MarioWiki:Proposals

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Create the page: Drilldigger (Discuss) Passed
 * Split the sections Attackathlon, Toad Quiz and Lakitu Info Centre into and  (Discuss) Passed
 * Split and create articles for and . (Discuss) Deadline: February 14, 2016, 23:59 GMT
 * Split Frog and, , and . (Discuss) Deadline: February 14, 2016, 23:59 GMT
 * Split Bee and and . (Discuss) Deadline: February 14, 2016, 23:59 GMT

Writing Guidelines
None at the moment.

Deal with the duplicate Paper subjects in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam
Since we started hearing about the subject matter of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, there has been questions about what that means for the Paper Mario series and how we cover it and its subjects. There are three options:


 * 1) Make separate pages for the duplicate Paper characters/species/etc. that appear in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam alongside their flesh/real/3D counterparts, ONLY covering their appearances in that one game, and NOT in any preceding Paper Mario games. It follows the same logic that splits Metal Mario (character) from regular Mario (or Metal Mario (form)) and Baby characters from their adult counterparts, in that the two versions of the characters appear in at least one game simultaneously and function separately from each other. Separate characters (or species, etc.) in the context of the applicable games getting separate articles makes coverage easier (one characters' plot overview per page, one set of stats per page, etc.), and, since the subjects have specific names and identities, it's likely that people will search for them, and we want to make sure that traffic comes to us and finds what they want. This is what I suggest we do.
 * 2) Split coverage of the Paper Mario series entirely due to the M&L:PJ showing that the paper world exists in a book in the regular Mario universe. This means that for consistency, everything that appeared in both series should get split, which is insane from an organizational/comprehensive coverage standpoint and runs afoul of numerous policies and fundamental organization standards. For one thing, the mere assertion that all previous Paper Mario games happened in the M&L:PJ book is reading between the lines and linking unrelated games together into a single narrative, which is against the rules. It also comes dangerously close to making forbidden canon judgments about the Paper Mario series, and even ignoring the "the book's not the real world" angle, it's still placing Paper Mario into its own chronology by separating it from the regular Histories of all the subjects, and we haven't organized articles like that for MANY years, much less split them over it. The only vestige of that sort of thinking is the separation of the film characters, under a biased "they're different" excuse, and that is currently being fixed by another proposal. Even Dr. Mario, while superficially splitting out info based on series origin, is actually more along the lines of the aforementioned Baby characters (as well as other things like Dry Bowser and different forms of boss enemies), in that he's split because he has a specific name, appearance and function with self-contained info that folks are likely to search for, with extra justification that he appears alongside the regular Mario in SSB. And so, because this flies in the face of how we cover things in the Super Mario Wiki and would result in the creation of hundreds of superfluous pages that would snarl up organization forever, I strongly suggest we do NOT do this.
 * 3) Make no new articles and talk about both versions of every co-occurring pair of Paper and flesh/3D subjects in single pages. While this would keep all the Paper things together in one page, I think the resulting clutter in those sections will outweigh any advantage that not splitting it apart would bring, plus M&L:PJ isn't even a Paper Mario game, so the Paper content within it will still be far from the actual Paper Mario content on pages with any sort of History built up. Unless there's two M&L:PJ sections per History section, one for the flesh/3D stuff, one for the Paper stuff, but that would be awkward, and could even make both sections seem incomplete or repetitive, depending on how they're handled, plus it's unlike any other aspect of our coverage of any game, and inconsistency is bad. So I suggest we don't do this either.

Hopefully there were enough pros and cons in there to convince everyone that Option 1 is the simplest way, and is the most consistent with current standards and policies. If you want more words, I also made a big forum post going through all the different sorts of doppelgangers we cover. That forum discussion actually exists because someone already went and made a Paper Mario (character) article, without any discussion, and initially as an "option 2"-style Paper Mario series-wide page, although I've since cut it back to M&L:PJ only. I'm hoping this proposal will make it clear that the community as a whole is behind that decision of mine, and will continue in that direction to move forward with that article, and the ones to follow.

I'm not going to bother making a list of pages that will need creating if Option 1 passes, but it's basically every Paper character in M&L:PJ, including Paper Luigi and his cameo, as well as the Paper Toads and Paper enemies, assuming their stats, attacks and/or other non-superficial aspects about them are different from their non-Paper counterparts (but if, for example, Paper Goombas are the same as regular Goombas except for how they look, and same goes for all the other enemies too, don't bother splitting them). Unfortunately, I don't have the game yet, so I don't know enough to even attempt to split anything myself, so others are feel free to have at it: I'm just here to establish the overall game plan.

Proposer: Deadline: February 9, 2016, 23:59 GMT

Option 1: Separate pages for M&L:PJ characters only

 * 1) - Per proposal. Even if subsequent SSB trophies or whatever vaguely characterize the M&L:PJ character as the "Paper Mario" from earlier games, I think it'd be disastrous to split the series: everything being canon and equal and organized through release dates only is the simplest and best solution, and the current practice of giving pages to simultaneously occurring alternate forms of characters is a logical, straightforward and consistent exception that should work for Paper Jam too.
 * 2) Supported this stance from the beginning, supported it in the forums, will continue doing so.
 * 3) Per Walkazo.
 * 4) Per Walkazo. I was skeptical at first, but after playing Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam and have read discussions, I finally agree to separates paper characters and only those of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam.
 * 5) I've supported this stance, and Walkazo's points only reinforce my position.
 * 6) This is the most reasonable solution. The enemies were likely going to get separate articles anyway seeing as they were fully classified as separate enemies in game, but it does fully clear up what we'd do with characters like Paper Mario, Paper Peach and Paper Bowser (due to his incredibly small role, I'll assume Paper Luigi doesn't fully count, or does he?). Either way, per all.
 * 7) Per Walkazo in the comments.

Comments
While I'm not suggesting we should split all Paper Mario content, I'd like to hear your thoughts on why Baby Mario is different. His article covers all his appearances as Baby Mario, even when he doesn't appear alongside adult Mario (apart from Super Mario Momotarō and "The Early Years", for a reason I admittedly don't quite grasp). Why should we not cover Baby Mario's appearances when he doesn't meet Adult Mario in the main Mario article, which is what you guys are suggesting to do for Paper Mario? 17:22, 2 February 2016 (EST)
 * There's a very specific, consistent and explicitly named characterization of Baby Mario, and covering half his appearances on one page and half on the other would be messy, confusing and make both articles look incomplete. Dr. Mario and Dry Bowser are covered independently from the main character pages for similar reasons. But this Mario / Paper Mario co-occurence is a one-off so far, so it doesn't need to reconcile recurring solo/duo adventures. Plus, there were four games and many years where there was no distinction between Paper Mario and "real" Mario: they don't call him "Paper Mario" in the earlier games, just "Mario", so it would be wrong of us to go back and say "actually, it was this different Paper Mario all along because a game created years later says so". By contrast, Baby Mario was always "B/baby Mario", and Dr. Mario was always "Dr. Mario", etc., so we're not making stuff up to say there were distinctions from the start. The only times an infant Mario wasn't "Baby Mario" were things like Super Mario Momotarō, Family Album "The Early Years" or "Toddler Terrors of Time Travel", hence they're not covered in Baby Mario's article: that'd be us making connections/appearances that don't exist - same as retroactively making all Paper Marios feature the M&L:PJ "Paper Mario" would be. - 22:25, 2 February 2016 (EST)

To fully clarify, where will we put Paper Luigi in this case? I'm leading to assume he won't get an article due to how minor his appearance was.
 * Paper Luigi should get his own article. Sure, it's extremely minor, but it's a harmless small article. 20:40, 3 February 2016 (EST)
 * The proposal specifically states that Paper Luigi would get his own page like all the rest of the characters. - 21:44, 3 February 2016 (EST)
 * Alright then, fair enough.

Removals
None at the moment.

Changes
None at the moment.

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.