User:EvieMaybe/Proposal sandbox

Regular-sized proposals

Create a new "Appendix:" namespace

The Super Mario franchise is large. Describing it in-depth across an entire wiki requires knowledge of very specific areas, knowledge that a casual reader might not have. Sports terminology, the NES's technical limitations, the intricacies of Japanese honorifics... I've seen all of these be relevant to the wiki. These are things we need to communicate to the reader, but having to write an entire explanation every time the topic comes up is unwieldy.

Introducing the Appendix: namespace. Partially inspired by TV Tropes's Useful Notes, these pages would serve not to document the Super Mario franchise directly, but to explain aspects of the real world that are necessary to document the franchise more thoroughly. What if, instead of having to explain what the -chan suffix means separately for each Japanese name that uses it, we could link to one unified explanation?

I anticipate people bringing up that we can simply link to external sites for explanations. However, hosting these explanations on the wiki itself ensures that we know what information we are providing to our readers. If that external site changes or goes down, our explanation goes down with it. Additionally, it allows us to tailor our explanations to the Super Mario franchise, as well as guaranteeing that all the information required is in one place. Of course, these pages would require thorough citations to ensure their content is factual, but what doesn't?

If this proposal passes, in addition to the creation of the Appendix: namespace, the page List of golfing terms will be converted into "Appendix:Golfing terminology", and some elements from MarioWiki:Glossary will be moved to appropriate appendix pages.

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Standardize usage of symbol characters in article URLs

Background: Recently, we had a proposal about moving an article titled "♥" (yes, just a heart) to "Heart (Yoshi's Story)". It passed, and I voted for it. In my vote, I expressed the feeling of "I think we should have an actual policy about not using symbols in URLs", and people seemed to agree with the sentiment.

Template:Title's primary use case is for titles that are technically impossible to display on the wiki. The main example given in MarioWiki:Article naming is that of 1 Iggy's Castle, which can't use a # in its URL because it's a control character. However, it is also used inconsistently to replace characters that are unreasonable to type with standard keyboards, such as The Legend of Zelda x Mario Kart 8 replacing that pesky × sign with a lowercase x. The lack of guidelines regarding this use case leads to arbitrary, contradictory decisions across the wiki, which this proposal seeks to amend.

Below is a table listing every wiki article that either utilizes special characters in its URL, or utilizes Template:Title to replace a special character with a standard one. If Support passes, every link on the second column will be moved to its equivalent on the first column, using Template:Title to display the accurate title. If Oppose passes, the opposite will happen. Either way, the resulting decision will be codified in MarioWiki:Article naming.

Titles without special symbols	Titles with special symbols
The Legend of Zelda x Mario Kart 8 Animal Crossing x Mario Kart 8 Mercedes-Benz x Mario Kart 8 G-Shock x Super Mario Bros.	The Legend of Zelda × Mario Kart 8 Animal Crossing × Mario Kart 8 Mercedes-Benz × Mario Kart 8 G-Shock × Super Mario Bros.
Special World 1 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 2 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 3 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 4 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 5 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 6 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 7 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) Special World 8 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition)	★World 1 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 2 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 3 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 4 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 5 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 6 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 7 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition) ★World 8 (Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition)
KYON2	KYON²
Le Journal Nintendo No1 Le Journal Nintendo No2 Le Journal Nintendo No3 Le Journal Nintendo No4	Le Journal Nintendo №1 Le Journal Nintendo №2 Le Journal Nintendo №3 Le Journal Nintendo №4
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Booster Course Pass Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - Get Them Goombas!	Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Passb Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury – Get Them Goombas!ab
Mario, Yoshi, Kirby & More vs !?	Mario, Yoshi, Kirby & More vs ⁉️
Viva Rock	Viva★Rock
World Star (Super Mario Run) Star door	World ★ (Super Mario Run) ★ door
Yu Ayasaki's Big Adventure!	♪Yu Ayasaki's Big Adventure!♪

¹ - Uses a right single quotation mark (’) instead of a straight apostrophe (')
² - Uses an en dash – instead of a hyphen -

Support (no symbols)

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

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Standardize criteria for purely practical article splits

First, some background; the idea for this proposal started with a conversation with RocketLauncher, who is in the process of documenting a particular mechanic related to Bullet Bill's appearance as an item in the Mario Kart series. We both agreed that it would be easier to document if Bullet Bill (item) was a separate article, which gave me the idea for this proposal.

Point A: Many subjects in the Super Mario franchise appear in several roles. Sometimes enemies become items, sometimes they become bosses, sometimes a reocurring location gets a much greater focus in one game, sometimes it becomes a character. Many of these are done for artistic consistency (why design a separate "bomb" item when Bob-ombs already exist?) or to bring back a recurring location (it would be weird if Peach had a castle that wasn't Peach's Castle).

Point B: This wiki (generally, see below) gives each distinct subject one article. Everything that is "Goomba" goes in the Goomba article, and anything that gets split is split from it is because it is not a Goomba, or is a distinct variation of it that counts as a different subject.

Conflict: Sometimes, an appearance of a subject that cannot be delineated as a distinct, separate subject, is hard to properly document because it has to share an article with all the other appearances. Sometimes one section is too large, drowning out the others. Sometimes one section should be larger, but having to share an article with the others prevents it from being expanded. Sometimes both situations happen at once, with a large section that should be even larger, but can't be properly expanded.

Solution: This proposal aims to formalize and normalize the act of splitting part of a subject's information into a separate article, not because it is an ontologically different subject, but purely for ease of reading.

This is not unprecedented for the wiki, although it's primarily done with locations; a previous proposal of mine aimed to do exactly this with RPG locations, and that was based on another proposal targeting sports courts and party game boards. We split Peach's Castle from NSMBU and Mushroom Kingdom from Odyssey. If this proposal passes, it would give these splits backing in the rules, rather than make them a weirdly consistent exception in our coverage.

However, locations are not the only reocurring subject that would benefit from this; to bring it back around, Bullet Bill has been an item in six Mario Kart games, and having to share real estate with the rest of the page makes describing the item's technical information difficult. That's a potential case for splitting. Besides the potential of creating new articles, this proposal could also help iron out some currently controversial or nebulous splits. (I've seen enough discussions over how many subjects there are between Mushroom, Super Mushroom and Dash Mushroom to last me a lifetime)

To avoid treating everything as a case-by-case basis, I've come up with a guideline of when, where and how to split. Here's the criteria I came up with, with some input from other editors in the Super Mario Wiki Discord server:

• These splits must be done for the sake of readability and practicality. This is the most important, and the basis for my RPG location proposal. Peach's Castle's Super Mario 64 appearance has so much information to discuss that lumping it with the rest of its appearances does not give it enough space to be properly described.
• A subject's primary role should not be split from its main article. Goomba's Super Mario series history is absolutely large enough to be its own article, but it's also Goomba's debut and main role in the franchise. This separates it from a case like Bullet Bill's, which is primarily an enemy, but sometimes appears as an item.
• Individual appearances of a subject's main role are fair game, however, else Peach's Castle's Super Mario 64 example (a location appearing as a location) would not be relevant. This covers cases like every Bowser's Castle that is split from Bowser's Castle.
• A split should not lump several unrelated appearances together. There are many games where Wiggler appears as an individual character instead of as a species, but these appearances are independent of eachother and do not constitute one individual Wiggler (character).
• The articles must be substantial enough before and after splitting. Kab-omb may have appeared as an item in a golf game once, but that amounts to 50% of its appearances, so creating a Kab-omb (item) page would be unnecessary. Lakitu's Cloud was a map item in Super Mario Bros. 3, but that appearance is easily described in a paragraph or two and does not get in the way of its other appearances, so creating a Lakitu's Cloud (item) page would also be unnecessary.
• Even if an article meets all the criteria to be split, the split should still be approved via proposal. Different users will have different interpretations of the above guidelines, and whether a given article meets them or not. In these cases, it's better to split the tie via community opinion, rather than attempting to follow the letter of the law.
• After splitting, the split page must be linked to from the main article. These are still the same subject, just split up for practical purposes. Any readers should be able to access all the information on a given subject from its main article. See Bowser's Castle for many examples of how that would look.

If this proposal passes, the above criteria will be incorporated into MarioWiki:New articles and MarioWiki:Article size, to be referenced in future split proposals.

Proposer: EvieMaybe (talk)
Deadline:

Support the splittening

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

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Get rid of game sub-navboxes and replace them with collapsible sections

As we all know, some games feature sub-navboxes (such as Template:SMBW levels) separate from their main navbox (Template:SMBW), for the purpose of splitting off sections that would take up too much space.

The main issue here is that not every link related to a game is in its infobox. You can't access Star Piece from Template:PM, you can't access Wario Dance Company from Template:WWSM, you can't even access World 1-1 from Template:SMB. Compounding this, navboxes are not meant to be linked to, so it's not as simple as just plopping down a link to it in its own row like if it was a subpage in a History section and calling it done. So what to do?

The proposal, as suggested by Waluigi Time in the Discord server, is to incorporate what Template:Humans does, and add collapsible sections for these former sub-navboxes. If the issue is that they take too much space, making them foldable should do the trick!

Support

1. EvieMaybe (talk) Per proposal.

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The one about implied characters

Trim this down

This article is, in technical terms, a mess. It feels like a wastebasket list, a dumping ground for throwing at least four separate concepts together because the wiki's rules don't allow you to make a full article for them. A solid chunk of these feel like a remnant from when this wiki cared more about documenting Super Mario as a fictional universe, rather than as a franchise; the kind of thinking that goes "Mario mentions Rambo in an episode of the Super Show!, which means Rambo canonically exists in the Mario series". I consider it an overly literalistic approach that leads to giant lists like these, useful to nobody. So here's a proposal, using the new poll format, attempting to trim it down.

I've sorted nearly every entry on this list into categories that are mostly similar in coverage. Each can be voted on individually on whether to trim (the process of which depends on each category) or not.

Offhand satellite characters

This is probably the most egregious part of the article. Most of these are basically just passing mentions that a character has a wife, a boss, a mother, or something. If a character in anything Mario-related had begged for their life saying "Please, I have a wife and children!", we'd have a [character]'s wife and children entry here.

What to do with these? Well, they can easily be covered in the article of whatever character they're related to, or whichever location, episode or whatever they're mentioned in. Goombella mentioning having a mother is not a separate character, it is a (very minor) trait of Goombella herself. This approach is actually already used, partially; Bowser has an entire paragraph dedicated to miscellaneous family members, most of the Super Show characters are already mentioned in the episode summaries and their related character's articles, etc.

This being the biggest category, the list of affected entries is quite dense, so I've put it under this collapsible section.

• Poppa, from Saturday Supercade
  (merge with Momma (Saturday Supercade))
• Grandma Mia, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Grandma Mario and Mario and Luigi's family)
• Jodie's boss, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Jodie)
• King Koopa's great-great grandkoop, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Bowser § Family)
• Moldy, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Toad § Family)
• Old MacDonald, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Young McDonald)
• Poopa La Koopa, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Bowser § Family)
• Roxanne's family, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Roxanne)
• Tulio's sister, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Tulio)
• Uncle Troy, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
  (already covered by Marilyn and Mario and Luigi's family)
• Curtis and Luke, from Club Mario
  (I cannot find any footage of this, and Club Mario skit coverage is kind of a can of worms, but I guess it'd be merged to Tommy Treehugger???)
• Aunt Maria, from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and the Nintendo Adventure Books
  (already covered by Mario and Luigi's family)
• The Koopalings' great-grand Koopa-mama, from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
  (already covered by Bowser § Family)
• Toad's brother, from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
  (already covered by Toad § Family)
• Bowser's father, from Nintendo Comics System
  (already covered by Bowser § Family)
• Count Morrelli, Duchess Puffball and Queen Shiitake, from Nintendo Adventure Books
  (already covered by their respective shoewear, but should be covered by Princess Peach § Family as well)
• Genghis Koopa, from Nintendo Adventure Books
  (merge with Bowser § Family)
• Uncle Harry, from Nintendo Adventure Books
  (already covered by Mario and Luigi's family)
• Toad's wife, from Nintendo Official Magazine
  (already covered by Toad § Family)
• Dhalsim's mother, from the German Club Nintendo magazine comics
  (sigh... to merge with Dhalsim)
• Wario's mother, from Super Mario-kun, Mario Power Tennis, and Wario's Warehouse
  (to merge with Wario)
• Boy's mother, from Mario is Missing!
  (SIGH... already covered in Paris)
• Purple Toad's parents, from Super Mario Maker 2 (does not have its own article)
• Bachelor's girlfriend, from Donkey Kong Country 3 (already covered by Bachelor)
• Cranky Kong's great grandfather, from Donkey Kong Country 3
  (already covered by Bazaar and Mirror (item), could be added to Cranky Kong)
• Apefucius, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• Bluster Kong's parents, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• General Klump and Kaptain Skurvy's parents, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• Great Aunt Grouchy, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• Great Uncle Spacey, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• King K. Rool's family, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• Krusha's family, from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon
  ()
• Denise, from Donkey Kong Planet
  ()
• Lanky Kong's friend, from the Donkey Kong 64 German website
  ()
• Kolorado's grandmother, from Paper Mario
  ()
• Kooper's mother, from Paper Mario
  ()
• Mort T.'s wife, from Paper Mario
  ()
• Rowf's wife, from Paper Mario
  ()
• Billy, Bob, Ronnie and Rotbeak, the crows from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Bomberto's wife, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Businessman's wife, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Eve's husband, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Goombella's mother, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Hamma Jamma's father and grandfather, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Kroop's wife, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• McGoomba's parents, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Punderton, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• The Iron Adonis Twins' mother, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Toce T.'s children, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
  ()
• Footsteps of Meat, from Super Paper Mario
  ()
• Grand Master Rocky, from Super Paper Mario
  ()
• Kersti's grandsticker, from Paper Mario: Sticker Star
  ()
• Museum curator's intern, from Paper Mario: Sticker Star
  ()
• Mr. Can, from Paper Mario: Color Splash
  ()
• Uncle Pete, from Paper Mario: The Origami King
  ()
• Ashley's parents, from WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
  ()
• Fronk's family, from WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
  ()
• Kat & Ana's parents, from WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
  ()
• Mona's parents, from WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
  ()
• 18-Volt's mother, from Game & Wario
  ()
• Fluffy, from Wario's Warehouse
  ()
• Waluigi's pet hamster, from Wario's Warehouse
  ()
• Kuzzle's grandchildren, from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey
  ()
• Willma's husband, from Mario & Luigi: Brothership
  ()
• Bowser's grandfather, from Mario Party Advance
  ()
• Pengwen, from Mario Party Advance
  ()
• Super Cool Jake's brother and mother, from Yoshi's Woolly World: Adventure Guide
  ()
• Bowser's sister, from White Knuckle Scorin'
  ()
• Grandpapa, from the Super Mario Bros. film
  ()

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

"Lore" characters

This is a broad category for characters whose existence is relevant to a place or character, but never appear on their own. Once again, these can be merged into their related subjects, but they're separated because their existence is a bit more substantial.

• Leonardo da Vinci Mahoney, Leonardo da Vinci Rooney and Roy Orbisoni Mahoney, from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
• Dark Mage, from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Culex)
• The Tigers, from Diddy Kong Racing
• Heroes of Buffness, from Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (technically already merged with Mount Pajamaja!)

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

In-universe fictional characters

Exactly what says on the tin. These can simply be described in the work of fiction they ostentibly belong to, especially considering how few of these there are

• bevis

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

Unseen authors

Most of this section is reserved for characters who only exist as writing they've left behind. If said writing has an article, they can be merged to it. If it doesn't, they can be merged to wherever it's found.

• Diane Flossy, from Flown the Koopa (merge unclear. Flown the Koopa's article is not in a state to merge the info to it, and her book does not have an article; also an indirect pop-culture reference, see below)
• The Cabin Proprietor and The Cap'n, from Super Mario 64 (to merge with Cool, Cool Mountain and Jolly Roger Bay respectively, where the signs they left are found)
• "A gossip-loving Toad", from Paper Mario (to merge with Toad Town News)
• Flight, Sashimie, and Watt's mother, all unseen letter-senders from Paper Mario (merge unclear. could be merged with Lakilester, Sushie and Watt?)
• Maitre Delish, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (to merge with Cookbook)
• Koopla, Buzzo, and maybe Laki, from Super Paper Mario (to merge with Merlee's Basement)
• The Toilet King, from Super Paper Mario (to merge with Merlee's Mansion)
• Thaddeus P. Gradgrind, from Welcome to Greedville (to merge with Welcome to Greedville itself)
• Craacklie, Prof. Pipe, and Secret Savings Samurai, from Mario & Luigi: Brothership (to merge with Itsi Islet, Inphant Islet, and Liil Islet respectively, where the signs they left are found)
• C. Parmesan, from Luigi's Mansion (to merge with Study (Luigi's Mansion))
• C.S. Booois and J.R.R. Spookien, from the Luigi's Mansion microsite (to merge with The Bookshelf; also an indirect pop-culture reference, see below)
• The Songbird, from Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (to merge with Bury the Hatchet, which covers everything about his existence)

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

Direct pop-culture references

These shouldn't even be here. These should be in List of references in the Super Mario franchise. Most of these aren't even implied to be non-fictional, if anything they should've been in the list of implied entertainment. I don't know why they are here, but I'm including them in the proposal for completeness.

• Road Runner (Saturday Supercade)
• The Addams Family (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Dorothy and the Tin Man (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Pee-wee Herman (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Rambo (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Tippi Turtle (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Big Bird (The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3)
• Indiana Jones (The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3)
• Romeo and Juliet (The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3)
• Woody Woodpecker (The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3)
• Van Helsing (German Club Nintendo magazine comics)
• Mr. Bean (Donkey Kong Country cartoon)
• Robin Hood (Donkey Kong Planet)
• Agent Smith (Welcome to Greedville)
• David Manning (Welcome to Greedville)

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

Indirect pop-culture references

These are basically the same as above, but instead of directly mentioning a celebrity or fictional character, their names are parodied or altered, often to make them a bit more Mario-themed. This technically results in the creation of a new character, which makes it a different case than the above.

• Diane Flossy, from Flown the Koopa (merge unclear, as explained above, as she is also an unseen author)
• C.S. Booois and J.R.R. Spookien, from the Luigi's Mansion microsite (also unseen authors, see above)

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

Crossover character references

This is kinda like a direct pop-culture reference, but not exactly. A character from a different IP crosses over with Mario, and references another character from their source material who does not appear in this crossover. This character's existence within the Super Mario franchise is then left as a mere mention, despite them not being an implied character in their source material.

• Chief Quimby, from Inspector Gadget (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Dr. Claw, from Inspector Gadget (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!)
• Globox, from the Rayman series (Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Rayman in the Phantom Show DLC)
• Mr. Dark, from the Rayman series (Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Rayman in the Phantom Show DLC)

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

Throwaway joke names

Sometimes the implication of a character exists purely for the sake of a quick gag. Again, this is not a character, this is a gag.

• bevis

Deadline:

Trim

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per proposal.

Do not trim

The Big One

Overhaul our coverage of music

Something most users I have talked about seem to agree with is that Super Mario Wiki's coverage of the Super Mario franchise's music is subpar, and I am inclined to agree. There is a lot to point at: how the majority of game pages in the series do not mention the game's music, how our coverage of a theme seems dependent on if it has appeared enough times, the lack of music theory analysis in the music coverage we do have, yadda yadda. On one hand, this is understandable. The Super Mario franchise is absolutely ginormous, and figuring out a framework to analyze its music is a monumental task, not to mention implementing it. However, monumental as it may be, here is a humble attempt.

This proposal aims to codify the structure for three types of articles, soundtrack pages, piece pages, and motif pages. This is in accordance to our recently passed music terminology proposal, which I recommend reading as context for this proposal. For each of these three types of articles, I will first explain the proposed structure and implementation, then my rationale for why I designed them that way. Strap in, this one's a doozy.

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Soundtrack pages

For a draft of how a soundtrack page could look like, see this SmashWiki article. i haven't actually drafted this yet but this is close to what i am picturing

Soundtrack pages would serve as the "heavy lifters" of our musical coverage. They would cover and analyze every track featured in said work, as well as its soundtrack as a whole. Much like galleries, staff pages, and the like, each work would have one soundtrack page, with a title like "Super Mario Bros. soundtrack". Structurally, they would be split between two halves:

The first half of the page would be dedicated to covering and analyzing the soundtrack from a broad perspective. This includes describing the soundtrack's general style, genre, musical influences and compositional techniques; its usage of motifs or overarching elements; the people involved in the soundtrack, including composers, arrangers and performers; and other behind-the-scenes development information.

The second half of the article would be dedicated to specific analysis of each track. Consisting of a list article covering each track as a separate section, it would include for each:

• Its name or names, with proper attribution and sourcing. If no name is available, a conjectural name will be required, and as with all conjectural names, they should be clearly marked as conjectural, plainly descriptive, and unmistakable for an official title.
• Its composition, including its style, genre, musical influences, compositional techniques, and usage of motifs or overarching elements. This would be skipped if the track is directly reused from another work. As an example, Super Mario Bros. Wonder's track "It's Captain Toad!" is a direct reuse of Super Mario Galaxy's "The Toad Brigade". As such, it would defer any compositional information to the "The Toad Brigade" section in "Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack", and merely discuss how the track is utilized in Wonder.
• The composers, arrangers and performers involved, for tracks where we know the specifics. Works such as Super Mario Bros. 2, which credits only one person under "Sound Composer", would not need to list this.
• Its usage, namely how and where the track is used within the work. This includes variations and alternate versions, if it is considered reasonable to cover them together (see: "Hurry Up" versions, tracks gaining Yoshi drums in Super Mario World).
• Any other miscellaneous information, such as whether the track is reused directly in any other works, if it has an unusual file name, whatever may be the case.
• If applicable, the track's names in other languages.
• A 30-second audio sample of what the track sounds like.

Stipulations

• Sound tests are not the same as soundtracks. Soundtracks are the music itself, while sound tests are the menus that let you listen to the music. As such, they would be covered separately (with the sound test articles being perhaps reduced now that they don't have to be the sole page listing every track).
• If any in-game sound test or official soundtrack release exists, tracks should be ordered to match it. If neither of these are available, tracks should be TO BE DECIDED.
• Works with shared soundtracks (such as New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U) can share a page.

The rationale

Soundtrack pages are, at their core, a compromise. A wiki with a smaller scope, like Undertale Wiki, can afford to have a page for every single piece within its coverage. Super Mario Wiki, by virtue of its massive size, cannot. Even then, I still believe every single piece of music in the Super Mario franchise deserves some coverage, even untitled tracks from forgotten games such as Virtual Boy Wario Land's Stage 3 theme.

Of course, the question is: "Why do we need a compromise?" Would it really be that bad to have individual pages for all these tracks? I believe so, and my reasons are as follows:

• Most of the individual articles would be uninteresting to read or write, and a hassle to maintain; creating hundreds of articles of "This track is from this work. It sounds like this, and it plays in these situations. It was composed by this composer." would be woefully inefficient. See "Toad Radar" as an example, and multiply that thousandfold. Combining them into soundtrack pages avoids this issue by compacting what might have been dozens of tiny articles into one large one.
• Following up on the previous point, splitting all this information into separate pages would make for a cumbersome reading experience, making cross-referencing require flicking back and forth between several separate pages. There is a reason album CDs don't have each track's name on a separate page. Once again, this is an issue that is solved by having one big page do this job instead of several small ones.
• Additionally, due to the many, many tracks that do not have a confirmed name, this would create a lot of conjecturally-named articles. If these tracks are then named, it would require a lot of page moves. Holding all these tracks under the umbrella of a single "[title] soundtrack" page avoids this as well.
• What counts as "separate tracks" can be nebulous, especially in a franchise that uses adaptive music so heavily. Tracks can add, remove, or change instruments, change tempo, or switch into completely separate versions. Creating separate pages for each track forces us to make a decision on whether something is or isn't a separate track, when the source material is not as clear cut. Combining them into one page allows for more judicious merging without the baggage of merging articles.
• I honestly believe analyzing a soundtrack as a collective whole is a better lens than isolating each individual track. Analyzing tracks individually has its merit, but utilizing it as our sole and primary method of music coverage paints an incomplete picture. These tracks do not exist in a vacuum, they exist in a video game (or film, or TV show, or whatever). Soundtrack pages give a space for coverage of a soundtrack as a whole, while also providing per-track information.

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Piece pages

Of course, soundtrack pages on their own are not a perfect solution. Some tracks have too much to say to cover as a section, usually tracks with extensive lyrics. Additionally, some musical pieces are not actually part of a soundtrack, such as "Yo-Ho, Bro!". For these, a piece page can still be created, much like we do for "Jump Up, Super Star!". This article would contain all the information related to its corresponding piece, just like a soundtrack page section would. If applicable, the section on the soundtrack page would then contain a brief summary of the track page, as well as a link to it with Template:Main. There is not much to add here, as we already do this as a wiki; this proposal does not aim to get rid of these types of pages, only to make them not be the default method of music coverage.

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Motif pages

Note: By our official music terminology, this part of the proposal really covers both motifs and themes. I've chosen to utilize "motif" as an umbrella term for both because it is more distinctive, and because a theme can technically be analyzed as a type of motif.

Motif pages are a reanalysis of our existing "recurring theme" pages. Rather than focusing of every aspect of every piece that happens to include recurring motif, they instead analyze the motif itself in the abstract, cataloguing its usage and evolution, while leaving the more in-depth musical analysis to soundtrack pages. Much like soundtrack pages, motif pages would also be split into two halves:

The first half would consist of the opening paragraph and initial section/s, covering the theme from a general perspective. This includes the theme's first appearance; its general usage and associations (such as how the "Underground BGM" is also used for broadly dark or moody situations); its composition (genre, influences, specific musical elements used); and its broad evolution over time (like how "Invincibility BGM" got its countermelody from Yoshi's Island and it stuck).

The second half of the article would be dedicated to specific analysis of each piece that utilizes the motif. Consisting of a standard History section as per this July 2025 proposal, each entry would include:

• Basic information about the piece such as its name, for context.
• A link back to its section on the piece's respective soundtrack page or individual piece page.
• A description of the piece's composition, focusing on how it utilizes the motif and how it diverges from previous iterations.
• The piece's usage in its respective game, with any notes about whether its specific manner of usage of the motif is notable in some way.
• Any notes on the piece's usage of the motif from a historical perspective, if applicable (again, the Yoshi's Island countermelody).

At the end of the article, there would still be a table listing every appearance of the motif in chronological order, as per this August 2025 proposal.

Stipulations

• Not every reocurring motif needs its own page. Namely, motifs that are exclusive to one work (such as "Battle - Chapter 1") or that appear mainly in one work, but specific tracks that utilize it appear elsewhere rarely (such as Super Mario Land 2's "Main Theme) are better served as sections in the first half of the game's soundtrack page.
• Particularly divergent variations on a motif (such as "Athletic BGM" (Super Mario World) and "Ground BGM" (Super Mario World)) would naturally receive separate pages.
• A lot of motifs do not have an official name, only names for the pieces that utilize them. If none of those names are applicable enough to cover the motif as a whole, it should be allowed to utilize a conjectural or derived name.

The rationale

Our wiki's model of treating every appearance of a motif as "the same track" in the same way Goombas in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy are "the same enemy" is, I believe, massively flawed. While musical ideas may be inherited from other pieces, every single piece of music can exist and be analyzed as its own self-contained piece. Personally, I don't see why a piece that happens to arrange a preexisting motif should be denied from being covered on its own and alongside other pieces from its game.

At the same time, reocurring melodies have their own histories worth documenting. I believe separating the motif from the pieces that use it is the most helpful methods of analysis for this subject, as it allows both aspects to be covered in full without either compromising the other.

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Relevant past proposals

#53 • Create pages with renditions of recognizable music themes, Koopa con Carne (ended November 16, 2018)

#53 • Clarify and expand coverage of recurring musical themes, ToxicOJ (ended November 10)

#67 • Standardize sound test page titles, Mario jc (ended June 23)

#82 • Amend notability threshold for recurring musical themes from external sources, JanMisali (ended August 8)

#89 • Split every song from the "List of (show) songs" articles, Kaptain Skurvy (ended May 31)

#91 • Allow creation of pages for officially named music tracks, Waluigi Time (ended June 1)

The one I made angry

Redefine the scope of our coverage

This proposal aims to overhaul the categorization of games in MarioWiki:Coverage.

I feel the categories provided are not robust enough to properly encompass the wiki's actual coverage in practice, and that lack of robustness leads to several games receiving inconsistent amounts of coverage. Rather than a band-aid solution or an attempt to tweak the existing categories to make sense of it, I've decided to redistribute it from the ground up, while taking inspiration from our current model for ease of transition.

Note: The examples listed are not legally binding. This proposal does not aim to change the coverage of any specific game yet, just to determine the standards of said coverage. Future proposals will decide whether Mario Sports Mix is a Square Enix crossover or a Square Enix guest appearance.

Category	Definition	Method of coverage	Examples
Super Mario franchise works	Works that are unambiguously part of the Super Mario franchise, including all the subfranchises under its umbrella like Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Wario.	Unchanged.	Donkey Kong Super Mario Bros. (1985 videogame) Super Mario Bros. (1993 film) Donkey Kong Country Yoshi's Story Wario: Master of Disguise
Super Mario works with guest appearances	Works that are mainly Super Mario-based, but feature some elements from one or more other franchises.	The work receives a fully-fledged page. Super Mario subjects and subjects original to the work recieve full coverage. Non-Super Mario subjects recieve full coverage within the scope of the direct crossover.	The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (live-action) Super Mario Maker Wario Land 3 Mario Kart DS Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Major crossovers	Works that are roughly 50% Super Mario. This includes works that are directly presented as "Mario plus what-have-you", as well as Super Mario works with significant presence from other series.		Mario & Sonic Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Mario Sports Mix Fortune Street Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!
Works with Super Mario guest appearances	Works that feature some substantial amount of Super Mario elements, while being mostly non-Super Mario	The work recieves a page covering only its relevance to the Super Mario franchise. Super Mario franchise elements, whether preexisting or new, recieve total coverage.	The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening NBA Street V3 Skylanders: SuperChargers Punch-Out!! Densetsu no Starfy 3
Multi-franchise crossovers	Works whose main premise is combining several different game franchises together, with Super Mario being just one of the many included.		Super Smash Bros. series Captain N: The Game Master Pixels NES Remix series Captain Rainbow Nintendo Land
Cameos	Works with minimal Super Mario elements. These elements are unimpactful and amount to small references that can be described in a single page.	The work recieves either a "Crossovers with [work]" page, or an entry in the List of references in Nintendo video games, according to volume.	Pikmin series Pilotwings 64 Kirby Super Star
Historically significant	Works that are not part of the Super Mario franchise, but had a significant impact on it regardless.	Unchanged. This is the "edge case" category anyways.	Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic Greenhouse

If a work gets crossed over more than once, and the crossovers fall under different categories, each is covered according to their original game's classification. For example, Sonic gets full coverage of his Mario & Sonic appearance as it is a major crossover, but only a broad description of his role in the Super Smash Bros. series as it is a multi-franchise crossover.