MarioWiki:Glossary

This article is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it is being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible.

The Glossary is a list of gaming, computing, and Wiki terms used in the Super Mario Wiki. While entries in this list link to mainspace subjects, this page does not include definitions for fictional characters, living people, events, places and things appearing in the Mario series or relating to it in the real world.

A

AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Usually refers to opponents programmed by the game.

Autoconfirmed users

Users who have had an account on the MarioWiki for at least one week and have made at least 10 edits to the database.

Autopatrolled users

Users whose edits are automatically verified by the software. Their edits are not displayed as new for administrators.

B

Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense (BJAODN)

An archive created as a way of storing vandalism and poor writing that users consider to be humorous.

Beta

A pre-release form of a video game. Beta versions of games are partially playable, but often do not utilize the final enemy placement, textures, or interface.

Beta Elements

Concepts that appeared in the beta version of a video game, but were removed in the final version of the game.

Binary

A system of numerical notation to the base 2, in which each place of a number, expressed as 0 or 1, corresponds to a power of 2. The decimal number 58 appears as 111010 in binary notation, since 58 = 1 × 32 + 1 × 16 + 1 × 8 + 0 × 4 + 1 × 2 + 0 × 1.

Bit

The unit of information; the amount of information obtained by asking a yes-or-no question; a computational quantity that can take on one of two values, such as false and true or 0 and 1; the smallest unit of storage - sufficient to hold one bit.

Bitmap (BMP)

A picture created on a visual display unit where each pixel corresponds to one or more bits in memory, the number of bits per pixel determining the number of available colors.

Block

A restriction imposed upon a sockpuppet or severely misbehaving user by an administrator that prevents them from editing the database.

Bug

An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of hardware, especially one that causes it to malfunction. E.g. "There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out backward." The identification and removal of bugs in a program is called "debugging".

Bureaucrats

Users that have deleting, CheckUser, blocking, UserRights, and rename rights.

Byte

Adjacent bits, usually eight, processed by a computer as a unit. Larger units are called kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terrabytes, etc.

C

Cache

A small fast memory holding recently accessed data, designed to speed up subsequent access to the same data. Most often applied to processor-memory access but also used for a local copy of data accessible over a network etc.

Cameo

A brief appearance of a character, species or item in a medium (a game, movie, comic, etc.) other than the one it originated in. The cameo is of no lasting importance to the subject or the medium in which it appears.

Canon

A system of classification that separates official media products from unofficial media products, therefore determining which characters, locations, events, etc. "actually" exist in a series' fictional universe.

Cookie

A piece of data downloaded to a computer by a website, containing details of the preferences of that computer's user which identify the user when revisiting that website.

Conjecture

An unofficial name for something.

CPU (central processing unit)

Refers to a computerized player or opponent in a game. Also known as AI (artificial intelligence).

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

An extension to HTML to allow styles, e.g. colour, font, size to be specified for certain elements of a hypertext document. Style information can be included in-line in the HTML file or in a separate CSS file (which can then be easily shared by multiple HTML files). Multiple levels of CSS can be used to allow selective overriding of styles.

D

Dynamic Page List (DPL)

A MediaWiki extension that allows a user to generate a list of articles that meet certain specified criteria. DPL is no longer used on the Super Mario Wiki.

DYK

Short for "Did You Know?"

E

Easter Egg

A message hidden in the object code of a program as a joke, intended to be found by persons disassembling or browsing the code.

Edit Conflict

When two or more users attempt to edit the same page or page section at the same time. After one user saves his/her changes, the rest get edit conflicts. Their changes are not saved; instead, the new version of the page is provided for them to re-edit. A textbox with the version of the page they were going to submit is also presented to them, and the difference between the two is shown.

Edit War

Two or more users persistently reverting each other's edits. Edit Warring is considered a warnable offense.

F

FA

Short for Featured Article.

Filler Character

A conjectural term used for characters that were created to fill a void. I.e. Waluigi is the opposite to Luigi as Wario is to Mario.

Fourth Wall

"Breaking the fourth wall" is when a video game character happens to notice that he or she is in a video game, or when he or she refers directly to the player.

G

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

A standard compressed file format used for pictures.

Glitch

A mistake in video games that programmers forgot to debug.

GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

A time zone on the city of Greenwich in the United Kingdom.

H

Hexadecimal (Hex)

A numbering system that uses 16 as the radix, employing the numerals 0 through 9 and representing digits greater than 9 with the letters A through F.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

A set of standards used to tag elements of a hypertext document (such as this wiki). It is regularly used for displaying pages and formatting in the World Wide Web.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

The standard protocol for transferring hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. Compare HTML.

I

IP (Internet Protocol)

A code used to label packets of data sent across the internet, identifying both the sending and the receiving computers.

J

JPEG or JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

A standard file format for compressing pictures by disposing of redundant pixels.

L

Life

In platformer games, there are a certain amount of lives that the player has. He or she can lose them by being hit by enemies too much or gain them by finding extra lives. If the player loses all of his or her lives, a Game Over ensues.

Log

A record of the activity of some system, often stored in a particular file.

N

"NPC" redirects here. For information about the New Play Control! series, see here. For the Japan-only compilation game known as Nintendo Puzzle Collection, see here.

Newbie (also known as Noob or n00b)

A newcomer or novice, especially an inexperienced user of the Internet or of computers in general.

NIWA (Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance)

A network of independent wikis striving to chronicle the many diverse video game universes created by Nintendo.

NPC

Abbreviation for "non-playable character". Refers to any character in a video game that cannot be used by the player. Some examples are Bowser and Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros.

NSFW

Abbreviation for "Not Safe for Work". It usually refers to something with swearing, gore, sexual references, drugs, nudity, etc.

P

Patroller

A user who is given blocking, rollbacking, patrolling, and CheckUser rights.

Per

Used before a username/a group of users to indicate that the person agrees with that user/those users. Used in voting for Featured Articles, proposals etc.

Pipe Projects

Projects to improve the wiki or certain aspects of it; users can add their usernames to the Pipe Project if they believe they can help.

Plagiarism

The copying of another person's work without giving any credit to the original author. This also includes altering the text (such as making the switch from active to passive (Ex: "Mario stomped on the Goomba" to "The Goomba was stomped by Mario.").

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

An extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images.

Port

A game that was originally released on previous consoles or handhelds that is transferred to a different console or handheld with little to no changes regarding gameplay.

R

Recovery

The act of regaining one's health, usually through restorative items, such as Coins or Mushrooms. Alternate methods include visiting Toad Houses or Inns. In Super Smash Bros. games, the term refers either to reducing one's damage percentage or returning to the stage after being attacked or falling.

Redirect

A page that is created with the purpose of leading users that search for the page to another page with a similar name.

RAM (Random Access Memory)

The main memory of a computer, in which data can be stored or retrieved from all locations at the same (usually very high) speed.

ROM (Read Only Memory)

Computer memory in which program instructions, operating procedures, or other data are permanently stored, generally on electronic chips during manufacture, and that ordinarily cannot be changed by the user.

RPG

Short for Role Playing Game. Some examples are Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and Paper Mario.

S

Self-Destruct (or SD)

The act of knocking oneself out in a Super Smash Bros. game. A common example is missing a jump from one platform to the next and falling into the bottomless pit.

Server

A program which provides some service to other (client) programs. The connection between client and server is normally by means of message passing, often over a network, and uses some protocol to encode the client's requests and the server's responses.

Sidescroller

A linear type of level that is shown from a perspective where the directions forward and backward are represented as left and right.

Shovelware

Extra software dumped onto a CD-ROM or tape to fill up the remaining space on the medium after the software distribution it is intended to carry, but not integrated with the distribution.

The 'Shroom

The Super Mario Wiki monthly newspaper.

Sockpuppet or Sock Puppet

An extra online identity created by a member of a discussion forum, etc., to agree with opinions submitted under his or her usual online name, or to evade a block or ban imposed upon the original user.

SPAM

Short for Stupid Pointless and Annoying Message. It is a form of vandalism.

Spin-off

A game that has other gameplay types rather than the usual gameplay type it has (eg: Mario Tennis, Mario Kart).

Stub

An article that lacks sufficient information.

Sysop (system operator)

A user who is given deletion, blocking, rollback, CheckUser, protection, and patrolling rights.

T

Template

An electronic file with a predesigned, customized format and structure, as for a fax, letter, or expense report, ready to be filled in. Templates must be added with {{Template Name}}

TOC

Short for Table of Contents.

Troll

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Certain cases of trolling are vandalism.

TPP

Short for Talk Page Proposal.

U

Unlockable

A character, gameplay mode, item, or other element of a video game that can only be accessed after completing a certain task in the game.

Userbox

Boxes that users are free to create and use to describe their likes, dislikes, favorites, and other pieces of information about themselves.

Userbox Tower

A user's unique tower of userboxes. Starts with the userboxtop template and ends with the userboxbottom template.

Userspace

Anything that belongs to a user such as their signature, certain sub-pages, talk pages, and the user page.

V

Vandalism

Any addition, deletion, or altering of content intended for the sole purpose of disrupting the peace of the wiki.

Vaporware

A term for games that did start development but were never actually published.

W

Warning

A template permanently put on a user's talkpage to stop their bad behaviour.

Wiki

Software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.

World Wide Web (www)

The complete set of electronic documents stored on computers that are connected over the Internet and are made available by the protocol known as HTTP. The World Wide Web makes up a large part of the Internet.

Z

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