Fixing up the glitches pages?

[CM30]

Yeah, it's been mentioned a few times now:

http://www.marioboards.com/index.php?topic=17998.0

http://www.marioboards.com/index.php?topic=25386.0

http://www.marioboards.com/index.php?topic=28897.0

But either way, I think we need to start fixing up the ones for the games released in the last year and a half or so, as well as look back at the ones missed in the last few projects.

For example, I've been working on the Paper Jam glitches page, as seen here:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_glitches_in_Mario_%26_Luigi:_Paper_Jam

Yet it's still not really good enough, at least not in my opinion. Why? Cause I'm having trouble really explaining how some of the bugs work and how they should be activated, and the videos in this playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_hXCr8GXhARZjmKf4zrlE6b6KhyA7dii

Have what seems like hundreds of bugs and glitches I need to go through and somehow write a paragraph or two on.

There's also some of the more unwieldy ones, like the pages for Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon and Super Mario 64 DS, which probably need an editor and quite a lot of rewriting to make them more understandable:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Luigi's_Mansion:_Dark_Moon_glitches

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Super_Mario_64_DS_glitches

And the Mario & Luigi Dream Team page needs both a researcher and at least one editor. I mean, seriously, look at it:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Mario_%26_Luigi:_Dream_Team_glitches

It's got such amusing quotes as:

This has now been fixed by a 3DS update, although it still can work.

Errr, what?

Does the broken motion controls glitch work or not work?

We also need some poor schmuck to go through Youtube and figure out how to integrate the new bugs found for that game into the list. Since people have found stuff like how to go out of bounds by escaping a battle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSrPxKMElYY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRs_lgSko40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMI1JNgMxSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve9LmI9qIrA

In addition to all this, I think we should also try and improve the layout of thee pages a bit. Because at the moment, a lot of them are literally giant walls of text with very little in the way to illustrate anything, capped off with a huge list of references.

So perhaps a few more pictures for these pages would be useful to have, as well as a new references/sources list that somehow splits the content up a bit more and uses more illustrative link text.

But what do you think? Do these glitch pages need a bit of a rethink and a fair amount of editing work?

 

[Glowsquid]

Ah-ha, that list of prior threads is pretty amusing. Hopefully someone doesn't make another glitch project two years from now and link to this thread...

In addition to all this, I think we should also try and improve the layout of thee pages a bit.

MarioWiki:Glitches suggest an ordering scheme, but looking at it, I realize it has the problem of both being too broad in what it lists and having big omissions. It definitely needs to be rethought...

I guess one way to improve organization on the bigger pages would be to further divide the general header (so a "graphic" header could be sub-divided in palette errors, the wrong sprite being loaded, model corruptions... Audio could be divided between the wrong clips playing, distorted sound... etc).

 

[Ray Trace]

Sounds good to me.

 

[CM30]

Ah-ha, that list of prior threads is pretty amusing. Hopefully someone doesn't make another glitch project two years from now and link to this thread...

In addition to all this, I think we should also try and improve the layout of thee pages a bit.

MarioWiki:Glitches suggest an ordering scheme, but looking at it, I realize it has the problem of both being too broad in what it lists and having big omissions. It definitely needs to be rethought...

I guess one way to improve organization on the bigger pages would be to further divide the general header (so a "graphic" header could be sub-divided in palette errors, the wrong sprite being loaded, model corruptions... Audio could be divided between the wrong clips playing, distorted sound... etc).

Yeah, that seems logical. It still raises issues though, in that a lot glitches aren't just one type of issue. For example, in Mario & Luigi Paper Jam, Toad Storage lets you win battles by dying in them, crash the game by starting a new mission and skip large portions of the game if done correctly. What kind of issue is it? Or how about in Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, glitches that let you fall through the floor and get stuck? Freeze glitch, or out of bounds glitch?

And there's still a problem with references. I mean, does this make sense to anyone without clicking the links one by one?

Sounds good to me.

So, what would be the first page to start on?

 

[Ray Trace]

I'm not going to work on this. The glitches page are a pretty miserable state, and there's a whole crapton of unsourced glitches that I'm wondering if the editors for these pages simply pulled out of their asses. There's simply too much work that needs to be done.

I mean, I'd love to work on this, but I have to prioritize on finishing other projects I wanted to get started on, you know.

If I had to, i'd probably get Mario Kart Wii's glitches fixed, maybe.

And there's still a problem with references. I mean, does this make sense to anyone without clicking the links one by one?

The list doesn't even follow guidelines (MarioWiki:Citation Policy) in the first place so yeah, they already need to be fixed. You're free to follow that page I linked and tag them appropriately.

 

[Glowsquid]

Beside what BLOF said about the refs not being formatted properly, one potential way to reduce the unappealing clutter of refs could be to cite* articles or videos compiling multiple glitches, and use the <ref name=""> markup

When you touch a specifc door on level 2, the game save erase itself<ref name="glowsquidsanus>[www.glowsquidsanus slick report on the mad glitches of hotel mario</ref>

if you jump before opening the door, it crash <ref name="glowsquidsanus"></ref>

if you jump on wiggler, mario becomes blue <ref name="glowsquidsanus"></ref>

... to have multiple ref # anchored to a single link.

Or how about in Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, glitches that let you fall through the floor and get stuck? Freeze glitch, or out of bounds glitch?

That specific example would be an "out of bound" glitch since the game itself doesn't lock up, but the point about glitches overlapping categories is a good one that I don't have a satisfactory answer to yet.

So, what would be the first page to start on?

My method when introducing new sections or standards is to start on mid-sized pages for popular games to have both an high-traffic example of "what to do" without spending too much effort.

But really, start with whatever you want.

*or make, not that I'm volunteering

 

[CM30]

I'm not going to work on this. The glitches page are a pretty miserable state, and there's a whole crapton of unsourced glitches that I'm wondering if the editors for these pages simply pulled out of their asses. There's simply too much work that needs to be done.

I mean, I'd love to work on this, but I have to prioritize on finishing other projects I wanted to get started on, you know.

If I had to, i'd probably get Mario Kart Wii's glitches fixed, maybe.

Okay, Mario Kart Wii's glitch list needs fixing then. Thanks for the suggestion!

Beside what BLOF said about the refs not being formatted properly, one potential way to reduce the unappealing clutter of refs could be to cite* articles or videos compiling multiple glitches, and use the <ref name=""> markup

When you touch a specifc door on level 2, the game save erase itself<ref name="glowsquidsanus>[www.glowsquidsanus slick report on the mad glitches of hotel mario</ref>

if you jump before opening the door, it crash <ref name="glowsquidsanus"></ref>

if you jump on wiggler, mario becomes blue <ref name="glowsquidsanus"></ref>

... to have multiple ref # anchored to a single link.

[/youtube]

Problem is, a few of my articles and that Son of a Glitch video aside, no one's made a single article or video with multiple glitches in. That's a bit of an issue here, glitch compilation articles and videos are not as common as they could be.

Talking of compilations, that's its own hell. That glitch video is literally 23 minutes long:

I still haven't managed to get a summary down of all the bugs featured.

Makes me wonder how the Sonic wiki tried to record bugs in Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric or Sonic the Hedgehog 2006...

Or how about in Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, glitches that let you fall through the floor and get stuck? Freeze glitch, or out of bounds glitch?

That specific example would be an "out of bound" glitch since the game itself doesn't lock up, but the point about glitches overlapping categories is a good one that I don't have a satisfactory answer to yet.

Well, some people call these in game stuck glitches 'softlocks', but yeah, guess you're right.

So, what would be the first page to start on?

My method when introducing new sections or standards is to start on mid-sized pages for popular games to have both an high-traffic example of "what to do" without spending too much effort.

But really, start with whatever you want.

*or make, not that I'm volunteering

Okay, fair enough.

And there's still a problem with references. I mean, does this make sense to anyone without clicking the links one by one?

The list doesn't even follow guidelines (MarioWiki:Citation Policy) in the first place so yeah, they already need to be fixed. You're free to follow that page I linked and tag them appropriately.

I've fixed a fair amount of that list. It's now a lot more readable:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_glitches_in_Mario_%26_Luigi:_Paper_Jam

 

[Walkazo]

the point about glitches overlapping categories is a good one that I don't have a satisfactory answer to yet.

Maybe put the glitch under the most obvious/severe section, and then in other sections it could apply to, have short blurbs at the start of the section, before the examples get listed, linking to the appropriate section? Like:

==Graphic glitches==
===Blue man group===
When Mario does a bunch of stuff in a certain place and then kicks the fruit, he falls through the floor into the room below, but now everyone's blue, including Mario. Going outside returns the colours to normal.<ref>
===Yellow snow===
[...]
==Out-of-bounds glitches==
For the glitch involving Mario falling through the floor in that one place, resulting in everyone turning blue, see [[#Blue man group]].
===Mario in space===
[...]

Beside what BLOF said about the refs not being formatted properly, one potential way to reduce the unappealing clutter of refs could be to cite* articles or videos compiling multiple glitches, and use the <ref name=""> markup

When you touch a specifc door on level 2, the game save erase itself<ref name="glowsquidsanus>[www.glowsquidsanus slick report on the mad glitches of hotel mario</ref>

if you jump before opening the door, it crash <ref name="glowsquidsanus"></ref>

if you jump on wiggler, mario becomes blue <ref name="glowsquidsanus"></ref>

... to have multiple ref # anchored to a single link.

Problem is, a few of my articles and that Son of a Glitch video aside, no one's made a single article or video with multiple glitches in. That's a bit of an issue here, glitch compilation articles and videos are not as common as they could be.

Talking of compilations, that's its own hell. That glitch video is literally 23 minutes long:

It's definitely a rock and hard place situation. While linking to specific times in long videos is more helpful than "take out word for it: it's somewhere in there", it'd result in the same number of refs as multiple vids, and multiple refs to the same vid on a single page would be kinda silly. I'd say just linking to the overall compilation video would be the lesser of two evils.

And there's still a problem with references. I mean, does this make sense to anyone without clicking the links one by one?

The list doesn't even follow guidelines (MarioWiki:Citation Policy) in the first place so yeah, they already need to be fixed. You're free to follow that page I linked and tag them appropriately.

I've fixed a fair amount of that list. It's now a lot more readable:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_glitches_in_Mario_%26_Luigi:_Paper_Jam

Awesome, thanks! Although the fussy nitpicker in me wants to point out that the formatting was a little off, but I fixed them all on that page (least I can do). Best to be uniform and consistent, even in details. There should be retrieved dates too. But when fixing previously-added refs, I often just use whatever date I fix the citation: it's simpler to click the link to check that the video exists as of that moment rather than to have to dig through the histories (but I put the correct dates for a bunch of these ones, since I knew they were from the last few edits to the page).

Format (note periods, date formatting (no "th"), "YouTube" capitalization):

Author. (Month x, yyyy). [url Video Title]. YouTube. Retrieved Month x, yyyy.

 

[Random Blue]

I honestly feel bad about posting in a thread where the last reply was from Walkazo, but after making a bunch of minor edits to stuff pertaining to the glitch pages (mostly fixing redirects) I definitely agree that the glitch pages need a major overhaul.

One thing I found was there are definitely a few glitches that we know a lot more about as in what happens in game code, like for example the credits warp in Super Mario World

By defeating enemies and loading and placing objects in precise locations in Yoshi's Island 2, it is possible to warp directly to the game's ending sequence. This is caused by the placement of the objects, which writes data into the game's memory and can be exploited to cause the warp.

However, people have found out that this is part of a larger glitch called arbitrary code injection/execution, which makes it possible to write and run code using sprite slot manipulations. People have done stuff like program other games into SMW using this method like Snake, Pong, and Flappy Bird. And of course pannenkoek2012 has done a lot to find and explain glitches in Super Mario 64. As a result we know what causes these glitches, and why they happen the way they do.

The glitch articles could all go into technical explanations of those things, but where would that fit in? And besides, writing textwalls of explanation about programming nuances on the glitch pages might be too much.

Also, I think we should have a standard for how many glitches should be featured on the main game article—some had a lot, and some didn't have any at all.

 

[CM30]

I think larger glitches like Arbitary Code Injection might need their own article. Too much info to stick on a page with a bunch of others, and you need to be detailed here.

Same with the glitches in videos like this:

We need a good page for some of these bugs as well. So yeah, overly major glitches (like, ones with a lot of complexity to them) might be best to split into subpages.

As for glitches on main pages... I'm no wiki admin, but maybe three or four could be a good number. Keep the info brief too, like a few lines summarising the most important bugs with a link to the full page above them.

 

[Glowsquid]

tbh, I feel things like arbitrary code execution would be better off in the little used MarioWiki:Glossary

Or more simply, the Glitch page if we're going to explain type of programming flaws that can be exploited in multiple games.

 

[Random Blue]

True, it'd be simple enough to add things like overflow/underflow errors to the Glitch page.