Talk:History of Toad

Re-implementing the "Possible Appearances" section?

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This is a feature that used to be on Toad's article which I noticed is missing from this branch of the page.

I recall that a few users tended to dislike the section for being inherently speculative, but it's absence has led to some confusing messiness on this article, such as the "possible appearance Toads" seemingly being outright merged into the main history section of the page as if they were fully confirmed appearances. This eventually resulted in a entire proposal being created last month just to remove the more "ambiguously-defined" Toads from this page, which has, conversely, left certain iterations of Toad with nowhere to be covered at, such as his appearances in Super Princess Peach or Paper Mario: Color Splash.

I personally believe that most of this situation could have largely been avoided if the "Possible Appearances" section had still in place on this article somewhere.

I also couldn't seem to find an explanation for the section's complete removal, either. This section of Toad's talk page does briefly discuss the idea of removing it, but there doesn't to be any information regarding its absence in the any of the relevant history sections for this page, the main article, nor could I even find a proposal regarding its removal. (That is, unless I missed something on the Proposal archive page.)

A few articles, such as Yellow Toad and Blue Toad's page, still retain a comparable section to what used to be here, and re-adding one to this page would give us a place to cover certain "Toad-like" Toads which may not be fully confirmed appearances of the character, without necessarily contradicting the aforementioned proposal from last month. Does anyone else think it's a good idea, or perhaps you might have a better solution in mind? (For the record, the Toad (species) article would not be up to the task of sufficiently covering things like "PMCS Toad" in the slightest.) Wandering Poplin (talk) 00:54, February 21, 2026 (UTC)

Off-topic, but we also need a new quote for his page now. If we aren't currently considering the Toad from Mario Super Sluggers to be "The Toad", we shouldn't be attributing that line to him anymore. Wandering Poplin (talk) 00:54, February 21, 2026 (UTC)

Well, that problem's been solved now. But the broader issue still remains. For any users who may disagree with the prospect of re-implementing the "Possible Appearances" section, do you have a better proposition for how to handle these edge-case Toads? I don't think the current handling of the situation is quite acceptable, but I'm also trying to not step on the toes of the "Tighten Coverage" proposal too much for the moment. Wandering Poplin (talk) 01:26, March 7, 2026 (UTC)

Come to think of it, what is/was the criteria for inclusion in the "Possible Appearances" section, anyway? I recall that one "possible appearance" of Yellow Toad and Blue Toad was removed for being unconfirmed*, but neither were the other three appearances listed in that section**. Knowing what the criteria for inclusion was supposed to be would be helpful in terms of figuring out how to improve that system for this page.

(*That section has recently been re-added to the article. Looks like its removal was just part of a misunderstanding.)

(**Luigi's Mansion 3 might be an exception, since I believe the problem there is that we don't know if it's specifically the NSMBW duo, or just two unrelated Toads with the same colors and names.) Wandering Poplin (talk) 16:59, March 7, 2026 (UTC)