MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Determine coverage status of Tetris (NES) and F-1 Race (Game Boy)
This is primarily based on our current coverage of Alleyway, Baseball, and Pinball, which have decidedly low actual Mario-centric content but are given a (relatively) large amount of coverage regardless. In both the (official) NES version of Tetris and the Game Boy version of F-1 Race (the origin of which has a Super Mario sequel), a troupe of Nintendo characters - mostly Super Mario ones - appear on congratulatory screens, being part of a gradually expanding band in the former and individually appearing waving among the grid girls between races (and then all in a row at the end) in the latter. They are made up of Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess, Donkey Kong, and Bowser, intermixed with Link, Samus, and Pit. What I want to determine here is whether we follow the above examples and give these articles despite the small nature of the appearances, and if so what level of coverage is considered.

Proposer: Deadline: July 28, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Guest appearance (articles get limited coverage)

 * 1) These most definitely seem to have the Mario characters in them, though only in a minor appearance. I'm in support.

Cameo (no articles; unchanged)

 * Opposing because the reason why those few things got full coverage is because mario is physically playable in them to some capacity. these two are only passerby cameos and a perfect example of what would go onto a List of mario References article
 * 1) Alleyway: you play as Mario for the whole game, Baseball: US manual description: Has a strong cleanup and ace, MARIO. One offensive team!, and Pinball: you also play as Mario, at least on Screen C, but it's very Mario-themed, so it gave it a boost. These two games on the other hand, only have Mario characters appearing among other non-Mario characters at the end screen, they serve no gameplay purpose and can be easily cut out, I don't see how this is any different than Punch-Out!! for NES.
 * 2) If we had still existed in the world where Qix on Game Boy had its article, we'd be inclined to agree. Unfortunately, that was merged awhile ago, and much for the same reasons that splitting this article is being opposed. Unfortunately, it'd take an overt change to how we handle first-party cameos for a split like this to make any sense; that is a debate for another day, though, and if you really must do it now... Do it up on the List of references in Nintendo video games article, not an already in-progress proposal. ;P
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) Per.
 * 5) Upon seeing these other examples given that contain cameos on par with this, I'm inclined to think these don't need their own articles. They should definitely be added to the List of references page though, per Camwoodstock.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Per all.
 * 9) While the appearances are indeed pretty obvious, there are just there for a simple gag and doesn't really impact the games very well in terms of gameplay or plot.

Decide how to name level articles for Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!
Yesterday, a move template was added to the Spooky Attic level articles for Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis by LinkTheLefty, but no active discussion or proposal was established, which is a case of drive-by templating. This proposal aims to remedy that situation.

In Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis, the level name is displayed on the floor selection screen, in the format "Room X-Y" where X is the floor number and Y is the room number; this format is also displayed on the Nintendo DS system's top screen during a level. However, as the level fades in, the level name is displayed in a different format, "Floor X Room Y", alongside the message "Ready To Go!". Thus, two different in-game names are being used for the same level, for each standard level in the game. Notably, this usage of two different names happens in an identical manner in Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!.

Deciding which of these formats to use for naming levels is a difficult case, since they would both take the highest possible priority under naming guidelines, and it doesn't seem like either game gives one of the formats more notability than the other. LinkTheLefty's argument in adding the move templates was that the format "Floor X Room Y" is the full name of the subject. However, the wiki's naming guidelines state that "the name of an article should correspond to the most commonly used English name of the subject". The format "Room X-Y" is used twice per level in March of the Minis and three times per level in Minis March Again!: on the level selection screen and during a level in both games, as well as on the level results screen in Minis March Again! only. This is as opposed to the format "Floor X Room Y", which is only used once per level as it fades into view. That difference leads me to treat naming these articles like Professor E. Gadd, where we no longer name the article because his full name is much less commonly used than the shortened version. Additionally, the format "X-Y" maintains consistency with not only the vast majority of side-scrolling Super Mario levels, but other levels in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series as well, such as Area 1-1. Therefore, I would support keeping the naming format for these levels as is, although I can see a convincing argument being made for changing the names instead.

I've given this proposal four options, since this may not be an all-or-nothing decision, especially if new evidence arises that I hadn't considered. Because both formats are official level names, whichever format is not used in the article titles will become a redirect to each level. I'd also like to note that this proposal only covers the levels in March of the Minis and the levels in Minis March Again! which currently use the format "Room X-Y" in their article names. The boss levels in each game have different unique names that may or may not warrant their own proposal, and the Shy Guy Smash! levels in March of the Minis do not have unique names at all, so the boss and minigame levels do not apply to this proposal.

Proposer: Deadline: July 31, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Continue using "Room X-Y" for both March of the Minis and Minis March Again!

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) per proposal.
 * 3) Per all.
 * 4) Per Waluigi Time.

Comments
When it comes to boss levels in Minis March Again, it's a bit more complicated (youtube.com). They are simply labelled "DONKEY KONG" on the level selection screen, "FLOOR X DONKEY KONG GAME" as the level fades in, and "FLOOR X DONKEY KONG" on the level results screen, with none of these being given any form of priority in-game; in this same respect, the analogues for regular levels are "ROOM X-Y", "FLOOR X ROOM Y", and "ROOM X-Y" again. Also, unlike with regular levels, boss levels don't have their name displayed on the top screen during gameplay. 14:46, July 24, 2023 (EDT)
 * Apologies for not bringing that up; I was aware of this, but I thought it to be irrelevant to the specific topic of the proposal, which focuses on level names that are currently titled "Room X-Y". It's worth noting that March of the Minis also uses different names (youtube.com) for its boss levels: they are labeled generically as "BOSS - DK" on the level selection screen, and uniquely as "BOSS GAME X" as the level fades in, but no level title is displayed on the results screen for any level in that game. I've modified the proposal to reflect this additional information. 16:53, July 24, 2023 (EDT)

This is good info compiled in one place, and I honestly forgot that Minis March Again! used mostly the same level format anyway. My other issue is that each name set comes from different spots, and the longer titles of the regular levels would be more internally consistent with where the March of the Minis boss levels come from (which are right now, for all intents and purposes, invoking source priority exception against identical common-use - with the exception of the two "Hidden Boss" levels that are both covered within the "DK's Hideout" article). Any abbreviations tend to go to the level code section in the level infobox. I know this proposal isn't addressing the boss levels, but I'd prefer it taken care of all at once, especially since the second game's boss levels look like they currently take their titles from yet another game screen. It seems like it became somewhat random. (And about that other thing: Yeah I get it.) LinkTheLefty (talk) 19:04, July 24, 2023 (EDT)
 * My reasoning for why I didn't include the boss level articles is not only because it would force the proposal to include more voting options and make it unnecessarily complicated, but because the boss levels are a separate case, where the ideal title to use for each level is generally more clear. For the names of the first eight boss levels in March of the Minis (Boss Game 1 through Boss Game 8), I'm not sure how they invoke any source priority exception, because all of the names discussed above are exclusively found in the games, which is always the highest priority source. For what it's worth, the North American and European instruction manuals refer to all of the boss levels generically as "DK stages" on page 18 and "DK levels" on page 16, respectively. Those are the only sources that would share a tier of priority with the in-game names, meaning that for the levels currently titled "Boss Game X", the only unique names for those levels are in the "Boss Game X" format: I was corrected when I claimed otherwise. The regular levels in either game are a different case, because they have two formats that designate each level with unique numbers, which are "Room X-Y" and "Floor X Room Y". For the "Hidden Boss" levels in DK's Hideout, not only do they have clear in-game level names of B1 and B2, but they can both be covered at once on the DK's Hideout article anyway. The more interesting case is the level called "Final Boss" on the roof, which is indeed the name of the floor according to both instruction booklets. "Final Boss" is the only level on that floor, so the article covering both the floor and level should remain "Roof". Aside from that clear-cut evidence, naming the article "Final Boss" would be silly and/or confusing, because that term could apply to any final boss. Finally, for the boss levels in Minis March Again!, although those levels do have two unique names for each level ("FLOOR X DONKEY KONG GAME" as the level fades in and "FLOOR X DONKEY KONG" on the level results screen), the name currently used for those levels is "Floor X Donkey Kong". This is in fact consistent with the "Room X-Y" format for standard levels, which is also used on the level results screen: compare the Room 1-1 results screen with the Floor 1 Donkey Kong results screen (youtube.com) . Once again, the only reason the March of the Minis boss level articles are named "Boss Game X" is because there is no other unique name for them whatsoever, and they certainly shouldn't all be named "BOSS - DK" with the floor name as an identifier when the "BOSS GAME X" text is present with the same source priority. If this is still an issue of contention, I'll happily make a second proposal one week from when this proposal was created, but as I mentioned, I want to keep this proposal's voting options as simple as possible. 16:58, July 25, 2023 (EDT)
 * Extra emphasis should be placed on the word "unique" here, so yes, from my understanding, the bosses do edge away from the "most commonly used" labels, hence, an exception is made. I feel like I should make a little table here to show what I mean by picking and choosing from different name sets. All I'm pointing out is that the full titles would be more consistent with where we take the names for the boss levels in March of the Minis (Minis March Again! can come later). But if you'd rather focus on the regular levels: honestly, I've been wondering a bit recently if "most common in-game name" would necessarily be the optimal approach in every single case, as seen in my hesitation here. If we were to go beyond this in the strictest sense, we might have to re-evaluate things like the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mario & Wario worlds, and consider giving them the series-standard world-number-and-identifiers. After all, that would align with the uniform approach of the shorter names used in this very proposal, right? That these are up to proposals means we have room to bend the rules a bit, you understand. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:50, July 25, 2023 (EDT)
 * Doesn't the "most commonly used name" thing just refer to American English over British English? That's definitely the impression I get from how the policy is worded. 18:29, July 25, 2023 (EDT)
 * I've thought about this some more, and I've also made a reference table to use for any further discussion. I will concede that the "most commonly used name" rule on MarioWiki:Naming most likely was not meant to apply to discrepancies within the North American version of a single game, and that the outcomes of many proposals inherently bend the rules on a case-by-case basis; however, I still stand by every other point I make in the proposal and comments above, including the point about how "Room X-Y" maintains consistency with other games. I do recognize that according to the reference table I made, for March of the Minis specifically, the current format that article titles use for normal and boss levels respectively are not consistent with each other; however, there are only two options that would make them consistent. The first is using the generic title "BOSS - DK" for all of the first eight boss levels, which is an absurd approach that would necessitate separate identifiers for all eight articles. The second is using "Floor X Room Y" for the regular levels and "Boss Game X" for the boss levels, and I do see this as a valid option. However, regardless of whether or not the "most commonly used name" rule applies here, I can't ignore the consistency with the names of levels in other games, even in the same series, that the "Room X-Y" format provides. I have some contention with your point about the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mario & Wario worlds, because the article names we currently use are clearly unique names that have some thought put into them, which is why we default to using them. Case in point: the articles for Mushroom Mayhem and Mini Mayhem are not named "Floor 1", despite that name being more prominently featured on the level selection screen, and the unique names being subtitles on each floor. In contrast, "Floor X Room Y" feels less unique and more like a needlessly complex way to describe the same floor-and-room number formatting as "Room X-Y", just like "Floor X Donkey Kong Game" in Minis March Again! is more needlessly complex than "Floor X Donkey Kong". On that topic, for Minis March Again!, the normal and boss level article titles are consistent with each other, and I see no good reason to change either of them. I'm probably going to make a separate proposal for the boss level articles anyway, just to establish a set guideline, but let me know your current thoughts on this. 23:07, July 29, 2023 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.