Talk:Wish

Main Image
I was thinking: in Paper Mario I belief the camera goes close up in one scene to show Princess Peach making a wish. A screenshot of that or a sprite of her wishing might be a nice way to visually represent the article. 16:04, 29 January 2009 (EST)


 * Definitely. --
 * That's not a bad idea. Perhaps we can also add a section for the Beanstar.--Ladies-Man1 (talk) 10:08, 16 February 2014 (EST)
 * What do any of you think?--Ladies-Man1 (talk) 12:39, 5 June 2014 (EDT)

Is it just me or is that "characteristics" section ridiculous
Like, really. --Glowsquid (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2014 (EDT)
 * AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA XD you're so funny, MarioWiki.That beginning paragraph, too. 22:36, 23 March 2014 (EDT)

Wow.
This article is worthless. 02:26, 4 December 2015 (EST)


 * So, I removed the deletion tag for a couple reasons. First, please mark pages for 'request to be deleted' instead of 'to be deleted' if a final decision hasn't been made. Second, while I agree that this is a fairly poorly written article and a fairly broad subject, the contents far exceed the examples given. Monarchy was hardly a paragraph long and made no attempts to really make sense of itself, happiness was longer, but pretty much restated information from other, better articles. This one shows signs of actual work being done on it and the concept of 'wish' is seen being handled in a very tangible way across the series. Simple, I'm not satisfied with the deletion rational of "ahahahahaha, it's horrible", so how about we get some more community input on this one. -- Ghost Jam[[Image:Shyghost.PNG]] 01:24, 6 December 2015 (EST)
 * Just to be clear with things: what's the difference between and ? There's no clearly defined method for implementing these templates as far as I know, but I've viewed  as a "some editor thinks it should be deleted and you should check the talk page" and  as "it's going to be deleted and here's why". EDIT: Even after I've reviewed our deletion policy to check if I missed anything, there still isn't a clearly defined methodology.  01:22, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * I'm actually going to bring this up other staff members in a bit, but there was intended to be a clear definition between the two templates that seems to have not been formally added or acknowledged (before the community was what it currently is, the rules lists were fairly short and the senior editors was a small enough group that they didn't need to be reminded, making a detailed list was done years after the fact). Simply, there are three: Delete, To Be Deleted and Requested for Deletion (I can't find the template for this one off hand, but the category is active, which is what I use). Delete and To Be Deleted are virtually the same thing and I think we talked once about merging them. To Be Deleted means "A decision has been made by the community/sysops per view/Steve, this need to be removed." while Request for Deletion means "I/We feel there is a problem here and I/We would like to discuss removing it from the wiki." -- Ghost Jam[[Image:Shyghost.PNG]] 15:55, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * I was going through the stuff earlier today, actually (after seeing this section), and it's just a two-tier system. Category:Requested for Deletion corresponds to (as does Category:Talk to be deleted, when the template's used on talk pages), while Category:To be deleted is 's category.  and its categories are sorta like,  or even  in that it's flagging articles for discussion (in this case, about potential deletion) with no actions taken towards making that happen yet (i.e. no link updating), whereas if  is being used, it's a done deal: the page is already orphaned (ideally) and ready to be deleted as soon as a sysop wanders by. -  16:08, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * Works for me. It's more for the deleting ops to know than the individual user. I tend to look an article over before deletion if it's not something obvious like left overs from a move or some such. -- Ghost Jam[[Image:Shyghost.PNG]] 18:28, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * So I assume in the end, I was using it properly, aside some snark? 19:56, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * Yes, but even if I had known that I still would have brought it here before deleting. -- Ghost Jam[[Image:Shyghost.PNG]] 22:25, 7 December 2015 (EST)

Delete this article
This article has several problems.

The beginning quote has little relevance to the subject; the subject is intended to be a super power exercised by powerful beings. The wish in the quote is not referring to the power being discussed in the article, and it's intended as motivation and hope. It's not a good sign when a bad quote is used, and the rest of the article isn't good at all either.

The article is poorly written. That in of itself wouldn't be grounds for deletion, but there is not much to write on when it comes to wishes, giving rise to a poor attempt to make wishes tangible aside from being a plot device (also, note the images are only there because a plot Macguffin is related to wishes), which includes padding, which this article has a lot of. Due to the nature of wishes being plot devices, the article must write entire synopses on two games (and it sometimes makes an attempt to speculate and connect them; "How the Star Road is connected to these events is unknown."; "The exact relationship between the two locations is unknown, but it is possible they are deeply intertwined.")

The "characteristics" section is crufty. Most of Star Rod's information, for instance, has more to do with the item itself rather than wishes. If the mechanisms of granting the wish resulted in different results, it perhaps should have a section, but the results are always the same: therefore, this section has little to do with wishes in question and really more to do with the things granting the wishes.

The biggest problem is its subject matter itself: it is a vague, generic, intangible subject. There is nothing special or different about wishes in this article, evident by lines such as "the power of wishes has existed in some form since the beginning of time" and "while anyone can make a wish, the ability to grant that wish usually resides within a powerful being, artifact, or location". Like a dictionary, it defines whatever a wish is and goes on from there. Wishes themselves in this article at best serve ultimately as an otherwise function-less plot/motive device (involving plot MacGuffins) such as with the now-deleted Princess Peach's voice. Finally, nobody actually makes a wish that gets granted in either of the games; Bowser attempts it, but uses a Star Rod to make himself invincible. Even if actual wishes are granted, it wouldn't be good enough for an article. What would make wish an article is if wishes were a central game mechanic, e.g. Mario uses wishes to defeat enemies, get items, heal HP, get allies, destroy obstacles, and they're called "Wishes". Sure, Mario makes a wishing motion when he uses Star Storm, but those already have a name: special move.

To make an analogy, creating an article on Wish is similar to creating a full-fledged article on Dream because Bowser prevented people from dreaming in Mario Party 5 by attacking Dream Depot. Finally, the arguments provided in the deletion of Princess Peach's voice work for this: a plot device, but wish fares even worse because wishes dealt in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario are generic and not Mario-y.

Proposer: Deadline: December 20, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) I call it a "fluff article." We have no use for fluff articles here.
 * 3) Does nothing but state the obvious. Per all.
 * 4) per all.
 * 5) I assumed this article was a list of wishes found on Star Hill in Super Mario RPG. Turns out it's even more useless. Per Bazooka Mario.
 * 1) per all.
 * 2) I assumed this article was a list of wishes found on Star Hill in Super Mario RPG. Turns out it's even more useless. Per Bazooka Mario.

Oppose

 * 1) The article as it is right now is poorly-written and stupid, no disagreement here. However, as Ghost Jam pointed out above, the concept of wish as real, tangible things that affect the plot and the character is an actual plot device that's treated with some degree of consistency in the Mario RPG games. The article would require an overhaul, but I feel there's a valid subject in there.
 * 2) - Per Glowsquid and Ghost Jam. It's better to tag it with  and try to fix it than outright deleting the article.
 * 3) Per Glowsquid. Over and over again, I've held it a principle that we should consider fixing before deleting, and this is a perfect example. I agree this initially sounds like a useless article, but as said, it's a major plot point. Other silly things have articles too; I mean, we even have a page on Mario's head.
 * 4) - Per Glowsquid and Ghost Jam's comments in the above section. I was on the fence when this was brought up on the forums, since these sorts of deletions often don't sit quite right with me despite the crappiness of the pages. However, I was able to come up with a draft of the page that doesn't suck, so knowing that it can be done, I agree that we should fix the article instead of just scrapping it.
 * 5) Per all.

Comments
After seeing Ghost Jam's comment, I was going to suggest adding a part on Good Writing about poorly-written, didactic openers on pages such as this and Gravity that obscure why the page exist and why it's a valid concept to cover on the wiki, until I saw this TPP was underway. Bah umbug. --Glowsquid (talk) 13:46, 7 December 2015 (EST)

Glowsquid: how would the overhaul look like, though? If I had to rewrite it at gunpoint, I'd begin with with "Wishes are a central plot point in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario. Star Haven in Super Mario RPG converts them into Wish Stars and Star Spirits grant them." The poorly written nature of the article already makes it difficult to get a approach, and even my own attempt doesn't satisfy me. 19:55, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * it's finals week for me so I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to provide a sample of what I thounk it shoud like until like, after the end of this TPP. yuck. --Glowsquid (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2015 (EST)
 * Usually that's how I feel when TPPs I disagree with happen at inconvenient school times... Anyway, I did have some free time, so here's what I came up with as a draft - hopefully it's along the lines of what you were thinking? Basically, no more Son of Suns-style cruft, plus some new TTYD info. Can't remember off the top of my head if SPM had any wish bsns too, or just the love stuff, but anyway, you still get the picture. - 00:19, 8 December 2015 (EST)

I'd be in favor of deleting the Mario's head article too. 15:14, 8 December 2015 (EST)