MarioWiki:Proposals

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Merge Bowser X with each other (Discuss) Passed.
 * Split Mario Land into and . (Discuss) Deadline May 23, 2014, 23:59 GMT.
 * Change weight classes in Mario Kart 8. (Discuss) Deadline June 1, 23:59 GMT.

Writing Guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Change Page Names for Mario Kart Courses
Recently, due to the release of Mario Kart 8, I have been looking over and creating links for retro courses (courses that originate in one Mario Kart game and are brought back in another) and courses based off of another stage in a Mario game. Here are some page names: As you can see, all these names are differently formatted, and I only pulled 6 examples. My proposal is to create a uniform page name for all race courses to keep it consistent and spare confusion. All race courses from Mario Kart will have the same format; even new courses from Mario Kart 8 like Water Park: This would be Course (Game abbreviation). Here are what the previous examples would look like: Here are the abbreviations that would be used if this proposal is passed: This would avoid confusion and keep everything orderly.
 * Tick-Tock Clock (race course) - First appeared in Mario Kart DS; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * Dry Dry Desert (course) - First appeared in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * Moo Moo Meadows - First appeared in Mario Kart Wii; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * DK Jungle (Mario Kart) - First appeared in Mario Kart 7; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * Sherbet Land (GCN) - First appeared in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * Water Park - First appeared in Mario Kart 8 (New course)
 * - First appeared in Mario Kart DS; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * - First appeared in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * - First appeared in Mario Kart Wii; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * - First appeared in Mario Kart 7; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * - First appeared in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!; Retro course in Mario Kart 8
 * - First appeared in Mario Kart 8 (New course)

Proposer: Deadline: May 24, 2014 at 23:59 GMT.

Support

 * 1) Per proposal and it would make everything a lot more organized.

Oppose

 * 1) - Identifiers (in brackets) are only for cases where multiple things share one name, which isn't always the case with Mario Kart courses, hence some don't have anything. Other times, a name's only used for a course once, but is used for other things elsewhere, which is why things like "(course)" are used for some titles. As for the course names that are recurring in the series, the official policy (see the last bullet of Point 2) is that the identifier is the console abbreviation, which matches retro course names and also avoids inconsistencies in the game abbreviations (everyone calls it "SNES", but different folks might want to use "MKDD" or even "MK:DD!!" instead of "MK:DD"). I think it's better for the courses to be consistent with the overall naming policy, rather than get their own specific set of rules.
 * 2) Per Walkazo.
 * 3) Per Walkazo.
 * 4) Per Walkazo, although I think we could do with establishing a standard on (course) vs. (race course), looking at the first two examples in that list.
 * 5) Per Walkazo, and per Porplemontage in the comments section.

Comments
I don't think a proposal is necessary. The naming policy's section on shared titles already says that for Mario Kart games, console abbreviations are used to be consistent with the retro course naming convention, so this is something we'd end up doing automatically.

Can you use instead of having these red links? 08:36, 18 May 2014 (EDT)
 * I'm not really sure how to do that, but if you want to, you can change it. 10:45, 18 May 2014 (EDT)

@Vommak: That is the whole reason why I satrted this proposal, and I just grew that idea, so if this doesn't pass, I still want there to be uniformity like you said. 16:49, 18 May 2014 (EDT)


 * That is an example of 1-bullet here. In general, course is good. But Super Mario 64 identifies maps as courses, so Tick Tock Clock and Tick-Tock Clock (race course) are both courses. Which is why "race course" is used to differentiate one from the other. Also see my comments here about console abbreviations making the article relevant to multiple games. -- 17:18, 18 May 2014 (EDT)

Separating confirmed and possible generic-looking character appearances
This proposal is based on discussions on Toad's talk page, where expressed concern about the page covering games where it is only assumed that THE Toad is involved, but not confirmed. Assumptions are best avoided on a fact-based wiki like ours, but assuming things like the briefly playable Toad in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is THE Toad isn't unreasonable, and outright removing the information is likely to make it look there's gaps in our coverage, confusing or even frustrating readers. Furthermore, moving the info to the overal species page would be less than ideal when we're talking about specific Toad individuals, and making new articles for every not-THE-Toad character is also far less efficient than simply leaving the information on the perfectly good page we have for our established recurring specific Toad individual (whom everyone assumes is all the unnamed Toads anyway).

Fortunately, we are allowed to make interpretations as long as they are "straightforward and logical [...] and explicitly stated to be "implied"", so as long as we're clear about what's confirmed and what's not, it's perfectly within current regulations to leave that info on the Toad character page. It just needs to be reorganized a bit, and for that I propose the creation of a Possible appearances section, which would come after History and start out with a brief discussion about the confusion over appearances and then cover all the unconfirmed stuff in fully fleshed-out sections with headers (just like History; as opposed to using a table, although could still be used in addition to some text to link to the species page depending on the exact situation). For Toad, this would mean moving a number of sections from History to the new section, and merging any extra info found in the current "Confusion with appearances" section.

And the reason why this is a mainspace Proposal and not a TPP is because Toad isn't the only generic-looking character with confused appearance history: numerous other characters like Kamek or Yoshi could potentially benefit from "Possible appearances" sections. So rather than just proposing this new organization for Toad's page, I'm seeking approval for the system as a whole as a way to deal with this sort of appearance ambiguity, past, present and future.

Proposer: Deadline: May 31, 2014, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) - Per proposal and the Toad talk page. Keep the information on likely yet unconfirmed appearances on the character page, but move it to a new "Possible appearances" section, rather than leaving it in the regular History.
 * 2) Per Walkazo
 * 3) Per proposal. THE Toad character is always just an ambiguous thing: I've heard somewhere that the playable Toad in Mario Kart and whatnot is actually never intended to be a standalone character but localizations characterize and singularize this one Toad. Same with Yoshi and Kamek. I think making a "Possible Appearances" section would clear up some of the cloudy mess that are in this characters and possibly resolve any conflict regarding if this Toad that appears is THE Toad or not.
 * 4) The Possible Apperances section would help heaps. The Blue Toad from 3D Land or SMB2 is a prime example.

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.