Wiki: Mascot Project Guidelines

What is the project?

The Mascot Bio Project enables OCR visitors to click the randomized mascots (game characters) in the upper right corner of any page and read about who they are, what games they appear in, view ReMixes of those games, and view pages with more information on the characters.

How can I help?

Visitors can write full bios for the characters of their choice. You can post as many bios as you like (one bio for each character). Also, if you find typos, incorrect information, etc., please tell us about it.

In order to be as helpful as possible, please understand and follow the guidelines below:

Guidelines

Images

1. Before devoting energy towards bio writing, you must have a clear, high-resolution character image that shows their full body with no cutoff. Both height and width must be at least 250 pixels.
2. Character images must be official artwork that appears in instruction manuals or promotional materials (i.e. not fan art). Please cite the specific game the image is from.
3. Do not use character images from games developed, published, or owned by Square Enix or its subsidiaries. Writing bios for those characters is therefore discouraged.

Bios

1. All character bio work is subject to editing by the Mascots team and OCR staff for issues regarding spelling, grammar, clarity, and overall structure.
2. When posting new revisions of bios, do so in new posts; don't go back and edit previous versions (unless the edits are very minor).
3. Only write a new character bio when no one else has also written (or is in the middle of writing) about that character.
4. Source any and all information that you post. This allows the Mascots team to focus on the actual information rather than where you found it. Unsourced statements such as "I heard somewhere that Mario was originally named Jumpman" will likely be ignored, even if the statement is true.
5. Always use more than one source. Try to find related links (e.g. to fansites) for every bio you write, never just Wikipedia. If possible, please refer to game manuals, such as those archived on replacementdocs or Digital Press.
6. Bios are not an encyclopedia. Do not include every last bit of any character's information. The purpose is to merely introduce characters to people to whom they are largely unknown. However, you're welcome to link pages that do contain tons of information, which may serve as linked references in the bios.
7. Bios need not mention or describe every single game a character has starred or appeared in, unless that game has OC ReMixes. All notable game appearances are to be listed at the end of the bio, and each game name should link to that game's OCR page.
8. If the character you're writing about is a selectable one, especially from an arcade fighting game, please describe some of what makes them special in terms of personality, abilities, attacks, etc. This goes for any character from any game, of course, but this is particularly interesting with these characters, since their games usually emphasize gameplay differences.
9. Do not write bios that contain spoilers, i.e. do not reveal things that are supposed to be found out during gameplay and would ruin YOUR experience if you had known it beforehand. An extreme spoiler example would be revealing the main character's death at the end of the game. Consider how it feels when people reveal how a movie, book, or game that you're anticipating ends; not that great.
10. Bios should have "open endings," not presented as needing to stay immediately up-to-date. Bios should be written in a way that they can be read in a few years yet still not contain invalid information.