General Discussion

It's not uncommon to see people saying that Martinet "retired" from his Mario roles. I myself phrased it this way on the wiki, including the front page news.

Thing is, neither the original announcement (twitter.com) nor Doug Bowser's statements (ign.com) speak of any "retirement". That would obligately involve an indefinite period of time. Instead, they traipse around that term with words such as "transition" and "stepping back", which don't inherently describe a permanent state.

Now, sure, it's absolutely common sense to take it as PR speak and anybody who denies that Martinet is never setting foot in a recording studio for Nintendo again is setting themselves for major disappointment. But since the Mario Wiki is an encyclopedia, and it currently exclusively uses direct Nintendo statements as sources, do you guys think we should rephrase any mention of this so-called retirement to better reflect what's stated officially? If so, what would be a good alternative? "Martinet is taking a break" doesn't cover all bases.
 
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I'd like to say Martinet no longer voices Mario in the games, serving as a Mario Ambassador.
 
Is this okay to have on the Donkey Kong (franchise) page or does it sound like fancruft?

Donkey Kong media and merchandise is occasionally promoted as part of the Super Mario brand, as is the case with the Nintendo Switch version of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which is listed under the "Super Mario" banner on the European My Nintendo Store[2][3] and has been discounted as part of the 2023 Super Mario sale in Europe.[4]
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There's also the LEGO Donkey Kong sets which are sold under the LEGO Super Mario label, hence the "merchandise" part, but I wanted to keep the sentence relatively concise.

As I stated in the edit summary:
" With Super Mario and Donkey Kong Country branching off of the original arcade DK games several decades ago, there is a perception that the two IPs have grown distant enough to become full-blown separate franchises, and while that isn't necessarily wrong, there are recent cases where the stronger Super Mario brand was leveraged to bring focus to DK. I think this ought to be noted in some way. "
 
Here's me needling the community with another stupid minor question.

So I think many have already noticed I've been adding official non-English profiles and descriptions to various subjects. I'm employing a specially-made template to quickly format these in a neat way.

Do you guys have any particular observations on how these things are set up? Is there any objection to this practice so far?

My reason for adding those is that:
1. despite the wiki being primarily in English, the franchise is international and I find it basic encyclopedic diligence to document such information;
2. the "Names in other languages" lists, as well as some occasional blurb from foreign guides that were already on the wiki, acted as a fine gateway.

Many of these are mere translations of Japanese or English material, so I foresee some people arguing they are redundant. I wouldn't agree, myself, because there still exist some profiles that received new interpretations of a given subject during localization; if these are fair play, it's only consistent to have even the straight translations documented. (Did you know? Italians and Germans say Penguin Luigi hails from the South Pole, while the Spanish and the Latin Americans claim it's actually the North Pole.)

Moreover, I'm really curious how people feel about the concept of "List of [character] quotes in [foreign language]", quite possibly the next step in the wiki's multiculti ladder.
 
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Bean said:
Would anyone mind if I moved the pages in the "pages to be moved" category to their suggested names?
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It depends on the reason for the move, some are pretty clear-cut and just waiting for someone to go through with the change while others warrant more discussion. There's no good answer for the category as a whole, but you can look individually at the reasons for the suggestion and accompanying discussions.
 
Waluigi Time said:
It depends on the reason for the move, some are pretty clear-cut and just waiting for someone to go through with the change while others warrant more discussion. There's no good answer for the category as a whole, but you can look individually at the reasons for the suggestion and accompanying discussions.
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If it links to an ongoing proposal, like
Bird (toy), I won't move the article. Most of them are talk page suggestions, so it shouldn't be too complicated. The articles that warrant more discussion won't be moved either.
 
Bean said:
If it links to an ongoing proposal, like
Bird (toy), I won't move the article. Most of them are talk page suggestions, so it shouldn't be too complicated. The articles that warrant more discussion won't be moved either.
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Yeah if it seems like there's a general consensus already then you should be fine to move them.
 
Bean said:
I changed Co Star Super Jump to
Powerful Jump. Is there a way to change the name across every page it's linked to at once?
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Update any templates it's on first, then if there's still 25 or more links to the old name you can ask Porple to run his bot to change them.
 
Koopa con Carne said:
Here's me needling the community with another stupid minor question.

So I think many have already noticed I've been adding official non-English profiles and descriptions to various subjects. I'm employing a specially-made template to quickly format these in a neat way.

Do you guys have any particular observations on how these things are set up? Is there any objection to this practice so far?

My reason for adding those is that:
1. despite the wiki being primarily in English, the franchise is international and I find it basic encyclopedic diligence to document such information;
2. the "Names in other languages" lists, as well as some occasional blurb from foreign guides that were already on the wiki, acted as a fine gateway.

Many of these are mere translations of Japanese or English material, so I foresee some people arguing they are redundant. I wouldn't agree, myself, because there still exist some profiles that received new interpretations of a given subject during localization; if these are fair play, it's only consistent to have even the straight translations documented. (Did you know? Italians and Germans say Penguin Luigi hails from the South Pole, while the Spanish and the Latin Americans claim it's actually the North Pole.)

Moreover, I'm really curious how people feel about the concept of "List of [character] quotes in [foreign language]", quite possibly the next step in the wiki's multiculti ladder.
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Yes, that is true for some reason.
Here is the exact translation for the Spanish (Latin America) section: Here is Penguin Luigi, who just came from the North Pole! His special characteristic, the Ice Flower, will help him free himself from his rivals!
 
Glowsquid said:
Wikipedia artificially limits the quality and resolution of its uploads so that it can invoke the Fair Use defense should someone try to sue them about hosting copyrighted content. This model was followed by other wikis. Although we're obviously far more permissive when it come to images and quotations, this is the same reasoning that had us draw the line at hosting full transcripts and complete soundtracks uploads.

But the thing is, there's no law anywhere that says it's ok to upload a poster as long as it's less than 480p or use a commercial song as long as the quality is shit. Uploading Baby Luigi's sound clips in Mk8 in FLAC is "as legal" as if you uploaded them as a 32kb bitrate mp3. The whole "limiting quality" movement is purely to show good faith.
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I was looking for past discussions about copyright and I'm pretty intrigued by this comment. We have all uploaded material that is technically copyrighted, such as artwork and promotional photos, and the thing is, any website that takes itself seriously has a bunch of Terms & Conditions that outline, among many other things, that "the material herein (i.e. images, code etc.) is not to be redistributed without legal consent" or something to that effect.

I don't know a whole lot about law, so I gotta ask: even if no such rule as what you're exemplifying exists, can't said terms be invoked in case some company wants to sue Porplemontage Enterprises for hosting their IP, even if it was freely accessible from the start? Take this page for example. It has entire catalogs worth of photos that were lifted as they were from Gelato Pique's website, which solemnly states the following:
You may access, browse and use the Website and Website Content only for your use on a computer, mobile phone or other internet-compatible device to enable you to use the Website. You may not copy, reproduce, modify, distribute, transmit, display, perform, publish or otherwise use or exploit, through any means or media, any of the Website Content, except:

  • As expressly authorized by Gelato Pique in writing;
  • To temporarily store files that are automatically cached by your web browser for display enhancement purposes;
  • To print or download one copy of a reasonable number of pages of the Website for your personal, non-commercial use and not for further reproduction, publication or distribution;
  • To share the Website or updates of the Website, or to link to a reasonable number of pages of the Website, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and which does not damage or which does not take advantage of our reputation in any way, and provided you do not establish a link to Gelato Pique in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement by Gelato Pique. We reserve the right to withdraw any linking permission in our sole discretion at any time and without notice.
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Now, again, I know fuck-all about law, but I've perused the US Fair Use law and I don't think the wiki can claim it in this case. I've always been under the impression that the reason no corporate entity ever approached the wiki proprietor for a takedown is simply because they did not deem the redistribution of content harmful to their business and interests, or that any sort of litigation isn't worth the time and money, not because it's a particularly lawful practice.

Yes, I'm the one who uploaded the Gelato Pique content in the first place
 
Koopa con Carne said:
words
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I'm not a lawyer either, so my read on the situation is as follow. It could be bullshit. I don't know. That's how I see it.

-Since mariowiki's servers are hoted in the US (AFIK), Fair Use can be used as a defense. It's not a silver bullet like the internet would lead you to believe - the wiki can claim it hosts this many mario artwork as part of its mission to educate the public about the Mario media franchise or whatever, and that constitutes Fair Use. In an hypothetical legal battle, whether any judge buys that this allows us to host 1000 different copyrighted pictures of Mario in 8K is another thing, and hopefully we'll never have to find out.

-One thing that help ease concerns of earning ire from Nintendo is that the overwhelming majority of the images we host are promotional in nature - those artworks and logo were digital files distributed to licensees, magazines and website for the purpose of promoting Nintendo's products. They are not discrete products meant to be monetized on their own, and their purpose is to be disseminated.

-Another thing that would help the wiki any sort of legal fight is that we have repeatedly enforced good faith and made clear we are not a substitute for Mario products. We've deleted material that could be used to circumvent the need to buy licensed nintendo products (maps from stategy guides, concept art from artbooks). We've shortened our music uploads to 30 seconds and deleted past revisions - so that they could not be used as substitutes for official soundtrack releases or youtube uploads. We've deleted illegally-sourced material (datamined content from copies that broke street date).

-It is extremely unlikely that should Nintendo, Gelato Pique or any party involved in the Mario series feel that Mariowiki is overstepping on their copyrighted material, that it would jump straight to a suit. Most likely, the copyright holder would issue a DMCA request toward Porplemontage Entreprises to remove the offending content, and only consider pursuing more serious options should the request not be obliged or the offending party resumes the original offense after some time.

As for that set of Gelato Pique uploads, my answer is: I don't know! People smarter than me are paid humongous sums to establish what constitutes a "reasonable number of pages " and whether their replication on the wiki can be defined as "non-commercial use". I'm not staff anymore, so if you're concerned about it, I recommend you ask the current admins about it directly.
 
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