User:Time Turner/unfinished

Remove categories and lists relating to allies
Before going into the meat of the proposal, the issues of allies has been dicussed in the past here, here, and here. Less bulldozer-y approaches have been suggested, but to be frank, none of them are particularly satisfactory for me.

Simply put, I don't see the justification in having the List of allies and the various categories (Donkey Kong, Super Paper Mario, Wario, Yoshi, and of course the main Allies). First, take into consideration the basic categories of the wiki: characters, enemies, items, levels, abilities, and so on. All of them are distinct from each other, and in turn, there should be no overlap between them. Measures have been taken to ensure this, with one proposal ensuring that species occupy a separate space and a currently running proposal that is set to split items and objects. Now, take a look at the list of main categories outlined on MarioWiki:Categories, and you'll notice that "allies" are also listed up there. This ends up colliding into the same issue faced by the items and objects: how can a category be considered the broadest category possible when, by definition as a subcategory, there exists something above it? All allies are necessarily either characters or species, so as is, there's an uncomfortable contradiction here. You might say that this is grounds to remove the allies from that list, but not to outright delete it, and I might have agreed if I didn't have other issues with the allies.

This is something that partially builds on the recent deletion of Category:Heroes: we don't have a definition for an ally in the slightest. List of allies says that it includes everyone that has "at one point or another stood against the various enemies", but that's laughably vague and entirely unapplicable to situations in which there aren't any enemies invovled. You might have a vague idea of which characters are and are not allies, but that idea almost certainly goes counter to everyone else's idea. Even then, our current implementation of the term "ally" is shaky at best and nonsensical at worst. To use the Yoshi Allies category as an example, all of the playable characters are listed as allies. The actual people going on the adventure and doing all of the action are merely allies. If they're considered as allies because they help each other, is Mario an ally in every game he's in just because people help him? I could go on in this fashion: why is King Fret an ally when he's nothing more than a hostage, why is KP Pete an ally when he, at best, acts friendly with Mario and nothing more, why is Fire Mini Mario an ally when it's a form of the main playable character, why is Mad Scienstein an ally when most of his encounters feature him as a villain and he is only helpful to the player on a few occasions by happenstance (and not by his own volition, no less)? That last point also touches on another issue, with many of these completely varied characters and species being grouped together because of, at best, one of their actions, and these actions can vary wildly. Characters who act as nothing but roadblocks to the heroes for the vast majority of their appearances, such as Bowser Jr., get to be tagged as allies because of a single instance of helpfulness, and that just doesn't make sense to me (also, I can't even tell when Bowser Jr. is supposed to be an ally). There are echoes of Category:Hostages in this: offbeat, tenuous connections are of little functional use to the wiki.

The idea of allies for the wiki is such a messy, ambiguous, easily muddled grouping that I don't think that any possible solution beyond nuking the entire concept of allies would be satisfactory. Even if somehow, the community came together and unanimously decided on a rigorous definition for allies, what then? What value is there in grouping together characters and species with an arbitrary definition? What do I get from this that I don't get from other categories? What reason do I have to care about the fact that this one NPC gave Mario a couple of coins one time, especially to the point where it elevates them to a unique category? I'll be just as redundant as the category and say that there's no point in having them on the wiki.

Proposer: Deadline: [insert a deadline here, 7 days after the proposal was created (14 for writing guidelines and talk page proposals), at 23:59 GMT, in the format: "August 8, 2011, 23:59 GMT"]

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.

How to order navigation templates
According to MarioWiki:Navigation templates, navigation templates are to be ordered as such: "species templates should come first, followed by game-specific and series-wide templates, which are arranged in pure chronological order." I'm fine with species coming before game and series, but I have a problem with the bolded section (emphasis my own). The purely chronological order helps nobody: readers definitely don't know when every game came out, and editors are especially inconvenienced by having to look up every single game until they find exactly where each template fits. This may not be that much of an issue on smaller pages or with new games, but good luck trying to slot in a new template for an older game on Mario's page. The fact of the matter is, the date that a game came out is not obvious to anyone. Why not change it, then?

Option 1: Purely alphabetically

This matches how our categories are currently ordered (including how species go at the top). The templates would be ordered by the first letters in their name and nothing more.

Option 2: By series, then chronologically

This matches how the history sections of our pages themselves are currently ordered. The templates would be grouped together by their subjects' series, then subsequently ordered by their date of release.

Option 3: By series, then alphabetically

An amalgamation of options 1 and 2. The templates are grouped by series, then ordered alphabetically.

Option 4: Purely chronologically (i.e. do nothing)

Everything stays the same, and no changes are made.

Proposer: Deadline: [insert a deadline here, 7 days after the proposal was created (14 for writing guidelines and talk page proposals), at 23:59 GMT, in the format: "August 8, 2011, 23:59 GMT"]

SMR
World 1

Historical inaccuracies and other errors
Despite Mario's Time Machine being intended as an educational game, it contains many errors in regards to its historical facts.


 * Alexandria (47 BC)
 * This section centers on returning Cleopatra's staff to her so that she can reign over Egypt; however, she first reigned in 51 BC (despite one of Cleopatra's guards saying that she was "crowned" in 52 BC) at the bequest of her father and alongside her brother, Ptolemy XIII. She then took sole control after a civil war between her and her brother in 47 BC.
 * Cleopatra also says that her staff was passed down from her ancestors, although no such item exists in real life.
 * Julius Caesar claims that he is allergic to cats; though his family line in general was afflicted with asthma, Caesar is not known to have been allergic to or even afraid of cats.
 * Caesar also boasts about having conquered, despite the town having been acquired by Roman general during the  in 89 BC , before Caesar held any power.
 * One of Cleopatra's guards asks Mario to give one of Cleopatra's handmaidens a Wooden Snake to demonstrate his love for her, and after receiving the gift, she makes a comment about being bitten by the "love scarab". Neither animal is associated with romance or love: snakes are the aggressive guardians of royalty that can also symbolize chaos, and scarabs symbolize the arrival of the Sun and the reincarnation of humans.
 * Throughout several lines of dialogue, it is stated that "Ptolemy XI" is Cleopatra's father and "Ptolemy XII" is the brother that wars against Cleopatra. However, the numbers in their names are off by one: was the father and  was the brother.
 * Several characters also use dates with, for example when the handmaiden says that Caesar arrived in Egypt "in 48 B.C.". Though these dates are not incorrect, they would have not been used by people who lived close to fifty years before the birth of.
 * The history pages mention that Cleopatra had three sons with, despite one of them, , being female.


 * Athens (369 BC)
 * Aristotle is depicted as an old man in-game, but as Aristotle was born in 384 BC, he would have only been fifteen years old. With that in mind, the rest of the interactions with him become anachronistic, as he only became Plato's student when he was seventeen or eighteen , and thus, he has not yet formulated any of the theories that are discussed in-game.
 * A councilman mentions that Plato's Academy was founded "in 387 B.C." - while technically correct, a dating system based on would not have been used by someone who lived over three hundred before he was born.
 * The same councilman also claims that the Academy will last for over nine hundred years. In reality, the Academy was destroyed in 86 BC.
 * He also does not know whether the god of wine's name is or Bacchus, despite "Bacchus" being the name adopted by the Romans.
 * The history page describes the Academy as the first "university", which is incorrect as it did not offer any degrees to its students.

[this actually looks alright]
 * Calcutta (1947)


 * Cambridge (1687)
 * The discovery of is attributed uniquely to Newton, despite  also discovering calculus around the same time as Newton, albeit independently; this led to a debate as to who should receive recognition for the discovery.
 * Several characters state that Newton's Principia has not yet been published, for example when Edmund Halley says that he is still working on the rough draft, but the book was published on July 5, even though the game takes place on December 25.
 * Halley also says that he tracked a orbited around the Earth in 1862. This is a typo; the comet passed by in 1682.
 * A lecturer says that, while Newton while was in his twenties, he said that his mind was "remarkably fit for invention." This quote seems to have been sourced from Leon M. Lederman and Dick Teresi's , but the actual quote is "All this was in the two plague years of 1665 and 1666, for in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention and minded Mathematics and Philosophy more than at any time since."
 * If Mario offers Halley an apple, he replies that he has already eaten one today "so as to keep the doctor away." The proverb of "," however, first appeared in the 1860s.


 * Florence (1503)
 * Raphael Sanzio mentions that he is working on a portrait of the Pope, despite his portraits of and  being painted in 1511–12 and 1518-19, respectively.
 * Raphael also says that Michelangelo Buonarroti's  is thirteen-and-a-half feet tall, but it is actually seventeen feet tall.
 * An unnamed painter says that Michelangelo left the tutelage of simply because he was bored, but Ghirlandaio sent him to  as one of his best pupils.
 * The history pages erroneously state that Michelangelo himself "broke his contract" with Ghirlandaio solely because he wanted to study the statues in Medici's garden.
 * The same painter also gives Mario some "Renaissance Purple" Paint in what is visibly a modern paint can. The term "Renaissance" also first appeared in 1858
 * He also says that Michelangelo is interested in sculpting the Pope's tomb; although he approached the task enthusiastically, he was specifically commissioned by the Pope to construct the tomb.


 * Florence (1505)
 * An old fresco painter describes Leonardo da Vinci as a "Renaissance Man". Beyond how the term "Renaissance" was not used during the period, the whole expression first appeared in 1906
 * The history pages say that Europe was in a 1000-year "slumber" before the Renaissance, which brought a new age of science and art. However, this completely ignores how the Middle Ages contained Renaissances of its own, including the and the.


 * Germany (1905)
 * Albert Einstein says that he moved to the United States in the 1930s when Mario meets him in 1905.


 * Gobi Desert (1905)
 * Kublai Khan suggests that his father was, despite his actual father being.
 * Several characters reference Marco Polo's Book of Marco Polo, including a merchant who gives Mario a few pages from it. However, Marco only wrote it after returning to Venice, while he was imprisoned with writer.
 * Also, they are insistent on its title being "Book of Marco Polo", but this is not the actual title of the book. It is Les voyages de Marco Polo (The voyages of Marco Polo) or Le Devisement du Monde (The Description of the World) in French, Il Milione (The Million) in Italian, and The Travels of Marco Polo in English. The closest name is an 1871 English translation by titled, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East.
 * A sage claims that China had glasses when Europe did not, but this is incorrect: they were first documented in Italy in 1306, while none of Marco Polo's writings reference them.

[looks good?]
 * London (1595)


 * London (1831)
 * The Magnet item is supposedly an, and yet it resembles a , which is a kind of.
 * A young boy says that Michael Faraday's first lecture within the was . However, not only did he give several lectures before this one, he gave it in 1848.
 * He also talks about how Charles Dickens wrote about Faraday's lectures, which he only did after Faraday had presented The Chemical History of a Candle.
 * He also says that he is in line to become the King of England, but wants to become a scientist instead. This character is most likely intended to be either (who only became king after marrying  in 1840, who he only met in 1836 )  (who was born in 1841 ); naturally, neither candidate fits the time period.
 * Charles-Gaspard de la Rive discusses a lecture in which Faraday demonstrates an electromagnet by throwing a shovel, a pair of tongs, and a poker at it. Not only did this lecture take place in 1856, but he threw a and not a shovel.
 * Sarah Barnard characterizes Faraday's former mentor,, as someone who was utterly jealous of Faraday's success and generally rude towards him, but that view is careless, ignoring much of the relationship between Davy and Farady.
 * She also remarks that Faraday noted that the date with the most happiness to him was the day that the two of them married. While this is true, he only noted so in 1847.
 * Several characters are waiting for Faraday's upcoming lecture, but he did not give a Christmas Lecture in 1831.
 * The history pages state that Faraday is the only scientist to have both an and a  named after them. This is incorrect: Isaac Newton and  both share the honor.


 * London (1843)
 * Catherine Dickens mentions her ten children, but six of them (,, , , , and ) were born after 1843.
 * She also references , which was first serialized from 1849 to 1850 and first published in 1850.


 * Luoyang (105 AD)
 * Emperor Ho Ti says that Ts'ai Lun produced amazing weapons for him, and he promoted him as a result; this actually took place in 89.
 * He also gives Mario some Money specifically made of paper, despite such currency only appearing in 1024.
 * Several characters state that Ts'ai Lun is the first person to have created paper. Although he refined the process, there are examples of paper before Ts'ai Lun's contribution.


 * Mainz (1455)
 * Mario receives a Tea Bag from a librarian, despite tea bags first being created in the opening years of the 1900s and only being commercially available in the 1920s.
 * The same librarian says that Gutenberg loved to read books as a kid, but not much is actually known about Gutenberg's early life.


 * Menlo Park (1879)
 * A hardware store clerk says that he has all of Thomas Edison's phonograph records, including "". While Edison did indeed test his invention with the poem, this recording was not publicly available.
 * A hotel owner mentions Edison's creation of an, which he only patented in 1904


 * Novato (1994)
 * In the PC version, Mario travels to 1994 and helps the development team Mario's Time Machine finish the game, despite the SNES version having been released in 1993.


 * Orleans (1429)
 * Joan of Arc's Shield depicts her coat of arms, but the game takes place during the siege on the Tourelles (which took place on May 7 ) and her coat of arms was only granted to her on June 2.


 * Pacific Ocean (1521)
 * Juan Sebastian Del Cano describes Ferdinand Magellan's wanderlust, and how he wants to travel the world simply for the sake of it. However, from the start, his intention was to discover a route to the
 * Also, though the game spells his name as "Del Cano", this is a misspelling.
 * Mario receives a Rat Trap holding a from the ship's bosun, despite this being first patented in 1894.
 * Ferdinand suddenly decides to give the its name after an off-hand comment from Mario. However, he called it the "Estrecho de Todos los Santos" ("Channel of All Saints"), after ; his crew was the one who named the ship after their captain.

[there's probably something here]
 * Padua (1610)


 * Philadelphia (1752)
 * Mario obtains a Penny from a constable, despite the first American pennies only being minted in 1793.


 * Stratford-upon-Avon (1601)
 * Numerous characters quote lines from William Shakespeare's plays. For example, Anne Hathaway says "Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" from  (believed to have been written in 1606 ), and an unnamed man quotes "O brave new world, that has such people in't" from (believed to have been written in 1611 )
 * The wording of many quotes also slightly differ from their sources, though this was most likely done to better integrate them into the dialogue.
 * Richard Burbage claims that Shakespeare has written "some 24" plays; although certain sources line up with this statement, it is generally difficult to precisely determine when each play was written.
 * An unnamed man in Stratford-upon-Avon brings up the theories that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by or by . This is despite those theories first appearing in 1857 and 1920, respectively.

Pop culture references

 * One of Cleopatra's guards assumes that Mario is not from Egypt, as he does not "".
 * After receiving a Laurel Wreath, a poet in Athens exclaims that he does not need an "".
 * If Mario offers a lecturer at Cambridge an apple, he replies that he prefers his, and I can't believe that joke is actually in this game.

DKC:TF
Hazards


 * Carnivorous Plantlife: "The local plantlife in Donkey Kong Country is aggressive, to put it plainly. These angry fellows are much like the tooth-toting carnivorous plants that sport platforms at their base. The main difference here is that these hungry plants do not help you access routes or gain entry to secret areas. They pretty much just want to devour your entire body whole."
 * Collapsible Wooden Platforms: "These wood-plank platforms start to shiver and shake the second you step your hairy foot upon them. Be sure to take care of your business and make haste before the planks give way and you fall to your doom."
 * Decaying Vines: "These vines at first sight can blend in with the regular structurally sound vines. At a closer look, they can be identified by the brown discoloring at the top of the vine. When you grab onto these vines, you will only have a limited time before they break under your intense weight. This is a grab-and-go situation, so grab hold of the vine and jump to the next before the old vine makes fools of the lot of you."
 * Electrified Anemones: "While they look beautiful in the dark of the ocean, these will shock DK to the core. They hold items beneath them, and at first glance, you may not know how to defeat these anemones. Close by are smaller fish that will glow if you Corkscrew through their school, which will cause the anemone arms to retract finally allow you to access the items below."
 * Fire Floor: "These fire floors can be identified by the hot coals burning just below the surface. The real danger is standing in one spot for too long, as that agitates the earth, allowing flames to come to the surface that will most certainly burn you. Usually there are Water Sacks around; throw them at the ground to extinguish the flames and create a much more safer walkway. "
 * Flaming Falling Totem Poles: "These totem poles are intent on crushing the bananas out of you. They have a flaming core with fire that flickers out from the eye and mouth holes. Besides adding to the incredible tension, these are another hazard to keep you on your toes. Quickly jump back or roll forward to avoid a crushing defeat."
 * Flaming Vines: "These vines look like the decaying vines, but they will immediately ignite and burn up rather quickly. Other vines will already be on fire when you approach. Extinguish them before climbing. These vines can also be connected to platforms, making it much simpler to quickly jump to safety. Remember to act swiftly and be light on your feet!"
 * Giant Spiked Nuts: "A form of this type of hazard is introduced in the third island and will become a headache-inducing nuisance. These large spiked nuts drop from trees and roll towards you, with the intention of filling you full of holes. They cannot be destroyed by any means, so leap over the obstacles and continue on your way as best you can."
 * Giant Underwater Fans: "The giant fans certainly make traversing through underwater levels difficult. In some instances, the current they produce is too powerful to Kong to swim through on his own. Grab Dixie Kong if you can and use her Ponytail Propeller move to easily pass through the strong currents."
 * Hanging TNT: "This is quite simple really. Touch the dangling cluster of concentrated destruction to go BOOM! Avoid the dangling destruction and live to tell the tale."
 * Lightning Bolts: "When you encounter lightning bolts, they may give you a hard time at first, but they can be avoided quite easily if you follow the pattern. Before the real shock comes from the main bolt, several lesser bolts will strike in quick succession; they are harmless. Use that time to run or roll past the strike zone before the actual bolt rains down on your parade."
 * Proximity Mines: "The mines underwater pack a punch and will begin to time their detonation the closer you get. Some secret areas must be opened by the mines, so you may need to carefully draw near one to time the charge, then quickly swim away before it explodes. Remember that these mines eject pieces of shrapnel that will take a heart away if they come in contact with you, so be careful!"
 * Spiked Floor: "Spiked floors can be a real pain in the buttocks—literally. The best way to traverse this hazard is to bring old man Cranky Kong along with you and pogo across the spikes with his cane. This will also help you access the items lying on the spikes and to get to hidden areas to collect Puzzle Pieces."
 * Tornados: "These wind tunnels can either help or hinder your path to the end of the level. At times these tornados can launch you upward to access certain items, but get too close to an edge and the wonder of nature might just launch you like a rag doll. Tip: The trick to using the tornado to spring you forward is to jump into it at the very top of the funnel. Jumping into the lowest portion or the middle causes it to shoot you backward and possibly straight into harm’s way."

SSB4 Images

 * Color TV-Game 15
 * Nightmare
 * Barrel
 * Crate
 * Daybreak
 * Dragoon
 * Food
 * Party Ball
 * Rocket Belt
 * Rolling Crate
 * Spring
 * Team Healer
 * Treasure chest
 * Trophy
 * Clubberskull
 * Cucco
 * Fly Guy
 * Glire
 * Iridescent Glint Beetle
 * Koopa Troopa
 * Poppant
 * Spiny

Look for official English names
