MarioWiki:Proposals

Writing guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

The Usage of Old Names in Articles
Currently, it's standard practice to use the old name of a subject while writing about in at a point in time where that old name was in use. For example, Blooper was called "Bloober" in Super Mario Bros., so "Bloober" would be used when talking about Super Mario Bros. instead of the more recent name. If a link is involved, it would be coded as Bloober, always maintaining the old name. Though this isn't outlined in the policy pages, as far as I can tell, there was a proposal that set out to outline this exact issue, and ultimately decided to use old names when relevant (thank you . However, I'm not entirely in agreement with the outcome.. To outline the pros and cons of the current situation:

Pros:

Considering that these names were consistently used until they happened to be changed, it naturally follows that our articles reflect that.
 * It's historically accurate.

To use the cartoons as an example, they regularly and consistently refer to Princess Peach as "Princess Toadstool". Anyone who is familiar with the cartoons would be looking for the name Toadstool and not Peach. This extends to any of the old names, really: whether it was in the cartoons, the manuals, or the guides, these names were prominent.
 * It's what people familiar with the old names would look for.

Cons:

Regardless of how consistently the old names were used, these are not the names being used today. For an encyclopedia, using the old names in articles and templates without so much as a note seems misleading.
 * It's not currently accurate.

Not everyone knows that Princess Peach's old name was "Princess Toadstool". The similarities in the names are there, but it's certainly not a given that these two names refer to the same subject. To use the cartoons as an example, someone with little knowledge of the series may read one of its pages and leave without realizing that Princess Toadstool actually refers to Princess Peach.
 * It's confusing, especially for newcomers.

To me, it makes more sense to keep articles up-to-date rather than potentially mislead readers, though I'm giving each option equal opportunity. (For the record, the MarioWiki:Naming does state that "the newer name will replace the older one" while using Blooper as an example, but as far as I can tell, that hasn't been put into effect beyond the article's name and usage in modern games.)

Proposer: Deadline: August 8, 2017 23:59

Use new names for articles

 * 1) My personal preference.
 * 2) As much as I dislike certain new names (looking at you, Bull's-Eye Bill), standardization is best.

Use old names for articles

 * 1) - I'm leaning towards to result of the original proposal. While yes, some readers may get confused, the purpose of the wiki is to display and show information as accurately as possible.
 * 2) - Fire Chomp, Podoboo, Grand Goomba, Venus Fire Trap, and Missile Bill for life!
 * 3) - Per my comments below.
 * 4) Per all.
 * 5) Per all.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Since ultimately the links then reveal what the current name of the subject is, I think that using the modern names can be extremely confusing in the case of games where the old name is showed by the game itself, especially for bestiaries where we are supposed to show the actual name used by the game. As an example, we just discovered in the 30th anniversary books that the bats of Super Mario Galaxy games have the same Japanese name of Enigmas and are thus very likely to be those bats, but there they are known in English as Bats. What would happen if we ended up using the new name also in the pages and tables related to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars ?
 * 8) Gonna have to agree with Alex since those were the names at the time.

Comments
I know I helped you find some of the information, but I'm voting against. Blooper's name in Super Mario Bros. was "Bloober", for example, so it makes sense to call it by that name where relevant. If readers end up trying to correct the name to its modern variant, we can always revert it; posting something in the edit summary or their talk page if needed. 00:25, 1 August 2017 (EDT)
 * Not every user is an editor who plans on changing the wiki. The average person wouldn't know about the name change, so they'd fully believe that the white squid enemy from Super Mario Bros was a Bloober, and not a Blooper. It seems rather disingenuous to use old names without ever mentioned that they've changed names. 00:28, 1 August 2017 (EDT)

Why can't we just advise users to say "Bloober, later known as Bloopers, appear in Super Mario Bros.. Bloobers blob around in water levels, etc." 01:53, 1 August 2017 (EDT)

Definitely opposing this. While I can kind of see the benefit to enacting this change for franchise mainstays with a "dominant" new name, like Peach and Blooper, for less prominent stuff, it's just confusing and awkward. For example, Goomba King/Goomboss. He only appears in three games. His article uses "Goomboss" because that's his most recent name, but people looking up information on Paper Mario are going to be annoyed/confused if we call him "Goomboss" even on those articles. His name in that game is clearly "Goomba King", so that's what articles relating to PM call him. I see no reason to change this. Or, for another example, the Sluggish/Slow 'Shroom Orb, an item only appearing in two games within the same series. Mario Party 6 calls it a Sluggish 'Shroom, Mario Party 7 calls it a Slow 'Shroom. Neither name is more "correct" than the other, so MP6 articles use "Sluggish" and MP7 articles use "Slow". 01:59, 1 August 2017 (EDT)


 * On one hand, it's somewhat retroactive to apply the newer names to certain articles; on the other hand, it's more consistent, is already noted just fine in the body of their own articles, and there have been official cases where more recent names were used in re-releases in favor of the older ones (like in remakes and some Virtual Console digital manuals; for example, mushroom retainers are called Toads in the 3DS Virtual Console and Wii Super Mario All-Stars manuals for Super Mario Bros., and "Magic Mushroom" completely fell by the wayside). Then there are others like Blooper and Nipper Plant that were in use in strategy guides, or instances where a given subject was only named in foreign content at times and its newer English name is preferred instead. We're specifically talking about video games, right? It would be iffy to use Peach and Bowser when referring to the DIC cartoons when they were nothing but Toadstool and Koopa during the entire run. It'd also be confusing to do this for the RPG bestiaries and info boxes, if that's considered under this proposal. What about obvious misspellings like Racoon Mario and pirana plant? Are we sticking to those just because they were contemporary? I feel like there should be a middle ground: in-game and manual elements could use whatever name they had at the time (universally preserving the very well-known changes of Peach/Toadstool, Bowser/Koopa, Starman/Super Star, RPG name changes, etc.), but names that only came from old guides are most probably obscure enough to be standardized with the more recent material. Basically, make it into a source hierarchy like the naming policy. LinkTheLefty (talk) 02:40, 1 August 2017 (EDT)
 * @Mister Wu: This is just an aside, but I very much doubt that Enigma example is intentional because Square/Square Enix most likely holds the copyright for it. LinkTheLefty (talk) 10:46, 1 August 2017 (EDT)
 * I definitely concede that mass-changing every name would do more harm than good, but at the same time, I agree with LTL in that there should be some sort of hierarchy or a well-defined system for deciding how names should be used in articles. Your point about "pirana plant" is good too: why does Super Mario Bros. uses "Bloober" for Blooper but not "pirana plant" for Piranha Plant? I'm not sure if manuals should take the same precedence as games, though, especially since most games don't require the use of the manual. 16:27, 2 August 2017 (EDT)

Standardization of Species Templates' Endings
This is a simple issue: when it comes to navigation templates based on species, some are pluralized (e.g. and ), and some are singularized (e.g.  and ). A majority of them are already plural, but most of the singular templates are for the well-known species. There's no reason why we shouldn't have consistency, so enough's enough. I personally think that it makes much more sense to pluralize all of them, but considering the number of templates that are singular, I'm including both options for fairness. Obviously, this is not even close to a major issue, but at the same time, for such a minor issue, it has yet to be cleared up, and having a uniform system makes the wiki seem all the more professional.

Proposer: Deadline: August 7, 2017, 23:59 GMT

Pluralize

 * 1) Makes the most sense to me.
 * 2) Per. I assume a bot will take care of this. If not, I'm willing to help.
 * 3) Having them in singular at all is confusing, and there's only a few singular as it is, instead of the large amount of plurals there is. Less bot work.
 * 4) The templates that are singular have plural names on their headers. Also, I should point out that you didn't include an oppose. Which, I would have chosen if I didn't look at the templates.
 * 5) Singular just sounds wrong.
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Per all.
 * 9) Per all.
 * 10) I see no reason not to do this, so per all.
 * 11) I mean we're mostly covering multiple subjects so... yeah, per all.
 * 12) Per all

Comments
Full list of covered templates:
 * Already plural:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:
 * Already singular:

@Alex: The plan is to have a bot take care of the dirty work. 00:25, 31 July 2017 (EDT)

Do Something With Game-Specific Species Categories
So, Time Turner noticed a while back that Category:Super Mario Bros. 3 Species (and most games' species categories as a whole) are basically duplicates of their enemy categories, with maybe one or two different pages. Overall, species categories as they currently stand are useless and redundant. I've included a few options on how to fix this:

Use species categories only for non-hostile, non-item, non-object species: This would redefine species categories to only count creatures that aren't enemies, aren't items, and aren't objects. In other words, they'd only be for things like Egg-Plants, Humans, Piantas, and the like.

Use species categories only for non-hostile species: Similar to the previous option, except it would also include things like Fire Flowers and Beanstalks. The problem I see here is that items and objects already have their own categories, so we'd just end up with another set of redundancies.

Delete species categories: One of the simpler options. Just get rid of every game-specific species category on the wiki, and leave articles like Bird (Super Mario Sunshine) in categories like Category:Real World Animals.

Do nothing: The simplest option. As this would involve not changing anything, I feel it'd be the most detrimental option.

Proposer: Deadline: August 8, 2017, 23:59 GMT

Use species categories only for non-hostile, non-item, non-object species

 * 1) Per proposal.
 * 2) per all.
 * 3) I think this is the best option. It gives a home to a small, but well-defined, group of articles that wouldn't otherwise have a place in one of the main categories, while also ensuring that there's little to no overlap.
 * 4) Woo boy, this looks messy. Per all.
 * 5) Per all
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Sure. Per all.

Comments
Obligatory list of affected categories:

Category:Donkey Kong Species Category:Donkey Kong 64 Species Category:Donkey Kong Country Returns Species Category:Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze Species Category:Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story Species Category:Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time Species Category:Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Species Category:Mario Power Tennis Species Category:Mario Strikers Charged Species Category:New Super Mario Bros. Species Category:New Super Mario Bros. 2 Species Category:New Super Mario Bros. U Species Category:New Super Mario Bros. Wii Species Category:Paper Mario Species Category:Paper Mario: Color Splash Species Category:Paper Mario Series Species Category:Paper Mario: Sticker Star Species Category:Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Species Category:Super Mario 3D Land Species Category:Super Mario 3D World Species Category:Super Mario 64 Species Category:Super Mario Bros. Species Category:Super Mario Bros. 2 Species Category:Super Mario Bros. 3 Species Category:Super Mario Galaxy Species Category:Super Mario Galaxy 2 Species Category:Super Mario Strikers Species Category:Super Mario Sunshine Species Category:Super Mario World Species Category:Super Paper Mario Species Category:Super Smash Bros. Series Species Category:Wario Species Category:WarioWare Series Species Category:Yoshi Species

A lot of these could probably be deleted, since a lot of them (especially platformer ones) have pretty much 100% overlap with their games' respective enemy categories.

Also: wut Niiue (talk) 20:44, 31 July 2017 (EDT)