SmashWiki:Smasher article guidelines

Smasher articles are a valued part of the wiki, providing "Smash biographies" of the players, tournament organizers, and contributors, that make the competitive scene and greater Smash community possible. These articles are meant to chronicle the contributions and endeavors in Smash of notable smashers, and provide a source for other Smash-relevant information on these individuals that is of interest to readers. This page will guideline what is expected and accepted in Smasher articles, and how Smasher articles should be constructed, when creating and modifying existing smasher articles.

SmashWiki: Notability
The very first, and most important thing, to keep in mind when it comes to creating smasher articles is if the article's subject merits an article to begin with. Articles about smashers with dubious notability, and articles that contain next-to-no relevant information, are liable to be tagged for notability-based deletion, where then if information isn't presented proving notability and/or an admin handling the notability check doesn't find enough evidence of notability, the article will be deleted.

Keep in mind, however, that the wiki documents smasher articles on a historical basis, so if a smasher was found to have satisfied our notability guidelines at some point-in-time, they will be considered notable enough to have a smasher article here regardless of how irrelevant they end up becoming in the future, barring an update to the notability guidelines or new information/arguments being brought up that finds the original notability-approval dubious.

Smasher article essentials
The following are what every Smasher article must contain, and will be expected to have at their creation. Low-effort articles created without these essentials may be deleted, even if the article's subject is clearly notable.

Template:Infobox Smasher
This is an infobox designed specifically for smasher articles, to organize basic-yet-necessary information, such as the characters the article's subject uses in tournaments for each game and their location. Every relevant field should be filled out with the appropriate information. Personal information is allowed to be omitted by the request of the smasher in question, for security reasons. This includes real names, their picture, birth dates, and locations (although instead of completely omitting the location, it should be made less specific; countries/states/provinces are usually enough). Anything not specified as personal information may not be excluded.

For the standards of what should be listed in each parameter, review the template's documentation page.

Intro
Each Smasher article needs an intro describing who the article subject is, what they do in Smash that makes them notable, and a concise explanation of their accomplishments and endeavors that make them notable. Intros should additionally have information about the article subject's current status in the Smash community.

Rankings
All smashers who are notable for their competitive play require documentation of power rankings they have been ranked on. It shouldn't just be global power rankings that are documented like SSBMRank or PGR, but any ranking should be documented that fulfills our notability criteria for coverage. Rankings should be inserted into the article in table form, under subsections for each game, and with individual tables for each type of ranking, while a ranking table should be constructed as the following:

The data in the table should match what is officially in the ranking, while the notes section can be used to explain any errors with the official ranking data (such as a player being erroneously listed with a secondary that they did not use in any noteworthy capacity during the ranking season), or anything else that should be noted about the player's ranking (such as noting they got a lower than usual rank due to inactivity in the ranking's season rather than a decline in performance).

Tournament results
All smashers who have achieved notability for their playing in the competitive scene additionally require documentation of their tournament placings. Tournament results should be inserted into the article in table form, and separated into subsections based on game. The data must include the tournament's name, the date(s) it occurred, the player's placement and the amount of entrants in the tournament (while doing the same for doubles and noting who their partner was if applicable), and their earnings from the tournament if they won any money. Additionally, majors should be bolded, and supermajors should be bolded + italicized (refer to this page to check if the wiki considers any given tournament a major or supermajor). The following is an example of how results tables should be constructed:

All verifiable tournament results should be added, with the exception of smaller online tournaments with no prize. If the article's subject has competed in a very large amount of tournaments, only the smasher's results at the most notable tournaments they competed in should be listed on the main page, while the rest of the results should be listed in a linked subpage. Also keep in mind that the results must be sourced; tournament results that aren't linked to something proving their veracity, like a start.gg page, will be removed. Additionally, if the tournament in question has a SmashWiki article, it is preferable to link to it over external sources.

If there are no tournament results listed on the page or a significant amount of notable results are missing, use Results to indicate that the article needs such. Additionally, use the template if the article's results are missing relevant data such as entrant numbers and earnings.

Tournaments directed
If the article subject has directed any Smash tournaments, they should be listed too, in table form like tournament results:

Like with tournaments, links to a source proving the tournament's veracity are required, while SmashWiki links are preferred over external links.

Categories
On any Smasher article, every category the wiki has that the article's subject fits into should be added; for example, if the player has played Mario competitively in Ultimate to a notable degree, the Mario players (SSBU) category should be added. For a comprehensive catalog on the categories that may be applicable to a smasher page, go here.

Other information of interest
The following is additional information that all Smasher articles should ideally contain but is not urgent for articles to have.

History
A detailed synopsis of the subject's history with Smash, starting from when and how they got into Smash and its competitive scene.

Play style
A detailed synopsis of the subject's playstyle, and why they play the character(s) they main. If the subject additionally has known particular views about Smash, they can be elaborated on in these sections.

Controversies
If the subject has been involved with any noteworthy controversies within the Smash community, they should be covered in a dedicated section. However, these sections must be thoroughly sourced with links verifying said controversy; the injection of rumors will not be tolerated. Additionally, while any consequences resulting from the controversy should be detailed, and the common reactions from the Smash community and involved parties should be covered, editors must avoid injecting their own opinions into these sections. Furthermore, only controversies that directly impact a smasher's playing career or their involvement in the Smash scene should be noted.

On a final note, a neutral point of view will be strongly enforced within these sections, SmashWiki should never be declaring one side of a conflict as the absolute truth, unless there's overwhelming indisputable evidence towards it, such as a confession or a conviction. All relevant information should be laid out and readers can come to their own conclusions.

Trivia
Is the subject noteworthy for competing in other games? Is there a well-known joke/meme about the subject within their region or the greater Smash community? Any other Smash-related facts about the subject not covered elsewhere in the article that would be of interest to readers? Write about any interesting trivial facts in a trivia section. Keep in mind that SmashWiki's trivia guidelines still apply.

External links and videos
Any noteworthy videos of the subject, such as a popular combo video or highly notable match, should be linked or embedded in the article in a dedicated section. Additionally, an external links section should be made, where any Smash-related accounts on external sites run by the subject should be linked to.

Self-creating/self-editing

 * See also: SmashWiki:Ownership

While it may be seen as unsavory for one to create and edit Smasher articles about themselves and their associates, it is allowed on SmashWiki; we recognize that the best source for information about a smasher can be directly from the smasher themselves or those associated with them, and that facts are objective regardless of who writes them into an article. However, smasher articles created/edited by the subject and/or their associates will be more heavily scrutinized, and any misrepresentations of the facts and overindulgence will not be tolerated; do not abuse our Smasher articles to get an ego boost or puff up one's friends. Additionally, smashers do not own the articles about themselves, and will not be allowed to exert more control over their content than any other user. On a related note, smashers will be expected to never engage in any conflict of interest editing; if a smasher desires to change or remove contentious information that would constitute a conflict of interest, such as anything within a controversy section on their smasher page, they should bring up their suggested changes on the talk page and other editors will decide if the suggested changes are valid. Conflict of interest edits made without approval may be reverted, and smashers that repeatedly violate the policy may be blocked from editing.

For one more note, if a user creates a Smasher article for themselves and they're deemed to have insufficient notability, instead of the article being deleted, the page can instead be optionally moved into their user space upon the user's request or admin's discretion. If the user later does achieve sufficient notability, the page can be moved back into the Smasher space upon admin's approval.

Other guidelines to remember
These are additional guidelines not covered in the prior sections that should be heeded when editing Smasher articles.


 * In cases where a smasher goes by multiple names, their article's title should be the primary tag that they compete under and are known by.
 * When creating a Smasher article, do not create an article that just has a smasher infobox plus a single sentence or two saying who they play and where they're from. Besides making notability checking the subject more difficult for other users, it leaves us with an article that has little information and serves interest to no one, being hardly any better than if the article wasn't there to begin with. If anything, creating such low-effort articles is detrimental, as it removes the page from wanted pages, preventing other users who may be willing to put in the effort to create a proper article from seeing its demand in wanted pages. Even if the smasher is very well-known, don't create the article just for the sake of removing a red link if you're not knowledgeable enough about the subject or not willing enough to write down more than a couple of sentences. Users who do this will be reprimanded.
 * The picture used in a smasher infobox should be a recent picture of professional quality, preferably of the subject alone in a tournament setting. Selfies or any other such clearly unprofessional pictures of the subject should not be used. The picture additionally must be of the subject; no other sort of image will be acceptable in the infobox. Group photos should be avoided, and if a group photo is to be used, the picture should be cropped to have only the subject visible, or not used at all if a clean crop is not possible. The subject's face should also be clearly visible and not obscured by accessories such as a face mask or shades; pictures where the smasher's face is completely obscured will be removed outright.
 * A list of players the smasher in question has defeated in a tournament set can be provided in the intro, but should be limited to no more than eight wins; this is more than enough to get across the level of players they were capable of beating, and anything more will only serve to bloat the intro with increasingly less impressive wins, while a big list of contextless wins will also turn off readers. Additionally, only wins against players that are considered to be roughly equal to or better than the article's subject should be listed, and listing wins obtained at local-level events should be avoided. With that stated, such a list should be generally excluded from articles about the best players in the world, as they should be capable of defeating almost every other player, and indeed will generally have wins against most other top players to achieve their status, making such a list redundant.
 * A list of wins the smasher obtained in online tournaments can be listed, but if done, it must be in a separate list from the offline wins and it must be clear these wins were obtained online. However, if the smasher already has a full list of highly notable offline wins, a list of online wins will be redundant and so should not be added at all.
 * If you think an article's subject is not notable enough for a Smasher article, be sure to check the article's talk page and revision history to see if the subject already had a notability check. If they did and were approved by an administrator in the past but you still think they shouldn't have an article, bring it up on the talk page to discuss it; if you put a notability tag back on without doing so, it'll be taken back down and you will risk being reprimanded.
 * If an article's subject desires, personal information such as their name, exact location, picture, and birthdate must be removed from their article. Beyond that, no information should be removed nor modified based on the subject objecting to it, and a Smasher article should never be deleted just because its subject does not want an article of themselves for whatever reason, barring extenuating circumstances that force SmashWiki to delete it. Additionally, if an IP or account not confirmed to be the article subject removes personal information from a Smasher article, an admin should verify that the action was actually done or requested by the article subject. If such verification can not be obtained even after attempts to contact the subject, such edits should be reverted until an admin receives acceptable verification.
 * Upon verification, alongside the removal of unwanted personal information, an editing note should be left on the page stating that the article subject does not want such personal information added, and an admin should hide all past revisions from public view that contain the unwanted personal information.
 * Any seriously used tags must be mentioned in an article a minimum of once, ideally in the opening paragraph. It is important that all historical references to a player remain valid and traceable, to avoid confusing readers and keep innumerable articles from becoming out of date if a player goes through multiple different tags. Even if the article's subject disowns their old tag and wants it scrubbed off the wiki, mention of the tag should be kept on the wiki for proper historical documentation.
 * On a related note, should a player change their tag, listings of their old tag on other pages should generally not be updated; on tournament and power ranking articles, the wiki should list the tag the player used at the time of the tournament/ranking, both to maintain historical accuracy and so that the wiki's information remains consistent with its sources.
 * In the case of transgender or nonbinary gender smashers, the article should use the smasher's preferred pronouns throughout and should not mention their deadname unless they wish it to be publicly known.