Peer review thread

[Koopa con Carne]

Occasionally, I request certain users to review my wiki contributions in private. However, I find this procedure to be a bit invasive and selective.

I'm opening this thread because I see some use in giving wiki editors a chance to learn from their mistakes through the volunteering engagement and constructive criticism of other users.

To start, certain parts in this section I added to the Virus page sound perpetually stupid. With a total of 11 edits in the article's log, I'm still not fully satisfied with it, and am requesting opinions of how logical and coherent it is in its current state.

Throughout the Dr. Mario series, the three red, blue, and yellow viruses are shown to be a bit misbehaving, dancing beside the play board as if to mock the player. The Virus Vid series often portrays them as being too bumbling and incompetent to cooperate towards a common goal ("they never seem to get together"), but being otherwise fond of each other's company ("…but they do seem to get along, somehow"). The official Dr. Mario World Twitter and Facebook accounts, where announcements and updates related to the game are communicated in person by the aforementioned three viruses, provides some individual characterization. Yellow is shown to have a proclivity for snacks[3][4] and a tendency to daydream and prattle about wings,[5][6] to Red's bemusement.[7] Red secretly wishes to be popular, and when Yellow makes his secret public, he does not object, confidently stating that he is already popular due to his "eye-catching color".[8] In addition, Blue suggests that Red is a poor planner.[9]

Red, Blue, and Yellow are not gregarious with other characters. In their above-mentioned social media presence, they often express fear when announcing the arrival of a new doctor, uttering pleas such as "Please take it easy on me".[10][11] Blue claims to be terrified of children when he announces Dr. Baby Peach.[12] In a June 12, 2020 post, Yellow announced an in-game event where 20 of the then-available 21 doctors had their staffing rates increased by 1.5[13][14], with the omitted doctor being Dr. Waluigi[15]; the virus indicates in the post that said doctor was left out because they particularly do not get along.

 

[Ray Trace]

For the first sentence, I'd change "to be a bit misbehaving" to "mischievous". So

Throughout the Dr. Mario series, the three red, blue, and yellow viruses are shown to be mischievous, dancing beside the play board as if to mock the player.

For the second sentence, i'd merge the quoted parts together so it flows and you have the complete context of that quote. I also would shorten "cooperate towards a common goal" as just "cooperative" as that phrase sounds a bit redundant.

The Virus Vid series often portrays them as being too bumbling and incompetent to be cooperative, but being otherwise fond of each other's company ("they never seem to get together…but they do seem to get along, somehow").

I'm not seeing much issues with the rest of your writing. Some words sound a bit jargony such as using "proclivity for snacks" describing a fondness for them or calling them "not gregarious with other characters" but idk in my opinion maybe some MarioWiki readers can learn some new vocabulary.

 

[Koopa con Carne]

"Mischievous" was actually used in an earlier revision, but I dropped it once I learned Oxford's dictionaries describe it as:

1. causing or showing a fondness for causing trouble in a playful way 2. (of an action or statement) causing or intended to cause harm or trouble.

or

1. enjoying playing tricks and annoying people 2. (of an action or a statement) causing trouble, such as damaging somebody’s reputation

which i didn't think "dancing to mock you" would illustrate so well, since it's not a truly harmful act in any capacity. However, there is room for interpretation and I'm taking your word for it.

Thank you so much for your response. The paragraph has been once again amended to reflect your observations.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Ahh context matters. You can do mischief without actually harming people, and people can even play along. It's like playfulness with intent to annoy too or tease. I'm mischievous when I disrupt your talk page with Warios for instance. That April Fools MarioWiki is mischief

 

[Koopa con Carne]

One piece of wiki text that I keep coming back to is a paragraph on the Justin Berti article, which states the following:

Berti lived in Japan for 12 years, where he took up a multitude of entertainment professions such as acting, modelling and dancing. He has likened this experience to "living the life of a rockstar". Berti describes himself as an energetic and animated person, which he claims enabled him to easily connect with a perceived campiness that pervades Japanese entertainment.

Ignoring the paragraph’s somewhat clunky wording which is beyond my humble writing skills to fix, I’m not entirely sure whether the third sentence is even paraphrased accurately from the actor’s original quote:

[…] and, in Japan, as maybe some of your followers know, everything is overexaggerated. You have to learn quickly that, when you’re going to auditions in Japan, for any of the commercials, for any of the voice-overs, that you want to go over-the-top at first, and they will reel you in and say “Oh, that was too much”. But usually it was never too much, so it was like “That’s what we want!” […] The point that I’m trying to make is that I’m really animated. Some people would say I’m dorky here in America because of my energy. But in Japan, that just works so well.

The contribution log of any page I work on unfortunately often blows up as my indefatigable pursuit of perfectionism collides at high-speed with my inability to review an article efficiently. Let’s put a stop to the ever-increasing discrete records on Mr. Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 and Battle Star Wars[sic] actor’s article.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

The "perceived campiness that pervades Japanese entertainment. " is eye-brow raising for me. I instantly thought "okay examples? define 'perceived campiness'". It's a vague value statement, that's my issue and you are correct to question if that sentence is paraphrased accurately. I'd probably rephrase this to " which he claims his exaggerated behavior is suitable for Japanese entertainment but considered 'dorky' in America." Maybe try to clarify that "dorky" is his word, not ours, but not sure how to fit it in the article. I do wish this "exaggerated" thing he talks about is elaborated on, but I try my best.

 

[Koopa con Carne]

I thought “campiness” was in the realm of his own “over-exaggerated” descriptor, and took it as a good distillation of his claim or feelings on the matter. Though, perhaps one’s paraphrasing can only be as eloquent as the original statement, which warrants taking some parts of the latter at face value without adding further interpretation. He additionally doesn’t give any concrete examples of said over-the-top acts beyond a brief, spontaneous demonstration for the interviewer, so I can’t really improve my text on that front.

I’ll go with what you said.

edit: reworded it as

Berti describes himself as an energetic and animated person, often providing over-exaggerated performances in his acting jobs, which he claims to be suitable for Japanese entertainment.

edit2: tried to rewrite it again to be less subjective and more accurate, hopefully this does the trick

Berti describes himself as an energetic and animated person, traits he claims are suitable for Japanese entertainment which, according to him, prioritizes "over-exaggerated" performances.

 

[Koopa con Carne]

I'm struggling to formulate a certain sentence that recurs across articles for Mario Kart Tour gliders.

For a bit of context: each glider in the game, upon use, increases your chances of getting a certain item from question boxes AND increases the number of points you get from using that item in a certain way. With gliders that are tied to Mushrooms and Coins, you only get points from these items specifically if they were consumed from your inventory, i.e. the point bonus doesn't apply to mushrooms or coins picked up from the track.

Take Mushroom Glider, which states the following:

this glider provides better chances of getting Mushrooms from Item Boxes and increases the number of points awarded for using Mushrooms from the inventory.

To me, the phrasing is a little overloaded, what with the word "Mushroom" being repeated and the statement simultaneously describing two different places from which mushrooms may originate (inventory/item box).

A more concise version would be this:

this glider provides better chances of getting Mushrooms from Item Boxes and increases the number of points awarded for using them.

however, "them" may be pretty ambiguous to the average reader. Does it refer to the Mushroom or the Item Box?

Unless the sentence actually sounds perfectly fine and I'm distorting it in my head, I would appreciate if someone would give some pointers so as to improve it.

Late edit: seems like Mushrooms benefit from a glider's point bonus in any scenario, not just when they appear in a player's item inventory ( https://faq.mariokarttour.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409394456601-How-do-special-skills-work-# ), so i had to trim down the phrasing in the aforementioned example regardless. however, the number of points coins give you is still subject to circumstance.

 

[Washley Time]

Take my thoughts with a grain of salt as I'm not an MKT player, but the wording as-is seems fine based on what it's saying here. Trimming it would sacrifice clarity for the sake of conciseness.

 

[Koopa con Carne]

Fun Bowser Personality Quiz is a personality quiz on the Play Nintendo website.[1] It replaces a previous Bowser-centric quiz, featuring similar questions and answers but discarding the connection to Mario Party 10.

1. can you discard something abstract? originally i wrote "dropping the connection" but it seemed informal.
2. do i use "connection to" or "connection with" here? internet sez that "connected to" should be reserved for physical objects, but the second one doesn't roll off the tongue as easily here, and i've seen instances of "connection to" used to denote a non-physical relationship between two things. also, going with the second option would make mario party 10 sound like some sort of questionable organisation imho lol. "the suspects deny their connection with the mario party 10 sect"