MarioWiki:Proposals

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Remove "Koopa" and other name particles from Koopaling article titles
Starting with Mario Kart 8 on Wii U hitherto the time of this proposal, Mario games have exclusively referred to Koopalings using their first names: Larry, Ludwig, Wendy etc. These games include Paper Mario: Color Splash, Mario & Luigi games, Mario Kart Tour, Dr. Mario World, Super Smash Bros. games, and Mario & Sonic games (Rio 2016; Tokyo 2020).

The Koopaling article names on this wiki do not reflect this state of affairs: currently, they use the naming scheme established in old manuals, which is stylised by way of the word "Koopa" attached as a surname or nobiliary title of sorts. Said naming scheme has seen sparse use in more recent years, being specifically reserved to ancillary material such as the New Super Mario Bros. Wii Prima Guide, this video, and most likely more--I invite knowledgeable editors to expand this list for future reference. As dictated by the source priority policy, this material should not override what the games themselves put forward. In addition, the more concise versions of these characters' names would better serve readers and contributors alike.

Given my statement above, the object of this proposal is to simply change Koopaling articles, and most pages directly related to the individual characters, to display only their first name. The page List of DIC cartoon episodes featuring Hip Koopa is excluded from the proposal's scope, as its title reflects the character's name used in the SMB3 cartoon. The following is a list of affected pages, with target titles in brackets:

I would also like us to hash out how to phrase the opening paragraphs in their character articles; namely, whether to list the short name or the full name first. For this, I'm splitting the support option into two possible directions:
 * 1) " Larry, referred to in full as Larry Koopa and known as Cheatsy Koopa in the cartoons, [...]"
 * 2) " Larry Koopa, or simply Larry, known as Cheatsy Koopa in the cartoons, [...]"

I suppose some editors may prefer the second direction, given that it's common practice in academic and academically-modeled resources to start out an article's text with the subject's full name, and not necessarily the best known version of the name.

Proposer: Deadline: September 25, 2022, 23:59 GMT Extended to October 2, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Support (option 1)

 * 1) Preferred option. Can't wait to make it easier to type out the names of these roster-padding sons of bitches.
 * 2) Per con Carne's proposal :)
 * 3) Honestly, either wording works for me, but could be best to roll with their first names only to match article titles.
 * 4) Per proposal.
 * 5) After some thought, per all and per the support voters here.
 * 6) - Full_name parameter exists for a reason and the full names are rarely used, unlike say Kammy Koopa, who is referred to pretty much only as such.
 * 7) - Per all.
 * 8) Strongly per "most commonly used English name" which has been the basis every single time this comes up (I would say "List of DIC cartoon episodes featuring Hip" too since I distinctly remember lines using his first name, but I'm not about to bingewatch to confirm if full name or first only is more common there).

Support (option 2)

 * 1) Second choice.
 * 2) I'm surprised no one has voted for the second support option; changing mentions of the Koopalings to just their first names would improve reader and editor convenience, while using their full names as the very first words of each of their articles would help make their full name immediately clear (and help clarify that the article  refers to Roy Koopa, not Roy from Fire Emblem or Roy from Mario Tennis: Power Tour). This option makes sense to me because their full names are still commonly used, unlike Mario Mario, Princess Peach Toadstool, and T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas. Additionally, it sets both an academic, professional standard and the standard already set by the edge cases of characters with intentionally long full names, like Squirps and The Old Psychic Lady.
 * 3) My preference would be an approach closer to this (also considering that the given full names are subject to modification, especially in old western media appearances).
 * 4) - Per

Oppose

 * 1) Per Mister Wu in the comments and the previous proposal over this. The names are still sometimes used in-game with recent examples, and this largely seems to stem from the extended names just not being used in Japan. (You could bring in the "it's closer to Japanese" argument, but I don't really like the idea of using that to decide which English names should be used.)
 * 2) Per Waluigi Time. These names are still used quite frequently and don't need to be changed.
 * 3) I would agree with not referring to them by the full names for games that don't use them at all, otherwise per all.
 * 4) If the full names had been completely out of use after the first appearance or so like Boo Diddly, I would have supported this. And then there's few Koopa characters like Kylie Koopa whose first name was used in her follow-up appearance. I don't know the reason for Smash Bros. fighters having articles under their full names if they have any, but when I see an example like Wolf and Wolf O'Donnell, using full names looks valid enough and better over identifiers (like this).
 * 5) Per Waluigi Time, the names are still used on occasion enough compared to Princess Peach Toadstool.
 * 6) Per waluigi time
 * 7) - Really struggle to see any advantage to this. If the full names are still in use and there's no official confirmation they've been dropped, what's the point? How does typing "Koopa" on the end of the name, on the rare occasions you need to, waste any time at all? Also both example sentences provided for the support option are far more awkwardly worded than what's currently there.
 * 8) Until someone can elaborate on why policy discourages linking to redirects, I don't see the need to rename well-established names to simpler names that I feel were simplified for game-context reasons that aren't necessarily applicable to wikis.

Comments
I'd like to remind yet again that in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate the full names are all acknowledged - they also were acknowledged in the Wii U version of Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games that featured the Theme of Larry Koopa. Also, please, proposal votes based on personal hatred do no good to the wiki, especially since the only multi slot roster "padding" the Koopalings did since Mario Kart 8 and its Deluxe version was in the now defunct Dr. Mario World and in Mario Kart Tour (where it's pretty bold to compare it to the actual padding of the variants). They share the slot with Bowser Jr. in the Smash Bros. games and they are guests in the Mario & Sonic games, meaning that they only occupy one slot. --Mister Wu (talk) 15:31, September 18, 2022 (EDT)
 * Considering the tone of my statement of disdain and the fact that I added it at the tail end of a series of arguments made in good faith, I would say that it is very clearly meant to be taken as a joke. I have no strong attachments towards any video game characters, so your accusation that I'm using "hatred" as a thrust to my argument is not only insulting, but blown out of proportion. 19:10, September 18, 2022 (EDT)
 * Fine, I take that part back (although just so you know, fan votes have been a thing in the past, so be wary that some users did vote out of attachment to characters, meaning that jokes like this one can be misunderstood). In any case, sorry for the misunderstanding.--Mister Wu (talk) 09:14, September 19, 2022 (EDT)

I'd actually like to take this a bit further by questioning Peach and Daisy; as of right now their article names are "Princess Peach"/"Princess Daisy", but much like how very few, if any, modern games ever refer to the Koopalings by their full names, very few, if any games references Peach and Daisy by their titles in game. Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Golf, Smash Bros, they all just refer to them as Peach and Daisy. And if the fact that it's a title has anything to do with it, why isn't Bowser's article named "King Bowser"? I'd wager we could probably move their articles to just Peach and Daisy for the same reasons.
 * Origami King actually does use "Princess Peach" quite a bit: for example, there's Olivia saying "My brother and Princess Peach must both be in there..." and Bowser says "Anyway, where's Princess Peach?", both in the endgame. 19:37, September 18, 2022 (EDT)
 * The "Princess" title is still widely in use, such as in TOK as Scrooge said and on the Play Nintendo site. It would seem that only roster-heavy spin-offs refer to them with only their personal names. 19:42, September 18, 2022 (EDT)
 * That example does help me see the difference in this situation, mainly cause I'm comparing a title to a full name. I guess it makes sense that Peach and Daisy use their princess title cause it's a title. And it makes sense that the Koopalings don't go by their full names often cause that would literally be like going up to your best friend and using their full name just to refer to them. So from a realistic standpoint, it makes sense that games like Paper Jam or Color Splash don't just have everyone referring to them by their full names in dialogue like they would when referring to Peach as "Princess Peach" (I guess it's also worth mentioning that in Color Splash, Peach's introduction does use her full title while the Koopalings don't use their full names.) That being said, using spin-offs like Mario Kart might not be the best examples, since most characters go by their standard names anyway.

@Opposition: The amount of media that refers to the Koopalings using only their first name (including, as mentioned in the proposal, almost every single game they appeared in during the last decade) far surpasses the number of instances where their full name is used. Participants to the previous proposal brought up isolated, relatively minor instances of the Koopalings' full names being used, particularly in merchandise and print media, and treated them as top-priority sources despite going counter to what the naming policy says. In the spirit of hopefully convincing people that it's misguided to do so, I raise another piece of merch, the Super Mario Trading Card Collection, released in April 2022 (so pretty recent), which respects the naming model used in games. Shouldn't it similarly be taken into consideration, and be measured against a random Larry Koopa toy and a Monopoly set? Because it's clear that merchandise releases are not consistent among themselves in the least, so why not turn to what the games already very clearly establish? 19:10, September 18, 2022 (EDT)
 * The thing is, they're not contradictory (or even different, technically) names, and it's not even really an inconsistency. Sometimes they use the full name, other times they use a shortened version. I don't see any harm in using the full one if it's still in use. -- 19:51, September 18, 2022 (EDT)

@Opposition: I'm challenging someone to explain why "the names are occasionally used" (in things like Smash Bros. and merchandise no less, which as I've demonstrated above aren't even consistent with themselves) is being so strongly bandied around as an argument against designating the names that are put front and center in most appearances of these characters to their wiki articles. So far, zero proper rationale has been given for the former direction in either of the three proposals that have concerned this matter, other than a couple of arguments that can be best defined as mental gymnastics. Nobody is arguing that we should get rid of the names altogether, just that using them in such a representative fashion isn't the proper way to go--and I've already proposed two methods to handle their full names in their lead, because, much like LinkTheLefty has previously stated, these names are significant enough to deserve a mention as such. That doesn't mean Squirps is a contender for a move to "Prince Squirp Korogaline Squirpina" though. 10:30, September 21, 2022 (EDT)


 * I've already explained at least for my part that I think it's fine keeping the full names since the most commonly used ones are just simplifications of those names, and the full ones are still in use. If the full names had been dropped entirely for an extensive period of time, yeah I could see that, but they're clearly still around. I don't think that's mental gymnastics myself, but if you feel that the arguments presented so far aren't "proper rationale" I'm not sure there's much more to say. -- 12:16, September 21, 2022 (EDT)
 * "since the most commonly used ones are just simplifications of those names, and the full ones are still in use" This straight up argues doing the opposite of what the policy I cited above says to do. 17:30, September 21, 2022 (EDT)

"How does typing "Koopa" on the end of the name, on the rare occasions you need to, waste any time at all?" Except they're not "rare" as you claim. I found myself piping links to their articles far more often than not, because--and I re-reiterate--their one-word names have seen infinitely more use in various media throughout the years. I didn't put a lot of focus on this point in the proposal, but having to only type in one word whenever I link would definitely save some effort. "Also both example sentences provided for the support option are far more awkwardly worded than what's currently there." If you have anything better, provided a scenario in which this proposal passes, I'm open to it. 07:46, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * Well... to address the second point, you don't need to change it at all? To address the first, this is all basically just opinion so there's no definitive answer to this, but it's just 5 extra letters. You would need to type it, at a stretch, once per article if it's not already linked - or you don't even need to type them at all, as their first names redirect to their articles anyway. Unless there's suddenly been a massive flood of new Koopaling media/appearances I'm not sure how this could cause any real issue, and the solution the proposal suggests is effectively already in place. If it's causing that much of a problem, you could just leave it for someone else to edit. 10:54, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * Those 5 letters, "Koopa", need to be typed out in addition to re-typing the Koopaling's unique name for the sake of piping the link to their article (the wording has to be apposite to what the game in question uses anyway--see Naming--and that's most games really). Piped linking has to be done because current policy discourages linking to redirect pages. "Unless there's suddenly been a massive flood of new Koopaling media/appearances" -- there has. Assuredly, for almost a decade now. And there have been very, very few instances, verging on non-significant, in this past decade where their full names were used. (This has to be about the fifth time I'm stating this.) I encourage you to look at and compare the examples everyone brought up so far in this discussion as well as in previous relevant talks. 11:16, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * It might be the fifth time you've said that, but it's an assumption, not a fact. It's not even true if you count the Smash Ultimate and Mario & Sonic examples Mister Wu mentioned, or the merch where it's used. Why does it matter anyway, why does that justify changing the name? There's no sign the full names have been dropped completely, so it's nothing to do with the naming policy, and the fact that they were used in the past - in games that are often re-released - means they're relevant. Also, piping the link is... really not a huge task. If anything it's a very minor inconvenience, which would take at most a minute to resolve if you had to do it for all seven - and something you're unlikely to run into more than once every few months, at a stretch. It's also something you need to do everywhere on the website, why is it particularly bad in this case? Just feels like removing relevant info for a pointless reason, if I'm honest. 11:30, September 24, 2022 (EDT)
 * When facts stated ad nauseam are being brushed off as "assumptions", and that they "don't justify changing the names", it's when I officially give up arguing. If a handful of (obscure) instances in a total of two/three titles out of 10 back to back + some 2017 Monopoly game are enough to overpower the rest, then fine: by all means go against policy if you so wish. This same line of thinking can be used to rename Squirps to the character's full name, as I've mentioned above. "If anything it's a very minor inconvenience, which would take at most a minute to resolve if you had to do it for all seven" Most links concerning Koopalings have to be piped; it's as inconvenient as typing the same word twice everytime it comes up. I've been active enough around these parts for the past several years to know what I'm talking about. 12:10, September 24, 2022 (EDT)
 * @MrConcreteDonkey: No one is claiming that the full names have been completely dropped, nor is anyone calling for their removal from the wiki. We're just saying that most of the more recent games use the shortened names without mentioning the full ones, so we should retitle the articles while still making the full names immediately obvious in the lead and infobox. I don't see how this can be classified as 'removing relevant info for a pointless reason' when no info is being removed here. 14:49, September 24, 2022 (EDT)

Merge Kings and Queens
When it comes to categories, we forbid using gender-based ones due to them being broad. Yet kings and queens (which cover male and female monarchs) are the exceptions right now. Princes and princesses also have this same problem, but I feel we might as well cover these first. Here are two ideas I proposed.

 Merge them into Royalty  Kings and queens are part of royalty in general, so merging them into this category could work. The only downside is that kings and queens are specific, which could go to the next option.

Merge both and create a new category: Monarchs This is probably the second best choice. However, I'm unfamiliar with the term and could be misusing it. After all, Princess Peach is considered a ruler over the Mushroom Kingdom despite not being a queen.

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

Merge into Royalty
Perhaps I'll be convinced once I see more votes.

Merge into Monarchs

 * 1) I see zero reason to merge them into royalty. These are very different categories.
 * 2) Yeah, this is a better fit as Spectrogram makes out here.
 * 3) I'll say it right now: in my opinion, the opposition's reasons are completely flawed. As of right now, Category:Queens only has 24 entries, instead making it too narrow.

Keep as is

 * 1) It's fine the way it is now, there's enough of each to make the distinction. The rationale behind this proposal is flawed, MarioWiki:Categories doesn't say anything about forbidding gendered categories for being too broad. The example provided ("It should also be noted that overly broad categories can be even more unhelpful than overly small categories (such as previously attempted categories for all males or females), and should not be created.") was specifically referring to attempts to create categories that would contain all male or female characters in the entire franchise. There's nothing wrong with creating ones with a much smaller scope if it's helpful, and I would say this is a case where it is.
 * 2) Per Waluigi Time.
 * 3) Per Waluigi Time. I feel like this proposal heavily misunderstands a single sentence on our category policy and is thus misguided (the wiki is not forbidding gender-based categories in general; but overly broad categories like all male characters and all female characters). "Kings" and "Queens" may be gendered, but absolutely not broad. I also feel like merging the two categories in "Monarchs" is not the best idea either. I support creating such a category, but Monarchs wouldn't cover just kings and queens, but basically any sovereign, like emperors/empresses, princes/princesses, lords/ladies, and dukes/duchesses. On another note, given how the Super Mario Odyssey team regards Pauline as the mayor of New Donk City as a way to say that not all Kingdoms have rulers of royalty, that would mean that Pauline could be considered a monarch as well... but not a queen, which is what this proposed category is supposedly meant for?
 * 4) Per Waluigi Time. This proposal is built around a misinterpretation of a policy page, and passing this runs afoul of the "Peach is a monarch even though she's not a queen" issue. These categories are fine.
 * 5) per waluigi time.
 * 6) - Per all; the first line of the proposal itself isn't even correct, and no idea how 24 can be classed as "too narrow".
 * 7) Per Waluigi Time. The policy is specifically stating that overly broad categories should not be created, and this proposal would just lead to a category becoming broader. I also think the argument that the category only containing 24 entries is a reason to merge the categories is flawed, as that is nearly five times the amount that policy requires.
 * 8) Per Waluigi Time and per all.

Comments
@Archivist Toadette: I really don't see where you're coming from here, there's plenty of perfectly valid comparable subcategories with less entries than that. It well exceeds the minimum standards set by Categories for something of this type ("Non-series/game/console/etc.-specific categories need a minimum of five entries (including any subcategories' entries), however they should have many more than that, since small lists can simply be placed on an article that's central to the subject at hand"). Disagreeing is one thing, but I'd caution against saying that our reasoning is "completely flawed" when the Queens category is well within our guidelines and you're basing your statement solely off of personal opinion and preference.

On a separate note, I'd also like to add that merging these categories will make navigation more difficult. Right now, you can easily look for kings or queens, but if they were all tossed together, that's made much more difficult, especially since a lot of these characters don't have their titles in their page names. Merging princes and princesses into this category in the future will make things even worse, and there's other titles not accounted for that would increase the category size even further - keep in mind that emperors, dukes, etc. can be monarchs as well.

In that sense, I think the proposal may be doing exactly the opposite of its original intentions by creating an overly broad category. The current setup is fine, we have four decently-sized categories for distinct titles and positions. This proposal passing will throw those out and eventually create a much less useful category of at least 147 pages if we bring Princes and Princesses into this as well, with no distinctions between what titles we're actually trying to look at. How is that any better and "less broad" than what we have now? -- 14:42, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * Not to mention that this entire proposal exists in the first place because the proposer misinterpreted the sentence "It should also be noted that overly broad categories can be even more unhelpful than overly small categories (such as previously attempted categories for all males or females), and should not be created". The proposer took that as gender-specific categories being not allowed, when really, the policy was simply calling just and  as examples of overly broad categories. I don't think pointing out such a mistake is a "completely flawed reason" to oppose the proposal. Also, regarding Waluigi Time's note on the Monarchs category making navigation more difficult, it is similar to what I said before as part of my opposition: Monarchs wouldn't cover just kings and queens, but basically any sovereign, like emperors/empresses, princes/princesses, lords/ladies, and dukes/duchesses. All of these would be included in a Monarchs category, and possibly more (I already mentioned Pauline as a possibility, who is a mayor, which is likened by the Mario Odyssey team as a ruler of a Kingdom without being royalty). I don't see how this is a "completely flawed reason" either, because Category:Monarchs possibly being overly broad would be exactly the kind of category that the policy advises against in creating.  17:41, September 23, 2022 (EDT)

The reason I believe these two categories need merging is because of general problems with gender. What if gender is unconfirmed for a monarch? What if Nintendo said they're NB? How would we decide which category a character should be in then? Spectrogram (talk) 14:27, September 26, 2022 (EDT)
 * I don't think it's as complicated as you make it out to be. If a character is given the title of King/Queen, we put them in the category, simple as that. Monarchs with no confirmed title (or a title that has no category) just go in the Royalty category. -- 18:40, September 26, 2022 (EDT)
 * In fairness, it looks kind of weird if monarchs that should at least be on the level of kings and queens were put in the same category of miscellaneous royalty (though we have a few of those). LinkTheLefty (talk) 00:36, September 27, 2022 (EDT)


 * The problem with Spectrogram's argument is that technically, a gender-neutral term for a king or queen simply doesn't exist (as far as I know, anyway). The closest term would be monarch, but as I stated before, there's multiple types of sovereigns that count as a monarch (such as dukes/duchesses and emperors/empresses), not just kings and queens. Princes and princesses have the exact same issue, including the fact that these are also counted as monarchs. I hate it too, but there's simply not a gender-neutral term for kings/queens that covers only kings and queens. The simplest thing to do would be just to stick these in the Royalty category, like Waluigi Time said. 06:18, September 27, 2022 (EDT)

Re-merge the Mario Party Advance "generic species representative character" articles back into their respective "species" articles
These were split a long time ago, and seemingly not by a proposal as I cannot find it in either archive. The justification for these splits were that saying that the "generic species" characters deserved as much individualized writing as the game's more specific characters, like Goombetty or Mushbert. I beg to differ on this. Many of these are the sole representative of the species in the game, which we don't use as justification to split, say, the single normal Blooper in Paper Mario or the inconsistent dividuality of Big Boo. With the recent full merging of the character/species articles for Birdo and Boom-Boom, this prompts further scrutiny. Do we really need a "Klepto (character)" article only about the MPA guy and not the singular one in SM64? (also Dorrie and Hoot ain't split.) It seems more like arbitrarily placing information of a random game's NPCs on a separate page, thus making it more inconvenient to read about the subject's appearances.

There are two ways to go about this, depending on how one treats the inconsistent localization.
 * 1) Merge all based on Japanese language-of-origin
 * 2) Merge only those that match the English version

This list has all that will be merged for both options:
 * Amp (character) to Amp
 * Blooper (character) to Blooper
 * Bob-omb (Mario Party Advance) to Bob-omb
 * Boo (Mario Party Advance) to Boo (treated as a random Boo of several)
 * Bullet Bill (character) to Bullet Bill
 * Chain Chomp (character) to Chain Chomp
 * Cheep Cheep (character) to Cheep Cheep
 * Dolphin (character) to Dolphin
 * Flutter (character) to Flutter
 * Fly Guy (character) to Fly Guy
 * Goomba (Mario Party Advance) to Goomba
 * Hammer Bro (Mario Party Advance) to Hammer Bro
 * Klepto (character) to Klepto
 * Koopa (Mario Party Advance) to Koopa Troopa
 * Lakitu (character) to Lakitu
 * Lantern Ghost (character) to Lantern Ghost
 * Mechakoopa (character) to Mechakoopa
 * Monty Mole (character) to Monty Mole
 * Mouser (Mario Party Advance) to Little Mouser (their name was all over the place at the time)
 * Mr. Blizzard (character) to Mr. Blizzard
 * Mr. I (character) to Mr. I
 * Ninji (character) to Ninji
 * Paratroopa (character) to Koopa Paratroopa
 * Penguin (character) to Penguin
 * Petal Guy (character) to Petal Guy (retroactive(?) name change)
 * Piranha Plant (character) to Piranha Plant (this one isn't even a character, it's a random plant)
 * Pokey (character) to Pokey
 * Shy Guy (Mario Party Advance) to Shy Guy
 * Snifit (character) to Snifit
 * Spear Guy (character) to Spear Guy
 * Sushi (character) to Sushi
 * Thwomp (character) to Thwomp
 * Toady (character) to Toady
 * Ukiki (character) to Ukiki
 * Whomp (character) to Whomp

This list has only ones that would be merged with option 1:
 * Bob-omba to Bob-omb Buddy
 * Goombob to Galoomba
 * Hulu to Bamboo dancers (keeping the original page name per source priority exception)

Naturally, Kamek and Toad are exempt due to their more complicated situations.

Proposer: Deadline: September 29, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Option 1: Merge all

 * 1) - per
 * 2) Per all, all information specific to the Advance characters can easily fit into the page and the piping generally is a nightmare for these articles.
 * 3) Per all
 * 4) This has been an idea for quite a while, and it's about time we finally do it. A character referred to singularly is quite common in many games. Mario Party Advance doesn't do much on their personality. Not too much different from the Mario Baseball games, where some enemies have personalities but still keep the names of their original species.
 * 5) We merged the Wigglers from Sticker Star and Paper Jam despite them being pretty notable characters in their respective games. I fail to see how these are any different than that. TOK Bob-omb isn't the only Bob-omb in the game, and he has a distinct personality, backstory, and character arc, so his article's existence does not justify keeping these split.
 * 6) Keeping these split would mean we'd have to split the Mario Party DS versions of Piranha Plant, Hammer Bro, Dry Bones, Wiggler, and Koopa Troopa from their respective species (all of which are separate characters in MPDS's story mode), as well as the Koopa Troopa from Mario Party and Mario Party Superstars (which may also be the same Koopa Troopa from the Koopa Bank in Mario Party 2 and Mario Party 3; if not, that Koopa Troopa needs to be split as well). A lot of these are minor characters, and a lot of the above listed NPCs from Mario Part Advance are even MORE minor than any characters I just mentioned, so I don't see why these should be split.
 * 7) Siding with this for now.

Option 2: Just merge English matches

 * 1) They are officially named NPCs, most if not all minor NPCs with an official name deserve an article.
 * 2) Per Spectrogram. The minor NPCs that are named should have an article. But the ones that are unnamed do not need there own article especially since it would be more coinvent to cover their information on their species page.
 * 3) Second choice.
 * 4) Second option - if we're going to merge then I think we should at least stick to the rule of giving named NPCs pages.
 * 5) Secondary choice; mostly because they have distinct names in English and Hulu is by all means a Dancing Spear Guy which Japanese name just so happens to be the same as that of the Bamboo dancers. The rest should be merged as per my primary choice.
 * 6) Primary choice, since these examples have actual names and if pretty much every Toad in Paper Mario can have their own articles due to having names, so can these guys.
 * 7) Per all. I think it makes sense to merge many of these articles, as I do feel that this a comparable situation to the Sticker Star and Paper Jam Wigglers mentioned by 7feetunder. However, I do feel that merging the uniquely named characters might be more likely to violate the minor NPCs policy, as they are officially given their own names, even if it is true that the Japanese version does not share that trait.
 * 8) Per TheFlameChomp.
 * 9) Started to realise my oppose reasoning was a bit crap so per all here.
 * 10) I'm fine with this option too.
 * 11) Per Minor NPCs.

Do nothing

 * 1) Second option, I think they're fine on their own.
 * 2) They're still named NPCs (even if it is their species name), so there's no reason to merge them.
 * 3) It would feel inconsistent to merge just the generically-named ones when their notability is basically identical to that of the uniquely-named ones, and since named NPCs always get split I think this is still the most consistent option.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) Per all.

Per all. We've even been splitting minor conjectually named NPCs from other games (one example, my attempt to merge this one failed). Not sure if this is the best comparison, but Bob-omb (Paper Mario: The Origami King) was also split despite sharing the name as its species and looks exactly like one too, even if he is more of a major character.

Comments
So is Akiki going to get merged? I think it's okay to leave the named ones split while the generic ones are merged. 04:56, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * I was going to assume it stays put like Goombetty, but that's a good question since Akiki's Japanese name is based on Super Mario 64s "bad" Ukkiki. Maybe that begs a closer look. Also, is Hulu unique enough to stand on her own? Bamboo dancers' always come in pairs, whereas Hulu is clearly a single one. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:06, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * Ones I didn't list stay put, though I didn't realize "Wakiki" had any basis. Since that one's a bit spotty, we can deal with it later. As for Hulu, no more than paired vs singular Hammer Bros., I'd say. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 09:50, September 23, 2022 (EDT)

@Opposition: You're forgetting that many of these appear by themselves rather than together with other generic members of the same species. In fact, checking the screenshot in the Piranha Plant character article in particular, even when it appears in a field of other Piranha Plants, it's referred to as "a" random Piranha Plant, not Piranha Plant by name. Merging the solo members would probably be a decent follow-up proposal if this fails. LinkTheLefty (talk) 09:43, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * Also apparently ignoring the example of "Many of these are the sole representative of the species in the game, which we don't use as justification to split, say, the single normal Blooper in Paper Mario or the inconsistent dividuality of Big Boo" I used, along with the also-mentioned Birdo and Boom-Boom (and Koopa Kid and Dorrie) situation. On that note, how about the various individual "Mega" bosses in later MP games we list with the standard "Big" counterparts, the playable generic singular enemies in many spinoffs (including Party), and the seemingly recurring Shy Away in SMRPG? I still fail to see why they can be merged but these minor NPCs with no outstanding characteristics (no, "likes a TV show" is not an "outstanding characteristic") from a completely random game get splitting priority. TOK's Bob-omb was at least a major cast member. These guys are practically incidental. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 13:19, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * I'm not voting to merge them all just because some of them are more generic than others. Spectrogram (talk) 14:58, September 23, 2022 (EDT)
 * One thing also worth noting is that the Bullet Bill and Mechakoopa characters are shown to be capable of speech, despite the fact that this goes completely contrary to nearly all other portrayals of common Bullet Bills and Mechakoopas. 17:44, September 23, 2022 (EDT)

On another note, if the proposal fails, Lakitu (character) would possibly have to be moved to anyway. A current proposal regarding Fishin' Lakitu in Mario Kart has an option to create an article for and move the Mario Kart information there. The Lakitu referee from Mario Kart is one of the most well-known depictions of Lakitu in the entire Mario series, so when visitors see "Lakitu (character), they might probably think of the Mario Kart iteration first, and not of a minor NPC that only appeared in Mario Party Advance. In fact, to avoid general confusion, perhaps all of these NPCs would have to use the (Mario Party Advance) identifier over the (character) one. 08:20, September 24, 2022 (EDT)

@Arend: The Koopa from Mario Party DS is split, as are the Koopa Troopa, Shy Guy, Boo, and Goomba from Mario Party 4, plus other similar cases like Goomba (Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars character) and Goomba (Super Paper Mario character), so it's not like Mario Party Advance is the only game for which we have NPCs split like this as you're making it out to be (also side note I was actually planning on a proposal to split the MPDS Wiggler before this one started). 09:05, September 24, 2022 (EDT)
 * The SMRPG one is a localization blunder, and I plan on getting to MPDS Koopa some time. The MP4 hosts may be distinct enough. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 09:13, September 24, 2022 (EDT)

For those wondering, the ones covered by option 1 but not option 2 would say along the lines of "a [species], localized in English as [name], appears in Mario Party Advance" (and honestly, "Goombob" may easily be an early attempt to rename SMW Goombas before "Galoomba" stuck; note how the Italian names are the same as each other too, and this situation seems to be exactly what happened for Petal Guy, formerly Mufti Guy). Also, "bamboo dancer" is certainly not a coincidence (and considering Spear Guy had an alternate JP name for PM64, it's not much of a stretch for bamboo dancer to have been an alternate name for Dancing Spear Guy that didn't stick, but that's a separate discussion). Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 13:58, September 26, 2022 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.