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. Old stuff includes:


 * Courtesy
 * MarioWiki:Redirect (formerly)
 * Template:Wikipolicy
 * Categories
 * Proposal Archiving
 * Template:PArchive
 * Proposals/Archive
 * Proposals/Archive_Template
 * Version Differences

Navigation Templates

 * Templates to fix
 * white overall backgrounds; solid grey borders; footnotes darker than headers, lighter than banners
 * alternating bg stripes; darker bg stripes first; if only two lines, both bg stripes dark
 * headers centered and subheaders right, or both centered? simply right when no subheaders


 * ''( - unique colours: add to chart below G&W)
 * series items
 * (series)
 * - items
 * ''(, - unique colours: classify as species)
 * ''( - only two lines, both bg stripes dark)
 * - golf series characters
 * DK templates - levels
 * ''{{{tem|NSMBW}} - "further info" is good way to include subpages/galleries/etc.)
 * - could be merged with YI and YIDS
 * - do something with it
 * - misc rpgs with SMRPG colours

BS Super Mario USA
From my forum post here, from Feb. 21, 2012. (For admin eyes only.)

A translation of the ending dialogue is here, but it's not overly useful for plot stuff. The first episode's opening is on Nico Nico Douga (but I viewed it through page), and the entire fourth episode is on youtube: it's got the ending with narration and also the same opening as the first episode except for different closing enemy banter and one missing line from the Commander.

When I transcribed the text, I had only been studying Japanese for six months and listening comprehension was my weak point. Still is, but when I get a chance I'll give the videos a re-listen to try and figure out the stuff I missed before. Even in this crappy, unfinished transcription (italics and question marks are stuff I'm not sure about at all) and translation, however, some key plot points are quite clear.

Crappy transcription:

Narration: Yume no kuni Subcon. Kono kuni wa sono munokashi yasai ga daiki na Mamu to sono uchi ni otte kurushii me wa rarette imashita. Soko ni owarette ano wa onajimi Mario, Luigi, Kinopio, soshite Peach-hime. Kono yo-nin no daikatsuyaku no sei, Mamu wa sono uchi ni yasai yo ippai nitsu me komare, Subcon kara oidasareta no desu. Tokoro ga kurushii me rarette de Subcon wa hitotsu dake de wa arimasen deshita. Hito-bito no miru yume to onaji kase dake Subcon wa attano desu. Nigesata Mamu to sono uchi ni wa soto betsu na yume no naka ni moguri komi. Nandomo nandomo akuji o kurikashite tanō deshita. Commander: Ōsama, hoshi no chikara o tsukatte, Subcon o mamorimasho. King: Yoshi, Mario-kun-tachi onegai sho. Narration: Kōshite mata-mata ano yo-nin ga katsuyakusuru koto temota no desu. Shikashi, hoshi no chikara o tsukau, dōshite ano e wa Ōsama-dachi dake dewa imasen deshita. Ano Mamu to sono uchi ni mo chika wa kui o shio to takuramu de imasu. Sono de hajime ni donchuru de ga me wa no akashii ano o gondo Mario. Sō doko ga me kakushite mata yo desu.

Crappy translation:

Narrator: Dream land Subcon. In the land, in a chest, are important vegetables - the painful sprouts that can drive away Wart and his group. There at the end are the familiar Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Peach. because of the foursome's great efforts, Wart and his group were packed full of vegetables and expelled from Subcon. Only one place of the painful, capable sprouts of Subcon was not there. The people [thought] Subcon had only been a dream. Wart and his group escaped outside and dived into a separate dream. Many times they repeatedly [did] various crimes. Commander: King, let's use the power of the star and protect Subcon. King: All right, [get] Mario and friends, please. Narration: Thus, those four [were] made active again (which they were not intending to be). But the star power is used, [only???] why is the King's group missing? Wart and his group were also underground ??? plotting. First [find the ???] sprouts Mario. So, where have the sprouts been hidden again?

Basically, the narration confirms that Mario & Co. initially bested Wart with veggies and kicked him out of Subcon, but they thought it was a dream, but then Wart & Co., who had been hiding in another dream, come back and run amok, so the King summons Mario & Co. and they spring back into action again, only to find the King and his people gone (I'm not sure if he's kidnapped, however).

Table coding
Nested table, gradients, borders.

And to make it float...

(Also, note that the width of the background columns has to be of the overall template width - i.e. 17% gives you (approx.) half of 35%, whereas 50% just makes the column in question grow huge and the other one turn as skinny as the longest word will allow it.)

Sorting Table
"Title" = abc order; "Date" = default = release date order (reverse puts series at top); "Series" = abc order; right "#" = date-by-series order

MarioWiki:Japanese
Although many editors are not familiar with Japanese characters, specific Japanese words are often of interest in articles. In these cases, it is usually appropriate to provide a romanization of that word – in other words, to write it using the Latin Alphabet. Romanizations are also known as "rōmaji" or "romaji". Generally, romanizations are only appropriate for names, singular words or short phrases of interest, whereas translations are preferable for long passages.

General Rules

 * Romanizations should be italicized.
 * Romanizations should be lowercase, except for titles (see below). Particles should always be lowercase.
 * Do not romanize katakana in all caps.
 * In addition to romanization, kanji can be phonetically rendered using  (insert the kanji and hiragana where indicated; do not use katakana for this purpose). This appears as: KANJI (or, in practice, 漢字, kanji).
 * Subtitles are separated from the main title with a colon.
 * Do not italicize Japanese script to indicate titles, and instead of quotation marks, use 「 and　」.
 * When in doubt, ask for input from users with knowledge of Japanese, either directly, on an article talk page or by posting on the forum.

Kana
For the most part, Hepburn romanization is used on this wiki, so the kana should be romanized according to the following table, which is based on the traditional Gojūon ordering, but also includes extended katakana often seen in names that originated outside of Japanese. This creates an almost complete coverage of all the consonant-verb syllable combinations possible in English and Japanese, although extended katakana are not completely standardized in their usage, and romanizations other than those provided in the chart might be appropriate depending on the circumstances. The black-text kana, however, are fixed, and should be romanized as they are shown. Small kana not covered in the chart can be romanized as ~ followed by the romanization of the corresponding larger kana (i.e. ヌゥ → nu~u).

Except for cases where only katakana is present, hiragana are on the left, followed by katakana and then the romanization on the right. Please note that Kwa and Gwa each have two katakana combinations possible, which are listed side-by-side. The following chart explains the colour coding in the table.


 * Kana
 * Black kana = normal
 * grey = historic, now disused except for stylistic reasons
 * green = -u column katakana plus the vowel kana as digraphs (except abnormal fya/fyu/fyo, vya/vyu/vyo and tsyu, which use the regular digraphs)
 * red = abnormal
 * Romaji
 * Black romaji = primary consonant for the kana
 * blue = secondary consonant for the kana (for the digraphs, -ya/-yu/-yo become -a/-u/-o)
 * purple = tertiary consonant for the kana (katakana only except tsu, fu and ゔ vu)
 * red = abnormal (markers or historic)
 * Backgrounds
 * Lighter background (first 5 columns) = monographs (normally)
 * Darker background (next 3 columns) = digraphs
 * Yellow backgrounds (last column) = abnormal -ye set of digraphs (katakana only)
 * Orange backgrounds (top row) plus dark yellow = vowels only (including y-)
 * Pink backgrounds = basic kana
 * Purple and blue backgrounds = kana with diacritics ( ゛ and ゜ respectively)
 * Green backgrounds = special cases
 * Light green = consonant-only n
 * Medium green = common punctuation marks
 * Dark Green = digraphs (〜 is stylistic; it can also be used as a dash (-))

Long Vowels
To romanize elongated vowels, a macron should be typed over the vowel in question (see below for exceptions). In Japanese writing, vowels are elongated two different ways, depending on which kana are being used:
 * In hiragana, for the a, i and u sounds, it is done by following the first kana with a second kana of the same vowel sound. I.e. in the following chart, turning a single a sound into long ā is done by writing ああ, and turning a ka into kā is done by following the か ka kana with an a kana: かあ.
 * Note that long ē sound is usually made by using the い i kana instead of doubling the え e kana. Similarly, long ō sounds are usually made using う u kana instead of just the お o kana.
 * Occasionally in stylized writing such as dialogue, 〜 is placed after vowel sounds to indicate a drawn-out sound, but should simply be romanized as a regular tilde (~). I.e. ね～ should be romanized as ne~, not nē.
 * In katakana, the specific ー symbol follows the sound that is elongated. I.e. アー is ā and カー is kā.
 * Occasionally in stylized writing, multiple kana may be used for drawn-out sounds, and can be romanized literally. I.e. ワアアア can be romanized as waaaa, not wā.

The chart on the right shows examples of elongated vowels (both plain vowels, and consonant-vowel syllables). Top row is hiragana, middle is katakana, bottom is romaji. Non-standard kana are in red (discussed above), and exceptions to the macron rule for romanization are in blue (discussed below).

Both exceptions apply to words with long e and i sounds that originate in Japanese, rather than loanwords which use the regular macrons; usually, this means that when a word is written in hiragana or kanji, the long えい sound should be ei and long いい as ii, while katakana usually uses the macrons. I.e. 黄色 　is romanized as kiiro, but ルイージ is romanized as Ruīji.

Be careful to distinguish between cases like 問 う and 糖. The former should be tou, while the latter should be tō. This is due to the fact that what looks like a long vowel in 問う is actually separated over two different morphemes, and so is pronounced as two distinct vowels ("to-u") rather than a single long one.

ん and ン
ん and ン should be romanized n in most circumstances (and not m, as in some other romanization system). "N" is the only consonant that can occur without being followed by a vowel.


 * 日本 → nihon
 * こんな → konna
 * アンナ → anna

When ん or ン is immidiately followed by one of the あ‐ or や-row kana (vowels and y-), it should instead be n', to distinguish it from the な‐row kana (n-) and indicate a syllabic break when spoken. I.e. 禁煙 is written as kin'en and pronounced "kin-en", as opposed to 祈念 simply being romanized as kinen and pronounced "ki-nen".

Small っ and ッ
When a small っ or ッ kana is followed by a consonant, it should be represented by doubling that consonant. This indicates that there is a slight pause before the following consonant sound when the word is spoken aloud. In cases where the consonant sound is a digraph in English (namely, "ch", "sh" and "ts"), only the first letter is doubled (see second example below). Note that っち should be cchi, never tchi, as it is in other romanization systems.


 * 閣下 → kakka
 * いっしょ → issho
 * クッパ → kuppa

Note that dialogue sometimes uses っ or ッ (or long srings of the kana) to indicate an elongated sound, such as hissing.

は, を, and へ
When used as particles, は, を, and へ should be romanized as wa, o, and e, rather than the usual ha, wo, and he, respectively. This is how they sound when pronounced. Katakana will only be used as particles when the writing as a whole is rendered as katakana (such as stylized dialogue, etc.): under normal circumstances, particles are always hiragana. In titles, particles should always be lowercase (see below).

Capitalization
While most full sentences should simply be translated, if romanized, only the opening word and proper nouns should be capitalized, as in English. Proper nouns and titles should always be capitalized in quotes, templates and, if no translations are available, in article titles (see below). However, if the names contain particles or honourifics, these should remain lowercase, as explained below.

Particles
Particles should always be lowercase in titles. As well as the aforementioned は wa, を o, and へ e, other basic particles found in titles include で de, が ga, に ni, の no, と to, and some common sentence-ending particles are か ka, ね ne and よ yo. Most particles are one syllable long, but some, such as から kara may be longer.


 * うみgreenなかgreenきけんgreenいっぱい！ → Umi no Naka wa Kiken de Ippai!
 * ワンワンだgreen！ぜんいんしゅうごう！ → Wanwan Da yo! Zen'in Shūgō!

Honourifics
While titles such as "Mr.", "Princess" or "Dr." come before someone's name, with Japanese honorifics, the titles come after the name as suffixes, and are attached with a dash (-). Common honorifics include さん-san, 君 -kun,　ちゃん-chan and 様 -sama, while occupation-related titles frequently occurring in the Mario series include 姫 -hime (princess), 王子 -ōji (prince)　and 先生 -sensei (teacher/professor/doctor, among others). This latter set of honourifics can also be used as standalone titles, rather than just as suffixes, in which case they are capitalized (last example).


 * マリオくん → Mario-kun
 * ショコラ姫 → Shokora-hime
 * フランクリ先生 　→ Furankuri-sensei
 * 先生 → Sensei

Subjects with Japanese names
If a subject must be called by its Japanese name per Naming, it should be romanized in all uses on the Super Mario Wiki. For the most part, the romanization rules outlined above should be followed, however, for article titles, words that originated in English should be written as the original English word for simplicity (or, if the word comes from another Roman script language such as German, it should be written in the original German, etc.). Unlike regular romaji, the "title romanization" does not need to be italicized (unless it is a title of a game/movie/comic/etc., in which case it should be italicized anyway, as with English game/etc. titles).

The proper romanization should still be listed in the opening line of the article, however, while the "title romanization" is used whenever the name is used in the article and elsewhere on the wiki. Regular romanizations should always be used in, with the loanwords being converted back to English only in the "meaning" column.


 * メンハンマー
 * Normal Romanization → menhanmā
 * Name Romanization → Menhammer
 * スーパーマリオ　不思議 のころころパーティ
 * Normal romanization → Sūpā Mario Fushigi no Korokoro Pāti
 * Name romanization → Super Mario Fushigi no Korokoro Party

For the convenience of editors who cannot easily type vowels with macrons, redirects should be created from titles without macrons to the canonical title.


 * redirects to Super Mario Momotarō

Image Check
Check to see if the transparency is good, or crappy:

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.