MarioWiki:Manual of Style: Difference between revisions
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==Sections== | ==Sections== | ||
===History=== | ===History=== | ||
History sections detail the various video game, television, comic, etc. appearances of the article's subject. These sections are typically the first major section of an article, especially articles chronicling multiple appearances, after the article's introduction. Appearances in the History section are organized according to the release date of defined series (as opposed to general franchises), sub-series, and independent titles, regardless of the "media" form the appearance takes. Series sub-sections are arranged by the release date of the first appearance of the subject in the series. For example, in the Mario article, the ''Mario Kart'' series section would appear some place after ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' section, as Mario's first appearance in the ''Mario Kart'' series occurred after his first appearance in the television series. If there is not enough content to mention every appearance in a series, the information can simply be merged under the series section, and other sub-sections need not be created. For example, if there is enough content to detail all of Mario's appearances in the ''Mario Party'' series, sub-sections for each game could be created. However, if there is not enough content for each game, all the information from the series could be placed under the ''Mario Party'' series section without creating a sub-section for each individual title. The same concept applies to content from remakes. If a subject appears in the original title and its remake and there is not substantial differences in the remake, all content can be placed in the original title's sub-section. However, if there is substantial new content in the remake, the remake can get its own sub-section in the series section, which is then organized according to release date. Episodes of a television or comic series are organized as sub-sections of the series section, as if they were a game in a video game series. Completely independent titles not part of an established series or sub-franchise, such as ''Luigi's Mansion'', the ''Super Mario Bros.'' film and ''Super Princess Peach'', are placed as regular section headers, akin to a series header. All section and sub-section headers must state the name of the series and video game, episode, etc. If the subject has a "back story" (or "back stories" in the case of some subjects) referenced in its appearances, that content can be placed at the beginning of the History section before any series sub-sections, in a sub-section called "Background." | History sections detail the various video game, television, comic, etc. appearances of the article's subject. These sections are typically the first major section of an article, especially articles chronicling multiple appearances, after the article's introduction. Appearances in the History section are organized according to the international release date of defined series (as opposed to general franchises), sub-series, and independent titles, regardless of the "media" form the appearance takes. Series sub-sections are arranged by the release date of the first appearance of the subject in the series. For example, in the Mario article, the ''Mario Kart'' series section would appear some place after ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' section, as Mario's first appearance in the ''Mario Kart'' series occurred after his first appearance in the television series. If there is not enough content to mention every appearance in a series, the information can simply be merged under the series section, and other sub-sections need not be created. For example, if there is enough content to detail all of Mario's appearances in the ''Mario Party'' series, sub-sections for each game could be created. However, if there is not enough content for each game, all the information from the series could be placed under the ''Mario Party'' series section without creating a sub-section for each individual title. The same concept applies to content from remakes. If a subject appears in the original title and its remake and there is not substantial differences in the remake, all content can be placed in the original title's sub-section. However, if there is substantial new content in the remake, the remake can get its own sub-section in the series section, which is then organized according to release date. Episodes of a television or comic series are organized as sub-sections of the series section, as if they were a game in a video game series. Completely independent titles not part of an established series or sub-franchise, such as ''Luigi's Mansion'', the ''Super Mario Bros.'' film and ''Super Princess Peach'', are placed as regular section headers, akin to a series header. All section and sub-section headers must state the name of the series and video game, episode, etc. If the subject has a "back story" (or "back stories" in the case of some subjects) referenced in its appearances, that content can be placed at the beginning of the History section before any series sub-sections, in a sub-section called "Background." | ||
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Revision as of 20:09, January 14, 2009
- This covers how we would like an article to look on this wiki at creation. While not an enforced policy, try to follow it the best you can.
An article is a content page about the knowledge – a character, item, enemy, game, etc. The goal of the Super Mario Wiki is to add as many articles as possible to fill up the knowledge base, but some basic guidelines will help you get a good start either creating an article or expanding one. We have some specific criteria that should go into every article from its creation, and some enhancements to make it even better. Though not mentioned, all articles should have relatively good grammar.
Critical Criteria
- Bold and repeat the title of the article in the first sentence.
- Details – don't state the obvious. Provide some information about the subject too, as much as you can.
You– use another term like "the player should".- Link to as many other articles as possible once and only once.
- Italicize all game titles as well as linking them
- Navigation via templates
- Categorize with many categories
Enhancements
- Images to visualize the article
- Knowledge/Notice Templates like {{infobox}}, {{media}}, {{justreleased}}
- Tables to lay out statistics neatly
How to Create or Edit an Article
- Create: – Clicking on a red link brings you right to the edit box. Searching and then clicking "create this page" does the same.
- Edit: – While viewing any article, click the "edit" tab, third from the left.
There is one note about what name a game article should have.
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A game article's name should correspond to the North American title of the game to remain consistent throughout the wiki and because the majority of the wiki's visitors are from this area. |
Step by Step: Example Article
Let's say that the article "Super Mario Wiki" was created by a user, and it was part of the knowledge base (in reality it is not and an article about the wiki itself, unlike Wikipedia, would be deleted). Here's the wikitext (what appears in the editbox) of this article:
- is a wkii about the mario series. has many articles like super mario bros you must craete an account to edit.
First of all, the understood guideline "good grammar" is obviously broken. Remember that this is an encyclopedia, and we must at least look like one. Here's the same text corrected:
- It is a wiki about the Mario series. It has many articles like the game Super Mario Bros. You must create an account to edit.
Now, we will run this article through the 7 critical criteria listed above and compare the final article to this.
Bolding the Title
We start out an article by restating the title of the article, and also bolding it for emphasis. This is a simple rule to remember and easy to add. Here we replace "It" and add an "The" to keep the sentence sensible:
- The '''Super Mario Wiki''' is a wiki about the Mario series. ...
When the article is a game, referring to Step 5, using 5 tildes (''''') for bold and italics.
Describing the Subject
You need to add details about your topic. Here's some good starter questions: if it's an item, what game did it appear in? What are the effects of the item? What specific level(s) did the item appear in? If it's a place, what game was it in? What events took place there? If it's a game, what features are there? How is it played? What are the game modes?
In our example article, we have one detail: the game Super Mario Bros. is is one of many articles on the wiki. Here we add some more about the wiki as well as more games:
- The '''Super Mario Wiki''' is a wiki about the Mario series and its related series, Wario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Super Smash Bros. It has many articles, like Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros., Bowser, Extra Life, Goomba and much more. In most of these games, such as New Super Mario Bros., the plumber Mario saves Princess Peach from Bowser, who is the main antagonist. There are over 15000 files uploaded, 90,000,000 page views, 7000 users and 16 administrators (though a few are inactive). The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by Porplemontage, and is now a very vibrant wiki – sustaining over 1000 edits a day. You must create an account to edit or create new articles.
Your details depend on the type of article you're creating. Think of the basics a person who never played the game(s) your article's topic involves would need to know to get a fair idea what it is.
If you don't have any details to add, "don't state the obvious" by not creating the article at all – you don't know the topic well-enough. If you know a couple of details to make up 3-5 sentences, create the article but add {{stub}} as part of Step 6.
No You's
In this wiki, we opt against using the tempting word "you". This includes implied "you's" in a command (like just above: "(you) Think..."). Instead, we use phrases such as "the player", "the player should", "the racer could", "he or she must", etc. that still describe the person being talked to, indirectly. This makes our articles more encyclopedic.
Our example article fixes up the "you" in the last sentance:
- ... A person must create an account to edit or create new articles.
Linking, Linking, Linking!
Linking to as many articles as possible, created or not, adds greater navigation to the knowledge base. Created articles allow readers to move to a related topic, while red links (not created) give another user a chance to create the article (and go through these very same steps!), thus helping the wiki. However, no one link should appear twice in an article – leave other occurrences as plain text.
Our example article includes one User namespace piped link for Porplemontage, but in articles, mostly all links are to other articles. Note only the Mario series page is created as of 03:29, 2 March 2007 (EST).
- The '''Super Mario Wiki''' is a wiki about the [[Mario (series)|Mario series]] and its related series, [[Wario (series)|Wario]], [[Yoshi (series)|Yoshi]], [[Donkey Kong (series)|Donkey Kong,]] and [[Super Smash Bros.]] It has many articles, like [[Super Mario Bros.]], [[Super Mario World]], [[New Super Mario Bros.]], [[Bowser]], [[Extra Life]], [[Goomba]] and much more. In most of these games, such as New Super Mario Bros., the plumber [[Mario]] saves [[Princess Peach]] from Bowser, who is the main antagonist. There are over 15000 files uploaded, 90,000,000 page views, 7000 users and 16 administrators (though a few are inactive). ...
Italicizing Game Titles
The wiki has decided it proper to respect all game (and series) titles by italicizing all of them as well as linking them when need be the case in every article. When linking and italicizing, the syntax is ''[[Article Title]]''.
As our Super Mario Wiki article gets better, notice that the second occurrence of "New Super Mario Bros." is still italicized, just not linked.
- The '''Super Mario Wiki''' is a wiki about the [[Mario (series)|''Mario'' series]] and its related series, [[Wario (series)|''Wario'']], [[Yoshi (series)|''Yoshi'']], [[Donkey Kong (series)|''Donkey Kong'']], and ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' It has many articles, like ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'', ''[[Super Mario World]]'', ''[[New Super Mario Bros.]]'', [[Bowser]], [[Extra Life]], [[Goomba]] and much more. In most of these games, such as ''New Super Mario Bros.'', the plumber [[Mario]] saves [[Princess Peach]] from Bowser, who is the main antagonist. ...
If certain templates, such as the Articleabout one, already have the italicized code in them, be sure to still italicize the title of the game or series.
Navigation templates list a bunch of related characters, enemies, items, games, etc. to the article. Sometimes an article is already on one of these templates in red, waiting to be added, sometimes you will have to edit the template to include it. Sometimes there is no navigation template yet for your type of article – Special Moves doesn't have many templates yet. If there is a related template, though, add it – has the same effect as linking, but even better.
Let's say that a template called {{gamingwikis}} was a navigational template listing all wikis related to video games. So:
- ... The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by Porplemontage, and is now a very vibrant wiki – sustaining over 1000 edits a day. A person must create an account to edit or create new articles.
- {{gamingwikis}}
Categories
There are a ton of categories and subcategories on this wiki. The most basic are Items, Games, Characters, Places, Species, Allies, Enemies, and Special Moves. There are many subcategories to these categories as well. By simply typing [[Category:(Fullname)]], the article is automatically added to the category. An article can be in as many categories as it fits, but as part of our criteria it must fit in one. Don't say an article cannot be categorized – very few pages, if any, are uncategorized besides the Main Page, an exception.
Let's say the categories that WikiIndex uses for us – Gaming and Vibrant – exist here. In that case:
- ... The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by Porplemontage, and is now a very vibrant wiki – sustaining over 1000 edits a day. A person must create an account to edit or create new articles.
- {{gamingwikis}}
- [[Category:Gaming]]
- [[Category:Vibrant]]
Note that some templates add categories automatically to articles using an advanced
