MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
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New features
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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

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.

Support (option 2)

 * 1) Second choice.

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

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)

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) Per Spectrogram.
 * 3) Yeah, this is a better fit as Spectrogram makes out here.

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?

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
 * Bullet Bill (character) to Bullet Bill
 * Chain Chomp (character) to Chain Chomp
 * Cheep Cheep (character) to Cheep Cheep
 * 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

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.