Talk:Level

Doesn't Places already take care of a page like this? Basically, all places are levels in Mario games. -- Son of Suns

Good point
Good point. In this case, could you rename Stage 4-1: Jungle Hut just "Jungle Hut?"--Dreyfus2006 14:09, 2 August 2006 (EDT)

Hold on There
Levels are much different from places, though, and with the rebirth I'm giving to PipeProject:Levels with, I think there should a list for Levels. 17:26, 3 January 2007 (EST)
 * Consider At Last, Bowser's Castle!, Ba-dum BUM!, The Goonie Coast Isn't Clear!. Definitely not places. "Endless World of Yoshis", "Items are Fun!", etc., I admit that some levels are places and should be placed as such, but some levels are not, and thus a Levels list is necessary. 21:04, 3 January 2007 (EST)

Why create individual pages for levels? Why can't we create levels and integrate (Word of the Day:) them by world? Huh?

There needs to be articles for everything. 20:18, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

Singular
The title of this article should be "Level", right? Unfortunately I cannot move it. =) ♥♪!? 19:08, 19 July 2007 (EDT)

Why can't you move it?--Luigibros2 00:13, 22 November 2007 (EST)

Move to Course
It's been called "Course" in most Mario games except Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels and Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. Those and the Donkey Kong series are the only times it's been called level.

Besides, it says "Course Clear!" instead of "Level Clear!"

Proposer: Deadline: April 4, 2013, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per above.

Oppose

 * 1) - Colloquially, pretty much everything talks about video games in terms of "worlds" and "levels" (in my experience). The fact that a game actual has "level" in its name also helps elevate that term above synonyms like "course" or "stage". Plus, unlike "level", "course" is often used to talk about Mario Kart tracks, and having two terms is useful when you don't want to lump these vastly different gameplay subjects together. It's largely semantics, yes, but it's better to use the more historic and popular term: there's no good reason to replace "level" now, not after years of having it ingrained into fabric of the wiki.
 * 2) - Per Walkazo.
 * 3) Per Walkazo.
 * 4) Per Walkazo.
 * 5) Per the first vote. Create a redirect instead.
 * 6) Per LGM.

Comments
@Walkazo: I see your point, but aren't we supposed to use the most recent/common in-game term instead of the most popular term (don't get me wrong, I use level too, but if it's referred as that in games and instruction manuals?) Also, remember that the title "The Lost Levels" wasn't coined until Super Mario All-Stars. It's technically supposed to be called "Super Mario Bros. 2", so the European and American localizers likely added the subtitle to give it an alliterative name. This means that it has always been known as "course" in Japan, excepting the SMB3 remake. Also, the wiki has started to transition to "course" as seen in these articles. I agree about the Mario Kart thing, though.
 * In this case, I think the most used term makes the most sense. "Level" is much more precise than "Course" since "Course" can refer to more areas including Mario Kart tracks. And I don't know how you came to the conclusion that the result of localization means Japan has always used "course". I don't see how the wiki "started" to transition from "level" to "course" because both articles you mentioned are Super Mario 64 levels, and we had those articles for quite a long time. 21:30, 22 March 2013 (EDT)
 * OK, you've got me. I'm deleting this proposal.

RPGs
Almost all RPGs have the word "level" in them. I think we should add this to the page. 16:08, 4 October 2016 (EDT)

Delete this page
Why do we even need this page? It just regurgitates information found on other pages, and really nothing beyond that. Therefore, I propose that we delete this page, or at the very least move the information somewhere else, such as the Glossary.

Proposer: Deadline: February 28, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) Turn it into a redirect to point to world.

Oppose

 * 1) - This is a term used in just for every game with a world progression, so no. It could use an overhaul, however, similar to how we have the world page. It and world would probably work better under Glossary.
 * 2) I disagree with deleting the page entirely; I think that the information here is better on Glossary.
 * 3) Per all.

Comments
Could be a somewhat good page for ultra-newbies, but might possibly do better as a category redirect. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 16:23, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Exactly what I was thinking 19:14, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Wouldn't it be better as a section under Glossary, then? 19:34, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Goodness I've browsed this site since 2008-2009 and I didn't know that existed. Perhaps? Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 19:36, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Wouldn't World fit better under that as well? The two kinda go together. 19:37, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * whynotboth.jpg have both a category and an entry in the glossary 19:40, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Yeah, I'm fine with both level and world being listed there. 19:43, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * The current world article is a nice overview, though.... Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 20:05, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Personally, I don't see the need for a gargantuan list of every world when the individual game pages do the job nicely. Who'd need to know every world that appears in Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Mario Party: The Top 100 and Yoshi's Woolly World at the same instant? 20:54, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * Same could be said about characters, species, or enemies. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 21:02, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * However, the organization between the World page and the list pages are different, and all of the worlds are (or should be) included in the List of places, with the game that they appear in beside them. To be honest, I don't particularly care for those pages either, to be honest. 21:04, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * I see the value of having all the worlds in one big list. As opposed to keeping it in list of places where they are buried. Also what exactly is the harm of keeping world as it's own page. It's a gameplay mechanic (might be the wrong word) that's officially named and can be useful to a regular user for navigation.
 * Seems pretty similar to this in-progress page. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 21:18, 14 February 2018 (EST)
 * @Time Turner: Good point. I changed the proposal to reflect this. 21:18, 14 February 2018 (EST)

What is this page?
It has one paragraph that explains how a level works in general, and another gigantic paragraph that lists basically what Goal does already, but instead as a mass of jumble--and missing a lot of content, on top of that. That second paragraph should be removed, and the rest merged with the Mario Wiki Glossary just as it was enunciated in the proposal above. -- 07:55, 13 March 2018 (EDT)

Merge to the Glossary
Yes, I know I proposed something about this before, but what I was proposing didn't take into account the fact that "Level" never appears in the glossary. Therefore, I propose that we merge all relevant information on this page to the glossary, and leave this page behind as a redirect.

Proposer: Deadline: April 19, 2019, 23:59 GMT Extended to April 26, 2019, 23:59 GMT Extended to May 3, 2019, 23:59 GMT Extended to May, 10,  2019, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) This is a blatant holdover from the mass deletion of generic terms in 2013 and 2014, so it shouldn't be treated any differently. (Also per my comment below.)
 * 2) Per The Weighted Companion Cube Toadette.
 * 3) - I was for giving an explanation in the Glossary during the last proposal. This is really just a long-winded explanation of what a level is and the various varieties of them, the differences being better suited to the game pages or the individual level pages themselves.
 * 4) Per all. Doesn't really make sense to me for this to exist. Would be a better fit for the glossary.
 * 5) This page is literally a glorified glossary entry, so you can see why I agree with the above users.
 * 6) Per all.

Oppose

 * 1) I don’t like the idea they are two different things. EDIT: The level is a standalone thing it just shouldn’t go
 * 2) I'm not too sure why would we be merging the two.
 * 3) Per the Mario vote (me) that decided against removing platform as its own page. Not covered in the glossary, add the entry, a sentence of description, link to main article. Not hard. My quote: " Furthermore, MarioWiki: Glossary doesn't really cover the tangible video game objects as much as video game terminology (e.g. lives, KOs, SDs, health, player). A ton of articles on generic video game elements including Elevator, Cannonball, Rope, Pit, Level, and a huge deal of things in the terms category and traps and obstacles category, where the example articles I've listed came from, exist. I'm not saying that every article within these categories is valid, but once this proposal passes, you have to start considering the validity of a lot of things in those categories and that's something I'm not comfortable doing just yet."
 * 4) Per Bazooka Mario. We have plenty of other articles about generic video game concepts less noteworthy than levels.
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) Per all!
 * 7) Per LGM.
 * 8) Per all.

Comments
@HEROMARIO: I don't understand your vote. What are two different things? 22:38, April 5, 2019 (EDT)

@Bazooka Mario: You appear to be contradicting your own argument by bringing up the excerpt from the Glossary page. The Platform article works because it actually is an object. A level, on the other hand, is just terminology, same as lives, KOs, health, etc. I've checked and in everywhere I've looked, "level" is considered video game terminology. "Platform", on the other hand, isn't specific to video gaming and occurs in real life as well, as is thus considered an object. 16:12, April 10, 2019 (EDT)
 * I mean, levels are a collection of objects and are tangible too? Game Over is even more abstract than "level" and that has its own page, mainly from examples of Game Overs. Time Limit is also more abstract than "Level" as well. I reviewed the glossary, and there seems to be little direct platforming elements in the page, and level just doesn't fit there. Health Meter has its own page. Extra life has its own page. Point has its own page. World has is own page. What's wrong with level having its own page? Level, in fact, can be expanded, we can write sections about common level archetypes, actually, write up small subsection on grass, desert, beach, ice, mountain, lava, ghost house, outer space, castle, fortress. 17:35, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * Detailing about level themes would actually bloat the page to unacceptable levels, as many levels have ambiguous themes (such as Feel Fuzzy, Get Clingy), and hundreds more have multiple themes. Also, the reason Game Over has its own article because it's unique enough to not label it just as terminology, where in some games the player can discover multiple different Game Overs with unique Game Over screens and whatnot. Level, on the other hand, doe not have this excuse. 19:04, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * I mean, we don't have to do all of them, just as how we don't document every single world, we just do the very common ones across multiple games. And so, why not document notable level theming as how we document notable Game Overs? 19:14, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * Wouldn't that work better for the World page? 19:18, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * It can work for both, but some games, notably 3D World and 3D Land, don't follow world themeing convention, and even when they do, it still doesn't cover athletic levels or underground levels. 19:21, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * Fair. 19:24, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * It's not a bad idea, but as I've said, hundreds of levels use multiple themes, and a lot of the themes are ambiguous too (especially forests vs. jungles), and all in all, I don't see how this could be a feasible way of expanding the article, and would instead bloat it up with self-explanatory information at best and baseless conjecture at worst.


 * In fact, I plan on merging Extra life, Point, and World in different proposals depending on how well this goes, as they lack the same excuse that Level lacks. 19:25, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * I am fixing it right now because it looks like junk and we need to make it Wiki like ! &#91;-&#93;€40 分@4¡0 (talk) 19:27, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * Please wait for a decision to be made first. Also, Category:Levels exists. 19:32, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * I mean, we can narrow it down. Just pick out the immediately recognizable tropes levels have; hell, if we're going to do snow, sand, mountain, etc. stuff in the World article, we can still expand the article by showing underground, athletic, ghost house, castle, fortress themes which aren't tied to their world theming and tend to come in just one or two per world. We don't have documentation on athletic levels, which are almost immediately and exclusively associated with Mario/Yoshi platformers, outside of glossary, which we can certainly cover with more detail in this article and even have it redirect to that article. My takeaway is that this article's flaws is just it being poorly written, and I think it has potential to be more useful than it currently is. 00:13, April 12, 2019 (EDT)
 * I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand this comment. If you're saying what I think you're trying to say, there's still potential for readers to confuse the athletic theme for the sky theme and vice versa. All in all, I just think tying levels by their themes just doesn't make any sense, as again, hundreds of levels use multiple themes, including some where no theme has priority (just look at Wonderful World of Wool already). 02:52, April 12, 2019 (EDT)

(: restart) It should be merged with this and is a stub and yeah &#91;-&#93;€40 分@4¡0 (talk) 19:57, April 11, 2019 (EDT)
 * Not all short articles are stubs. -- 09:15, April 13, 2019 (EDT)
 * THAT IS NOT THE POINT!!! It is completely different!!! And I have an template for this to make it 10000000 times better!!! &#91;-&#93;€40 分@4¡0 (talk) 09:19, April 13, 2019 (EDT)
 * The all-caps was a bit unnecessary. 14:05, April 13, 2019 (EDT)
 * Sorry I was mad... Sorry for yelling at you FanOfYoshi. &#91;-&#93;€40 分@4¡0 (talk) 14:09, April 13, 2019 (EDT)
 * I don't see in what this should be merged. -- 13:55, April 17, 2019 (EDT)
 * Also, HEROMARIO, no problem. -- 06:38, April 18, 2019 (EDT)

Merge to the Glossary, take 2
Yup, I think we're finally ready for this to happen.

Part of the reason my original proposal didn't gain enough consensus was because this article had room for improvement. The leading counterargument was summed up by Bazooka Mario in the comments section: "I mean, levels are a collection of objects and are tangible too? Game Over is even more abstract than "level" and that has its own page, mainly from examples of Game Overs. Time Limit is also more abstract than "Level" as well. I reviewed the glossary, and there seems to be little direct platforming elements in the page, and level just doesn't fit there. Health Meter has its own page. Extra life has its own page. Point has its own page. World has is own page. What's wrong with level having its own page? Level, in fact, can be expanded, we can write sections about common level archetypes, actually, write up small subsection on grass, desert, beach, ice, mountain, lava, ghost house, outer space, castle, fortress." Well, now that her suggestion is a reality (and surprises me by how well it's worked out in practice), I think it's time we reconsider this action with a fresh(er) mindset. Just like before, the relevant information will be merged with the Glossary, and this title will be kept as a redirect.

Proposer: Deadline: June 21, 2020, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Because levels appear in our universe too.
 * 2) Per preposal.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal.

Comments
I'm not sure what to vote. I agree with Bazooka Mario's statement that it should have been this page's job to expand on different level themes encountered in the Mario franchise; now that there's a separate article for that, this page feels rather superfluous. Therefore, I would be more keen on merging the list of level themes with this page here than turn "Level" into a glossary term. The concept of Level is more tangible than things we cover on their own pages, and so it still deserves its own article. Either way this goes, as I said before in this very talkpage, the content currently on this page shamelessly deviates from the main subject and needs to be trimmed. 18:22, June 19, 2020 (EDT)

Shouldn't a proposal have at least 5 supporting votes in order to pass? 12:16, June 24, 2020 (EDT)


 * I think it needs at least 3 not 5 but I might be wrong.Duckfan77 (talk) 12:54, June 24, 2020 (EDT)

Thoughts after the proposal
I was unfortunately not active during the time the proposal went up. I, however, do agree with that List of level themes should have been the expansion for the level article rather than a separate page. I believe the merge of level to glossary is inconsistent with other generic game concepts that do get their own article, as discussed several times, such as Time Limit, HP, World, Genre (it's odd that World has its own page but Level does not). I do like how List of level themes was created and it is how I pictured that article expansion, but I believe simply having the content be in "level" works better. It's easier to search for common level themes in a "level" article than search the exact words "list of level themes". Alternatively, we can also use and link to the list of level themes, so people searching for "level" can still access the list of level themes article, but the Level page should've been mostly what the list of level themes page is currently (oh and we include autoscrolling and automatic levels, why not). 20:46, December 12, 2020 (EST)
 * Agreed with moving the content from "List of level themes" over here. -- 12:33, December 20, 2020 (EST)

Arguments for "course"
I would like to reopen the discussion of using the term course instead of level.

In the 2013 proposal, the main argument for every opposing vote was that level is more colloquial, to the point of sometimes being used in official products. This is untenable. As a matter of policy, we try to find the most current names that are most widely used in official material; we treat secondary names as contextual, and colloquialisms as a last resort. Otherwise, the wiki would be an unprofessional mess full of confusing divergences from the text of the games.

I think the localized name for Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is adequately explained by the fact that the series was in its infancy, and a great many terms were yet to be finalized. It would be appropriate to use level in sections on The Lost Levels, but not in general coverage. Modern names get priority. I cannot find any special exception for terms used in media titles. "Princess Toadstool for President" does not preclude the title character's article from being named Princess Peach.

To be fair, the use of course or level is still not entirely consistent, just as one source may use the blue mushroom instead of Mini Mushroom. However, since the proposal, the Super Mario Maker games have emerged. These are games about making courses, and Nintendo's preferred terminology is clear. Players can use Course Maker to place course parts and choose between course themes, before uploading their courses to Course World. Coursebot, which stores sample courses created by Nintendo, is a modern analog to The Lost Levels: a recurring character with course in the name. Many people are too used to calling them "levels" to notice, but this observation should not shoulder an argumentum ad populum. I think level is a secondary official name at best.

It almost feels like there's a larger trend of ignoring name confirmations from the Maker games. We still have yet to rename Warp Pipe to Pipe, or Beanstalk to Vine, names that are not only written in text but sung to the player. With Nintendo listing these games as part of the main Super Mario series, the terms used therein should be taken as highly representative of the brand.

Another argument from the 2013 proposal is that course could be confused for the courses in the Mario Kart series. Well, any criticism of Nintendo's terms should be directed at Nintendo. They choose the names; we merely relay that information, even when they come up with confusing names like New Super Mario Bros. 2. We don't even have an article on Mario Kart courses, but if ever we do, we already have methods for disambiguating similar titles:


 * This article is about the obstacle courses in platforming games. For racecourses, see…

Supposedly, the term level is more precise than course in that it cannot refer to racetracks. With it being a general term, I simply fail to see how this is true. These are sections of the games that are set in distinct locations, and in the primary Grand Prix mode, the player progresses through them sequentially. Regardless of whether they technically count, I would be surprised if laypeople never describe them as levels.

Overall, we do not prefer colloquial, outdated, or secondary terms to current official names, and I see no reason to exempt the concept of a platforming course from our naming policies. Please tell me if I am missing anything, or if I should try to make this into a proper new proposal. AgentMuffin (talk) 19:00, April 17, 2023 (EDT)
 * Strong support. The latest Mario game to use the term "level" was Mini Mario & Friends: amiibo Challenge, 7 years ago, and that game comes from a series that has used inconsistent terminology such as "room" and "area" to refer to the concept of discrete, but interconnected, gameplay set-pieces. 19:27, April 17, 2023 (EDT)
 * I still think "level" is the best option especially for a gaming wiki. I don't have precise numbers but "level" is likely used way more across the wiki than "course". I think renaming this article to "course" is going to create pretty annoying piping and redirect issues when "level" is a far more familiar term (and it's far from a dated term). Not to mention, should we rename all the subcategories in Category:Levels, rename our various navigation templates (or parts of navigation templates) like, rename our templates , to reflect the new preferred naming scheme? Or do we just stop at article name and article content, where we create this discrepancy where we just semi-endorse the new term? Additionally, this assumes the scope is limited to the 2D Mario platformers; there's no guarantee that the gameplay elements will are also called "courses" in other series such as Super Smash Bros., various Mario Sports games, or in Paper Mario, so do we apply "course" to those too? Or do we keep "course" just for 2D Mario levels? That's not going to be good for wiki editors, a lot of restructuring over relatively minor semantics, a lot of headache over the extent of how we should apply these changes. We do try to adhere to naming guidelines most of the time, but these are guidelines in the end, and I don't think these guidelines were written with generic, versatile terminology in mind. 20:50, April 20, 2023 (EDT)