MarioWiki:Manual of Style
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.
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, which you can create, like Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, New Super Mario Bros., Bowser, Extra Life, Goomba and much more. In most of these games, the plumber Mario]] saves Princess Peach from Bowser, is the main antagonist, such as in New Super Mario Bros. The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by Porplemontage but has not grown active until the past six months. There are over 5000 files uploaded and over 7,000,000 page views, and over 1000 users and 10 administrators (though a few are inactive). It is a very vibrant wiki – now sustaining over 500 edits a day. You must create an account to edit.
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.
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 two you's intentionally put in for this purpose, in the 2nd and last sentences:
- ... which anyone can create, like ... A person must create an account to edit.
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, which anyone can create, like [[Super Mario Bros.]], [[Super Mario World]], [[New Super Mario Bros.]], [[Bowser]], [[Extra Life]], [[Goomba]] and much more. In most of these games, the plumber [[Mario]] saves [[Princess Peach]] from Bowser, is the main antagonist, such as in New Super Mario Bros. The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by Porplemontage but has not grown active until the past six months. ...
Italicizing Game Titles
The wiki has decided it proper to respect all game titles by italicizing all 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, which anyone can create, like ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'', ''[[Super Mario World]]'', ''[[New Super Mario Bros.]]'', [[Bowser]], [[Extra Life]], [[Goomba]] and much more. In most of these games, the plumber [[Mario]] saves [[Princess Peach]] from Bowser, is the main antagonist, such as in ''New Super Mario Bros.''
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:
- ... There are over 5000 files uploaded and over 7,000,000 page views, and over 1000 users and 10 administrators (though a few are inactive). It is a very vibrant wiki – now sustaining over 500 edits a day. A person must create an account to edit.
- {{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:
- ... There are over 5000 files uploaded and over 7,000,000 page views, and over 1000 users and 10 administrators (though a few are inactive). It is a very vibrant wiki – now sustaining over 500 edits a day. A person must create an account to edit.
- {{gamingwikis}}
- [[Category:Gaming]]
- [[Category:Vibrant]]
Note that some templates add categories automatically to articles using an advanced
