MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive/59

Decide how to cover Mario Kart Tour bonus challenges on course articles
The layout of each bonus challenge in Mario Kart Tour (e.g. Ring Race) depends on the course in which it is set. It tracks, therefore, that these challenges should be covered in detail on their relevant course articles in addition to their parent article. If you wish to see how a course article would look with coverage of its bonus challenges, scroll down to the "Mario Kart Tour" section in the "History" section here.

However, bonus challenges have been observed to appear multiple times across the game's tours, sometimes with changed objectives, which prompts wiki users to regularly update their list entries. Simply copying and pasting these entries onto another article would make it more difficult for users to be aware of which needs to be updated where. On the other hand, adding a way to transclude entire entries (allow information entered on a page to be automatically transferred to another) would spaghettify the original code and potentially deter users from updating it with new information. For instance, this is how the code for an average bonus challenge entry currently looks:


 * MKT Tour1 YoshiCupChallenge.png
 * New York Minute
 * MKT Icon Yoshi.png Yoshi
 * MKT Icon PipeFrameLimeGreen.png Pipe Frame
 * MKT Icon SuperGliderLimeGreen.png Super Glider
 * 5
 * 8
 * 12
 * New York Tour
 * 12
 * New York Tour

(source: Do Jump Boosts article)

and this is how it would look with a transclusion mechanism in place:

A bit ugly, innit? On average, this would only save a small number of bytes on the target article--less than 100, really. Picture, now, an entire table with the same code plastered repeatedly. I believe the wiki should account for editor friendliness too, especially when the returns of optimisation are disappointing.

I am not sure how to proceed here. I am unwilling to go ahead with either option unless I have a clear-cut vision of each one's net advantages. I will thus be resorting to the community's choice.

Proposer: Deadline: June 9, 2022, 23:59 GMT June 16, 2022, 23:59 GMT June 23, 2022, 23:59 GMT June 30, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Transclude sections

 * 1) I'm not very well informed on MKT since I don't play it, but from what I can see, transclusions seem preferable to copy-pasting and having to update multiple pages. The transclusion code, while a bit bulky, is hardly impenetrable and I don't see how it would complicate updating the tables. It's not like the updates would require overhauling the table code, just adding a new line or two.

Leave as is (bonus challenges will continue to be listed in image galleries)

 * 1) While both options are doable, both unfortunately have their own setbacks. Transcluding, while it may be better, also takes longer than copy-pasting stuff, especially since the formatting has to be precise. It might be a bit better to discuss with the admins which option would be best.

Comments
Mario Kart Tour's tables tend to be pretty sloppy overall (no offense but this ranked cup table is rather monstrous though other tables don't fare much better) though I'm not really understanding this proposal. Probably repetitive content? Maybe the table format just isn't suitable for this sort of thing? 10:55, June 9, 2022 (EDT)
 * The tables' designs aren't what the proposal is about (though, if you have suggestions for their improvement--here for instance--by all means state them somewhere appropriate). The proposal is to decide on an optimal way the already existent table sections on bonus challenge pages can be reproduced on relevant course articles. Both the copy-pasting and the transcluding methods come with their disadvantages, so I was hoping we would decide on the one option with less. I could simply go through with an option I see fit, but if it later proves to be less optimal or editor-friendly than the other (e.g. the bulky transclusion code would discourage editors who typically update these bonus challenge pages) I'd have to re-edit tens of pages. Why not pre-empt that with wiki consensus? 11:17, June 9, 2022 (EDT)