Talk:Shell

Half-merging potential
So, in many games, the color of the shell itself means jack diddly squat. Yet we still have those appearances split out. Even worse, some appearances for yellow and blue particularly amount to "there's a Koopa with this shell color." I think that in games where no functional difference is to be had, they should be merged simply to "shell" or "Koopa shell," with the color ones remaining for instances they are actually distinct. It might come off as a little confusing at first, but it's better than the weird padded redundancy we have now. For reference, the ones that would stay with splits are at least SMW, SMG, the MK games, the SSB games, PMSS, and some other "sports" games. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 00:47, February 22, 2020 (EST)
 * Could you provide a specific list of information that would be merged and information that would not be merged? Ex:

not merge merge I'm just having a difficult time understanding what's even left to settle out, so I think a visual might help more. Thanks! Trig - 08:40, February 22, 2020 (EST)
 * game 1
 * game 2
 * game 3
 * game 4
 * I'd love to, but it's such a cluster that it'd take all day, given there's at least four articles it'd affect (green, red, yellow, blue). Anyways, for ones where greens bop around while reds follow, they'd stay, for ones that any or all grant special powers, those'd stay (like in NSMB, the blue would remain split but red and green merged), ones with only one shell color (like SMB2 or Advanced Mario Bros) would be merged as there's nothing to differentiate with. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 13:45, February 22, 2020 (EST)
 * I support this. If there's nothing distinguishing shell colors from each other in a game, or no other colors to distinguish from in the first place, there's no reason to split them out, especially when it comes to "a Koopa wears this shell color", which Blue Shell in particular is a big offender of. -- 14:42, February 22, 2020 (EST)
 * I also agree with this. Dr. Mario World exists, where there are multiple shell colors. We really need a generic shell article on here, while Green and Red Shells should be strictly their sports appearances or appearances they're specifically named and has a specific function. 15:01, September 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * Agreed with Ray Trace completely. 15:05, September 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * I actually agree with this as I thought it through and it at least makes it less flooded for the colored shell articles too. My only question is what about the shells from Super Mario World being part of the generic shell article though? Sure they act the same when Mario/Luigi carries and throws them but with the Yoshis carrying them in their mouth it gives them abilities from that colored Shell which would make sense to include those in the respective shell articles. --KingGeoshiKoopshi64 (talk) 16:20, September 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * We can leave it in their respective colored articles then. If shells do have an identical function, they should be trimmed from their color article and talked about in the generic article. 19:33, September 16, 2020 (EDT)
 * I'm wondering if we should make the Blue Shell item be split to being it's own article since it's a power-up and not an actual kickable and throwable shell, sorta like how the Mushroom and Super Mushroom article is split due to functioning different but identical in appearance. I've been thinking about that for a while. --KingGeoshiKoopshi64 (talk) 15:04, September 17, 2020 (EDT)
 * Personally, I think it introduces unnecessary piping over a difference that is purely technical. Like, look at the Lightning article, which documents all appearances of the item that looks like the Mario Kart item but has a pretty different function than in the game that it appears in. 15:11, September 17, 2020 (EDT)
 * I don't think the Super Mario World ones should be split. They're not more different than the game's Yoshis, right? Blinker (talk) 12:21, August 14, 2021 (EDT)

Create a generic article, reorganize the colored shell articles
One thing that has bothered me for years on end is that we don't have a proper Koopa Shell article on MarioWiki that documents regular shells. Currently, we document the shell's appearances in the colored shells article, but I feel like it's unoptimal, main reason of course is that it violates our once and only once policy, as lot of information between the shell colors are redundant. Furthermore, the aforementioned shells in the colored shell articles were never given the name "Green Shell" but rather are called by their generic "shell" moniker, which correlates to the color of Koopa Troopa than anything else, really, and we don't split the Koopa Troopas.

Affected articles:
 * Green Shell
 * Red Shell
 * Yellow Shell
 * Blue Shell

What will be split and moved to the "" article if this proposal passes:


 * Any generic instance of shells where they share gameplay functionality with all other colored shells. This includes shells in Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 3, New Super Mario Bros. (except the Blue Shell, where it is a power-up and not used like the others), New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Mario Bros. 2, New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 3D World, Yoshi's Island DS, Paper Mario series, Super Princess Peach, Dr. Mario World
 * Koopa Shells when they are called "Shell" and don't have a particular adjective distinguishing them as they are the only Koopa Shells that appear in the game. This includes the Koopa Shells from Super Mario 64, Yoshi's Cookie, Super Mario 3D Land, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, some Mario Party games (Mario Party 3 and Mario Party 9 where they are just aesthetics), Mario's Time Machine, Mario Bros.

Information from these games in the respective colored shell articles will remain due to their gameplay functionality and/or name in-game:


 * Super Mario World, Super Mario Galaxy (2's information will remain in the Green Shell article despite other shell variants not appearing, mostly because of consistency), Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (they are called "Green Shell" in that game) Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Mario Kart series, Super Smash Bros. series, Mario Super Sluggers, Mario Strikers series, Mario Tennis series, Mario & Sonic series, Mario Sports Mix, Mario Party: Island Tour, (Setback Shell, which takes graphics from Mario Kart Wii), shells from Mario Party Advance in Shell Stack.

I'm also open to making amends on specific articles in this proposal if more information was found but the general idea: move information to a Koopa Shell for shared functionality, leave if they are separate and/or if they are specifically called "Color Shell" in-game.

Proposer: Deadline: August 29, 2021, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Shell yes.
 * 2) Per proposal
 * 3) Per proposal
 * 4) Please
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) There is no point in having separate articles for things with identical functions. Per proposal.
 * 9) Per proposal.
 * 10) Per all, there've been several occasions in the past where it would have been useful for me to be able to link to a page like this.
 * 11) Per All.
 * 12) Also, should Shell (sticker) be merged in with the proposed article?
 * 1) Also, should Shell (sticker) be merged in with the proposed article?

Oppose

 * 1) While I get what this proposal is going for, I feel like this would worsen the problem of information for shells being split across multiple articles, and it seems to me like this is picking and choosing which shells go on which articles. The way it is now, someone looking for information on a shell will either go to the page about the colour of shell they want to know about and find what they're looking for or search up 'shell', find the disambiguation, and then go to the page for the colour shell they want information on and find it. If this were to pass, then someone looking for information on a shell probably wouldn't know whether to look on the general article about shells or the one about the specific colour, since some of the information about each shell colour would be on the article about that shell colour and the rest would be split off into a different article. This combined with the fact that there seems to be disagreement in the comments about what shells go where makes me feel that this would just make finding information harder. My suggestions would be to either merge all of the coloured shells completely into a Koopa Shell article (like we do for Koopa Troopas themselves), expand the disambiguation page to give a summary of shells that covers some general information and then links to the colour pages, or just leave it as it is now.

Comments
I've noticed Paper Mario: Sticker Star had a strange consistency where there are different shells with different powers but Green Shell is still just called "Shell". Should this be moved to the Shell article or kept in the Green Shell while other variations are mentioned in the colored articles? 17:18, August 15, 2021 (EDT)
 * I would say if there's multiple variants with gameplay distinctions then they should remain on the colored shell articles regardless of the naming. -- 17:23, August 15, 2021 (EDT)
 * I should point out that the move itself involves a Koopa Troopa coming and going into its shell which Mario then kicks at enemies. I believe it's just called "Shell" to be consistent with other attack lines in the game with "normal" ➡️ "shiny" ➡️ "flashy". As for the types of shells used for each one, the normal is a green Koopa Troopa, the shiny is a red Koopa Troopa, and the flashy is a Buzzy Beetle. Hope this is helpful. 19:26, August 15, 2021 (EDT)

As I said above, I don't think the Super Mario World shells should be split. The big difference between them is that they give different powers when eaten by a Yoshi, right? But the different Yoshis also get different powers when eating shells, and those are all on one page... Blinker (talk) 17:25, August 15, 2021 (EDT)
 * I can see that as a possibility though what factored into this decision is that in the context of the Mario franchise, Red Shells had more distinct gameplay appearances than Red Yoshis and Red Koopa Troopas do, and technically, granting a Yoshi its powers (even Yellow and Blue Yoshis still spit fire from red shells) is something that is as distinct as making red shells target people. In the Super Mario World instruction manual, they aren't proper nouns, however, so that's an argument to keep them in the Koopa Shell article. 17:57, August 15, 2021 (EDT)

One thing I am wondering: NSMB's Blue Shell is just called "shell" in the JP script, which is what's used in English in BIS. Perhaps it should be split to a "shell (power-up)" page? Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 00:44, August 16, 2021 (EDT)
 * Yeah, it's pretty likely that BiS's and NSMB's Blue Shell were meant to be the same item. We can potentially further discuss this if a change in script is worth separating the two types of Blue Shells or not.  02:41, August 16, 2021 (EDT)

Another thing is the Shell Stack you listed, since that's just a handy visual for difficulty and includes the otherwise-absent orange. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 13:20, August 16, 2021 (EDT)

@Hewer I'd support a full merge myself, but then there'd be the question of how to handle the triples. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 15:21, August 16, 2021 (EDT)
 * On the other hand, I prefer having a comprehensive list of all times a unique Red Shell appears in the series, since the homing ones used in say Mario Kart and Mario Baseball have a very specific design and motif about them. The disrespancies and disagreements aren't all that major anyway, I don't think it heavily compromises understanding of what the difference between, say, a blue and a red shell are. The whole kerfuffle with Dr. Mario World is the main driving force behind the proposal, since green, yellow, red, blue, pink, cyan, and light-green shells exist and the status quo I strongly feel is not the ideal way to manage. 16:02, August 16, 2021 (EDT)
 * I think merging every type of shell into one article would be way too much. 16:13, August 16, 2021 (EDT)
 * Out of the three suggestions I gave in my vote, my preference is the second one (to expand the disambiguation into a general shell article and then link to the articles for colours where more details would be), since I feel it's kind of a compromise. I didn't know about the Dr. Mario World shells until now though, so that does make things less straightforward. 18:03, August 16, 2021 (EDT)

@Archivist Toadette: Might be handled in a separate proposal. 16:58, August 22, 2021 (EDT)