MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Add an Internal Name syntax to Template:Foreign names
This has been on the back of my mind for a while, but now I have time to bring it up. Our current practice regarding internal names is to put it in the Japanese section of the Foreign names template if a page has a NIOL section, effectively treating all internal names as Japanese ones. But the thing is, internal names aren't always Japanese. Usually, an internal name that isn't just numbers and unreadable utilitaristic code falls into one of these three categories:

A. It's a romanization of a Japanese word. For example, Ustubo is a romanization of ウツボ (eel).

B. It's an English word. For example, Crawler is an English word meaning "thing that crawls".

C. It's a mix of A and B. For example, Slave Basa is derived from the English word "slave" and the romanization of バサバサ (fluttering sound).

There can be instances where a language other than English or Japanese is used for internal names, but I can't think of an instance where that has happened in something under this Wiki's scope.

Of course, Japanese names can be English loanwords converted to Japanese kanji, which has happened before (like with many Donkey Kong enemies), but it feels wrong/is just speculation to say that all fully-English-derived internal names are meant to be romanizations of a loanword-written-in-kanji equivalent, especially when the localized names of enemies have been used as internal names before.

As for the syntax, I was thinking to just use |Int= and |IntM= for consistency's and simplicity's sake.

EDIT: SmokedChili suggested another way, by putting Internal Names in a separate table instead of grouping them with the NIOL template. I will be adding this idea.

Proposer: Deadline: May 14, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Add the syntax

 * 1) Per Proposal. Also, the three categories I made are just generalizations, we also have more weird blend cases like with Raidon, which is a case of Japanese words being used for an English-derived pun.
 * 2) - Seems like a good compromise to me.
 * 3) I don't mind this in theory.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) Well the Japanese do like using nonJapanese names to sound cool, and not all Mario games are developed by Japanese people (I mean would Luigi's Mansion 3 internal names be Japanese or Canadian or something, yes, Canadian is a language, roll with it, we should have a parameter just for general internal names, yeah.
 * 6) Additionally, by sorting internal names to the top of the cell, we make names seem official that the Japanese-speaking public was never intended to recognize. I'm fine with documenting internal names in these tables, and with chronologically sorting other dated names. This combination just interrupts the tables' legibility. A separately labeled row would fix it.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Agreed, especially now that we have cases in which the localized names are based on the internal name rather than the Japanese one

Use a separate table for internal names

 * 1) Second choice.
 * 2) Per SmokedChili, since we can't really say that internal names are a language.
 * 3) This can work as well, provided the table is properly placed (e.g. before the table of the names in other languages)
 * 4) Per my comments.
 * 5) This might be better in a few ways.
 * 6) The idea's good, but can we have a preview on what it'll look like?
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Per all.
 * 9) - Yes.
 * 10) Per all.
 * 11) Per all.

Comments
By the by, where exactly would this be placed if the proposal passes? For the past year now, the foreign names template keeps Japanese at the top but has reordered other languages alphabetically (not sure if I agree a set order is best in terms of future-proofing but, well, I suppose that bridge can be crossed when more material originates from non-Japanese or English-speaking creators). It'd look awkward if "Internal" was in alphabetical order. I'd personally put it above Japanese since it should predate the finalized Japanese name, where they differ. LinkTheLefty (talk) 16:57, May 7, 2022 (EDT)
 * Yeah I agree, I was thinking that it would be placed above the Japanese section of the template too. Somethingone (talk) 17:00, May 7, 2022 (EDT)

Honestly, I think the better solution would be to give internal names their own (sub)section from NIOL since the internal names can be English names and/or by English developers and thus questionable as NIOLs in the first place. A section like that could be also used to cover all the internal names found in the games. SmokedChili (talk) 08:56, May 8, 2022 (EDT)
 * Y'know that's actually a really good point. But how would we do that? Would we need to repurpose the NIOL template / make a smaller copy of it just for internal names, or just write it in plain text? Somethingone (talk) 09:25, May 8, 2022 (EDT)
 * A new template based on the foreign names template may work well enough with parameters like "General" and "General2" (for grouping recurring names) and game specific ones like "SM64" (if the game is the only case where the name appears in the code). SmokedChili (talk) 13:33, May 8, 2022 (EDT)
 * I like that idea, though I think it would be better if we just left the game-specific abbreviations out and instead just put the game-origin of the name in manually (like |IntG=Super Mario 64 or something). Somethingone (talk) 15:11, May 8, 2022 (EDT)

The Italian Mario Wiki (Mario's Castle) has something like this. It has an "Internal" parameter that's placed at the top, above Japanese. You can see an example of it here. But my question is, what if filenames aren't very usable? For example, Paper Mario: Color Splash and Paper Mario: The Origami King always use three-character shortenings, sometimes adding extra to indicate variants: "KUR" is Goomba, and "KURB" is Bone Goomba. And sometimes it isn't obvious, like Tangerino Grill Chef being "CKNP" in CS -- we don't know if this would be "Chef Kinopio" or "Cook Kinopio". Do we add them and explain them? Or just leave them out? 01:48, May 10, 2022 (EDT)
 * There are multiple cases in which the portmanteau of the foreign name isn't one way either, plus we'll have cases like Raidon where they likely went with a double pun and we'll need to explain both of them, so it's fine to cite the various possible meanings (plus Paper Mario: Color Splash usually features a more complete name in the strings related to the scripted behaviors or to the enemy data, so you might want to do additional checks there).--Mister Wu (talk) 05:12, May 10, 2022 (EDT)

@Bazooka how's this look? Somethingone (talk) 08:16, May 12, 2022 (EDT)
 * Just one suggestion: put the internal name as-is, and when it's part of a longer string, put the substring. Changing the order of the words is arbitrary and could be misleading, when we don't really understand the internal name.--Mister Wu (talk) 05:52, May 13, 2022 (EDT)
 * Noted and corrected. Somethingone (talk) 06:13, May 13, 2022 (EDT)
 * Looks good but is there any way to reduce white space? I thought maybe it could be an extension of the language template and then some switcher can enable it and then we can add information to that template. 03:24, May 14, 2022 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.