Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages

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Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (list updated 04-25)

Bump, I can totally help doing this. I'm a beta elements expert. Just today, I updated a bunch of information on the PiT page.

EDIT: Dear lord. (Paper Mario/Beta elements)
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (list updated 04-25)

Oh hey, good job. I moved the (identified) Super Mario RPG 2 screenshots to a separate gallery.



I added categories to the page for the original Smash Bros.,. It's rather lacking in sources, though.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (list updated 05-09)

Thank you.

Are you sure all of those early Mario Kart 64 screenshots are from the "Super Mario Kart R" version, though? Not sure if a simple title change makes it a wholly different iteration, either.



The Super Mario 64/Beta elements and Luigi's Mansion/Beta elements are especially horrible. Both of them don't cite their sources in *any* fashion (well, the Super Mario 64 page does say things like "Early screenshots showed that..." but most of it is too vague to be useful) and just throw a bunch of links at the end of the page, is anyone willing and sad enough to check what goes where.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (list updated 05-27)

I don't know if all of the screenshots are from Super Mario Kart R (though File:Kart2.jpg looks a lot more like the final version). I also didn't have any more information than what was already on the page, so I felt simply changing the titles was good enough.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (list updated 4-29)

I've been slowly chipping off the remaining unorganized pages in the past few months. Most of the bigger pages have been done, but I could use some help for what remain.

Pages in dire need of help

Pages in slightly less dire need of help

Pages that still need to be organized
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-24)

I'll help out with a few.

EDIT: Okay NSMB can be crossed off the list.

EDIT2: Tackled SM64, so that can be crossed off too.
Although, a lot of the content covered which does not have a screenshot/sound file is unsourced. The only ref on the page is one thing for the trivia.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-26)

The list of SMB3 beta elements is done, and the remake has been split. Those can be crossed off as well.

I think I'll call dibs on NSMBW next, for tomorrow.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-26)

I've reorganized the remaining pages. List of Super Mario Sunshine beta elements, however, is tagged with many {{refneeded}} tags, so I think it needs some help.

Some of my reorganization may be wrong, but that's because I was confused at the difference between "Early builds" and "Early iteration." Where do gameplay from the E3 trailers go?
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-27)

La Marionette said:
Some of my reorganization may be wrong, but that's because I was confused at the difference between "Early builds" and "Early iteration." Where do gameplay from the E3 trailers go?
Click to expand...
"Early iterations" would be major changes to the game during development, "resulting in the finished products sharing almost nothing with their earlier incarnations." So if the E3 trailer is somewhat alike to the final game, then it would go into "Early builds".

EDIT: I rewrote NSMBWii, but it may need some further revising.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-27)

I took care of List of Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis beta elements. I will tackle Super Mario Galaxy 2 next. I already moved the SkyIslandGalaxy part because only the ISO files seem to be the best evidence, but we don't know if it really means a different galaxy or something.

Super Mario Galaxy 2's page is done. I reorganized the gallery, removed most of the Sky Island speculation, and edited the grammar.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-29)

The sections on List of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon beta elements are vaguely labelled "First build", "second build", "third build"... etc, without actually saying where they're from. I can infer the "first build" is the E3 2011 presentation due to the first bullet point, but what about the other two?
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 4-29)

One of them is the E3 2012 trailer and I think another one one was shown in between the time of the E3 2011 to the E3 2012 one, though I'm not sure.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 5-05)

(One day this'll be thrown in the completed project bin. ONE DAY.)

Most beta pages have some pretense of organisation, but the way the information is presented still isn't quite consistent. Most pages are written in a descriptive format (by which, I mean spouting off random, unrelated information), a few use bulleted lists, and a few further separate the listing by type of content (graphic, music, text...etc), though even there, the way the content is divided isn't exactly consistent.

Personally, I prefer bulleted lists as they're more concise and avoid the horrid "AND ALSO"-style writing that currently plagues most beta pages. I'd feel it'd be better to keep the content separation loose instead of having it set in stone, since different pages might be better served by different type of separation. Thoughts?
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (updated 5-05)

If the bullets can be something like this (Super_Mario_World#Regional_differences), that'd be good. That way, unrelated ideas don't need to be linked with cruft and whatnot, but there'd still be full sentences and even paragraphs to make it seem less like sterile lists and more like fleshy content.


Anyway, the real point of this post is this recently passed proposal (MarioWiki:Proposals/Archive_36#Correct_use_of_the_term_.22Beta.22). The term "Beta Elements" has gotta go, but the suggested "Pre-release concepts" title is... not ideal. A much better title would be one floated in the comments and votes: "Unused Elements" - it's more succinct and uses much plainer language without a sloppy hyphen, plus it's closer to the current title (the "beta" is inaccurate, but the "elements" is fine). And, using that name doesn't actually go against the proposal, which only suggests "changing the "Beta Elements" name to something like "Pre-release concepts"" - that gives us wiggle room to decide on what new name really would be best.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (new name needed, see post #40)

I prefer "unused elements", for what it's worth.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (new name needed, see post #40)

"Unused elements" seems ok, but after thinking about further name candidates I believe that the term "Early elements" would be a more flexible definition. "Beta" was a very general term which was used (however incorrectly) to describe an early version of the game. It was often used to state sentences such as "In the beta version of Super Mario World" and "The beta build". The term "unused" is an adjective, so it can't be used the same way the words "beta" and "early" would be used in such sentences. "In the unused version of Super Mario World". "The unused build." These sorts of sentences are common, and I don't think they'd work if the universal term was "unused". "Early" seems like a better universal term. And though a work-around could be to refer to them as something more fitting, it wouldn't be very consistent with the page titles if they to be labeled "Unused". So yeah, my vote is for "Early elements".
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (new name needed, see post #40)

It might have to be pre-release elements. "Beta" wasn't being used literally to mean second software development phase, it was being used to signify anything pre-release. I like unused elements too, but it doesn't necessarily capture changes like this (List_of_Super_Mario_Galaxy_2_beta_elements#Early_builds) as well (something that has changed isn't necessarily unused). Things like early art/drawing concepts aren't really unused either (they were never meant to go in the game, they're just early ideas). Unused data obviously fits with unused and fits less with pre-release, but I guess the notion is that since the data isn't technically accessible through normal gameplay, those elements were never properly "released" and thus they are "pre-release" elements. I guess technically the word "beta" made a similar conclusion by calling unused data "beta."

"Early elements" is very similar but is more vague than "pre-release elements." Someone visiting the wiki for the first time, I'd rather have them see "Pre-release elements" in a game's table of contents to make it 100% clear what we're talking about.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (new name needed, see post #40)

I agree with pre-release elements.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (new name needed, see post #40)

Per Porple's reasoning.
 
Re: Collab: Moving the Beta pages to "Pre-release elements"

Looks like "pre-release elements" it is, then. Anyone calling dibs on a set of pages?
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (new name needed, see post #40)

Do the pages need to be moved?
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (mass move needed, see post #40-6)

Yeah. Kinds of defeat the point of deciding on a new name, otherwise.
 
Re: Collab: Cleaning the Beta Elements pages (mass move needed, see post #40-6)

Feh, if that's the only alternative umbrella term, I'd rather just stick with "Beta Elements". Like Porplemontage said, it wasn't being used literally anyway. If people see "beta" and think "oh, stuff from early builds and coding and stuff not used in the final product", then isn't that just as clear as "pre-release elements"? The term worked just fine before we decided to get pedantic, and maybe I'm just too fast and loose with my language use, but I feel like it could continue to work just fine the way it is...
 
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