MarioWiki:Proposals

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Citing the Super Mario Encyclopedia
To quote the wonderful Super Mario Wiki Twitter, "Dark Horse's English translation of the Super Mario Bros. encyclopedia is out today!.. And it turns out it liberally borrows from the wiki, consistency and accuracy be damned." The link contains quite a few examples and images, but in short, hordes of names are taken from either this wiki or the Mario Wikia verbatim, even if it contradicts the original Japanese encyclopedia, isn't originally from English, or was completely conjectural in the first place. This is different from the oft-cited dubiousness of other guides, which are mostly fine with occasional errors that can easily be set aside. Frankly, if we were to blindly and wholly cite every name in this book, we'd be citing ourselves, and that just seems disastrous for credibility. It's also doubtful, if not outright improbable, that these names were specifically chosen by the authors because they sincerely believed that each and every one of them were perfectly acceptable names in English, especially when they're Japanese transliterations that don't even match the Japanese book. The fact that this book is official is worth considering, but it doesn't mean that it should automatically be accepted without at least taking into account the quality issues that were previously mentioned.

With that said, there are certain names that seem to not originate from the wiki, such as "Sentry Garage" for Jump Garage, and with a lack of an English source, using that seems okay. On the one hand, it'd be like we're picking and choosing what's valid and what isn't, but on the other hand, it's plainly obvious which names were directly borrowed from the wiki, and therefore which names can be easily ignored. Think of it as salvaging whatever parts we can from a trainwreck.

Whether the guide is completely barred from being cited or is only allowed to be partially cited, let me make one thing abundantly clear: we shouldn't allow citogenesis to creep onto our wiki.

Proposer: Deadline: October 30, 2018, 23:59 GMT

Only allow part of the book to be cited

 * 1) - I'm for siting names the book uses for something we don't already have an official source for. If we've found an official source already (such as the Keronpa Ball), then we ignore the name the book uses.
 * 2) - Like Alex95 said above, I'm for citing names of enemies in the book itself which have no other official English sources, like Chibi Wanwan ("Chibi Chomp"), King Bill (Banzai Bill) ("Banzai Bull's-Eye"), but for everything else, it shouldn't be used.
 * 3) Per Alex95.
 * 4) If it weren't so obvious that the names were directly copied from the wiki by Dark Horse (who clearly made no effort to understand how this wiki works), I'd vote for the above option. If it gave us no new names for conjectural subjects, then I'd obviously vote below. But I see no way we can pass up this chance for the King Bill issue (among others) to be cleared up. This was meant to be a translation. Dark Horse gave us English names for some things and totally failed on others. So we take the English names and leave the foreign ones as is. The book was approved by Nintendo, not made by them, making it lower tier in terms of.... well, canon, even though Mario doesn't have one of those. Therefore, I think we can a bit more nitpicky about what names we take and which ones we don't.   Am I making any sense?
 * 5) As flimsy as the English translation ended up, this reminds me of the time that Prima directly reused material for their unofficial/unauthorized Yoshi's Story guide in their officially-licensed Nintendo 64 Game Secrets guide, and we cite officialized English names through the latter such as "Shy Guys on Pogo Sticks" that would otherwise never be available. Ignoring it completely would have been counterproductive, and I feel the same about Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia. Either way, Nintendo approved the final product, and you can bet there are going to be very few (if any) opportunities of these old conjectural and foreign names ever getting cleared up, so we have to work with what we've got.

Do not allow the book to be cited

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2)  Citogenesis is kinda not cool and stuff.
 * 3) The book should not be cited at all, since it contains unofficial names. But since it is an official book, the book should have its own page, with mentions that some names in it are unofficial names taken from this and other wikis, so it doesn't count as a source. We don't know if the unique names in it are from other unofficial places, so we can't risk having fake information on the wiki. We could make redirects for those fake names (with the reason being that it's in an official book), but since they're mostly fan names, those names shouldn't appear on normal pages. That's just my opinion though. Please don't make this an official source...
 * 4) I had a feeling this would happen. Dark Horse has somehow managed to get worse from Arts & Artifacts.
 * 5) Per all. Many of these names were clearly taken from this wiki, since they use names that were marked as conjectural on here, such as "Soarin' Stu" and "Mandibug Stack", and are incredibly inconsistent.

Comments
Yes, they do, hence my fury when the SML2 page was leaked. But Rudy the Clown is still on that name. It's licensed by Nintendo, though, so perhaps it's this trope at play. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 17:54, 23 October 2018 (EDT)
 * Maybe we should reconsider Rudy the Clown. Regardless, when the authors of the book are supposed to be translating from a source that already provides a slew of official names, smushing together all of the fan names and other junk reeks more of laziness or complacentness rather than a dedicated effort to ascend the fanon. 17:59, 23 October 2018 (EDT)
 * What about the individual Three Little Pighead names? Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 18:01, 23 October 2018 (EDT)
 * Hence the middle option (although since those names are transliterated Japanese unlike Sentry Garage, I'm curious to know if those are from the Japanese guide). 18:03, 23 October 2018 (EDT)
 * Same situation exists with the Furiko obstacle. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 18:05, 23 October 2018 (EDT)

The Super Mario Wiki is neither owned by nor affiliated with Nintendo or the creators of the Mario franchise in any way. I'm mad at Dark Horse right now. Anyway... This is extremely unlikely, but the idea just popped into my head of an entire template being created that somehow informs the reader that the name was officially adopted despite the subject never having an official English name prior to the wiki naming it. (I'm sure that can be worded better.) But that's nothing more than a brainstorm. 18:12, 23 October 2018 (EDT)
 * Per what I said to Doc and within the proposal, it feels unlikely that the writers are genuinely making an attempt to officially adopt these name, especially since this is supposed to be a translation. 18:15, 23 October 2018 (EDT)

If the partial citation option wins, we should clarify the placement of the book among acceptable sources for naming. I suggest either specifying that it gets lowest priority in officially licensed media, or giving it a special sixth place underneath development names. That way, it handles conjectural and foreign names as needed, but we still clearly use older or alternate names in the event of contradictions. LinkTheLefty (talk) 18:36, 23 October 2018 (EDT)