F-Zero Wiki:Quality standards

This is an enforced policy on F-Zero Wiki. This means that this page details the standard that all editors are expected to follow. To suggest any changes to this policy, please refer to the talk page.

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F-Zero Wiki has many articles, but they all are striving towards a single ideal: Featured status. So what exactly is Featured status? Simply put, an article with Featured status (a "Featured Article") is considered to be the best that F-Zero Wiki has to offer, with coverage, prose and style that makes it stand out from the rest. It is an article worthy of extra mention, and worthy of being displayed on the Main Page. But how do we know which articles are worthy of being Featured Articles?

The answer to those questions can be found here! This is F-Zero Wiki: Quality Standards, a guideline on how to produce articles of high- and Featured-quality on F-Zero wiki! An article that meets all of the following standards is almost certainly one of the finest on the wiki. Use this page to help bring an article up to Featured status. If you find an article that already meets these standards, why not nominate it for Featured status?

Language

High-quality articles are well-written, meaning that the language they use is clear, correct and legible. High-quality articles should have few or no spelling errors or misuses of grammar. They should be properly punctuated, written from a third-person point of view, and use an encyclopedic tone. If an article doesn't meet one or more of these criteria, please fix it yourself or tag it with Template:Tl or one of the more specific templates below:

Spelling

High-quality articles should use correct spelling whenever possible. Correct spelling is a necessity for readers, as misspelled words can make an article totally illegible. If you see an article that needs a spelling check, please correct it yourself or add Template:Tl. In cases where the spelling of a word differs between US and British English, preference goes to the American English version—unless directly quoting source text. Preferably, words with spelling differences are completely avoided when possible, such as fantasise vs. fantasize being replaced with "imagine" or "envision".

Grammar

Grammar is the set of rules that govern word usage and sentence structure. Since English grammar can sometimes be confusing, even to native speakers, it is imperative that high-quality articles use proper grammar to aid understanding. If you see an article that is using poor grammar, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Punctuation

Punctuation is the use of special symbols called punctuation marks to add additional meaning to words and sentences. Some common punctuation marks are the period ("."), placed at the end of a normal sentence, the comma (","), placed to indicate a pause, and the question mark ("?"), placed at the end of a sentence that asks a question. There are many others, of course (For a more complete list of punctuation marks and details on their use in an encyclopedic format, see the Wikipedia Manual of Style on Punctuation). If you should see an article making improper use of punctuation, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Perspective

High-quality articles are written from a third-person perspective. This means the use proper names and pronouns and don't speak directly to the reader (i.e., they don't ask the reader a direct question). This also means that articles are expected to use terms like "the player", "players" or "they" rather than "you" when referring to someone playing a game. If you see an article that is written from a non-third-person perspective, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Tone

Articles should be written in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. This means that they should be professional and non-opinionated (i.e. they should not say a certain vehicle is "the worst vehicle in the game" or that a track is "easy" or "hard" unless they have a reliable source to back it up). Writers must not attempt to post their own opinions in articles. If you see an article that has an incorrect tone, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Verification

Verification refers to the use of external sources to back up the information in an article. Claims that articles might make need to be sourced, that is, they should make it clear that the information appearing in them is reliable. Information that makes an unsourced claim might be challenged or removed. Ideally, all potentially challenged information in a high-quality article would feature a source. If you see an article that needs improvement in the sourcing department, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl or one of the more specific templates below:

References

References are pieces of information on an article that tell where the writer got his/her information. These references are usually placed at or near the bottom of an article in a references section. References can be anything from an external link to another website or information about a book, to a link to a video. If you see an article that is improperly referenced, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl beside the information that needs to be sourced.

Inline citations

Inline citations are small boxes that link to a specific reference in the article's reference section. Inline citations are used to show that a specific fact is backed up by a specific reference. If you see an article with inline citation errors, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Technical

There is a more technical side of making a high-quality article. It involves things like working with Wiki markup, templates, categories and other behind-the-scenes things. If you see an article that needs a technical checkup, please fix it yourself or identify the problem and add one of the specific templates below:

Wiki markup

Wiki markup (also Wikicode or Wiki Syntax) is the markup language of wikis. It is used to organize and stylize articles. More information on wiki markup can be found on the Wikipedia wiki markup help page. If you see an article using wiki markup improperly, please fix it yourself or tag it with Template:Tl.

Templates

For more information, see F-Zero Wiki:Templates

A template is a page that can be included in other pages by way of transclusion, or referencing of the desired template with the wiki markup syntax {{Template name}}. More information can be found on the Wikipedia template help page. If you see an article that is missing a needed template, please add it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Categories

Categories are groups of pages with a similar scope, content, or other attribute. If you see an article that is in the wrong category, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl. Alternatively, if a page belongs in a category that it isn't currently in, add it, or tag it with Template:Tl.

Wikilinking

Wikilinking is one of the most important aspects of any wiki. In wiki terminology, a "wikilink" is a hyperlink, usually in a document's text, to another document on the same wiki. They are the colored words (like this one) that, when clicked, take you to another page. If you see an article with wikilinking issues, please fix it yourself, or identify the problem and add one of the following templates:

• No outgoing links - Special:DeadendPages
• No incoming links - Special:LonelyPages
• Few outgoing links - Template:Tl
• Few incoming links - Template:Tl
• Too many links - Template:Tl
• Links to disambiguation pages - Disambiguation Pages, then check those pages for what links there.

External links

External links are links to other websites, either in the article body or in an external links section. As with regular wikilinking, some issues can arise with regard to external links:

• Irrelevant external links - Irrelevant links to other websites, such as for advertisement. If you see this problem, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

• Missing external links - External links that should be there, but aren't. This is especially important for linking non-F-Zero-related information to NIWA wiki's, since these wiki's likely have more information about things outside the F-Zero series which might be mentioned in our articles. If you see this problem, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Style

Style is work done on an article to make more visually and structurally appealing. An article's style is very important, since articles that lack style will look messy and unprofessional. If you see an article that needs help with it's style, please fix it yourself or identify the problem and add one of the templates below:

Lead

The lead (sometimes lede) section of an article is the first part of it that a reader sees. These sections are meant to serve as brief overviews and summaries of their articles. If you see an article that needs work on the lead, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Lists

Lists are alternatives to prose for displaying and ordering information. They are useful in some places that require them, but they may not fit so well in others. If you find an article that is suffering from list problems, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Images

Images serve as useful additions to an article. They help readers to visualize the subject more clearly, and, when placed correctly, can aid understanding of a topic or section of the article. If you see an article that needs more (or some) images, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl.

Length

Article length is not necessarily an indication of quality (a long article is not automatically good, and a short article is not automatically bad), but an article's length can be problematic. If that is the case, please fix the problem yourself or identify it and add one of the following templates:

• Too long - If you see an article that is too long or overly detailed, please fix it yourself or tag it with Template:Tl.

• Too short - If you see an article that is too short to give any information beyond a cursory overview of its subject, please fix it yourself or tag it as a stub with Template:Tl. Alternatively, if only some of the sections require expansion (as opposed to the entire article), tag those sections as stubsections with the optional parameter section=yes.

Article naming

The following standards should be followed when deciding on a name for your article. If you feel that an article's title does not follow these standards, please mark it for renaming with {{Move|<new name>}}, and explain your reasoning on the article's talk page.

• All major words in an article title should be capitalised. Prepositions (on, of, at, in, etc.), conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.) and the articles the, a, and an, generally are not.
• The articles the, a, and an should generally be avoided, unless they form part of the object's official name.
• Abbreviations are not acceptable in titles.
• Where an object's official name may vary between incarnations (e.g. Dr. Stuart in F-Zero becoming Dr. Stewart in all later games), the more common official name should be used (i.e. in the previous example, Dr. Stewart is used as the page title, as it has been used in all games other than F-Zero).
• Where an object's official name does not comply to the above standards, the standards should be disregarded, and the official title used instead.

Technical restrictions

• The MediaWiki software does not accept the following characters in article titles and the DISPLAYTITLE magic word for technical reasons:

# < > [ ] | { }

• Article titles cannot begin with a colon (:). This can be overcome by adding the colon with the DISPLAYTITLE magic word (though this will not change the actual name of the article).
• Article titles cannot begin with an interwiki prefix (see here for a complete list of prefixes).
• Article titles cannot begin with a namespace alias (e.g. "Project:", which is an alias for "F-Zero Wiki:"). These are acceptable if the colon is excluded.

Policy

Policies set out many of the basic standards expected of editors of F-Zero Wiki. Users aspiring to higher user group rights should be familiar with as many of these policies as possible. Note that policies may change over time; users are encouraged to check the proposed policies category and the talk pages of the wiki's enforced policies to partake in discussions on changes to the policies.

The following policies are currently enforced on F-Zero Wiki:

• User accounts
• Requests for permissions
• General disclaimer
• File deletion policy
• Getting Started
• Privacy policy
• Copyrights

Other

The following are categories of improvement that do not easily fit under the preceding sections:

General issues

If you see an article that generally needs work, or that has multiple issues, please fix it yourself or add Template:Tl or Template:Tl. It is more helpful, however, to identify the exact problem that needs to be fixed.