MarioWiki:Featured articles/Header
Featured articles are wiki articles that represent the best the Super Mario Wiki has to offer. The featured article nomination process was created in order to highlight quality articles representative of the Super Mario Wiki. Articles should be nominated based on their content, not because you like the subject.
Featured article pages all observe the no-signature policy.
Featured article standards
An article must...
- Be well-written and detailed.
Articles must be originally written by the editors with no discernible grammar and/or spelling errors present, with exceptions being in possible game bios (where errors should be tagged with {{sic}}). Articles should also follow these guidelines as well; this means that plot summaries for either characters or games should not be overly excessive in detail and length, nor the article should be written in an overly grandiose, narrative-style fashion. In the case of media articles (video games, movies, books, etc.), the article should cover most details about the media and describe how the game plays and/or the general summary of the story. In terms of subject articles (characters, items, locations, objects, people, etc), these sections need to cover their role and function in the games and/or their complete relevance to the Super Mario franchise. Empty sections should not be present in the article, and these entries, aside from gallery and quote sections, should be originally written. The writing should be as neutral as possible: biased sentences need their choice of words written for a more neutral connotation.
- Be sourced with all available Super Mario-related appearances.
All appearances of the subject need to be present in the article. Statements that need to be referenced should be sourced properly as per these guidelines. Any statement tagged with {{ref needed}} should be addressed as soon as possible. Due to some media being obscure and/or difficult to obtain, such as the Satellaview games, Japanese-exclusive manga, and certain Saturday Supercade episodes, editors can exercise some more leniency with the rule, though that if information is readily and easily available despite barriers, the section should have necessary information related to the subject.
- Follow the Manual of Style and all other policies on the Super Mario Wiki.
Articles that can be considered to be featured should generally follow the manual of style. Other lesser, but still relevant policies that articles should adhere if applicable to are found in this category of official writing guidelines. For example, trivia sections should not be too long as per our trivia policy; if possible, information in trivia sections should be relocated to other parts of the article. Media articles, most prominently video game articles, should receive a reception and sales section that follow the reception and sales policy. Media articles, if they have references to other media, need to follow the references policy, most commonly noted in the "References to other games" sections. And lastly, some information may need to be cited and thus follow properly as per the citation policy.
These tags indicate that the article has a major problem that needs to be addressed and therefore, cannot fulfill the requirements to be featured. When opposing featured article nominations or supporting unfeature nominations due to the tag, be aware that these tags can be added up post-nomination after flaws of the article have been found: it is more advisable to cite the reason the improvement tag was put up rather than stating its existence, as that already repeats the role it is intended to do. If the article does not have the problems the tag has stated, feel free to remove the tag after editing accordingly. Our maintenance page has a list of improvement tags for articles, as well as our notice template category.
- Have a proper lead that gives a good summary of the topic and can be used for the front page featured box.
The first paragraph of the article should have a substantial summary of the topic that can be used for the {{featured}} box on the main page. In terms of media, the summary should state the genre, the number of players, the release date, possible new features, and a general overview of the media. In subject articles, the summary should describe the topic with their general, common role from their appearances in the media.
- Have zero (or a minimal amount of) red-links.
Red links indicate that a page linked to there is missing and is therefore considered an incomplete portion of the article. A minimal amount of red links is passable, though they should be filled out as soon as possible. Excessive red links should be completely avoided.
- Not have been previously featured on the main page.
Articles up for nomination should be ones not featured on the "Currently featured" list below. However, articles that are featured on the main page before and have become unfeatured may be renominated to be a featured article if the guidelines are met once again.
- Include a reasonable number of images of good quality if said images are available.
Image quality should be close to official resolution or better, and they should follow our image use policy. Poorly cropped images, poor transparencies, sprites in .jpg format, etc. are not acceptable. Emulation hacks of screenshots are discouraged; if there are better, more official alternates to those types of screenshots, they are preferred. However, some leniency is given if there is no possible way to obtain higher quality images.
- Be of reasonable length.
Articles should fully cover appearances and information of the topic. However, due to some limited appearances of the said topic, it may not be possible to expand information any further without resorting to padding the article. In this case, although these articles are complete and are written to the best of the editor's abilities, they are too short to be categorized among the best articles in MarioWiki and therefore, are not rich enough in content to be considered featured articles. Though there is no explicit cut-off length in terms of what is considered a good candidate for a featured article, editors should be fully confident that the articles are long and detailed enough in length to make the judgement. In other words, if editors have to ask the following question, "Is this article long enough to be featured?" chances are, the article likely does not pass the grade comfortably and therefore should not be considered to be featured.
- Have complete entries, if the article is a list.
Featured list articles generally follow the above guidelines with several exceptions. Lists must be well-detailed and 100% complete with information, as well as the formatting of whatever method of organization the list employs to be legible by all readers (e.g. properly formatted tables, a good contrast of colors, compatible with all devices, etc.). Images, if applicable, are required for all entries on the list to be featured. As featured lists usually do not rely on paragraphs to convey information as other featured articles, being well-written and detailed is not a priority, though however, a substantial intro that meets the criteria to be used on the main page box is still required for a list to pass featured article guidelines.
The overall process
First, nominate an article you find is worthy of featured status, using the "Nominate" input box below; see criteria above. Please add a reason to your vote, referring to the quality of the article rather than the article's subject. Any vote that contains simply a fan vote such as "Mario is my favorite character, he should stay featured!" will be removed on sight. Anyone can comment on featured article nominations whether logged-in or not, but only registered users can nominate articles or vote on nominations. Note that a previously featured article cannot be featured on the main page again; however, it can be restored to featured status if there are no other featured articles in queue.
Others will object to the nomination if they disagree that the article is good enough; they will then supply reasons for doing so, and ways to improve the article (errors, style, organization, images, notability, sources).
Supporters adjust the article until the objectors (with reasonable objections) are satisfied. The article is placed on the featured article list and added to the front page queue.
Also, if, at least a week after the article's nomination, that article has five supports and no objections, and stays so for at least one week, it will be added to the queue, and will be officially known as a "featured article". If at a later date a featured article does not meet all the FA requirements anymore, there is the option to unfeature it. Also note that, as with other wiki processes, the staff reserves the right to veto nominations that are poorly justified or made in bad faith.
How to nominate
Before doing anything, be sure to read the article completely, keeping a sharp eye out for mistakes. Afterwards, compare the article to the criteria listed above, and then either support or object the article's nomination. If you support, sign your name and add a strong reason for your position.
If you object, please supply concrete reasons for doing so and how it can be improved. Please cite which rule your objection falls under. Failure to do so will result in your objection being considered invalid. Users may vote for the removal of an oppose vote if they feel it is invalid or not specific enough, but have to give reasons for their choice. Three users, including a wiki staff member, are required for the removal of an oppose vote. This is how it should look:
==== Removal of opposes ====
'''Name of a specified user'''
#{{User|Username}} Reasons the oppose vote should be removed
After the required amount of votes is met, users must wait 24 hours before removing the vote. Any vote that has per'd without providing any additional reason will also be removed.
As stated above, any objections will be looked upon by the nominator, supporters, and anyone willing to improve the article, and action will be taken to please the objectors.
Once all objectors' complaints have been solved (or the article has five supports and no objections after at least a week), the article will be added to the queue and be officially known as a "featured article". A nomination may fail if it does not pass after an automatically calculated two month deadline.
Also remember to correctly format {{FASTAT}} at the top of the article you are nominating.
Every Saturday after 00:00 GMT (8pm EDT), the next article in the queue will be highlighted on the main page as featured, marked with the featured template, and removed from the list of nominations. The beginning of the article then appears on the main page via the featured articles template.
Also, each user may only have three active featured article nominations at any given time. Once this limit is reached, the only way to newly nominate a different article is for one of the active ones to fail (does not meet the deadline), pass (i.e. the article meets featured status), or to be deleted. If a user exceeds this limit, the most recent nomination will be deleted and a warning will be issued.
Type the exact article name as a subpage name to create the nomination page below. Read anything in comments (<!-- and -->) carefully. If the article has already been nominated in the past, you might come across a redirect instead. What can be done here is copy the basic code layout of another FA nomination, and format it as necessary.
Unfeaturing articles
Normally, once an article becomes a featured article, it keeps its featured status, no matter how long it is since it was featured. However, there may be a situation where a FA cannot maintain its high quality (for example, when a new game is released and the article does not cover it). For this reason, there is the possibility to propose the unfeaturing of a FA.
The process of unfeaturing is very similar to the process of featuring an article. Indeed, the only differences are the following:
- Obviously, only FAs can be proposed to lose their FA status. Supporters vote for the loss of FA status, and opposers vote for keeping it.
- Both opposers and supporters need to include a reason with their vote, as with standard FA nominations.
- Similarly, not only oppose votes, but also support votes can be removed if they are not well-reasoned enough. The agreement of three users, including a wiki staff member, is needed to remove a vote.
- To avoid keeping nomination pages alive even if the (featured) article is fine, those pages can be deleted if the proposer agrees. Otherwise, the 'delete-after-one-month-of-inactivity' rule applies.
All the other rules (as long as there is at least one oppose vote, the proposal cannot pass; after a week without opposers and with at least five supporters, the proposal passes; etc.) apply just as with the FA nomination process. Particularly, oppose votes should be regarded as a way to improve a FA further and thus to avoid the loss of FA status. Only in case there is nobody willing to realize the opposers' requests, a FA loses its status.
The opposers' task is to prove the supporters' points wrong, i.e. to state why a nominated article does meet all the FA requirements. Oppose votes that don't address the supporters' points, or ones that suggest to wait until the article is fixed, are invalid since they don't help.
To propose a FA for unfeaturing, please use the following edit field. Type in the exact title of the FA after the last slash, and hit the "Propose" button. You will be taken to a preset page which you should edit according to the comments on the page.
Archiving
Whenever a featured article nomination passes or fails, it must be archived. To archive a FA nomination, it should be moved from MarioWiki:Featured articles/N/Title to MarioWiki:Featured articles/N1/Title unless that article name is already taken by a previous nomination in which case it should be moved to MarioWiki:Featured articles/N2/Title and then N3 and so on. {{FANOMSTAT}} should then be removed from it and be replaced with a different template depending on if it passes or fails. If it passes, replace it with {{FA archive notice}} and add |unfeature=yes if it is an unfeature nomination. If the nomination fails, replace the template with {{FANOMFAIL}} or {{UNFANOMFAIL}}.
When done, add an entry to either the feature nomination archive or the unfeature nomination archive, depending on the type of nomination it was.
