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 the knowledge – a character, item, enemy, game, etc. The goal of the 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.

'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

 * 1) Bold and repeat the title of the article in the first sentence.
 * 2) Details – don't state the obvious. Provide some information about the subject too, as much as you can.
 * 3)  You  – use another term like "the player" or the name of the playable character.
 * 4) Link to as many other articles as possible once and only once.
 * 5) Italicize all game titles as well as linking them.
 * 6) Navigation via templates.
 * 7) Categorize with many categories.

Enhancements

 * 1) Images to visualize the article.
 * 2) Knowledge/Notice Templates like, ,.
 * 3) 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. An account must be created in order to edit.

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 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 apostrophes ( ' ) 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, 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 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) would need 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. Newly created stubs will be deleted automatically so try to add a decent amount of information to the page you are creating.

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 he or she plays 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" can be used occasionally, but "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 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 and its related series, Wario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Super Smash Bros. 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 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. A person must create an account to edit or create new articles.

Italicizing Titles
The wiki has decided it proper to respect all games, series, movies, television programs, albums (music) and publications (print: comics, books and magazines) 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 Mario series and its related series, Wario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Super Smash Bros. 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. ...

If certain templates, such as the Articleabout one, already have the italicized code in them, be sure to still italicize the title, setting it apart from the text (only now, the text is italicized and the title is plain).

Navigation Templates
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 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.

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  , the article is automatically added to the category; be sure to not include a space between "Category:" and the name. 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, Wikis 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.

Note that categories and templates often overlap in subject matter. This is perfectly fine, however templates are expected to provide enhanced navigation assets for readers (i.e. subdividing a large group of related pages by more specific criteria, such as characters vs. items appearing in the same game). If a category or a group of categories adequately links a group of pages, a template may not be needed at all.

''Congratulations! The article "Super Mario Wiki", with the text''
 * 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, 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 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. A person must create an account to edit or create new articles.

''would be an acceptable article on the Super Mario Wiki (if such an article were allowed). Now try it with a real article!''

Any article lacking in one of the seven criteria can and should be edited to correct its faults. This works not just for creating articles, but expanding and improving them too! The following sections deal with specific aspects of writing and additional features that can be added to the articles.

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 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 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 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; if there is not enough information for each game, it can all be placed under the Mario Party series section, without creating sub-sections 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 (such as Mario having to be rescued by Yoshi Super Mario 64 DS), the remake can get its own sub-section in the overall 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 a character 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, Kamek only appears in one Mario & Luigi game, and so there is no "Mario & Luigi series" section, just a header for Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.

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". Since the Yoshi series 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
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.

Fiction
When writing an article describing characters, events, or places 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 Mario series 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.

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 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 to the top of the edit box, which leads into the second enhancement.

Other Templates
Category:Notice Templates, where the image template is categorized, contains a few templates for use in articles. needs to be put on all games not released but confirmed. goes on games released at most a month ago. These go on top of the page, always, as well.

In addition, there are some templates that form a table to fill in quick statistics – for example, provides basic information about a game,  puts the RPG stats of an enemy from Paper Mario. These special templates should go into every article it applies to, in this case every game and Paper Mario enemy respectively.

We suggest searching through templates to get a feel of what templates are available besides navigational ones.