MarioWiki:Manual of Style

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 a subject included in our coverage - 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 encyclopedia, 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.

Please do NOT create tiny articles just for the sake of filling in red links. Even if the article you are making is about a minor subject, try to put a decent amount of effort into it rather than a rush job.

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" or the name of the playable character.
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.
Templates such as {{just released}}, {{game infobox}}, {{media table}}.
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.

Naming an article

Main article: MarioWiki:Naming

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 encyclopedia (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 franchise. has many articles like super mario bros you can edit but you must craete an account to make pictures

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 Super Mario franchise. It has many articles like the game Super Mario Bros. Anyone can edit, but you must create an account to upload images.

Now, we will run this article through the seven 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 a "The" to keep the sentence sensible:

The '''Super Mario Wiki''' is a wiki about the Super Mario franchise. ...

When the article is a game, referring to step 5, using five apostrophes (''''') for bold and italics. Note that the title doesn't need to be bolded again after the first time (e.g. in image captions, infoboxes).

The bolded title should not be a link, so rather than linking it to Wikipedia or another NIWA wiki, place {{Wikipedia}} or {{NIWA}} at the bottom of the article instead.

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 location, 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 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 Super Mario franchise and its related franchises, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Wario. It has many articles, such as 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 45,000 files uploaded, 90,000,000 page views, 15,000 users, and 10 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 1,000 edits a day. Anyone can edit, but you must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

Your details depend on the type of article you're creating. Think of the basics - a person who has never played the game(s) would need to get a fair idea what it is. There are a few things that should be avoided when writing, such as adding speculation, rambling on about insignificant details, or putting overly dramatic or dark spins on things; a full list of common writing issues can be found here. Padding should also be avoided, and if you don't know the topic well-enough to do more than state the obvious, don't create the article at all. Newly created stubs will be deleted automatically so try to add a decent amount of information to the page you are creating. Remember, it's the amount of info that matters, not the length, and simple subjects will inevitably have small articles, but that does not make them stubs.

No "you"s

In this wiki, we opt against using the tempting word "you". This includes implied "you's" in a command/imperative sentence (such as just above: "(you) Think of the basics..."). Instead, we use phrases such as "the player", "Mario (a playable character) should", "the racer could", "they must", etc. that still describe the person being talked to indirectly, or refers to the character they play in the game. This makes our articles more encyclopedic.

Note that when using pronouns to refer to the player, use the gender indeterminate "they" (or "their", "themself", etc.); "he or she" is discouraged, and "he/she", "s/he" or anything else with a "/" separating gender-specific terms is never to be used. Only using one gender (male or female) to refer to the player is also incorrect.

Our example article fixes up the "you" in the last sentence:

... a person must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

Linking, linking, linking!

Linking to as many articles as possible, created or not, adds greater navigation to the encyclopedia. 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. In general, only the first occurrence of a subject in an article should be linked to, with all subsequent occurrences in the body text written as plain text only, to avoid redundancy and clutter. However, longer pages can sometimes have multiple links to the same subject, provided the links do not occur back-to-back, and are instead spread throughout different sections of the article. Duplicate links appearing in lists, tables, infoboxes, image captions, and navboxes are also allowed regardless of the length of a page.

Our example article includes one user namespace piped link for Porplemontage, but in articles, mostly all links are to other articles. Note only the Super Mario franchise page is created as of 03:29, 2 March 2007 (EST).

The '''Super Mario Wiki''' is a wiki about the [[Super Mario (franchise)|Super Mario]] franchise and its related franchises, [[Donkey Kong (franchise)|Donkey Kong]], [[Yoshi (franchise)|Yoshi]], and [[Wario (franchise)|Wario]]. It has many articles, such as [[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 45,000 files uploaded, 90,000,000 page views, 15,000 users, and 10 administrators (though a few are inactive). ... The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by [[User:Porplemontage|Porplemontage]], and is now a very vibrant wiki - sustaining over 1,000 edits a day. Anyone can edit, but a person must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

Italicizing titles

The wiki has decided it proper to respect all games, series, movies, television programs, albums (music), publications (print: comics, books and magazines), tabletop games, and unique brand names of merchandise by italicizing all of their titles, as well as linking them when need be the case in every article. When linking and italicizing, the syntax is ''[[Article Title]]''. Song titles and episode names (i.e. of television series) are not italicized, but written in quotation marks.

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 ''[[Super Mario (franchise)|Super Mario]]'' franchise and its related franchises, ''[[Donkey Kong (franchise)|Donkey Kong]]'', ''[[Yoshi (franchise)|Yoshi]]'', and ''[[Wario (franchise)|Wario]]''. It has many articles, such as ''[[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. ...

Navboxes

Navbox templates list a bunch of related articles. Most navboxes pertain to a particular game (such as {{SMB}}) and will list all the characters, items, etc. that appear in that game, although others will list all the specific types of a certain group of species, items, etc. (such as ({{Koopas}} or {{Mushrooms}}). Sometimes an unmade 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 not yet a navbox for your subject or game. But if there is an appropriate template, add it - it has the same effect as linking, but even better.

Let's say that a template called {{Gaming wikis}} was a navbox listing all wikis related to video games. So:

... The wiki was created on August 12th, 2005 by [[User:Porplemontage|Porplemontage]], and is now a very vibrant wiki - sustaining over 1000 edits a day. Anyone can edit, but a person must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

{{Gaming wikis}}

Sections of an article

Capitalization and italics

Article sections are titled using sentence case. The first word of a section name is capitalized and proper nouns are capitalized. Subsequent words that are not proper nouns are not capitalized. Titles included in section names are italicized just like in regular text.

Article introduction

An article's introductory section may contain one or more common templates before the article's first actual paragraph. The preferred order of these templates is as follows:

{{FA}}, {{italic title}}, any noticeboxes¹, any hatnotes, the infobox, {{quote}}

Infobox templates are used at the beginning of articles and provide a quick overview of the subject in a concise table. The main image area of an infobox may contain a single image, or multiple small images displayed side-by-side, plus a caption. The main image area should not contain multiple images stacked vertically. Instead, a single representative image should be chosen which best depicts the subject, and any additional images should be placed in the article's body and/or gallery section.

¹ - The {{stub}} template does not use the boxed notice styling and is placed at the bottom of the article or section, but above any navboxes.

Section headings

An article's top-level body headings (typically level 2, surrounded by ==) should not contain any links (e.g. ==[[Mario]]==), since this makes the show/hide function cumbersome on mobile, and linking to the section may not work correctly. While it's always preferred to use links in the body text rather than in headings, lower-level headings may be a link when there's no convenient place for it within the section itself.

For source readability, section headings should be preceded by a blank line in wikitext (unless the line contains the {{br}} template or similar). Additionally, a blank line should precede the list of navboxes, categories, and interlanguage links—all of which are grouped together at the bottom of the article. The preferred order for the last few sections is See also, References, External links. For example:

==Trivia==
*This is a trivia point.

==See also==
*[[Article name]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[https://www.nintendo.com Nintendo]

{{Gaming wikis}}
[[Category:Gaming]]
[[Category:Wikis]]
[[de:MarioWiki]]

Empty sections

Main article: MarioWiki:Empty sections

Sections should not solely consist of a link to another page. While the {{main}} template is to be used to link to the stand-alone pages, a summary of the content (for pages like Glitch and Pre-release and unused content) or a sample of the most representative elements (for content-hoarding pages such as image galleries or quote lists) should be present.

History

See also: MarioWiki:Chronology

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 franchise (as opposed to general franchises), series, and independent titles, regardless of the "media" form the appearance takes. Series subsections 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 someplace after The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! section, as Mario's first appearance in a Mario Kart game 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 subsections need not be created. For example, if there is enough content to detail all of Mario's appearances in the Mario Party series, subsections for each game could be created; if there is not enough information for each game, it can all be placed under the Mario Party series section, without creating subsections 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 subsection. However, if there is substantial new content in the remake (such as Mario having to be rescued by Yoshi in Super Mario 64 DS), the remake can get its own subsection in the overall series section, which is then organized according to release date. Episodes of a television or comic series are organized as subsections of the series section, as if they were a game in a video game series.

Completely independent titles not part of an established series, such as Super Princess Peach, the Super Mario Bros. film, and Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, are placed as regular section headers, akin to a series header. All section and subsection headers must state the name of the series and video game, episode, etc.

If a subject only appears in one series, the intermediate section between the overall "History" header and the individual games can be omitted. For example, Koops only appears in the Paper Mario series, so no "Paper Mario series" section is needed: the History merely includes the two Paper Mario game titles themselves. Similarly, if a character only appears in one game of a series, that game can be placed alongside the stand-alone games and the other series headers. For example, Dry Bones only appears in one Mario Strikers game, and so there is no "Mario Strikers series" section, just a header for Mario Strikers Charged.

If a subject appears in a piece of media that does not receive coverage (such as Super Mario characters making cameo appearances in Tetris 99), those appearances should be compiled into an "Other appearances" subsection at the bottom of the History section, above unused appearances.

If the subject was planned to appear in a piece of media but does not appear in the final product, or if the product was never released, those appearances should be listed under an "Unused appearances" subsection at the bottom of the History section. The unused appearances section should be organized the same way as the rest of the history section, with headers for each game and series.

If the subject has a "backstory" (or "backstories", 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 subsections, in a subsection called "Background". Since the Yoshi franchise is set in the "past", the events they depict can be mentioned in the "background" sections, although all detail should be left for the actual games' sections farther down the articles. Background information regarding the creation of the characters from a real life perspective (i.e. name and design origins) does not go in the History section's "background": it can go in the Introduction at the top of the page, or if there is enough information, in a separate "Creation" section placed before the in-universe History.

Trivia

Main article: MarioWiki:Trivia

Many articles have Trivia sections where miscellaneous points are placed, however, this is actually discouraged. Long Trivia sections reflect poorly on the article as a whole, so whenever possible, try to incorporate this information elsewhere on the page. Trivia points that merely state the obvious or reiterate facts already embedded in the text should not be created, and speculative information must be backed by hard facts or it will be removed.

External links

The external links section should always be last. This is because when a sidebar template such as {{NIWA}} or {{Wikipedia}} is used, we want to accomplish two goals:

Place the template in the last section of the article so that it's near the navboxes
Place the template in the external links section if it exists, since the template links to external sites

Making the external links section last accomplishes both goals, and so to keep things consistent whether a sidebar is present or not, the external links section should always be last regardless. Here is an example of how an external links section should look with both navboxes and a sidebar present.

Miscellaneous

Spelling standardization

Although our contributors come from all over the world, the majority of visitors to the MarioWiki are North American. Therefore, North American game titles and box artworks take precedence on our articles. This standard extends to spelling, where the American standard should be used instead of the British variant. For example, "color" should be used instead of "colour". In order to maintain this consistency, instances of British-variant spelling on articles should be changed to the American standard and never vice versa.

Contractions

Contractions (such as "it's", "can't", and "doesn't") should be kept out of article writings (instead using "it is", "cannot", and "does not"), unless they are used in things like quotes. They can be used on talk pages, but using contractions on articles does not look very professional and should be avoided as much as possible.

Verb tense

Fiction

When writing an article describing characters, events, or locations from fictional sources (e.g. games, comics, films, TV shows, literature, etc.), present tense should be used.

Toadsworth also appears in ''Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time''. He is with Mario and Luigi when Princess Peach takes an experimental trip back in time, and is paranoid that something terrible will happen. His fears later become justified, as when the time machine returns a Shroob is in it. Before that, however, he promptly faints, and requires a Refreshroom to revive him. He is still confused when he wakes up and accidentally pushes Mario and Luigi into a time hole. He later teams up with his younger self to teach the Bros. new moves and keep Baby Peach entertained while she stays in the future.

Non-fiction

When writing non-fiction, such as a biography or the history of a game series, past and present tense can be used as needed, depending on whether whatever is being described has already happened or is in the process of happening.

Aside from Princess Daisy, Deanna Mustard also portrayed Baby Daisy in her debut in ''Mario Kart Wii''. She has provided voices for various minor characters throughout the ''Super Mario'' franchise as well. Mustard also voiced White Mage, a third party Square Enix character, in ''Mario Hoops 3-on-3''. Deanna Mustard has been providing Daisy's voice for more than half a decade, and continues to do so.

Future tense should be avoided when referring to subjects appearing in upcoming media; as trailers and screenshots show said subjects to have already been incorporated into and are thus presently in the game, present tense must be used.

Time-sensitive adjectives/adverbs

When referring to real-life events as references, avoid using adjectives and adverbs describing how long ago they occurred (e.g. "In a recent interview..."). What you add to an article may stay there for a long time, so citing an interview that is "recent" now won't be "recent" later. (This also saves the trouble of having to go back later and change the wording.) Instead, add the exact or approximate date the event occurred if possible.

Tying into the previous section regarding future tense, a game may be referred to as "upcoming" in its article's lead paragraph, as this is the simplest way to state that the game has not been released yet, on top of it being more visible and easy to update than an obscure sentence on a particular page.

Tables

Tables are sometimes the best way to display information. For example, instead of listing all the courses of a racing game and their accompanying locations, staff ghosts, and other information would go more nicely in a table than a simple list following a repetitive pattern many a time. A great example of an article using multiple tables is Mario Kart DS. It uses tables to show course information, mission information, point spread comparisons from past versions, and kart ratings.

Images

Finding images

Finding an image for an article can be difficult. Google doesn't always work, and not everyone has access to sprites. If you are lucky enough to find an image, upload it, see Help:Image and Help:Media for syntax, and then add it to an article. Generally, a small image would use the frame, right and caption commands, a large image would use the thumb, right and caption commands - though sometimes different alignment is necessary. The first image should go on the first line of the edit box, even before the first sentence, and then additional images can be added inbetween sections as size allows.

If an article needs an image to help illustrate a point but you can't find one, add {{image}} to the top of the edit box (see the "Other templates" section). Do not add a placeholder broken file link until the image is actually uploaded, as this clutters up Category:Articles with broken file links.

Image captions

If a caption is a sentence fragment (which most are), it should not end with a period. If a caption contains at least one complete sentence, then periods are used. Other than that, caption punctuation should be consistent with that of article text. This guideline is true for both in-text images and image galleries.

Examples

"Mario and Bowser" (sentence fragment - no period)
"Mario and Bowser are not friends." (sentence - period used)
"Mario and Bowser. They are not friends." (at least one sentence - periods used)

Redirects

Main article: MarioWiki:Redirects

Redirects are used for search purposes, so linking to them is discouraged, and any links should use the full page's title instead with piped-link formatting when necessary.

Other templates

MarioWiki:Notice templates discusses a few other types of templates for use in articles, images, and talk pages. Regular notice templates go at the top of articles to bring attention to maintenance issues or specific conditions surrounding the article in question. For example, {{conjecture}} lets readers know that the name of a subject is not official, and {{construction}} is placed on an article if it is still in the process of being written, thus letting readers know that they can expect that some aspects of the page will be incomplete. Templates concerning the subject matter rather than the state of the article include {{upcoming}}, which needs to be put on all games that have been confirmed but not yet released, while {{just released}} goes on games that have only been released for less than a month, and {{new subject}} goes on pages related to upcoming or newly released games.

The {{about}} template is used at the top of an article to direct the reader to similar articles that they may have been looking for. When using this template, do not use the piped-link formatting when linking to the other articles (e.g. [[Dry Dry Desert (course)|here]]). Instead, just link to the article using its full name (e.g. [[Dry Dry Desert (course)]]). It's only necessary to use a piped-link when linking to a specific section in the article (e.g. [[Super Mario 64#Enemies|Super Mario 64 § Enemies]]).

Infoboxes are templates that produce a table to provide basic statistics about a subject. For example, {{game infobox}} provides information about a game, while {{PM enemy}} provides an overview of the RPG stats of an enemy from Paper Mario. These templates should be added to every applicable article: in this case, every game and Paper Mario enemy article, respectively.

We suggest looking through Category:Templates to get a feel of what templates are available besides navigational ones. More specific template categories include Category:Notice templates and Category:Infobox templates.

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