MarioWiki:Proposals

Discourage use of the singular "they"
I'll start with this: it really annoys me when I see the word "they" used in the singular. In many places I see the words "she" and "they" used in the singular when gender is unknown. This does not annoy me because I am male, but because I know it is grammatically incorrect! I actually had a conversation with the other day on MarioWiki talk:Proposals/Header, and you know what he said? "'Their' is used when gender is indeterminable, so there's nothing wrong here." Look at this Wikipedia article on the singular "they". Notice that not once does it mention that "they" has not been officially accepted as a singular word! Gender and sex are two different things, gender being a grammatical term and sex being a biological term; they are only connected in English. This is a common misunderstanding among society which led to the creation of the informal word "themself"! My computer, in fact, does not like me using that word and underlines it in red! In grammatical terms (don't call me sexist because of what I'm about to say!), masculine is superior and feminine is inferior; hence, we use masculine words for the unknown gender. There is no reason we should use plural, feminine, or neuter words for the unknown gender. However, the Manual of Style encourages such informal grammar! We are a wiki; hence, we use proper grammar. "You" has been accepted as a singular word; "they" has not. So which should we prioritize: grammatical correctness or gender neutrality? Proposer: Deadline: November 26, 2017, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) As a wiki and encyclopedia, grammatical correctness takes priority.  Per my proposal.

Oppose

 * 1) You want us....to refer to the player.....as "he or she"......every single time? Sorry, gotta oppose. Not to mention all the ambiguously-gendered characters that are just awkward to refer to as "it." Also, see my link below to Merriam-Webster's site. If they say it's OK grammar, it's OK grammar.
 * 2) - We can't determine the gender of the reader, so "they", a mention of the character's name, or "the player" is best used instead. It has nothing to do with offending anyone or not doing so, we just shouldn't assume that everybody that reads the Bob-omb Battlefield article for example is male or female.
 * 3) Your link to Wikipedia literally has a sentence about its acceptance. The singular they is perfectly acceptable and has historical basis, and you ignore it at your own peril. Also, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when it comes to gender pronouns. "Masculine is superior and feminine is inferior" is junk especially in English, and I'm saying this as someone who's fluent in a language that relies on gender pronouns.
 * 4) Per All, Don von Schmeltwick is a vocabulary whiz, I'm gonna go with him. (You guys too).
 * 5) Although I do agree that "they" does not agree with first person nouns, no matter how "progressive" and people use the "language is changing" argument to assert their still technically grammatically incorrect view, I don't think having a rule against it is a right thing to do nor is it particularly enforceable. I'd encourage writing "the player" into "players" instead (ie changing the awkward use of "they" in "The player must tap their character" to "Players must tap their character" - "The player must press their button" to "The player must press a button") and avoid using personal pronouns as much as possible.
 * 6) Per All; "They/Their" is a much safer and easier way to refer to a character or person you don't know the gender of, and there is precedence for singular "they"; reading "he or she" every time in the place of "they" is just tedious and annoying.
 * 7) Singular "they" has been correct for centuries. Per all.
 * 8) They can be used to refer to all players playing the game, even if it says player earlier. And what about the heroes of Super Paper Mario. They refers to 3 boys and 1 girl. The only time this would be need though would be just to refer to one (ie. the one that the player is playing as, which could be any one of the four). And Wikipedia is not used in some official documents as sources as Wikipedia is an ever changing place. This is similar to Wikipedia, but Wikipedia only partially influences this wiki. I say partially because only the basic format (and not page articles, sentence structures, etc.) is what's relevant it seems. And if your wondering, I know the grammatical rules. However, sometimes my writing can be ungrammatically correct. That doesn't mean I try.

Comments
@Doc: No, I am proposing that we just use "he". Using "he or she" is ugly and wrong; so is "they" in the singular. The word "themself" in itself is especially annoying. - 22:46, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * And that's assuming gender of players. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 22:47, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * Did you read my proposal...at all? "He" is either masculine or gender neutral, and "masculine" and "male" are two different words. - 22:50, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * Not in this day, age, and universe it's not. Either way, not everyone reading would be masculine. I'm quite feminine, myself. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 22:53, 19 November 2017 (EST)

@BLOF: There's literal historical precedence for the singular they. 22:54, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * It still sounds awkward and something I want to avoid using as much as possible. 23:03, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * And I think that it sounds perfectly natural, especially when the gender of the subject is unknown. What then? Along those lines, what would you suggest as a substitute, assuming that the sentence could not be rewritten? 23:05, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * The fact that there's even a debate surrounding this should tell you that it's not universally acceptable. I haven't come across a single English teacher who thinks that the usage is fine. In my support, I already wrote a substitute, using "players" as much as "the player". I had been doing this for ages and it works completely fine. 23:07, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * There are many things that are being debated in the world, but that's not a particularly valid reason to outright dismiss a topic. "Players" also sounds off because that implicitly implies multiple people, even in single-player games. 23:09, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * I have come across some! Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:19, 19 November 2017 (EST)

On the record: My argument has nothing to do with "progressive" garbage. It's just unwise to use "he" when girls read this place too. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 22:55, 19 November 2017 (EST)

@Baby Luigi: It's not just that it's wrong, but the Manual of Style supports it! When I say "discourage", I simply mean that the Super Mario Wiki should stop supporting it! - 22:59, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * I don't entirely want to remove it altogether because some situations it's less jarring than others. 23:03, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * Why? Beyond giving a reason that "he is neutral", which has been shown to be false by history, and saying that no official sources approve of it, which is plain false. 23:06, 19 November 2017 (EST)

@Time Turner: That very section in the article says that "[the singular 'they'] is still considered ungrammatical in formal writing." A wiki article counts as formal writing. - 23:14, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * That's literally a quote from a single source. Why are you taking that and broadly applying it to everything? And why are you even using Wikipedia as if they have the final say on this matter? 23:16, 19 November 2017 (EST)

So let's say for a second we do use "he", then girls get mad. I'd rather appeal to everyone because hardly anyone is going to notice that, then block out half the population from being acknowledged on our wiki, grammatically correct or not. Also, why are we arguing, aren't proposals made to stop arguments and come to a decision? Chat Man (talk) 23:15, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * Well, most proposals are made to protest rules or standards the wiki has set. Occasionally this involves settling arguments, but not in this case; this is a protest to improper grammar. - 23:31, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * Except according to Webster, it's not improper at all. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:32, 19 November 2017 (EST)

This seems to be a situation like the word "alright," which English teachers will have a fit if you use, but Merriam-Webster, the leading source on English grammar says is perfectly fine. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:21, 19 November 2017 (EST)

I'll just prop this here, also from Merriam-Webster. It say singular they is well-established. If THE English dictionary says it's grammatically fine, then it's grammatically fine. End. Of. Story. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 23:31, 19 November 2017 (EST)

Also, this proposal is not in the right place. Writing guidelines require a draft, and this proposal doesn't have one of those. 23:33, 19 November 2017 (EST)

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Remove the Mario & Sonic header templates
There are seven templates that are used exclusively for events in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: M&S-Athletics, M&S-Aquatics, M&S-Archery, M&S-Gymnastics, M&S-Rowing, M&S-Tennis, and M&S-Skeet. All of them are 100% pointless and should be dealt with. For starters, Fencing is completely missing from this deal for no explainable reason. If you say that's because Fencing only has one event tied to it, then automatically, the majority of the templates would also be deleted, since they too only cover a single event. Athletics, Aquatics, and Gymnastics are the only ones that cover multiple events, and even then, Gymnastics has a grand total of two. You don't need an entirely separate template for two articles. This is to say nothing of how none of the other games in the series have these templates or anything that resembles them, and really, they shouldn't. They only add an image to the top-right corner (which also creates ugly overlap with the FA template), which then links to the appropriate event category, and that's it. The categories are already on the pages in the first place, and the infoboxes already mention what kind of event it is. There is nothing to be gained from these templates, especially when they cover so few pages.

The most obvious solution (and most preferable, to me) would be to simply remove them, and have our readers actually look at the article for information rather than a small image in an obtuse location. While it would be possible to merge the templates into one (somewhat similar to Template:Button), which would solve the problem of having a bunch of scattered templates covering so few pages, they would still be wholly redundant and pointless. If someone thinks that the images are crucial to the articles, then they can be worked into the infoboxes, but otherwise, they're just wastes of space.

Proposer: Deadline: November 26, 2017, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) - Never once had a reason to use them. Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal, as well as my exchange with Time Turner in the comments section.

Comments
Shouldn't this be a multi-option proposal, since you mentioned maybe working the templates into the infoboxes? 12:57, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * I mentioned including the images into the infobox. I don't see why we can't both do that and delete the templates. 13:07, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * Maybe someone else can :T Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 22:45, 19 November 2017 (EST)

Overlapping abbreviations in navigation templates
In the previous proposal about navigation templates, I noticed Template:G&Wario and how its name is totally inconsistent with every other name. It was presumably named that because "Template:G&W" could be confused with Template:Game & Watch, but that's not how we resolve overlaps. For example, since "SMS" could refer to either Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario Strikers, their corresponding templates are written out in full, as Template:Super Mario Sunshine and Template:Super Mario Strikers. There are very few examples of this on the wiki, but in almost every case besides G&W, each name is written in full (the other exception being Template:WWS). With that in mind, "G&Wario" should be moved to Game & Wario to resolve the inconsistency.

However, a while back (in another proposal that involved standardizing names), I actually suggested doing what G&Wario's doing now, with the last word being written in full while the rest of the name is abbreviated. It was shot down in a later discussion by an admin, but now that we have an inconsistency to resolve, I thought that it would be worth bringing it up again. Using the half-abbreviated approach saves on space while still preventing confusion, but at the same time, it's kind of unwieldy and isn't particularly intuitive. With all of this in mind, there are three options: move G&Wario to follow the other templates' examples (option 1), move the other templates to follow G&Wario's example (option 2), and do nothing (option 3). We definitely shouldn't do nothing, since that would leave us with an inconsistency for no good reason, but beyond that, the other options are open for all.

Proposer: Deadline: November 27, 2017, 23:59 GMT

Option 1: Only move G&Wario

 * 1) - Per proposal. This should set a standard as well, with any templates being similarly abbreviated being moved to the games' full name.
 * 2) Per proposal.

Comments
Affected templates:
 * Template:Game & Watch
 * Template:G&Wario
 * Template:Mario Sports Superstars
 * Template:Mario Super Sluggers
 * Template:Super Mario Sunshine
 * Template:Super Mario Strikers
 * Template:WarioWare: Touched!
 * Template:WarioWare: Twisted!
 * Template:WWS
 * Template:WW
 * Template:Yoshi's Safari
 * Template:Yoshi's Story

What about Template:WWS? That's for Wario's Woods, and it's also inconsistent with everything (Template:WW is for Wario World). 19:51, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * I didn't even know about that one. Into the pile it goes! 19:55, 19 November 2017 (EST)

I want to vote option 1, but what about future similarly abbreviated templates in the future? Should this set a standard of some kind? 22:54, 19 November 2017 (EST)
 * However this ends, it'll be a signal for future editors on what they should do, just like my previous templates about colons and ampersands. 22:58, 19 November 2017 (EST)

Bring back game-similarity charts
Okay, so anyone reading this probably doesn't know what I'm talking about. Let me give you an example. This was my first edit on the wiki. I fixed the chart under "gameplay menus". But now this chart and the other one are both gone. The editor that removed the charts gave a one-word summary: "Unnecessary". It has happened with Mario Golf (series), Mario Tennis (series), Mario Party (series), and several others. Why? "Unnecessary" is an unacceptable reason to remove such charts. As an encyclopedia and a wiki, we should never remove info because we classify it "unnecessary". An encyclopedia includes all obtainable information, necessary or unnecessary. Therefore we should stop the removal of these charts and bring them back.

Proposer: Deadline: November 20, 2017, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.

Oppose

 * 1) Those charts don't give any information, they only show similarities between games. I don't see how they help to convey information and agree that they are (apologies in advance) unnecessary. If you can tell me how they are useful, I'll consider changing my vote.
 * 2) These charts are incredibly unwieldy and they make a shoddy attempt at comparing two different types of gameplay. It's uninformative, a messy way to organize comparisons, and simply writing similarities and comparisons in prose format is far more useful to the leader than creating a confusing table that lists elements that do not have anything in common with each other at all. Our gameplay sections in the way the articles are written are fine and are better than what they used to be.
 * 3) Per Baby Luigi.
 * 4) - These doesn't really seem useful in the least.

Comments
Your edit link is fouled up. To get it to display the word This, remove the  and replace it with a space. Right now, the link not only looks wrong, it doesn't work right. 15:55, 13 November 2017 (EST) P.S. I noticed that your were trying to fix the  issue. That's a glitch that shows up all the time. To fix it, just throw some sort of code under the header. A colon works nicely, since it then doesn't actually show up on the page, but the header works right.

I kind of get why someone would want a quick 'n' easy way to check which Mario Tennis games (for an off-the-cuff example) allow mirro matches, but man, not like this. Ugly, IMAX-wide charts that only get uglier and bigger the more games are released. --Glowsquid (talk) 21:05, 13 November 2017 (EST)

Online Flash games
We currently have little coverage on official Flash-powered games used by Nintendo to promote their games in the past. In fact, the only relevant thing here is the Barrel-Blastapalooza page, which I wrote and nobody seemed to mind, but when a bunch of other games were added to the Mario games nav template, they got removed by someone stating that they need to be discussed first.

Many of these games were listed in a selection on Nintendo's website (link: https://web.archive.org/web/20070911004647/http://www.nintendo.com/arcade).

Under 's guidance, I decided to make a proposal dedicated to the matter. Should we give official Flash games the same treatment as full-fledged games? Should there be a separate template to include them all?

I visualise three options:
 * 1) Each Flash game could receive its own page. I strongly recommend this to be done because I consider these games to be games after all, no matter if they are mere advertisments. Donkey Kong Country: Barrel Maze is an example of a game that seems to stand on its own without a relation to a particular game, and if it is to have an article, the other games should too.
 * 2) Info on Flash games could simply be incorporated in one big article. This would mean merging Barrel-Blastapalooza with said article. I'm not keen on the idea, but it could be a workaround for games that have become unavailable, whereabout information is scarce.
 * 3) The Flash games should not be covered. I obviously don't agree with this option, since we're talking official material.

Proposer: Deadline: November 25, 2017 23:59 GMT

Make separate pages for Flash games

 * 1) per proposal.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) I don't see why we shouldn't cover them, so per proposal.
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) They're games. They're official. Hence, we cover them. Per all.
 * 7) Some of them might look simple and thin in content when compared to other videogames, but they're still games licensed by Nintendo and I guess the content there should be anyway enough to make a page for each one of them, as Barrel-Blastapalooza showed.
 * 8) Per all. (I had no idea that Nintendo used Flash games.)
 * 9) Per all.

Present the games in a comprehensive article

 * 1) Considering Flash games are smaller than full-fledged games, this seems like a workable option.
 * 2) This isn't a bad choice either.  After all, it still covers the information.

Comments
@Super Radio: My suggestion to make a proposal wasn't over wheter the flash games should get their own pages (it's offishul material and nobody has objected) but rather wheter they should be listed alongside "real" games on templates or rounded up in their own ghetto (personally I favor the later solution). --Glowsquid (talk) 19:15, 18 November 2017 (EST)
 * I'd personally vouch for them appearing on Template:MarioGames and the like. If they're official, we might as well treat them officially (and if the Donkey Kong slot machine is already on the template, I think they'll be in good company). At the very least, we could have a computer games template and lump in the edutainment games with the flash games. 22:00, 18 November 2017 (EST)
 * @Glowsquid: I know, and I did ask in this proposal if web games should have their separate template. However, I wanted a proposal to discuss the whole matter of Flash games, as it was requested by Lindsay151 to happen. I agree with Time Turner; there should be a template with all PC games like Mario's Time Machine and Mario's Missing, which could include Flash-based games. Although Flash is a computing platform in itself, similar to any OS, the games in question were only meant to be playable on a PC via web browser (any sort of emulation notwithstanding). -- 05:02, 19 November 2017 (EST)

One thing I am not sure of is what genres are some of these games fit in. DK: King of Swing -- Hurling for Distance, for example: it plays very similarly to the Yetisports games, if anyone's ever heard of them, but I can't find a professional term to describe this particular genre, other than "distance games". Are they just called action games? Well, you certainly can't compare them to. What do you think? -- 07:57, 19 November 2017 (EST)