MarioWiki:Manual of Style: Difference between revisions

==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:

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:

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:

When the article is a game, referring to [[#Italicizing titles|Step 5]], using five apostrophes (<tt><nowiki>'''''</nowiki></tt>) 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).

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:

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 [[MarioWiki:Good writing|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===

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

===Linking, linking, linking!===

[[Help:Link|Link]]ing 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. 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 navigation templates are also allowed regardless of the length of a page.

===Italicizing titles===

As our Super Mario Wiki article gets better, notice that the second occurrence of "New Super Mario Bros." is still italicized, just not linked.

===Navigation templates===

[[MarioWiki:Navigation templates|Navigation templates]] list a bunch of related articles. Most templates pertain to a particular game (such as {{tem|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 ({{tem|Koopas}} or {{tem|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 no navigation template yet for your subject or game. But if there ''is'' an appropriate template, add it - it has the same effect as linking, but even better.

===Categories===

Let's say the categories Gaming, Wikis and Websites exist here, and that Wikis is a subcategory of Websites. In that case:

Also 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''

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

==Sections of an article==

===Capitalization and italics===

===Section headings===

An article's top-level body headings (typically level 2, surrounded by <code><nowiki>==</nowiki></code>) should not contain any links (e.g. <code><nowiki>==[[Mario]]==</nowiki></code>), 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.

===Empty sections===

{{main|MarioWiki:Empty sections}}

===History===

{{see also|MarioWiki:Chronology}}

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 in ''[[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.

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)|''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 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" sub-section 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.

===Verb tense===

====Fiction====

====Non-fiction====

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.