SMO.wiki:Editing guidelines

Revision as of 01:23, 15 July 2023 by Grady (talk | contribs) (→‎Capitalization: Added info about official terms)

This page contains some guidelines to help your articles appear more professional and match our wiki's standards. It should be noted that these are only guidelines, and most of them will have exceptions.

Grammar

Good grammar is important to ensure wiki articles sound professional.

  • Any forms of the pronoun "you" should be avoided on most pages. Instead, use phrases such as "the player", "Mario", or the pronoun "one" or "they".
  • Some words such as "get" or "do" might strike the reader as too informal, so consider alternative words like "obtain" or "perform" instead.
  • Ensure that your writing otherwise uses proper spelling, grammar, and capitalization. If you're unsure, use a program like Grammarly to check.

Capitalization

In addition to the capitalization rules of standard English, there are a few nuances to keep in mind when it comes to the titles of Super Mario Odyssey game objects, mechanics, and strategies.

Terms coined by the community are generally considered proper nouns if:

  • they refer to a strategy or phenomena that occurs in one or two specific places, such as Dram Strat or Letter Escape.
  • they are generally used without an article such as "a" or "the" by the community. The exception to this is tricks that are phrased as a gerund or similar ordinary form of speech, such as nut jumping or coin duplication.

Terms coined by the community are generally considered improper nouns if:

Official terms used by the game itself will follow their own capitalization rules in the game or other official resources, which is often not consistent with the guidelines for community-coined terms.

  • A generally reliable way to check the capitalization of an in-game term is to search for the relevant article on the Super Mario Wiki.
  • If a community-coined term contains an official term that is a proper noun within it, the official term should always be capitalized within the name even if the community-coined term is an improper noun, such as in the terms Cappy return cancel and Rocket Flower refresh.

Page creation

When creating a page, it is important to consider whether the subject is deserving of its own page, or if it would be better suited as a section of an article on a broader topic instead. Here are some things to consider:

  • Does the subject have an official name in the game or a generally accepted name in the community? If it doesn't, not only may it be too obscure to merit its own page, but it might require coining a term on the spot, which is generally undesirable.
  • How much content can be meaningfully written about the subject? If the article seems like it may end up as a stub, consider incorporating the information into another page.
  • Refer to the capitalization guidelines above when selecting an article title. Note that the first letter of an article title will always be uppercase, regardless of how it is capitalized in regular speech.