Template talk:Race course infobox

Add tours parameter and prohibit use of cups for Mario Kart Tour appearances

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implement 10-0-0
I've noticed the courses that have appeared multiple times in Mario Kart Tour list all of the cups they've appeared in in this infobox. The problem with this, though, is that this list becomes flooded because of their recurring nature. The cup they appear in changes in every tour, and I think listing every cup is unnecessary because eventually every recurring course is bound to appear in almost every (if not all) cup(s) at least once at one point throughout the game's life. (And that's 40 cups and growing.) As a solution, we should add a "tours=" parameter since that would be more significant than the cups they appear in, but I propose that Mario Kart Tour appearances should only use this parameter and that "cups=" be used only for every other Mario Kart game.

Proposer: Mario jc (talk)
Deadline: August 26, 2020, 23:59 (UTC)

Support

1. Mario jc (talk) Per proposal.
2. TheFlameChomp (talk) Per proposal.
3. Toadette the Achiever (talk) Well, since it's only for infoboxes...per all.
4. Waluigi Time (talk) Per all.
5. Duckfan77 (talk) Per all.
6. Alex95 (talk) - Per proposal.
7. DarkNight (talk) Per proposal.
8. 3l!jah (talk) Per Proposal
9. 1468z (talk) Per Proposal.
10. Salmancer (talk) It would improve the readability of the template.

Comments

I feel like excluding MKT Cups from the Cups parameter can be interpreted as wiki saying that MKT Cups are less important than Cups in other Mario Kart games. Is the wiki allowed to make that kind of judgement? Salmancer (talk) 11:41, August 12, 2020 (EDT)

It's not quite that they're "less important", but MKT is the first game in the Mario Kart series where a single course can appear in multiple cups, and the cups that do exist are constantly shifting their courses. This proposal is just trying to avoid every course in MKT having an excessively long and constantly expanding laundry list of cups in a course's infobox. -- Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 11:50, August 12, 2020 (EDT)

Shouldn’t “online play” only include MKDS

It’s the only game where not every track was available online. Servers do get shut down but it should be obvious when they do. Remembered Old Buddy 14:54, April 9, 2024 (EDT)

Decide what to do with the Online play field

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.

remove "online play" field entirely 3-11-0
The initial purpose of the "Online play" field in Mario Kart race course infoboxes was to denote whether or not a course was available to play online in Mario Kart DS, since not all of them were. Since Mario Kart Wii was also out when the template was created, editors also put if courses were available in that game as well... which would always be yes, since every course was available online in that game. The same thing was done with Mario Kart 7 when that game came out, then 8, then its DLC, then 8 Deluxe, then its DLC...

Fast forward to 2025, and there have been five Mario Kart games that support online play since Mario Kart DS. All of them have all of their courses available when playing online. It's obvious that limited course options online was simply a one-time thing, so why mention if a course is playable online in the games that don't have that quirk? It seems editors have realized this at some point, as many courses in Mario Kart Tour and/or Mario Kart World don't have their online playability statuses in their infoboxes. If we don't want to fully commit to writing this information for every applicable game, then why write it for any of the games that don't need it?

In addition, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and Nintendo Network have both been shut down, meaning that the only game we denote online playability for that still supports it is 8 Deluxe. Every single other game on every single applicable course's infobox says "No longer available" (or "Was never available" if a track wasn't playable in DS.) It gets to a point where it feels less like denoting online playability and more like reminding the reader that these games' servers are down, and I don't feel that it's necessary anymore as is. One could argue that the status of a game's online connectivity is still worthwhile information to have, but again, why aren't we including this template argument in every course from Tour and World if this is the case?

I propose two solutions to this problem: The first is to rename "Online play" to "Online play (DS)" and only use it to denote whether or not a course was ever available online in Mario Kart DS. Any Mario Kart course that isn't in that game will get its Online play field in its infobox removed, if it has one. The other solution is to simply remove the Online play argument from the template entirely.

Proposer: MegAmi (talk)
Deadline: August 10, 2025, 23:59 (UTC)

Option 1: Rename "Online play" to "Online play (DS)", only include Mario Kart DS information in it

1. MegAmi (talk) First option. Per proposal.
2. SGoW (talk) I still think this is notable information that is nicely coneyed by having an entry in the infobox, but agree it's completely unnecessary for any game after Mario Kart DS.
3. Murphmario (talk) Per SGoW.

Option 2: Remove the "Online play" field entirely

1. MegAmi (talk) Second option. Per proposal.
2. Salmancer (talk) Looks to me like a vestige of a former era. We should just put the sentence that a course was or was not available for online play in the article's body, I suppose with a follow up note in the section for the next game that all courses can be played online from that game onward.
3. EvieMaybe (talk) per Salmancer.
4. Ahemtoday (talk) Per Salmancer.
5. Jdtendo (talk) Per all.
6. Waluigi Time (talk) There's only 12 courses in DS that didn't allow online play, it's the exception rather than the rule and can easily be noted in the article text.
7. Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior (talk) Per Salamancer.
8. Rykitu (DS): No longer available (talk) Per Salmancer.
9. YoYo (talk) exactly what waluigi time said, I was thinking.
10. Altendo (talk) Per Salmancer and Waluigi Time.
11. Dominoes (talk) The parameter has already served its purpose, and is no longer something that's needed on the infobox in the current time.

Add progression

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.

implement Cup Progression 3-2-5-0
In my time using this wiki, I've found it odd and sometimes a little annoying that pages for Mario Kart courses don't include anything related to the order of the courses in the game. The cups have a specific order, with a specific order for the courses in them, that is generally the intended progression for the average player, and generally the wiki links as many relevant things as possible for the convivence of readers and navigation, as per the Manual of Style. And when I found out that the template for Diddy Kong Racing courses do have a progression section, I thought it was time I put together a proposal for this. Plus, there's another relevant proposal going on for {{Course infobox}}.

Before I get into the options, I'd like to show my very rudimentary, probably inefficient, and very amateur, but functional, prototype of what I have in mind for this, and have made some examples of it in use. Now, it's far from ideal; I think it'd be much better if it was collapsible in some form, since a lot of courses (see Choco Mountain in the aforementioned examples) have a very high number of appearances that the progression would have to account for which would take up an pretty significant amount of real estate otherwise. It'd also probably be better if all of the code could get put directly into the base template rather than the very frankly janky method I used with this separate template. But, unfortunately, with my limited skills in making and editing templates here, I couldn't get either of those things to work. So, if there is someone who knows what they're doing and can help with making the prototype more solid please feel free to edit it to make improvements.

I've updated the prototype to be much more compact by @LadySophie17's suggestion, and changed the examples accordingly. I've also changed them to showcase what option 3 would look like instead of option 1, thanks to what they pointed out. The changes I made also negated the need to the separate template. Please still feel free to edit it to make improvements though.

Now, with that out of the way, I've come up with 3 options for how to handle progression on courses:

1. Game wide progression: This is essentially the way that Diddy Kong Racing courses are handled. For example, Shy Guy Falls would have it's next course progression wise under Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe listed as Sunshine Airport, as the Star Cup would be the next cup after the Flower Cup, which Shy Guy Falls ends.
2. Cup Section progression: This is my least preferred option, and arguably the most strange, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to make it an option anyway, just incase it's the route someone wants to go on. This option would mean that, for example, courses in Mario Kart 8 would be split into Nitro, Classic, and DLC. So Shy Guy Falls and Sunshine Airport would still chain together, but Rainbow Road and Wii Moo Moo Meadows would not, nor would N64 Rainbow Road and GCN Yoshi Circuit.
3. Cup progression: This option is very straightforward; it would make it so the progression would only go through each cup. So every course from the Mushroom Cup in Mario Kart DS, for example, would be chained together in that respective section, but Luigi's Mansion would not lead into Desert Hills.

For all of these options, in the case of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the end of the original Mario Kart 8's DLC would not connect to the Booster Course Pass, since they, in game, are treated as a separate set of cups, and will cause completely separate staff credits. As well, Mario Kart Tour is not part of this due to the fact that tours rerun, courses appear multiple times in the same tour and aren't available at all times, meaning it doesn't have a proper linear progression, or at least an easily ascertainable one.

Proposer: Iand255 (talk)
Deadline: September 18, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Option 1: Game wide progression (à la Diddy Kong Racing)

1. Iand255 (talk) Secondary option, per proposal.
2. Arend (talk) Per proposal.
3. The Real Mario Kart 8 Fan (talk) Secondary Option. Per proposal.

Option 2: Cup Section progression

1. Iand255 (talk) Tertiary option, per proposal.
2. Arend (talk) Per proposal.

Option 3: Cup progression

1. Iand255 (talk) Primary option, per proposal.
2. LadySophie17 (talk) Per my comments below.
3. Arend (talk) Per proposal.
4. The Real Mario Kart Fan (talk) Primary Option. Per proposal.
5. Camwoodstock (talk) After being told that this wouldn't impact Diddy Kong Racing, we feel far more comfortable voting for this now.

Comments

As an important note, I didn't make an option for only the original game to have the progression listed because that would raise a number of problems, most prominently with courses like Sky-High Sundae which originated in the Booster Course Pass that would essentially just be linking to courses that don't continue to link in the same direction. IanD255, but older (talk) 06:10, September 4, 2026 (UTC)

I don't think those cups are presented as linearly as you say. The new and classic cup sequences parallel each other in difficulty (e.g. going from a Mushroom course to a Shell course rather than a Rainbow Road to a beginner Shell course). So I don't think we can safely assume there's an intended "game-wide progression" be trying to link cups anyway. I feel similarly about your opinion on "cup section progression". It seems like a compromise between options 1 and 3 and that makes it not great for either side. Still, it has more going for it than game-wide progression, because locking the Special Cup behind the other cups has been a decent tradition. And Mario Kart Wii at least actually features more of a cup section progression than that. Cup progression is strictly based on definite evidence with no need to guess. I would fully support it, but your Choco Mountain example makes it clear to me how cluttered this can get. Placing it in a collapsible section makes it less accessible, which defeats the point of having it in the infobox. If a more compact design is presented I could change my mind. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 15:03, September 4, 2026 (UTC)

@LadySophie17 I went in and completely redid the prototype to make it more compact. I find it's better in almost everyway since it now no longer relies on the finicky second template, and is now much more compact. The only downside to it I see is that it isn't the same style the rest of the wiki uses for level progression, but, then again, Mario Kart isn't like the other games with level progression. I can also make more adjustments if you have any other ideas that could help make it better. IanD255, but older (talk) 18:07, September 4, 2026 (UTC)

Alright, that's better than how it was before. I don't like the name truncating but that's an issue with infoboxes in general and not your proposal. I'm not a fan of the verticality and I would love a design that still keeps both Previous and Next side by side like in {{Level infobox}}, though. Having tried that myself, adding the games in parenthesis makes most lines too long. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 16:20, September 5, 2026 (UTC)

...Is there room for nuance here? We feel like in the case of Diddy Kong Racing it should obviously be game-wide, but most other games probably should have it on a per-cup basis, and then we could implement something like the {{level infobox}}'s directory parameter to link to the respective game's list of cups... We just don't want that to be at the detriment of the one game that's explicitly more loose about cups like that. ;P ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 15:11, September 12, 2026 (UTC)

@Camwoodstock I don't know whether or not I 100% understood what you were specifically saying (my brain's not at full capacity today), but I think I'm understanding the basic gist of what's being said here. At first when I made the proposal I had my primary option as game wide because that's how DKR does it, but after @LadySophie17's comments, I realized that it makes much more sense to do per cup for MK and not do it the same way as DKR because it's a very different system, so I would preferably want this system to be implemented for MK but not in any way affect DKR. I don't know whether or not that was the response you were looking for, but I tried my best. On that note; this comment did bring my attention to the lack of a directory parameter, and went ahead and added it to the prototype and examples. Which, speaking of, since I'm on the topic; @LadySophie17 @Arend @The Real Color Splash Fan, since you've all already voted, I figured you deserve to be notified of this change. Ye he, yo ho; IanD255, but older (talk) 23:10, September 12, 2026 (UTC)

That's more-or-less what we were asking for, we didn't want Diddy Kong Racing to have to use the cup system if that option passed, since it doesn't really benefit from that. Good to know! ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 00:29, September 13, 2026 (UTC)

Glad I could answer your question then! IanD255, but older (talk) 19:29, September 13, 2026 (UTC)

Music track parameter

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With Mario Kart music articles now emerging, don't you guys think this template needs a "(music) track" parameter, just like {{level infobox}} and {{minigame infobox}}? Yoshi18 (talk | contribs) 21:02, September 4, 2026 (UTC)

It's definitely something I think it could use. IanD255, but older (talk) 22:00, September 4, 2026 (UTC)

Most race course themes share their name with the course that they play in, so listing the name is unnecessary here. Linking to the respective theme article is already handled with {{about}}. The Dab Master 15:45, September 5, 2026 (UTC)

I suppose that's true. IanD255, but older (talk) 20:54, September 5, 2026 (UTC)

Same, but even then; some levels of Super Mario 3D World do that. If it isn't seen as unnecessary for these. Then it shouldn't be considered unncessary for Mario Kart either. Yoshi18 (talk | contribs) 15:25, September 12, 2026 (UTC)

That's also true. If this is a particularly hot debate, it may be worth drafting a proposal for at some point in the future to see what the general consensus is. I'm personally a bit split down the middle though, so I personally don't mind either outcome of a decision like that. IanD255, but older (talk) 23:16, September 12, 2026 (UTC)

Yeah same. To @The Dab Master: I honestly think your point is just a bit inconsistent with SM3DW articles (and other mainline Mario games that share their music name with the level they play in). Yoshi18 (talk | contribs) 10:31, September 13, 2026 (UTC)

I'm okay with the music track parameter for Super Mario series courses because themes that are exclusive to and named after a specific course are rarer in this case, while the opposite is true in the Mario Kart series. (Also, a little off-topic, but I think that listing things like "Purple Comet" or "Going All Out in the Mystery House" is a little ridiculous.) The Dab Master 14:29, September 13, 2026 (UTC)

That's honeslty quite understandable yeah. Yoshi18 (talk | contribs) 16:39, September 14, 2026 (UTC)

Move or Duplicate Infobox Map to Layout Section on each Race Course page

This talk page section contains an unresolved talk page proposal. Please try to help and resolve the issue by voting or leaving a comment.

Current time: September 29, 2026, 10:25 (UTC)

Course maps should be displayed in the Layout section(s)/game title section(s) of their respective page, seeing as that is where they are most pertinent. With the way it is now, I did not even realize that there were maps on each page without it being pointed out to me, as I expected that if there were, they would be with the other maps (such as Route maps for MKWorld courses.) I imagine that many wiki lurkers also have no idea that there are course maps hidden in the infobox. To remedy this, they should either be moved or duplicated to each page's layout section.

Sep 15 Edit
Ahemtoday left a pretty long vote reason and I'd like to address some of the points they brought up, so I'm gonna do that here.

• "Tracks show up in each game and have multiple maps in each of those games" -- so we add them to each game's section.
• "The space we would spend on Mario Circuit 3's six minimaps [...]" -- so the article ends up being longer. I'm actually really glad they brought this up, because I think it adds another reason to my argument: courses with many stacked minimaps in their infobox can be pretty hard to distinguish between. Immediately after opening it, I was confused which one was MKT's and which one was MK8DX's.
• "[...] the question of alternate maps for certain games [...]" -- we can put them in collapsible boxes?
• "it's a big rectangle [...]" -- possibly the smallest rectangle on the entire page, at least on my end.
• "Changes between games are only covered outside the course layout section, which only pertains to the track's game of origin" -- My apologies for the wording on my original proposal (which read "Layout section", as in "there's only one"), as I was mainly looking at MKWorld pages for reference, such as Dry Bones Burnout. For a counter-example, Choco Mountain -- it has only one Layout section, yes, but it's for the MKWorld iteration of the track, not the original. Peach Beach and Toad's Factory have two. DK Pass has none. Having only one Layout section seems to be more of a tradition than a rule, and it isn't one that makes very much sense; on most MKWorld courses, the Routes subsection is under Layout, but in some of the Retros it is under the game's heading? Upon a closer inspection, each game's section has the description that would correspond to a Layout section, just without the header. It doesn't matter to me what the section is called, just that the game's map be included there, instead of tucked away some place as inconspicuous as the infobox. That way, users can a) see layout changes across the series as they scroll down the page's sections (and if there aren't any, they will see that too!) and b) find maps where they expect to see them, such as in the section whose game that map is from, or near the Routes subsection gallery on MKWorld course pages.

Proposer: LumiPlatinum (talk)
Deadline: September 28, 2026, 23:59 (UTC) Extended to October 5, 2026, 23:59 (UTC)

Option 1: Move Maps to Layout/each game's section

1. LumiPlatinum (talk) Per proposal.

Option 2: Duplicate Maps in the relevant sections on all race course pages

1. LumiPlatinum (talk) If moving is too much of a hassle, this is the next best thing.

Option 5: Oppose

1. Ahemtoday (talk) I don't think this system of doing it would make much sense. To begin with, there's more than one map for the vast majority of courses. 64, Super Circuit, DS, and 7 have multiple styles of map for each track (not to mention 8's version-based color differences); but the big deal is that tracks show up in multiple games and have different maps between those games. And we need all of those maps because sometimes a track can have major differences in layout between games. These changes are only covered outside of the "course layout" section, which only pertains to the track's game of origin. Putting the minimaps in their relevant section is also not a good idea, because while sometimes there are major differences in the minimap, there are also sometimes no changes of note. The space we would spend on Mario Circuit 3's six minimaps would be better spent on images of the track itself in the various games, which is where any of the actual differences will be visible. This is leaving aside the question of the alternative maps for certain games mentioned earlier, which would be even less tenable to include all of on an article. This situation, where there can be large variations in the amount and relevance of minimaps, is why placing them prominently (in the infobox) yet unobtrusively (in an expandable section) is the best solution. Which brings me to my final point... it's a big rectangle that says "Course map [show]". I don't think they're very hard to find.
2. Iand255 (talk) Per Ahemtoday. This feels pretty unnecessary.

Comments (Race Course Infobox Maps)

I have added option 3 as a potential compromise, though I don't expect it will be very popular.

— LumiPlatinum^(T|C) 20:11, September 14, 2026 (UTC)

I could be convinced to change option 3 to say something like "Duplicate Maps only on certain Race Course pages"

— LumiPlatinum^(T|C) 20:40, September 14, 2026 (UTC)

Given that the maps for every track in the series are in the infoboxes, the best move might be to just duplicate them

— Alexolotl Master^(T|C) 20:34, September 14, 2026 (UTC)

I am adding another option primarily for demonstration purposes.

— LumiPlatinum^(T|C) 04:16, September 15, 2026 (UTC)

If immediacy is our priority to the extent where even the minimaps being distinguished by text labels above them is undesirable — and I do not agree that immediacy should be our priority in that way — I do not think placing the minimaps like this is a good way to achieve it. To begin with, an infobox is the most prominent position for information in the article, drawing the eye harder than even the article's first paragraph. Placing the minimaps there puts them in a consistent position between all track articles: the second expandable in the infobox. This is important, because these articles vary in shape. You are correct about their differences in their section structure. That is a problem that is both fixable and that this proposal can proceed largely unhindered by, but when I talk about their shape, I mean the actual physical shape the text takes on the screen. The differences in this cannot be eliminated. There are inherently different amounts of things to write about different tracks, and highly recurring tracks will inherently have longer tables of contents than tracks that only appear once. What all of this means is that the minimaps will end up all over the place, in unpredictable locations that would necessitate scrolling down until you found them. This is on top of the difficulty of fitting the minimaps in as regular thumbnail images. Regular cases of one minimap having to share space with a screenshot of the track or two could get a bit cramped, but the real problem is when there are multiple minimaps. In the context of regular thumbnail images, having up to three minimaps of the same course in addition to the screenshots, as would be the case for Super Circuit, is untenable, redundant, and would frankly look a bit ridiculous. Expandable boxes are not a solution to this. I thought putting the minimaps in expandable boxes was the problem. I struggle to see how an expandable box with minimaps in it is less visible or natural in the infobox than in a place a thumbnail image would go. Also, I don't even know if expandable boxes can be placed there. Above all of this: I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the proposal that these sections are where readers would expect to see the minimaps. I can only speak for myself but: I don't. I don't expect to see the minimaps there. I expect to see them in the infobox in the place labeled "course map", not in the main body of the article. Ahemtoday (talk) 06:45, September 15, 2026 (UTC)

Per Ahemtoday's comment above; I still oppose this. I would personally like to add that I don't think that routes should be moved into the infobox, because;

1. There are a significant number of them and putting them in the infobox would massively clutter the collapsible section
2. Routes aren't actually part of the courses themselves, and therefore shouldn't be part of the course's maps
3. As it is, while coverage itself varies slightly from course to course, routes, along with their maps, are consistently always in one, single, dedicated section, sometimes with a small number of subsections, with a gallery, which is the optimal way to neatly showcase this many images, rather than spread across and all over an article's sections like this proposal would mean for course maps

I just don't see any value to any of the options in this proposal. IanD255, but older (talk) 17:39, September 15, 2026 (UTC)

...Honestly, I would prefer the minimaps be duplicated to the courses' respective gallery sections. And even then, I would still prefer the minimaps be kept in the infoboxes as well, or at least a handful of the most differing ones so that section wouldn't be too long and cluttered. rend (talk) (edits) 13:21, September 17, 2026 (UTC)

Implémentation

Hey, there! Aren’t we going to update Mario Kart pages to use this template’s « next » and « previous » sections? The proposal passed, so why aren’t we using it? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.209.33.251 (talk).

Proposals take time to be implemented. This one passed yesterday. Be patient. — Lady Sophie_17 ^(T|C) 19:44, September 19, 2026 (UTC)

Per @LadySophie17. And, for your information, I have actually started updating pages to use the parameters; see Mario Circuit 1, Donut Plains 1 (race course), Figure-8 Circuit, Choco Mountain, and Yoshi Circuit. I stopped because, in my timezone, it was past 8 pm and I was, understandably, tired. I'm only human, and I'm 17 at that; I have a life to live outside of this wiki. IanD255, but older (talk) 19:53, September 19, 2026 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that this needs to be done with approximately 242 courses (according to my calculations counting the Arcade GP games and Live: Home Circuit; otherwise still a meaty 182). This isn't something that's done overnight. rend (talk) (edits) 21:24, September 19, 2026 (UTC)