User:Ray Trace/Featured Articles guidelines

Part of a potential future proposal, this page deals with exactly how I want my new proposed Featured Articles guidelines to be formatted. It will take inspiration from the policy page, Good writing.

Featured article standards
An article must...

Be well-written and detailed.
Articles must be originally written by the editors with no discernible grammar and/or spelling errors present, with exceptions being in possible game bios (where errors should be marked with [sic]). Articles should also follow these guidelines as well; this means that plot summaries for either characters or games should not be overly excessive in detail and length, nor the article should be written in an overly grandiose, narrative-style fashion. In the case of media articles (video games, movies, books, etc.), the article should cover most details about the media and describe how the game plays and/or the general summary of the story. In terms of subject articles (characters, items, locations, objects, people, etc), these sections need to cover their role and function in the games and/or their complete relevance to the Mario series. Empty sections should not be present in the article, and these entries, aside from gallery and quote sections, should be originally written. The writing should be as neutral as possible: biased sentences need their choice of words written for a more neutral connotation.

Be sourced with all available Mario-related appearances.
All appearances of the subject need to be present in the article. Statements that need to be referenced should be sourced properly as per these guidelines. Any statement tagged with should be addressed as soon as possible. Due to some media being obscure and/or difficult to obtain, such as the Satellaview view games and Japanese-exclusive manga, editors can exercise some more leniency with the rule, though that if information is readily and easily available despite barriers, the section should have necessary information related to the subject.

Follow the Manual of Style and all other policies on the Super Mario Wiki.
Articles that can be considered to be featured should generally follow the manual of style. Other lesser, but still relevant policies that articles should adhere if applicable to are found in this category of official writing guidelines. For example, trivia sections should not be too long as per our trivia policy; if possible, information in trivia sections should be relocated to other parts of the article. Media articles, most prominently video game articles, should receive a reception and sales section that follow the reception and sales policy. Media articles, if they have references to other media, need to follow the references policy, most commonly noted in the "References to other games" sections. And lastly, some information may need to be cited and thus follow properly as per the citation policy.

Not be tagged with any sort of improvement tags (i.e., , etc).
These tags indicate that the article has a major problem that needs to be addressed and therefore, cannot fulfill the requirements to be featured. When opposing featured article nominations or supporting unfeature nominations due to the tag, be aware that these tags can be added up post-nomination after flaws of the article have been found: it is more advisable to cite the reason the improvement tag was put up rather than stating its existence, as that already repeats the role it is intended to do. If the article does not have the problems the tag has stated, feel free to remove the tag after editing accordingly. Our maintenance page has a list of improvement tags for articles, as well as our notice template category.

Have a proper lead that gives a good summary of the topic and can be used for the front page featured box.
The first paragraph of the article should have a substantial summary of the topic that can be used for the box on the main page. In terms of media, the summary should state the genre, the number of players, the release date, possible new features, and a general overview of the media. In subject articles, the summary should describe the topic with their general, common role from their appearances in the media.

Have a reasonable amount of (or no) red-links.
Red links indicate that a page linked to there is missing and is therefore considered an incomplete portion of the article. A minimal amount of red links is passable, though they should be filled out as soon as possible. Excessive red links should be completely avoided.

Not have been previously featured on the Main Page.
Articles up for nomination should be ones not featured on the "Currently featured" list below. However, articles that are featured on the Main Page before and have become unfeatured may be renominated to be a featured article if the guidelines are met once again.

Include a reasonable number of images of good quality if said images are available.
Image quality should be close to official resolution or better, and they should follow our image use policy. Poorly cropped images, poor transparencies, sprites in .jpg format, etc. are not acceptable. Emulation hacks of screenshots are discouraged; if there are better, more official alternates to those types of screenshots, they are preferred. However, some leniency is given if there is no possible way to obtain higher quality images.

Be of reasonable length.
Note: I have a lot of trouble writing this section.

Articles should fully cover appearances and information of the topic. However, due to some limited appearances of the said topic, it may not be possible to expand information any further without resorting to padding the article. In this case, although these articles are complete and are written to the best of the editor's abilities, they are too short to be categorized among the best articles in MarioWiki and therefore, are not rich enough in content to be considered featured articles. Though there is no explicit cut-off length in terms of what is considered a good candidate for a Featured Article, editors should be fully confident that the articles are long and detailed enough in length to make the judgement. In other words, if editors have to ask the following question, "Is this article long enough to be featured?" chances are, the article likely does not pass the grade comfortably and therefore should not be considered to be featured.

Have complete entries, if the article is a list.
Featured Lists generally follow the above guidelines with several exceptions. Lists must be well-detailed and 100% complete with information, as well as the formatting of whatever method of organization the list employs to be legible by all readers (e.g. properly formatted tables, a good contrast of colors, compatible with all devices, etc.). Images, if applicable, are required for all entries on the list to be featured. As Featured Lists usually do not rely on paragraphs to convey information as other Featured Articles, being well-written and detailed is not a priority, though however, a substantial intro that meets the criteria to be used on the main page box is still required for a list to pass Featured Article guidelines.