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Online talk:Furnishings

Furnishing by StyleEdit

This currently seems to be a mixture of the themes you can filter by in the Housing Editor, plus some ad-hoc defined styles. Or do I miss something here? --Alfwyn (talk) 12:00, 1 May 2020 (GMT)

Unmaintained Pages and Reducing Maintainance OverheadEdit

I just removed some pages from the navigation template {{Online Furnishings}} that were just listing stuff we have on other pages in a different way. For the most part they were severly outdated, not being updated since creation two or three years ago. This is an attempt to cut down the documentation to a level that can actually be reasonabley kept up to date.

I'm not sure about the Mounts and Pets pages, we document those already and they don't really look different placed into a home.

And I don't know what to do about the "Furnishings by Style" pages. They look useful to me, in that home decorators might not want to mix too many styles (in contrast to a page just listing all furniture related to achievements - let's have a category for that). But by what criteria do we decide if something is "Argonian" or "Murkmire". That is, we don't use the themes the housing editor uses for filtering and the whole thing becomes more guesswork and not really verifiable. And perhaps even there categories would work better - less work needed to keep them up to date. Ideally I would like to have a page for each piece of furnishing - infoboxes are easier to maintain than info on an image, search engines find them better, we can start a page without having the image, page categories provide a better overview than image categories. But that is a thing for another time, I guess.

I plan to phase out the pages I just unlinked from the template, unless someone actually starts to maintain them. --Alfwyn (talk) 13:40, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like furnishing information on pages instead of images will become reality sooner than I thought. A bot run checking for name conflicts turned up mostly pets, mounts and books - not unexpected. Here are just some og my thoughts:
The plan is to have a bot move the information currently stored on furnishing infos onto pages, skipping pets, mounts and books for the time being. Pets and Mounts as furnishings are just another aspect of the same collectible, so I think any furniture information should go where those are documented, but details need to be figured out. Similar book furnishings are a source for the book (which we are currently not documenting), so perhaps furnishing info could be added onto the book pages.
Having the bot moving the information is a chance to have it add things that are currently missing. Things I can think of:
  • bindType - wether the furnishing is tradeable or not. I think it is important to know whether a furnishing has a chance to be found in a guild store or not.
  • value - the gold value of the furnishing. Not that important, but should probably be documented.
  • icon - not sure about that. Do we want to display it on the infobox? But uploading a few thousand icons may be not worth it. Since our wiki allows external images, there may be the option to use them directly from esoicons without copying them to the wiki. Resizing them will be tricky, but can be done via css.
An "Infobox Furnishing" needs to be written, it should take all the same information as {{Online Furnishing Summary}} currently does, but display it in a traditional infobox style.
The plan is to have the current furnishing list pages work like they do now, just loading the info from the article instead of from the image. In a second step most of those list pages can probably be replaced using #listsaved, so they don't have to be manually maintained.
The current category tree for furnishing images will become flat (maintaining it without template support would put too great a burden on the uploader of an image), but it will be mirrored by an equivalent category tree of furnishing articles and there is a 1:1 relation between image and primary article.
Having actual articles for furnishings will have several benefits: Adding additional information or images is possible, linking to a particular furnishing is much easier, editing information will be much easier, articles can be created before an image is uploaded without using a placeholder image or duplicating all the information on several pages, search engines will find those pages better than an entry in a big list. The only real drawback I can think of is name-clashes, but there aren't many left with skipping pets, mounts and books - an (furnishing) disambig can handle those cases left.
I better stop now, this is already getting to long. As for the time frame, I'm targeting the next week. --Alfwyn (talk) 01:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
Sounds good to me! --Enodoc (talk) 18:26, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
Is there any update on this? Kriskras99 (talk) 18:55, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Whatever is decided collectively for this section - and by this, I mean maybe including all the furnishings' plans, but not encompassing the crafting professions per se - I would like to be able to contribute please :). As it is, I upload the photos, and use the templates / datamine logs, et al, to populate the info. But as I read above, we do not want to have the info tied to the photo? Some more in-depth information regarding this, how it is done and how we would like to proceed to cleaning and organizing it is needed. Mostly because I have yet to learn these advanced processes. Erorah (talk) 19:46, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Furnishings by StyleEdit

As part of our continued efforts to overhaul ESO furnishing documentation, I have recently marked Online:Furnishings by Style and its constituent pages for deletion. As hinted at in previous discussions, "styles" as it exists in ESO, does not apply to furnishings. The basis for which these styles were ascribed to each furnishing was at best "inspired" by game data and at worst entirely subjective. These pages shouldn't have been created in the first place, yet their creation indicated that they filled some kind of void in categorization/navigation. The recent {{speed}} removal by 73.229.155.244 reinforces this point. Although this issue has been at the forefront of my mind since we (Erorah, RobinHood70, and I) began overhauling these systems, I have held off on these changes until now in order to design and execute alternatives to fill the void that would be left by their removal in ways that are based on game data.

Firstly, one of the main criteria by which styles were ascribed was the use of style materials in their plan recipes. These often correlated with an equipment style that thematically matched the furnishing. However this is merely correlation, and unlike weapons, armor, and jewelry, there are no style knowledge prerequisites, like motifs. So, I integrated into {{Online Furnishing Summary}} the automatic categorization into Category:Online-Furnishings by Crafting Material based on the materials required to craft it.

Secondly, given the sheer quantity of furnishings in ESO, it was apparent that working only with game data is insufficient to accommodate the desires of house planners and furnishing enthusiasts. So, Erorah and I compromised on a solution much like "style" which we're calling "theme" (so as to differentiate it from style as it exists for other items). For theme, instead of fighting against subjectivity, it is embraced. These categories will be applied based on what the aforementioned kinds of users would benefit from were they to have a thematic vision in mind and wished to use the UESP to identify furnishings that would help bring their vision to fruition. Theme is category-only and will be as upfront as is possible with its subjective nature and its nature as a UESP contrivance, rather than supposing that it is derived from ESO data. For example, instead of what would have been the "Argonian" and "Murkmire" "styles", the idea is that there will be an "Argonian" theme which will include those furnishings and will link to game-derived categories that the user may have been looking for (in addition to the furnishings placed into the category) like this:

This also addresses the other major criteria for what appeared to inform the ascription of "style": the prefixing of the style into the furnishing's name. We haven't finished converting style into theme in the way I have described, so please consider that a WIP. Besides just solving the problems with the previous system, it also offers the benefit of not forcing every furnishing to have a theme, and not restricting furnishings to just one theme.

These changes aim to please everyone while adhering as closely as possible to documentation philosophies. I have deliberated and collaborated for much time to land upon these solutions, and I believe them to be optimal. Regardless of what replaces them, however, the pages that were marked for deletion should not have existed, which is why their speedy deletion classifies as maintenance. I hope that everyone finds what replaces them suitable. -Dcsg (talk) 02:41, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely!
It has been nigh a year since we started this MASSIVE project. When we began, our main purpose was to finally get Furnishings to work for us, instead of chasing our tails with constant updating. We found that even with the most diligent scouring of the Log, many furnishings were simply being missed.
I believe we are close to accomplishing what we set out to do.
As Dcsg has explained above, working within the confines of Style has been very limiting to us in regards to categorization of items [read:Common, unnamed, deviant, 2 styles, etc.] We all really wanted to keep Styles as a way to describe an item, feeling it as integral to the Furnishings Category.
Theme can describe items that do not follow Lore, have Locations for names, do not fit in the mere 20 Styles we had initially. The theme of an item can be subjective and not linear. I am not so sure the Icy Reach Coven makes furniture [Fryse Willow / Reach] and looking for that would have been like asking for an Amish Chair at Ikea.
But what if we could find that chair? Searching by the material, as an example, would show ALL those furnishings!
What if a furnishing had at least 2 combined styles that did not fit in either alone? Then add TWO themes in your parameters:
  • |theme=Reach, Fryse Willow
Indeed, we are not done. We still have many parts of the Furnishings project to complete. However, this one huge step will bring us closer to having a Seemless, Working Category of ALL THE HOUSE THINGS!   -Erorah (talk) 13:41, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I just noticed this discussion by chance. 1 day + 1 reply of support is not enough to get consensus on making such a large change and begin deleting content. (Edit: I just noticed you started large scale deletions of categories and content 1 day before making this post??? This absolutely should have been discussed beforehand.)
While some are certainly ambiguous, there are clear-cut styles and themes introduced in the DLCs. Its just not true that they are all inspired by game data or entirely subjective. Categorising them is useful to those users who are interested in collecting a particular style (as you identified).
The biggest problem with this proposal is it relies on users using wiki categories to navigate and find content - this is without question bad design. While we wiki editors are adept in using cats, its a horrible experience for regular readers so this use-case still needs to be supported in a user-centric way. That was the whole point of the "style" pages - to have an easily accessible table with a list of entries. There are possible negative SEO implications of removing such pages.
While I support the idea of using cats such as "Furnishings beginning with "Argonian" - these need to be somehow also generated into a page that users can actually access and read. Not a cat-only solution. Jimeee (talk)
It is actually the parameter |style= that is changing to |theme= . So basically we still search by what we already know, using all the same words, AND MORE. Each category should have a write up / intro, as they all do. I, for one, do not like just swathes of boxes. I need info, I need to learn about something. I believe the Theme structure will give us a BROADER search, as well as overlap / blending styles with areas and peoples.
When I first started searching for Furnishings, I searched all kinds of 'words'. If I started with Elf, I knew there could potentially be at least 3 styles. What I did not know was that there was also ZONE furnishings for different elves, as an example. So I believe that expanding, rather than limiting search parameters is more beneficial than curtailing the entries to 1 single style. Erorah (talk) 14:17, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Like Erorah and I said, theme will replace style so as to not conflate it with style as it exists in ESO. I understand your concern about the obscurity of categories, which is why I plan to link them directly in {{Online Furnishings}} - Dcsg (talk) 14:50, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
I'm not objecting to changing Style to Theme - that makes sense. My issue is the removal of the overview pages that display the themes in a list. Pages such as Online:Solitude Furnishings should not be deleted because of the reasons I have given above. They serve a purpose and do not interfere with the work you are doing elsewhere for furnishings.
I see you have created new categories like "Category:Online-Furnishings-Solitude Themed" for each individual piece - this is great and essentially 90% of the work is done. These cat pages seem to essentially mirror the pages that are getting blanked (like Online:Solitude Furnishings). But once again we cant expect users to navigate wiki cat pages to find specific item of a specific theme, which is why pages that list all the pieces in a specific theme need to stay. It might be intuitive for us as editors to use cat pages but remember that we are not the user. But to be clear - I (and and least one other anon) are against the deletion and combining styles (like Murkmire and Argonian into a general Argonian theme). They should be distinct because they are clearly defined by the game itself - its very clear to identify the difference between Shadowfen furniture and Murkmire furniture.
Removing these pages and instead linking the cats in the footer template is going backwards and hurts findability of information. To give you a realistic use-case: a user come to the site to fine how to obtain some solitude themed furniture they saw in-game. They have no idea what the pieces are called - only what they look like. Where do they even begin to find these items? All they know is they are found in Solitude. The original Online:Solitude Furnishings page would help them much more than a cat page (where they would need to click and open multiple links in a trial-and-error fashion). Frustrated, they would probably leave this site and go check https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/category/database/miscellaneous/sets/locations/solitude/ which meets their needs in seconds. That's just one example of a reason why these pages are of use.--Jimeee (talk) 15:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
The issue is that there is nothing "clearly defined by the game itself" like you suggest. We certainly can/should/will use {{Mod Header}} in the future (again, this is a big WIP) which I can already envision how to use to implement automatic categorization into "Category:Online-Furnishings-DLC". If I were to give you a furnishing and task you with determining its "style," you would not be able to given only game data. You would have to make a judgement call. We recognize the utility of these judgements, however, which is why we landed upon a compromise where the subjective ascription may remain relegated to categoryspace. The simple fact is that we should not, under any circumstance, be presenting a judgement-based categorization system in any gamespace. It has led to people thinking that "style" is a real game datum for furnishings in the past, and, given enough time, would lead to people thinking "theme" is a real game datum too. -Dcsg (talk) 16:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

(←) If you're still working on creating the new "theme" pages, then please do not delete the "style" pages yet. They are IMMENSELY USEFUL, despite your valid points about subjectivity and making judgment calls vs. clear game data, etc. For example, I have just been designated as a decorator for a friend's home in ESO. I am trying to send him a list of apppropriate furnishings to purchase or craft. The only way I can see a concise list of Alinor-appropriate furnishings is to...yes, you guessed it: I go to the Alinor style furnishings page. Solomon1972 (talk) 23:54, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

As the previous comment stated - If there is nothing to replace it, please do not delete the "style" page. They are IMMENSELY USEFUL. Which is why I recently updated the Online:Fargrave_Furnishings page, shortly after a large batch of new Fargrave furnishings were released in the game, and a lot of people who appreciate housing were looking for them. I was quite upset and confused today to see that all my work was removed. The page had been left there; merely reverted to a vastly outdated version. Fortunately, another editor has restored my changes. The person who removed my updates points to this page as the reason for reverting the page to an outdated version. So it is here that I defend what I did.
There was nothing subjective about the furnishings I added. Everything had been added to the game itself with a release of Fargrave furnishings specifically, in that zone, in the game. I also added furnishings that had been previously tagged here as "Fargrave" style but not added to the page - those may have been subjective, but it wasn't my call. If I made any mistakes, I apologize - please feel free to correct my errors and/or inform me how to do things better. Thank you. Kelinmiriel (talk) 04:53, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Categories are not a functioning replacement to articles. The first point against them is that users are naturally going to be unfamiliar with them compared to articles, which are crafted with user friendliness in mind. Second is the extreme limitations on categories compared to what you can display through an article. Lastly, they can't rank highly as articles on search engines as they don't have the relevant content that web crawlers look for. With those points in mind, and other comments above, I do not think that moving to displaying this information primarily via category is the best solution. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 07:00, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Subjectivity will have to take a back seat to usability in this instance. If we're arbitrarily creating categories, there's no reason to not have arbitrary articles as well. My priority is that none of these list pages, however many of them there end up being, should require manual updating. If they can be compiled dynamically, it doesn't matter how many there are or what they are. --Enodoc (talk) 13:53, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Right Enodoc. I want to have the categories at least working with the {{#listsaved so that they ARE up to date with items. This is the entire reason we are changing and updating the Summary. Because we have been behind all this time. Items are continually missed otherwise. As mentioned above about the Fargrave items, I have yet to get that far in my updates and thus they are still lacking. PATIENCE PLEASE - This has been a HUGE project and we are still far from done.
It is also not the there is nothing to replace those Style categories, it has been that I have not actually created the main link to them as yet on the Main Furnishings page. For this I apologize.   Erorah (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

(←) Apologies for the delayed response. I should have paid more attention to what was posted on this page before writing my own post. After giving Alfwyn's words a genuine read, I investigated what they meant. We pulled the word "theme" from nowhere just to find something to differentiate from "style", but it so happens that "theme" is already taken as a game-derived datum. The 17 themes in ESO are:

Other, Breton, High Elf, Argonian, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Khajiit, Nord, Orc, Redguard, Imperial, Dwarven, Daedric, Ayleid, Primal, Clockwork, and Vampiric

These can be seen in the Housing Editor. Note the absence of themes like "Leyawiin" or "Murkmire". So every page will need to be refitted with the adequate one of these themes, something that should be "simple enough" for RobinHood to perform via a bot job.

This means that we can forgo the subjective categorization entirely. It also means the return of many of the pages were previously considered "styles", but not all of them. For the same reasons as stated before, that handful must still be deleted. -Dcsg (talk) 17:26, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Category Naming Policies for Online WikiEdit

Besides naming policies for Furnishings, this would or could possibly affect the entire Online Wiki.

Category:Online-Furnishings and Category:Online-Items-Furnishings


One of those 'things' that continues to confuse and vex me, is the fact that we have 2 naming paths for furnishings:

Category:Online-Furnishings-
Category:Online-Items-Furnishings-


This has invariably created double pages of so many things; furnishings is not the only category. Like Online-Items-Professions?? Surely that is not necessary when Online-Reagents is not Online-Items-Enchanting.. See where I am going here? Online-Sets, Online-Food... It can be in the Overall Items category. But do we need to say it?
If yes, then we should say it for EVERYTHING. Online-Weapons should then also be Online-Items-Weapons. There should be a clear path for anyone creating pages for the Online Space. If there are things that need to be in the Items section, then that is where they will be, but for a clearly defined reason.

This may also affect the naming of Images and Files.

May we please decide which Category Path and WHY, and @RobinHood70 and I will endeavor to fix the Wiki.

A Category:Online-
B Category:Online-Items-

UESP Categories Editable Spreadsheet

Erorah (talk) 14:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Stick with the short one I would say, that would appear to mean the fewer total changes. (i.e. take Items out, since most things don't use it already.) Changing categories is an easy bot job as well, something that even Enobot is capable of. --Enodoc (talk) 19:21, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
It may not even need a bot job, depending on what exactly we're doing. In a lot of cases, I think it'll end up just requiring template changes. Obviously, the category pages need to be moved as well, but that can be done either by bot or manually, if there's not too many of them. I think the best bet is to make the template changes, wait until the job queue catches up, then assess what's left. The nice thing about category pages is that they still function as categories even if we delete/move them. – Robin Hood (talk) 16:47, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
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