MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Real World Subjects vs. Real World Terms
A recurring trend on this wiki is to create articles on real-world terms, such as Genre, Level, and Pre-release and unused content. I know we've said something like this in the first proposal aimed at reducing generic subjects, but allowing these articles as precedents would lead to further unnecessary articles, such as, , ...the list goes on. , and we don't necessarily need articles on those subjects, same as the generic subjects. Therefore, in a similar vein to the generic subjects proposal I linked to, I propose that we allow articles on real-world terms only if they have a function or purpose that makes them unique and discernible from the way the term is applied elsewhere.

The following are examples of real-world terms that would be allowed:
 * Cheat code – The cheat codes and their effects vary per game; New Super Mario Bros.s is a simple button hold that allows Luigi as a playable character, whereas Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!s has a cheats section where the player can enter five-letter code words to drastically change the gameplay (for example, typing "COLOR" in the SNES version gives Dixie and Kiddy a palette swap).
 * Game Over – The Game Over screens are entirely unique for each game, and Game Overs aren't just achievable by "losing". Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, for example, has a Game Over that occurs by making the mistake of reading Ghost T.'s diary.
 * Easter egg – Same as cheat code.
 * Fourth wall – Fourth wall breaks occur very often in the Mario universe, such as how in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Starlow references the Year of Luigi when Luigi is otherwise alone in west Gloomy Woods thanks to King Boo ("You had, like, a whole YEAR named after you!"), or how in Paper Mario: Color Splash, Huey makes a remark when he sees the final memory revealing that Bowser had accidentally created his black paint alter-ego, ""You're telling me we could have avoided this entire game if we just installed a "Don't Mix the Paint" sign?!".
 * Unrevisitable locations – Same as fourth wall.

The following are examples of real-world terms that would be forbidden:
 * Glitch – They are recurring, but they don't differentiate enough in concept from glitches in other franchises.
 * Level – There's nothing different about the concept of levels in the Mario franchise. You play them, you beat them, you move on to the next level. It's the same thing.
 * Genre – Genres in the Mario franchise are conceptually no different from genres elsewhere.
 * Pre-release and unused content – Every work of fiction has cut content. What makes Mario games so different?

The targeted pages will be merged into the glossary should this proposal pass.

Also if this proposal passes, I will begin drafting some text to add to the generic subjects policy, which I will propose later on.

Proposer: Deadline: July 16, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.

Oppose

 * 1) Your reasons seem a little too subjective for comfort. There are plenty examples of unique takes on the latter terms in various games, particularly with what the concept of what defines a "world" vs. a "level," and what a "minigame" truly is. Plus, better way to differentiate from the (trademarked? patented?) "Microgames." And why is the concept of a minigame any more notable than the concept of a game over? Sure, there are special cases, but having "unconventional" game overs is fairly common. Not to mention, once again, what makes the non-standard game overs more notable than the non-standard definition of a "world" vs. a "level?" The cardinal regions of Wario Land 3 provide a decent example of this, and the arguable "areas between Bowser fights in Super Mario 64" can also be seen as an example of this, as it fits most definitions of a "world," but is very unconventional. I suppose the domes in Super Mario Galaxy also should count here.
 * 2) I would prefer if the Glitch and Pre-release and unused content would be lists or something. And besides, those "forbidden" pages you listed have a Mario focus.
 * 3) Per all.

Comments
@Doc von Schmeltwick: Like I said, I'm open to simply merging the terms into the glossary, depending on if it would be better. As it stands, the latter terms basically repeat information found elsewhere, and for what it's worth, I wouldn't mind seeing as a page. 15:51, 9 July 2018 (EDT)

I partly agree and partly disagree with this one, so I thought I'd share my thoughts here. I agree that Glitch, Genre and anything similar should go, but I'm not so sure about the other three, particularly Minigame, which, while it needs some work, still contains a lot of valid and Mario-specific content (Especially the Mario Party stuff). I think getting rid of some of the pages like this is the right thing to do, and I'm definitely on board with that, but I don't quite agree on exactly what needs to go, which is why I'm not voting. BBQ Turtle (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2018 (EDT)
 * @BBQ Turtle: To answer your question, not all of these pages will be outright removed, and each one will be determined on a case-by-case basis. You do bring up a good point, though, so I'll edit this proposal to avoid further confusion on the matter. 17:11, 10 July 2018 (EDT)

Add a sentence to and  stating that if the user ingores them, a warning will be issued
Well, i saw a user who got warned because he/she ingored these templates. However, the templates don't say that a user can get a warning for ingoring them; and has a setence: "If the action continues, than a warning will be issued", so i believe it's acceptable to put this in these two templates as well.

Here's what i want it to look like:

Proposer: Deadline: July 16, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per my proposal and per Owencrazyboy9.
 * 2) I don't see the harm in doing this. Per proposal.
 * 3) Would be helpful if the template points it out, instead of us users having to keep reminding them about this, so per all.
 * 4) Both templates are a  derivative, so yeah, put that disclosure in there.
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) It's the same thing as a reminder, so I don't see why not.
 * 7) - Sounds good to me.
 * 8) Makes sense to me, since both are types of reminders. I have seen both warnings and reminders given out before, so it should help with consistency in what is received.
 * 9) Wouldn't be particularly obvious to new users, in most cases.
 * 10) Sure.

Change the way that recurring Mario & Sonic events are handled, round 2
After the no quorum result of the last attempt at this proposal, I've taken on board the comments from last time and changed the proposal to reflect this. So, at the moment, there's an issue in the way that events that appear in more than one of the Mario & Sonic games are handled, as events that share the same or similar names across games are all put together on the same article, despite the fact that they are very different between games, using different controls, scoring systems, characters, etc.. This isn't only a problem between Wii/Wii U and DS/3DS instalments, which would obviously and understandably have very different controls and slightly modified gameplay, but also between games on similar consoles, for example, the Trampoline event in the first DS game required certain patterns to be drawn with the stylus to perform various moves and the player to slide up with the stylus to jump, whereas in the 2012 3DS game moves are performed automatically and the player must use the circle pad to keep their character within a certain area, pressing the A button to jump. This means that infoboxes are overloaded with excessive information, defeating their purpose, and that the articles are a complete mess of headers and sections. 100m Dash and 100m Freestyle are examples of this, and please keep in mind that they still have a considerable amount of missing information, particularly from the later games. Part of the reason that all of the events are sharing one page seems to have apparently stemmed from the fact that they're currently being treated as generic subjects, which is not really how they should be viewed. They should be treated in a similar way to minigames, with each getting an individual article, even if they share a name, a few controls or subject that they're based on. Just because they're based on a real world subject, it doesn't mean that they should be covered like one (And any that currently have generic subject-like articles will be changed in the future, to give them more of a minigame-like focus, similar to 100m Breaststroke). Additionally, several Dream Events also share this issue (Including Dream Race, Dream Long Jump and Dream Bobsleigh), which are in no way affected by the generic subjects policy, and should be treated as separate minigames, but are currently all placed on the same page for being similar. These should also be split, in the same way as the regular events, as the two are treated as the same thing within the games.

Therefore, I'm proposing that we split each game's version of the event into its own unique article, which only covers the event's appearance in the one game. Only the controls, missions, playable characters, etc. for one game's version of the event would be included on that page, and an About template would be added to the top of name-sharing articles with a link to the disambiguation page for the other events or the events with a similar name. An identifier would be added to any articles with shared names, and I'm currently thinking that it would specify only the game if it only appears in one of the instalments for a specific year (Such as "Pole Vault (Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic games)", which appears in the 3DS version but not the Wii one), or both the game and console if it appears in more than one version (Such as "BMX (Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Nintendo 3DS))" and "BMX (Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Wii U))"). This is just how I think the identifiers would work from what I can piece together from here, but unfortunately, it's not really designed to help out in cases like this thanks to naming in the Mario & Sonic series, so any other suggestions for identifiers are more than welcome. Any shared names would be turned into disambiguation pages, listing all of the separate articles and any with similar names, such as 100m and 100m Dash. If an event has a slightly different name in one or more instalments, it will use that name instead of the similar one that all the other events are named after with an identifier, but will still have the about template and so on. Events such as Balance Beam that only appear in one game will not be affected by this and will remain at the one name.

So, in summary, each version of an event from each game is split and given game-specific identifiers (Or some other form of identifier if a better one is suggested), the shared title is turned into a disambiguation page and About templates are added, events with different names between versions go to the unique names and events that only appear once remain unchanged.

Proposer: Deadline: July 17, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Sure. And maybe the original page for each event would be a disambiguation?
 * 4) Definitely. I have all of the games for both consoles each, so I can assist if necessary. Per all.
 * 5) Per proposal.

Comments
@SeanWheeler: Yep, that's the plan, things like Archery (event) would be turned into disambiguation pages, and ones that already share a name like Football will be added onto the existing one. BBQ Turtle (talk) 05:25, 11 July 2018 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.