In general, the term "mascot" is used to identify fictional characters (more rarely non-fictional people, animals or objects) used to represent or bring luck to a group of people, a company or such. To this Wiki specifically, though:
A Mascot is any fictional character that doesn't belong to any specific fictional series.
Since the Wiki only classifies fictional series and not singular characters, information about mascots are generally ignored in this Wiki.
This definition is used for most of the typical mascot characters. For example, Benny the Bull is a fictional bull, the mascot of NBA team Chicago Bulls, but does not originate from any fictional series.
This definition however also includes characters that are not necessarily used as proper mascots: for example, Miis (though their status as fictional characters is arguable) appear as the player's avatar in some Nintendo games, and while not considered official Nintendo mascots, they fall in our definition of mascot since they don't originate from any specific fictional series, as they are from the console's built-in software itself.
On the other hand, the definition excludes characters that are used as mascots, but belong to a specific series. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog is considered the mascot of Sega, but since he made his debut in his own video game, the Wiki doesn't consider him as a mascot.
Note that the definition says that for a character to be considered a mascot, they must not belong to a specific fictional series independently from its creation.
Sometimes, a character that was created as a mascot might receive other forms of media, therefore becoming an actual fictional series and no is longer considered a mascot on the Wiki. Many commercial mascots fall in this category, since we consider TV commercials actual fictional series (see Commercial rule for more information). For example, the Nesquik Bunny originated as the Nesquik mascot, and was only featured on cans of the product, but was later upgraded to his own series of TV commercials and comic books, becoming the Nesquik series.
As with fictional series, however, a mascot character must be copyrighted to be considered an actual fictional character, otherwise any character scribbled on a piece of paper would be considered, making a classification pointless and also impossible.
Mascot Rule
Given our definition of mascot, the rule that regulates their appearances in fictional series states:
If a mascot character appears in two or more series, it creates an undirect in-universe link between them. Every other appearance of a mascot, in any form, is not notable.
This is because while we don't need information about singular characters, their appearances in two or more series creates a connection between their fictional universes and is therefore notable.
On the other hand, this means that a mascot character appearing in only one fictional series is not a notable appearance. For example, The Bullshit Man, a character originating from the Cinemassacre series You Know What's Bullshit (which isn't considered fictional on the Wiki since it's only a series of reviews), made two appearances on The Angry Video Game Nerd, but this isn't notable since this only connects AVGN to a mascot character and not another fictional series.
The appearance is only notable if it is the actual fictional character and not a person in a suit. For example, in the video game NBA Jam Tournament Edition and some subsequent games in the series, many mascots appear as secret selectable players, but since they are clearly just people in suits, this is not considered a reference to the fictional character, but rather to the real life mascot, so it's not notable. In general, only in-universe links regarding mascots are notable; possible Type 2 links (like a person in a suit) or Type 3 links (like a character based on a mascot) are not considered notable at all, since they are not references to fictional series.
Akinator Rule
Akinator is a mascot that can guess any character, even fictional ones. While this can make it look it would connect any character through Type 2, the rule for here regulates that:
If the mascot knows different characters from various series without much interaction, it is only allowed to link with characters they have met.
This means that for a character like Akinator to have a link with other series, it must have a collaboration with that series. It cannot link with other series that it has knowledge of, due to it acting much like a computer generator and getting information from those who play the game as well. This makes Akinator act too much like a real person compared to someone fictional stuck inside worlds it is restrict to transverse.