They really do, and they haven't gotten much better since the above picture was made. In this post, I'm focusing on game pages because that's what my mind is on, but recurring characters page are also lackluster and I'll get to them eventually. It's not a standardised kind of suck however. Some are big unappealing boxes crammed with a succession of factoid without care to make them flow well or consideration that the information presented even makes sense to be in the lead...
Why is Mii support such an important feature that it needs to be mentioned in the first paragraph? And namedropping the mode as is doesn't work for the lead because the reader doesn't have the context of what the modes are. A more generic but informative statement like "The game features a variety of modes like time trial, challenges, and tutorials..." would work much better.
This one is fine. Mostly. It could stand to be exapnded and the existing writing tightened , but it flows well enough. But that last paragraph stand to be excised. Why is more than half of the lead about the game's file size and the Wii U's data storage options?
Others are just spartan.
This is all you can write about Super Mario 3D World!? Seriously? (This is a featured article btw)
And then some are on a whole 'nother level of suckitude.
On a skim reading, this intro seems fine. It mentions the release data of the game, its status as a spriteswap of Doki Doki Panic, the player characters, and so on. But it's seriously mediocre. Obviously including the release date of atleast the original version is mandatory, but you don't need to list the exact release date of every version of the game in every regions. That's what the infobox is for! The intro doesn't even allude to the game's considerably different gameplay mechanics. The statement that "Nintendo of America deemed Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels too difficult for Western audiences and too similar to the first game," is unsourced. "Super Mario Bros. 2 has been considered a classic Super Mario Bros. game around the world (including in Japan)," is a clunky statement (rather than waffling about SMB2 being a classic Mario game, it could take about its concrete impact on the series like the recurring characters and concept it introduced) and the "including Japan" parenthetical part is both unsubstantiated and unnecessary. Et cetera.
This is for a featured article. As of this writing, SMB2 is the featured article on rotation so this is new reader's first taste of the wiki when they reach the main page. We could do so much better.
I don't fancy myself as a master writer, and I don't want my post here to be taken as an immuable guideline of every intro should rigidly adhere to. But generally, I think there's a formula that works well for introducing a subject like a work of media.
-A [Thing is a [thing] released for the [thing] released in [year], along with mentions of the developer and any notable creative talent involved in the project.
-Where the game stands in its series.
-An one sentence summary of the premise and plot.
-Listing remakes, rereleases and derived media.
-Any notable gameplay additions or input gimmick (WarioWare's twisted tilt sensor, Donkey Konga's bongos)
-A brief mention of the media,s reception and legacy if it's notable for either extremes (Not introducing Donkey Kong Country without mentioning the game's sale success and it single-handely driving the adoption of pre-rendered graphics would be a faux pas, for example).
Good introductions are vital. To quote TV Trope's page on the stock phrase "I suck at summaries"
A wiki ostensibly synthetizes a large amount of information in a way that's ideally accurate, interesting, and concise. A lead is a microcosm of that. If it can't do that from the get-go, it's a problem.
But enough bellyaching for me.What do you think Super Mario Wiki community?
