MarioWiki:Proposals

List of Talk Page Proposals

 * Separate Wii U audio files from the ones on the GBA (Discuss) Passed
 * Split the Paper Mario boos from Big Boo into a separate article. (Discuss) Passed
 * Decide if Porcupuffers are Cheep Cheeps (Discuss) Deadline: June 16, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Seperate Payday Waystation into a separate article (Discuss) Deadline: June 18, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Blurp (Yoshi's Story) with Cheep Cheep (Discuss) Deadline: June 21, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Big Bertha with Boss Bass (Discuss) Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Boss Bass with Cheep Chomp (Discuss) Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT
 * Merge Alph with Captain Olimar (Discuss) Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Writing Guidelines
None at the moment.

New features
None at the moment.

Removals
None at the moment.

Use explanation text to explain pronouns and whatnot in quotes
Let's take a look, for example, in this section of the List of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door quotes. I see that, since Princess Peach is referenced many times, there are many "you"s linking to her article, and this is just to indicate that she is the one being referenced. But it doesn't seem right to use links for this purpose, because for what I know they are supposed to support navigation. Plus, since regular articles usually use only one link to some subject (on the first mention), it would be nice to do the same with quotes.

So, I propose that, whenever a subject must be identified in a quote (except on the first mention), we use This kind of explanation to identify it.

So, this quote from Super Paper Mario:
 * "If he thinks you are the hero, you probably are. I think..."

Would become:
 * "If he thinks you are the hero, you probably are. I think..."

Proposer: Deadline: June 16, 2015, at 23:59 GMT.

Support

 * 1) Per my proposal.

Oppose

 * 1) I really don't see the issue of using links to link to character articles? Adding links to character name certainly doesn't create any problems whatsoever, and what you're doing is basically stripping away the link function, since these two function essentially the same: hovering over a name to show a character's name. I'm not exactly against this, but I see this as a pointless change so I'm just going for the do-nothing option, which is essentially this vote.
 * 2) - The span stuff is a huge pain to use, where as links are easy and do no harm. The wiki's studded with blue overall (or whatever colours you have your skins set to: not our fault if they links are garish), and cases like the example where "you" gets liked twice shouldn't happen anyway since the first link establishes who it is. Other times, context can tell us who's the subject matter, or perhaps the identity might not matter, just the soundbite itself for the sake of the speakers' character, so even links wouldn't be necessary. Other times, parenthetical context can be provided to explain the quotes, again without links. Overall, it's really not as bad as the proposal makes it out to be.
 * 3) That would make sense, but the problem is that the links are showing what characters they mean. In the game, it doesn't show the characters names, but since this is the Mario Wiki, it has more information on everything. I would say, "per all".
 * 4) People would like to know what characters the quote is referring to. Per all.
 * 5) I wouldn't support outright banning the span stuff, but there's no point in using it when it's a pain to implement it (I use it for furigana inputting). I understand how this alternative is attractive rather than redundant links, but I'd stick with the simpler brackets.
 * 6) It's literally almost the same thing, except with more wikicode. I don't really see the point of this.
 * 7) While I sort of disagree with the other people and believe this can be a great timesaver, it unfortunately can also be very confusing. Assuming you did not know to hover over the text (which is probably going to be most people), then, well... it just doesn't work anymore, does it?

Comments
Perhaps we can compromise by replacing all first instances (in general) with links and then making repeated instances with the explanation text fields? 21:48, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Even so...what does that do that links can't? 21:50, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Isn't that accomplishing the same thing with less convenience? It just seems like an unnecessary step to me. What's the downside/negative aspect of having the links in the first place?
 * @Baby Luigi: it's less of an eyesore than techno-color links all over the place (and maybe mobile users don't have to worry about accidentally touching them or something). We don't link every text in the gallery pages for that same reason, so maybe we can use those fields instead. However, as Time Turner said, it's another piece of wiki code to memorize and incorporate. 21:53, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Techno color links? You mean two colors, blue and black? That's not an eye sore at all. Perhaps we can limit the linking to once per pronoun referral but that's about it. It's not that much of an eyestrain unless this wiki uses the yellow color to link things. I don't know how mobile users work though. 21:56, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
 * That's exactly what I mean. And what I mean by techno-color links, look at the example in the proposal: two links to Mario's page is a bit ludicrous. If those links are meant to give clarification, then we shouldn't have to solely rely on them; stuff like explanation text wrap exists. 22:04, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
 * I still don't see the problem in that? You're making this a bigger deal than it really is. It's still only two colors, blue and black, and it links just as much as any other article on the wiki does. 22:06, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
 * I was exaggerating myself here in terms of "gaudy links", but yeah, it was hard to tell. Sorry for that. 00:54, 9 June 2015 (EDT)

There isn't really a major problem with using links, but I think it is worth to point out that the article rules say "In general, only the first occurrence of a subject in an article should be linked to, with all subsequent occurrences in the body text written as plain text only, to avoid redundancy and clutter.". If excessive linking on article pages is recognized as clutter, then logically it should also be considered clutter on quote pages. Forbidding it in one place and making it standard protocol in another is inconsistent, and the proposal is correct in attempting to address this. - 02:51, 13 June 2015 (EDT)
 * The rule also says "Duplicate links appearing in lists, [...] are also allowed regardless of the length of a page.", so "list of quotes" are already exempt. - 12:24, 13 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Yeah, it's mostly about common sense, though, since manual of style is a guideline anyway. If the linking looks excessive on lists, feel free to remove them. 12:54, 13 June 2015 (EDT)
 * The point I was trying to make is: The fact that the rules themselves acknowledge links like these as clutter lends validity to complaints about the same clutter being allowed in lists. Claims of "this is not a problem" do not hold water because the rules definitely recognize it as a problem in other parts of the wiki already. It is more accurate to say "this is kind of a problem, but we really haven't found an efficient alternative yet". This is what I think this proposal is trying to do: Find an alternative. Whether it is efficient enough is up to everyone's personal judgment, but the core thought behind it is perfectly valid. - 03:13, 14 June 2015 (EDT)

Miscellaneous
None at the moment.