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Lylat Wiki:Quality Standards
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| This draft policy is recommend by a member in accordance with LW:Draft. You are free to make small changes, as long as the original purpose of the policy is preserved. Any feedback should be provided on the talk page. |
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| Five steps to making a featured article |
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| 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.
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.
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 LW:CP and Help:Citing Sources. Here are some other things to know about citations:
- If a statement needs to be verified, add {{CitationNeeded}} after the sentence.
- The citation must properly confirm the statement.
- Do not use opinionated links or criticism for citation. If an article has this issue, add {{criticism-section}} to the appropriate section. 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.
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.
Policy
external links conflict guidelines
External links that are part of an Article, or in a #External Links section, need to be related to the subject of the article. In the event that they don't, please mark it with {{elcg}} if you feel this is so, but wish to see if others agree.
Fanon
Fanon is a fan-made theory to cover a gap in the plot, missing detail in game design/development, or something similar, but lacks concrete evidence to prove it. We want to be there to support the starfox community(ies), but fanon can detract from quality of the wiki. Please follow LW:Fanon if you believe you have found a piece of fanon on the wiki. We do not wish to insult anyone, but if a theory is not supported by official evidence, we will need to question it.
over-detailed
An article needs to insure it doesn't overwhelm the reader with details. If there are too many of them, some will need to be taken out in order to be easier on the reader.
If you find an article that that does have too many details, please mark it {{over-detailed}} and/or reduce the details yourself. If you are removing them yourself, please do not mass edit the article. Instead, edit in a incremental or iterative fashion, taking time to make sure the article still has its key information, and that the quality of the article is improving with each step.
Too Narrow of Audience for Details
Is an article written too technical? or too in-depth? will only one-type of audience benefit from it, at the expense of many others? if so, please place one of the following on the article, too bring this to others attention.
- {{too-narrow}}
- {{too-technical}}
- {{too-scientific}}
prose
wikipedia:prose is the form language people are most familiar with when communicating. Unlike poetry, bulleted or numbered lists, tables, and other forms of displaying information, prose requires full sentences, placed into paragraphs.
Sometimes, a section in a wiki is currently in something other than prose, but an editor thinks it would be better in a prose form.
For example, take the following bulleted list,
- Fox McCloud is James McCloud's Son
- He leads Star Fox
- He is friends with Falco Lombardi
and make a paragraph out of it,
Fox McCloud is James McCloud's Son. He leads Star Fox and is friends with Falco Lombardi.
Just the same, there will be times to where things that are in prose would be better in something else.
Here are the typical situations:
- {{prose}} - to mark it should be in prose
- {{timeline-to-prose}} - to mark a timeline
- {{poetry-to-prose}} - to mark poetry
- {{table-to-prose}} - to mark a table
- {{list-to-prose}} - to mark a list
- {{unprose}} - to mark it should be out of prose
- {{prose-to-timeline}} - to mark that is should be a timeline
- {{prose-to-poetry}} - to mark that is should be poetry
- {{prose-to-table}} - to mark that is should be a table
- {{prose-to-list}} - to mark that is should be a list
Types Of References
In order to make sure we show an unbaised point of view, it is often best to resources from at least 3 different sources. Depending on your situation, any or all of the sources needs to comes from one of three locations.
- First-party - is something that said or when on in the games themselves.
- Second Party - is something found on an official publication, website or archive there of.
- third Party - is a reputable source created by a fan of the series, an expert in a scientific field, a game review site, etc.
A "good" article is one that features a decent blend of all three. In the event you believe an article needs more of a specific type of reference, then please more it with one of the following:
relies too much on one source
An article has one or more resources, but predominantly relies on one of those resources for all its citations. As each statement becomes strong with each verification, an article becomes stronger with a mixture of different sources, each being used appropriately. if an article comes appears to use the s\ame source too often, please mark it with {{r.t. m.o.o.s.e.}}
unreferenced
Style & Content Guide
Articles need to be designed with 2 things in mind: wikipedia:accessibility and wikipedia:findability. Everything on the article, and often in other pages too, needs to be easily findable through search engines (google included) and through the browser.
- To be accessible: Means not to be available to even those with impairments on their hearing or seeing, or other limited sense.
- to be findable: Means it is easy to find the information on a given page.
How an article accomplished is as follows:
- sectionalized: using === header tags, a section is carved out of the page for a specific area of content. The section title needs to be coherent and accurate reflection of the content bellow.
- multiple ways of displaying info: There are multiple ways people observe, learn, and understand information. This also means, that if information is stored in an image, there needs to be a text base equivalent for those who are hard of seeing, have reduced bandwidth, images disabled, etc.
Sections that are often found on
introduction
An introduction needs to be a summary of the article, as well as a paragraph giving general information that is relevant, but does not necessarily fit into any of the lower sections exclusively.
An introduction can be marked with the following:
- {{intro-too-short}}
- {{intro-too-long}}
- {{intro-missing}}
- {{intro-rewrite}}
lacks historical info
In order to get a better understanding of a subject, it is sometimes best to see how they got there. For us, this manifest itself in two ways:
- {{OOUHI|Out of Universe}} - What was the creator thinking when he came up with a character?
- {{IUHI|In-Universe Info}} - how did a character get to where they are? how did a ship get designed? how did the item bomb come into existence?
quotes
Quotes are always fun to throw around, but how do you know when there is enough? well, put one of the following down, and discuss it with your fellow editors.
- {{too many quotes}}
- {{too little quotes}}
plot
We all like to know generally what happened in a game, but what if you are in the middle of playing you look up how to do something, and by accident, you read to much. When this happens, the plot has been spoiled for you.
including the plot is important for an article - we need to know what when on, in order to get a full understanding of the subject.
- {{too much info}} - in the event too many details are given, and it detracts from the quality of the article.
- {{too little info}} - if there is little to know information of the plot, and it is important to the article.
- {{spoiler}} - a template to hide important plot details you don't want people to know, should they care for something like this.
- If it is needed, one could mark {{unmarked spoiler}} to a page that needs edited to either hide or remove the spoiler information. Please discuss on the related talk page after a marking, to see how and what should be hidden and what should be removed.
rewrite entirely
If an article is really, really bad, please put {{rewrite entirely}} on it. this will prompt users (hopefully) to rush in, trying to edit the article to make it better.
If you have vollunteered to mass rewrite an article, first THANK YOU, from the entire LW:Admin. You have no idea how much work you are saving us, and we probably we'll never get to properly show you gratification. Second, please post {{mass rewrite}} on top of the article, in order to give notice to other that a mass edit is going on, and in order to prevent edit wars, they may wish to wait on their contributions. But please remove the notice when you are done.
trivia
A trivia section should contain bulleted lists of little tidbits of information. These each should still follow our spelling and grammar rules. There is just no need to put it in prose, unless it really does work out better that way.
- {{prose}} - to recommend it be prose.
- {{bulleted list}} - to recommend it be a bulleted list
needs reorganized
Think an article needs to be reorganized? is it missing sections that you know should be there? Then mark it with one of the following templates:
- {{sectionalized}}
list of non-notable stuff
In the event an article has decrease in quality to the point of not containing anything notable and being no more than a list, please place {{list-of-non-notable-stuff}} on it.
Linking
One of the beautiful things about wikis, are there ability to wikipedia:hot-link to other articles. But how often should something be hot-linked? and how many links should an article have?
- Well, first, if you are linking to a word multiple times in an article, please only do so once per scroll-height - i.e. the amount you can see on a page without scrolling up or down.
- Second, only link words that are not commonly used. So, no "is", "as", "of", etc.
- Third, if you wish to link outside of the wiki, please link in accordance with LW:IWP.
Terminology
In the event you find a page that needs some linking help,
- A page without links going to out to other pages is known as a dead-end. Please mark it with {{deadend}}.
to disambiguation pages
A disambiguation page exists to guide visitors of the wiki to specific articles, that have similar titles to other articles. Disambiguation pages aren't meant to be the receiving end of a link from another page. If you find a page that has one or more links to a disambiguation page, please place {{Links-to-disambig}} on the page or fix the links to the proper page yourself.
Other
These are some other things that can come up about an article. If these questions are raised, an the article survives, then it is a testament to it's quality and the efforts of those who helped make it.
incomplete
An article is missing a rather large piece, or maybe many small ones. this could be Walthough missing a stage, a gallery missing screenshots, whatever. If feel this is so, then please, place {{incomplete}} on the article, and place why it is so on the talk page of the
notability questioned
Should an article be part of the wiki? place {{notability questioned}} and find out....*evil laugh*
Multiple issues
Should it be, that an article has multiple issues within it, that placing all the templates would take up to much content space, please remove all addition maintance templates, and place {{Multiple issues}} on it, and be sure to preserve the dates the article was originally marked for each marking.
To Become a Good Article
To become a Good Article, and article first needs to of been certified as a decent artice, in recent times. If it has been too long since the last evaluation, and many changes have been made to the article over that time, it may need to be re-evaluated before
Second, the article needs to be thoroughly tested in each of the above topics. Only when an article:
- has minimal error in grammar, spelling, verifiability, reliability,
- statifies all applicable policy and guidelines at the current time, within reason, and
- has a diverse use of internal-links going out and coming in,
Will the article become "good".
Once you have a decent-level article ready to be reviewed, seek out a good-level reviewer and ask them to review the page. If it passes, replace the article's -decent-level template with a -good-level one to show the article's promotion.
See also
Credits
We thank the contributors of the following pages as they were a big inspiration to this page:
