Talk:National Mario Day

Article bloating
Per request, I've been asked to discuss my edit here.


 * 1) Sales stats of the Mario franchise are irrelevant to "National Mario Day".
 * 2) "Year of Luigi" has no relevance to National Mario Day. At best, it could be an item for a WP:SEEALSO section.

This strikes me as an effort to bloat the article to help it survive its current AFD. Also of note would be, even if this was kept, "Gamecubible" is not a reliable source and would need to be replaced. Sergecross73  msg me  15:30, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. I'll also add that if this were a news article then it would be appropriate to include, but this is an encyclopedia article. It is also worth noting that two of the three sources cited do not even mention National Mario Day. ZettaComposer (talk) 16:10, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. And probably all the more reason why it should be merged - so much of what little content and sourcing that is here, is in the context of franchise in general. Sergecross73   msg me  16:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

It is directly relevant and perfectly reasonable, in this article about a holiday regarding Mario, to mention that it is the best-selling franchise of all-time.

Sources discuss it in the exact context, for example, "Nintendo says that today is Mario Day (March 10 … MAR10 … get it?), so let’s celebrate it by listing the Italian plumber’s main adventures. The Mario franchise is the best-selling in gaming history, with sales exceeding 500 million copies" Further examples,

As to whether it's relevant to mention "Year of Luigi" - I'd have thought it's obvious. Sources mention that in the context of Mario Day too, but ffs, surely.... well, my mind boggles why anyone would wonder if that is "relevant". 86.20.193.222 (talk) 23:23, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
 * With that sort of logic, you could literally place any sort of Mario trivia on there and call it good. Shall we also break out some Mario Kart sales figures? Or have a section describing his appearance? If you're just going to be listing off generic Mario factoids, it may as well just be put in the main Mario page. Sergecross73   msg me  16:16, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I just explained that at least 4 sources discussed it being "best-selling" directly in the context of this holiday, in articles about 10 March. I don't know how it could be any clearer. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 18:02, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * All you did was show a bunch of articles that meandered off-topic and started listing off random generic Mario factoids. The actual sales figure has no direct bearing on the holiday. It'd be different if hitting a certain sales figured spurred the holiday ("Lets celebrate 3.10 billion sales with the creation of Mario Day on 3.10" or something.) But that doesn't appear to be the case. Sergecross73   msg me  23:12, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Italians in Chicago
The following has been tagged as 'relevant? - discuss'...

According to Dominic Candeloro, author of the 1999 book "Italians in Chicago", Nintendo weren't the only people to notice how Mar 10 looks like Mario.[13][relevant? – discuss] He wrote that Chicago restauranteur Mario Avignone coined the term "Mario Day" in the 1980s, and invited his namesakes to an annual gala dinner in honor of Mario Day.[relevant? – discuss]

I can't believe we need to discuss this. Of course it's fucking relevant; it's about Mario Day, it's the earliest text anyone has found about it, it's a published book, it's utterly nothing to do with Nintendo (which appears to be your fundamental objection to this article in general).

Do we need more opinions?

Does anyone honestly believe that a book discussing use of the term "Mario Day" in the context of an annual event is not relevant to an article about Mario Day? 86.20.193.222 (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Is there a single source connecting these two separate instance? If not, is entirely original research to connect these two ideas. Sergecross73   msg me  16:19, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You think it's "original research" to connect a holiday on March 10th called "Mario day" to a holiday on March 10th called "Mario Day"? 86.20.193.222 (talk) 17:59, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. The subject of the article is Nintendo's Mario Day, not "things that happened on March 10th". If you can't provide a source proving that it had anything to do with the creation of Nintendo's holiday, it doesn't belong in the article. Sergecross73   msg me  23:16, 12 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Context is the core issue. The very first sentence of the article is: “National Mario Day is an annual holiday to commemorate the Nintendo video game character Mario, on March 10.” The lead explicitly states that this article is about a day celebrating Mario the video game character. That a separate Mario Day was created by a guy named Mario who happened to notice the connection and wanted to hold a fundraiser for someone is a coincidence that has nothing to do with the rest of the Mario character-centric article. The article, as currently written, is specifically focused on Mario the Nintendo character.
 * I see two ways around this:


 * 1) In order to include the Mario Avignone bit, the article lead, and by extension other parts of the article, would need to be rewritten to something more general in tone. Something that encompasses both current instances of Mario Day while allowing for any other interpretations of “Mario Day” that come up. Undue weight cannot be given to Mario the character at any point. For example, the lead could say something like "National Mario Day is a celebration of Mario in multiple separate ways..." and then use sub headers to talk about each version of Mario Day. This might cause some weight-balancing issues, among other problems. As an aside, I also considered the possibility of adding a sub-header to the Mario Day article that talks about Mario Avignone’s Mario Day as an “Other uses of Mario Day” but I do not think this works for a number of reasons partially alluded to above.


 * 2) If the article stays focused on Mario the character, the Mario Avignone bit would need to be placed in a separate Mario Day article, resulting in something like Mario Day (Nintendo Character) and Mario Day (Charity Event) with a "see also" section for both. Since I don’t think Mario Avignone or his Mario Day is notable enough for a standalone Wikipedia article, the latter article is not likely to happen, although I found a United Press International (UPI) article written in 1983 about this occurrence (link here) so there might be some other sources that discuss this event. This is possible, as the article also mentions that this instance was the fourth year the event occurred, and it may have continued in future years.


 * Unfortunately, I think introducing this information creates more problems than it solves. ZettaComposer (talk) 16:05, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Merging article
Okay, so the AFD was closed with a strong consensus to merge the article into the Mario article. So now the question isn't if it should be merged, but what should be merged.

My plan was to basically just move over that first "paragraph". Most of the rest of it is just generalities about the Mario franchise, which is already covered in that article, or unrelated (The notes on the 1980s Mario thing.) Any input? Sergecross73  msg me  19:31, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with just moving the first paragraph. A case could be made for inserting parts of the second paragraph into the first if others feel strongly about it, but I don't think it is necessary. The third and fourth paragraphs definitely do not need to be included. ZettaComposer (talk) 00:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I think the 2nd paragraph information is quite encyclopaedic, and it's reliably sourced; I don't see any case for removing it; Christian Science Monitor is pretty respectable. And the Nintendo video this year was covered in the gaming press.

As for the part about Chicago, well... I don't know, because, that's why it shouldn't be merged. I wanted it to be available for expansion with info about the day, not necessarily about Nintendo - like. Obviously, that type of interesting encyclopaedic information is not appropriate in an article about the video character. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 08:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, to recap:
 * Paragraph 1:
 * Clear consensus for inclusion. It contains the basic concept
 * Paragraph 2:
 * Christian Science Monitor sentence - Kind of a mundane statement, it'd be nice if something more significant could be pulled from the source. But if you insist, I don't oppose its inclusion. I do feel like it'll be likely to be trimmed out over time in its current state.
 * Nintendo's Youtube Video sentence - see comments directly above about CSM source.
 * "Chad Concelmo of Destructoid appears in the video" sentence - definitely needs to be trimmed out. Sentence is pointless. Chad Concelmo is not a notable person in the Wikipedia sense, and it says nothing of significance about his appearance. Destructoid noted this because it was notable in the world of Destructoid - it was their staff.
 * Paragraph 3:
 * Mario is best-selling... sentence - redundant. Already in Mario article.
 * Year of Luigi sentence - Make more sense to be in the Luigi article, where it already is.
 * Paragraph 4
 * As stated before, unless a source makes any sort of connection to the modern "National Mario Day", this doesn't even belong in this article, let alone the merge. Again, the article's topic is not "Holidays of March 10th", it's Nintendo's National Mario Day. There's already no consensus to keep it in the article as it is - you've been the only person to advocate its inclusion, while there's been 2 people (myself and Zetta) who have generally been against its inclusion. In all technicality, it shouldn't be in the article now even - if we were following WP:BRD - you would have boldly added the content, I would have reverted it out of the article, and they we would have discussed on the talk page, only adding it if there was a consensus to include it, which there hasn't been yet. I would have started a bigger discussion on it had the article been kept, but I didn't bother because I knew the article was pretty likely to be merged and the issue would be moot. But rest assured, if a discussion would have been opened, and no source connecting this to the actual holiday, there would have been no way it would have been kept in the article.
 * I think that about sums things up. Sergecross73   msg me  13:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You are asking for proof of a connection between Mario day and Mario day.
 * The article could so easily be tweaked a little; "Mario day is a holiday on March 10th to celebrate things related to Mario..." etc, and mentioning the older holidays as well as the Nintendo. After all, Wikipedia likes to keep a perspective on things, not recentism.
 * But this type of argument is just so crazy...I'm done. Goodbye, Wikipedia. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia also like to remove instances of original research. But again, the argument is moot all-around. The argument for keeping it here was weak, the argument for keeping it in the Mario article is non-existent. Sergecross73   msg me  14:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)