User:Walkazo/Essays

Here's where I shall rant about my views on the Mario series or the Super Mario Wiki itself and/or draft stuff to actually use on the wiki.

Navigation Templates
MarioWiki:Navigation Templates is a guide to correctly making and using navigation templates (or, "nav templates" for short). As their name suggests, navigation templates are used for navigating between related pages, as an alternate to categories. Both nav templates and categories are placed at the bottom of pages, but while categories must be clicked on in order to get to a list of related pages, navigation templates contain the links themselves, making the other pages directly accessible from the article that the reader is currently on. Also, while different levels of categories and subcategories must be used in order to organize different aspects of any one subject (i.e. the enemies, places or items found in a game), navigation templates can be divided up through the use of headers, subheaders and separated lists of links. Furthermore, nav templates can be colour-coded for easy identification and use.

Keep in mind that the easiest way to learn how to make a proper template is by looking at other templates and repurposing their designs, and while this page itself does not discuss the coding specifics behind templates, it does list a number of examples that can be copied and investigated. Category:Navigation Templates can be used to find additional examples.

Types of Templates
While the overall structure and use of navigation templates is constant, templates cover a range of subjects, and different material needs to be organized in different ways. Templates can be grouped into three basic classes: game-specific, series-wide and species templates (note that the latter includes various non-species-based templates, however species-based are the most numerous and this, along with historical usage, lends the class its name). These three types of templates are described in the following sections, followed by some more general instructions about template design.

Game-Specific Templates
These are the most fundamental templates. In theory, every game should have one, although many of the more minor, obscure and/or data deficient titles do not. Game-specific templates should include links to all articles pertaining to the game in question, including the characters, enemies, bosses, items, worlds and levels. Game-specific templates should be colour-coded based on the series that the game hails from: see the colour chart below.

The templates should be divided up by headers under which the links are filed: in other words, all the enemies go in an "Enemies" section, all the levels into a "Levels" section, etc. While the most common types of content are listed above, different games often require specialized header names or unique sections entirely. For instance, like many templates, names its items section "Items and Objects" to be more inclusive (i.e. of environmental hazards and blocks), while  uses "Protagonists" to account for the fact that the antagonistic characters are grouped under the "Boss" section, rather than going into a single "characters" section. Many spin-offs are quite specialized in how their templates are organized, such as the many different character divisions in, or the completely unique setup of. By comparison, only requires one specialized section for the Animal Buddies.

Most of the time, every relevant article can fit into a navigation template. However, sometimes random items that do not easily fit into one of the sections are left out, or in the case of RPGs, minor things like NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) are omitted because they would make the template almost unusably large. In these cases, users must rely on categories to get to the unlisted pages, however it should be noted that while the subjects aren't part of the templates, the templates should still be present on their articles. This is not applicable to galleries and subpages of the main game page.

Another possible situation is where one or more of the subjects have been taken out of the main game template and given their own template. For example, are separate from the main  template. This partitioning should generally be avoided except for cases where including the subject would greatly increase the size of the template, as in the case of Paper Mario series minigames (which are too major and require too much organization to simply put in categories like NPCs). These auxiliary game-specific templates only need to go on the subjects that concern them (e.g. the MPDS minigames) and the game page itself, however the main template has to go on the subject pages along with the auxiliary template.

Series-Wide Templates
There are two types of series-wide templates, both of which are colour-coded like the game templates. The first type simply lists all the games in a series, usually subdivided into sub-series, such as in. Non-game series can also have templates, such as, which lists the comics year by year. Console-based templates like, and  (which is both console- and series-based) are also considered to be series-specific templates.

The second type is similar to the auxiliary game-specific templates in that they focus on a single subject, but as their name suggests, follow it all across a series, rather than within a single game. These types of templates are highly discouraged except in cases where listing them apart from the game templates would help streamline navigation. For example, lists all the Mario Kart racecourses by game, but does not re-list courses when they reappear in later titles, whereas the game-specific templates do re-list retro courses; this means the at-a-glance list of racecourses is more compact than a simple assemblage of the game-specific templates' lists. It is also quite likely that readers will want to browse the courses across the entire spin-off series, whereas something more specialized like the Karts do not need a series-wide template. Please note that even in cases where a series-wide template is used, this should not be a substitute for a corresponding section in the game-specific templates: as mentioned before, the specific Mario Kart game templates also listed the courses (i.e. ). Series-wide templates should not be created to replace game-specific templates: they should merely be supplemental templates.

Species Templates
Species templates organize subjects based on what they are, rather than what game they come from. Most of these templates are built around a group of related species, listing all the species and characters within that group, as in. Generally, differentiating between the species and the characters is all the subdivision that is found in these templates, although there are exceptions, such as, where separating major series and alternate media is necessary for navigating the large list. As they are not game- or series-based, species templates are not bound by the same colour-coding setup as the other two types of templates, and should be given colours befitting of their subject matter (i.e. brown for s and yellow for s).

While species male up the vast majority of this final type of templates, there are a few cases where other, non-species-based notable or complex subjects are granted these templates. Basically, if a template is not a game-specific or series-wide template, it is a species template, in structure if not in name. I.e. is about Mario's family, yet it is designed like the humans category, with the game and alternate media characters separated. is another example of a non-species "species" template. Generally, these templates should provide some level or organization, and templates that are merely categories in template form, without any subdivisions, will usually be deleted. However, sometimes major subjects (items or objects) will be granted templates in order to bring them more attention than categories alone would, effectively doing for them what proper species templates do for characters and enemies. This is the reason for the existence of and  (while the latter is now divided into mushrooms and mushroom recipes, it started out as a simple category-template).

For the most part, however, major subjects that deserve templates have already been given templates, and users should carefully asses the situation before creating more. This applies to species as well as miscellaneous subjects: if a group of species only has a few members, a template might be excessive, especially if it is only a minor assortment of species and characters. Conversely, very loose (and often large) groupings such as Fish or Undead should be saved for categories, not templates, as the need for such templates is far less than for specific species groupings like or, and creating too many overlapping templates can clutter up pages.

Template Design
The basic layout of a template is that it has a banner across the top of the template bearing a descriptive title, and below that are the lists of links, organized into sections by headers. The number and types of sections are different from template to template (see the above sections for more information), and many templates require sub-headers to further subdivide their sections. However, while template length is quite variable, all templates should be given the same width of 100%.

No matter the size of the template, it must be completely collapsible - in other words, all the content must be hidden by default, with only the banner visible, until the "[show]" link is clicked on. It is much easier to find a specific template when only the headers have to be skimmed through, and not the lists of links as well, and collapsing the templates also saves on space. Furthermore, if a page has 10 or more navigation templates, they should all be collapsed through the use of Template:Navtemplate.

Listing the Links
The lists of links should be grouped in a way that makes finding entries simple; generally this means alphabetical order should be used, however worlds and levels should be sequential, and characters are usually arranged by descending order of importance (i.e. Mario first, followed by Luigi, then Peach, then Bowser, etc.). Places and bosses can be organized alphabetically, like in, or sequentially like in , depending on what makes sense given the structure of the game (i.e. do the places correspond to the levels), the length of the sections (longer lists are better served by alphabetical order), and the personal taste of whoever made the template. If a high level or organization is needed, many templates make liberal use of subheaders, creating many small lists rather than a few big ones, such as. Other templates use symbols to denote specific subjects in a list, such as 's use of asterisks to mark SM64DS-exclusive content. used both subheaders and symbols to help organize its content, whereas used different types of dividers to group vibe-infused enemies with their regular counterparts which provided the overall alphabetical order. Some templates even colour-code their lists, such as, although this is more about aesthetic appeal than organization.

Headers
There are two types of headers that can be used in nav templates: horizontal headers look like the title banner and are placed above their sections, while vertical headers are stacked along the left-hand side of the template, with their corresponding lists beside them. Horizontal headers and their lists are centered, while vertical headers can either be centered or justified right, with their lists always justified left; alternating background colours are used to separate the sections of vertical-style templates, while the horizontal header themselves divide up their templates, and so only one continuous background is needed for them.

Both styles have their pros and cons when it comes to functionality, but while horizontal headers used to be the only method used by the Super Mario Wiki, vertical headers have become the more common choice. This is mainly because they take up less space than horizontal bars, resulting in more compact templates. Unlike horizontal headers, they also lend themselves to header-subheader formatting, with subheaders nested within the column of headers, like in.

While vertical headers should always be used for templates with large numbers of sections, smaller templates sometimes use horizontal headers, such as, which only needs one subheader in addition to the basic list of links. Very large templates like will also use horizontal headers in order to use of their show/hide function to collapse individual sections and make the overall template more manageable. Finally, as seen in the aforementioned and, horizontal headers can be repurposed to create unique footnote sections in which symbol legends or comments can be placed.

Colouration
Series-wide and game-specific templates are colour-coded by series (see the chart below), while species templates are given colours that match their subject matter with the stipulation that they must not be garish or painful to look at. With a few exceptions, all templates should give banner the darkest colouration, followed by the headers and then the subheaders, with the background being significantly lighter. The default black text usually looks fine against the header and banner colours, however as seen in the chart, darker shades require the text to be white instead, and the same rules apply for unique species template colours. Additionally, Template:Color-link and Template:Color-link-piped should be used to ensure that the links in titles and headers appear black or white; this ensures uniformity in the headers, and regulates the contrast between the colours and the text, as plain links may not show up or look ugly against certain hues. However, all background colours should be light enough so that plain links can be used for the actual lists.

Order on Pages
In most articles, species templates should come first, followed by game-specific and series-wide templates arranged in pure chronological order. This means that rather than being grouped into series, games will be listed separately according to their individual release dates, with their colouration being used to find all the members of a given series. Subject-based series-wide templates (the second type, like ) will be placed directly under the first game template from that series. Auxiliary game-specific templates should come after the main game template. Above the game- and series-based templates, any family templates (i.e. and ) should come first, followed by the actual species template, and then any other non-species-based species templates, in order of decreasing importance. Usually, however, only the actual species template (or the equivalent item- or place-based template) will be present.

While that is the order for most subjects' articles, games and series are slightly different. Games should have their game-specific template come first, followed by the overall series-wide template (the first type, like ), and then the console-based templates, such as or. Series pages should simply have their corresponding series-wide template.

Additionally, there are a number of specialized classes of pages, most of which have (or will eventually have) corresponding navigation templates. They are as follows:
 * Galleries should all contain
 * List of Quotes pages should have
 * Beta element subpages should have
 * Media subpages should have
 * Staff subpages should have
 * The References pages should all have

Finally, only mainspace articles can have navigation templates. Categories, other templates, help pages, user pages, talk pages and PipeProject pages should not have nav templates. While The 'Shroom has templates it uses for internal navigation, these should not be categorized as actual nav templates.

Categories
In the past, categories were often put in templates so that they would automatically appear on articles that the templates were placed on, but with the advent of the new categorization system, this is no longer allowed. The only category nav templates should have is Category:Navigation Templates, which must be included using the following coding, placed after the template coding itself:



Example Templates
SPP

SPINOFFS

mp

mk

dm

RPGS

pm

smrpg

m&l

SPORTS

MISC CROSSOVERS

LM

YOSHI

general/misc

yi

SML

WARIO

wl

general/misc

warioware

DK

arcade

general/misc

dkc/dkl

mvdk

MARIO

general/misc

sm

MEDIA

tv and movies

comics and books

SSB

CONSOLES

G&W

Koopa Taxonomy
There are many kinds of Koopa: some are like Koopa Troopas, some are like Bowser, some are like Lakitu, some are like Hammer Bros., and if I had my way, Buzzy Beetles and Clubbas would be Koopas too. Are these different species? Are Red Magikoopas and Yellow Magikoopas different species, or do they just wear different clothes? And what are sub-species? Koopatrols? KP Koopas? What's the relationship between Dark Koopas in Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Dark Koopas in Super Paper Mario? What is Bowser? And what the heck is a Koopa anyway? Since Nintendo didn't give us any sort of Koopa taxonomy, evolutionary chart, fossil record or family tree, it's totally up to us to answer those questions.

This is not impossible: mother nature didn't share her blueprints either, and yet we still know that spiders and crabs are cousins, and that tapeworms and earthworms aren't. We can't tell if Koopas evolved from turtles or dinosaurs, but we can tell that Bowser is not a Koopa Troopa based on the fact that they look nothing alike, besides their shells and overall skin colour. It's just like how tapeworms and earthworms look nothing alike beyond the fact that they're long and limbless and don't make for pleasant dinner conversations. By analyzing the facts, we can make reasonable deductions, enabling us to organize these enemy pages logically with minimal speculation involved, if we do it right. For example, we can associate Fire Bros. and Boomerang Bros. in because they are nearly identical except for colouration and some physical capabilities (fire or boomerang), just as we can say Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Golden-crowned Kinglets are closely related based on the fact that their body makeup is virtually the same, but their facial feathers and songs are different. But unlike the cute little birdies, we can't speculate on how the Fire and Boomerang Bros. are related: we can't assign them genera or place them in phylogenetic trees, but I think we can say they're different species. True, Nintendo never said they are, but, I mean, one breathes fire and one doesn't: any biologist will tell you that's enough to separate them.

Unfortunately, the "species" vs. "sub-species" debate is where things get really sticky; if you bring race into it too, all the stickier. It's easier just to say they're different "types" of a larger "group" of Koopas which are "related" to one-another, but our nature is to stick "species" in there as well - since it sounds more professional, and more importantly, way more posh. We can justify "species" when there's no doubt to the biology (if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck; if it's pitch black and throws hammers, it's a Dark Hammer Bro.), but when you have really similar enemies, the arguments start to waver. A no-brainer example: KP Koopas are basic Koopa Troopas who merely dyed their shells a different colour; they're "different", but not different species or even a different race or sub-species, just like how punk rockers who dyed their hair blue are still humans - very cool humans. A more difficult example: Dark Koopas in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Paper Mario are more Koopa Troopas of a different colour, but they also have unique skills and live in a specific habitat, so are they a sub-species, or a race, or what? In cases like these, to label them is to make an assumption out of uncertainty, which we have to avoid as much we can: no more of this "sub-species" nonsense - therein lies the face of speculation.

Now, the reason for this spiel (aside from my love of taxonomy) is the confusion over "Koopa" vs. "Koopa Troopa", and what to do with their respective articles. As I said before, to the best of my understanding, the "Koopa Troopa" is a specific species (with many similar species and races attached to it, though the actual relationships between the organisms are ambiguous), and "Koopa" is a general term for all the vaguely turtle/dragonish creatures (I'd call it an Order, but that would be speculation to the max). Therefore, I believe it is a very good thing to have separate Koopa and Koopa Troopa pages: one for the species, one for all the shelled enemies. Currently, Koopa is just a partial list of all the major species and some of the minor species, and that should be changed: it should be an annotated list of all the species. Note the "annotated" part: that's what will set the page apart from a mere category or a list in Koopa (disambiguation): it will give context to the Koopas, allowing us to present them in an organized and logical manner, and as long as we watch ourselves, it can be one that is virtually free of speculation. An example of what the Lakitu section could look like is at the end of this essay.

Of course, some level of speculation is unavoidable. Like tapeworms and earthworms, things like Sumo Bro. and Hammer 'Bro. may not be related at all, but if names are good enough reasons to cram everything else on the Wiki together (A Pirate Goomba is a Goomba? Who knew!), why not here too? No matter what we do, we will have to make some assumptions, but none wil be as large and misguided as saying "Koopa" = "Koopa Troopa" = all Koopas and merging the pages. Bowser is not a Koopa Troopa: any biologist could tell you that even if they never played a videogame in their life (like my Animal Diversity teacher: instead, he spends all his free time studying tapeworms). Therefore, we can't write about Bowser's species in Koopa Troopa, and if we merge Koopa, we lose the only logical place to put it - we'd have to make a nameless stub about them, which would be against various Super Mario Wiki policies. For this specific reason, and for the organizational benefits I stated above, in the name of taxonomy and in the spirit of organization, I say we leave the pages separate.

Lakitu
Lakitus are bespectacled Koopas who ride clouds through the skies, and which can occasionally be found snorkeling in water and hiding in walls or pipes. Unlike most Koopa species, they do not have snouts or beaks, but flat faces; their shells are also unique in their circular patterning. To attack, Lakitus typically throw unlimited numbers of Spiny Eggs at their opponents, and some will also dangle 1-Up Mushrooms from fishing poles to lure their targets closer.


 * Lakitus
 * Aqua Lakitu - A race of Lakitu that lives underwater with the aid of scuba gear, coming to the surface to breathe and throw Spiny Eggs.
 * Calm Lakitu - Lakitus that inhabit Vibe Island, where they are associated with the Calm Vibe, incarnating the power by sleeping most of the time.
 * Dark Lakitu - Lakitus that are darker in colour with red shells and that throw Sky-Blue Spinies.
 * Fishin' Lakitu - Lakitus that use Fishing Rods baited with a 1-Up Mushroom to lure enemies near their clouds. Once the bait is taken the rod is withdrawn and Spinies are thrown. The Fishing Rod can also be used to hook enemies, support various objects, or to simply fish.
 * Lakipea - The Beanish Lakitus. Lakipea have a leaf-like appendage growing from their head, inhabit vine-covered clouds, and throw the Beanish variation of Spiny, Sharpea.
 * Lakitufo - Red-shelled Lakitus bioengineered by the Shroobs to possess strange extraterrestrial features, including antennae in place of hair. They ride UFOs instead of clouds and beam down Spiny Shroopas in lieu of Spinies. They can also jump off their UFOs and assault their enemies themselves with a screw attack.
 * Pipe Lakitu - Lakitus that hide in Warp Pipes to ambush enemies (still attacking with Spiny Eggs).
 * Roketon - A species of Lakitu that flies in airplanes through the skies of Sarasaland. Instead of throwing Spinies, Roketons fire large amounts of Giras from their aircraft to attack their enemies.
 * Thunder Lakitu - This species of Lakitu has a red shell (like Dark Lakitus) and tanned skin. Instead of throwing Spinies it shoots fire generated by a device in its cloud that harnesses the energy from the sun.
 * Wall Lakitu - Lakitus that hide behind hills and other objects in order to throw Spiny Eggs in surprise-attacks.

Timeline
Every Mario game, show, movie and publication in chronological order (right), and in chronological order sub-divided by series (left). Things without specific dates go before everything else released in that month/year. Non-game titles are bold. Issues in serialized publications and the set-of-three anime are marked with dashes on the right column; usually not included in left column. Remakes and notable ports are in brackets, although most ports/re-releases aren't listed. All that is to help with organization/comprehension. Non-English names often have translations (just for fun), and I also have the NA names in parentheses for the things we use the PAL titles for (because my memory is bad).

For the left column, games (or books, special comic issues (most not included), TV series, movies, etc.) in a series are numbered in most cases. Ports/remakes are in brackets and bulleted under the game they are a remake/port of; compilations are also bracketed, but are numbered like original game (All-Stars within the Super Mario series; Nintendo Puzzle Collection is on its own, as it includes games from multiple series). Similarly, the Super Mario Advance series of games is broken apart, with each game being filed under the original it is porting. In some cases, sequels are merely bulleted under the original (without brackets), rather than a new series being made for the two games. All other important notes are more case-specific, and are included as references (listed at the bottom); the entries with references are denoted with goldenrod text.