User:Yo'ster/Statement on Yoshi's Island (Mario franchise) and Yoshi's Island (Yoshi franchise) split

Read the proposal here.

While it ended up failing, I will leave this page here for posterity's sake.

History

The island that debuted in Super Mario World was named Yoster Tou in the original Japanese version. The etymology for this is most likely combining Yoshi's name with "Easter" (as in "Easter Island"), and "Tou" being the Japanese word for "island". When SMW was released in English, NoA decided to localize the island's name as "Yoshi's Island".

Next, we have a different, much larger, and visually distinct island that debuted in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, which was named Yoshi Island in Japanese. This is literally just "Yoshi" and the English word "Island". This was ALSO localized as "Yoshi's Island", hence the confusion. We now have two islands with very different Japanese names who both have the same name in English: Yoster Tou and Yoshi Island.

From the N64 era and onwards, the island with the most appearances would go on to be Yoshi Island, appearing in many other Yoshi series games, as well as some Mario spinoff games as Yoshi's home stage, such as Mario Golf and Fortune Street. This isn't a case of Yoster Tou just being replaced by or changed to Yoshi Island though, as Yoster Tou has made several appearances after the SNES era, most notably in the Super Smash Bros. series and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. As stated in the proposal, they're also listed as separate locations in Yoshi's trophy description in both Super Smash Bros. 3DS and Wii U. On contrary, there are no in-game sources which state they are the same outside of the shared English names.

So, in essence, the proposal is basically separating the Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Partners in Time version of the island from the version that debuted in the Yoshi series. See this mockup of what it would look like - the other article would be the same as it is now just with these sections missing.

Q&A

Question: Why is the article being split into Yo'ster Isle, which was only used in one game that had weird translations?
Answer: It's not. Read the "Addendum/clarification:" at the bottom of the proposal. To repeat: The articles would be split into Yoshi's Island (Mario franchise) and Yoshi's Island (Yoshi franchise), making it clear they're two separate islands who just happen to have the same name in English.

Question: Who cares? Their names are almost the same anyway, even in Japanese.
Answer: Look closer. Their exact names ヨースター島 and ヨッシーアイランド, or Yōsutā Tō and Yosshī Airando in romanji. The only similarity they have is starting with "ヨ/Yo" (they don't share any other Japanese characters), and they don't use the same word for "Island" (Tō vs. Airando).

Question: Why is the split being based on our arbitrary, personal interpretations of their visual designs?
Answer: They're not. The splits are based on the Japanese names alone, though visually most appearances of Yoster Tou are indeed based on Super Mario World, with the Yoshi Islands being based on Yoshi's Island/Yoshi's Story and the Yoshi series in general.

Question (not actually a question): Sure, the two islands have a lot of differences, but they have enough similarities to be considered the same due to the inconsistencies of their depictions in each game.
Answer: As you can see from the previous answer, not really, as they are pretty easily grouped into one or the other. The only area which this might not be considered the case is Yoster Tou in Partners in Time; despite its visual design being based on Super Mario World, it does have many references to the Yoshi series as well. However, there are plenty of other islands in the series that contain these elements (as stated in the proposal), yet they're still considered separate because they have different names. So for Yoster Tou, aside from its English name, is there anything to suggest that it should be grouped together with Yoshi Island that doesn't also apply to the other islands?

More information

Most languages are based off of the English localization (islands have the same name), while the Chinese and Korean localizations are based on the Japanese one (islands have separate names).

In conclusion

My final point is this: If you look at it from an unbiased point of view, rather than just going off of preconceived notions, they are quite obviously different locations and are only considered one in the same due to the English localization arbitrarily giving them the same name. Whether this is reason to split them into two separate articles, though, is up to you. A possible belief is that it would be easier for the articles to stay merged because they have the same name in English and are not very distinct in most localizations, which is a fair point of view. Ultimately, it's arbitrary and up to personal interpretation.