Template talk:Kart infobox

Variations

Could we add "variation of" and "variations" parameters? The variations parameter is for karts that have a variation/variant, not including color changes. The variation of parameter is for karts that are a variation of another kart. It's mostly to get rid of some unnecessary sentences that I think fit better in an infobox. For example, the Gold Standard is a variant of the Standard Kart, so it will have Standard Kart in the "variant of" parameter, while the Standard Kart has the Gold Standard in the "variations" parameter. --DarkNight 12:32, September 9, 2020 (EDT)

Is this infobox necessary?

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In my opinion, this infobox is redundant. The main thing that separates it from {{item infobox}} is that it has parameters to denote the size class, "strong stats", "average stats", and "weak stats" of a kart, but what makes a stat strong or average or weak can be vague. For games like Mario Kart 8 where karts either add, subtract, or do not modify stat points, it makes sense to classify them that way, but for games like Mario Kart DS where kart stats are all positive numbers, what makes a stat good or bad is nebulous probably a bit subjective. Also, on pages for karts that appear in a lot of games, like the Standard Kart and B Dasher, their infoboxes have to cram information about stats from almost every game they appear in, which makes them bloated and hard to read. I can only speak for myself, but if I want to know what stats a kart excels and falters in, I would just go to the statistics section. I never find the infobox stats worth looking at.

These parameters also abbreviate the names of games to save space. Currently the wiki only explicitly forbids abbreviations in article names, but I don't see abbreviations used anywhere else in the content of articles (ignoring "meta" aspects of the wiki like template and file names), so it's very jarring to me that this is the one exception.

If you take the stat parameters away, all you're left with is the parameters for game appearances and variants, something that {{item infobox}} already covers. At that point, why not retire this infobox and just use the item infobox for karts instead, and move the size class information to the statistics section? Would the wiki really be missing out on anything by removing this infobox? If yes, do the benefits of fixing the bloated parameters outweigh the downsides? Dive Rocket Launcher 04:09, February 16, 2026 (UTC)

And then for the Mario Kart Tour karts, AKA the majority of the karts, kart infobox does actual nothing. Mario Kart Tour doesn't have handling and off road in the way other games think of it, so the stat parameters don't get used. Actually, kart infobox does worse than nothing, because an infobox like that of the one on a kart that appears in a non-Tour game and a Tour game like Cact-X and Steel Driver requires active editor intervention to add abbreviations, lest they imply the karts have stats like acceleration in Mario Kart Tour at all. (The linked examples make a mistake to this effect, with a strong or weak stat not indicated to not apply in Mario Kart Tour. This is very hard to spot on a whim, meaning errors like the linked ones could be all over the wiki and persist for years. We should probably structure pages to make them as easy as possible to maintain (while containing all information), not harder to maintain. I agree with all other stated points, this template isn't quite holding its own in the face of karts varying wildly across different games in the same series. Salmancer (talk) 05:12, February 16, 2026 (UTC)

I didn't even realize that the majority of pages that use this template don't even use the stat parameters. Retiring this infobox and replacing all instances with {{item infobox}} would also be a good opportunity to go through all the kart pages to fill out the variants/variant of parameters, since I noticed a lot of kart pages don't use them yet. (Also, not really an issue with the template itself, but it's awkward that the template is called "kart infobox" when it's also used for tires and gliders.) Dive Rocket Launcher 01:18, February 18, 2026 (UTC)