MarioWiki:Proposals

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Split or Merge Mario Kart Tour's Pallet Swaps
Okay, this has been on my mind for a bit now and it's largely in part to the Red Spike Top proposal going on. Red Spike Tops are considered being merged because they feature no distinct differences from Spike Tops other than their shell color. Despite opposing, I can see the logic behind this; they are pallet swaps and, for the most part, pallet swaps are naturally kept together in the parent species article. This got the gears in my brain turning and I realized that we have articles for pallet swapped karts and gliders from Mario Kart Tour, but we don't have articles for the pallet swapped characters. The karts and gliders have their own articles because they have different special skills, Favorite Courses and Favored Courses, but it strikes me as odd that the characters don't get the same treatment, despite having the same differences. I made a whole work page detailing as much as I could, but perhaps diving into the entire pallet swap deal as a whole would be a bit of a big jump. So I propose we start with Mario Kart Tour, a game that I feel has an ongoing inconsistency with the idea. Karts and Gliders have their own articles, pallet swap or not, but the characters do not. So I propose one of three options:


 * Split Pallet Swapped Characters: This option would be to split the characters that are mere color swaps: Yoshis, Shy Guys, Pit Crew Toads, Birdos, Freerunning Koopas and the golden variants (Dry Bones, King Boo etc). These articles would only cover their appearances in Mario Kart Tour for now and not the appearances in games such the Mario Baseball series or Mario Sports Superstars. They would be consistent with the pallet swapped karts and gliders, which all have their own articles. For now, I think this should be limited to the colored pallet swaps only rather than the actual characters dressed up in themed outfits, unless people think those would be strong enough to have their own articles too.


 * Merge Pallet Swapped Karts/Gliders: This option is obviously the opposite. Karts and gliders would be merged into their the articles of the karts and gliders they are based on, much like how the characters are currently handled. Examples would include the B Dasher variants to the B Dasher article, the Pumpkin Kart and it's gold variant to the Apple Kart and such. This would not apply to the Gold Glider or Gold Standard, as both have previously appeared in Mario Kart 7 and 8, as well as the Gold Standard only appearing in Gold Rush mode in Tour and not being a fully usable kart anyway.


 * Do Nothing: Nothing happens and wiki life continues as normal.

Proposer: Deadline: January 27, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Split Mario Kart Tour Pallet Swap Characters

 * 1) This is personally my preferred option. It remains consistent with the karts and gliders by only covering their appearance in Mario Kart Tour, providing articles covering the same differences as the karts and gliders do.

Merge Mario Kart Tour Pallet Swap Karts/Gliders

 * 1) This would be my secondary choice, as merging them would make them more consistent with how we treat the costumed characters.

Do Nothing

 * 1) I kind of agree with the sentiment behind this proposal, but I feel like it simultaneously doesn't go far enough in some areas and too far in others. If the split articles only cover Mario Kart Tour that'll not only be very inconsistent with other color variants that got articles but feel very arbitrary (why does Red Yoshi's appearance in Tour only get coverage when there's also stat differences, SMW powers etc.? That's just one example). At the same time I don't know how many of these need to be split, breaking up the Roving Racers into multiple pages (which again, wouldn't cover Odyssey for some reason) feels kind of unnecessary. More importantly: How would this affect costume swaps? They're not mentioned here, but for all intents and purposes, the difference between Wario and Wario (Hiker) is the same as Yoshi and Blue Yoshi. I'm all for reconsidering our stance on giving articles to palette swaps, and at the very least I'd like to see the Yoshi merge reversed, but this isn't the way to do it, I think.
 * 2) Per Waluigi Time.
 * 3) This would be way too excessive.
 * 4) Splitting most of the variant drivers in my opinion is too excessive. They share most of their animations with the original too. If we had an article for "King Boo (Gold)", it would be too short, since it only appears in one game, and it's content will likely be too repetitive with King Boo. The kart/glider merges would be weird too, as Calico Parafoil and Rose Parasol are variants of the Parafoil and Peach Parasol, but they look completely different.
 * 5) Like Waluigi Time, I am not opposed to the idea of reconsidering how certain palette swaps are dealt with, but I have concerns that this proposal creates too many inconsistencies by focusing solely on Mario Kart Tour, and even feels somewhat inconsistent by the way it addresses that game alone by not addressing the costumes.

Comments
@Waluigi Time: The main reason I'm choosing to cover Tour only right now is because it's got a very simple, kinda enclosed solution. As I mentioned, diving into all sorts of pallet swaps deals with a lot more than just the Yoshis or Shy Guys; it could steer into RPG enemies as well, as they also feature pallet swaps and different stats. Trust me, I'd fully support splitting the Yoshis back into their separate articles because of their multiple appearances with differences (as you mentioned, Super Mario World). But because that topic covers so much, I thought it would be a hard and somewhat complicated place to start. So I thought of covering Tour only because the solutions are more simple to work with. Additionally, I do address the idea of costumed alternates, being something that could also qualify if people think they should. I would also support the idea, because like the colored pallet swaps, karts and gliders, they feature the same differences.
 * It's not as simple as you think. I mean, you want to do this for consistency, but doing it creates multiple blatant inconsistencies as Waluigi Time said, not to mention the arbitrariness of splitting only the palette swaps and not alternate costumes like Detective Baby Rosalina. Sometimes a "simple" solution just doesn't cut it. Also, you're spelling "palette" wrong, we're not talking about a town in Pokémon. 20:23, January 20, 2022 (EST)
 * There is already an inconsistency though. Like, the Shy Guys are merged, but not the B Dasher Mk. 2s? 20:32, January 20, 2022 (EST)
 * @7feetunder: Okay, in my defense, I TRIED to think about as much of this as possible. I wrote a lot down on my personal work page about this, but my main thought was to TRY to come up with something simple. I understand this is not an easy topic to tackle, but I still wanted to try something. I felt it would've been easier to simply start with how we cover Mario Kart Tour's topics; as the karts and gliders do get articles, but the characters do not. Like I said, twice, I'm open to include the costumed alternates because they feature the same differences. And to be frankly honest, I don't appreciate my efforts being casually passed off as "arbitrary". I understand I've jumped the gun more often than not recently and I really did want to avoid that this time. But to say I put no thought into this feels unfair. Also thank you, I get spellings mixed up a lot
 * No need to get defensive, no one here is attacking you. I did not say anything about you putting "no thought" into this. Anyway, sometimes in situations like this, it's better to start a plain discussion to get ideas from the community than trying to jump right into a proposal. Like I said, sometimes there is no easy solution to a problem, and this is one of those times. 21:36, January 20, 2022 (EST)
 * Okay, no problem. I didn't mean to get defensive in a negative way. But I definitely want to strike a discussion about this and I'm going about doing so.

What's your opinion on Goo-Goo Buggy/Rattle Buggy, Red Fire/Green Fire, Heart Coach/Bloom Coach, Piranha Pipes/Boo Pipes, Light Tripper/Light Dancer as well as the StandardXX articles (like Standard BW)? 20:21, January 20, 2022 (EST)
 * I more support the idea of splitting these types of topics, so the Double Dash Karts and MKDS standards are fine the way they are in my point of view. They feature difference stats, with karts like the Boo Pipes being different among most heavyweight karts.
 * Yeah, I know it's different games, but it's just to help jog the cogs a little. So, the reasoning here is that these karts have different stats, but anyhow, one argues that the colored characters in some games also have different stats, like the colored Yoshis across Baseball AND in Mario Tennis Open as well as in Yoshi Touch & Go and Super Mario Run. Same for the merged colored Shy Guys who have different stats in both Baseball and in Smash Run (as well as different tattles). So, how are we to proceed with alts of the Mario Kart Tour? Why should Pit Stop Toad be merged with Toad while Sky-Blue B Dasher Mk. 2 gets a separate page from B Dasher Mk. 2? Note you can make a case for Swimsuit Rosalina merged with Rosalina due to pertaining to one character ultimately, but you can't argue this for generic species. 20:59, January 20, 2022 (EST)
 * I did try to dive into pallet swaps in a more broad sense, addressing the idea of appearances in the ‘’Mario Baseball series’’ and such. I’d greatly support including that information too, as they showcase clear differences, but I thought starting with everything at once would be going too far, which is why I started at ‘’Mario Kart Tour’’ alone. I’ve written down everything on my work page here and I would appreciate it if people could look at it so it may hopefully add to this discussion.
 * I see. Though I appreciate the attempt of firing up a proposal draw attention to an issue in the wiki, I do think the proposal is a little premature if your aims is to have a sort of way of dealing with current large inconsistencies on coverage, no offense! DrMW Goomba Patient 3.png I think you should first try to gauge how people view this coverage, see if it's a serious problem, and then work out a few solutions, maybe starting even smaller scale like talk page discussions. 21:19, January 20, 2022 (EST)
 * No offense taken. If anything, I appreciate that. Honestly, part of me didn't know where to bring this up, whether it was something that could be just fired up on a talk page or if I had to go to the forums. Starting a proposal was just the first place my brain went to cause it was something most people would notice. I apologize if I jumped the gun again.

I am willing to withdraw this proposal to talk about the topic more elsewhere. I completely understand where the opposing side is getting at: the idea of covering Tour only. Again, my reasoning was an attempt at starting simple, but it is very clear that it was not nearly as simple as anticipated. However, I still can't understand why we'll make articles for the Blue Biddybuggy, which is literally the blue color swap from Mario Kart 8, but not for something like Blue Yoshi. That's where my main concern comes from. In my overall opinion, I'd rather split articles like colored Yoshis and cover every instance where their colors differentiated from each other, such as in Super Mario World, the Mario Baseball series and such, and do so for other pallet swaps. I really do want to discuss this further to try to come to some sort of conclusion.

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