UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 46

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.

Emperor's Guide to Tamriel

The Imperial Library has recently completed its transcription of the Emperor's Guide to Tamriel, and I've obtained permission from both the guys over at TIL and Bethesda to host it on the wiki. It likely won't be going up for a while, as work on the transcript isn't totally complete yet (typo fixes and a couple publicly released images), but I figured I'd post the news here in case anyone wants to comment. Credit goes to The Imperial Library, Lady Nerevar, the nighthawker and laurelanthalasa for the transcription. Official permission to host came from gstaff. —Legoless (talk) 23:40, 19 October 2014 (GMT)

I've slowly begun to copy the texts over. I'm only planning on doing the basic layouts, so link insertion and proof-reading is required if anyone wants to help. A template similar to {{PGE}} would also be nice. —Legoless (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2014 (GMT)

Template? Did someone say template? Let me know if you need any changes. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 02:36, 12 December 2014 (GMT)

That's awesome, thanks. :) —Legoless (talk) 16:13, 12 December 2014 (GMT)

I'm more than willing to help, just let me know what you need me to do Legoless. Biffa (talk) 03:53, 13 December 2014 (GMT)

Proof-reading is probably the most important part. Also feel free to add more links. Beyond that, integrating the information into our lore articles is the next step. —Legoless (talk) 14:21, 13 December 2014 (GMT)

I actually read through the Guide when it was first published on TIL and added most major things I saw. I'm sure there's more to be integrated though. But everything I or anyone else added as a citation to the old Books page will need to be updated for the new section-specific version. I was going to do that as soon as all the sections are up, but if anyone beats me to the punch, I wouldn't be too disappointed to not have to do that work. -- Hargrimm^(T) 16:49, 13 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) As far as adding links, if a character or location appears in ESO that's not important enough for a lore page, (for example, it names an innkeeper and an inn that appears in ESO), should we link to their page in the Online namespace? - Alarra (talk) 23:18, 27 December 2014 (GMT)

I think based on our past practices the answer would be no. Obviously feel free to {{Lore Link}} anything that could conceivably one day have a Lore page, but otherwise I think the idea is that a game-specific page doesn't really add much value from an overall Lore perspective. I personally wouldn't have a huge problem with it, but I'm just not aware of anywhere that we do link to game namespaces in articles outside of metadata (Appears In, references, etc.). -- Hargrimm^(T) 09:34, 28 December 2014 (GMT)

We usually don't include links to game namespaces in lore articles, but since the EGtT is a supplementary material to ESO (at least from what I've heard), I think this could be worth an exception. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 10:55, 28 December 2014 (GMT)

(←) Now that all the sections are up and proofed (thanks Legoless, Jimeee, and Alarra!), can {{Cite book}} be modified to accept EGT values in the same way as it currently does for PGE? -- Hargrimm^(T) 16:22, 12 January 2015 (GMT)

Done. The second parameter is the chapter, since there's no need for an edition. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 17:48, 12 January 2015 (GMT)

I just noticed in the example that the "Foreword" page has a couple of instances of "Foreward" instead. Can someone confirm what's used in the actual EGT and either fix it or add appropriate {{Sic}}s. Thanks! – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 17:52, 12 January 2015 (GMT)

Well, it's not fully proofed yet, so it's still got some work to go; I'm only up through Hammerfell. ;) I'm also just skimming over our transcription as I read the book itself: I've caught a lot, but some still might slip through. I'll double-check the "Foreword" tonight. - Alarra (talk) 18:25, 12 January 2015 (GMT)

Skyrim NPC Redesign Project?

So, in response to this discussion and these reverts (and because I need busy work), I did some investigating, and on spells alone, we are incredibly inconsistent. We have at least a handful of different styles floating around (1, 2, 3), we have articles where spells are incorporated in as an afterthought behind the inventory in the paragraphs, and who knows what else is inconsistent inside of our articles.

I know we got sidetracked on Skyrim projects because we had to quickly shift gears to begin all the prep work that comes with the creation of a new namespace pre-release and the confusion that comes with post-release, so design projects for Skyrim had to be set down for a brief while. It's been seven or eight months, and the Online namespace, while still barren in places, is at least stable and is running somewhat self-sufficiently in terms of content being added. I think that it's a fair time to assess who we have and what we can reasonably accomplish in terms of projects for various games.

I don't have the game anymore, so I am limited in terms of what I can do with data mining, etc, but I'm willing to put my name down as someone willing to dedicate my time to the Skyrim namespace (just please find someone who is a competent leader to lead) Do we have enough manpower that's free to take on a new project, discuss projects, etc? Do we have ideas in mind to discuss and share for working on the namespace? Should we let things just flow as they are? Or, should we prioritise the handful of veteran editors who actually have ESO and are wanting to focus on that? Ideas? -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 03:57, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

There hasn't been much activity on content lately, I think, but a project may change that. Though if you're asking what the editors should best focus on, it's definitely ESO (for those who have it, naturally), but editors are always free to focus on what they want. I think a project leader should be an experienced and active editor, and I would look at Krusty for Skyrim NPCs (leader or not), but he's been inactive as of late (compared to his usual activity that is). Myself, I would jump aboard, but I haven't had an urge to work on those for a very long time, unfortunately, my contributions follow a pattern of serious activity for a certain duration and then I get bored or lose attention and do something else (the last burst of edits was oblivion images a few weeks ago).

Though in any case, perhaps we could discuss what we would do beforehand. I have some comments on Rainer1's additions, namely: I think the colors for Alteration and Destruction should be at least swapped (I know the colors are on the magic effects page already, I don't know who picked those, and if they follow some sort of official color scheme); and filling in perks as "None" is I think considered futile and kept empty on purpose, like the "Essential" flag and whatnot. I also have some concerns on layout on NPC articles considering the scene dialogue, well namely that I think that it should be revised, and the fact that Krusty still probably doesn't think they should ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 09:47, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

I would try to be involved in a project if one was made, for sure. But regardless of whether or not a project is made, the new spell format being added is definitely not one I prefer. For one thing, unless an NPC has a significant number of spells, a separate section is unnecessary. It should be incorporated into the main NPC description as text, just like what was done in Oblivion and as has been done as part of the (relatively-newer) Morrowind project. For Oblivion, we typically didn't even document full spell lists on individual NPC pages, instead linking to the relevant leveled spell lists, which were quite convenient (the exception was for spell merchants, and then only the spells they sold were listed). In Morrowind, we list each spell an NPC has, even if they only have the standard set of racial spells (examples of specific wording is given in Jeancey's sandbox here for consistency).

If a separate spell section is to be made on an NPC page (which should only happen if they have a significant number of spells), it should look clean and simple, not be made into a page-wide, half-empty table with distracting colors which may invade the space where an image or TOC should be. Unfortunately, we do not have the convenience of leveled spell lists like in Oblivion, or any sort of standard spell lists for NPCs in Skyrim. This makes for a variety of different spells for NPCs, and no simple way to just supply a link or copy/paste information. Regardless of whether or not a new project is started, the format should be something agreed upon by multiple editors, rather than something one person decided they like the look of. The fact is, not a single NPC page had anything like this newly-added spell format. The closest would be Neloth which had a concise, unobtrusive colored table which fit into the layout of the rest of the page, which itself was an exception to most NPC page layouts in many ways. Being a clear exception, it shouldn't be what we look at as a standard. (And as with all guidelines and rules, there will always be exceptions.)

As for a Skyrim NPC Project, I would be interested to know who is currently active that would actually be interested in being involved (and has the time/dedication for it). As has been brought up several times already (such as the section directly above this one), a Skyrim Places project is also something the wiki could benefit from, and I'd be interested to know which active editors would be up for that project as well. I realize that ESO is the focus for many, but there are still editors around who don't have ESO, so I think one or two Skyrim projects would be a good idea if we have enough active editors interested in getting involved. Krusty would be the person that first comes to mind as project leader (for either project), but as Dwarfmp noted, he has not been as active as he has been in the past. I wouldn't mind stepping up, since I've been looking for something to "pull me back" into editing again, but of course that's only if 1) the community decides we should start the project(s) and 2) others would accept me as a project leader (I haven't exactly been as active as I used to be, though I am getting back into it recently). Typically, projects have two leaders, so other willing, active and experienced editors would be needed as well. — ABCface^◥ 15:15, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

Many interesting points from you two. I agree Krusty or someone of his calibre would be an awesome and desirable leader. For spell layout, I like Neloth's table and example 1 from my set. A small, table. It's easy to organise, and I like how everything is sorted. I'm not a fan of how spells get lost within the walls of text on the articles we have. The colours for them, I'm ambivalent about. They are a nice touch, but they can also be lived without. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 17:27, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

My only problem with starting a new project is that it seems like a ton of our pages (not including ESO pages) have an incomplete project tag on them. I'm just worried that the entire site may look like a construction site. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, just a concern of mine. Regardless, there really should be some degree of consistency for Skyrim NPCs. Like a few of us talked about last night on the IRC and as ABC said above, the tables that a user has been adding are unnecessarily taking up a large portion of the page and are largely empty--something I'm not in favor of.

That being said, I may be able to help out some, although I'm not sure how much time and/or knowledge I'd be able to put towards the project (I don't have Skyrim for PC and haven't played in awhile; I'm also a full-time college student and as some may have noticed, I haven't been super active/productive lately...it's been a busy semester). I think ABC and Krusty if he wanders back would both be excellent leaders for this project. •WoahBro^►talk 18:10, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

Due to the general dissatisfaction with my attempts organizing the spells of followers I shall refrain from converting anymore pages until given a guideline. However even if a Skyrim NPC Project is started I would argue a format even a temporary one should be adopted and applied to the followers NPCs pages first. Unlike most NPCs what spells a follower has is key information due to the interactions with the player and as Damon pointed out can become somewhat lost in a page with a lot of text or turned into a long string of links. See example.

In regards to Dwarfmp's comment about adding "None" to perks; I would suggest this is necessary due to the totally random nature of assignment of perks to NPCs versus the fairly uniform usage of flags like "Essential" where if the flag isn’t set that means not Essential. One or several random NPC in a group of like NPCs may or may not have perks. For example two of the three College of Winterhold Followers have perks where as only one of the seven housecarls has perks. This randomness makes it so that absent fields can’t be assumed to be “None” and not missing data. Rainer1 (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

I believe few NPCs have perks to begin with, we'd end up having about 95% of pages having "None", not that that's a bad thing necessarily, but still... Maybe if the visibility can be changed, as in, not showing when there are none ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 21:30, 31 October 2014 (GMT)

(←) I still have some of the same views on this the last time (to the best of my recollection) this was brought up. Specifically, I agree with Krusty's comment about the difficulty to have a checking parameter for such a project. This is due to the fact that many pages have already been "completed" (some even featured), which was not the case when the OBNPCRP started or for the NPC pages associated with the MWOP. A project would lead to many pages that really don't need much work being marked as both lacking information and needing checked, when really such a process in unneeded for the page. However, a project would be useful for getting a nice standardized layout for what Skyrim NPC pages should look like to avoid the types of issues that initiated this conversation. I just think that it may be difficult to organize such a project when some pages still are lacking the great majority of information, some have most of the information, and others are fully complete and of the highest quality the site has to offer. All this being said, I would support such a project as it would ultimately improve and standardize Skyrim NPC pages from here on out along with providing more ways for editors to contribute to the wiki, even if there may be some unavoidable redundancy. Forfeit (talk) 04:41, 1 November 2014 (GMT)

Just on the subject of spell tables, I agree with ABCface that page-wide, half-empty table aren't the best looking style that can be done. When I was working on the Neloth page, the spell table went through several iterations before I was happy with how it visually looked and fit into the page. It started off as a standard boring list, then I tried adding a table and colors but a lone table looked out of place as its own section. I had a "Combat" section, so it sorta made sense to place it side-by-side, which I think worked very well. Something was still off, so I tried some different table styles until I settled on one. When the combat section was given an image, the whole thing came together, and I think it worked overall. I liked how the combat and spells sections complimented each other, so I repeated it on the Skyrim:Lord Harkon page.

My point is, all these decisions were made based on the number of spells and other content available. It might not have worked the same if he had many more or much less spells - you will notice the table on the Harkon page is slightly different. He only has 3 spells, so the Neloth style table would look bad. If they only know 1 spell, I would just add it to the lead.

The main thing is its okay to have the styles that slightly vary on a case-by-case basis. Looking at the recent tables on Skyrim:Onmund etc, I think they are a bit big and can use some tweaking, but I'm a fan of using the colors. My personal preference for standardization: Having a "Combat" section on all Followers pages describing their fighting style and spells (in the style of Neloth page), and then a narrow spells table next to it (only if they have more than x spells). --Jimeee (talk) 14:59, 6 November 2014 (GMT)

Somehow missed this discusion at the time, but just wish to offer my services to assist with this. I don't have access to the CK, but if it possible for someone to data mine which spells each NPC has similar to displayed merchandise, I'm willing to take the time adding it to the pages in whatever format has been agreed. Obviously as and when the Skyrim Place Page Redesign Project gets started I'm keen to be involved, but am more than willing to get involved in any other projects I can be of help with. — Unsigned comment by Biffa (talk • contribs) at 02:43 on 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Comments on Nomination Votes

It's a small matter, but I'd like to see this trend change on the nominations for FA/FI. Currently, when people comment, they use *'''Comment''': with every comment that is placed. Not only does this make the votes harder to discern, but I think this is an incorrect usage of the header (if that's what you call it). I think it should be used only for an independent comment in place of an actual vote, and any comments following these should simply be posted with indentations as on any other talk page ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2015 (GMT)

I would think that the indentation serves to distinguish additional comments from actual votes. —Legoless (talk) 22:17, 13 January 2015 (GMT)

While the indentation helps make it clear, I find that the repeated Comments just clutter up the whole page. For the most part, Wikipedians seem to simply respond with standard indents, sometimes bulleted, sometimes not, depending on the editor's preferences. (Some places, like their AFD, recommend bulleted, but most people seem to ignore that and use a mix of standard indents or bullets, according to their preference or what the previous poster used.) With few, if any, exceptions, everywhere I looked on WP, the only time Comment appears in bold is if it's a "first-level" comment, where it's not in reply to anything except the nomination itself.

That said, we don't have to do it the same way, but I do find their voting pages much easier to read than ours. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:09, 13 January 2015 (GMT)

That's exactly what I mean, Robinhood70 ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 23:19, 13 January 2015 (GMT)

I don't see a problem with only the parent comment in a section being marked as such and the sub-comments being merely indented, and I find that the most preferable way to do things, but I wouldn't see a problem with them being marked Comment, Comment, Comment, either. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 00:03, 14 January 2015 (GMT)

I am inclined to agree that Comment should be used only as a first-level header. --Enodoc (talk) 09:23, 14 January 2015 (GMT)

Comment: I'm inclined to agree with this as well. :P Jeancey (talk) 04:19, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

MWOP dialogue query

For my own clarification, since I'm considering helping Dragon Guard tackle the monumental task of giving NPCs their dialogue and checking it, something I can do faster and more efficiently with the CS, I want to bring up a section of the MWOP page.

• Dialogue: Most dialogue in Morrowind is general and shared across a large number of NPCs, so dialogue is not a large component of the Wiki. However, dialogue that is unique to a particular NPC should be duly included. For example, Vivec offers much unique dialogue that can be mentioned in his article.

It says general, generic dialogue, which presumably includes the generic, "Hi, I'm %Name of the %Faction, and of the %Class", and generic, "I'm %Name, a caravaner who can take you to any destination you please", the generic voiced "Move along, citizen", etc appear unnecessary. And, I'm tending to find the things like "latest rumors", "little advice", and things like that, which is for the most part conditioned not by specific NPCs, but by specific classes, locations, etc, to be called as a conversation topic, to be unnecessary to the article as a whole, and I'm inclined to think dialogue is most effective when it's restricted to quest-giving NPCs and is related specifically to quests, rather than just including any particular thing that's located, such as this and these.

At what point does dialogue stop being supplemental to an article and just starts to bloat it unnecessarily? What kinds of dialogue are acceptable to add, and what would the community consider extraneous? And, in terms of NPCs who have unique dialogue, what dialogue is actually important? Or, is even a mundane rumour that just happens to be unique to a given NPC important, even if it doesn't necessarily supplement the content of the article as a whole worth adding? That last question might be a difficult one to answer definitively in discussion, and it might have to be a case-by-case examination when such dialogue comes up. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 22:47, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

First, I would be happy to hook you up with a little Python script I've hacked together that processes dialogue that I scraped out of the CS (seen here in Excel form). It's what I used to generate tables like this for class-specific or other general dialogue, and also to generate the NPC dialogue on my sporadic editing sprints. For a while, I've wanted to do something like having all faction-specific dialogue included on their page; same with NPC classes, etc.

As far as how much to include, I've just been using everything, since for the majority of NPCs there's not a whole lot unique to them, and I don't see what it really hurts to include it. Text doesn't take up much server space and it's very easy to skip over any dialogue you're not interested in with the way it's laid out. -- Hargrimm^(T) 23:03, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

I would support including all unique dialogue. If the only thing an NPC has to say is something like "I am <name>, <class>", then it doesn't really deserve its own section/page, but I don't see a problem with including it along with the rest of the dialogue. As for 'bloating', very little of the information we include on NPC pages is necessary for an encyclopaedia (direct quotes, inventories, detailed AI descriptions). We include it solely for completeness. I agree with excluding things like latest rumours that aren't NPC-specific, but Hargrimm's suggestion to include this generic dialogue somewhere else is an idea I've toyed with in the past for both Morrowind and Oblivion, and I would fully support it if someone wants to put in the work. —Legoless (talk) 23:45, 15 January 2015 (GMT)

It would be cumbersome, but a generic dialogue page sorted by topic MW:Dialogue, which headers and tables sorting dialogue and sharing information on what classes, NPCs, factions, locations, etc will trigger that dialogue being an option (and the % chance of it appearing even when all conditions are met)? Or, a subpage to things such as the factions, places, etc, which is dedicated to dialogue related to it that wouldn't fit elsewhere? For instance, a MW:House_Redoran/Dialogue page, or a MW:Latest_Rumors page, or something? I'm not the biggest fan of either idea, but that's really the best I can think of if generic dialogue really needed a place here, and a dedicated page or arrangement that didn't overfill content articles. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 00:12, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

I'd also support the inclusion of all unique dialogue, aside from the standard background responses. The Oblivion and Skyrim pages typically include all the unique dialogue a character has, sometimes even including lines that can't be heard in-game, so it seems appropriate to include anything unique. A generic dialogue page would be nice as it would allow us to document a large amount of dialogue that would otherwise not be found on the site. I'd probably lean toward having it all on one page in the style of Skyrim:Guard Dialogue or this but multiple pages could work since there is a lot of generic dialogue in Morrowind. Forfeit (talk) 00:34, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

(←) This, this, and the line ripped from MWOP's page that I have pasted into the opening posting to this thread. This is one of the case-by-case discussions over whether dialogue is supplementing a page or "bloating" one, to use my wording the other day, or unnecessarily creating one that I mentioned we'd inevitably have to have at some point. The unique dialogue is arguably valid simply on the basis that it's unique, but on the other hand, it offers no specific unique information, so it's questionable, at least in my opinion.

Do we need to give articles to unimportant NPCs simply to document three unique dialogues? Three dialogues... The generic "You want some advice, outlander?" greeting and a "Oh, you're House Telvanni? I have a little advice for you." (paraphrased) greeting that is a successful SameFaction check, plus the "This is a Telvanni affair" advice. The NPC otherwise offers no service, additional dialogue, carries nothing particularly unique, and is only a part of a quest as a hostile to kill immediately upon engaging Trerayna Dalen. Are a few lines of dismissive attitude worth noting when there is nothing else going for the NPC according to the other criteria employed in terms of creating pages? Or, is this effectively a generic goon who is acting tough and has been given a line to say purely on the off-chance that you decide not to talk directly to Trerayna Dalen first? -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 19:41, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

I started a generic dialogue sandbox for Morrowind, but it took AGES and I thought: "That's it. I've had enough." Maybe we could get an individual project created dedicated to what Morrowind's generic dialogue has to offer (maybe me, Damon, Legoless, Jeancey can start it)? We could make it fun and have ranks (project leader, co-leader (they add dialogue), supervisor/verifier/checker (check dialogue — both in-game and in CS/CSList)? – Dragon Guard  ^(talk) 20:45, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

Planning and creating a whole project when the subject matter in question is covered in the broad scope of another one is very wasteful as far as productivity goes. It's far easier to clarify the MWOP guidelines and do everything as an MWOP project. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 21:45, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

It doesn't even need to be a project. It seems like there's consensus enough here to start right now , if anyone's interested. —Legoless (talk) 22:08, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

Then let's get busy! – Dragon Guard  ^(talk) 22:21, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

No need to clutter up the CP with project-specific discussion, so I've spun of the shared dialogue topic here. -- Hargrimm^(T) 22:24, 16 January 2015 (GMT)

ESO Provisioning Ingredients

Update 6 is going to be deleting many of the different provisioning ingredients. It seems like a good time to compile a list of the current ones before they're removed from the game. I imagine all the information can be found in our mined data, but personally I have no idea how to work with the list. This page and this page seem to have them all listed, but it could be outdated and it doesn't contain item values. Anyone interested in setting up {{Item Link}}s and a table? —Legoless (talk) 19:38, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Why do we need a list of things that are being removed? To me that serves no useful purpose, unless they are ever going to bring them back (which is unlikely). --Enodoc (talk) 21:16, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

For one, I'm guessing the items are going to be converted into one of the new general ingredients (Juniper -> Seasoning?), so a conversion table would be useful. Secondly, the various ingredient names are interesting from a lore perspective. And lastly, the wiki aims to record all information on the TES series (even the most obscure), so recording things for posterity falls into that scope. —Legoless (talk) 21:37, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

(edit conflict) In theory, such information could remain on their own pages with their own information for historical purposes. If a bunch of ESO stuff was depreciated, would we delete the pages as they are no longer relevant, or would we keep them for historical/informative purposes? It seems like the latter would be most feasible, and for the sake of completion, as far as our lore and in-game knowledge reserves go, such information would be advantageous to have. That said, if we did lose information and we just couldn't get it into the ESO NS, it wouldn't be a loss either, since it's not relevant information for the patched-up clients and servers. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 21:42, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Per Damon, I agree with keeping old information on a separate page. There's obviously no benefit to keeping deleted recipes on the main recipe page or whatever. —Legoless (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

I'm confused... I never suggested deleting recipes from the main page, nor did I suggest a second page (or make any suggestion in terms of what to do with the information). I merely said that information that was past its sell-by date could be of use to us and also that it wasn't lost information if we couldn't acquire and use it for whatever reason. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 21:57, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Guess I misinterpreted "such information could remain on their own pages". Anyway, ON:Provisioning Ingredients/Old is what I had in mind. —Legoless (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

I think keeping them for historical reasons is a great idea! I'm kinda confused on what's happening though. I haven't played ESO in a bit and haven't kept up on it, but ZOS is removing provisioning ingredients from the game? Does that mean that the ones people already have (in their inventory or bank) will just be deleted or something? What about the recipes that people have, will those just be unable to be crafted now? Lorenut (talk) 22:03, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

It's getting overhauled. The details can be read here. —Legoless (talk) 22:06, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Thanks Legoless! I'll check it out. Lorenut (talk) 22:09, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

(edit conflict × 5) Aye, the posterity thing makes sense. I wasn't sure how much we would be sticking to that with an ever-changing thing like ESO (in the same way that we remove fixed bugs, rather than marking them as fixed). I guess we could keep a list of the old items and their conversions in a sub-page, such as Online:Provisioning Ingredients/deprecated, or something like that. I am going to assume that the lists are complete, since the recipes were last updated in December and there are enough ingredients to cover them. I may be able to help you work with the mined list; starting here, I believe everything is covered either by Food, Drink, or Ingredient. There's a search box in the top right as well for finding specifics. Luckily it seems that these items are displayed at their actual values already, so let's take Bervez Wine as an example. In the URL, you can see that the item ID=28482, it's green, so quality=2, and it's Veteran Rank 5, so level=v5. Then your link is {{Item Link|id=28482|level=v5|quality=2|Bervez Wine}}. Ingredients are all nominally Level 1, so you just need the ID: 34348 is Bervez Fruit. If you want to keep the fancy colouring, you'll need to wrap {{ESO Quality Color}} around the Item Link, otherwise it'll either display in grey, or not link correctly: Bervez Fruit, Bervez Fruit, Bervez Fruit. --Enodoc (talk) 22:36, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Great, so we do actually have them. That's mainly what I was concerned about. It should be easy enough to export those items into a wikitable similar to this. Was there ever any decision made in regards to favouring Item Links over tables? —Legoless (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

Hmmm, I don't think any decision was made, although a possible issue with just dumping out a table like that is that it may include a bunch of random things that are in the mined items but that don't actually appear in the game. Here they are though: ingredients, food, drink. For some reason, the "level" field doesn't actually seem to work... --Enodoc (talk) 23:31, 19 January 2015 (GMT)

(←) This was e-mailed to me today and looks like it is relevant to this discussion:

My husband and I went on PTS server those past few days and we made an extensive table of the provisioner changes for the next TESO update.
We made a excel file with 3 tables (and their french translations):

* first one is the conversion between old and new components (discontinued items being renamed as "old jazbay grapes" or liquewise names)

* second table is the list of primary components and additives by types

* third table is the list of most of the recipes (missing 2 green and some blue and purple recipes). We went to check most of the guild vendors
around the world and our personal recipe lists to make this table. We also stole a couple of VR1 and VR5 drink recipes that were brand new and
added them in green to the table.

As you can see, it is an extensive work that would benefit absolutely nobody except a couple players in hubby little french guild. We spoke
about it and decided to share the work around us, so I'm sending this file to uesp.net, Tamriel foundry and Game-guide.fr.

I hope you'll find this useful. Feel free to share it on your websites or to friends. You can modify the files as you see fit!

Have a nice day, Whilhelmina & Llogwey

I've uploaded a copy of the spreadsheet they sent me to Google Sheets. -- Daveh ^(talk) 23:50, 8 February 2015 (GMT)

Greet, we found out that we had an account here! Thanks for uploading our table, Daveh. By reading this thread, we found the list of recipes that you got as a feed. We found a way to use the mined data you have and convert the links so they work. The first part of the link (what I assume is the item ID) doesn't change, but there is another number in the list, so adding "0:" in the item link string works to get the new item. Name automagically changes for the new one. We'll check some more tomorrow to see if we can complete the recipe table.

How it works: old components are transmuted into "new ones". The new ones can be still useful (in that case they changed names) or become useless (in that case, the name changes from "stuff" to "old stuff" and they can be sold for 10g piece. There are no entirely new components. ; for recipes: old recipes are transmuted into new ones of the same level. No recipes is deleted. Old drinks/foods turns into the new ones. It's not possible to see at a glance what will be the new name of the new recipe (components are not faction dependent at all).

btw, you're missing the basic "saltrice slurry recipe" in the mined data but we found threads on the boards saying that it never dropped. —Llogwey (talk) 01:32, 9 February 2015 (GMT)

Following on from this, I have been in contact with ZOS' Community Team over the last couple of weeks and they just sent through their official conversion table for us to use. We can use this to confirm the ingredients changes that have already been found (nice work on those!), and it also has the recipe conversions as well. Dave has uploaded this one as well on Google Sheets. --Enodoc (talk) 12:27, 13 February 2015 (GMT)

So, do we just move the whole Online:Provisioning Ingredients page to Online:Provisioning Ingredients/deprecated? I have a list of new ingredients in my sandbox, ready to start an updated page.   ~Shuryard (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2015 (GMT)

Essentially, but I think it's probably better to move the sections individually (that is, create the page, and copy-paste the sections rather than "moving" the whole page), so that we can keep the introductory paragraph and the conversion section. The introduction will need to be rewritten, and we can move the conversion table when the next big update comes out (if not before). Also, although it looks quite nice, I don't think it's necessary for Health, Magicka and Stamina to be in different colours (since they aren't coloured anywhere else). --Enodoc (talk) 20:00, 2 April 2015 (GMT)

Slow Reversions Please!

Okay, guys, this whole thing with Ewolfg1 got out of hand way too quickly and frankly, I'm a little bit perturbed by everyone's responses to it. Normally, I'd keep my criticisms private, but there were several people involved in this issue and I think this tendency we've had lately to jump on any response to an older topic as a necropost is something that really needs to be dialled down a notch.

There is an argument to be made that Obax's post was appropriate, even if it was a response to an older post. Necroposting, according to our own policy on it, requires that the post be off-topic or not of interest. It certainly wasn't off-topic and the fact that Obax asked the question, a user reinstated it as interesting, and I thought it was interesting enough to dig through the CK and post an exact response pretty much negates the latter. But leaving aside the question of whether or not it was a necropost, the appropriate response to a debated post is not to edit war with the person reinstating it (unless it's offensive/vandalism, of course), but to use slow reversions and to discuss the issue. There was really no great and immediate harm caused by the question being there and it really didn't deserve the response it got.

So to restate the topic of the post, can everyone please use slow reversions when dealing with disputed edits rather than jumping on the Undo button. Thanks! – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 05:56, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

Is slow reversion a kind of reversion, or do you mean just to slow down on the reversions? Current practice to ask related questions to an old topic, is to simply start a new topic, I think. Whether that's logical or not, I suppose that depends. I necro-posted before myself until I was told not to, and those were answers to questions etc ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 06:16, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

Slow reversion is when you wait several hours or even a day or two before reverting something if there's no urgent need to revert it. It stops edit wars dead in their tracks and tends to lead to less-inflamed tempers. I was hoping to find a Wikipedia article that discussed it, but while I can see several instances of the phrase used on talk pages, I don't see anything in their actual help/policy pages.

I agree that, generally, current practice is to start a new topic, and that's preferable in most cases. If you're responding directly to an older topic with information that might be useful on the page, or even a strongly related question, though, that doesn't necessarily constitute a necropost. A necropost, according to my understanding of the term and of our policy, is when someone says something like "I need help with this part of the quest" and someone responds to their request for help months or years later. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 06:32, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

(edit conflict) What I took away from our most recent discussion of this was that new topics could be made for necroposts, but that people performing the reverts were under no obligation to do so. If you feel there's a need for a change, we can certainly have another discussion about that.

As for the "edit warring" bit, (and at the risk of sounding immodest--please don't anybody take this the wrong way), I legitimately don't know how my response to this situation was in any way erroneous. My attempt to discuss the situation with Ewolf was (in my opinion) courteous and calm, even when I already felt I was being spoken to rudely. That was followed by a personal attack made against me, and instead of making any response or issuing a warning (although it certainly would have been justified), I removed myself from any further discussion with him, deciding it would be best to let an admin handle matters from there.

For my own part in that series of reversions, while I acknowledge that there was some back-and-forth between Ewolf and I, I would like to draw attention to the fact that after directing Ewolf to the necroposting policy (upon his request), he said, quote: When you delete...posts by claiming necroposting I will readd them every single time. I undid his revert of my revert once after he made that comment, but after that I refrained from reverting again, even if it might be justified, because I refused to let it get to the point of an edit war. That's always been my policy; even if I know I'm right, don't press the issue if it puts me at risk of a 3RR violation.

To summarize, while an issue of someone getting blocked for personal attacks is always unfortunate in and of itself, I feel that in this case the responsibility lies entirely with Ewolf for his refusal to follow policy and his personal attacks, and I don't see how following procedures puts me at any sort of fault for this. Do you disagree, Robin? Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 06:35, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

Dwarfmp: From my understanding i think Robin Hood means not to revert automatically on seeing a post in an old topic.

Robin Hood: I've always heard that if you have something new to add to a topic then you should start a new section on the page, so that is one of the reasons for my revert. The other reason is because from my understanding that is a necropost. The wikis policy for necroposts states "Deletion of all or part of another editor's contribution is only acceptable when the contribution is completely off-topic, responds to a post so old it's unlikely to be read by the poster or of concern to anyone else". The original posters don't seem to be around anymore and it could have simply been made into a new section since that wouldn't have made it into a necropost. Lorenut (talk) 06:37, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

(←) Thuum: Apart from the multiple reversions, your response to Ewolfg1 was fine as far as I'm concerned. From a technical perspective, even the multiple reversions were fine, but a slow reversion would have been a much better choice while the legitimacy of the initial edit was still in question. My primary concern here is that we not get into edit wars, or edit-war-like behaviour, especially with relatively new editors who may not understand what they've done or what 3RR is, etc. Nobody that I saw actually suggested to Ewolfg1 that he post to a new topic (or in this case, move Obax's post to a new topic). I can understand his frustration when he felt it was a legitimate question but it just kept getting erased with no other recourse, and he gets a warning where others don't because they've come under the three-reversions that he probably didn't even know about. That all being said, I don't disagree that his aggressive response warranted a warning block at the very least.

Lorenut: The response to the post was indeed old, but it's the "or of concern to anyone else" which is coming into play here. No, the original poster probably would never have read the response, but it clearly was of concern to others and might be information that could be added to the Dark Brotherhood page. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 07:00, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

Found it! It got moved away from Wikipedia a while back, which is why I couldn't find it there anymore: The value of slow reverts. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 07:34, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

I thought that matter got pretty ridiculous, too. While there are legitimate reasons for prohibiting necroposts, it often doesn't take a lot of effort to split off a comment into a new discussion. We should be helping people contribute properly, not shutting them down for making a formatting blunder. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 13:48, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

Firstly, I'd like to say that necroposting is never really harmful and traditionally we allowed the majority of talk page posts to remain in place, so this recent deletion phenomenon can understandably rub some people the wrong way. To put it bluntly, unless something seems like a "stupid question" and adds nothing to a talk page discussion, it would probably be best to simply leave it be or even try to answer. See here for how overzealous deletion can lead to potential detriment of the article (sorry for singling you out Thuum). However, Ewolfg's behaviour was not acceptable, and edit warring combined with spitefulness upon being corrected cannot be blamed upon this necroposting policy issue. —Legoless (talk) 14:06, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

That edit was a misunderstanding on my part. All I saw was "it costs 500 gold to hire him every time, even if you marry him," and without having any other context, I didn't realize until after your edit that he was referring to the article's claim that he could offer his services for free. I read over the article and I wasn't able to make the connection by myself, so I was a bit confused as to the message. While it's obvious in hindsight that it wasn't a forumlike post, at the time I honestly couldn't understand what he was talking about, hence the prodding. I will concede that if I had read through the article more carefully, I might have eventually made the connection, so perhaps I was a bit hasty there.

As for the other bit, the difficulty I see is with how we define "adds nothing to a discussion". I presume most people can agree that saying something like "this happened to me too" after confirmation was already provided, or "you could also try such and such" after a fix was already offered but no further comments were made, could fall under that heading. After that, it gets into a whole lot of gray area. If someone revives the discussion with a related-but-separate issue, should it be placed in a new discussion? Should there be an obligation for a person reverting a necropost to make that placement? If we are in agreement that there is some degree of subjectivity involved in determining what constitutes a useful contribution, then we have to also accept that different people may have different opinions in some instances.

So how do we approach this dilemma? I see several possible solutions:

• We make the policy on necroposting more clear; this includes defining what constitutes a useful contribution to a discussion and laying out clear guidelines for how to handle necroposts. If we remove subjectivity from the equation as much as possible, we're left with fewer disagreements like this. While this approach would lead to fewer disagreements of this nature, implementing it might be easier in theory than in practice.
• We continue as we have been doing, undoing posts in discussions older than 3 months that add nothing to a discussion (which may involve some judgment calls). If a post brings up a good point, or if there's some debate over its value to the topic, it can be moved to a new discussion, though there should not be any obligation to do so. This seems to be the easiest solution to implement, as it allows for subjectivity and leaves the door open for further discussion if someone thinks it's warranted. On the downside, people who are new to the wiki and don't have an in-depth understanding of the reasons behind the policy may react poorly to this and may not be knowledgeable/comfortable enough with wiki editing to re-add something to a new discussion, as we've seen here.
• We do the same thing as the previous example, but with a mandate on moving useful contributions to a new discussion by the person who undoes the edit. My main problem with this solution is that it takes the responsibility for an edit away from the person making the edit and places it on someone else. Also, without defining what constitutes a "useful contribution", we run into the same problem of subjectivity, which puts us back at square one. The only other alternative is making new discussions every time, and that opens the door for all posts to be allowed to remain, regardless of value, at which point we might as well remove the necroposting policy altogether.

Thoughts? Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 19:00, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

If I understand correctly, necroposting occurs when a post is so old that it's not likely that the author of the post will read it. But in case of some more important questions, it can be likely that other people will seek the same information on the talk page, even if the question is months or even years old. Therefore, I think we should allow people to answer these important questions. I am only unsure how do we estimate which question is worth answering and which is not. That should be somehow stated in the policy, and so I think that Thu'um's first solution (making the policy crystal clear) would be the best. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 20:40, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

Sorry its taken me so long to respond, but i've been rather busy today. When it comes to posts like the one we're talking about, what some people find interesting others may not and that is 100% subjective. I do think that it should have been made into a new section since the topic was so old and i do feel like me or Thuum should have done that, but at the time of my revert i hadn't thought of that and for that i apologize. However I feel like the policy needs some revising to make it "crystal clear" as per Thuums suggestion because it seems like there is a lot of confusion as to what constitutes a "necropost". As for my thoughts on how Ewolf reacted to this, i believe he deserves the warning and block he received because being rude to others over something like this is never the correct way to go. Lorenut (talk) 21:47, 28 January 2015 (GMT)

(←) In and of itself, I don't think it's a bad thing to have a response to a question or post that's very old. That's the assumption made with the {{Good Question}} template, which often sits on a question for years waiting for someone with the expertise and time to discover the answer. It becomes a necropost when it both responds to something old and does not add significant information or bring up a new (or more deeply probing) question. As long as a post to an older topic does one of those things, I don't think it should be reverted, though it may be appropriate to move it. That, of course, will also be a judgement call.

So bringing this back to Thuum's point, I think we can expand our policy to explicitly include all three options: revert, leave in the same section, or move to a new section. Defining which one of those to do at what times, however, we can only give examples of. It will always be up to a patroller (or any other editor, really) to make a judgement call as to how best to handle those contributions. There are times that moving the question into a new section might actually make it less clear. Using Obax's post as an example, by leaving it under the existing section, it was clear which daggers he was talking about. On the other hand, it could just easily be argued that it was a new question and deserved a new section. That question could have been answered in its section and the original could have been expanded on as a separate response. Both would have worked in this instance, but when I restored it, I felt that because of the fact that my answer covered his question and elaborated on the original question, leaving it in the same section was the better way to go. Someone else might have approached it differently.

As far as not putting off new editors, I'd suggest that whenever a necropost is reverted with no intention of doing anything else to it, a quick message be left on the editor's page or in the edit summary, explaining why their post was reverted. It doesn't have to be anything major, just something small like "Sorry, we discourage responses to older posts unless they add something new to the topic." I'd also suggest that, like we do with deletion tags only in reverse, if a post is restored after being reverted, it should be left alone and anyone feeling strongly enough about re-removing it should take it to the talk page of the editor(s) involved. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 02:52, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

In response to Robin Hood's statement "There are times that moving the question into a new section might actually make it less clear." Something that could work for when a post is made into a new section is just link to the other section on it in the post. It would hopefully make it more clear and not confuse people. What are your thoughts on that?Lorenut (talk) 03:09, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

(edit conflict) I'll second that, Robin. And I think everyone should make an effort to be as accommodating as they can, because we're likely going to have a lot of new people in here in about 6 months trying to learn the ropes. We're going to have to invest some time into treating them right if we want people to stick around and become regular contributors. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 03:16, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

Lorenut: Yes, that can work too. I think it depends how closely linked the topics are as to whether they'd be best to stay in the same section or a new one with a link back to the old one. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:27, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

Linking back to the old discussion would definitely be helpful, since we already do it when revisiting archived discussions. But if the direction we're leaning in is to just leave it up to a person's judgment, then we're taking option 2, where nothing changes at all (which I'm fine with, but it seems to run counter to the point of the initial post, as it was me following my own judgment that seems to have sparked this debate). Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 04:01, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

Nothing changes in terms of approach, no, but I think we're coming up with better and more uniform procedures on what to do in each case. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 04:19, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

I agree with what Robin has said above: "it depends how closely linked the topics are". If a new post adds valuable information to what has been said in older posts, it's better to keep it in the same section so that it's easier to compare the information at one glance. If a new post indeed adds valuable information or considerable thoughts, it proves that the topic is not dead, no matter how old the last post may be. --Holomay (talk) 10:45, 29 January 2015 (GMT)

Oblivion magic school colors

Current Morrowind-based colors	Proposed Actual Oblivion colors
Alteration	Alteration
Conjuration	Conjuration
Destruction	Destruction
Illusion	Illusion
Mysticism	Mysticism
Restoration	Restoration

I just noticed that all of the Oblivion magic pages use the same color scheme that is used for (and based on) the Morrowind schools of magic. However, it seems Oblivion has its own color scheme, easily seen here on the unobtainable potion bottles for each of the magic schools. Most notably, Alteration is defined by a white color which helps to distinguish it from red/pink-based Destruction and Mysticism colors. Skyrim chose to use different colors yet again, and the Skyrim magic pages take that into account so I don't see a reason why we shouldn't for Oblivion too. --Dorsal Axe (talk) 19:33, 14 February 2015 (GMT)

Makes sense to me, nice idea! --Enodoc (talk) 20:13, 14 February 2015 (GMT)

I'm fine with this. How many pages need to be changed? Is it just the templates really? Or should HnB do it? Jeancey (talk) 20:36, 14 February 2015 (GMT)

Thanks for the quick responses. The colors are defined in common.css, so all we need to do is add some code specific for Oblivion and it should automatically take effect on the relevant pages. I assume we add need to add something like this. --Dorsal Axe (talk) 20:52, 14 February 2015 (GMT)

This makes sense to me as well. I don't think HnB would need to be involved, since pretty much everything uses templates. The only exception to that that I found was Spell Effects, where the template can't be used because there are other classes being defined at the same time. I'll get to work on it after breakfast. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 15:41, 19 February 2015 (GMT)

Thanks, although the Oblivion schools seem to be using different colours than the ones demonstrated here (e.g. Restoration is pink). The colors I used in the table to the right were sourced directly from the potion bottles, with a suitably lighter shade of that color chosen. --Dorsal Axe (talk) 17:42, 19 February 2015 (GMT)

Sorry about that, those were just copy-paste errors. Also, all existing classes that I could find anywhere have now been converted. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 19:37, 19 February 2015 (GMT)

Awesome. Looks good, thanks. --Dorsal Axe (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2015 (GMT)

Online Guild Kiosks

I am working on the Online:Guild Traders page here and the Online:Guild Kiosks list here. Since it is all interconnected, I started to create pages for kiosks as well. While I was finishing the Ebonheart Pact kiosks list, I realized that the guild marketplaces (e.g., Mourner's Market) have to have a full-blown page, while singular kiosks (e.g., Bleakrock Barter) should probably be done as a redirect to a settlement or a nearby Wayshrine, just like individual vendors' stalls are usually done. There is not much information there anyway, except for the vendor, kiosk name and a location. Then I discovered that Enodoc did this already (e.g., Mogazgur's Mart) for some of them. So, the purpose of this post is just to let RC watchers know that I am going to redo those single kiosk pages I've already done as redirects. Unless somebody has any other ideas or suggestions. The progress is slow, but steady :) ~ Shuryard (talk) 03:36, 16 February 2015 (GMT)

Well, I found some other singular kiosks which are not redirects (e.g., Bayside Barter and Traitor's Trades). I assume this is because they are located in the settlement and marked on its map, rather than simply being situated near a Wayshrine... Perhaps, I should check it with Enodoc first, before making any changes. ~ Shuryard (talk) 06:25, 16 February 2015 (GMT)

Yep, following on from how Legoless started, I handled Guild Kiosks in two ways:

• Kiosks that appear on the Zone map (and are right next to Wayshrines) I redirected to the same place as the Wayshrine, and the Guild Kiosk is added to the Wayshrine section (eg, Mogazgur's Mart, Culled from the Crypt);
• Kiosks that appear within settlements (and are therefore on the Settlement map) get their own pages, whether they be singular (like Bayside Barter and Traitor's Trades) or marketplaces (like The West Step Stalls and Stormhaven's Trade Coster).

Enodoc (talk) 09:15, 16 February 2015 (GMT)

Okay, I will redirect only those that marked on Zones maps. I will also add icons to the kiosks' pages that are redirects. Thank you. ~ Shuryard (talk) 15:34, 16 February 2015 (GMT)

Online:Sets

The page is very long and contains huge amounts of information. I propose to leave intro and 'All Sets' table on the page and split the rest into three pages, Online:Craftable Sets, Online:Dropped Items Sets, and Online:Bought Items Sets. Or something along those lines. I volunteer to do that.

Also, bonuses for craftable sets are outdated. However, to update those, one needs to update all the individual set pages and then copy all that into the huge table on the main page. Moreover, there is a chance that the bonuses can be changed again in a future update. I propose to transclude bonuses from the sets' pages into the main table. A set page could look like this while this is how it would look like in the table.

Any objections, suggestions, ideas, comments? ~ Shuryard (talk) 04:46, 19 February 2015 (GMT)

Sounds like a good idea to me. I would like to suggest you get rid of the vertical text from the original page, as to me that's unnecessary and untidy (perhaps make it bold instead). Nice use of {{ESO Alliances}} as well. I never thought it could be used in so many different places   :)  . On a related note (but perhaps not useful in this instance), I was wondering if anyone knew whether we have {{#lst:}} here, as that could be useful if we ever need different bits of a page in different places. --Enodoc (talk) 09:57, 19 February 2015 (GMT)

The {{#1st}} template is a good one to have, but in this instance it would be more convenient to transclude info the other way around, I agree. And the {{ESO Alliances}} is a useful one indeed, thanks for making it.

I will start working on it today. (There is still time for suggestions before I begin propagating stuff through 23 pages :P) ~ Shuryard (talk) 14:11, 20 February 2015 (GMT)

Enodoc: Yes, we do have labeled section transclusion here (see Special:Version for a list of everything we have).

Shuryard: Note that that's #lst (LST), not 1st. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 16:03, 20 February 2015 (GMT)

Great, thanks! Another bedtime reading material for me :P ~ Shuryard (talk) 16:38, 20 February 2015 (GMT)

Time to Condense the Sidebar?

As far as I recall, one of the main arguments for listing all three Skyrim DLC in the 'sections' section of the sidebar was due to their recent release. It's been two years since their release on PS3, so I think it's time to replace them with a single link to Skyrim:Official Add-Ons. This will not only condense the sidebar a little, but it will also provide site-wide linkage to the Space Core and HD add-ons. Any thoughts? —Legoless (talk) 23:18, 22 February 2015 (GMT)

Sounds like a good idea. I think we should do the same with Shivering Isles and the two Morrowind add-ons, as well; keep it consistent and help save more space. - Alarra ^(talk) 01:51, 23 February 2015 (GMT)

I agree with all that, but just to pile on, why aren't the modspaces linked to in the sidebar? Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 02:43, 23 February 2015 (GMT)

The sidebar is really strange. Sometimes the game names are collapsable, and expanding them reveals all the add-ons (IMO this is the superior solution, and the links are incredibly useful). The rest of the time they appear as a normal bulleted list, but with non-expansion add-ons missing. What's up with that? --46.208.129.248 09:12, 23 February 2015 (GMT)

That depends I think on whether you're logged in or not. If you are logged in, you have the option to Convert the "sections" portion of the sidebar to be collapsible in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, which uses JavaScript. I found an old discussion on this — not sure if it was the most recent one, but it's the one I remember — if anyone's looking for some background reading. --Enodoc (talk) 09:45, 23 February 2015 (GMT)

That was me posting from my phone :p So that would explain things, I don't think I was around for that discussion. Thanks for linking to it. Perhaps it's worth reconsidering it as an extension. --Dorsal Axe (talk) 15:18, 23 February 2015 (GMT)

Dorsal Axe: Gadgets have the option to be enabled by default, which also gets applied to logged out users. As I recall, though, a lot of people were opposed to that idea last time it was suggested. That's a different discussion, though, so if you want to propose it, start a separate discussion and we'll see where it goes. As is often said, consensus can change. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 16:17, 23 February 2015 (GMT)

(←) I've made the change regarding the Skyrim DLC, although Alarra's suggestion about removing the links to SI and TR/BM as well are worth discussing if anyone wants to weight in. My main issue with making that change is the fact that the "Official Add-Ons" pages for both Oblivion and Morrowind make a strong distinction between the DLCs and the expansions, and as such the more important expansion links are marginalised on those hub pages. —Legoless (talk) 19:58, 7 March 2015 (GMT)

Legoless puts a valid argument forward. Tribunal, Bloodmoon, Shivering Isles, and arguably Skyrim's Dragonborn are all "major" releases, and have merit on their own to stand alone away from the "minor" releases. That's my vote, although I'm ambivalent enough to not care if they are put under there, because I wouldn't notice with my tweaked sidebar anyway (which incidentally shows what is proposed, an "Official Plugins" button, and the games that I consider major releases and actually play and work on.. which reminds me to add Daggerfall to it, since I've gotten into that, but that's off-topic.) Damon^{(talk•email)} 21:41, 7 March 2015 (GMT)

I agree that major expansions should be allowed to stay on the sidebar. And yes, Daggerfall is a fun game too ;-) Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 11:56, 8 March 2015 (GMT)

I think it would be better if the major releases just remain on the sidebar because like Legoless said, they get marginalized when they are with the rest of those pages. Lorenut (talk) 12:16, 8 March 2015 (GMT)

We should really get Dragonborn back up there then, as the sidebar follows to logical criteria at the moment. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 01:39, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

I theoretically agree with that, but on that note; Dawnguard, or not? Bethesda consider DG and DB to be equal; they are ID'd as "DLC1" and "DLC2". If they consider them equal, should we not treat them equally as well? Similarly, KotN is given the same importance as ShIsles on elderscrolls.com. So, do we:

1. truly want to include all the major releases, which would mean we need to add DG, DB and KotN, and the sidebar doesn't actually end up much shorter;
2. have nothing extra at all and just have the Official Add-Ons link; or
3. stick to our arbitrary Namespace guidelines for what is in the sidebar, and only include those with their own namespace?

Finally, the Morrowind section of the sidebar is actually missing the Official Add-Ons link completely, so that should be added. (Oh, and if anyone knows the JS code for the collapsible gadget, please could you add DG, HF, DB and Official Add-Ons to the Skyrim section? They got removed from it when it was changed, but the idea behind the collapsible gadget was to have everything in it.) --Enodoc (talk) 09:12, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

For the sake expediency, I'd go for sticking to the namespace guidelines. Which means Dragonborn should get back up there, arbitrary as it may seem from some perspectives. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 23:57, 22 March 2015 (GMT)

Creation Kit Wiki

It seems there's some kind of odd problem at the Creation Kit Wiki and I'm working with one of their support people to track it down. Can a couple of people try editing articles on the wiki (all the better if you can find something and improve it, as opposed to test edits) and see if they have any issues, please? I keep getting MWException errors on any Main space article or talk page I've tried, but User space all seems fine. I tried a different user account to no avail. Even just asking the CK wiki to confirm my e-mail gave an exception. We've tried different computers and browsers, and nothing helped there. A different IP let me make one edit to ckwiki:FormList, but not its talk page. This is, of course, rather bizarre, and it would be helpful to know if this is widespread or a one-off issue. Thanks! – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 19:19, 24 February 2015 (GMT)

I can't even register. —Legoless (talk) 19:48, 24 February 2015 (GMT)

I registered around the time of Skyrim's release (I think). I edited a page just a month ago, had no problems then. Of course, something could've happened in that time ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 19:56, 24 February 2015 (GMT)

Whatever has happened is recent, as I've had no problems in the past. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:45, 24 February 2015 (GMT)

I've just created a new user account. Even though I got an MWException error at the end of the registration process and the account is not listed in the user creation log, it exists and I can log in. However, as is the case with your test account, Robin, I'm unable to confirm the account as I don't receive an e-mail. Trying to resend the code by clicking the "Mail a confirmation code" button results in another MWException error. Legoless, I guess the same has happened to you? - Even though it appeared to you that you weren't able to register, your account exists. --Holomay (talk) 11:26, 10 March 2015 (GMT)

That's exactly what happened when I created a test account. I tried editing the other day, still to no avail. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 16:36, 10 March 2015 (GMT)

(←) I just got a message from the IT person I've been talking to and it appears that the problem is now fixed. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 22:25, 11 March 2015 (GMT)

Yep, everything seems to be working. —Legoless (talk) 22:54, 11 March 2015 (GMT)

Skyrim Prima Official Game Guide should be treated as an official source

I think we made a mistake somewhere along the line when we began treating the Skyrim Prima guide as an unofficial source (see, for example, how it is used here). It's the official guide to the game; it has Bethesda's approval. I think editors should be allowed to cite to it without going through the added trouble of making an OOG cite.

I can't find the initial discussion which created this disposition, so I don't know the exact reasoning behind it. But treating the Skyrim guide as an unofficial source is incongruent with how other official guides have been treated (e.g., The Daggerfall Chronicles, The Morrowind Prophecies, etc.). I don't see a valid reason for treating the Skyrim Prima guide differently. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 14:38, 28 February 2015 (GMT)

I think the guide is being treated as "out of game" as opposed to "unofficial" on pages. In any case, we discussed this a while back when I enquired about the "Acolyte Priests" lore in Dragonborn - but the the most concerning thing was apparently the guide was full of mistakes. I dont mind using the guide as an official source (i.e. not OOG), but we should be careful what is added to the lorespace. --Jimeee (talk) 15:33, 28 February 2015 (GMT)

Thank you! I could not find that discussion to save my life. I had forgotten the basis for distinguishing the Skyrim Prima guide. For the sake of consistency, I guess labeling it OOG is fine. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 15:43, 28 February 2015 (GMT)

For something like how to translate the dragon language, it's easy to test by comparing the translation notes against several dragon walls, so I think it's okay to assume that someone did their homework until proven otherwise (though I still don't place complete trust in Prima Guides). But I would urge caution about what elements of the plot we take as fact from any OOG sources. I don't know how well this jives with our policy, but my personal opinion on canon and external sources (in all forms of fiction) is that if something isn't stated (or at least implied) in the source material, it should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, if the author doesn't consider an element of the plot important enough to actually include evidence of it in the story, why should we consider it important? That's my feeling anyway. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 16:49, 28 February 2015 (GMT)

My thoughts on this were made clear previously in that discussion, and I still stand by it regardless of that quoted liability clause. It's clearly intended as a legal statement, not as a de-canonising of the contents within. The Prima guide is an official publication and should be afforded official status on lore pages. —Legoless (talk) 17:26, 28 February 2015 (GMT)

I'll tolerate treating the guide as unofficial, but treating it as official is still my preference, too. The Dragon Language lore page is the only one that would require correction, so it would be easy to implement. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 18:09, 28 February 2015 (GMT)

Justice System: Buildings and People

Now that the Justice System is in place, there should be something on NPC/builing pages marking whether a house/store/etc is "owned" or not (if yes, taking things counts as stealing) and if an NPC is "essential" or not (if yes, they cannot be attacked/pickpocketed). Is this something already in a template, and is this something that a bot could do to add the space for it to the NPC/building pages? ~ Alarra ^(talk) 04:37, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

Also, since NPCs react differently to witnessing a crime (they'll either become hostile or not), would that go in the box too, or just in the text on the page? ~ Alarra ^(talk) 04:42, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

Sorted for buildings. There is now an "owned" parameter which can take either Yes/No or the name of the owner if known. I also added some more functionality from {{Place Summary}}, including job1-5 and crafting station parameters. --Enodoc (talk) 13:15, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

I am wondering about an ownership of the public buildings like guildhalls or stores. Sure, the majority of the containers and items inside are owned, but one can walk in without picking a lock and it does not count as trespassing. There also can be bookshelves inside to use without the consequences. Wouldn't it be better to reserve "owned" field in the template for personal (locked) properties?   ~ Shuryard (talk) 10:44, 14 March 2015 (GMT)

I'd say restrict the "owned" tag to buildings with locks, i.e. places you'll receive a bounty for trespassing in. Lots of items and containers are marked as owned now, even exterior crates and such. —Legoless (talk) 15:30, 14 March 2015 (GMT)

Terry Pratchett

As some of you may know, Terry Pratchett has passed away today. I've proposed a small news piece on this, although I'd appreciate some feedback on it since it's not strictly TES-related. —Legoless (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

Provide an example of his modding activity and I'd say it can go up. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 18:43, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

Terry Pratchett was a prolific fantasy novelist, not a modder. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 19:15, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

Sir Terry Pratchett is credited with having taken part in the writing of dialogue for this Skyrim mod and this related Oblivion mod, though there's no mention that he's taken part in the actual modding of the mods. But, assuming these are legitimate contributions and not rehashed dialogue from novels (IDK who he his, honestly, and I haven't got the time to do proper research into whether he was actually into doing this stuff, so I'm just making a good-faith assumption that it's a possibility), then I'd say it's cool to append the modding and Elder Scrolls fan snippet to the article. Damon^{(talk•email)} 20:19, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

(edit conflict) I don't think he made any mods himself, but I know he contributed dialogue to the Companion Vilja mods for Oblivion and Skyrim. He has an account on the Nexus sites as well. —Legoless (talk) 20:21, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

Edit: Just to address Damon's concerns, the claim is indeed legitimate. —Legoless (talk) 20:21, 12 March 2015 (GMT)

This is just me, but if we feel strongly enough about this to run it, I don't feel we need to go overboard justifying it. If Tolkien were still alive and he died tomorrow, you can bet I'd be lobbying for a news post. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 00:49, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

I don't feel like this is newsworthy Elder Srolls-wise/UESP-wise. Even if he was a modder, which he wasn't, it wouldn't feel right. Ralph Cosham hadn't have been on the main page were I not to push it, and that was a lot more relevant if you ask me. Not that it isn't a shame, but it has to be relevant. Would we post a news story if one of our regular editors died? I doubt that, unless it's Daveh maybe ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 00:59, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

Shame. Well, maybe our social media accounts could post something about it? —Legoless (talk) 01:02, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

Well maybe others disagree with me. But either way, social media is entirely different, it's a more personal and informal branch of the UESP, so yeah of course ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 01:06, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

(←) Brain fart, I thought we were talking about social media. Yeah, the site news probably doesn't need it, but our social media pages should have something. Blog post would also work, if someone was inclined to write it. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 01:28, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

Crown Store in the sidebar?

In the past, every official add-on past the "vanilla" game has gotten linked in the sidebar, even if indirectly. Even Oblivion's Horse Pack. But now ESO is handling premium content differently. While major content updates like the expected Imperial City or Orsinium dlcs should certainly get their own places for the foreseeable future, I think it stands to reason that we should add the Crown Store to the sidebar in lieu of an "Official Add-Ons" link. That way, it will continue to showcase all items beyond what players will get with their purchase of a game. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 01:58, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

That makes sense I guess. Either that, or just link Official Add-Ons to be consistent, that way we also get any UI add-ons that ZOS produces, and a link to the ESO Store. That needs to be updated to include a Crown Store link anyway, and we can also add anything specifically made for consoles to it. --Enodoc (talk) 09:19, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

Are there any UNofficial add-ons? Because from what I know, there's no such things as mods for this, and I think the name is rather odd here ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 15:23, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

Yes, they're specifically UI add-ons, but they are all just referred to as "add-ons". (Conversely, ZOS will be referring to extra game content specifically as DLC.) --Enodoc (talk) 17:47, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

I don't think the Crown Store can be treated as a clear equivalent of the singleplayer DLCs. The content is already in the vanilla game (i.e. you'll see people with guar mounts and DLC equipment), you just need to pay money to use it for yourself. Treating future zones and questlines bought with Crowns differently from the rest of the game content also seems idiosyncratic to me. Craglorn didn't ship with the game, and is similarly barred from certain characters (based on level rather than cash), but does it make sense to add it to the sidebar? Not really. I'm also opposed to linking to the Official Add-Ons page at all, since right now all it contains is an outdated beta program and I can't see that changing in the foreseeable future. —Legoless (talk) 18:19, 18 March 2015 (GMT)

General namespace in the sidebar

I'd like to see this part of the site get more attention. However, I think trying to generate interest amongst contributors to expand it is a doomed effort if it doesn't get any exposure. Adding it to the sidebar just under "All Content" would be a good step, and I don't think one more bullet point in the sidebar is going to hurt anything. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 00:02, 23 March 2015 (GMT)

I'm not entirely sure it needs to be there. By definition, it's filled with borderline content. We already exclude the three (four?) modding namespaces since they're for technical info and mods. All good information, but not central to the wiki's goals. The All Content link is there for a reason, just as the TES Travels and Offical Add-On links are. Also, not to hijack the topic, but I'm going to be moving Lore:Demographics to the General namespace soon, as I've been meaning to do for three years to little attention. —Legoless (talk) 00:25, 23 March 2015 (GMT)

No objections on demographics, but different people have different goals for the UESP and contribute differently. I work mainly in the Lore section, PLRDLF handles Daggerfall, etc. Who's to say a few people would not contribute best in General? But why would they, when we ignore and thus implicitly demean it?

The wiki's goal is ultimately to provide information on the Elder Scrolls, and if that scope has become more limited over time, it's likely due in large part to the neglect of the General namespace. It's not like General will expand overnight, and maybe it will never amount to much more than it is now. But it cannot grow without a little sunshine, you know? I don't know about "need", but I think it would be in the wiki's best interest for it to be there, and couldn't hurt regardless. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 01:13, 23 March 2015 (GMT)

ESO hirelings

Hello,

I see you not have all the mails from the ESO hirelings. Plus in the talk page for Madam Firilanya, you seem to have a presentation issue. For the Grande Bibliothèque de Tamriel, I have data-mined all the hirelings' mails, both in French and English. And I formatted them all under a table format. You can found the English version here.

But as you can see, I used a different organization: I classified the mails by skills, and not characters. Anyway, I propose to you all the texts (for those you still don't have), and the table format can help you, if you finally want to use that format too.

--Lady freyja (talk) 21:40, 23 March 2015 (GMT)

Thanks for the link! I may take you up on that offer, as it would save formatting the text into tables myself. --Enodoc (talk) 23:31, 28 March 2015 (GMT)

Categorizing generic NPCs (ESO)

Hey, folks! It's me again :P Could somebody more proficient with templates modify {{Online NPC Summary}} so that it takes parameter generic and adds an NPC with generic=1 into the Online-Generic NPCs category?

And another thing. Instead of assigning "Variable" ("Varied"/"Varies") value to race, wouldn't it make more sense for the template to omit creating race field (and perhaps gender since it is one row?) in the infobox, if race is not filled? As I tried to point out recently, generic NPCs' pages create lots of overlapping categories. One example would be Online:College Student, who can be either Bosmer or Khajiit of any gender. Another one is Online:Guild Blade, who can be either male or female of practically any playable race.

Any comments, suggestions, ideas are appreciated, as always. Thanks!   ~Shuryard (talk) 17:00, 24 March 2015 (GMT)

I figured out how to add generic parameter to {{Online NPC Summary}}, although I am still at odds with "variable" value for race and gender... Perhaps, creating a separate template for generic NPCs, similiar to {{Non-Relevant NPC}}, would be a better solution.   ~Shuryard (talk) 03:36, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

I somehow missed this post or I would've done it. My apologies. Glad you figured out how to add generic yourself, though.

As far as omitting a field when it's variable, omitting fields has been done in the past (usually when the field is absent altogether), and I'm certainly willing to do it, but I don't want to do it unless there's a clear consensus because it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. You have to figure out which fields to create, how many columns they take up, and whether to even create the row at all. As far as the larger question of what to do, I think it makes it more explicit when you say it's variable, as opposed to not knowing or having forgotten to fill it in. I don't really contribute to Online space, though, so I'll leave it up to the ESO players to decide that. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 04:33, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

That's why I added the variable part in the first place, so that it wouldn't just be left blank. Jeancey (talk) 04:38, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

What we could probably do is force-define gender and race as Variable when generic is set (so there are no variations in the wording), and disable categorization related to those parameters in the same instance. --Enodoc (talk) 13:00, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

Well, that wouldn't always work, as some of the generic NPCs are of the same race (e.g., all Subtle Knife Members are Bosmer, while Temple Acolytes are Altmer), others can belong to any of the two races (e.g., Training Students, either Bosmer or Khajiit), and yet some of them can be virtually of any race (e.g., Guild Savants).

So, do we really need to have infoboxes on their pages?   ~ Shuryard (talk) 22:25, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

I won't comment on the need for infoboxes (I'll leave that to someone else), but I've made the categorization a bit more consistent by adding a switch in the template. The numerous different ways to say varied/varies/variable now result in only one category per race, rather than one per different word. --Enodoc (talk) 08:32, 30 March 2015 (GMT)

Outdated ESO content

Since we preserve outdated ESO content, I propose to add a tag to pages (similar to {{Pre-Release}}), which would also add them to a category (e.g., Online-Legacy). This is a very simple template for starters. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?   ~Shuryard (talk) 22:13, 28 March 2015 (GMT)

Sounds good to me. —Legoless (talk) 22:22, 28 March 2015 (GMT)

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Just for clarity, this would be for things that are removed entirely? In which case, I would suggest "deprecated" or "obsolete" instead of "outdated", just to distinguish it from other outdated information that needs to be updated by us as a result of something changing (like Soul Shriven in Coldharbour, which is outdated right now), as opposed to something ZOS rendered obsolete by removing it entirely. Also, I can tweak the Disabled Quests parameters to include the same category so those can go in there too. --Enodoc (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2015 (GMT)

Hmmm, do we have a policy on what colours are used when? Because if not, I'd like to see this in Notice default grey (with border=#AAAAAA, and bgcolor=#F9F9F9), to distinguish it more from a pre-release or cleanup banner. --Enodoc (talk) 23:02, 28 March 2015 (GMT)

I think that blue originally came from the {{Incomplete}} banner, so it might be good to change it to match Notice. —Legoless (talk) 23:14, 28 March 2015 (GMT)

We don't have a policy per se, but back in the dawn of time, we had a very mix & match approach to our message boxes, with all different colours, widths and border widths. Several years ago, that got standardized to all being the same width and only a limited selection of colours by using the {{Message}} template for nearly all our site message boxes (though in retrospect, it should probably be done via CSS instead). Grey isn't a standard colour there right now for the sole reason that it wasn't a widely used colour at the time. It's probably not a bad idea to add it, though, as it can be a useful, neutral colour. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:55, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

Done: {{Deprecated}}.   ~Shuryard (talk) 02:30, 29 March 2015 (GMT)

Major WIP Mods Page

I've proposed Tes4Mod:Major WIP Mods (and all of its subpages) for deletion. This is quite a lot of content, so if anyone would like to oppose we can take it to deletion review as was done for most other Tes4Mod pages. —Legoless (talk) 00:21, 4 April 2015 (GMT)

No objection from me. Looking at the history, this stuff is mostly entirely untouched and no longer updated, and it's an eyesore to read and look at anyway. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 06:38, 4 April 2015 (GMT)

Agreed. Any interest in these mods seems to have vanished a while ago, so I don't see any point in keeping it around any more. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 10:54, 4 April 2015 (GMT)

As there have been no objections, I'm going ahead with the deletions. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:24, 18 April 2015 (GMT)

ESO Stalls in minor settlements

The beginning of this conversation can be found on my talk page. I will attempt to summarize below.

Up until now, we have been following a general setup for documenting stores, stalls and services (collectively "Services") in ESO that works something like this:

• Every Service that has an icon on the map gets its own page, unless two Services share a building, in which case it is one page for the building
• Vendor stalls that are listed as part of a Service's map icon in-game (most commonly, this is stalls at a Marketplace) have the page for that stall set as a redirect to the Marketplace – essentially this means that only the Services with a map marker get their own page – and are detailed under that page's "Merchants and Stalls" section
• Each Service with an icon is then listed using {{Place Link}} in a "Shops and Services" section on the settlement page

The situation now is that we have come across some Services in minor locations within the game (such as Martyr's Crossing) that do not have a settlement map, and therefore there is no map marker covering that stall, and nothing for the "stall redirect" approach above to redirect to.

• I have recently added to the {{Online Place Summary}} some missing parameters that are on the {{Place Summary}} and {{City Summary}}, including |services=, so my suggestion would be to create individual pages for each of the stalls in these minor locations and list them only in the Place Summary. (For existing pages, the Place Summary would direct to the "Shops and Services" section on the page.)
• Shuryard also had a couple of suggestions based around maintaining the use of the "stall redirects" for these, which I will let her provide the details of so I don't apply any bias to them.

Enodoc (talk) 21:20, 5 April 2015 (GMT)

Thanks, Enodoc :) Just to summarize my feelings about this. Minor settlements mentioned above are more or less camps (another example is Shinji's Scarp) and therefore it sounds logical to me to redirect stalls to a camp housing them. By redirecting a stall, we use {{Description}} on the redirect page, so when a stall is linked on a marketplace page (e.g., The Arcane Stop), one can see what kind of stall it is and by whom it is run. The same principle would apply to stalls in minor settlements. The page of a settlement would have the Shops and Services section, where all the stalls with their descriptions and proprietors' names would be listed. In this case, all the stalls are treated in the exact same way. Now, with the addition of services parameter to the template, it feels to me like by creating full-fledged pages for stalls in unmarked locations we would be trying to give them more meaning then those in cities and towns are given.   ~Shuryard (talk) 22:05, 5 April 2015 (GMT)

I'm not a big fan of using the services parameter here, simply because it isn't used elsewhere on ESO articles. I have no strong opinions otherwise. —Legoless (talk) 00:44, 6 April 2015 (GMT)

Date Format Change

This is something that I've been thinking about for a while. Typically if we don't have a specific policy, we use Wikipedia's guidelines on the matter. However, in this specific case, our convention, though unwritten, differs from the Wikipedia guidelines. I'm talking about the Date format. The Wikipedia conventions on the matter specifically prohibit using the th, nd, rd and st in dates. Today, for instance, would never be written April 6th, 2015, but rather April 6, 2015. I prefer the Wikipedia method, but I figure given the consistency that we currently have, I would open it up for discussion. This isn't an urgent thing, so I figure we can wait a few weeks to achieve a proper consensus. For those interested, here's the link to the WPMOS: Wikipedia Manual of Style. Jeancey (talk) 23:16, 6 April 2015 (GMT)

I say follow Wikipedia. Personally, I've been adding the th simply from ignorance. —Legoless (talk) 23:23, 6 April 2015 (GMT)

For real dates, absolutely. For lore dates, though, it better matches the lore perspective to include the ... whatchamacallits. Most if not all game sources follow that convention. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 00:56, 7 April 2015 (GMT)

Just on that point, the wait function in Oblivion actually excludes those (Googling...) 'ordinal indicators'. I'd have to check Morrowind and Skyrim, but I imagine it's not such an unusual system to use in-universe. —Legoless (talk) 01:09, 7 April 2015 (GMT)

Sorry, I should have specified. This would only be for real world dates, such as the release date of games and dates in OOG references and such. Jeancey (talk) 01:22, 7 April 2015 (GMT)

Lawrence Schick ESO-RP Interview

I've got a wip transcript of the lore-relevant portion of Schick's interview available here. Just wanted input on the namespace and page name for it, along with how it should be cited in the lorespace. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 17:57, 17 April 2015 (GMT)

It's developer commentary, so I'd consider it out-of-game. General or Online seem the most appropriate. We have a section for interviews at Category:General-Interviews, or alternatively we could use Morrowind:Interview with a Dark Elf as precedent. —Legoless (talk) 18:11, 17 April 2015 (GMT)

I've polished it up as best I can, though we could throw in a few images. I plan to use the page name "Loremaster's Episode of ESO-RP ZOS Interview". The final issue is the namespace. I've formatted it after the interviews in the general namespace, but I could change it to match the "Interview with a Dark Elf" approach pretty easily. Although we could stick to current format and still put it in the Online namespace, I guess. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 20:04, 19 April 2015 (GMT)

done. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 18:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Creature vs. NPC: Round Two

I think this was listed in the Active Discussions section before, but I'd like to draw attention to this resurrected proposal on changing the NPC/Creature definition in the Online namespace. The reasoning behind it should be pretty logical for those who have played ESO. —Legoless (talk) 16:56, 2 May 2015 (GMT)

Should it be put back in the Active Discussions list? I don't see it there now, but if it's been resurrected, it might help to re-add it. As for the discussion itself, I'll take a look and see if I have an opinion. —likelolwhat ^{talk lulzy to me} 23:53, 5 May 2015 (GMT)

Tidying up the Iliac Bay

For some time now, I've been thinking about doing something about the mess the Iliac Bay is currently in. That would include de-transcluding Lore articles on the Daggerfall political entities to the DF namespace (because many of them contain ESO info now), and also sorting out differences between, for example, the geographical region of Daenia, the political entity of Daenia, and Daenia City. My initial idea was to merge all of these into one article, but since the geographical regions and the political entities are something totally different (and can even be in different provinces, as in the case of Mournoth and Ephesus), I think it would be confusing, and partial separation would work better. I'd propose a following approach:

• The geographical regions (aka ESO subzones) would get their own article, based mainly on ESO information;
• A few city-states from Daggerfall which appear as cities in ESO (like Daggerfall or Bergama) would also get their own, separate article;
• The political entities would get articles named Lore:Daenia (state) or Lore:Daenia (political entity), or however else you see fit. Those articles would also mention the capital city of the region. In case of Daggerfall-only regions, like Ykalon, the name would just be Lore:Ykalon.

Now, some examples of what we would get with that approach:

• In case of Daenia, we'd get the Lore:Daenia article (about the geographical region) and Lore:Daenia (political entity), which would also mention the Daenia City. The same would apply to Alcaire, Menevia, Gavaudon, Mournoth, Ephesus, Myrkwasa, Tigonus, Wrothgarian Mountains (Wrothgar vs the DF political entity) and Dragontail Mountains (mountain range vs the DF political entity).

• In case of Bergama, we'd get the Lore:Bergama (about the city) and Lore:Bergama (political entity), which could mention and link the city article. The same would apply to Daggerfall, Wayrest, Sentinel, Bergama, Kozanset, Lainlyn, Satakalaam, and Glenumbra Moors (political entity vs battle site)

• In case of Ykalon, we'd get only Lore:Ykalon about the political entity, which would also mention the city of Ykalon (which basically means leaving it the way it is now). This would apply to the remaining regions.

This way we get no more than 2 articles for one region. Now, that's one but not the only way to do it, and I need your input because there may be a better one. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 12:07, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

I agree that it definitely needs to be tidied up. For reference to others, previous discussions on this topic can be found here and here. I think there only needs to be one article per Daggerfall entity, since the state usually shares the name of the city. Assuming this list is exhaustive, the only oddities are Abibon-Gora/Abibon-gora, Alik'r/Alik'ra, Antiphyllos/Antyphyllos, Dragontail Mountains/Dragontail, Glenumbra Moors/Glenumbra, Orsinium Area/Orsinium, and Wrothgarian Mountains/Wrothgaria, in which I have bolded my preferred name for the state page. I am also inclined to suggest disambiguation precedence towards the ESO pages, by which I mean their page titles would be plain, and the Daggerfall ones would be disambiguated with (state).

Using {{About}}, you would then have: This article is about the geographical region/city. For the Third Era political entity, see [PAGENAME] (state). and in reverse, This article is about the Third Era political entity. For the region/city, see [PAGENAME]. --Enodoc (talk) 13:55, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Full support for me. I'd be willing to help (re)write some of the articles once the DF transclusions have been replaced. See Daggerfall:Betony as an example of how that should be done - basically copypasting the original lore articles from before any non-Daggerfall information was added. —Legoless (talk) 15:42, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Enodoc, I agree that the disambiguation precedence should be towards ESO, and that's how I want to do it. However, why have the Wrothgarian Mountains political entity under Wrothgaria and the Dragontail Mountains entity under Dragontail? Wouldn't the state names make more sense?

On another note, I've just found out that some smaller Glenumbra towns and places from ESO seem to have previously appeared in Daggerfall, namely Aldcroft (in Urvaius), Westtry (in Daenia), Crosswych (also in Urvaius) and the Baelborne town (in Shalgora). Do you think we should mention that fact somewhere? --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 17:15, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Those places will all likely have lore articles at some stage, so the Daggerfall appearance can just be mentioned the same as Arena. It'd also be good to add a note to the ESO articles. —Legoless (talk) 17:25, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Yeah I would say they should be mentioned at least in passing. Those particular ones seem to be in approximately the right geographical places anyway. Regarding the Wrothgarian Mountains, Dragontail Mountains, and also the Alik'r Desert, according to The Warp in the West, they are "unconquered territories", meaning they have no political status themselves and are solely geographical regions. That leaves their respective cities of Wrothgaria, Dragontail, and Alik'ra as the only named entities in those regions that could feasibly have a political status. --Enodoc (talk) 17:47, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Alright, fair enough. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 18:12, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

I'll do up a list of required pages if no one has any objections? —Legoless (talk) 18:15, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Why not? That would be useful. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 18:25, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

(←) Started work here. —Legoless (talk) 19:36, 6 May 2015 (GMT)

Quick question: what should we be calling the political entities ruled by a lord/lady? I've been calling them fiefdoms in the DF namespace for years now, but I just checked this book at it calls Reich Gradkeep a "lordship". Might be referring to the title rather than the region though. —Legoless (talk) 16:50, 7 May 2015 (GMT)

I was about to ask you where we get all these "fiefdoms", "baronies" and "marches" from... is that info in Daggerfall? --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 16:56, 7 May 2015 (GMT)

They're based on the titles of the regions' rulers. A marquis rules a march, etc. —Legoless (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2015 (GMT)

Also, a quick question for the future: do you think that the similarity of the names "Kambria" and "Cambray" is intentional (and maybe noteworthy), or rather coincidental? --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 17:41, 7 May 2015 (GMT)

Wait, does that mean these states are titled based on (logical) inference rather than (lore) evidence? At the very least that means those parts of the names shouldn't be in bold on the respective pages. Considering where Kambria is on the map, particularly in relation to Alcaire, I would say that it is possibly related to Cambray Hills, but I'm not sure how it could be noted without speculation. It would be good to note if possible though. --Enodoc (talk) 09:17, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

Not sure if they're all inferred, for example the kingdoms are all directly mentioned in lore. —Legoless (talk) 10:09, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

Do you think Tava's Blessing and Lainlyn require two separate articles? There's not that much info on Lainlyn itself, so I'd just opt for Tava's Blessing redirecting to Lainlyn. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 12:25, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

The city of Lainlyn is significant enough due to the Knights of the True Horn. Aside from geographical location, I haven't seen any evidence stating that Tava's Blessing is the same place. —Legoless (talk) 12:30, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

From "Ask Us Anything: Lore": There will be adventures set in the Alik’r Desert port town of Tava’s Blessing, which is the precursor of Lainlyn. You will meet members of the Lainlyn family, for whom the town will later be renamed, and there are adventures in the desert with harpies, but that’s all we’ll reveal at present! --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 12:54, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

That works, although I think we should stick with Lainlyn as the article name. It's the most modern source. —Legoless (talk) 13:20, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

That's how I wanted to do it. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 13:31, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

(←) One thing to bear in mind is link updating. I can't see any easy way of doing this other than going through them by hand and figuring out which place each link is referring to. See here for an example. —Legoless (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

I know. Once I'm done with Hammerfell, I'll update those that remain before moving on to High Rock. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 17:02, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

On your list, you marked Lore:Totambu (city) as a separate article, not a redirect. Was this intended? Or it was meant to refer to the Lost City? --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 17:22, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

That's my bad. —Legoless (talk) 17:33, 8 May 2015 (GMT)

During my arduous effort to fix all the links leading to Sentinel, I noticed that many references that cite books suddenly stop working after I fix a completely unrelated link (like it can be seen here). Why is that happening? --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 13:07, 10 May 2015 (GMT)

It's a caching issues. Purging both pages will fix it. —Legoless (talk) 13:14, 10 May 2015 (GMT)

All of Hammerfell should be reworked now, with articles de-transcluded and links fixed. Let me know if you find anything I missed. Maybe tomorrow I'll start working on High Rock. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 15:38, 10 May 2015 (GMT)

In High Rock, Alcaire is somewhat special, because it is also some kind of political entity in ESO ruled by Duke Nathaniel from Alcaire Castle. That would make it a duchy, whereas the Third Era Alcaire is a fiefdom. I'm not really sure where the duchy info should go. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 12:32, 11 May 2015 (GMT)

Maybe merge the duchy and fiefdom into a single article? I'd probably go with Lore:Alcaire (duchy) for being more modern. —Legoless (talk) 12:38, 11 May 2015 (GMT)

You could probably claim political entity for a number of the ESO regions (Boralis springs immediately to mind). Personally I'd be inclined to mostly ignore the duchy info, and mention it on the Alcaire region page. The third era Alcaire fiefdom potentially bears no relation to the second era Alcaire duchy, aside from name and general location, while the second era Alcaire duchy is exactly the Alcaire region. --Enodoc (talk) 13:59, 11 May 2015 (GMT)

Uh, too late now :P But feel free to make some changes. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 14:06, 11 May 2015 (GMT)

Residents Table

Although this format was used on Oblivion and Skyrim pages, with ESO it seems to be too limited to use. While it still works for residential or some of the municipal buildings, it cannot be used on pages that contain redirected stalls descriptions, e.g., Aldcroft Mages Guild or Sentinel Bazaar. Perhaps, it would be a good idea to retire this format from building pages and limit its use to people pages and faction pages?  ~Shuryard (talk) 11:44, 13 May 2015 (GMT)

I am inclined to agree. It definitely doesn't work on many Shops and Services pages, but seems to be OK for some other buildings. For consistency, I would rather it not be used at all, but there may be a case for using it on other buildings, like houses and municipal buildings, both as an identifier that "this is not a service", and also because it makes a simple list look tidier. You are then left however with situations like Vulkhel Manor and Treasury which is both a service and a municipal building. --Enodoc (talk) 12:53, 13 May 2015 (GMT)

I like it simply because it makes the page look a whole lot cleaner, regardless how many (or how few) NPCs are in the building. As far as stalls, I don't know why we put the place link in that spot. Is there a reason it's going there? Why don't we just link to the NPC in that box, and put the stall link/name elsewhere on the page? ~ Alarra ^(talk) 01:02, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

That's down to the fact that not every vendor has a named stall. Ideally, they would be in a list like Daggerfall Marketplace or Dockside Trading Stalls, but then you have something like Sentinel Bazaar, where there are two vendors who aren't attached to named stalls, but still need to be in that list of merchants. --Enodoc (talk) 08:18, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

What I'm saying is, why not JUST list the NPCs themselves listed under "Merchants", not the stalls, and just have a list of the stalls in the description. (Something like, "This marketplace contains the following stalls: The Bloody Crescent (weapons), Diviner's Delight (mystic)...") Then it doesn't matter who actually owns a stall and who doesn't. ~ Alarra ^(talk) 13:13, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

So essentially lose the descriptions of the stalls completely and just have them by name instead? I guess that could work. It's a shame to lose the descriptions, but maybe they're not really needed...

What we could do then is list the stalls and what they sell in the infobox services parameter, for example. There's a layout concept for this (with a couple of alternative styles for the infobox) in my sandbox.

--Enodoc (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

I honestly don't see why they have to be in the table? What is wrong with the current method? If we remove the stalls completely, then the stall redirects make no sense. You click the link, and still have zero idea who runs the stall. Basically, we have two options here. Either we use the current method, or some sort of method that shows the description, or we create full separate pages for every single stall. That's the whole reason why the tables were okay before, because for every single person in the table, that page was the most specific page they could be on. In this case, the page with the stall descriptions isn't the most specific page it COULD be on, they could be on their own specific stall pages. I just don't see a way around using one of those two options. Personally, I don't see the issue with the current method. Plenty of things are different because of the specifics of an MMO and ESO in particular. Jeancey (talk) 15:57, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

(edit conflict) Although a redirect, a stall is a store, therefore a place. It has its description as all places do, temples, shops, houses. I don't like the idea of loosing a description. It makes it fall out of the place concept. A stall is also explicitly connected to its owner, it is almost like Ethad-sa = A Fresh Start. To separate them is to create confusion. So, the way stalls are done now looks like the best way to do it, in my opinion. Moreover, since there are so many missing or outdated pages in ESO space that need lots of work and attention, I don't think that concentrating on overhauling things that are already done should be the priority right now.  ~Shuryard (talk) 16:04, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

I actually feel that stalls should have their own pages; it is indeed more specific, we don't have to worry about redirects, we could list the stall's inventory or something if we get around to it, and also other information, such as whether they have a safebox. This is what I had originally started doing I think with the Port Hunding stalls before we'd decided upon doing it the way we do now; the marketplace just has a list of the stalls and NPCs, and describes the layout and stuff, while each stall's page is more specific. ~ Alarra ^(talk) 17:10, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

On the map, the stalls are still under the market umbrella. And the market's page is a good place to have all the stalls pictures and content, while spreading the info through five-six-seven stall pages makes the content too thin. Although not yet complete, this is one example of a market's page with stalls' pictures and description of their content: Online:Marketplace (Riften).  ~Shuryard (talk) 17:29, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

I like that Riften example, it's compact and tidy without being excessive, and still seems to have all the necessary information. The problem I see with stalls pages containing the information is that people looking for the information may not know where to look. Stall names are not immediately obvious, as they are only seen on the banners behind the stalls. Not to mention the stalls that don't even have names, and therefore can't have their own pages. The vendors are listed on the map as part of the marketplace, not with their stall names, so the most information about them (including their stalls) should be part of the marketplace pages. --Enodoc (talk) 21:49, 14 May 2015 (GMT)

Races & Entities ReVamp Project

Currently, I'm working on rewriting the Sload article and I think everyone has already seen my rewritten Argonian article, which I will be adding references soon enough (although if anyone wants to help with that I'll appreciate it; the references are in the discussion page). I'm been working on a solo project of rewriting the race and god pages, because many of them are underdeveloped and neglected (looking at you Altmer and Khajiit) and need a serious update, but I've decided to let the rest of the wiki know so it can be official depending on your guys' opinion. I'm currently thinking that individual godly entities need their own pages (like the Adversary of the Skaal, as well as pantheons, like the Aldmeri Pantheon and the Eight Divines), a lot of things Daedric needs added information, and in general the layout of race pages need to be more detailed like the Bosmer page I remodeled the Argonian one after. Suggestions?--IceFireWarden (talk) 15:45, 13 May 2015 (GMT)

Sounds good, separate god articles are fine. Just to note, Lore:Khajiit is a featured article on the wiki, but it was revoked before and it could be revoked/re-featured again if given another overhaul. One is definitely in order either way, given the wealth of ESO info. The race pages have been long neglected due to the sheer depth of the topics. If you'd like community input on layouts or changes, you can always work on the overhauls publicly in a sandbox. —Legoless (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2015 (GMT)

Thanks for the input, sounds good.--IceFireWarden (talk) 18:36, 13 May 2015 (GMT)

Categorization of Creature Pages (ESO)

The pages in question are pages like Online:Dog, Online:Guar, Online:Scamp, Online:Banekin, etc. As of now, two mutually exclusive opinions were expressed on how these pages should be listed in corresponding categories.

One way to do it is to list a page like Online:Banekin together with the pages of unique banekins alphabetically, not making any distinctions, like it is done now: Category:Online-Creatures-Banekin. If I understand it correctly, the main point behind this method is that this page is a link for all generic, unnamed banekins and therefore there should not be any distinctions made.

Another point of view states that those pages, e.g., Online:Dog, do not merely contain information on generic creatures. They also have lists of unique creatures and some of them also list quests related to the species. Therefore, this page differs from the pages of unique creatures (which contain only information specific to each individual creature) and needs to be listed "separately", at the top of the list, like it is done here: Category:Online-Creatures-Dog.

Initial discussion can be found here. Thoughts, comments, suggestions?  ~Shuryard (talk) 16:23, 19 May 2015 (GMT)

That's right. There are currently 123 categories that this applies to. Out of them only 5/6 had their 'species' pages sorted Shuryard's way. The Skyrim and Oblivion for evidence that 'my' way is the way it has been done, though I am noticing in those categories that the 'species' pages are not part of the categories at all. In particular I'd point out Skyrim:Dragon, and others like it (werewolf, vampire), which show the extreme levels of information yet still are categorized by the fact you can find creatures by the page name. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:07, 19 May 2015 (GMT)

Shuryard compares Dog to Banekin, you compare Shuryard way to Silencer way... But which one is which? I personally prefer the banekin way -- SarthesArai ^Talk 18:19, 19 May 2015 (GMT)

Silencer is the Banekin, Shuryard is the Dog. Also, when I touched the categories yesterday I left cat and dog alone because I wasn't sure there were any unnamed ones. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:28, 19 May 2015 (GMT)

There are. Most of the Cats and Dogs are just name Cat and Dog. Jeancey (talk) 18:42, 19 May 2015 (GMT)

User-edited maps for lore pages?

So, I want to create a series of images for applicable lore place pages which highlight their respective locations on official maps. I believe this is just as helpful, if not moreso, as in-game screenshots. They give the reader a better understanding of the topics place in Tamriel than we could hope to convey in an image caption or in text. They also better compliment the lore section. But if you disagree with this whole idea, now's the time to object.

It took a while, but thanks to Sean in the wiki chat and "Tecnotronic" at myfonts.com, I found out the fonts used on Anthology map and the Skyrim map respectively.

Before delving too far into this project, I wanted to get some feedback on the best way to go about this. I've uploaded two examples for a map to add to Lore:Greymoor:Sample 1 and Sample 2.

Clearly, I could put a lot more effort into matching the appearance of the added text precisely with the other text on the maps, but this would sometimes entail a lot more effort for what I think would be very little gain. Also, it could be detrimental; I think it's better if the topic location is more noticeable on the map than the surrounding annotations, anyways.

1. Which approach in the examples do you like best? The bolder text of Sample 1, or the skinnier text of Sample 2? Is to okay if the subject place is off-center as needed to accommodate preexisting text, as in Sample 1, or should the top priority be to center the image on the subject topic like in Sample 2? And I can take what you like from each, if it comes to it. Is the size okay? I'll try to stick to a 4:3 aspect ratio across the board.

2. How should such a map be named? In this case, I used the Skyrim map, because it illustrates the crossroads where Greymoor is located. Previous user-edited game maps used the abbreviation for the game; see here and here ("OB" for Oblivion). However, these images I'm planning would be intended for use in the lore section. If they are considered lore images, I'm still a little unclear. The Anthology is labelled "Lore", but the help page says Lore images should use the abbreviation "LO".

3. This is only tangentially related, but our previous discussions on the user-edited images of the Cyrodiil regions (like the Blackwood image linked above) kind of fizzled out, despite no clear opposition to the images (see here and here). Like I said, I find these images extraordinarily helpful, and both the articles in those examples would be greatly improved by re-adding the images, with captions noting they're approximations of the regions circa 3E 433. If there are no further thoughts, it is long, long past overdue to act on this issue.

Obviously, I will seek active permission on the respective talk pages for any map I want to add, on a case-by-case basis. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 00:16, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

I don't have an issue with it on the articles, but if there is an in-game image, I believe that should take precedence. Obviously this isn't an issue for those locations for which we basically only know the physical location and nothing else. But I don't think it should replace in-game images as the primary image on the page. Jeancey (talk) 00:23, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

I knew I was forgetting some issue. I can put these elsewhere on the page or in a gallery. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 00:38, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

Being crazy about maps, I must say that I like that idea very much. But I don't think you even need to match the appearance of the map that precisely. This lore article about the Dwemer ruins I once wrote uses a map of them which I created (yes, it's named wrong because I made it during my early days here), and nobody objected to it so far, even despite the somewhat poor quality of the map in the background (as far as I know, we don't have a better scan). As for the modified maps of the Cyrodiil regions, I also find them extremely useful. Also, I agree with Jeancey that screenshots should take precedence.

On another note, user-edited maps are desperately necessary on lore pages of the regions like Craglorn or Stonefalls, simply because there is no official map which would show where these regions are. The closest one would be the one used for Enodoc's future ESO zones map, but as you can see, the labels and some missing borders still have to be added by the users. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 00:45, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

When there are no official maps with the location marked I agree having user modified ones to show the location is a good thing. However I would prefer they was no attempt to make them look like they 'belong' on the map (eg using the same script). The image should be establishing the location of the place, so off-center (even to accommodate a large city etc) is better than centered but leaving the placement as vague as if it wasn't even there. Images should be named LO, as that's where all the images will end up. Also, what are the thoughts on putting a map link to one of our online maps on lore pages (eg Greymoor to Fort Greymoor on the Skyrim map)? Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:01, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

Would you be satisfied with the general approach in Sample 1, then, Silencer? I think using the same font is important for aesthetics, but it can still be differentiated so no one would mistake it for an official work, if that's your concern. I can also remove the settlement icon and shift the text up, to leave the exact placement more vague. As for map links, I'm not sure. There are enough what-have-yous for it to probably merit a separate discussion. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 01:25, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

I think you could use a different icon, not taken from the map, but just a completely different one, this way you would immediately notice the place in question - and I believe that was Silencer's point. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 01:32, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

Maybe not 'no attempt', the icon with straighter text or something, just so long as they aren't going to fool someone into thinking its actually on the map. I was saying having an image off-center if needed to make a location more clear is fine by me, rather than centered images that were still vague in terms of where a place is in relation to nearby settlements or landmarks. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:50, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

I personally also prefer Sample 1, as it shows the location in context with its surroundings a bit better. The location needs to be in-keeping with the map style, but I also agree with Silencer in that it shouldn't look like it's directly part of the map. Vordur's Dwemer Ruins map is a good example of this, as the locations are in-keeping with the style but have still clearly been added afterwards. Regarding names, I think they should be named Lore-, as that is the prevalent convention. I also think the naming guidelines should be altered to reflect what is actually in majority use. There are a whole 4 images using LO-, whereas there are currently over 100 using Lore-. On the Cyrodiil regions, some of them probably should be re-added, but each needs to be handled case-by-case, as I would be more opposed to re-adding Nibenay Valley's map, for example, to Blackwood's map. --Enodoc (talk) 08:50, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

I've never been a fan of user-modified maps in lorespace, and I have the same concern with making them look too official. these maps are good examples of when labels really need to be added for clarity's sake. I think it would be more appropriate if the map was zoomed out farther (or not cropped at all) and marked with something more akin to a red X than identical fonts. —Legoless (talk) 12:32, 21 May 2015 (GMT)

(←) I noticed that Vordur used the Skyrim map font for his additions to the Anthology map in his Dwemer Ruins map. Why not just continue that, and flip the fonts around? Use the Anthology font for additions to the Skyrim map, and vice versa? That way, the user-added text would be distinguished, but we're still utilizing a known lore-friendly font for the additions? Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 00:30, 22 May 2015 (GMT)

Yeah that could work quite well. You could also try using a map-like icon that doesn't actually appear on the map itself, like a cross No, or the general Landmark icon , but recoloured to be in map-brown. --Enodoc (talk) 08:16, 22 May 2015 (GMT)

Okay, see examples three and four (the labels are all screwy, but they're gonna be renamed or deleted eventually anyways). I used the red X to mark the spot, and bolded "Greymoor" in the Anthology font. Sample 4 is the same, but zoomed in more than Sample 3 to focus on Whiterun Hold generally. I think this makes it look better as a thumbnail; it's hard to make out Sample 3 in default thumbnail size. See here currently for an example of how Sample 4 would look on the Greymoor lore page.

Should the caption on the lore page note that it is "user-generated" or something of that nature? The image summaries for these maps will always make that explicit, by the way, I'm just wondering how the caption should read on the lore pages. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 00:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit Buttons Back to Right

For those of you who don't like the newer style of having the edit buttons right next to the title, I've imported the gadget from Wikipedia that puts them back on the right. Just go to your preferences and in the Gadgets tab, it's listed last in the "Interface Gadgets" section. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:18, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Prev: Archive 45

Up: Community Portal

Next: Archive 47