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Lylat Wiki:Quality Standards
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| Five steps to making a featured article |
|---|
| Stage 5: Becoming a featured article |
| Stage 4: Becoming a good article |
| Stage 3: Becoming a decent article |
| Stage 2: Becoming a stub article |
| Stage 1: Becoming a new article |
What makes a good article? The Quality Standards explains the composition of a good article for Lylat Wiki (stage 4 of LW:5StFA). Various topics are covered here, like how to expand on a stub. A good article is widely considered to be one of the best articles on the wiki. A decent article is not as comprehensive like a good article, as it still requires fixing before reaching that status.
Language
Most importantly, articles must be written in a clear, encyclopedic tone. Do not add any biased, informal and/or opinionated content into an article. Other words to avoid using includes:
- jargon and other colloquial terms: this includes gaming terms, scientific, or slang terms
- weasel words: these are words that appear to be specific but are not.
- promoting the subject: this is when the writer makes a template promoting the subject
Point of view
An article must be written in a third-person perspective, otherwise known as "in-universe". Avoid using first-person and second-person narratives. A third-person perspective means that the writing is "neutralized". Articles must only contain information relating to the subject and must not overwhelm the reader with details.
Similarly, certain audiences might have an easier time understanding an article, such as if there are too many technical details. The article must be written in a way to accommodate every reader.
A "good" article features a decent blend of all three point of views. If an article needs more of a specific type of reference, add the {{source-needed}} template and specify which type of source is needed.
Cleanup
An article may not be well written and poorly sorted. Any article in need of a rewrite should be tagged with {{rewrite}} and provided with a reason, if possible.
Prose
wikipedia:prose is a type of language that is most often used by people during communication. Unlike poetry, bulleted or numbered lists, and tables, prose requires full sentences integrated into paragraphs. An article should oftentimes prefer the use of prose. For example, the bulleted list can be converted into prose:
- Fox McCloud is James McCloud's son
- He leads Star Fox
- He is friends with Falco Lombardi
resulting in:
Fox McCloud is James McCloud's son. He leads Star Fox and is friends with Falco Lombardi.
Tense
- Past tense: This should be used when describing the history or background of the subject.
- Present tense: This should be used when describing the gameplay.
- Future tense: This tense should be avoided.
Verification
Verification is needed, as any person can arbitrarily add unreliable information. The reader of an article expects to be provided accurate information on the subject. If a fact has debatable reliability, it must be marked with a reputable external source. In most cases, a reputable source is an official website relating to Star Fox. For more info, see Help:Citing Sources. Here are some rules involving citations:
- If a statement needs to be verified, add {{citation needed}} after the sentence.
- Do not use opinionated links or criticism for citation. A critical review of a subject is allowed on a personal user page or community page.
- The wiki cannot predict the future, so speculation is not allowed. If there is any future or upcoming event (such as a new Star Fox game), sources must be added.
- An "External links" section is different from the "References" section, as it directly links to the subject's page on another site, such as Wikipedia, IMDb, or GameFAQs.
- Try using a variety of reputable sources for an article, so that the information does not heavily reflect that from one link.
Original research
Original research is one of the biggest problems involving article content. This is content, usually theories, that look reputable but were made up from the reader itself. Sometimes it may even be based on an official publication. Original research is similar but less distinguishable from blatant fanon.
Articles should not be written to conflict with itself. An article is written by the subject themselves (usually a Nintendo staff member) is known as a conflict of interest.
Style and Content guide
A good article contains information that is easily accessible to the reader, as well as sections that accurately reflect the content. Each reader has their own way of reading an article, so an article must attempt a variety of methods at displaying information to the reader. For example, if the information is stored on an image, it can be described in text form for non-visual readers.
Most articles must be divided by section, with the use of using === header tags. The section title must accurately describe what it is about. For example, if a section is intended to be about a character's appearance, the section can be appropriately named "Appearance".
Introduction
An introduction is the first paragraph on the article. It is generally used for summarizing the subject, which is described more in depth from its sections.
If there is an issue with the introduction, it can be marked with one of these templates:
- {{intro-too-short}}
- {{intro-too-long}}
- {{intro-missing}}
- {{intro-rewrite}}
History
In order to better understand a subject, it is sometimes useful to know their in-universe and real world history. For example:
- Real world: What inspired the creation of a character?
- In-universe: How did a character get to where they are? How was their aircraft designed?
Sometimes, a reader may only look up one thing in the in-universe history. However, they may accidentally read too much without being warned of spoilers. In such cases, the {{spoiler}} template must be applied to warn readers.
Quotes
A character article can contain quotes from that character. If too many quotes are listed on a page, the entire list should be moved to a subpage.
Trivia
A trivia section belongs at the end of an article, and it contains bulleted lists of miscellaneous information. Before adding to trivia, editors should attempt to see if the information is better suited under another section.
Linking
Wikis have the ability to hot-link to other articles and even external links. There are a few rules to linking on an article:
- Do not link to another article multiple times. This should only be done a few times, once per every few sections.
- Do not link to words that are irrelevant to Star Fox, for example: "apple", "of", "grapes"
- External links should be used in accordance to the interwiki policy.
An article without any links is known as a "dead-end"; a list of them can be found under Special:DeadendPages. Adding links to an article keeps it out of the list of dead-end pages.
At times, articles may link to a disambiguation page, which are intended to help users differentiate between two articles of the same title. For example, Star Fox (team) and Star Fox (game) are listed under Star Fox. Based on the context, the link must be changed to which "Star Fox" exactly described by the article.
Other
Incomplete
To become a good article, the editor must avoid leaving out as much information as possible, especially large portions of information. An example of missing information is if a walkthrough leaves out a stage, a gallery is missing screenshots, etc. The {{incomplete}} template should be added in such cases, with a reason provided in the template.
Multiple issues
If an article has numerous issues, the {{multiple issues}} template should be added on it. This is because adding each template describing an individual issue would occupy too much content space.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a good article stems from a decent article. If it has been too long since the last evaluation, and many changes have been done to the article, it may have to be re-evaluated before its qualification as a good article.
In short, a good article has:
- proper grammar, verifiable sources, and properly organized sections.
- and is written in accordance to most policy pages, including the aforementioned sections.
See also
Credits
We thank the contributors of the following pages as they were a big inspiration to this page:
