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UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 45

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This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Community Portal discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Format of the Generic and Unique Items Pages

Per the discussion here where I was asked by Jeancey to make a community portal discussion on the matter, I am doing so. AKB is currently designing a revamp of the unique items page, which looks like this. The claim is being made that the format being used by AKB for the unique items page is superior and is the way it should be done for all items pages, If you'll read the discussion in its current state, essentially my point is that the new transclusion format, while appropriate for Artifacts where every single item has a unique model and there aren't very many of the items, is inappropriate for unique items and other items pages for the following reasons:

Cons

  • There are far too many items on the pages, making the page massive if we use the transclusion format. This is a major problem for some pages on UESP (example) already where we are specifically targeting trying to make the page smaller, and we shouldn't be worsening the problem.
  • The transclusion lists cannot be sorted, meaning that the flexibility of being able to sort the lists as you want is lost.

Pros

  • You can fit more historical information on the item in the page, but only at the cost of about four times the vertical space per item.

There are currently 110 unique items in Skyrim alone, and with each one in the transclusion format taking up roughly 240px each, that is 26,400px used for that page alone in the new format, compared to roughly 1/4 of that (avg ~60px per item) used currently. Furthermore, let's look at the definitions of these items. They potentially can have unique meshes, but only roughly 10% (13 out of 110) of the items actually do. In the new format, we're putting 180 pixel shots of steel warhammers or dwarven bows or steel daggers on the page, which are not very easily distinguishable from one-another. This is in contrast to the artifacts page, where every single item by definition must have a unique appearance. Lastly, if we continue to look at the items, only about 15-20 out of the 110 items actually have historical lore-related information at all that isn't presented on the page already. Nearly 80% of these unique items are simply items with a different name, or with a weird enchantment oddity, and do not have any meaningful lore associated with them.

Now, part of AKB's project is that he has been working toc create individual pages for each of the unique items in-game, like this. I think these pages are a great idea, and are relevant for unique items. Currently in the unique items page, we include a notes section for key information that should be noted. If we want to expand on those notes, the page itself is the place to do that. Thus, the only change I think is necessary to the unique items page is to add links from the item's name and entry in the table to its page. We do not need the transclusion format for that, and are arguably better served by not having it as I have described above.

If you have feedback in this matter, please feel free to post it! This is a discussion for a reason. :) ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 11:13, 11 August 2014 (GMT)

My first, not-well-thought-out thought is that the page that AKB is like the Morrowind:Armor Artifacts page which I personally like. Like was said in the original discussion, "more is better" is how things usually run around here, and I have to agree in this case. I feel like the transclusion style here is okay, but having more makes it that much better. •WoahBro►talk 12:57, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
First, thank you WoahBro for supporting my position, I really appreciate it. The "item revamp" project has been such a huge ordeal that I value all support it gets.
To begin, let me clarify a claim about my intention with the scope of this project. If you had read my original post, you would have read this:
"And for the record, I still am unconvinced that we need articles for all items. That might be just too much. For example, there isn't much you can do for an article that would be about a key you use a single time. While this argument can apply to some of the items we currently don't go over in detail, the same is true for some of the items we already do give more coverage. This is not a suggestion that we give an article for, say, Silus's Museum Key. I doubt anyone would even read it, let alone care about it if they did."
I am still not positive about the entire scope, with me starting out on Unique Items as a good tester for where I want to go (as the project is still primarily mine) in the future.
Let me continue by talking about the cons you provided. In the case of unique items, I am splitting the page into several to provide easier loading. Before arguing that this removes value from the page since content will be moved from the page, it will not. The value of having a giant unique items pages is limited. Having users pointed to a page if they type in "Unique Armor" or "Unique Items" is a fairly useful move, I believe.
As for the tragic loss of the table, it is not a loss in any sense of the word. The table is pointless. There is no specific value to being able to quickly being able to compare the Notched Pickaxe and Auriel's Bow, which you can currently do on Unique Items. I have heard about a single user complain every time I remove a table from an item page, including pages like Skyrim:Artifacts and Skyrim:Leveled Items. I just never understand the complaint about how useful it is to be able to "sort" this information. They just serve little purpose on a page where you are not comparing items of a similar make or category. This is a category of items solely determined by us and not the developers, there are not that many shared traits besides.
Now allow me to move onto the value of that extra compression. Depth over breadth is better in most every case. The average reader doesn't care that page is "26,400px" longer. That's something I, as an administrator of several years, would not care about in almost any case. If I wanted to know what NPCs said about Aegisbane, I'm not going to be impressed by our data compression. But let's compare the two, my infobox on Aegisbane alone has more data than the table could comfortably support (item speed, reach, editor ID), while the other has to scrunch the enchantment info into a tiny box to make it fit, I have room to comfortably explain enchantments at a glance or more in-depth, world significance, whatever. As for its current status on the Unique Items page, it hasn't even garnered a note to go alongside it. In fact, looking at this further, at most any of the "notes" sections provide some random tidbit of info or just lists a bug or two. That's what we all care about, right? The infobox and the secondary sections of an article.
And in defense of my images, I think I did a fairly good job of making the shots distinctive. I put a ton of work into making sure that the background would help cause less eye fatigue then just taking a bunch of shots of them in the same room, a trait that I find weakens otherwise good pages like the Skyrim:Artifacts page when we see a ton of shots just taken in the exact same location. Compare my shot of the Blade of Sacrifice to the main "Greenish dungeon shots" you'll see on Skyrim:Artifacts in the weapon section. While the first one has a relevant background, increasing interest and uniqueness, those images on the Artifacts page make me want to skim it more.
I also want to talk about the comment of the "interest" of each item, the fact that several pages lack many details. Let me just say that, quite simply, I am not a machine. In the scope of a project in which the first article requires over 100 new pages to be made, I'm going to skimp on the details at times. The same is true for "interesting" items like Volendrung, which has less information provided then I gave to Nettlebane due to my particular interest into the latter. For a good number of these items, it's a matter of someone putting in the time to expand the page beyond the initial paragraph, a statement that is both true for an artifact or any other item in the game. So, to make it entirely clear, the reason a page like Skyrim:Diadem of the Savant doesn't have much more info on it is due to the amount of time I wanted to put into it before moving on (in that particular case, I suffered about a dozen issues just trying to take that image, and was well ready to move on).
And while I must thank you for the compliments to the work I put in, if you were to win your way here, I would lose all interest in this project. I wanted to display these pages in a similar format to the Artifact format, not just get a link on some table and have it called "done". I wanted to create pages like Skyrim:Unique Weapons and Skyrim:Unique Armor, which are lovely displays of our editing capabilities, while allowing our editors more in-depth reading opportunities.
There is nothing that kills an editor's desire to work more than for their work to be sidelined for something as non-sacred as something like a table. I was intending to use this project to help me get back into the site after my leave for medical reasons, I didn't want to have to defend it again. Don't get me wrong, I am willing to throw away good work in the face of the site's editors disagreeing with my efforts, and have done so in the past. But having a project I've been working on for almost a whole year face that fate at the eleventh hour? I don't think I can do that. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 13:23, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
I have no comment right now on the scope of the project, but I really like AKB's redesign of the Unique Items. Something that always annoyed me about the table was that it seemed very clinical, and was just full of stats with no substance. The redesign is more fluid, and seems much more pleasing to read. Having real pictures of the items is also infinitely better than a bunch of icons. The only thing I would like to see is a TOC, so that I know at-a-glance what's on the page. --Enodoc (talk) 13:35, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
I'm away from home and computer right now, so I can't write the lengthy defense that AKB's and my work deserves, but I support the original transclusion form of the project. Tables are boring, a chore to read, and not engaging. Transclusion pages are not. --AN|L (talk) 09:59, 11 August 2014 (EDT)
I agree that the transclusion-style page is pretty, that is without question. However, I am concerned about the loss of sortability and the size of the page more than anything else. The unique items page is my, as a reader, most used page in the entirety of UESP, and I can not find the information I'm looking for on AKB's revamp, and I can on the current version. I want to emphasize that we please do not look at this discussion from a "what looks attractive" perspective and instead focus on core functionality and purpose of the page.
@ AKB: I think your images are great. I don't question the quality of the images, but the items still look generic. The Steel Battleaxe of Fiery Souls is still a Steel Battleaxe, and that's 180px by 180px of a Steel Battleaxe. Some of the images have backgrounds that actually make the item very difficult to see, like the Blade of Sacrifice, but that is irrelevant for purposes of this discussion. As for your remark about interesting information on an item, that was not my point at all. Nettlebane, for instance, is an exception, and many more unique items like Valdr's Lucky Dagger, simply have a very short associated quest and nothing more to be said. More of the text on its page is taken up by a redundant note on its smithing details (which are already on the right side table) than by its actual details. We also shouldn't just make up things to add just to beef up a page's contents; we should only document what exists and is relevant, and for a vast majority of unique items that's not a lot (which is okay, but devalues the page revamp).
Lastly, I'm sorry if you would lose interest in the project. I would be happy to take over any remaining work to do if you should choose to no longer contribute to it. I want to emphasize that my goal is not to devalue you or your work, just that I believe the wiki and its readers are better served by what we have now and that the tables are more practical, versatile, and distilled than a list of transclusions. ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 14:31, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
What information do you find it useful to sort by in the tables? – Robin Hood  (talk) 15:24, 11 August 2014 (GMT)

(←) The fact of the matter is, as it stands currently, you are the only person who is opposed to AKB's work. This site runs on community consensus; one user is not community consensus. •WoahBro►talk 15:31, 11 August 2014 (GMT)

@ Robin: Item type (War Axe, etc.), tempering details, and damage primarily.
@ WoahBro: The fact of the matter is, as it stands currently, 5 people of all editors on the site have weighed in (including AKB/Anil themselves, the people working on the project), and this thread has been active for less than 5 hours. ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 15:37, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
While it's not quite as useful as sorting, item type and tempering are easily searchable. Damage would certainly be much more useful in a table than in individual entries, though, I can't deny that. Of course, there's nothing saying that we can't do both. It's more maintenance (although something similar to the Item Data template would take a lot of the work out of it), but it gives you the option to have a nice presentation at the top, while maintaining the ability to sort at the bottom. – Robin Hood  (talk) 17:35, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
Yeah I've tried searching them before; it works but it's not as ideal as the table. While I love the idea of a compromise, just the transclusion of 110+ items is going to be so large that the page will become indigestible. I don't think mixing and matching the styles together will do the page any good. Thanks for the input, though! :) I think if everyone is in favor of the transclusion style I'm going to have to cache off a version of the page on my user page for my own personal use in playing the game and update it on my own. That way I can still do the things I think are very important but won't be possible anymore. ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 18:28, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
I'd also like to see the table format stick around in some form or another. I love the individual item pages, but having huge transclusions on a list page isn't very practical. Maybe we could take a leaf out of the lorespace book and use the alphabetical list format. That way, the original tables can remain as an overview, and the length of the transclusions can be chopped down. Or we could just link the item names to the individual pages in the table? (Also this is kinda tl;dr so forgive me if I'm being repetitive with these suggestions.) —Legoless (talk) 21:22, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
Having the item names be links to the individual tables is the solution I proposed in my first post and one I definitely agree with. I'm willing to compromise if we can come up with some neat organization with far shortened transclusions like you're describing, though. Can you provide some good examples of where that is done now? It sounds like it could be a great middleground. ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 21:39, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
Lore:Artifacts is one. If there are too few items to make alphabetical sorting practical, perhaps dividing it between weapons/armor/clothing/jewellery/misc is the way to go. —Legoless (talk) 21:45, 11 August 2014 (GMT)

(←) Hrmmm, that does look pretty good! Fortunately in the lore namespace there isn't much need for tabular information, but maybe we can still apply that philosophy here. AKB did mention he made Skyrim:Unique_Weapons and Skyrim:Unique_Armor which could totally be applicable here. Here's an idea (and it might be what you meant, Legoless): What if we keep the tables as they are (with links) in Unique Items, and then add a header to the Unique Items page similar to the Lore:Artifacts header that has links to "Weapons", "Armor", "Clothing", "Jewelry", "Miscellaneous". Then on THOSE pages we could have the transclusions. That way AKB's work is preserved, the transclusions are there for those who like them, but the table remains for the irreplaceable functionality it has. What are everyone's thoughts on that? ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 21:55, 11 August 2014 (GMT)

I still do not see how these tables provide any actual functionality. One of the stated goals of this project is to get rid of those tables and make them more like pages such as Morrowind:Artifacts. It would be like trying to preserve this table after I finished page's face lift, it would be redundant.
I'm be barely willing to compromise on this, and only just on this, but I would still be utterly displeased with the result on the grounds of the inherit redundancy of having both versions of this article on the site at the same time, and the inherit flaws with this table. Again, the table provides less information about any given item's stats then my infoboxes do, and it's essentially comparing apples to oranges. Yes, both are fruit, but they're two radically different kinds of fruit that a comparison is basically unneeded. I went through all of this effort to kill those tables in for a much better looking and informative version. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 22:09, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
The value of a table and the value of a list are interlinked. They are linked insofar as they are valuable only for certain thresholds of entries in them. The artifacts page before transclusions was a poor table because it had so few entries that sorting wasn't very valuable (you could get all that information at a glance) and the tables actually looked downright bad because they were so short. Furthermore, in the unique case of artifacts, every item has a unique appearance, and a table doesn't showcase those fancy appearances. Compare that to unique items with over three times the number of entries in the tables and where most items use generic item skins, and the table becomes much, much more valuable for organizing the information. Meanwhile, consider the converse: a list looks really good (like Skyrim:Artifacts) when there are few entries, because the lower number of entries keeps the page reasonably sized and keeps the information easy enough to access. If you try to take triple the items of the artifacts page and use the same list format, the page becomes massive, hard to distill information from, and far less readable.
There is a place and a time for both a list and a table. One is not innately superior to the other. I think Artifacts is the perfect place for a list, whereas I think unique items is the perfect place for a table. ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 23:25, 11 August 2014 (GMT)
I want to make many points that came to mind when reading this discussion:
  1. When I first came across the unique items page, I was actually disappointed that it was not already more like the artifacts page. RisingDusk wanted a focus on core functionality and "the purpose of the page" rather than appearance, but this is something of a false dichotomy, since one thing I like to be able to do is to actually compare items' appearance (or see if they have a unique appearance at all). Currently only the complete armor/clothing set images in the galleries are actually (somewhat) comparable on the page.
  2. Many of the existing table entries are already too tall for medium to small screen sizes. I have a 1366x768 screen on the laptop I'm using, and when I look at the unique item page, some of the weapon columns are very thin due to the table of contents. This is easily fixed by a {{NewRight}} (assuming that that doesn't cause a problem for other resolutions), but even so, the Zephyr entry takes up a whole screen by itself. Similarly, if you sort by a column other than name, the Linwe's set pieces each take up most of a screen.
    1. If the point of the page is to aid comparison of stats/type/tempering, then several entries are too vertically stretched to be convenient for this purpose. Notes about acquisition, bugs, and miscellany should mostly be removed in this case (in favor of the items' individual pages, which I agree should really be linked from these tables, even if the existing format is kept).
    2. If the point of the page is to collect general information about these items, and not just the game stats, then tables are a very bad format, because the columns seem too skinny even for fairly restrained notes.
    3. If you're comparing, say, the stats of different armor pieces to decide what to acquire, isn't this already undermined by the somewhat arbitrary division into artifact/unique/specialty items? I'm puzzled, not by the idea that you'd want a table that sorts different items by stat X, but by the idea that you'd want such a table that includes only non-artifact unique items. What is the motivation for having a sortable table specific to unique items (rather than, say, one that lists every non-generic item)? Is this something that's inherently of interest, or something that is just the next best thing to the table you'd rather have?
  3. While I like aspects of the new item pages, I think that there's some excessive duplication. For instance, copying information about a set to every set item's page seems cumbersome; it feels like each unique set should get its own page, and the individual items should redirect to their set? I'm also not sure why information about tempering seems to be in the text for every item, when it's just duplicating the information in the right sidebar.
Quantheory (talk) 06:37, 12 August 2014 (GMT)
Thanks for your thoughts, Quan. It sounds like, from reading your post, that you appreciate parts of both styles. I agree that the notes sections on some of the items currently in the unique items list are cumbersome, and you're absolutely right that most of those notes belong on the pages for those items. You must understand, though, that prior to AKB's work, these items didn't have their own pages to put those notes on, but now that they do, I think many can be migrated and the table can be made even more useful for users like yourself with lower resolutions. I also absolutely agree about having a NewRight template on that page... The TOC gets in the way of the first table something fierce. I do think acquisition and smallish notes are important, and we can never cater to every audience (Everything looks bad and is hard to decipher on a mobile device, list and table and everything in between). I also don't think skinny columns are an issue; arguably I think smaller columns are better.
You also bring up a more philosophical point, but I'll comment on it regardless. We document what is in the game, which are the components of a set, such as the Thieve's Guild armor. Because of that, pages exist and rows in a table exist based on the items that are actually available for players to obtain. If it worked like an outfit in-game, then it would be different, but since it doesn't, this is how we document the game.
Lastly, sometimes people compare items not to decide what to use, but to decide on more esoteric things like how to decorate their homes. It isn't very relevant to discuss all the nuances of how people play the game, but I'll speak for myself and say that semantically, an artifact is something I put on a weapon plaque, but unique items are things I order on weapon racks. Sometimes it is based on what people want to use, but even then, artifacts are easy to compare to unique items already. Furthermore, since you mentioned it, the notion of even separating artifacts and unique items comes from the subjective feeling that "these items we call artifacts feel more important to us than the potentially random one-off items in unique items". This also makes it "feel" more appropriate for them to have huge pictures and big called-out paragraphs on their list compared to less important items. Hopefully all of that makes sense. :) ∬(RisingDusk)dxdy 10:35, 12 August 2014 (GMT)

(←) Can we get some sort of agreement/consensus called on this? I don't mean to rush things, but this thread hasn't had any additional posts for over two weeks, and all the item pages are loaded and ready to go, all we need is a format to transclude them into. I'm still in favor of the pure transclusion format. --AN|L (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2014 (GMT)

I think I come down on the side of pure transclusion as well. I still don't really see the use of the table sort per se. If you want to, say, compare weapons purely by a game stat, like damage, you would presumably could use a table of all weapons of a given type, regardless of generic/specialty/unique/artifact status (such a table doesn't exist, but maybe it should). If you want to compare weapons by some more subjective metric, e.g. appearance, or how "special" a weapon seems, that information is not something that you can even get from the tables currently. I understand that RisingDusk sees some kind of utility in these tables, but I still don't see what they are good for. (I admit that this is in part because I feel like the criteria used to divide "unique" from artifact or specialty items are somewhat contrived anyway.)
Besides this, my only real objection to the new articles is the matter of duplication of information, and I think that that's something that can be dealt with by tweaking the item pages, not an objection to the format itself. -Quantheory (talk) 03:10, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
I think the pure transclusion format seems to work best here. As for the value of sortable tables, I can see their use in some ways, but unfortunately our pages aren't set up in such a way that the value would really be there. It would take a lot more work and changes to get them to that point, so the pure transclusion format seems the better choice as it stands. — ABCface◥ 04:17, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
It looks like this discussion comes down heavily in favor of my intended version, and as such I'm going to go ahead with this project once again. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 03:38, 4 September 2014 (GMT)

#save on pages with #load

I believe I've finally gained some insight into what's going on with #save not working properly, especially if they also have a #load on them. I've implemented a preliminary fix which, while not ideal, should confirm whether I'm on the right track or not. As is always the case with these things, existing pages may still have problems. Please let me know if any newly saved pages show problems that seem to be related to this issue (the most common of which are page icons breaking or saved data from one page not appearing on another). – Robin Hood  (talk) 19:57, 14 August 2014 (GMT)

Artifact Summary

I've just done a rewrite to the Artifact Summary template. As far as I can tell, everything looks the same, but please let me know if you spot any issues. Dawnguard artifacts will appear a bit weird until I edit those entries, but there aren't many and they'll be fixed shortly. Also, there may be the occasional case where a parameter that was set to 0 would previously not display and now it will. I think this is probably the better behaviour overall, and if the parameter shouldn't be displayed, it can be set to blank or removed entirely. Please let me know if you spot any oddities other than that. – Robin Hood  (talk) 18:01, 15 August 2014 (GMT)

Online Achievement Locations

There are at least a few ESO achievements tied to events that happen at specific locations. I'm thinking of Crime Pays, Give to the Poor, Lightbringer, and I Like M'aiq specifically. We don't have a lot of information for most of these yet (which is a separate issue), but I believe that there are few enough spawn points for each one (1-3 per zone) that it might be reasonable to put them on the map. There are a few for M'aiq already, but I don't think the other three have them. Should we put them on the map now? Never? After we know which achievements share spawn points? (I think that Crime Pays, Give to the Poor, and Lightbringer all spawn at the same locations along paths.) Also, is it worth putting them on the individual zone pages, or start individual ones (as M'aiq already has)? Maybe some of these have obvious answers, but I don't know what the "policy" is about what goes on the map.

(There's also the question of how we're handling achievements in general, but I've been assuming that it will work something like Skyrim, where most will be redirects to relevant quest/npc/zone/topic pages, and a few will get individual pages.)

-Quantheory (talk) 06:56, 23 August 2014 (GMT)

I've never spent much time working on the map myself, but I would agree that it would be worth putting those on there. From reading the official forums regarding the first three, I agree that they share spawn points, and according to the UESPlog they all come under the title "Scripted Events" (not sure if that's a label Dave's given them or not), so we could make a combined page with that title. Such a page could also include other scripted events that don't go towards achievements, like the Conjurer who needs saving from his conjuration and other such things. --Enodoc (talk) 11:53, 23 August 2014 (GMT)

Hotlinking images from the wiki

I noticed someone in the official forums used a hotlink to one of our images. Is that allowed or it should be rehosted somewhere and use some kind of attribution?

The comment in question is http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1218442#Comment_1218442

Moinante (talk) 15:32, 23 August 2014 (GMT)

I don't see a problem with it. It would obviously be different for small sites that host large image files, where hotlinking puts strain on their servers. That's just a forum user linking to a picture, which is better than uploading it somewhere as their own without any kind of attribution. —Legoless (talk) 23:10, 30 August 2014 (GMT)

Interview Help

Jeancey is in a position to interview some ESO staff, and needs lore question to ask them. Please post them here. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:49, 30 August 2014 (GMT)

We have a whole topic full of ESO lore discrepancies here to comb through. I could put together a list if needed, but I'm gonna assume we don't want the entire interview to be about retconned minutia. —Legoless (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2014 (GMT)
If you would do that, sorting out the more minor ones, that'd be fine. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 20:09, 30 August 2014 (GMT)
I'd certainly like a question or two about Ebonarm. Has he been abandoned, or can we expect more on him in the future? If the latter, why was he removed from From the Memory Stone of Makela Leki? If he was abandoned, did Bethesda abandon him after Daggerfall without explicitly acknowledging it, or did ZeniMax make the decision when developing ESO?
Did several Akaviri races take part in the invasion led by Ada'Soom Dir-Kamal? If so, which ones? What are the politics like in Akavir; what prompted the invasion?
What is the leadership structure of the Thalmor?
Was there any lore-related reason for the spelling and grammar revisions in the ESO versions of older TES books?
Since many older TES books have been repackaged in ESO to fit into the Second Era, what does that say about the state of scholarship during the Third Era?
What was the relationship like between the Alessian Empire and the First Empire of the Nords?
What specifically prompted the War of Righteousness?
Is Empress Herda, mentioned in Pocket Guide to the Empire, 3rd Edition/Valenwood, the same as Empress Hestra?
Will ESO ever delve into the background and origins of Tiber Septim? If not, was it ever planned to do so during development? If so, why was it abandoned?
What relationship does the Staff of Towers bear with the Staff of Chaos? When was the Staff of Towers made and then disassembled?
When did the Aldmer begin to make their own Towers?
Are there any other failed Towers similar to the Doomcrag?
Is Falinesti a Tower? If so, whose Tower? Who made it?
When and how did Betnikh revert back to Breton control?
What relationship does the Mabrigash tribe have with the mabrigash seen in TES III?
From a lore perspective, what are the origins of the Cyrodilic names for the Eight Divines? Akatosh, Kynareth, Dibella, etc.
Did Alessia really appear to Marukh, or was it something else masquerading as Alessia? Or was he simply a crazy monkey? By the way, was Marukh an Imga?
I may have more later. Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 21:13, 30 August 2014 (GMT)
Since I've been looking at Souls and the Loremaster's Archive today: When a soul is trapped by a soul gem and ends up in the Soul Cairn, does that happen at the moment of death, or when the soul gem is spent? I.e., in cases where people have communicated with a soul in a gem, are they communicating with a soul in the Soul Cairn, or someone trapped in the gem? Also, neither animus geodes nor the gems used by Molag Bal seem to follow the same rules; are these not connected to the Soul Cairn?
Also, I second the question about Dir-Kamal. I'd assumed that the army was made up of the "ice demons" said to live in Akavir, but that was never explained (though it's never even been clear to me whether the ice demons are some kind of elemental, or flesh-and-blood beings that just happen to tolerate the cold very well).
Finally, why is it that Peryite is the one Daedric Prince that doesn't seem to have tried anything interesting during the Soulburst? Maybe I've missed something, but all the other Princes seem to be at least as active as they normally are, many executing grand schemes of one sort or another, whereas Peryite hasn't made an appearance at all. -Quantheory (talk) 22:17, 30 August 2014 (GMT)
Have the founding stories of Pelagiad, Cropsford, Hackdirt and Bleaker's Way (all Third Era settlements) been retconned?
Why is Almalexia (the city which surrounds Mournhold) not present in ESO? Also, why are the Hands of Almalexia serving as regular guardsmen?
How should the existence of Black-Briar Mead and Daedric Crescents in the Second Era be reconciled?
Are the "rieklings" encountered in Eastmarch supposed to be the small blue humanoids of Solstheim, or are they just regular goblins?
Can you give some background on the Knights of the Eight we see in Cyrodiil?
Are all players considered to be Heroes?
When can we expect an explanation for the various out-of-time books?
—Legoless (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2014 (GMT)
I want to clear a couple things up, since even I can answer some of these questions.
Legoless, we have 3 separate explanations for so called out-of-time books, can people PLEASE stop talking about it. The Lusty Argonian Maid was plagiarized, the Septimus book was an elder scroll back in time thingy (or at least tongue in cheek reference to such an event) and the loading screen for the Grandaren ruins provides an explanation for any other of those types of books.
Along the same lines, ME, the answer I got to the typos and such was a transcription error thing, which is pretty common in our world during the similar technological period. They did say, however, that they would be willing to fix any typos in ESO specific things, such as the quest journal entries and obviously in dialogue captions. I suggest that we modify the sic tag to put them all in a category by game? Or maybe JUST for ESO pages?
I have no idea what you are talking about by Pelagiad, since that is on Vvardenfell, but the other three, there isn't anything at all in Oblivion that says they were founded during that era. Why can't they just be older settlements? We know the founding story of bleaker's way, but we don't know WHEN that happened. Hackdirt is located on a rich mining era, there could easily have been previous settlements there, same with Cropsford.
Almalexia could have been built up around the city of Mournhold later on, though I was always under the impression that Almalexia and Mournhold were just two names for the same actual city, with Mournhold being the official name and Almalexia being a more colloquial name.
The Black-Briar family is present in ESO. They could still make beer. Not an inconsistency. Likewise, we know that the Daedric Crescents were used by Mehrunes Dagon's forces at the Battlespire, but nothing says that was when they were FIRST used. Only that after that event, they tried to destroy them all.
ME, I think we decided there was enough evidence that Marukh was an Imga with the additions in ESO.
In terms of Tiber Septim, this answers a question that someone on IRC asked as well. The Alliance war and the fighting between the factions ends when Tiber Septim becomes emperor. There likely won't be a stable ruby throne until that occurs, in the 850s or so (iirc). (that answer was half bethesda, half me).
That's all I got right now. Unfortunately, Paul Sage was supposed to be there for PAX, but ended up not being able to make it. Of the people who were there, they mainly can answer questions on Art for Characters and Models, and one person on the content team who can answer some questions on the soonest future content patches. So Those are the questions we need for Monday :) The art guy also just really liked the lore, so he had a few answers he knew from conversations within the team. Jeancey (talk) 06:47, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
We did decide there was enough evidence to treat Marukh as an Imga, but it never hurts to get something like that corroborated straight from the horse's mouth.
The probable birth of Tiber Septim is 246 years after the Alliance War begins. If they've said the Alliance War continues until Tiber Septim's rise to power, ask whether and how previous information on the late Second Era has been retconned to accommodate that. How does the "transcription" of the Second Era which they're conveying with ESO differ from the ones we've seen previously?
And, if the Alliance War drags on for over two centuries, it begs the question: in the end, how many years will the events of ESO encompass? Excluding the timey-whimey quests, of course. Daggerfall was stretched over several years, iirc, while Morrowind and Oblivion both apparently took place within a year. What portion of the Tamrielic timeline will the events of ESO claim? Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 07:40, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
I actually asked about the second one there, and he didn't have an answer on how long the events take place over. Also, I don't think that they were saying that the previous information about the end of the second era was incorrect. My gist of it was that the ruby throne isn't stable until Tiber Septim. They didn't actually say that, but that's the overall theme of what they did say. That could simply be a reference to the fact that there wasn't a dynasty in place until Tiber Septim. That fits in with what they said and the previous info we have about the time period. Jeancey (talk) 07:47, 31 August 2014 (GMT)

(←) Some questions for character art (assuming that includes concept art):

Who drew the concept art for Sir Cadwell?

Why does Sheogorath have the same attire as he did in Skyrim?

Why were Argonians and Lamia designed to have breasts? Do they serve a biological function? (I know this seems like a silly question, but plenty of people have been asking and speculating about this, and a clear explanation would be great.)

Are there any plans to add Akaviri-styled arms and armour into the game?

—<({QT>> 10:06, 31 August 2014 (GMT)

It's made abundantly clear in Morrowind that Pelagiad is an Imperial settlement. Also, my question was how should the existence of Black-Briar Mead and Daedric Crescents be reconciled, not whether they could. We can make up excuses all day, but I was under the impression that this was a chance to actually get some official answers. —Legoless (talk) 21:12, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
Pelagiad doesn't appear in ESO, so I'm confused about what your question is about. I can ask about the others on Monday, but they weren't as knowledgeable about lore, unfortunately. Jeancey (talk) 21:20, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
It's mentioned in the Letter to Rana. —Legoless (talk) 21:22, 31 August 2014 (GMT)

Redirects to Broader Subjects

Simple question: is there any use for this category? With 22,000 pages in it, I think only a bot could actually make any practical use of it, and I can't think of what that use might be. Or from the standpoint of looking at the redirect page itself, is it actually useful to know that the redirect goes to a broader subject? Yes, most of the redirects do indeed go to broader subjects (e.g., a specific weapon goes to a Weapons page), but how is that helpful?

And if people agree that it's not helpful, is it actually worth it to have the bot go through and remove it from all 22k pages? Seems like a lot of edits for very little gain. Or should we just stop adding it to the various redirects and let it go stale? – Robin Hood  (talk) 05:48, 31 August 2014 (GMT)

I believe it was under the vision that everything needs a category. We basically have a few useful redirect categories and the rest just go in the broader subjects one. Is there a particular reason it isn't useful to continue doing it? I mean, if you can't find it in the category or you can't find it because it doesn't have a category, why not just add it to the category? SOMEONE might be able to find it in there or something. I just don't see any real reason not to have it. Jeancey (talk) 06:52, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
I'd like to see those bloated categories split into per game, or sorted by game, somehow. They are useful in that pages should have a category, otherwise a redirect could exist for years where it isn't needed, but trying to find a page within them if you aren't looking for something specific is a nightmare. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 10:09, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
I generally agree with the idea that pages need categories. Most of the pages I looked at already had at least one other category, though only one that specifically related to redirects, so if we think it's important to categorize our redirects based on their function, we won't want to remove it. Silencer's suggestion of making it gamespace-specific (e.g., [[Category:Skyrim-Redirects to Broader Subjects]]) would certainly be doable, if that's the way we want to go. While there would still be very large numbers in the larger spaces, it might make using the categories more manageable. If we separate them based on actual namespace rather than parent namespace, which I think is probably the better choice here, it would certainly make them more readable. – Robin Hood  (talk) 16:06, 1 September 2014 (GMT)

Set Pages

Somewhat similar to the above discussion on the Unique Items page formatting, I was thinking that we should have set pages for items. It's rather cumbersome to have to list on every item page for an item that is part of set "also has gloves, boots, hat, etc". Sets are something new to the Elder Scrolls (the only items that could conceivably be called a set we've seen before were Trueflame and Hopesfire, and they don't actually have any effects when wielded together) so we don't have a definition for it, but I'd say a set would be any two unique items that either go together thematically (Thieves Guild, Guild Master's, Jester's, etc) or have an effect that triggers from wearing multiple items together (Miraak's stuff, Ahzidal's, Deathbrand, Shrouded, etc). The question is, should be we keep the individual item pages? --AN|L (talk) 14:08, 31 August 2014 (GMT)

There's no point having set pages listing the same information as individual articles, so I would think that in the interests of avoiding redundancy it should be either one or the other. I'm of the opinion that it's better to have articles about the sets than to have individual articles for each piece within them, as there's rarely enough to say about each piece of Thieves Guild armor to fill a whole article. Listing them as sets rather than individual pieces also allows us to mention set bonuses in one place rather than having to mention it on the article for every piece--which, again, allows us to avoid redundancy . Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 18:08, 31 August 2014 (GMT)
I think I'd prefer set pages, and then making the item pages into redirects. Off the top of my head, the criteria for considering pieces of armor part of a set might be:
  • They have extra effects when those specific pieces are worn together OR
  • Their names share a prefix or suffix unique to those items, AND the pieces can be obtained either in the same location, or as part of the same quest line.
-Quantheory (talk) 03:21, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
I'm in favor of just set pages myself, which I didn't make clear in the original post, simply because it streamlines the available information better. Searching for an item and being redirected to a set page is better than going to the item's page, the having to click on the set.
Quantheory, I like your definition much better than mine, though of course it would have to be specified that the item must at least be a unique item so we don't end up considering Dwarven armor a set, for example. In general, it's pretty obvious whether something is a set or not. Just so it can all be listed out, I've compiled a list of sets in the game.
List of Sets

Skyrim

  • Ancient Shrouded
  • Guild Master's
  • Linwe's
  • Old Gods
  • Shrouded
  • Thieves Guild
  • Ulfric's
  • Cicero's
  • Jester's
  • Shrouded Caster (they really liked making dark brotherhood sets)

Dragonborn

  • Bloodscythe and Soulrender
  • Ahzidal's (armor and the two rings)
  • Blackguard's
  • Deathbrand
  • Miraak's
Miraak's stuff is the only question here, you receive all six of his items by killing him, but only the robes, boots, and gloves have effects when worn together. I'd be in favor of just counting the robes, boots and gloves as a set. --AN|L (talk) 14:31, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
I am fine with this, but am unsure of how to present a page for a set of items in a pleasing manner. None of our current templates are geared towards this sort of thing, we'll probably need a new one designed for this. The item box would have to describe the attributes of the whole set when worn together, as well as the unique traits for each item.
I'm also opposed to treating weapons as a set, simply due to how few twin weapons there are. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 04:33, 3 September 2014 (GMT)
Anil, your suggestion of requiring items to be unique sort of makes sense to me, since I certainly wasn't considering collections like Dwarven armor to be a set. I was trying to rule generic items out with the they-are-acquired-together clause, but explicitly ruling out generic items works just as well. There are a couple of non-unique specialty gear that may meet my criteria, and I think that those could be considered sets as well. But they are already grouped together on the specialty gear page, and since they aren't unique they don't really need to be split off into separate pages, so there's no work needed there anyway.
I could take a crack at the template issue, but I don't have the time/experience to deliver anything quickly, so someone else might want to try instead. In the meantime, just grouping the items together on set pages with redirects might be a start (maybe not the way we want things to look eventually, but an OK transitional stage, and not wasted effort just to bring everything together).
I have no opinion about whether or not to include weapons. I briefly thought about the fact that ESO sets tend to combine weapons/armor, but I think that ESO is really a completely different beast due to the sheer quantity of sets (both based on effects and based on name/questline coincidence), and that's not even getting into the issues craftable sets, or sets that drop in different styles/levels based on your alliance. For Skyrim, I think that Miraak is indeed the only questionable case. There are actually three possibilities that I see:
  1. Robes, boots, and gloves are a set, based purely on the effect (everything else being separate).
  2. The above plus the mask, because they are all armor.
  3. The above plus the two weapons, because from a lore/name/aesthetic/acquisition perspective they all go together.
I think that I'd prefer 3 or 1. -Quantheory (talk) 06:38, 3 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) While a new template would be good, the pages could be created without it. I was thinking of a page with a header at the top describing the set bonuses, background on the items, etc and then having the rest of the page just be the item boxes. It wouldn't be perfect, but it's something. I agree that ESO is quite a different beast as far as sets are concerned, with sets that contain varying numbers of items and different bonuses for different numbers of items. It's prolly good we're doing this now though, since the ESO sets will require some sort of similar documentation at some point.

As for the weapons, I don't think that them being the only twin weapons in Skyrim should disclude them. Merging the two has already been discussed and they meet the criteria for a set in all other ways. The template for dealing with weapon sets will need to be developed at some point to deal with ESO, so I don't see why it can't be done now. --AN|L (talk) 18:07, 3 September 2014 (GMT)

Actually, I'd go so far as to say the the first page or two should be created without templates, unless someone wants to do a mockup in a sandbox. It's easier to create a template from an existing example—where things like formatting, autolinking and such become more obvious—than it is to just imagine one up from scratch. – Robin Hood  (talk) 18:45, 3 September 2014 (GMT)
Alright, so I tried using the current unique items template to deal with the set, the result can be found here. The current template actually doesn't work too badly in terms of creating a box that sums up everything. The main problem I see currently is how to incorporate the details of the individual set pieces. I used slashes to separate the armor rating for each individual piece, but it's not clear what rating belongs to what piece. --AN|L (talk) 03:05, 6 September 2014 (GMT)

Image numbering

The edit summary of this page move from File:ON-quest-Carzog's Demise (quest).jpg to File:ON-quest-Carzog's Demise (quest) 01.jpg („Add number to allow more quest images”) stirred my curiosity, and I tried to find out more about the underlying policy – without much success. I found a few discussions about image naming standards, but nothing about the numbering. In case I missed anything, my apologies for beating a dead horse! :)

This is what I found under Help:Images#Naming Images:

"Use the full, in-game name of the subject of the image (ie: File:OB-item-Azura's Star.jpg, not AzurasStar.jpg). For additional images of the same subject, numerals should be added to the file names (ie: File:SR-quest-The Only Cure 01.jpg, File:SR-quest-The Only Cure 02.jpg, etc.)."

Taken literally, this means that the name of the first image of a series remains unnumbered, while additional images are numbered, starting with 01 for the second image. This approach is not frequently used, but here’s an example:

Much more frequently, a series of images of the same subject starts with "01" for the first image etc., while there is no such image without a number:

Equally often, however, we find this pattern:

… Which is the pattern that I would like to suggest as the standard numbering method, for these reasons:

Very frequently, a series of images is added to a solitary image of a subject at a much later time. If numbering always started with the second image, with "02", and all images without a number were considered to be "the first image", there would be no need to rename them and add the "01" later. Using the "01" results in two different kinds of "first images": Those which are the first of a series, numbered "01", and those without a number, which are solitary images (but might become the first of a series later on, in which case they need to be renamed). Also, the message “No file by this name exists“ has two meanings as long as we use the numbering starting with "01": First, an image of the subject does indeed not exist; second, an image of the subject exists, but it is the first in series of images of that subject and therefore numbered with "01". As there are so many images that will never be part of a series, it would also be impractical to add "01" to all solitary images. I think that a clear policy never to use "01" and instead to upload first or solitary images without a number, and to start numbering images, if necessary, with "02", would make it easier to achieve consistency over time, and to maintain it. --Holomay (talk) 10:36, 1 September 2014 (GMT)

Oh, that was me.
Most of the NPC pages have only one image and will probably be like that in the future. That is the reason I don't use any number as a suffix. On the other hand, quests will probably have several of them and starting the numbers with 02 or not using numbers when they will be needed in the future didn't feel "right", so I started using 01 by default even when only took one screenshot for the quest.
Since no one corrected me (I am a newcomer, don't forget) I assumed it was the proper way to do it. Moinante (talk) 12:35, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
It's not just you Moinante, that's the way I do it as well. Unless I take two screenshots of a place, I wouldn't upload a place image with a suffix. However, quests will always have multiple images eventually, so I upload a first quest image with 01. --Enodoc (talk) 12:59, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
I don't get involved with taking images as I play on PS3 atm, but the explanation of the reason for adopting no numerical suffix for the first image and then .02 for the second etc. makes sense to me and will enable greater management and consistency. Biffa (talk) 13:31, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
I've always used the third example (no number, 02, 03), and the reasoning here makes sense. This isn't exactly a big deal so I don't see the need to actually move images around, but setting a standard seems fine. —Legoless (talk) 13:48, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
As Enodoc wrote, it's not just you Moinante – and that I started my post with a link to your edit was definitely not meant as a criticism of it! :) Looking at image names in different categories and namespaces, I just see the inconsistency in how numbering is handled, and as so many new ESO images are being uploaded, I think that a clearer policy would be helpful. I agree that the vast majority of quest pages will (and should) eventually have multiple images, but I believe there will always be some very small quests that will just have one image. And other categories are much harder to deal with in terms of numbering – many NPCs have or deserve a detailed article with multiple story images, but there's also a huge number of NPCs that will always have just the main image. Then there are place images, interior images etc. – all of these categories will grow over time (even Morrowind articles are still being worked on!), and it is difficult to determine which articles will have multiple images and which ones won't. On the other hand, there are categories like ingredient images which will hardly ever see multiple images for a subject. That's why I propose to get rid of the 01, or, if this means too much renaming to achieve consistency, at least not to use it anymore, so that we'll have consistency (no number, 02, 03, ...) in future image names. --Holomay (talk) 15:15, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
Throwing a vote in support of the third option (none, 02, 03). Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 17:38, 1 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) I always do (none, 02, 03), so I'm going to support it. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 18:03, 1 September 2014 (GMT)

No worries Holomay, I didn't think it was a criticism against me, just pointing out I was the one that moved that image because it wasn't following the same pattern I was using. I am no admin, but support the none, 02, 03 scheme for consistency. Should we use a bot to get rid of all of those extra suffixes? Moinante (talk) 18:23, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
I would like to unify this, although this isn't a high priority. If Robin could comment if his bot could build a list of files which include 1.jpg or 01.jpg, then we'll see about ensuring it's all standardized for the future. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 18:26, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
Also throwing in my support for the third pattern (first un-numbered). -- Hargrimm(T) 18:53, 1 September 2014 (GMT)
The only way the first option makes sense to me is when the unnumbered image is the intro image. But because a lot of the time images get replaced (in particular, the quest intro images are replaced by others over time) because not all are uploaded at the same time or by the same person, it doesn't always come out that way. I've been doing the third way myself, like most people here say they prefer. On another note, even though I've been doing it the whole time, because I was told to, I think I'd actually prefer just "something 2" instead of "something 02". It kind of looks like we have a maximum of 99 or something, and in truth, we rarely even reach 10 ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 00:22, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
I just asked the database for a list, and the bad news is that there are 1467 files that have something similar to 1.<ext>, and that's exluding ones like 11.<ext>. Renaming all of those would definitely be a bot job but glancing at the list, I see several that a human would definitely have to check out first to figure out the best name, or if it should be renamed at all. Anybody wanna volunteer for that job while I program the bot itself? Or is this something we should just implement from now on? – Robin Hood  (talk) 05:11, 2 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) I'll work on this if you can give me a list. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 05:33, 2 September 2014 (GMT)

Sent. Forgot to mention it in the e-mail, but don't worry about naming conflicts at this point. Once we've got a preliminary list, I can have the bot, or maybe even the database, scan through and identify any conflicts. – Robin Hood  (talk) 06:05, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
Regarding Dwarfmp's point about 2 vs. 02; is that something to do with alpha-numeric ordering? Without the 0 (assuming no 1), would they get ordered as 11,12,13,...,19,2,20,21,...,29,3,30,..., or as 2,3,4,...,9,10,11,...,19,20,21,...? --Enodoc (talk) 08:23, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
Without the 0 they get sorted incorrectly. While there are basically only four pages that I can think of that have gone over 10 images using the numbering system, Mirabelle Ervine, Delphine, Ulfric, and Galmar, there are others that do so with named images like Legate Rikke (eg npc-Legate Rikke Sovengarde.jpg), and there are more who could eventually have more than 10, Miraak, Lord Harkon. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 10:49, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
Ah, sorting, I didn't think about that. That makes sense then ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 12:00, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
While we're here, would it be possible to remove any and all forms of forced sorting in files. They don't help anything, the aren't put under a letter like normal pages in categories, and they are a plain nuisance if a file gets renamed as then the forced sort doesn't match the file. I've added some when doing maintenance, but only because there were far more with than without in those particular categories. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 17:36, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
Proposed renames are on the bot's results page, if anybody wants to take a look. I probably won't actually run the job for a few hours, so if there are any issues, now is the time to let me know. For the ones that remain, I was thinking that I could add a category to them so we can easily review files that end in "1" to see if they're valid. If they are, it's a simple matter of removing the category; if they need renaming, the bot can handle them, or users can do them one-by-one if they feel so inclined. I'm open to suggestions on the category name...anything I came up with sounded patently ridiculous.
Removing sorting from categories could be done as well, though probably as a separate job so as not to confuse the issue. (Just for the record, though, Silencer, if we do remove those category sort keys, Jeancey will want to hurt you. There are roughly 9000 files with sortkeys on them, and Jeancey likes staying ahead of HnB's edit count.) – Robin Hood  (talk) 22:00, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
The alternative would be to add them to those missing one, which is nearly 30,000... Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 22:26, 2 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) I saw some of the images in the logs proposed for deletion since there is no page that links them. Please don't. Some of them were not linked because there is no page yet but will be in the future (for example place images). I noticed too that will be some renaming problems because there is already a file with the name without the number, like in the first case noted by Holomay Moinante (talk) 22:53, 2 September 2014 (GMT)

I will hurt you Silencer. Where is this list RH? I'll do it myself! :) Kidding. I don't think the sorting is the biggest issue. It is more of an annoyance than an actual detriment. We can continue to remove it as those images are changed or moved, as we have in the past. Or we could get Wabbajak to do it :) Jeancey (talk) 23:15, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
(edit conflict) No problem with the proposed deletions. That's a simple toggle in the bot. I usually leave it on when doing reporting just so people can see which images are unused and think about whether they actually should be deleted or not. I had thought that naming conflicts were reported, but now that you mention it, that check only occurs later in the process when it's about to actually do the move. I'll update my code after dinner and re-run the report. – Robin Hood  (talk) 23:35, 2 September 2014 (GMT)
That turned into a significant re-write, but the updated report is there now. – Robin Hood  (talk) 05:20, 3 September 2014 (GMT)
Just a comment that may warrant discussion, looking at the results; if we are to apply this to all images, then it will also include maps, icons, loading screens and concept art, which would have (may have) been uploaded with the offending "01" primarily because that's the name of the file as given (in the game data, on the website, etc). For example, File:ON-icon-book-Coldharbour Lore 01.png, File:ON-icon-heraldry-Pattern Fang 01.png, File:ON-load-Auridon 01.jpg, File:ON-map-Castle of the Worm 01.jpg, File:MW-concept-01.jpg. --Enodoc (talk) 08:35, 3 September 2014 (GMT)
Since nobody's objected to Enodoc's point, I'll go ahead with the renaming later tonight. – Robin Hood  (talk) 19:53, 4 September 2014 (GMT)
I think the essential difference between them is that maps, icons, loads and concepts are official Bethesda images, while NPC, places, interiors, creatures, quests and items are our own UESP screenshots. So I'm certain of what is going to happen, will you be renaming everything, or just our screenshots? I wasn't sure from your comment which outcome my point above had directed you towards. --Enodoc (talk) 21:06, 4 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) I can filter those out. I hadn't really thought of it in terms of the fact that they fell into clear groupings. It's not hard to just remove those from the files to rename. Better to not move something that's easy to identify and move later if we want than to move it and then have to put it back later. – Robin Hood  (talk) 22:01, 4 September 2014 (GMT)

Okay, here goes nothing. This will take some time, and image links will break temporarily while it does all the moves, then updates the links afterwards. Please don't stop the bot unless it's really doing something horrible, as this isn't the easiest job to resume when it's mid-way through. – Robin Hood  (talk) 03:04, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
Okay, it seems to be done. There were some minor bugs on my end, and one major one in the framework I'm using which caused any page that had ever been deleted in its life to not allow me to save changes! Once I'd figured that out and fixed it, we got most of the last few links fixed. It's still reporting some leftovers, but it's 4am here and I'm going to bed. I'll look at this again tomorrow. I think it's just some false reports. – Robin Hood  (talk) 08:00, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
Oh crap! Links to the pages that were supposed to be skipped also got changed. Sorry, guys. I'll work on that tomorrow. Gah! – Robin Hood  (talk) 08:10, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
I think I have taken care of all dead links on the User:HotnBOThered/Results list, but some of the images listed there still have a 01 suffix. --Holomay (talk) 08:44, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
Okay, just to keep everyone up to date, the bot is now selectively reverting any pages which may have had links altered incorrectly (some may not, but I can't really figure that out from within the revert code). I'm going to make a few tweaks to the original page-renaming code to better handle galleries, which I really just hacked at last night until most were fixed. :-/ Then after lunch, I'll re-run that, and that should re-update only the links that actually changed.
And thanks for looking at the remaining pages, Holomay! I know many would have been false hits because of the screw-up and the galleries, but it's good to know that someone's gone through them. – Robin Hood  (talk) 16:43, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
Now I'm confused ... Quickly looking at the links that the bot has just reverted I still see a lot of quest or NPC images that end with 1 or 01. They seem to be the ones that couldn't be renamed because an image without any suffix already existed?! Will these be moved in another run or is it too complicated because the first "free" number has to be determined for every image name/series? --Holomay (talk) 17:18, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
What happened was that the bot updated links for files it hadn't actually moved, leaving links to incorrect images in place. See, for example, this diff. It incorrectly stripped the "01", leaving a duplicate image in the gallery. The undo earlier was just to put those pages that might have been affected back to what they were before the bot ran. I've fixed the bug that caused that, and am now working on the code that handles all the different types of replacements (links, template calls, template parameters, and galleries all have somewhat different formats to deal with). Once that's done, I'll re-run the bot to re-update only the links that should be. – Robin Hood  (talk) 20:35, 5 September 2014 (GMT)
Okay, the updated code looks good in test runs, so I'm letting it run for real now. It should be done in about half an hour or so, after which everything should be back to normal. On the bright side, having addressed these issues this time around, they won't happen the next time we have to do a bulk page move. :) – Robin Hood  (talk) 21:20, 5 September 2014 (GMT)

Image numbering (edit break 1)

Sorry to ask again, but I'm still confused about the first part of the bot task, the actual renaming of the images ... :) Your diff example shows a page with a series of images which had a duplicate image for a while: ON-place-Skyshard.jpg - the bot had changed the link ON-place-Skyshard_01.jpg to ON-place-Skyshard.jpg because it was under the impression that during the renaming task, it had changed ON-place-Skyshard 01.jpg to ON-place-Skyshard.jpg. However, this was not possible because a file with that name already existed: ON-place-Skyshard.jpg. We now still have image series such as ON-place-Skyshard.jpg, ON-place-Skyshard 01.jpg, ON-place-Skyshard_02.jpg. If I look at this old version of the bot results, I can see a lot of red links - the successful moves from images with a 1/01 suffix to images without a suffix. Among the blue links, there are a lot of images that were supposed to remain unchanged (maps, icons etc.), but also quest, NPC or place images that could not be renamed because a suffix-less version already existed. These cases are much more complicated because it has to be individually determined if the next free number is 02, 03, 04 etc., so I can perfectly understand if we leave them as they are. I just want to make sure what we are going to do with them. :) Holomay (talk) 06:33, 6 September 2014 (GMT)

As of right now, I'm leaving everything else alone until humans figure out what should be done. That said, if there are patterns that either the database or bot can look for (like the aforementioned cases, where we have images numbered <nothing>, 1, 2...), I can certainly work on either checking or moving those. I just need clear direction on what people want to do. It may make more sense to leave a lot of those as they are, if that's how they're named/numbered in the original source. – Robin Hood  (talk) 16:58, 6 September 2014 (GMT)
Oh, and if we do want to renumber the ones that follow the <nothing>, 1, 2 pattern, we need to consider whether they should be moved as:
  • 1 moves to 2, 2 moves to 3, 3 moves to 4, etc., or
  • 1 moves to one higher than the last number in the series (e.g., ON-place-Skyshard 01.jpg moves to ON-place-Skyshard 03.jpg).
The first version is much harder, and would probably be done as a series of bulk moves from highest number to lowest to avoid any overlap, because you can't really check if there are leftover links if something else has been moved into the old file name. So, for example, as part of the first batch, Skyshard 02 would move to Skyshard 03. The bot would then stop and report any leftovers. Humans check any leftover links, then we move on to moving Skyshard 01 to Skyshard 02. Wash, rinse, repeat until all images are renumbered. A lot more work, but it preserves the order of the original series for cases where that may be important.
The second version is much easier overall, and would be done in a single batch like any other bulk move. But, of course, it doesn't preserve the original order. – Robin Hood  (talk) 17:26, 6 September 2014 (GMT)
Maybe we should have a closer look at icon, map, loading screen and concept images later, but I think that all UESP screenshots - place, interior, NPC and quest pages - can be moved now. In most cases, the numbers do not represent any chronological order related to the subject; they are just added one after the other as the screenshots come in. In many articles, the placement of the images is not related to their numbers at all, and even to articles in which the image numbers follow a neat top to bottom order, a new image can be added at any time and be placed right in the middle of the text - or even become the new title image. So I think it wouldn't be a problem to do the second, easier version of the bulk move. --Holomay (talk) 18:07, 8 September 2014 (GMT)
Would a third option, in which [no number] moves to one higher than the last number in the series, be any easier than that second option? I have no preference which is done, I was just wondering technically. --Enodoc (talk) 19:01, 8 September 2014 (GMT)
It would be marginally harder, since we'd then have to move all the 1 files to [no number]. – Robin Hood  (talk) 19:12, 8 September 2014 (GMT)
Okay, those should all be done now. – Robin Hood  (talk) 19:59, 8 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) If anyone's interested, here are the main groups of files that are left that have "1" files. There are a bunch more that have five or less images in the group, or don't fall into standard groupings with two or more dashes. (Note that there may be slight discrepancies in the numbers, cuz my numbers come direct from the database, which I told to exclude anything that looked like a number higher than ten.)

File Group Total "1" files
SI-concept 134
MW-icon 74
SR-icon 65
AR-interior 58
OB-Map 49
ON-icon 43
OB-icon 25
ON-concept 18
SR-concept 16
ON-map 15
SI-audio 14
OB-npc 13
TR3-place 12
SR-map 11
ON-load 9
MW-Map 7
SK-narrative 7
OB-concept 6
Total Listed: 576
Others: 260

– Robin Hood  (talk) 01:02, 9 September 2014 (GMT)

Disambiguations

Do we have a policy on when one version of disambiguation is used over another? Is it based on importance, or should it always be one of the first two cases (ie, disambiguation for everything that could have it)? For example:

Thanks, Enodoc (talk) 09:52, 12 September 2014 (GMT)

I would say the first example is preferable. All the other ones should probably be changed. —Legoless (talk) 12:49, 12 September 2014 (GMT)
My preference would be to only have full disambig pages when there are 3 or more possibilities. 2 pages should just have mutual {{About}} lines that reference each other, with the most likely wanted page having the normal title (I think this would go in order of Place > Quest > Book). Having a disambig page means that every single user that visits the page will have to click over to another in order to get to what they actually want to read, whereas with {{About}} we can anticipate what they're looking for and have less than half of users needing to click another link. -- Hargrimm(T) 13:08, 12 September 2014 (GMT)
I agree with Hargrimm, though in the case of a mutual About, when one or both of the two pages are large, we may want to consider a disambiguation. There are still people with bandwidth caps or slower connections, and they may not appreciate loading a large page only to find out it's the wrong one. – Robin Hood  (talk) 15:31, 12 September 2014 (GMT)
Yeah that would make sense. If the pages have equal importance, like ON:Halls of Torment (place) and ON:Halls of Torment (quest) then a disambig is good; when one is more important than the other (I think The Lightless Oubliette as a place is more important than as a book, for example) then as Hargrimm suggested, {{About}} would probably cover it. --Enodoc (talk) 18:16, 12 September 2014 (GMT)
Some types of pages have more importance than others. This is my order; Skills Races Places and Quests are the most important, followed by Books, Factions and People, then Creatures and important Items (artifacts etc), then Notes and unimportant Items, Classes, and other things (achievements, spells, etc). If two things share the same value (eg Place and Quest) then its a disambig, if they don't (Quest and Creature), then the first gets priority. If there are more than two with the same name, then a disambig is needed but applied after the level of the pages (Quest, disambig, Creature, Note, achievement). Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 18:35, 12 September 2014 (GMT)
I would say, any time there is three or more, for sure. Then if they have equal importance, not necessarily large importance, or if they are the same type of page, (i.e. two NPCs with the same name, two places with the same name), they should also be disambiguated. Jeancey (talk) 18:43, 12 September 2014 (GMT)

(←) I was going to write down some of my thoughts about disambiguation pages here, and I decided to first brush up my knowledge about the searching features by looking up Help:Searching. Is it possible that the page is considerably outdated? I think the "Go" and "Search" buttons have been removed from the search box quite a while ago?! So far, this discussion only involved disambigs within the same gamespace, but I think it's also necessary to have a look at disambigs including multiple gamespaces, and therefore also at the namespace sensitivity of the search function. --Holomay (talk) 10:15, 17 September 2014 (GMT)

Considerably outdated, though the search icon (magnifying glass) is still there and takes you to the search page. I've seen no sense of namespace sensitivity in the search (e.g. the Oblivion Weapons page when searching from an Oblivion page), but the option is always there in the list. Just as an aside, the problems I've had with Skyrim, Dragonborn, and Online not appearing without a prefix being attached (e.g. sr:weapons) still exist. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 10:21, 17 September 2014 (GMT)
I thought the namespace prefix were only required if they were de-selected in the preferences page and could be changed at any time. Biffa (talk) 12:05, 17 September 2014 (GMT)
Regarding the discussion so far, I also agree with Hargrimm in only having disambig pages when there are at least 3 possibilities, though I think we should also consider RH's submission that a disambig for only 2 articles is reasonable when at least one of the articles is large. But first I'd like to have another look at when and how we actually end up on disambig pages? Of course, there are no direct links to them. When I use the search box, let's say I type "hide seek", I get this list - Skyrim:Hide and Seek is the first entry, followed by Skyrim:Hide and Seek (game) and Skyrim:Hide and Seek (quest). So I'll only see the disambig page when I click on Skyrim:Hide and Seek, but with a short glance at the search results I already have the necessary information to distinguish the articles. If I type "sr: hide seek", "Skyrim:hide seek" or even "Skyrim:hide and seek", I get the same result list. The only way to directly get to the disambig page seems to be to include the full phrase and to go case sensitive and type "Skyrim:Hide and Seek". Am I missing any other way to get to the disambig pages? (And Silencer, does your result list after typing "weapons" not include Skyrim:Weapons, Dragonborn:Weapons and Online:Weapons? In case you've ever changed your search preferences - have you tried to deselect/save and select/save these namespaces in your search preferences?) --Holomay (talk) 09:56, 20 September 2014 (GMT)
There are certain dab pages which the links always point to the dab page. This happens most often where there are two identically named, mutually exclusive quests, such as Stormcloak and Imperial Legion versions of quests in Skyrim. Since the link almost always applies to both versions of the quest, it goes to the disampbig page and the reader must choose which quest fits their game better. There are other ways (namely people accidentally putting the dab link instead of the specific one and I haven't got around to fixing it yet), but the goal is for people to never see dab pages unless it is 100% necessary. Jeancey (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2014 (GMT)
Thanks! As far as I know, it's common wiki practice anyway that dab pages are not meant to be linked to, but it’s also good to break this rule when it helps to illuminate game mechanics as in the case of the Imperial/Stromcloaks quests. I think it’s important to keep in mind that dab pages here don’t have the same relevance that they have in mainspace-oriented Wikis such as Wikipedia, and that’s why we need to have a certain degree of redundancy when it comes to things like {{About}} and "See also" or "Appears in" sections. Some of our dab pages appear right away after a search, though, namely the ones in mainspace. Daggerfall is such an example, and I believe such a dab page should be extended so that it becomes as comprehensive as the search results list for "Daggerfall", with links to occurences of the term throughout the different gamespaces. Right now, for example, you have to click your way from the dab through the Lore page (and in some cases further) to articles like Online:Daggerfall or Daggerfall:Daggerfall (city), which makes the dab page less useful than the search results listing. --Holomay (talk) 09:22, 22 September 2014 (GMT)

Elder Scrolls Online Contests!

Hey everyone! As some of you know, I was at PAXPrime this year. You can read up on my time there on the blog but I do have a contest for you all, with actual, real prizes. :) At every convention this year, ZeniMax gives away a unique in-game pet for Elder Scrolls Online. This pet, the Bristlegut Piglet Pet, is only from these conventions. Due to the extreme kindness of ZeniMax, I received several extra codes at PAX to give away! To this end we are holding three contests, with four winners. The other two contests will be held on the Facebook page and Twitter accounts, but because we are primarily a wiki, the contest here will have two winners!

This contest is very simple, and I hope many of you strive to complete it! All you have to do is get an Online article to featured article status! The first two people to do this will receive a code for the pet! If you aren't good at undertaking such a large task, don't worry! You can also enter the Facebook and Twitter contests! Keep in mind, however, that you can only win once, so if you do win one of the other contests, you become ineligible to win here!

Feel free to ask me any questions about any of the contests. The Facebook and Twitter contests should be posted later today. Good luck, and may the best articles win! Jeancey (talk) 19:28, 18 September 2014 (GMT)

Proposal of Sorts

First, I hope this is the right place to post this as I had emailed Dave who referred me to the community portal. I've never used a wiki before and I've spent a few weeks being too nervous to post anything as I didn't want to mess up the page or post in the wrong place.

I have used this site for reference now for nearly a year. I started doing a series on my youtube channel where my girlfriend and I read all of the books in Skyrim (I do 1 new book each week but I am capable of doing more). We try to be in character as best we can to bring out the feeling/emotions of the story to the best of our abilities. And I was curious, as I know you guys host images, if you would care to check out the series so far and potentially host the videos within the appropriate pages on the UESP?

I don't want to spam the page with a link so just search gamerpoets on youtube and the series is books unbound (not the early days playlist)

Of course I'm hoping to reach more people, but I also feel, if you all like them of course, that it would be a good addition. Also, I've noticed a few typo's while reading the books from the site. Regardless of if you guys decide that you like the idea of adding the videos of the book readings, would it be ok if I edited some of the word errors on the book pages? I have an idea for a Lore series that I was going to ask help with but its being put on hold until I get a better grasp on it all.

Thank you guys for your time either way. GamerPoets (talk) 06:56, 20 September 2014 (GMT)

Any spelling mistakes on book pages should be taken directly from the game, any that are not can be fixed. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 10:10, 20 September 2014 (GMT)
ok cool. I've read a few books from the game along side the books on the wiki (16 accords of madness I believe was the first) and the gamer version differed from the wiki version. I'll go back and check = ) ... thanks for the response. GamerPoets (talk) 04:32, 21 September 2014 (GMT)
Because the books appear in multiple games, the book in lorespace may differ from the version in the game you are playing. Just look at the book in the gamespace and it should be identical. If it isn't definitely let someone know which one it is. As for the other thing, we had a discussion a while back and made a choice not to host or link to any videos, except for videos of interviews used for references (I think that has happened once and that's it). So we won't host them. I'm sure someone on the forums would love to see the videos, though. Feel free to create a thread there to post them! Jeancey (talk) 04:36, 21 September 2014 (GMT)
Thank you for the response = ). And I can understand that. I'll make sure to check the book version. I hadn't realized about the gamespace. Shall do.GamerPoets (talk) 06:15, 22 September 2014 (GMT)

Updated ESO Image Files

I've extracted the various images/icons from ESO and uploaded them. Each file includes a diff text file which includes any file additions/changes/removals since the last full upload (May/June version I believe).

I'll be working on getting any changed/added maps up to the ESO map in the next few days. -- Daveh (talk) 13:10, 23 September 2014 (GMT)

Thanks for these. It seems like there may be something wrong with the Maps one; when I try to extract it, it says that it's invalid. --Enodoc (talk) 17:00, 23 September 2014 (GMT)
Maps.zip worked fine for me with 7-Zip ... --Holomay (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2014 (GMT)
Thanks for the suggestion :) I downloaded 7-Zip and extracted it fine... wonder what Windows doesn't like about it... --Enodoc (talk) 21:47, 23 September 2014 (GMT)

NPC Class In "Notes" Section

Well, the thing is… this discussion, I spoke about whether it should be the case whether for putting down a note on NPC pages saying that the NPC is a member of the class they have which sets their skill levels. And I thought, that… maybe it would be a good idea to, say… remove the note saying the class determines the level of their skills. And I've just thought that if I was asked to designate the least important thing on NPC pages — it would be (you're probably gonna hit the nail on the head here(!)) to remove the note altogether. Because technically Asta is a bandit. So what do u ppl think? DG#:) 22:02, 11 October 2014 (GMT)

Because I know the discussion you are talking about, I know what you are saying. If I didn't, I would be extremely confused right now. The note is there because for some NPCs, saying the class in the first sentence is extremely confusing and often incorrect. For instance, any of the NPCs with the dremora class, or certain NPCs whose class is blacksmith or bandit, but whose role in the game is something different. We are trying to make sure that the reader doesn't become confused and start to think that someone is a dremora when clearly they are not. I see absolutely no reason why this hurts a page in any way, and a multitude of reasons why it is beneficial. Jeancey (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2014 (GMT)
We've had this discussion before which did discuss the merit of having it as well as its placement and there has been no evidence to suggest that the status quo needs to change. If this is simply about Asta then you should have made that clear, and you can start a topic on her page about whether or not her class fits with her character and should be reduced to a mention in the first sentence. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 22:35, 11 October 2014 (GMT)
This is about all NPCs fyi. DG#:) 09:09, 12 October 2014 (GMT)
We understand that. You aren't understanding that the discussion about Asta can be applied to ALL npcs. There is ZERO reason to change it from the way it is now. Changing it would only make things more confusing, or remove information from the text of the page that isn't present anywhere else. Jeancey (talk) 09:31, 12 October 2014 (GMT)
Still. It is obvious that classes determine NPC skill levels and thus makes it seem redundant to my thoughts. DG#:) 18:30, 13 October 2014 (GMT)
It is true that class determines skill level, and I suppose most people will know that, but it is a different matter altogether how many people know that an NPC with the Bandit class isn't necessarily going to try to kill you on sight. Since the class != role/aggression/whatever thing affects some NPCs and not others, I think it's a good idea to keep mentioning it were there might be confusion. --likelolwhat talk lulzy to me 18:40, 13 October 2014 (GMT)

Place Page Section Ordering

As some of you may have noted on my talk page, there is some debate as to the appropriate order for sections on Place pages. This isn't the first time it's been brought up. In fact, it's been brought up repeatedly, sometimes only in passing, on the CP and elsewhere for over a year now. Since there's no clearly established guideline on this, only a somewhat suggestive title order on the Place Layout page of the Style Guide, I'd like to bring it to the community for discussion. Before I get into the nitty-gritty, however, I'd like to note that while the bot may not be 100% reliable at ordering sections, it's not a particularly difficult task to reorder them and flag pages that might need human intervention, so nobody should feel that we have to keep a particular order because large numbers of pages use that order. So, here are the issues I noted in a quick perusal of various Place pages:

  • First up, we have the Notes and Bugs sections. As far as I'm concerned, these two belong together, but many pages, like Understone Keep, have been standardized with Notes, Zones, and then Bugs. If brought together, should they be above the Zones or below them?
  • Next we have the question of Map location. There was a discussion on this previously, though it was mostly focussed on Galleries, which it was agreed should go below the Notes and Bugs sections. Maps, I believe, should be above them, if the section exists at all. What I'm proposing here is that the bot not try to get too intelligent, but only move the Maps section up if it's below Notes and/or Bugs section...if a human has decided it should go higher, then the human should prevail, since variable section naming (like Zone names) may not be easy for the bot to figure out.
  • And speaking of section naming, there's the question of section naming as singular or plural. If there's only one note, bug, or map, should the section name be singular or plural? To the best of my knowledge, we've always gone with plural.

So, what are people's opinions of these? Also, are there any other issues that we should consider, either in terms of adding something to the Style Guide or having the bot change things? – Robin Hood  (talk) 19:32, 21 October 2014 (GMT)

For me personally i think that the notes and bugs sections should always go together because i feel like those sections are of less importance then everything else on the page. The less important stuff should always go at the bottom. As for using plural or singular usage for section names, i think they should always remain plural. It sounds better than singular for one and there is always a chance that we would add more bugs or notes to those sections. Finally i agree maps should go above notes and bugs because they can be pretty helpful when trying to find where you're at in the place. Lorenut (talk) 19:45, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
I think that the notes and bugs should go at the bottom of place pages as they do on NPC pages, they've always looked out of place to me at the very top of the page. I have no particular preference for the maps. As for singular vs. plural, definitely plural. It's not technically accurate, but from what I've seen, the majority of pages have more than one bug or note anyway, and as Lorenut points out, more bugs/notes may be added at any time. We also already use the plural for Related Quests (never related quest). --AN|L (talk) 19:52, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
Agreed on all counts, going Zones -> Maps -> Notes -> Bugs -> Gallery, with Notes and Bugs always plural as has been done forever. -- Hargrimm(T) 20:00, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
(edit conflict) The easiest one of these is the plural. It is plural. That is site wide and any that aren't are mistakes and should be fixed. As for the others, I think that notes and bugs should be together, yes, but they should come before maps. Most of the time, maps aren't important at all. There is an in-game map of every dungeon in every game since Morrowind (some may be the minimap). With the exception of the Morrowind namespace, the maps on the wiki have no guides on them telling you what is where. Thus, they are actually no more useful than the in-game map, and if you need the map from the wiki, you should already be at the place in question and thus you should be able to use the in-game map too. Notes and bugs contain potentially vital information regarding the quest or location, as avoiding a game breaking bug could be vital to completing the quest. Given this importance, I definitely thinks maps should go at the end.
As for above or below the zones, I think we should stay split on this. It really depends on the amount of notes and bugs. If there are one or two small bugs and a note, it should go above the zones, as otherwise it could be lost in the length of the zone pages. If it is a lengthy number of notes and bugs, it should go after as not to drown out the zone info. Basically, if it is large enough to drown out the zone info, it is large enough that it won't be missed after the zone info. Otherwise it should be above the zone info. Jeancey (talk) 20:01, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
Jeancey i can see where you're coming from, but if it was made the standard to post notes and bugs at the very bottom of the page, then i don't see how a lot of people would have trouble finding them. I think having the notes and bugs split up based on what page it's on would be more confusing then having a static location to look for. Lorenut (talk) 20:16, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
I'm not talking about splitting notes and bugs up, I'm talking about splitting where they go together. On some pages, they both go right after the quests, on others they go right before the maps at the bottom. I'm just worried that there will be a single bug or note that's relatively important to know, but a reader never sees it because they only read so far down the page. Jeancey (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
(edit conflict) To me, the main information on the place is more important than the notes; if the notes was important, they wouldn't be considered notes. So I would say Zones -> Notes -> Bugs -> Maps -> Gallery, which is also my opinion on those sections' importance relevant to each other. Sure bugs are important, but Bugs are most often found near the bottom of a page anyway, so that is where I'd expect to look for them. --Enodoc (talk) 20:23, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
I'm sorry about that Jeancey, i worded that really confusingly. That's what i mean if you put the bugs and notes above or below certain spots based on the page their on, then i feel it would be more confusing then just having both of them at the bottom all the time. What i mean is for example if on one page you put both notes and bugs above zones and on another page you put it below zones, then that could get really confusing on what location to look for them. It would be much better if you knew where to look immediately rather then having to search for it. Lorenut (talk) 20:27, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
Just to be clear are we talking about Skyrim only, or other namespaces where there has been a clear and followed line of notes-zones-bugs? Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 20:32, 21 October 2014 (GMT)

(←) I think we are talking about all namespaces. I don't feel THAT strongly about having the notes/bugs shift around, so bottom of the page is fine. I still think they should be going above maps. Jeancey (talk) 20:35, 21 October 2014 (GMT)

Just to butt in (since the previous gallery discussion was linked above), I'm still strongly supportive of our current guideline for the gallery location on lore articles, i.e. as close to the text as possible. —Legoless (talk) 20:46, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
I just want to clarify Jeancey, if i came off as rude or anything i didn't mean to be. I'm just trying to point out why i believe it would be better to be at the bottom then anywhere else :). Since everyone else seems to be doing this i thought i might do it as well. In my opinion from most important to least important Zones -> Maps -> Notes -> Bugs -> Gallery. Lorenut (talk) 20:47, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
I don't think you were being rude :). I'm curious as to why the maps are so important though? They don't seem to provide any additional information aside from scale that isn't provided by the minimap or other in-game map. Aside from the Morrowind maps. The only major change being discussed here aside from wording changes and a few outliers is the map location, as the majority of pages have the map as the last thing (at least in the Online, MW, and Skyrim namespaces that I've seen). Oblivion had a different layout that needs to go burn, but shouldn't be affected by these changes. Jeancey (talk) 21:04, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
In that case I strongly oppose any changes to that standard layout, as I always have. Just because they are in the notes section doesn't mean it isn't important, they are more likely the opposite, important, but cannot be successfully integrated into the article (if it wasn't important it would hardly bear mentioning anywhere really). The zones are below the other sections because their general size is a put-off to anyone seeking quick information, which is why the notes where placed above them. This has always been the way and previous namespaces have had no problems using this method. There is no point comparing place pages to other types of pages because they are all different. Bugs were placed at the bottom of the page because that allows for a consistent placement for people looking to find solutions to problems (if they exist), but just as quest pages have a section below bugs, it was agreed that the new phenomenon of galleries was to go below the bugs. Maps are to go in the gallery if there are other images, if they are on their own they were to go in a map section below the zones. This could be changed as for now it appears that maps will have very little use on future place pages.
This all fits with the underlying order of all pages which is "Quick information - Detailed information - Problems & Solutions". Notes are quick useful information for place pages but generally not useful on other pages, and pushing them to the bottom breaks this order without a logical reason. The standard layout should be "Initial info - NPCs - Quests - Notes - Zones - Maps* - Bugs - Gallery".
(per Legoless's post) This discussion can have no impact beyond gamespace place pages, we've already seen the mess created in lorespace when implementing the Gallery placement. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 21:20, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
Good point! The reason i originally thought they were pretty useful was because i figured that being on place pages, a map of the place would be useful. I guess they really don't provide much use that's not already available in the game so it now ranks after bugs. Zones -> Notes -> bugs -> Maps -> Gallery Lorenut (talk) 21:21, 21 October 2014 (GMT)

Edit Break 1

Just to clarify, my intent was to apply this to all namespaces except Lore, which is, of course, usually a bit different. That way, Place pages everywhere would have a certain degree of consistency and we could write it up in the Style Guide as a universal style. (The bot would probably take the approach of just looking for Place Summary templates.) That said, there's no reason I couldn't limit the bot to Skyrim/Dragonborn only and word the Style Guide so that it only applies from Skyrim forwards (including Online?).

I'm not so sure that Notes-Zones-Bugs was the standard prior to Skyrim, though. In a quick browse around, I easily found Anga and Fanacas which placed Notes and Bugs together. I didn't find anything that was ordered Notes-Zones-Bugs, but I only hit a couple of random pages. – Robin Hood  (talk) 21:56, 21 October 2014 (GMT)

Fairly sure Notes and bugs together is the standard in the Morrowind namespace as well. But I can't be sure, since I haven't spent much time there :P Jeancey (talk) 22:00, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
Just to shed a little light on how things stand currently, this sandbox contains a list of all {{Place Summary}} pages which have both a Notes section and a Bugs section, excluding User space. Out of 247 pages, 223 of them currently have the Notes and Bugs sections next to each other. – Robin Hood  (talk) 23:06, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
That's a slightly misleading statement as the alternate argument is for having the notes above the zones. In many cases the notes and bugs appear together but above the zones. A credible dissection of the sandbox would also discard the pages where there is no 'zones' section, as the discussion is about where the notes are in relation to them. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 23:12, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
The way I see it is that the Zones section gives the actual description of the place, and then both Notes and Bugs are commenting and building upon that description to clarify things, note alternate situations, call out unique events or items, etc. In that context, it doesn't make sense to have the the Notes first, since then they'd be commenting on things that you haven't yet read. Also, as far as notes and bugs appearing together, but both above the zones, I counted 14 instances out of the 247 listed in RH's sandbox. Obviously the vast majority had them after Zones, although some were before the Gallery. -- Hargrimm(T) 23:21, 21 October 2014 (GMT)
Silencer: Yes, you're absolutely right, and I deliberately didn't mention anything about placement relative to Zones because I'm not that picky about where Notes and Bugs go relative to Zones except that I don't think Zones should go between them. While it's true that a number of the pages listed have no Zones/Walkthrough section, most of those that do still have the Notes and Bugs together. And just to cover all the bases, my sandbox only lists pages where there are both Notes and Bugs, so it's entirely possible (if unlikely) that every other Place page on the wiki uses another style. – Robin Hood  (talk) 01:14, 22 October 2014 (GMT)

(←) I agree that notes and bugs should go together, and I also think that they would look better at the bottom of the page. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 01:52, 22 October 2014 (GMT)

I feel that the ordering purely for Skyrim should be: Header, Residents, Related Quests, Description/Walkthrough, Notes and Bugs together, Maps and Galleries together. For other games there is and should be a different order because of the major differences in the game and how the information is shown on our pages and as a final point it does help differentiate between each of the games at a glance. I agree with The Silencers comments about NOT putting Zone 1 etc at the start of each subheader, but to continue to use ''{{LE|this format}}'' unless the header is the same as the page i.e. only one zone. I don't think the walkthrough header is useful or needed not sure what the consensus on this is though. Biffa (talk) 03:26, 22 October 2014 (GMT)
So after the first {{NewLeft}} we should have:
  • == Residents ==
  • == Related Quests ==
  • == Full Name of Place ==
  • == Exterior ==
  • ''{{LE|First Zone Name}}''
  • ''{{LE|Second Zone Name}}''
  • == Notes ==
  • == Bugs ==
  • == Maps/Galleries ==
Just to clarify for Oblivion and other namespaces/games they already have standardised formats and shouldn't be touched! In Oblivion the :::notes and map are far more important than with Skyrim, so are placed higher on the page. IMO notes and maps/galleries at the bottom that :::way they become easier to find for all and they get a prime locatable spot without diluting the walkthroughs. Biffa (talk) 03:39, 22 October 2014 (GMT)
It looks like that's the consensus, Biffa. Map locations are a bit more ambivalent in opinions so far. I'm a little puzzled about your "Full Name of Place" section, though. In any event, I won't have the bot change any names or add any {{LE}}s for Zones and similar sections because it could only guess at what sections it's appropriate to do that for, and they would likely be bad guesses in a lot of places. The only sections the bot will alter will be the Notes, Bugs, Maps, and Galleries because those are sections it can identify unambiguously.
I need a little more in terms of consensus as to whether I should apply this to Morrowind, Oblivion, and/or Online. I didn't bring it up initially, but I'd also like to have the bot remove the "Zone 1:" text from the beginning for Skyrim space and after, for those few pages that have it.
Oh and apologies to anyone whose votes/opinions I got wrong in my consensus summary and not really replying to messages about it in the last few minutes. By all means, feel free to change anything that needs it. I'd intended to post this sooner, but got waylaid by a call from my mom. :) – Robin Hood  (talk) 21:05, 22 October 2014 (GMT)
Don't worry about it Robin, you only had one thing (of mine anyway) wrong and that's fixed now. Anyways i think all but lore would be fine. Lorenut (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2014 (GMT)
Oblivion pages are fragile things though, so I think those should be left alone for now. I don't have a preference for Morrowind. Online should be like Skyrim (whatever Skyrim is, lol) and Lore is untouchable. --likelolwhat talk lulzy to me 21:35, 22 October 2014 (GMT)
Just to be clear, the only decision that this discussion has addressed by consensus is the placement of notes/bugs/maps/galleries starting in the Skyrim namespace, correct? We're not necessarily agreeing to the exact example format listed above? The walkthrough/full name of place/exterior stuff still needs discussion, and it should also be noted that dungeons and residences are treated similarly, but not exactly the same (for example, with very few exceptions most dungeons will not have a Residents section). — ABCface◥ 23:00, 22 October 2014 (GMT)

(←) It's not clear yet whether people want this to apply to Skyrim forwards or everywhere but Lore, though in the absence of a clear consensus, the principle of least change would apply, meaning Skyrim forwards. But yes, this discussion only applies to the Notes/Bugs/Maps/Gallery sections (except removing "Zone x" from the few section titles in Skyrim where it exists). – Robin Hood  (talk) 02:10, 23 October 2014 (GMT)

Thanks for clarifying, RH. Sounds good to me. — ABCface◥ 02:19, 23 October 2014 (GMT)
I think that the changes should only be applied to Skyrim forwards. If necessary, the Oblivion and Morrowind namespaces should be considered individually. While I agree to the changes that we have a consensus on so far, I’d like to add two thoughts:
1.) Is it really necessary to use italics for the zone names? They are headers, and I believe that’s enough formatting. In the sentences of the main text the italics for the zone names are also redundant, as they are formatted as links to the sections below. I think italics should be restricted to books, dialogue and, if necessary, general emphasis.
2.) I don't like the idea, but I can see why there is a consensus on placing Galleries instead of other sections at the bottom of articles. Legoless has suggested to apply the Lore guidelines to the Gallery section (having it as close to the text as possible). I’m afraid it will not work well on place pages, but at the same time I think that the images will be pretty forlorn at the very bottom of extensive place pages. However, if an article has enough text information, the best places for images can be found within the text, and there’s no need for a Gallery section anyway. The current Place Layout page doesn’t mention Galleries at all. It only states that “additional images can be included elsewhere on the page, if the page is large enough or interesting enough to warrant additional images”. I suggest we change “can be included” to “should be included” and encourage an attractive layout that presents text information and related images close to each other. Galleries should only be used if there is not enough text to fit in images in a harmonic way. --Holomay (talk) 14:55, 23 October 2014 (GMT)
That's what I was thinking, Holomay: that Skyrim forwards would be the the best course at the moment.
1. That's an interesting suggestion. I'd never thought about the actual use of italics in zone headers, but I agree that it is an extraneous step that only serves to confuse editors.
2. Now that you bring it up, I do agree that in Place pages with enough text (that becomes a wall in absence of any images) Galleries should be incorporated as much as possible. However, that's not going to be an option for a lot of pages. What I'd like is some kind of data on how many pages with galleries are over a certain number of bytes. Not sure how feasible that is. --likelolwhat talk lulzy to me 23:00, 23 October 2014 (GMT)
(edit conflict) I thought there was also agreement to change the 'walkthrough' header to the full name of the place (that is why I included it above the exterior). Why can we not have the full discussion for the other headers, if there is a need and get all the headers and ordering agreed in one go? So far we have agreement for notes/bugs/maps/galleries as the last three headers, no zone 1 etc. to be included at the beginning of each zone. Have I missed anything? Surely we can agree a format where differences between dungeons, forts, mines and residences are purely omitting the headers not required, whilst keeping the ordering the same across all place pages for Skyrim? As I've said previously for Oblivion especially, not sure about the other games, as the ordering of the headers have different priorities for each game. Biffa (talk) 23:03, 23 October 2014 (GMT)
I've always added images within the text where pooible and only added a gallery if there are too many images. So, I would imagine very few places require a gallery excluding maps. Biffa (talk) 23:07, 23 October 2014 (GMT)
I'm open to having the discussion, if we want to get into it now. Seems like as good a time as any, really. There will only be so much the bot can do, though, as I said previously. Stripping italics shouldn't be a problem, but any kind of ordering other than sections that have standard, recognizable names going first or last will likely have to be done by hand. (That probably sounds worse than it is, in retrospect. In most cases, I doubt any other ordering will be needed.)
@likelolwhat: User:RobinHood70/Zain is all pages in Skyrim/Dragonborn space with 10,000 characters or more and what looked like a gallery section (as opposed to gallery tags, which are also used for maps). I did that the fast way, not the more intelligent way, so there's a slim chance that some of those are false hits. – Robin Hood  (talk) 00:18, 24 October 2014 (GMT)

Edit Break 2

Okay, the consensus seems to be Skyrim forwards, which makes sense given the direction of the rest of the discussion. We can review other spaces separately if we want, or just leave them alone altogther. So...

Looking at some of the Skyrim pages, I agree that the italicization looks out of place and should be removed. I also largely agree with Holomay's second point. Galleries have their uses, but I think pictures should be integrated whenever possible. If we do use a Gallery section, I can see the argument for putting them higher up. How many people are even going to notice the gallery at Proudspire Manor, for instance? As far as changing "Walkthrough" to the full name of the page, while it sounded like a good idea at first, looking at pages like Proudspire Manor or Benkongerike, I wonder if that might not be more confusing than helpful. – Robin Hood  (talk) 00:42, 24 October 2014 (GMT)

Skyrim forwards makes sense to me, and I also agree with removing the italicization if we're removing "Zone #:". Integrating pictures is definitely the best way to go, and if a page is long enough to do that (eg again, Proudspire Manor), then they won't be lost in a gallery at the bottom. I would prefer if the word Walkthrough was changed to something else, as this is for place pages and Walkthroughs are for quests. As for what to change it to, I think the name of the place would work, but alternatively, we could use "Zones". Or we could just do what has been done on Mzulft (which may have been accidental) and not have a header at all (all the zones on that page are Level 2 headers themselves). --Enodoc (talk) 08:16, 24 October 2014 (GMT)
I can see how the word "walkthroughs" could make sense in the context of guiding readers through dungeons, since that's basically what the dungeon articles do anyway (it's especially appropriate in Skyrim, since so many of the quests are dungeon-related), but as far as I'm concerned that's a relatively minor detail, so I don't have any strong opinions either way. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 21:07, 24 October 2014 (GMT)
I also have no problem using or not using walkthrough as a header and the third tiering each zone. All I want and I'm sure others would too is a clearly defined concensus of the headers to be used, the format and order they are to appear in. Biffa (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2014 (GMT)
Pointing out, as the person who revamped Mzulft in the first place, that the header thing was not accidental. I just decided that I hated typing two more equal signs per header for little gain. :P I do like how it turned out, though. --likelolwhat talk lulzy to me 00:23, 28 October 2014 (GMT)
I thought people were stating that further discussion was required to get the full list of headers agreed, but since then everything has gone quiet. Robin can you, as the person who started this thread, confirm what has been agreed and list which headers and location are still be to agree? Biffa (talk) 01:23, 30 October 2014 (GMT)
I was talking with someone earlier today who mentioned wanting to contribute to this thread, but not having time until the weekend, so I'm going to give it a little more time before I go through everything and figure out what the plan is in terms of bot work, human work, and changing the Place style guide page. – Robin Hood  (talk) 22:04, 30 October 2014 (GMT)

(←) It seems nothing else has been added, so here's what I see as consensus:

  • Skyrim, Dragonborn, and Online spaces only. (Though Online seems to already follow these rules, at a glance.)
  • Section order towards the end of the page should be: Notes, Bugs, Maps, Gallery, assuming the sections exist at all.
  • Section names should not be italicized.
  • Section names should not start with "Zone x".

While there has been other discussion about whether we should use the word "Walkthrough", and whether zones should be second- or third-level headers, I don't see a consensus there. I think agreement on that would be great if we can get it, but there's nothing here so far that warrants changing the current style for any given page or place type.

If anyone sees a different consensus than is stated above, or if I missed anything, now's the time to speak. If not, I'll make the changes to the Place Summary page and get the bot going on what we have so far in the next couple of days. – Robin Hood  (talk) 16:08, 5 November 2014 (GMT)

I have added my votes to the consensus. I guess avoiding galleries by incorporating images as much as possible is also part of the consensus?!
The word "Walkthrough" ... I don't like it on place pages, it sounds too linear and it should be restricted to quest articles. However, I think that a 2nd-lvl header should describe the function of the section that follows, not what it describes. To me it looks odd if there is a 2nd-lvl header named "Broken Tower Redoubt" on a page named Broken Tower Redoubt. What about simply "Zones", which we can find on Blackreach? Or something like "Place Details" or "Detailed Description"? - And the names of the zones as 3rd-lvl headers. Maybe the best place for the sentence "There are <x> zones in <Place>: <Zone 1>, <Zone 2> ..." would be right underneath the 2nd-lvl header? --Holomay (talk) 09:31, 6 November 2014 (GMT)
My personal preference would be to not have a level 2 header and to move the zones up to level 2, like Mzulft. This would be a direct extrapolation forwards of how Oblivion places work as well (Miscarcand, Goblin Jim's Cave, Fort Roebeck), which would be good for cross-namespace consistency. If the zones remain at level 3 (but I don't think they should), then "Zones" works in theory as the level 2 header, and I'd be happy to use it for Skyrim; the only reservation I have over using that for Online is that Zones are something specific in ESO. --Enodoc (talk) 10:51, 6 November 2014 (GMT)
Would it be useful to have the bot add a hopefully temporary category to any Gallery (and Maps?) section it finds so they can be investigated after it's done to see if the sections can be integrated?
I'm indifferent on whether we go for Level 2 or Level 3 for each area. If we do go for Level 3, I don't really care for the word "Zones" as the Level 2, especially with Enodoc's point about Online. What about something like "Description" or "Areas"? Or the "Exterior" and "Interior" (or "Interiors", maybe?) that have been done on some pages?
Lastly, can I get a second opinion on Skyrim:Soul Cairn, please? What do I do with the "See Also" relative to the other sections? Looking at it in preview, I think above the Notes looks best, but I can also see it going between the Bugs and Maps sections. – Robin Hood  (talk) 20:00, 6 November 2014 (GMT)
Scrap the See Also and stick the text at the end of the lead section instead? That's where Daggerfall Covenant has that line. --Enodoc (talk) 00:13, 7 November 2014 (GMT)
That's not something I'd have the bot do, though there's no reason we can't do it manually. I noticed that "See Also" sections occur a fair bit in Online space, and are placed after the Notes and Bugs, so for now, that's where I have them...after Notes and Bugs, before Maps and Gallery. – Robin Hood  (talk) 03:08, 7 November 2014 (GMT)

(←) With regards whether to have walkthrough or another word as a 2nd level header and the individual areas as a 3rd level or just have each area as 2nd level headers. My vote would be to keep using walkthrough as a 2nd level header, because when I first started updating place pages I was against using the word, but having thought about it further it does describes what the text is supposed to achieve, that being to WALK someone THROUGH a location, explaining exactly what can be seen/used/found/encountered/ starting from the entrance and working room-by-room, floor-by-floor. If not walkthrough, I would still vote for having a 2nd level header and each area as 3rd level headers because of the differences in font size/boldness, if you take a look HERE, at the top 'Hjerim' is a 2nd level header and compare that to the 3rd level headers of the individual rooms below the cost/upgrade table and I think you'll agree which stand out better. Biffa (talk) 12:39, 7 November 2014 (GMT)

The bot's off and running on the section re-ordering and renaming. To some degree, just by the nature of how it processes pages, you'll also sometimes see it removing or adding space between the last section and the "footer" on a page (e.g., categories, a navbox, or a stub tag). If we come up with a consensus on Walkthroughs, I can always do another run, but it looks like there's nothing clear yet, and those might be better handled separately anyway if we end up doing anything drastic. – Robin Hood  (talk) 21:43, 7 November 2014 (GMT)

Contacting Bethesda/Zenimax For Permission

So, as you may have seen, I've recently uploaded samples of the bardic performances in Skyrim and ESO. I'd like to contact Bethesda and/or Zenimax, whoever I need, to get permission to upload the whole songs (and I'd ask for confirmation of the lyrics/titles in ESO if they can give it, too.) Does anybody know who I would contact for this and how to get ahold of them? - Alarra (talk) 06:42, 29 October 2014 (GMT)

I'm not sure if we really need to host the entire songs, especially since music copyright is so iffy. I don't know who you could actually contact to obtain permission. —Legoless (talk) 23:41, 6 November 2014 (GMT)
If you want to upload the entire songs, the safest way is to contact Zenimax, contact the music artists who performed the songs, and then contact their companies. Of course, should Zenimax tell you they own the copyright and it is okay to post the songs, you don't need to talk to anyone else, just please, for the love of the Divines, keep a record of them saying it is okay to use them. ~ Ad intellige (talk) 18:52, 7 November 2014 (GMT)

Unsigned Contributions Being Changed

I've been seeing a couple instances recently of registered and unregistered users who forget to sign a talk page post, have it marked unsigned by somebody else, and then the original poster comes back later to replace the unsigned template with the current timestamp (e.g. here and here). Most of the time, I or someone else just adjusts the timestamp to the original time. I'm just curious as to whether there is a policy or procedure for when this happens. It's not a big deal by any means, but I can't find anything about this situation on the site. •WoahBro►talk 16:39, 13 November 2014 (GMT)

I'm pretty sure there's no policy against it (nothing in writing, anyway), but I feel like changing an unsigned timestamp to a signature without doing anything else is kind of a pointless edit. As long as the timestamp is correct, it's not a big deal, but it doesn't really serve a purpose either. As things stand now, I don't think it's worth making a strict policy about it, but I feel it should be discouraged in the interest of refraining from pointless edits. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 17:20, 13 November 2014 (GMT)
For the timestamp, I would definitely say it should be corrected. I didn't see a policy for that anywhere on Wikipedia, but I think it's safe to say that that's the right thing to do.
As for Thuum's point, I could swear there used to be something about replacing unsigned templates with an actual signature, either here or on Wikipedia, but if there is/was, I can't find it. While it may not accomplish much, changing from an unsigned template to "the real deal" does provide a certain degree of consistency and, for most customized signatures, makes it easier to see at a glance who made the contribution. It may also offer links that aren't part of the unsigned template. As such, I'd favour leaving it to the user in question to decide if they want to replace the template or not. – Robin Hood  (talk) 18:27, 13 November 2014 (GMT)
I don't know if there is an official policy about it, but for situations like these i would say if you didn't sign and someone put an unsigned template there, just leave it as is and don't overwrite it. Lorenut (talk) 19:38, 13 November 2014 (GMT)
I agree with Lorenut. If you forget to sign and someone takes the time to do it for you, don't be a jerk and sign it at that point creating an extra edit, especially if you mess up the timestamp ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 21:38, 13 November 2014 (GMT)
Personally, I think that if you forgot to sign and someone adds the template for you, then it should just be left as is. I don't know if it would make it easier to read by replacing it, since most customized signatures aren't just the username. ~ Ad intellige (talk) 01:20, 15 November 2014 (GMT)

Open ESO Facebook Group

Over the last while, numerous users have expressed a desire on the UESP Facebook for a dedicated page or group specific to ESO and the guild. As it appears to be something at least moderately desired, I'm starting to think it might not hurt, and was wondering whether anyone else was interested in a page or group being created? While I don't play ESO and wouldn't actively participate in such a group (unless someone wanted my Facebook management to extend to include such a group), I am inclined to think, based on the opinions of the people asking for something for ESO specifically, is that an open Facebook group might be the most desirable.

If you're not familiar with Facebook groups, they are essentially little communities with "Members" and "Administrators", which ought to be self-explanatory. Unlike a Facebook page, where only the administrators post to the main page, which follower posts being pushed to a small section of the page corner, all users share to the main area, which is designed to enable the sharing of content, ideas, planning for ESO-related things, and general interaction, in a way that our Facebook page is inadequate for.

As for settings for the group, there are Public, Closed, and Secret. Public meaning that the group, its members, and content can be seen by anyone, and is the one that would obviously be most desirable for encouraging a communication hub. As for joining the guild page, it can be set so that members can add members, or that only Administrators add members. There are two ways this could be handled, essentially.

  1. We could let anyone add anyone, member of the guild itself or not. The benefit to this could be that anyone who wanted to be a prospective member, for instance, could interact with and get to know guild-members of-game as well as in-game.
  2. We can restrict access by requesting that the user give us their in-game name, account, or whatever is checked, and verify that they are members of the guild and restrict it in that way, though I am ambivalent to restricting what's meant to be a a fun little out-of-game conversation hub.

For management of content, conflict disputes, etc, we could theoretically place all the guild officers, including Jeancey, Alarra, Dave, etc, as administrators with the ability to manage the content and block out things that are inappropriate, while the former can use the page to organise NA and EU guild activities, plan events, etc. And, if it was desired (although it's not necessarily necessary), non-ESO Facebook managers, such as myself, could be additional administrators, if it were found to be desired.

What are the opinions? Does this request from Facebook seem advantageous to us? Did I miss anything? Additional questions? Etc? -damon  talk ♥ contribs 19:57, 17 November 2014 (GMT)

I am going to agree with one of the commenters from FB and say that the forums suit this purpose, and that we don't need that extra degree of separation. We're already trying to do our best to create a unified "UESP community" and encourage users to partake in all parts of the site, not have a "wiki community" and a "forum community" and a "Facebook community" and now add this extra group too. Discussion about ESO suits the forums perfectly, and we can always use more traffic there. The guild is handled basically in-game, though that could be done on the forums too if needed. (Plus I don't think all our officers have FB accounts, or would want their real life name shown if they do.) - Alarra (talk) 02:52, 19 November 2014 (GMT)

Reoccurring Characters

I'd like some help with the Reoccurring Character Project. Due to the scope of the project (trying to recall every single occurrence of any character being mentioned), it's a bit intimidating in scale. The best way to source these seems to just be asking people which ones they remember, so that's what this is. My request: list any character from any part of the ES series that has made multiple appearances, was referred to by another character or in some written lore before appearing properly in a later installment, made an appearance which was then followed by that character being referred to in a later installment, or have only ever been referred to as part of the background lore.

For those wondering, the goal of this project is to not just list each appearance of a character, but also briefly explain where and how they appeared. It'll be a nice article to refer to whenever we see a reappearing member of the cast. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 06:09, 20 December 2014 (GMT)

You're asking to come up with names, right? Or are you (also) asking help in writing the details of the appearances/mentions? Anyway, I've seen a few spelling mistakes in the list (not that that's really important), and even though it's probably fine to correct those, your sandbox lacks one of those tags with "people are allowed to edit", they have those now ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 10:56, 20 December 2014 (GMT)
I've added some characters to your list and fixed some errors, I may continue to do so if you don't mind. I may also note the games where they appeared, if you wish. I like your idea very much. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 14:39, 20 December 2014 (GMT)
Would the characters in Oblivion that appeared in Oblivion Mobile be suitable for this list? While the main plots for both games are pretty much the same to the best of my knowledge, they are technically different games. This would put Martin, Mankar Camoran, and Jauffre in the multiple appearances category. I don't really feel strongly for or against including them as such, but figured I'd mention it since I didn't see them listed in the multiple appearances section. Forfeit (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2014 (GMT)

Speculation and uncertain facts

I have been thinking about changing the wording of the 'speculation' and 'uncertain facts' part on the style guide page but I thought before changing it and came to the conclusion that it's best to check here first and get people's views on it, but may I just mention how whenever I add speculation to articles it gets removed but on some articles, logical speculation is okay. Take this as an example: Adamus Phillida having the key to Claudius Arcadia's house—it is logical—appropriate—and sensible to assume it is because of:

  • Adamus' life-long self-proclaimed mission to erase all of the Dark Brotherhood.
  • The crime took place inside Claudius' house.
  • The crime involved the Black Sacrament.

Take this as an example on speculation that wouldn't be allowed on the wiki: why you were imprisoned at the start of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It is not appropriate to speculate on why because there is no given explanation whatsoever in any of the games or in any spin-off media.

We only have the following information on it in-game: in the cell you start out in, when you ask the Emperor why you were put in jail, he will speculate that it could've been the Gods putting you in there so you's may meet, then tells you that what you have done does not matter, which either means that he doesn't want to tell you because it doesn't seem rather important, or seeing as he is above the law and not knowing why you are in jail, sees it under his jurisdiction and says it is unimportant. When Captain Renault asks the others why you are in an off-limits cell (meaning it is a dummy jail cell; no prisoners are allowed to be jailed in there), Glenroy just says it's a usual mixup with the guards. I could've condensed this down but... whatever

Because there isn't that much factual (and relevant) information regarding the matter, I would say this wouldn't be a thing to be speculated on at all. So what do you think? DG#:) 15:27, 23 December 2014 (GMT)

I don't think the wording needs to be changed. This is something that can be (and needs to be) handled on a case-by-case basis most of the time. In regards to the Arcadia edit, I'd like to point towards this discussion on my talk page. If in doubt, I'd recommend that you ask a senior editor or post on an article's talk page before adding speculation or speculative languages to articles. —Legoless (talk) 15:41, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
(edit conflict) I'm afraid I don't see where you're going with this. Both of your examples correctly cite the reasons for their inclusion or exclusion. There is in-game evidence to support why it's likely that Adamus Phillida has the key to Claudius's house, which you so eloquently described. Even if it's not specifically stated, it can be reasonably inferred from the circumstances. On the other hand, there's no such evidence for why you were placed in prison at the beginning of the game, so there's no sense trying to guess. Or to put it simply, there's a likely reason with strong support for the note on Phillida, but no likely reason for the note on prison. The first is okay for inclusion, the second isn't.
To be frank, I think this is less an issue with the wording and more an issue with your ability to understand it. It's been explained to you multiple times, and it's all there in the style guide any time you want to look at it. Is there some degree of subjectivity involved in deciding what is and isn't speculation? Sure. When that happens, we defer to consensus. If this is a concept that you find confusing, the best way to clear the matter up would be to look for patterns in the edit history of the pages. See for yourself what does and doesn't constitute "speculation" by looking at the kinds of things that get removed for that reason. I really don't know how to explain it any more clearly than that. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 15:46, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
@ThumofReason, the first paragraph was basically what I was saying when I started the topic. But those were just examples for show. I was wanting to clarify on the Style Guide page that logical, sensible, appropriate speculation may be allowed, as some speculation is. DG#:) 15:54, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
I think Dragon Guard has a point. It should be spelled out in the Style Guide that some speculation may be allowed but only in rare circumstances. I personally think there is no harm in spelling out examples of allowed speculation or even just clearly stating that if you are in doubt, go to the talk page. ~ Ad intellige (talk) 16:20, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
Dom just took the words right out of my mouth. I will do it and see what happens... DG#:) 16:35, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
Dragon Guard, please don't change the style guide without some sort of consensus.
I don't see the need to spell it out, since in most instances speculation should not be encouraged. The current guideline says that it "should be avoided", which isn't an outright prohibition. New editors are unlikely to misinterpret the current wording, whereas pointing out that speculation "may be allowed" seems pretty destructive. The style guide is meant to be very broad in scope. It's also not a policy page, so pointing out exceptions to the rule is unnecessary. —Legoless (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
Well... err... I thought this was a consensus. DG#:) 17:04, 23 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) In my opinion, the only thing that should be added (if anything) is something along the lines of: "...speculations or uncertain facts should be avoided, although may be allowed in rare circumstances"

That being said, yes, we're working on gaining a consensus. 2 on 2 in a 4 person discussion is not consensus. That last comment DG can be mistaken as condescending. It's not too bad, but do not make a habit of it, as we've had problems with this kind of language in the past.— Unsigned comment by WoahBro (talk • contribs) at 17:39 on 23 December 2014

Even though it isn't necessary to point out exceptions, it can be misinterpreted, whereas I don't see how WoahBro's suggestion could be. Plus, being specific can't cause much harm, since we would still have a general thing on it. (Also, I don't see how DG's comment could be seen as condescending, since, to me, he just appeared to have made an honest mistake) ~ Ad intellige (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
I just would like it to state that speculation can be added in rare circumstances somewhere in the style guide, in a way I am happy with, of course. And you's as well. DG#:) 18:28, 23 December 2014 (GMT)
I can't see how that comment could be taken as condescending either. However, I agree that we shouldn't promote speculation in any circumstances. I'm not aware of this being an issue for anyone else, so I think most people are comfortable enough with the way it's worded that there's no need to change anything.
I also think it's worth noting that making logical inferences isn't the same as speculating. Take the easter eggs pages: When someone thinks they've found a reference, they create a topic on the talk page and make the case there. Now obviously, the game isn't going to specifically say "this character/line/event is a reference to such-and-such", but if it truly is a reference, there will be clues as to what it's referencing, so that we can reasonably infer what the target of a reference is. Conversely, if there isn't enough convincing evidence to suggest beyond any doubt that it's referring to one specific thing, then we know it's probably not an intentional reference, and we don't list it on the page. It's the same thing here. It's okay to make inferences if they're backed up by enough convincing evidence, but it's not okay to make unfounded claims. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 01:01, 24 December 2014 (GMT)
I've explained in further detail what I meant about "condescending" on DG's talk page, if anyone wants to swing by there for what I was trying to say (wasn't trying to make a big deal about it, plus I'd just woken up and was still half asleep). Anyways, to Thuum's response: How and where do we make that distinction? Like, on the style guide page? Then we run into the question of do we really need to spell it out that much? Do we need to take up that much room for this? And we could also run into an issue of over complicating things. I don't know, those are my immediate thoughts. •WoahBro►talk 01:28, 24 December 2014 (GMT)
I have to agree that speculative information including most inferences should as a matter of course be posted to the talk page for review and agreement on a case-by-case basis and maybe that's what the style guide could be changed to read. That way we avoid multiple undoes on pages whilst giving anyone that wish to report/suggest inferences and speculation etc. a place and route to do so. I believe this could be spelled out clearly on the style guide with one or two sentences, for thoughs that desire brevity. Biffa (talk) 01:52, 24 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) I'm afraid "overcomplicating things" is what this is quickly devolving into. The point I'm trying to make is that there's no need to change things for clarity when it's already pretty clear what is meant. If you want to get technical about it, you could argue that the Phillida example is speculation, but I feel like it's pretty obvious. The first time I played the game, I instantly made the connection that he had that key for the reasons the example suggests. We don't need to spell anything out, we don't need to institute new protocols for inferences. We just do it like we always have been: If speculation is posted, we remove it. If the poster feels strongly about it, he/she can take it to the talk page for review. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 02:37, 24 December 2014 (GMT)

I agree with Legoless that what is currently on the style guide about speculation is fine. Speculation of any kind should not be encouraged, and adding anything about when speculation is allowed may lead to misinterpretations by newer editors. If something more were to be added to the style guide, it would have to probably be somewhat detailed to describe said exceptions, which could lead to it becoming overly complicated as mentioned by Thuum. I think there is usually a pretty clear line between logical inferences based on facts and speculation based on a few, scarcely related pieces of information. When the line may not be so clear, it is best to handle these instances case-by-case. Forfeit (talk) 03:07, 24 December 2014 (GMT)
I agree that speculation should be discourage from being added to the pages and that the current protocol of removing it if added is correct and justified. I just thought that a simple sentence after the "should be avoided" section, along the lines of; Unsubstantiated and inferred information should not be added to a page without it being posted to the relevant talk page and a consensus of opinion being reached. This is similar to the protocol implemented for easter eggs, which I believe is proving successful and without a major increase in workload for anyone. Biffa (talk) 04:01, 24 December 2014 (GMT)
I'm with Thuum. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. -- RNM|T 09:19, 24 December 2014 (GMT)
Like Thuum said, making logical inferences isn't the same as speculating, and when the border between them is fuzzy, one should discuss the idea on the talk page. As for the style guide, I think the current wording is fine and does not need to be changed. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 11:47, 24 December 2014 (GMT)
This part will be hard to right, as there is a lot to respond to here. I will state my views on the new posts.
"I also think it's worth noting that making logical inferences isn't the same as speculating. Take the easter eggs pages: When someone thinks they've found a reference, they create a topic on the talk page and make the case there. Now obviously, the game isn't going to specifically say "this character/line/event is a reference to such-and-such", but if it truly is a reference, there will be clues as to what it's referencing, so that we can reasonably infer what the target of a reference is. Conversely, if there isn't enough convincing evidence to suggest beyond any doubt that it's referring to one specific thing, then we know it's probably not an intentional reference, and we don't list it on the page. It's the same thing here. It's okay to make inferences if they're backed up by enough convincing evidence, but it's not okay to make unfounded claims."
I completely support all of what has been said here.
"[...] Anyways, to Thuum's response: How and where do we make that distinction? Like, on the style guide page? Then we run into the question of do we really need to spell it out that much? Do we need to take up that much room for this? And we could also run into an issue of over complicating things. I don't know, those are my immediate thoughts."
Ironically (but digressing here) I will make a logical inference from this post that it has a lot of strong opposing to the discussion. If these are your immediate thoughts then maybe you should just take your time; there's no rush on posting suggestions here that come straight into your head. The wiki is a collaborative effort.
"I have to agree that speculative information including most inferences should as a matter of course be posted to the talk page for review and agreement on a case-by-case basis and maybe that's what the style guide could be changed to read. That way we avoid multiple undoes on pages whilst giving anyone that wish to report/suggest inferences and speculation etc. a place and route to do so. I believe this could be spelled out clearly on the style guide with one or two sentences, for thoughs that desire brevity."
Taking it to the talk page? I can see where you're coming from, but it might not be the case if there is a majority vote on support here (meaning logical inferences will be okay).
"I'm afraid "overcomplicating things" is what this is quickly devolving into. The point I'm trying to make is that there's no need to change things for clarity when it's already pretty clear what is meant. If you want to get technical about it, you could argue that the Phillida example is speculation, but I feel like it's pretty obvious. The first time I played the game, I instantly made the connection that he had that key for the reasons the example suggests. We don't need to spell anything out, we don't need to institute new protocols for inferences. We just do it like we always have been: If speculation is posted, we remove it. If the poster feels strongly about it, he/she can take it to the talk page for review. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
By opposing to "institute new protocols" I guess you mean you're opposing to the point of putting a sentence or two on the style guide that logical inference is okay. I do see how you think mentioning this obvious inferencing from in-game stuff is through common sense (common sense: why of course; why didn't I think of that before?).
I agree with Legoless that what is currently on the style guide about speculation is fine. Speculation of any kind should not be encouraged, and adding anything about when speculation is allowed may lead to misinterpretations by newer editors. If something more were to be added to the style guide, it would have to probably be somewhat detailed to describe said exceptions, which could lead to it becoming overly complicated as mentioned by Thuum. I think there is usually a pretty clear line between logical inferences based on facts and speculation based on a few, scarcely related pieces of information. When the line may not be so clear, it is best to handle these instances case-by-case."
You're not one for consistency from your "case-by-case" bit (assuming I'm reading this correctly). But it's simple: from what I think, if things "may not be so clear" we won't do any logical inferencing. DG#:) 16:30, 24 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) Honestly, the biggest problem I see with leaving it up to "logical inference" is what I find logical can, and probably is far different than what you find logical. For instance, I think that it is entirely logical to put a small notice saying something along the lines of take it to the talk page unless it all but stated exactly. ~ Ad intellige (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2014 (GMT)

I too find the current description sufficient. I don't think we need to encourage adding speculation so as to combat a lack of it. People are already prone to adding speculation if they think it's truthful. Any "valid" speculation can always be discussed, as some noted. Which speculation is "valid" may simply be based on any factual references ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 03:13, 25 December 2014 (GMT)
See this discussion. DG#:) 16:07, 25 December 2014 (GMT)
The guide is just that. It's not meant to be a precise restatement of how the UESP operates in practice, as policy considerations influence how it is articulated. Acknowledging/creating a semantic dichotomy between speculation and logical inference in the style guide is not necessary, and while it might not have a negative effect, it certainly wouldn't have a positive one. It's like a speed limit; you set it at 55 so people will go 60. If you set it at 60, they'll go 65, and so on. It's not written down anywhere; no law says that you have virtually no chance of getting pulled over as long as you stay within a reasonable variance of the speed limit. It's just something you figure out as you keep up with the pace of traffic. Anyway, editors' natural urge to opine means that speculation is bound to appear in some circumstances, and it's an uphill battle to keep it as conservative/reasonable as is practical. The current language of the style guide sufficiently supports that endeavor. Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 18:16, 25 December 2014 (GMT)
That's what it really boils down to. In some cases, there aren't going to be any hard rules or evidence of them in the policy. It's the kind of thing that you get a feel for after being around for long enough. Experience is the best teacher, after all. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 19:02, 25 December 2014 (GMT)

Edit Break 1

Well now I am thinking about it and would support Dom's idea a few posts back of putting in the style guide regarding the idea of taking it to the talk page.
But I will acknowledge all the new posts first:
"Honestly, the biggest problem I see with leaving it up to "logical inference" is what I find logical can, and probably is far different than what you find logical. For instance, I think that it is entirely logical to put a small notice saying something along the lines of take it to the talk page unless it all but stated exactly."
Yes, people have different views on things; there isn't always a right or wrong answer at times whether it's logical or not. But thr majority vote is what makes decisions, and that's what decides on a "no right or wrong" vote.
"I'm with Thuum. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
What do you mean by "broke"? Is this to do with running out of something...? But it's not money obviously hahaha...
"I agree that speculation should be discourage from being added to the pages and that the current protocol of removing it if added is correct and justified. I just thought that a simple sentence after the "should be avoided" section, along the lines of; Unsubstantiated and inferred information should not be added to a page without it being posted to the relevant talk page and a consensus of opinion being reached. This is similar to the protocol implemented for easter eggs, which I believe is proving successful and without a major increase in workload for anyone."
Strongly agree. No objections.
"I too find the current description sufficient. I don't think we need to encourage adding speculation so as to combat a lack of it. People are already prone to adding speculation if they think it's truthful. Any "valid" speculation can always be discussed, as some noted. Which speculation is "valid" may simply be based on any factual references"
Yes I agree with the "discussed" thing, but I really would like to make it clear in the style guide that if you believe the speculation / logical inferencing to be constructive, take it to the talk page first, not after.
"The guide is just that. It's not meant to be a precise restatement of how the UESP operates in practice, as policy considerations influence how it is articulated. Acknowledging/creating a semantic dichotomy between speculation and logical inference in the style guide is not necessary, and while it might not have a negative effect, it certainly wouldn't have a positive one. It's like a speed limit; you set it at 55 so people will go 60. If you set it at 60, they'll go 65, and so on. It's not written down anywhere; no law says that you have virtually no chance of getting pulled over as long as you stay within a reasonable variance of the speed limit. It's just something you figure out as you keep up with the pace of traffic. Anyway, editors' natural urge to opine means that speculation is bound to appear in some circumstances, and it's an uphill battle to keep it as conservative/reasonable as is practical. The current language of the style guide sufficiently supports that endeavor."
Minor Edits: please can you explain this in a nutshell? I'm guessing this means you want the style guide to be left alone (assuming I'm reading correctly)?
That's what it really boils down to. In some cases, there aren't going to be any hard rules or evidence of them in the policy. It's the kind of thing that you get a feel for after being around for long enough. Experience is the best teacher, after all.
Yes I do agree. But the "take it to the talk page" part should still be clarified for people on the style guide as quite a lot of speculation is posted on here (although typically removed promptly).
What do you think? DG#:) 21:31, 25 December 2014 (GMT)
I think that a majority of people are against tampering with the style guide. Also, idioms. —Legoless (talk) 22:44, 25 December 2014 (GMT)
You think that a majority of people are against tampering with the style guide? Are you trying to tell me that they are or they aren't against the idea? Some people aren't such as Dom and Biffa. DG#:) 20:15, 26 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) I might as well cast in a thought. I think that the style guide is fine as is as well, per the initial thoughts and postings of Legoless and Thuum. -damon  talk ♥ contribs 20:27, 26 December 2014 (GMT)

Why does nobody's post begin with a "Support": or "Oppose": (or "Comment":)?This would make it a lot easier to keep track of who is against or for this idea. Dragon Guard (talk) 21:01, 26 December 2014 (GMT)
Because we are seeking consensus, and consensus requires discussion. Starting posts with those words directs people into a voting mentality where only the "supports" and the "opposes" are considered. Consensus is not a majority vote.
Regarding the Style Guide, it already says "The article's talk page is the place to discuss questions about the article's content or style", in the Content section; maybe we need to move the bit about speculation from Writing Style to Content, rather than adding more. But since talk pages are already mentioned, I don't see the need to mention them again. --Enodoc (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2014 (GMT)
@Enodoc, what gives? Because this thing about talk pages not being mentioned again doesn't fit well with it being mentioned about half a dozen times in the article. We could mention the talk page logical inferencing in the part where it mentions them if you are so against mentioning them again...Or is there another solution here maybe? Hmm...Yes. I think there is! We could, say... "speculation and uncertain facts are to be avoided; this is not to be confused with logical inferencing" Now how does that sound? Better? Not better? A bit of both? Dragon Guard (talk) 22:04, 26 December 2014 (GMT)
@Dragon Guard, I'll try to make it a little clearer: a majority of people are against tampering with the style guide. There have been a number of good points made against it that a simple rewording doesn't address. I can't see anything being achieved by dragging this discussion out further. —Legoless (talk) 23:35, 26 December 2014 (GMT)
@Legoless, There have been a number of good points made for and against a change and a number of those who are basically against a change are supportive of what could be achieved by a minor tweak to the wording. I still believe a minor change to the wording somewhere within the guide can meet everyone's goals, regardless where specifically or the exact wording that's used. If the style guide clearly points people towards the talk page for anything not backed up with clearly defined references, it will help the site stay free of speculation AND will help reduce the amount of posts and the effort it takes to maintain this by patrollers, etc. It avoids potential bad feelings between people who post something in good faith, something they believe has enough merit to be classed as logical inference and others who may feel that same post doesn't meet the necessary standard. By posting it to the talk page first, anyone with an opinion on a specific post gets to voice it, make their case in a positive way and feel like they've been heard regardless of the ultimate decision. Biffa (talk) 06:45, 27 December 2014 (GMT)
Yes Biffa. I get what you mean and am very supportive of it. Some people are against drastically changing the style guide but not against a minor tweak to it. And by the way, what is this "Edit Break" thing? I don't get this at all. Dragon Guard (talk) 09:39, 27 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) It's to make the discussion more readable. A wall of text is easier to read if it's broken up, which is why we put edit breaks in long discussions. As for Biffa's suggestion, it's not necessary to take everything to the talk page before making an edit. If we did, the talk pages would be flooded with things and we would never get anything done.

By my count, there are 3 editors currently in favor of making some kind of change and 8 against (WoahBro seems to be on the fence). There is a clear consensus against instituting any changes to the style guide, so any further discussion on this topic is of little value. Rather than have this turn into another meaninglessly-prolonged discussion like that Bruma Investigator, let's just move on. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 14:34, 27 December 2014 (GMT)

Thank you for clarifying the "Edit Break" thing ToR. Can I call you that for short ThuumofReason by the way? What about a little change to the style guide? As little and as concise as we can get it where we mention the logical inferencing and / or talk page thing? Dragon Guard (talk) 15:10, 27 December 2014 (GMT)
I might make a list who are for and against...if there are no objections that is. Dragon Guard (talk) 15:13, 27 December 2014 (GMT)
As I said, the consensus is against making any changes. And there's no need to make a list, it would serve no purpose. Please stop dragging out this discussion. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 16:31, 27 December 2014 (GMT)
I am not dragging out this discussion by making pointless comments (assuming I'm reading you correctly Thuum). I would like to (try) and convince people that there should be a note, in the style guide, clearly stating that when editing, speculation and logical inferencing are not to be confused with each other, and, if in doubt, take your (potential) edit to the article's talk page.
Why do I need to change the style guide?
This is the easiest part to write, because given the amount of speculation that is put on the wiki the time has come for it to be made clear that speculation is not to be confused with logical inferencing, which can be quite similar, depending on how you see it.
Why should you's change your opinion from "against" to "for?
Well, probably sooner or later, it will be stated somewhere in the style guide. It will have to be justified sometime. I believe that whatever new constructive contribution to the style guide where the content in the potential edit isn't mentioned, should still deserve a place there, be it a small or bigger place. I still have the desire to see my suggestion on the style guide somewhere, even in a small part, just as long as it mentions it there is no problem.
I think it is entirely appropriate for the note to go in somewhere but I do understand if you's don't change your decision after reading this (for obvious reasons). But at least give the note a very little place in the style guide please. Thank you for taking the time to read through this message, and consider whether this outweighs the "against" reasons. Dragon Guard (talk) 17:14, 27 December 2014 (GMT)

Second-hand forum confirmations by Gstaff - sufficiently reliable OOG for lore?

I want to get some opinions on this fan research project. In an effort to detail a more precise history of Skyrim, user Fiore1300 at the Bethesda forums contacted Gstaff to get corroboration on various things. If we could consider it reliable enough to include these Gstaff confirmations as OOG sources on the lore pages, it would yield several facts which would add a bit more depth to our knowledge of Skyrim and beyond.

Notably, a source for the character of Ami-El has been very elusive. See, for example here. Pilaf the Defiler is one of the biggest TES lore buffs you will find; if he can't find a source for something, I think it's fair to conclude that the source had been lost to the ether. An entry on the First Era timeline which mentioned Ami-El went uncorroborated since the page's inception, until I finally removed it last year. But Fiore1300 claims to have gotten corroboration on Ami-El straight from the horse's mouth: "1E 358 - Emperor Ami-El of Cyrodiil lends his forces to Skyrim in a military campaign against the Direnni Hegemony in the Western Reach. Anti-Aldmer sentiments rise as Skyrim loses more and more of Greater Bretony to the Direnni."

Our lore guidelines allow for information from developers which is conveyed in forums to be potential sources for OOG, but it's just a little more finicky in this situation because the information isn't coming directly from an official account, or the account of a developer, but through a less formal intermediary.

Fiore1300 has been an active and, as far as I can tell, very well-respected contributor on the official forums for five years. Someone by that name has also made some contributions to The Imperial Library. On the UESP, he has made limited but very positive contributions since 2012. I see no reason to doubt his claims.

So, are there any objections to treating the information from Gstaff as OOG sources? Note, I'm not saying we'd necessarily treat any inferences/extrapolations made by Fiore as OOG, merely the information that was given to him. If there are objections, what else may be done to convince you of its reliability? Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 18:15, 27 December 2014 (GMT)

Whoops, I guess an anon re-added the entry about Ami-El to the First Era timeline in May (right around the time of Fiore's project, actually), citing the Daggerfall Chronicles. But also of note here is that Gstaff apparently confirmed that the Aetherium Wars took place between the reigns of Vrage and Borgas. And this situation is prone to repetition, so it would be nice to have some guidance. Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 18:46, 27 December 2014 (GMT)

First bit of guidance coming up: I strongly support this information 100% and would recommend mentioning it on a Lore page. Dragon Guard (talk) 21:35, 27 December 2014 (GMT)
Listing what Gstaff or any other staff gives out, I'd find acceptable, since it's the staff. But, I would rather err on the side of caution and not use user-made inferences/opinions, so we'd have to thoroughly analyse and look at Fiore's inferences, but even then, we probably shouldn't put too much thought into using them unless they are concrete and based purely on what can be proven by our lore sources and staff OOG. -damon  talk ♥ contribs 17:06, 29 December 2014 (GMT)
We haven't ever made much use of forum sources before, but our OOG guidelines certainly allow for it. Lore:Solstheim actually has a forum reference which was deleted (archived?) a while back. I don't see a problem with using the Ami-El info. —Legoless (talk) 17:13, 29 December 2014 (GMT)
My own opinions on canon aside, Gstaff can probably be treated as an OOG source for our purposes. I agree with Damon about user information; trustworthy though this Fiore may be, I would feel more comfortable about including his information if I could see his sources, and even then it would probably be best not to rely on it too heavily. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 17:50, 29 December 2014 (GMT)
Like Legoless said, our guidelines are clear: we can use the forum source here, and the relevant information it includes. – Dragon Guard  (talk) 20:30, 29 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) The information from Gstaff is acceptable, sure, but under the current lore guidelines, Fiore's information would have to be evaluated anyway. According to the lore guidelines, OOG that has not been written by a game developer in general does not belong in UESP articles. While this is just a general statement, the guidelines also state that Even if a series of statements can logically be put together to reach a conclusion, that conclusion does not belong on UESP unless it has already been stated elsewhere (in valid source material). Exceptions to this rule may be possible, but those exceptions need to be discussed on the talk page beforehand. Damon's suggestion of only including information that can be verified with official sources and/or through prior consensus seems to be appropriate here. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 21:56, 29 December 2014 (GMT)

What a pity; your concerns are invalid, the information Gstaff provided is probably true, so let's not make it seem like we're getting hung up on our guidelines here, and if we're going by the facts, then let's just put this on the relevant article(s) and move on. Gstaff has been polite enough to confirm this information, so we might just use it here if we are lacking any other references. This is how I feel about these "guidelines" and anyone wanting to support them. This is like when Nocte started the voice actor sandbox then users contacted the voice actors and they replied that they did do the character's voice. This shares a thing in common—people confirmed the information, and that stayed on the sandbox and was treated as valid information. Come on! What's wrong with this? P.S. If the information is correct then there will be no lies. – Dragon Guard  (talk) 00:51, 30 December 2014 (GMT)
Okay, I think people are getting sidetracked. The issue is not about the reliability of Gstaff. It is this: is Fiore1300 a self-corroborating news source? Take The Imperial Library. They have a page full of forum posts and similar extracts by Michael Kirkbride concerning TES lore. They also have interviews and transcripts of interviews with him. I have actually not seen these forum posts, I have not seen many of these interviews, etc., but I trust the integrity of the Imperial Library. The UESP effectively does so, as well. If TIL posts a transcript of an exclusive interview with a developer, we're not going to make Lady N take a polygraph before we allow info from the interview on the pages. I, for one, would be preparing citation templates before I finished the headline. Effectively, TIL is, for us, a self-authenticating news source.
So, what I'm asking is, can I extend to Fiore1300 the same level of trust as a journalistic source that I/we extend to Lady Nerevar? He's clearly a TES fan; that's pretty much the only real credential any of us have. He's technically a UESP editor in good standing. If I can't just take his word for it that he communicated with Gstaff and received certain information from them, what additional verification would you like? Screenshots of the email(s)? Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 03:18, 30 December 2014 (GMT)
Some form of verification would be ideal, per the excerpt from the lore guidelines I posted. Not that I don't trust him, but I would just feel more comfortable with some kind of record, you know? Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 03:31, 30 December 2014 (GMT)
(edit conflict) Per Thuum, sources are the most ideal in any circumstance, however, I'll accept that he spoke with Gstaff and that information is valid, as I said before, if for no other reason than I see that he appears to be honest with his work, has done his own due diligence, and because I'm assuming good faith to a fellow editor that he's covered his bases. Citation of Gstaff by Fiore is, in my assessment, genuine after doing my own research into him. As I said before, any inferences made by him based on that information needs evaluation, but that's a separate case not relevant to this, which is about the claims that the Quote tags in the post are actual Gstaff lines, and as I said, I am assuming good faith that they are genuine after seeing what I've seen. Am I understanding what you want answered, M.E.? -damon  talk ♥ contribs 03:39, 30 December 2014 (GMT)
Though a source would be nice, I would be amenable to that course of action. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 03:45, 30 December 2014 (GMT)
Spot on, Snowmane ;) Insignificant RevisionsThreats•Evidence 18:03, 30 December 2014 (GMT)
I agree with Snowmane and how his ideas are supporting mine (assuming I'm reading correctly). – Dragon Guard  (talk) 21:43, 30 December 2014 (GMT)


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