MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Include physical appearance in an infobox
The last proposal was failed due to considering only for deletion. Split was added but failed. However, there is a second chance, and Smash Wiki also including their non-Smash appearance. See "Most recent non-Smash appearance". Also the other-Nintendo or third party characters have included their first appearance and Mario-related media appearance together in MarioWiki. To make easily check the last physical appearance in the non-Smash games.

Example for Kritter

Before: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (spirit cameo) (2018)

After: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (spirit cameo) (2018) Mario Super Sluggers (2008, non-Smash appearance) Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS (formal) (2014)

Proposer: Deadline: November 25, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Oppose

 * 1) Opposing for the same reason as last time: it's still an appearance of the character and it's not like Smash is the only time characters have cameos like this.
 * 2) per Hewer, an appearance is an appearance. a cameo is a cameo.

Comments
Haven't decided what to vote for yet, but I should point out that bringing up how other wikis handle certain situations is not a good argument as they often work vastly different from how we do. 14:12, November 18, 2022 (EST)

Something I want to point out is that we do seem to have this in practice for first appearances; for example, check out Roy (Fire Emblem), Bubbles (Clu Clu Land), or Cream the Rabbit. LinkTheLefty (talk) 21:32, November 18, 2022 (EST)
 * Good point, but honestly I'd be in favour of removing those to just have the first overall appearance and the first Mario-related appearance. 06:58, November 19, 2022 (EST)

I think that, instead of including most recent non-Smash appearance, we should be including most recent physical appearance instead. That means that, if the character's most recent appearance is nothing more than a pictured cameo, then we can add the most recent appearance in which the character actually physically appears. The infobox on Monty Mole would be a good example of what I'm getting at, as it includes both its most recent appearance in Tetris 99 (which is nothing more than a pictured cameo appearance), as well as in Mario Party Superstars (in which it actually appears in physical form. In Kritter's case, its most recent appearance would include Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (the latest (non-physical) appearance) and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS (the latest actual, physical appearance). This could also work for if the most recent cameo appearance of a character remains within the Mario franchise in some way. 13:41, November 19, 2022 (EST)
 * I agreed your comment. I replace (non-Smash appearance) with (formal), and changed the title. Since King K. Rool made his first physical appearance in 10 years since Mario Super Sluggers. Candy Kong and any other DK characters (excluding Dixie, Cranky and Funky) haven't appeared in 15 years since DK: Jungle Climber. We haven't seen Kremlings in the recent years. Windy (talk) 14:08, November 19, 2022 (EST)

Partially unban citing the English version of the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia as official names for subjects
I know what you're probably thinking, but hear me out. The original proposal had three options - the first option was unanimously decided against, but I think it may be time the second option had another look. Things have changed a bit since the proposal in 2018, and it's become evident that, while this probably hasn't happened to the extent that it did in Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia (and hopefully won't again), fan-name borrowing has happened on smaller scales. Piranha Pod (from the book) and Nipper Dandelion (not from the book) became in-game names in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Some of the names from the book have been immediately discarded, such as Micro Piranha Plant, but tellingly, the English version of the Mario Portal website more recently used a hefty combination of names from the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia as well as new localizations, and there is little question that the names there are accepted. And on a Nintendo-related note, renowned Pokémon localizer Nob Ogasawara has said that he would not have minded using fan-names if he felt the name was good. So, after some thought, I believe the wiki could adapt from these developments and unban English citations of the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia in a strictly limited capacity, discouraging it but at the same time accepting that it does and will sometimes happen beyond our control.

Here is my vision for it: Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia would now be taking a special sixth spot as an acceptable English source here, making it the very last resort before taking foreign and conjectural names; citing the name from Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia would only be allowed on the express condition that there is no other suitable higher source. This means that the vast majority of the book would remain uncitable; however, this rule should reduce our list of foreign article names quite a bit, as well as open up the possibility of new and more accessible articles. Again, if there is literally any other viable English source available, the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia reference would get removed from the article and any alternate name it had would only be used as a redirect, just as the case is now. The current conjecture and another language templates may need to get rephrased, but there will be a new encyclopedia template to denote encyclopedia-named articles as a special case. Under these unique rules, citogenesis and mistakes will be kept to a minimum.

At least the following will be renamed: *Not renamed so much as probably removed from the another language category.
 * Pipe Fist and Ghost Vase, which should be the only remaining former-conjectural names from our list that have no other English-sourced alternatives at this time (see edge cases below)
 * diagonal lift
 * Scenic Course
 * Secret Course 1
 * Secret Course 2
 * Secret Course 3
 * Bat Course
 * Witch’s Mansion Course
 * Secret Course 4
 * Secret Course 5
 * Cheep Cheep Course
 * Whale Course
 * Secret Course 6
 * 3-Up Heart
 * Bone Lift
 * Lance
 * Ghost Block
 * Remote-Controlled Clown Car
 * Remote-Controlled Fence
 * Remote-Controlled Lift
 * Sinking and Rising Mushrooms
 * Gold Paragoomba
 * elevator lift
 * Moving Fence
 * All Night Nippon: Super Mario Bros.
 * I Am a Teacher: Super Mario Sweater
 * Kaettekita Mario Bros.*
 * Mario no Photopi*
 * Picross NP*
 * four Mario Artist games*
 * Densetsu no Stafy 3
 * Itadaki Street DS*
 * Club Nintendo Picross*
 * Club Nintendo Picross Plus*

Suggested edge cases consist of the following: If this proposal passes, there might be the idea to also incorporate profiles and descriptions at a later date, but for now, these restrictions seem functional.
 * Roto-Disc (Super Mario Land) - Roto Disc has usable precedent so it can be moved to "Roto Disc (Super Mario Land)" or potentially merged with Roto-Disc
 * Fire Piranha Plant (statue) - use the Nintendo Power source to move to "Piranha Plant (statue)"
 * Kuromame - Keronpa Ball can be moved to "flame thrower (Flame Chomp)" (it's often considered an obstacle rather than an enemy, which conflicts with another subject from the same game)
 * Big Wiggler (New Super Mario Bros.) - delete the Giant Wiggler redirect and use "giant Wiggler" from page 94 of the Player's Guide instead (merging is out of the question for now because it conflicts with another proposal)
 * Orange Platform - move to "floor (Mario Bros.)" referring to in-game text
 * Lumacomète - we can remove the another language template and re-cite the "Comet Tico" internal name to prevent a move, just like the article did previously
 * Spring - use the Prima source to move back to "spring (Super Mario Galaxy)"
 * Red and Blue Blocks - use Prima's "red and blue blocks" per discussion
 * Spin Coaster (New Super Mario Bros. 2) - move to "segmented platform" citing page 156 of the Prima guide
 * Switch Lift - move to "raft (New Super Mario Bros. 2)" citing page 74 of the Prima guide
 * Skelefloor - move to "bridge (New Super Mario Bros. U)" citing page 200 of the Prima guide

Proposer: Deadline: November 26, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) - Perabove.
 * 2) I had a suspicion that Nintendo's view of Encyclopedia's credibility differed from how we view it the moment those English Mario Portal translations popped up (just look at the SML2 section and compare to what encyclopedia did). Staying wary of using Encyclopedia for general cases while also acknowledging that Nintendo is at least somewhat cool with using Encyclopedia's names seems to be the most reasonable decision here; it may even help us distinguish from "blatant encyclopedia mistake" and "actual Nintendo-certified name that was just never said before" (and honestly as I am reading through the list of mistakes derived from the wiki, I feel like we over-reacted just a teensy bit on how bad Encyclopedia was). If this proposal fails, we'd need to re-assess the validity of Mario Portal as well, as that is what much of this debate is about.
 * 3) Per proposal.

Comments
I think there should be an option which is a support with two additional conditions:
 * 1) adding a template that the name is taken from a book that was proved to use wikis as naming source
 * 2) trying as much as possible to avoid using names that we introduced unless confirmed by a second official source (like the English translation of the Mario Portal)

Overall, the fear of ultimately citing ourselves is not unjustified, so I think that before accepting the names of the English encyclopedia we should be sure that we aren't the source of said names. What do you think?--Mister Wu (talk) 18:42, November 19, 2022 (EST)
 * That makes a lot of sense IMO, the only problem there would be what such a template would look like. Would it just be like the foreign language template but with the text changed to be about encyclopedia? 18:45, November 19, 2022 (EST)
 * The text would be something like:
 * The title of this article comes from the English Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia, that reportedly sourced part of its names from wikis, including the Super Mario Wiki. If a name with a higher priority is found, the title should be moved to said higher priority name.
 * The appearance can indeed be similar to that of the foreign language template, to highlight the similarity of the problem.--Mister Wu (talk) 22:02, November 19, 2022 (EST)
 * The first condition is already mentioned in the proposal. I can just replace the "can possibly" with "will" to make it a certainty. I'd actually go a step further and include mention of source in there as well for clarity, not just name. Something along the lines of:
 * ...If a higher priority source is found, the current reference should be removed and the title moved to the higher priority name if applicable.
 * I considered the second condition myself, but when I realized at this point that this would only apply to two names, and one of them would become incongruent with a similar subject (Obake Stand/Ghost Vase and Ghost Block), I figured it was not necessary to make any more stipulations. I can add it as a second option if people want, though. LinkTheLefty (talk) 01:27, November 20, 2022 (EST)
 * The general idea is that of having a third option which is a support of the proposal but with a stricter policy, so the template will be added instead of might be added and there are additional measures to prevent us from citing ourselves as the source. I'm wondering if said third option could make sense.--Mister Wu (talk) 06:54, November 20, 2022 (EST)
 * The problem I see with the additional condition is that there are several names that could be from the wiki, but also could coincidences as many if not most are direct translations of what was already there. Some of these were mentioned here. If we were to become overcautious, that runs the risk of shutting out perfectly fine, straightforward translations, as well as whether those probable coincidences should have been listed. So far, this should include Ghost Block and Gold Paragoomba, but it might also affect a few new articles that didn't make it onto the list. Say, for example, that someone wanted to make an article on the giant-sized pipe that appears in some games. Page 55 of the English version refers to them as giant pipes, but we couldn't use that name, despite the fact that it also happens to be a direct translation of the Japanese 巨大土管 equivalent on page 41. In the long run, I think having that condition could cause us to second-guess ourselves overmuch and lead to more confusion than not having it. I fully agree with the template and tweaked the proposal, though. LinkTheLefty (talk) 09:54, November 20, 2022 (EST)