UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 4

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.

Redirects for Deletion

There has been a large amount of redirects put up for proposed deletion, mostly because they are the result of page moves and often considered to be "useless redirects". There is a fine line between useless redirect and usefull redirect for every wiki, with high-traffic sites like Wikipedia often leaning on the side of keep. Take a look at the guidelines for redirect deletion at UESPWiki:Deletion Policy, and tell me if you agree with them and feel free to propose any additional redirect criteria. --Aristeo | Talk 17:46, 27 September 2006 (EDT)

These guidelines are fine by me, as long as storing too many redirects doesn't become an issue. --DrPhoton 03:16, 28 September 2006 (EDT)

One specific question with the policy on deleting redirects is whether to consider redirects from page reorganization as candidates for speedy deletion after some period of time; the current policy states that this period is one month. There are alot of these pages out there ("Quests/", "Morrowind:Places:", "Morrowind:Factions:", etc), which I believe should be candidates for automatic deletion once enough time has passed. However, there is concern that deleting these redirects will break external links, in particular on various forums. So the interrelated questions that come up are:

• How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait before deleting these pages?
• How high of a priority should we place on guaranteeing that old external links to the site still work?
• Why should pages that aren't causing any problems on our site be deleted if there is any risk of external problems?

I think a one month interval is probably sufficient. If our primary concern is links from the forum, it's unlikely that any threads more than one month old are still going to be read (especially on high-volume forums like the official forums). And I don't think that it reflects badly on UESP if somebody else's link to our site is out of date. Finally, most of the pages that have been cleaned up so far were much more than one month old (most were three to six months old); in other words, the one month rule doesn't mean that every old redirect here is going to vanish as soon as one month has passed.

Although these old redirects are not fundamentally interfering with the site, many of them are not currently orphaned. For me, the most convenient way to go through and fix all of the UESP links to these pages is to do it as I delete them. Otherwise it becomes impossible to keep track of where I left off, and I end up wasting time rechecking alot of pages.

So does anyone have any concerns about continuing to delete alot of these old redirects under the existing policy? --Nephele 20:05, 29 September 2006 (EDT)

I don't know why we want to delete redirects. Redirects are cheap, and they don't hurt anything. If you're worried about them cluttering up the wiki, then we should rethink having the subpages "/Author" and "/Desc" under the books and having /Description under the quests, places, etc. Those clutter up Special:Randompage, and Special:Shortpages is cluttered to the point of in-usability. Redirects are only partially in the way with Special:Prefixindex, and even then they don't get in the way in my opinion.

Addendum: Now that I've thought about it longer, we do need a way to prevent unused redirects from building up too high. Speedy deleting after one month seems a little soon. Perhaps we could propose deletion after two months, because everyone's opinion of a useful/useless deletion is different and so we could save a few more external links. (But this doesn't mean that don't loathe those subpages anymore!) --Aristeo | Talk 23:45, 29 September 2006 (EDT)

My concern about going through a proposed deletion process for some of these pages is the needless waste of effort of going through and adding a deletion tag to each and every one of those pages; there are easily a hundred pages. As we discussed on IRC, I think in cases where the page names have already been debated in some manner, proposed deletion isn't really needed. For example, for the "Quests/" pages, there was a community discussion about the naming system being used for quests. So I would support changing the policy to state that after two months redirects can be proposed for deletion unless the naming system used on that page has already been discussed; in that case a speedy deletion is allowed after two months. --Nephele 04:22, 30 September 2006 (EDT)

If the consensus is older than one week, then it's as good as a deletion review. In fact, it even says in the deletion policy that occasionally a proposal will be outside the jurisdiction of any one of the three deletion systems, and in those cases, the proposal should be held on the administrative noticeboard. --Aristeo | Talk 22:00, 3 October 2006 (EDT)

I created a category group starting at Category:Redirects that could sort the redirects by their use. What do you think? --Aristeo | Talk 21:46, 3 October 2006 (EDT)

This is a very good idea! It will help us classify the redirects between the ones that should be deleted and the ones that shouldn't, and make a good policy on how to proceed. --DrPhoton 03:32, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

Archive #3

Although not an administrator, I archived many of the conversations here that appeared to be resolved, due to the large size of the page (formerly 76KB) and clutter they presented. The archive is noted in the "Page Archives" box above, and is listed under the title UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 3. As with every other archive, if a topic was incorrectly included, feel free to restore the text herein. -- Booyah boy 11:06, 30 September 2006 (EDT)

Administrative privileges don't help when it comes to archiving pages. --Aristeo | Talk

I didn't think they would be; I was simply making a note lest another member complain that, as I am not an administrator, it is not my place to go archiving this page (specifically as the other two archives have been created by you). Still, all things aside, it's a rather moot point. -- Booyah boy 03:48, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

I guess I have been doing the majority of archiving, but I'm still rather confused on what this has to do with my access level on the wiki. No matter, thank you for archiving the page :) --Aristeo | Talk 11:43, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

Tamriel vs. Gamespace Proposal

Most of the editors here should be familiar with the confusion of the Tamriel namespace. When creating pages, no one knows whether to put their page in the proper gamespace, in the Tamriel namespace, or both. What has resulted from this is a handful of dumbed down copies of the gamespace articles in the Tamriel section, with transclusions that put the Tamriel versions onto the gamespace versions. This has been pointed out on the Tamriel Talk:Zainab Camp page, and I believe it's about time to fix this. That is why I'm proposing the following namespace guidelines:

• A subject should only have one page on the wiki.
• Redirects from gamespaces or Tamriel are fine, and recommended in some cases. (ex. Oblivion:Atronach ? Tamriel:Atronach)
• Editors should put a subject in the Tamriel namespace if it is notable in multiple gamespaces.
• Editors should put a subject in one of the gamespaces if it has little to no influence in any of the other games. Pages in this category can still have a section such as "References in Other Games".

With subjects that already have multiple pages, we can merge and redirect so that the subjects follow our guidelines. In the long run, this should put less restrictions on the content of the page and allow the content to grow normally. So what do you all think? --Aristeo | Talk 19:50, 5 October 2006 (EDT)

Sounds good, although I'm sure there'll be some exceptions - there always are :D. Where will we discuss those exceptions and what to do about them? --Actreal 19:53, 5 October 2006 (EDT)

The difference between a guideline and a policy is that a guideline is more likely to have exceptions. We will most likely be able to discuss further guideline changes on the page where we post the guidelines. --Aristeo | Talk 20:37, 5 October 2006 (EDT)

In general I would agree and ultimately will comply with any decision that will be made. This proposal fails to address the issue from which the transclusion arises: subjects are now described generally in the Tamriel namespace, with e.g. the Morrowind namespace page adding game-specific information to that article. If an article exists in the Tamriel namespace and no other articles for that same subject are allowed, also all game-specific information would have to be included in the Tamriel namespace page and this may contain game-specific information from several games. Moreover, if redirects are going to be used, I'd say they would always have to point to the same direction, ie. some cannot go from game-namespace to Tamriel and some the other way - this would again create new confusion and have the content-pages in differenct namespaces for no obvious reason. Finally, I want to remind here as well that in my opinnion the Tamriel namespace should be a full-coverage collection of generic information regardless if individual pieces of information originate or are used in just one game (which may even be subject to change in the future as new games are released). --FMan 21:13, 5 October 2006 (EDT)

I don't really agree with the "one page per wiki" idea for a subject. For example, Khajiit: each game needs its own game-specific page in order to summarize the racial abilities, etc; on top of that, there is alot of general information that belongs in the Tamriel namespace. And I think there are lots of cases like this, where a subject encompasses both information of general interest and game-specific details: Aristeo's Atronach example; FMan's Tribe/Clan issue.

In general, I don't think that the Tamriel namespace should include any game-specific details, by which I mean information that is provided to tell you how to play the game. For example, names of quests, which spells to use to defeat a monster, formIDs, which merchants in a town provide services, etc. I would much rather have two pages on a subject (one in Tamriel, one under the game) than force everything to be included in a single Tamriel page.

I agree with FMan's point that you can't strictly rely on a "used in more than one game" rule to define what belongs in the Tamriel namespace. Obviously, anything new that has been introduced in Oblivion is only used one game. However, I do think that it's a useful guide when evaluating material in previous games. For Oblivion I tend to use this rule speculatively, as in, "is it likely that this will be mentioned in future games?" Another way to word this criterion is "is this a fact that you might care about when you're not playing the game?" (although I'm sure non-UESPers would argue that's a non-starter, because the only reason to care about any ES lore is because you play ES games).

One more random comment on this topic: I think it is completely appropriate for Tamriel pages to have embedded links to game pages. Take the Lore:Ashlands page for example. Especially as a geography page it is very appropriate for it to include the names of various places in the region. But that does not then mean that each of those places has to have its own Tamriel entry; Lore:Foyada Mamaea, for example, seems to me like a page that could exist in Morrowind alone, and the Tamriel:Ashlands page could link to the Morrowind entry. (Not that I want to start an argument here about Foyada Mamaea specifically; I'm just using it is a random example to demonstrate the point). I think links in Tamriel articles are one of the primary factors driving the creation of new Tamriel pages. New pages should not be created solely to satisfy a red link; if you don't have anything new to say on the topic, just change the link to point to an existing page.

Unfortunately, I don't have any good counterproposal for how to actually tackle the problem of deciding what belongs under Tamriel vs what belongs in the game namespaces. But I agree that this is something that needs to be worked out. --Nephele 13:10, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

Looks like we need a counter proposal. I would like to turn this conversation in a slightly different direction to determine what the Tamriel namespace and the gamespaces are meant for before we talk about what their criteria is.

Gamespaces

The gamespaces (which is a word I made up) are the sections of the site that deal with their respective game. Each gamespace should basically take their game and extract every little detail out of them as possible. If a subject can be found on the disk, it should be on the game's namespace.

Tamriel

The Tamriel section is for the lore of the Elder Scrolls series. According to dictionary.com, the definition of lore is:

"Accumulated facts, traditions, or beliefs about a particular subject."

The Tamriel section should be what Wikipedia would be if it was in Tamriel, if that makes sense. Everything in the Tamriel section should be subject to content criteria such as notability, verifiability, and NPOV.

Example #1 – Khajiit

Tamriel:Khajiit should talk about the lore of the khajiit, such as their background, where they came from originally, their home province, their beliefs, etc. Morrowind:Khajiit would focus on the attributes, skills bonuses, and powers of a khajiit, the fact that they cannot wear shoes in Morrowind, and how khajiit are common slaves in Morrowind. Other games that have khajiit would have an article about them in their gamespace.

Example #2 – Balmora

If there is any notable lore about Balmora that is worthy enough of having its own article, which I doubt, it should go in Tamriel:Balmora. If it is decided that there is not enough lore on Balmora for it to have its own article, it would help if the page was redirected to Morrowind:Balmora. Morrowind:Balmora could discuss the background of Balmora, how it's the seat of the Hlaalu council, some of the services it offers, and the lore of the town since the lore is not worthy of an article on Tamriel:Balmora.

Example #3 – Aleswell

In case you don't know, Aleswell is a small settlement on the Red Ring Road north of the Imperial City. There is an Oblivion quest in Aleswell, a couple houses, and a handful of residents. Aleswell has no lore about it that would be worth a page on the Tamriel namespace what-so-ever, and the information known about Aleswell would barely build up a good article on Oblivion:Aleswell.

Example #4 – Atronach

I don't know a single game in the Elder Scrolls series that does not have atronaches. Also, there is plenty of avaliable lore on atrnoaches, which would mean they would be given a page on the Tamriel section. This would mean that almost every gamespace would have their own page on the atronach, as well as the Tamriel section itself.

So in my opinion, an article should be created on the Tamriel namespace if the article's subject has sufficient game independent lore. An article should be created on one of the gamespaces if the game features the article's subject. It is possible that a subject could have a page only on the Tamriel namespace, on one or more of the gamespaces, or both. --Aristeo | Talk 14:49, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

I agree that Tamriel entries should try to be encyclopedic (Wikipedia rather than Wiktionary) in nature; or to put it differently permastubs should not be allowed in the Tamriel namespace. If you can only write two sentences about a subject, it does not warrant its own Tamriel page. In some cases, short content like that might belong on one of the Tamriel listings (i.e., dictionary, creatures, gods, etc); or just put it all on the gamespace page.

I'm not sure, though, that we're striving to "extract every little detail" about the individual games. To quote Lurlock from earlier on this page: "If you followed that logic, we'd have pages describing exactly how many plates are on Crassius Curio's dinner table, and an ordered catalog of each of the shelves at Jo'Basha's Books, etc." --Nephele 15:53, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

I know we're not trying to extract the most tiny of details, but pages should still go into detail in the gamespaces. Content that is included should pass the "Would this be helpful to our readers?" test. --Aristeo | Talk 16:01, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

One thing that might help would be to do a search on the page and see how many hits you get. This is the results of a search for the word "Balmora" with the Morrowind namespace excluded. You can see that the city is mentioned in several books, many of which can be found in other games besides Morrowind. The city certainly exists on maps prior to the release of Morrowind. (In some cases its translated name "Stone Wood" is used instead.) I will certainly agree that Tamriel:Aleswell does not need to exist. But major cities like Balmora still should, in my opinion. (Oh, for the record, Arena, Battlespire, and Redguard did not have Atronachs, though Golems and XXX Daedras were pretty much the same thing.) --TheRealLurlock 17:26, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

I agree with Lurlock in that major citties like Balmora, Ald'ruhn, Vivec, etc., should be included in Tamriel. Especially those with strong links to factions, like the Great Houses or the Imperial Legion. For the case of Balmora, you would discuss the background of Balmora, how it's the seat of the Hlaalu council, and the lore of the town in Tamriel, and services it offers and related quests in Morrowind.

Another possible way of looking at the Tamriel:Places pages could be as an Atlas of Tamriel, listing all cities, towns, regions and landmarks of the continent. This is more or less as it is now. --DrPhoton 08:02, 7 October 2006 (EDT)

I don't think the Tamriel:Places pages should be an atlas listing ALL places in any game. The Oblivion:Places page has something like 300 entries, and there are alot of entries on there that even alot people playing Oblivion aren't particularly interested in (i.e., the list of campsites). I don't think it is appropriate to copy that complete list over to Tamriel; the useful information would just get lost in the middle of a list of 100 places named "Fort X". Not to mention that the pages would become insanely long if we kept to the current format where each place has a brief description. I think the Tamriel:Places page should be limited to places that are important enough to show up on large-scale maps of each area, such as the Cyrodiil map at Lore:Cyrodiil. --Nephele 12:46, 7 October 2006 (EDT)

The atlas was just a thought, and I agree that at some point you have to draw the line. A very good starting point are indeed the official provinces maps which you mention, and other towns of historical or political importance can be added to that selection. --DrPhoton 03:19, 9 October 2006 (EDT)

Acceptable Level of Spoilers on NPC pages

There are many new NPC pages being created (which is great) with variable levels of spoiler on them. I think we should have a consistent policy on what is acceptable and what isn't (which I don't think we have already). My personal belief is that the NPC pages should only describe the NPC at game start and the Related Quest links are sufficient for those who want to know what happens later. For examples of what I think is too much information, see Oblivion:Arquen or Oblivion:Maglir. I am happy to listen to other suggestions as I think that a consistent policy is most important. --Actreal 19:44, 14 October 2006 (EDT)

We're caught in a catch 22. On one hand, the information I read prominent to the NPCs and should not be removed. On the other hand, the information could spoil the quest line twists to those who have not gone that far in the respective questlines. I think that there should be some sort of tag like with the explicit template that warns users that there may be material related to the Dark Brotherhood/Fighters Guild/etc questline that may reveal important plot information. --Aristeo | Talk 19:04, 16 October 2006 (EDT)

Perhaps the first question that needs to be answered is how do people use the NPC pages? If the purpose is to provide every piece of info on an NPC, then probably the spoilers need to be there, but tagged somehow. However, I tend to think of the NPC pages more as a place that provides the useful information about the NPCs, which typically does not require spoilers. So things like where they live, whether they are a merchant or provide other services, etc. In that context, it is useful to know whether they play a role in any quests (e.g., so you know whether you'll need to interact with them later) but it is not necessary to know the specifics of what they do in the quest.

In general, I tend to think that spoiler information should be provided in as few places as possible. I think readers don't want to accidentally stumble into spoiler information. As long as that info is provided in the places where you would expect to find it (e.g., on the quest page), why does it need to be repeated in lots of other places? But if the consensus is that the NPC pages should contain every single detail relevant to that NPC, then that will obviously require that all spoilers be repeated on the NPC pages. --Nephele 19:25, 16 October 2006 (EDT)

Addendum. What is a spoiler? For me, a spoiler is a fact that most players wouldn't know and also influences how you might do certain quests. So, Martin being a Septim is not a spoiler because you learn it so early on. Branwen possibly being Owyn's daughter might not be a fact everyone knows, but it doesn't mess up any quests for you.

Also, although I would be in favour of a guideline that says unnecessary spoilers should not be provided on NPC pages, I can see that there may be individual cases where spoilers are considered to be necessary. For example, if there is information that doesn't have any other appropriate place, it should go on the NPC page instead of trying to avoid providing the information. (Branwen and Owyn is a case that could fall into that category). We shouldn't be trying to make it impossible for readers to learn information they might want to know, but we also shouldn't be forcing readers to find out facts that they might not yet want to hear about. IMHO. --Nephele 20:44, 16 October 2006 (EDT)

I am strongly against dumbing down articles because information could be potentially spoiling. We don't need to throw spoilers in places where they don't need to be, of course, but we also don't need to make NPC pages a repository of links. I would like the NPC pages to explain all prominent information about the character, regardless if the information is a "spoiler" or not. Everything else not directly about the character should be referenced to elsewhere on the site. --Aristeo | Talk 21:17, 16 October 2006 (EDT)

What about using white-on-white like on Oblivion:Corvus Umbranox? Or there was another suggestion somewhere of using tooltip-type pop ups on rollover, not sure if we ever got that working satisfactorily. I agree that we should avoid putting information on just because it could be a spoiler - heck, half the info on this site could be considered spoilers. But some sort of warning or means of hiding the spoilers for those who might want only the basic information is not a bad idea. --TheRealLurlock 13:53, 17 October 2006 (EDT)

I just tried out something else. Take another look at the Corvus Umbranox page I posted above. I made a template specifically for spoiler text. It uses a combination of white-on-white, along with a hover and angle brackets so you know where the text is. I really dislike this recent campaign of removing spoilers from NPC pages. The site exists to provide information. If we make some sort of effort to make give users the option of whether they want spoilers or not, and make it clear that there's more information hidden on the page, I think we can satisfy everyone. {{sp|Or at least we can try...}} --TheRealLurlock 14:24, 20 October 2006 (EDT)

Is a page on every NPC in the game necessary?

As a relative newcomer to editing the wiki, and focusing on filling out missing NPC pages, I have a couple of thoughts on the subject.

Is it really necessary to create a separate page for every NPC in the game?

There are a number of NPCs who are not integral to any particular quest, do not provide a particular service, etc. (basically they are filler to populate the cities and towns, and make the game more realistic). If a NPC does not provide a useful service, is not a player in a quest in the game, and exists solely as a filler, is it necessary to create a separate page for them? For example, I have filled out a couple of pages that state "Doppleganger is a female Breton commoner living in Chorrol." That is really all that can be said about Doppleganger -- they are not integral to anything, and just happen like Chorrol and chose to live there." The chances are very minimal that anyone in the game will come to UESP and search for Doppleganger.

My recommendation is that we create a page or pages that has a listing of all non-essential NPCs in the game; maybe make a separate page by town, or by race, or however we choose to categorize them, but group them all on one page and give the basic stats about them (race, sex, class, location, and maybe a misc comment if there is incidental information that someone might like to know (say, Branwen is Owyn's daughter). This way we don't clutter the sight with alot of seldom used pages that have to be maintained, but the info is compiled in case anyone should want it. In addition, if we find that someone has been included on the non-essential NPC page that actually has a role, then they can be removed and a page created for them. If they are non-essential and not part of any quest or activity, then the chances are slim that someone will insert information on a page that needs to be linked to them.

Any additional thought? Just my two cents from someone who is weary of creating one line NPC pages just for the sake of having one solely because they have a presence in the game somewhere. I'll be happy to take ownership of this if we should come up with an alternative to separate pages for each NPC in the game.--Hoggwild5 00:53, 17 October 2006 (EDT)

My first reaction is that this makes sense, but perhaps with a couple modifications. First, I think we may still want to have a page for each NPC for the sake of the category listings of all NPCs; for those who have minimal information, make the page actually be a redirect instead of deleting it. Second, I'd lean towards using, for example, the existing Oblivion:Beggars page as the redirect location for all beggars. That already has a table of all the beggars; adding sex/race/comment would be fairly straightforward. So in other words see if it's somehow possible to group the one-sentence NPCs by function, especially when existing pages already exist. I'm not completely sure what types of functions there will be other than beggars (Oblivion:Mythic Dawn Agents is one other that comes to mind), but maybe that can be a starting point. --Nephele 03:24, 17 October 2006 (EDT)

Update -- I've compiled preliminary data on the 235 NPCs that are left, and it looks like 50 to 60 of them don't do anything but hang out. Thoughts? --Hoggwild5 18:52, 17 October 2006 (EDT)

I've been thinking about this for a while, and haven't had much of an idea of how to fix it. I took a "What Would Wikipedia Do?" approach to the situation, and found that these types of articles are called "permastubs". Permastubs are stubs that cannot be expanded. Wikipedia merges permastubs into broader subjects-- perhaps we should do the same? We could have a section listing all the people in a city that are notable somewhere like at [[Oblivion:People in Chorrol]], then we could have a section listing all the non-notable people. --Aristeo | Talk 22:30, 17 October 2006 (EDT)

Well, I went ahead and added pages for these NPCs for Oblivion; however I'd like to explore a different way to do NPC pages for Morrowind (which hasn't been done and is probably needed more than for Oblivion for reasons I'll explain later). There are alot more incidental NPCs in Morrowind than there are in Oblivion. --Hoggwild5 07:23, 20 October 2006 (EDT)

UESP Article on Wikipedia

After reviewing Wikipedia's policies and guidelines extensively and talking with one of their administrators, it appears we fit the notability criteria for having an article about UESP on Wikipedia. In order to submit an article, that article must be somewhat substantial in length and it must explain why the subject is notable. Because of this, I was wondering if anyone would like to be involved in helping create an article locally on this site. --Aristeo | Talk 11:19, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

As members of this site, aren't we technically inelligible to submit such an article on Wikipedia? Thought they had rules against self-promotion. I suppose you could write one if you could pretend you were not in any way affiliated with UESP and nobody figured it out. If anyone here has an account on Wikipedia that isn't the same name as the name they use here, that might be recommended. Creating a new account for the purpose won't work either, because they're really suspicious about new articles posted by new accounts without a history of prior edits. Just talking from experience here - posting new articles on Wikipedia, particularly after they've already deleted a page on the same subject, can be quite difficult. There's a certain snobbish attitude there that assumes if a page deserves to exist, it already does. --TheRealLurlock 12:03, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

If Aristeo has talked to one of their administrators, I think we have the okay, though we should be carefull not practice blatant self promotion. --Ratwar 12:10, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

The user who contacted me (he wasn't an admin, my mistake) left the following message on my Wikipedia talk page:

You are simply asking for trouble if you start your article with one sentence. Create it in User:Aristeo/Sandbox until it is of a viable size, has clearly established notability and got all the "decoration" that makes it look like a proper article: wikification, category, incoming links, etc.

I've decided to take him up on his suggestion. I've created Wikipedia:User:Aristeo/Sandbox, where we all can contribute to the article. For those of you who don't want to edit Wikipedia, I can set something up on my sandbox on UESP. Finally, I've contacted Garrett, who is an admin on Wikipedia, and I hope he can give us some advice on how to appease these chair polishers. --Aristeo | Talk 12:54, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

Well... it's difficult. First off, creating an entry yourself is generally held to be bad form (the rationale is, if your site is noteworthy enough someone less involved will eventually create an entry). Anyway, what criteria does UESP fulfil? An article from a website or magazine would be perfect. Just being well-known among fans isn't enough, it needs to be "proved" by reliable sources. Garrett^Talk 17:09, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

Just my two-cents: Wikipedia has no problem with people submitting information about the Elder Scrolls games and citing the UESP as the source of information -- it seems that this means that UESP meets the criteria of a "reliable source" for submissions. Shouldn't that lend credence to the argument that UESP deserves an article on Wikipedia? If not, that seems to me to be a bit hypocritical...--Hoggwild5 20:09, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

My vote is don't. First, it's pretty obvious to me that the motive here is self promotion -- which rules it out a'priori. Second, it just doesn't qualify according to the criteria (which should have been obvious ahead of time). UESP (fine site that it is) is just not a phenomena in itself. Think of it this way -- the article should be useful to someone who wants to find a summary of topic -- but doesn't actually necessarily want to go check out the source itself. E.g., suppose that I wanted to know the history of youtube, or slashdot, those would be useful articles. So what would make UESP noteworthy? Well, if Dave and Bethsoft had been in a major legal battle over content, and it made a lot of news, with the newsies talking about the nature of mods, mod makers vs. publishers, or fansites vs. publishers. Sure, that would qualify. (But thankfully hasn't happened.) --Wrye 22:43, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

I could go onto several different points as to why we deserve an article, but I sense that no one is too terribly thrilled with this idea. Fair enough. --Aristeo | Talk 00:51, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

I think we deserve an article, I just don't think anyone who's a regular editor here would be technically allowed to write it. (Though it does beg the question - who wrote the Wikipedia article on Wikipedia?) The biggest debates on Wikipedia are always about NPOV, and anyone who's a member of this site by definition will not have a NPOV about it, which is the main reason they look down on any kind of self-promotion. --TheRealLurlock 11:11, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

Deserve an article? Maybe, lesser things certainly have had articles. Need an article? Not really. I think it is going to end up being more trouble than it is worth to get an entry right now. --Ratwar 12:44, 24 October 2006 (EDT)

Oblivion Wiki and duplicate efforts

Since there is a Wiki just for Oblivion (http://oblivion.gamewikis.org/) it seems like there's a lot of duplication of effort amongst the two wikis. It seems logical to investigate a combination or partnership between the two sites... Such as an outright consolidation, or perhaps just a system of linking and shared searches. Or maybe the two communities don't get along? :) -- Krep 13:17, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

Well, I've often thought that such would be a good idea, but I really doubt that a combination of the two wikis would ever take place. Both are already so big that any combination of the two would take a lot of time, and I doubt that either group has the time to undertake such a task. Secondly, I think there would be a problem on which site would handle the wiki. Both sites are made up of more than just a Oblivion section. Oblivion Wiki is actually part of Gamewiki which has the stated goal of "We want to be the central repository for video game knowledge", so I doubt they'd be willing to hand over their wiki to us. By the same measure, the UESP has been part of the Elder Scrolls community for several years now, so it'd be a bit odd for it just pack it's bags and fade away. A system of linking and searches sound a bit to complicated, but that type of stuff isn't my specialty. As for not getting along, I don't think that's true... --Ratwar 16:29, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

There aren't any conflicts between the communities; on the contrary, there have been several conversations between admins at the two sites. However, the two sites are unlikely to be consolidated, in part for the reasons mentioned by Ratwar. There are some cross links between the sites, and if you see places where more cross links would be useful feel free to add them. The duplication of effort is unfortunate, but I don't think that realistically much can be done to change that. --Nephele 17:04, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

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