road Drifter (talk) The Smash bumper is from another franchise, like the Sonic bumper, and the other three Bumpers are all short cylinders with a rounded top, so they should share an article. The Smash bumper also has gaps in the border in the later appearances, and these don't. I am no longer suggesting appearance as a reason to split, per Arend's comment.

BUMP! (Comments)

I believe that with only two alternative subjects of the same name, current policy is for the page without the identifier to use Template:About to link to the pages with identifiers. So no, if this proposal passes the new page replaces the current Bumper page. Salmancer (talk) 20:40, May 28, 2025 (EDT)

The thing is, there'd be three Bumpers with identifiers left: Bumper (Super Mario Maker series), Bumper (Sonic the Hedgehog) and Bumper (character). Two of these three are already linked in the Comparable section of the draft's infobox though. rend (talk) (edits) 20:48, May 28, 2025 (EDT)

I don't really agree with the inclusion of the Super Smash Bros. Bumper, it's always been treated as a Smash-original object with a unique, recurring design. Given that the Soccer Ball is identified in-game as being from the NES game Soccer, there'd be nothing stopping them from saying those Bumpers are from Pinball if that was the intention. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 05:15, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

To be fair, while I wanted to include it, I initially didn't include the Smash Bros. Bumper for that reason (as well as being focused on just bringing the initial three bumpers together), until someone in the Discord (I believe it was Salmancer) suggested the inclusion. You bring a good point, but I should also mention that our Party Ball article also includes the one from Smash Bros, which similarly has always been treated as a Smash-original. rend (talk) (edits) 06:21, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

I was and still am against organising Party Ball like that. For another counterexample, see how we ended up handling CD. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 07:22, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

This page doesn't seem to be based on a single recurring subject. Its about putting these subjects together as "the bumpers from pinball tables". Otherwise, why is Bumper from hit video game Pinball sharing a page with Bumper in Mario Kart 7? And if that's the crux of the Bumper page now, then Smash Bros. Bumper is 100% qualified as this. Even its trophies clarify the idea: while they are not from hit video game Pinball, and therefore don't credit hit video game Pinball as an appearance, Smash 4 in Europe clearly says "You might recognise this from a pinball machine". Smash Bumpers even have the starburst pattern iconic to bumpers from pinball tables. It makes sense to put "pinball bumper" in a video game crossover, because pinball machines are either video games or very close to being a video game. They're certainly part of video gaming culture just by being placed with video games in arcades. Basically, if Smash Bumper is distinct enough to not be a "pinball bumper", then why are we putting bumpers with distinctive appearances from four games and one series together on one page in the first place?

Aside: Party Ball is like Bumper in its non-game origins, and Smash Bros. CD may or may not be a generic CD. Quick pass says there hasn't been a "like the things you use to listen to music in the real world" statement. But that doesn't matter because this wiki does not have a CD article for the compact discs that play music. Doing Bumper in the same way we do Party Ball is consistent.) Salmancer (talk) 08:17, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

In general, I do usually lean towards splitting distinct yet similar subjects rather than making shared "generic subject" articles, but I especially don't think it's fair to treat a recurring Smash item that's supposed to be specific to Smash as just a generic instance of a pinball bumper in the same way as the others. Also consider that Smash items with no particular relation to Mario are supposed to be merged into list of Super Smash Bros. series items. I think it's weird that Bumper and Party Ball are deemed exceptions not because of any actual Mario relevance they have but because the real things that they're based on happen to have made unrelated appearances in a couple other games. (This is also a problem with Beehive, but oddly not with other "generic" objects like fans, food, parasols, and the aforementioned CDs). Also, what do you mean "this wiki does not have a CD article for the compact discs that play music"? What is this then? That page used to also cover Smash CDs before they were removed by a proposal. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 08:41, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

I know that I opposed the CD split proposal, but to play devil's advocate for a minute: the whole crux of that proposal was actually twofold: not only do the Smash Bros. CDs not mention Wario Land 4 as an appearance, but the proposal also indicates that the Wario Land 4 CDs are called Time CDs (or rather, Toki no CDs) in Japanese.
I should probably also mention that our Beehive article also lists Smash Bros. as an appearance, even though the Beehive in that game is strictly said to be from Animal Crossing instead of Super Mario. rend (talk) (edits) 08:55, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

Beehive should be changed too, I mentioned it in my previous comment. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 10:42, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

Admittedly, I am a bit baffled that we're still covering the Animal Crossing beehive here. At least the more Smash-generic items being covered somewhat makes sense in comparison. rend (talk) (edits) 13:08, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

Oh, the state of the Beehive page as a whole is wack. Zero mention of beehives as a stage setting, and it's not like Beehive (setting) is its own page separate from it; the only Beehive stage to get split is Beehive (Mario Pinball Land), even then, only as a sub-area, and it's the only sub-area in the whole game to get a split like this. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 14:13, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

@Rainbow Road Drifter While I think it's fair enough to not include the Smash Bumper because it's not a Mario franchise bumper, you did kinda lose me with stating that the Smash Bumper doesn't resemble any of the other bumpers (aside from in a strictly literal sense I guess). The Smash bumper is shown to be short and cylindrical too, and while the top isn't necessarily rounded like the Waluigi Pinball bumpers, this detail isn't verifiable with a couple other bumpers in which we see only see their top, either (such as the ones from Pinball and Touch & Go).
Anyway, what makes all these bumpers comparable, including the Smash one is not only their shape (round and/or cylindrical) but also the fact that they're (based on) pinball bumpers, something which the Smash version makes very clear in its Trophy descriptions for Brawl and 3DS/Wii U.
Again, I should stress that not including the Smash bumper because it's not from Mario, is an absolutely fair and valid point; I just think the appearance argument is rather weak. It's not as egregious as a donut-shaped rubber thing sharing an article with a slab of meat, a square, and a metal orb with zero bounciness. rend (talk) (edits) 18:41, June 3, 2025 (EDT)

I agree, appearance isn't enough reason to split a subject. (The Touch & Go, Pinball, and Mario Kart ones have different colors and patterns on the top.) Glad you agree with the "being from another franchise" angle as a reason to split, because that is still my main argument. Rainbow Road Drifter - Talk 21:36, June 3rd, 2025 (EDT)