A dire need to split up our long articles

[Paper Jorge]

What's up, forum. This is something I've thought about in years prior that I think I want to formally address. Before we even begin drafting up any sort of proposals, I think an open discussion on ideas or general comments would benefit. We've gotta talk about our long pages. We absolutely have to. It is getting downright ridiculous. I think this is absolutely inevitable and if we don't take care of it now, it's gonna just come up again brought up by someone else in a near future.

This is a list of the MarioWiki's longest pages.

This is a list of Wikipedia's longest pages.

Our longest article is a little over twice the length of the largest Wikipedia article. I have a decent gaming rig with decent internet and my browser still chokes up trying to browse any of the MarioWiki's top pages. What makes matters worse is that we're a very image friendly website, our articles have a baffling amount more images than any of Wikipedia's longest pages.

We've got to find a way to start future-proofing these articles at one point or another. The Mario series is clearly not going anywhere. What's another 35 years worth of games going to do to Mario's article?

Wikipedia already found ways around this, of course, over a decade and a half ago. Splitting off big topics into smaller chunks. Take President Joe Biden's article. They've split it up nearly every subsection into its own article. By doing so, it is very user friendly to navigate into individual topics, like time frames, reputation, political positions, so on and so forth. Even further, the political positions article splits up economic and environmental policies into their own articles. This makes it much easier for users to edit, and it makes it easier to tackle and even reformat these large walls of text. It is so overwhelming to read Mario's article compared to an article like this on Wikipedia. It's not very digestible.

Here's some ideas on how to do this, taking our largest articles:

• List of favored and favorite courses in Mario Kart Tour: This article makes my computer fans start whirring angrily. There are so many images. I cannot deny it is formatted beautifully but I'm lagging trying to even scroll through it. I can't imagine what this article is like on a standard work or school computer. We can split it much further into This one's taken care of!
• List of trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U I think proposals have been drafted up before into only covering Mario series trophies before, but that's a lot of work gone to waste. I also do not see the harm in our current coverage of Smash Bros. This issue is easily fixable by either:
  • Splitting off each individual series into its own article such as "List of Pikmin trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U" or,
  • Splitting off only Mario-related series into their own articles, while keeping all non-Mario trophies all contained within the same article. That would mean List of Super Smash Bros. series trophies in Super Smash, List of Super Mario Bros. series trophies, List of Donkey Kong series trophies, List of Yoshi's Island series trophies and then push everything else to List of other series trophies. Even that distinction would cure a lot. Further splitting DLC trophies into their own article could also be of big help.
• List of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! quotes This one's easy and I'm not sure why it hasn't been done already. Main characters with multiple episode appearances should already be getting their own article, ex. "List of Mario quotes in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!"
• Spirit (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) Since spirits are not separated by series but rather number, this might only be a tad trickier but "List of spirits" should have already been its own article to begin with. We can split that further into separating by digits.
• Pokémon Break it down further by games. List of Pokemon in Super Smash Bros., List of Pokemon in Super Smash Bros. Melee, you know the drill.

Going down a bit further into the list, we have articles like the Bowser article, the Mario article, Peach article and, you know, the main cast. We could possibly break that down further into "History of Mario", "History of Bowser", to go further in depth into their individual game appearances. Further on in the future, we could break that down further into "History of Mario in the Super Smash Bros. series", "History of Mario in the Paper Mario series", but this one's just an idea. This one is more controversial, so I'd love to hear other suggestions on this one. There's definitely various options. I do think the inevitably on the main cast's articles expanding indefinitely in the future is something to strongly consider.

 

[Ray Trace]

These articles are additionally gigantic bandwidth hogs and people with slow internet conditions find it a humgonous chore to load, even with a powerful computer. It's also a huge issue to even edit the main character articles, such as Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, etc. because of the bandwidth, and I tend to avoid looking at these articles altogether because I can't comfortably edit it. I strongly agree that these characters who already have their galleries split up should have their history sections split, and I agree that their articles are not going to get any smaller as a result.

Spirit (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) Since spirits are not separated by series but rather number, this might only be a tad trickier but "List of spirits" should have already been its own article to begin with. We can split that further into separating by digits.

I want this article nuked of all of its nonMario relevant content entirely. Spirits such as Mecha-Fiora, Paz Ortega Andrade, and Girl from Hajimari no Mori has absolutely no relevance to Mario whatsoever and it overlaps with SmashWiki coverage. The same should apply to our trophy and sticker articles. Even SmashWiki does not list every single spirit it has in an entire giant article, they split it by series...

 

[zel]

like. exactly do we need coverage of every single trophy and spirit when smash wiki does it better and here it just clogs up server space with the countless spirit image uploads that are there

 

[Waluigi Time]

For the record, from a technical standpoint deleting an image doesn't make it take up any less space on the server since it can be restored at any time. It would have to be intentionally purged from the database. Realistically the only space that would be saved by doing this would be any future content that doesn't get covered.

Anyway I agree that something should probably be done with these articles, especially Mario Kart Tour content which is an absolute behemoth that inevitably will continue increasing in size until they stop supporting the game, which considering how much of a cash cow it apparently is, that probably won't be anytime soon.

The Spirit page is already set to be split by a proposal to have only 500 per page, but it hasn't been enacted yet.

 

[Paper Jorge]

like. exactly do we need coverage of every single trophy and spirit when smash wiki does it better and here it just clogs up server space with the countless spirit image uploads that are there

Yeah, I can totally get that. Empathetically, it might suck for those that have spent hours upon hours on the mariowiki's version, but these are valid points; as long as the SmashWiki exists in its current form, they're doing Smash coverage leagues better than we even want to.

I would prefer to merely split them like Shmaluigi said 500 per page, as excess bandwidth usage is going to happen regardless but that's neither here nor there, it ultimately won't be up to me. I'm not sure if a proposal has been made in the past about removing excess Spirit and Trophy info, but that'd be a good start as any.

These articles are additionally gigantic bandwidth hogs and people with slow internet conditions find it a humgonous chore to load, even with a powerful computer. It's also a huge issue to even edit the main character articles, such as Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, etc. because of the bandwidth, and I tend to avoid looking at these articles altogether because I can't comfortably edit it. I strongly agree that these characters who already have their galleries split up should have their history sections split, and I agree that their articles are not going to get any smaller as a result.

You summed up how I feel perfectly. I'm intimidated by main character articles to the point I don't even want to deal with editing them. It's an uphill battle.

 

[Koopa con Carne]

I'm not sure if a proposal has been made in the past about removing excess Spirit and Trophy info, but that'd be a good start as any.

There has. The consensus is, well, reflected in the current status quo.

Speaking personally: non-Mario Smash content has no business being on the Super Mario Wiki if it hasn't already had some history in Mario media, and it was a significant history to boot. Link, Inkling, Banjo, Villager et al. are fair game because they appeared in Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing, or Mario comics, and omitting Smash information about those would feel weird considering the wiki gives this franchise coverage. But other stuff like Fire Emblem fighters needs to go, and so do similarly irrelevant trophy and spirit listings.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Not to mention we DO have a policy that a page of a certain byte limit is recommended to be split setting the limit at around 100k (1/10th of that blipping Tour course page), and there are tons of pages that go well north of that limit. You are absolutely correct that these pages tend to be littered with images

We're focused on the biggest pages on the wiki, but we got serial offenders Mario, Bowser (especially that monster ), Luigi, Toad, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong also having these mammoth pages. Has these history sections ever served a purpose for you? I often find myself skimming through them and just looking at general information stuff and "creation", which is usually the most interesting parts of the article. Indeed I don't edit these pages too often, just in bursts of energy, and I do edit the Mario page fairly frequently, but...

Honestly I sometimes even wonder if history sections are organized like they should be. It's still an issue to me we're jumping from like Super Mario Odyssey right back into Golf for the NES. I understand a proposal a while back trying to overhaul it but it created its own problems but the current scheme is not very satisfactory.

Mario

Mario's page definitely needs a split; his history section is worth looking as its own page for instance, but it also is filled with a lot of story details that really shouldn't be there. I did work chopping down plot synopses, sometimes overdoing it and having it be too abrupt (for instance, the anime movie probably needs more prose), but instead of these plot synopses I try to make the sections about Mario's unique abilities in the game and about the worlds he explores, the people he meets, the powerups he has, and whatnot.

I do frequent overviews of the article and see what needs to be trimmed, and I still think it's really big. I do think the "list of Mario's appearances" eventually needs its own page, and it should cover his appearances outside the games too especially merchandise appearances. General information is BIG too, but if there are recommendations on what we should do with this section, I'm all ears.

Bowser

Bowser oh boy I remember this was a featured article back then. That article is dire. I'm using a beefy computer and the page is a monumental strain. I can't imagine what it's like for mobile browsers. Its problems should be really obvious. The general information section could be its own LENGTHY article, and it's filled with what I think is overanalysis. The appearance section is the worst offender, having entire plot synopses per section, the Paper Mario series being by far the worst offenders but we're seeing huge chunks of paragraphs devoted to Bowser's role in all Mario Party games, and I mean most Mario Party installments have at least 5 lengthy paragraphs. Most Mario platformers have a thin gruel of plot, so the sections are devoted to boss fights. There's a way to describe boss battles but I'm left wondering if these battles should have information in the level articles and be much shorter in the main Bowser article.

The images are indeed very excessive, probably as an attempt to support the huge swaths of text. Not all of them seem really necessary such as some artwork that are included just because it's key art for the game and not because it necessarily adds to Bowser's article, such as the Mario Tennis Aces art or the Mario Party 8 art. Mario's article has issues, sometimes worse (such as a speck of Mario cameo in Captain Toad).

Luigi

Probably because Luigi has usually a smaller role than Mario or Bowser, his sections don't appear at a glance all that bloated. Luigi's Mansion can use a trim though, in a similar vein Super Mario Sunshine needed it. Probably the personality section can be trimmed, also suffers from overanalysis.

Anyway I can't go too deep into it since I spent a huge time trying to sift through these articles and got into a tangent trying to improve the pages. I do think that Spirits pages go all together. I was really surprised we have a spirits page with that sort of comprehensive information. It must be really disappointing for editors to pour so much effort into something that has questionable relevance to the wiki though, but that's coverage creep I'm afraid. I had a sore back working on Melee's bonuses list years ago, and that was later considered coverage creep and removed.



Mario Kart Tour pages tend to be monstrous in all aspects honestly, but that's partially due to the game itself being a monstrous web of monetization. Those icons are neat but were never meant to be used so egregiously like in the "List of favored courses" article. What can help immensely is if we uploaded a far smaller variant of these images, like maybe a 64x64 rather than 465 x 465 stuff but I don't know how much it'll cut down on the image glut.

 

[Koopa con Carne]

Honestly I sometimes even wonder if history sections are organized like they should be. It's still an issue to me we're jumping from like Super Mario Odyssey right back into Golf for the NES. I understand a proposal a while back trying to overhaul it but it created its own problems but the current scheme is not very satisfactory.

I find the current organisation fine. Pages list appearances of a subject chronologically under a sub-series heading, and those sub-series are in turn listed chronologically as well.

The alternatives would be:
a. (Chronologically) listing appearances on their own, regardless of their pertinence to a series, which would bog down accessibility;
b. Go full 2006 and fragment a subject's history into eras/periods with bullshit titles like "The Trials and Tribulations".

******

I'd be down for splitting History sections into their own pages, kinda like List of Donkey Kong Country episodes featuring Donkey Kong is its own thing.

 

[Doomhiker]

It terms of Super Smash Bros. pages, I've already expressed in the past the desire to reduce non-related content. My mistake previously was simply casting the net too wide - focusing on specific, singular issues is the best path to take in order to cut down content. Many users agree that our coverage is excessive - it simply is the degree of excess and what should be done with it that has been controversial. I don't personally think that deleting the work of other users should be much of a barrier to cutting down coverage - content has been removed en masse before, such as when the wiki removed its Conker / Banjo content and a significant amount of its more superfluous Smash content a few years back. Having content you worked on be completely removed sucks, but the possibility of heavy modification or removal is simply a risk that one has to accept when they work on a publicly open fan-run wiki. Content is inherently ever-changing and non-permanent on wikis.

More related to the subject on hand, I do agree that our largest articles should be cut up both for practical and readability reasons. It frankly, is ridiculous that our top five largest pages are all completely unrelated to the Mario franchise. If we don't decide to remove non-Mario trophies, spirits, etc, we should at least divide by franchise (large franchises get their own page, miscellaneous franchises that have one or two get grouped together). Large main character pages should have their history and general info pages be separate given their ever-increasing nature, and quotes can easily be divided by major characters with a page for the others.

The largest concern for pages is, as many have identified, for Mario Kart Tour. Out of the fifty largest pages on the wiki, 23, nearly half, are alarmingly related to MKT directly. Given the game's rapidly and every-expanding nature (the game's not even three years old and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon) it's clear that if action is not soon taken it will get out of hand. Given that Tour is a real-time based game, it makes sense that most of its pages be split up by years. That is, the favored and favorite pages should be split by tour year for the larger ones, like List of _ tour appearances in Mario Kart Tour (2020), as well as the actual list of tours page. The badges should have a separate page for the actual list. The actual Mario Kart Tour page itself has already been extensively split (I remember when the tours weren't a seperate page), but this should go further by having a seperate page for the courses, the items, and perhaps other elements. Doing so will ensure that these pages remain sustainable in the long-term.

 

[Ray Trace]

as someone who uploaded a large chunk of the smash wii u trophies herself

kill the images

please.

 

[Mcmadness]

I also think some articles would benefit from being trimmed or re-written entirely.

Looking at you Bowser.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

I did the unthinkable and split off Mario's history section to its own page

History of Mario

Mario is the main character of the Super Mario franchise. His history spans decades of media primarily in video games, but it also includes cartoons, books, and other promotional materials. Though Mario is usually the main protagonist in his...

www.mariowiki.com

The main Mario page is not getting smaller. I thought it's better now than later to split off. Waiting until more information comes in will only make our job harder. I had to take initiative. Maybe a proposal should've been shot first, idk, but I brought up a talk page discussion that went on for a while, we got forum comments all agreeing to the same thing, our policy says it, and our discord conversation seems unanimous. So I just decided to Be Bold.

The bloated Mario page is, well, history. Or it should be anyway.

 

[ThePowerPlayer]

As the resident Wario superfan with absolutely nothing better to do, I've also gone ahead and split Wario's history section into its own article.