UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 53

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.

Win One of Many 2018 Tamriel Calenders

Just in case you didn't catch this topic on the AN...all wiki editors can enter their e-mail and user name here for a chance to win one of many 2018 Tamriel Calendars. Everyone else is also free to enter this drawing as there will one drawing for wiki editors and another drawing for everyone else. -- Daveh ^(talk) 19:30, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Just received mine in the mail today. Thanks very much! And to the people who took the screenshots used, they are very gorgeous! --Rezalon (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

New Project Proposal: Modspace

You guys have probably noticed that I've been grumbling for a while about how inaccessible Modspace is, both to readers trying to find stuff, and to editors trying to add stuff. The issue for readers comes from Modspace not being centre-stage like every other aspect of the Elder Scrolls series, despite the fact that modding is an integral part of it. The issue for editors I think comes from the Modspace guidelines – they're too restrictive, discouraging participation for fear of poor quality and incomplete documentation of mods. And those together leave modspace as the empty, barren land that it is today. "Cover fewer mods and mod subjects" is just an awful guideline to base a wiki on. We want modspace to be different from other sites that document mods, sure, but in doing so, we have stifled all development within those namespaces. All we have info on aside from a couple of random Morrowind mods, a few odd pages of mod lists, and people's favourite mods, is essentially a whole other gamespace covering TR3, as well as one for TR4 (and the beginnings of one for BS5).

The issue here I think is the (albeit logical) focus of "modspace" on "the mods". The guidelines mention only starting pages when you're ready to write in-depth articles on "the mods", and guides for players of "the mods". But I think that approach needs to be re-evaluated. As is mentioned in the guidelines already, there are other sites out there for giving details on "the mods". So how do we document "the mods" in detail without copying existing sites? Having just started playing Skyrim with mods for the first time, I think I have the answer – we don't! We should do it the same way we document everything else: we focus on "the content" as a whole, not the individual packages that deliver it.

Take Falskaar, the preeminent New Lands mod for Skyrim. Lots of sites can give information on "the mod", but where do you need to go for walkthroughs and information on "the content"? The TES Mods wiki at Wikia. That's the sort of stuff we should have in modspace. And there's no reason it should just be for large mods like Falskaar; take SWIFT, Winterhold Extended Ruins, Apocalypse, Cutting Room Floor, hell even Immersive Hold Borders or Blackreach Railroad; all of those mods have content that we could (and in many cases, should), be documenting.

We will still want too distinguish ourselves from other sites, but not with "depth over breadth", "utility over exhaustion", or the extremely harsh "no stubs". That hasn't served us well at all, and has just stifled our modspace to the extent that we have proper documentation of exactly one mod for each game, out of potentially thousands. Depth, yes. Utility, yes. But no longer at the expense of small mods – their inclusion should be based on the quality of their content, their lore-friendliness, and their immersion. These things don't get thousands of endorsements on Nexus by being of poor quality.

Project Aims

Open documentation style for mods, the same as for any of the main games.

Gamespace-style layout - except for content of New Lands mods, everything should be documented under TesXMod, not in subpages upon subpages, to make it easier to navigate.

If you find something, document it! If it's from a mod we haven't started documenting yet, we can review as we go along.

Rewrite the modspace guidelines to be less restrictive to new content.

Encouraging, not dissuading, participation in mod documentation.

Ensuring quality using processes in-line with the rest of the wiki, rather than heavy-handed policing.

Make our Modspace the best source of Elder Scrolls mod content documentation.

We're already the best source of Elder Scrolls official content documentation; time to expand out remit!

Updating and expanding our modspace to embrace the modding scene should go some way to making us the pre-eminent source of mod "content" documentation, just as we already are for all the official stuff. And that's how I arrive at what I want this project to be, with the Modspace "open documentation style" proposal, addressing content explanation.

That's right, it's the Modspace project! (Check the letters.) Because that is, literally, what it is. --Enodoc (talk) 01:12, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to say it and get shouted at for it, but while the mod spaces should be more open (and let me once again argue for Arena and Daggerfall modspaces to be created), there does need to be some restriction on what gets covered. I.e. we should not go from "fewer in detail" to "anything and everything". Certainly mods of the type you mention should get coverage, but a mod that adds a weapon or costume from another game would not be in my eyes how we should spend our time, or more precisely your time. You'll no doubt tell me that was never intended anyway, but the earlier this is said the less likely it will need said. Just for good measure given how big this discussion will be, these pages should not be advertisements for the mods, and should also not be seen as endorsements of them, in the same way that we do not endorse the unofficial patches. That said I am willing to help as much as I can, because this can only be good for the wiki. A couple of opinions then to round it out; "depth" should probably be at least two paragraphs or else it's unlikely to need coverage, host the readmes if we have a mod covered, don't be stingy and encourages use; no stubs, but it doesn't need to be complete before it can be created, the technical parts of a mod will not be understood by everyone so there may not be a lot of people able to write about even big mods. Finally, we should start by covering more on how to create a mod, not just having the technical information listed as we do now (lists of console commands, what abbreviations stand for etc). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 02:17, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

I think this is a very good idea and Silencer also makes some important points. Our modspaces are the weakest sections on the wiki, especially ESOMod. We should aim to cover all large mods, and (large) new lands mods should get their own pseudo-namespaces like Tamriel Rebuilt. As Silencer said, I think it's best to focus on these larger mods first because there is a much greater chance people will be searching for them. Although we shouldn't encourage or endorse any specific mod, the top endorsements lists on the Nexus are probably a good guideline for where to start. In Tes5Mod, that would make SkyUI a high priority.

I'm guessing we are not going to document total conversion mods such as Nehrim and Enderal. Not sure if these count as mods so much as different games. I'm bringing it up because it's an inevitable question. If the answer is indeed yes, we should add a note about it to our content guidelines (where we currently say "Depth over Breadth").

A note for wiki users who haven't noticed the change yet. Enodoc created the Mods portal, which was discussed back on the Sidebar Redesign topic. I added it to the sidebar as was agreed. This is an important piece of this project already done: a central set of links to relevant pages, just as Skyrim:Skyrim works for Skyrim. Also not long ago, I added links to TR3, Stirk, and Beyond Skyrim on their relevant mod pages under the "Mods" bullet. We should continue to follow this format for any other new lands mods that get pseudo-namespaces. The Mods portal has plenty of room to expand!

Enodoc didn't mention it, but I suppose this is an official wikiproject like SRQRP? It's always good to have a project page and ribbon to encourage users and keep a task list (in this case, specific mods probably). —Dillonn241 (talk) 05:06, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah there would have to be an ongoing discussion on how we decide which mods to include, but I didn't want to focus my opening post around that, since that goes back to decisions based on "the mods" and not "the content", which is what I'm trying to move away from. If a mod adds significant "content", be that quests, places, characters, items, or spells, then there's a good chance it could be included. Lore-friendliness is a good measure there, as that is a content-based decision. A single weapon or item from another game would likely not make the cut based on that measure. I also completely agree on not being advertisements or endorsements of the mods; the content should be impartial and informational, the same as everything else. A page that is about the mod itself should take the format of a DLC page, linking out to the main content pages in the same way those do. This would include links to Nexus (or wherever else) for the technical information and actual file downloads. Having more information on how to create mods is definitely something that we need as well, but is not my initial focus for the project. (However, if anyone would be interested in taking the lead in branching the project out that way, I'd be happy to include it.)

Agreed that the top endorsements are a good place to start. SkyUI, as well as the ESOMod namespace as a whole, are a bit of a hard thing to tackle as they do not introduce new content. The only thing that is affected by SkyUI, or by any add-on for ESO, is the user interface. I agree that they need to be covered, but we will need a longer discussion to determine actually how to do that. I hadn't even considered total conversions, but I think they are really beyond the scope of the project (at least for the time being), particularly since I think those two have pretty active wikis of their own anyway.

And yes, this would be an official project with a project page, task list, and ribbon. But I don't actually know how one of those gets approved and comes into existence, which is why I brought it here first. Presumably we just need a consensus of "yes", and then I can go ahead and create the page. --Enodoc (talk) 16:01, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

We should definitely cover those projects even if they aren't changing the games themselves. They might not want us to do much if they have their own wiki's, but as with other things we should definitely have at least a page on them. Some of them might not come under the mod header like Uutak Mythos, or even cover more than one game, so a page in General at least. But even an engine change is still a "modification" to the game, and is therefore within the scope of the modspaces. I don't see that lore-friendliness should even be a consideration, as some of the bigger mods just ignore that aspect in order to bring massive overhauls of specific types (eg crossovers from other series like Fallout or Star Wars). As for the project, you basically just write it and tell people you are doing it and wait for them to tell them you are doing something not-quite-right, or write it, ask for it to be checked for accuracy/presentation, and then tell people you are doing it. The scope of the project indicates when it should begin too, eg a cleanup project needs pages to be almost complete, but a writing project can start fairly quickly. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 19:51, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

(←) If it means I get to create an article for Bravil Sea Domes, I am for this proposal. —Legoless (talk) 21:28, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Project page created, list of top downloads/endorsements coming soon as a starting point. Please have a read through! --Enodoc (talk) 01:17, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Just because I forgot to update this at the time, I have added a mod list as a starting point. In addition to drawing from the list of "Most Endorsed (all time)", it also includes some of the top endorsements in the individual categories. --Enodoc (talk) 15:22, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Legends interview with Pete Hines

Hey everyone, I just got confirmation that we’ll have an interview with Pete Hines concerning Legends and I like to collect questions from the community. I made 5 categories for which I like to have at least a couple of questions:

1. Gameplay
2. Card design
3. Art
4. Music
5. Lore

I like to hear your questions for Pete and try my best to make it a coherent interview. --Ilaro (talk) 21:23, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Favourite card art? Favourite card?

Favourite attribute/class to play?

Will we be getting an OST release now that the Heroes of Skyrim theme is retired?

Should Kellen be treated as an unreliable narrator from a lore perspective? Will we ever get to learn more about his character background?

Which story mode match did you find most difficult?

Which AI opponent do you most dread matching against in arena mode?

Will card sets ever be retired?

Has Todd ever beaten you? 😁

—Legoless (talk) 21:39, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Lore question: Is the Cognitum Centralis in ESO and Legends the same room as Sotha Sil's Dome from Tribunal? T J (talk) 23:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I apologize for my English and will appreciate if my questions would be reworded if necessary.

Were the developers able to consult with the loremasters from Zenimax/Bethesda? If so, how the process would look like?

Are there going to be more portraits of different races than just four for each of them?

Why some argonians don't seem to have tails? Why does this handsome argonian have hair?

Will we ever see flavour lore snippets on cards?

What year it is when Kellen tells his stories?

Phoenix Neko (talk) 23:08, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Some questions from Discord:

• Is offline play going to happen? (from Dwarfmp)
• Is there going to be another expansion like HoS or are they focusing on new stories? (from me)
• Are they going to continue the sort-of tie-in with ESO? (And he’s not going to answer this part I’m sure, but is there going to be a story involving Summerset Isles) (from me)
• How does Kellen know these stories? When is he telling the stories? (from me)
• Gameplay-wise: are they planning on adding more cards with Banish/more cards where the player does damage with their face or are those one-off mechanics? (from me)
• How do they decide what mechanics to add next? (from me)
• Soundtrack/art book when? (from me)
• What made them decide to do a card game? (I remember reading that it was in the works before Hearthstone went to beta, not sure if it was after Hearthstone was announced or not) (from Alarra)

--FioFioFio (talk) 23:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Fio already listed my main question, but one additional one: any chance of seeing M'aiq in the future? (I think having occasional load screen text with unique M'aiq art would be a fun way to do it.) ~ Alarra ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:24, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Rules for the Discord server

There's a discussion about rules for the UESP Discord server taking place here. Since this is something that affects all users who want to use our server, I'm encouraging people to get involved. --FioFioFio (talk) 01:46, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Main/News Pages

Damon mentioned to me earlier today that the Main Page was getting a bit long on the news side. Looking at it, I have to agree. Looking through the history of the News page, it looks like we used to only keep a few months' worth of articles, but over time, the number of articles has increased very gradually, until now, it's almost a year's worth. Does anyone see any issues with bringing this back down to a few months (or maybe a specified number of articles), and documenting that policy as part of the News page itself? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 22:05, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

There's no issue. It should be somewhere between 6 and 10 articles depending on time, importance, relevance, and a small concern for overall length. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I agreed with Silencer. Also, articles older than 6 months are barely "news" anymore. --Ilaro (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

It's currently 18 articles long, a trim is long overdue. —likelolwhat ^{talk lulzy to me} 22:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I think mews posts more than 3 months old (if even that old) are no longer particularly relevant anymore. When I asked RH about cutting back on the length of the main page a bit, I suggested archiving all posts prior to the November 1 one. That leaves six news articles. Since they are all always roughly the same length of 1-5 sentences or so on average, for my screen and resolution, that trim would line up roughly with the end of the DYK section opposite the news, both when I'm full screen and just using a small amount of my screen, though your mileage may vary. So that the main page doesn't end up too stupidly long with old news, keeping it back to about 5-7 of the most recent news articles at any one time or three months worth depending on how busy the site is for news seems like a good line to keep it at.

Most of the news articles of the last year were either announcing a release or announcing something in a game that was time-sensitive, so it shouldn't be too controversial to trim back to November 1 as the oldest shown post and then get into the habit of taking one off when you add one, because by the time an article hits the bottom of the 5-7 post line, what's in it was probably no longer important anyway. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 23:32, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

You guys mean that the September free weekend for Skyrim isnt relevant anymore? *gasp* Timeoin (talk) 23:34, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay, it sounds like we're all roughly in agreement, so I think it's reasonable to snowball this. I'll give it until about this time tomorrow and if there are no objections or alternate suggestions, I'll come up with something for the News page that summarizes people's opinions here, then archive the remainder. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:40, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

(←) I've been largely managing the archiving for the past few years and usually go by a one-year rule when removing old articles. I think a bit of length is good, even if the old stuff isn't relevant anymore. That said, archive away. —Legoless (talk) 18:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

How does that look? And did I miss anything? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 22:05, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

ESO : Clockwork city DLC

I just completed the "Of knives and long shadows" quest and i started the "To the Clockwork City" quest. I dont own the DLC. If i enter it and leave it will i wont be able to enter it again? Everything seems right. I see and can talk to Divayth Fyr, i can enter the Secret Cavern. What do i do? — Unsigned comment by ‎149.154.220.148 (talk) at 17:10 on 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I'd just try to go forward to see if it worked. If I had to guess, you have ESO+ and can do it without owning the DLC. Either way though, I'd just give it a try. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 17:10, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Interaction Ban policy - reply time limits

Today it was brought up that the interaction ban's policy of waiting 24 hours for a reply really doesn't translate that well to Discord, and I was talking to both AKB and RobinHood individually about it, and we feel that there's a discussion to be had to potentially change this part of the policy, so I figured I'd bring it up here for other people to give some input. The policy currently states for that part of it:

"Editor B has already contributed to a discussion, Editor A needs to (a) think carefully about whether any contribution is appropriate (e.g., is the information new and important to the discussion) (b) wait long enough (e.g., 24 hours or more) before responding so that it's clear to everyone the comments are not being made hastily or emotionally (c) make absolutely sure that the comments are on topic and do not violate any of the above prohibitions. Editor A can edit an article previously edited by the Editor B, but only if at least 24 hours has passed — and even then, cannot simply undo Editor A's edits. This condition is to ensure that the restrictions don't effectively make every article on the site off-limits for editing if one (or both editors) have contributed widely to the site.

That's a bit long in most cases, and Rob said there's at least one other pair with an interaction ban that doesn't necessarily keep strictly to that time limit, just follows the spirit of the interaction ban. I agree that as long as the conversation is on topic and not emotionally charged, especially if not directly replying to each other, there doesn't necessarily need to be a limit, or at least not as long of one: it seems that as it currently stands, the policy is hindering progress more than it's preventing potential problems.

• So, should there be a limit when the conversation isn't emotional?
• If so, what should the limit on the wiki be, since 24 hours is a bit long?
• What should the limit on Discord be, since it's much faster-moving than the wiki (during its fastest times there can be hundreds of messages in a single channel in less than half an hour) so we all agree that the 24-hr time limit between messages there really isn't feasible. My idea for this one was maybe 10 min during those fastest times and maybe 30 min - 1 hr for average use. ~ Alarra ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:19, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

The 24 hours only applies to wiki articles, nothing else. There are two separate points on the policy page which you merged here. The restriction on replies is a suggested example, and could probably be cut to a 3 hour example, though anything less than that can still work if the reply follows the other parts of the ban. 1 hour would probably be more than enough, but as it is only a suggested example I'd like to see it say something a bit longer than that.

As that rule was clearly written for the wiki, Discord can have its own rule in this matter. It only defaults to these as it has not written anything specific, just as the wiki defaults to wikipedia on matters it doesn't have its own policies for. Given how quickly discussions can happen and evolve and even move away from the original topic, in real-time chat, I'm not sure it is at all possible to enforce a time-limit on replies and have that reply have any meaning. I would suggest that on Discord there be a tighter watch on "keep it on topic" and "avoid derailing" instead. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 19:58, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

This is definitely something I think we're going to have to "massage" a bit as we go, because even allowing that the original policy was written with a wiki in mind, I agree with Silencer that a 24-hour limit seems excessive. I believe the goal should be simply to avoid hostile replies or digs. Granted, there may be times when even a positive reply can be taken the wrong way, but I think that's for each affected pair of people to figure out, falling back on a strict interpretation of the rules only as a last resort.

As an example, if I posted a request (here or in Discord), saying "I remember a page that says X, does anyone know where that is?", and AKB replies to me a few seconds later with the information I'm looking for, I'm honestly not going to care a) that is was him that replied or b) that a specific amount of time hadn't passed yet. I'm far more likely to thank him and move on. If anything, I think we should be encouraging that kind of positive interaction, even in spite of an interaction ban. I think the goal of an interaction ban should be to keep two people apart when and for however long they need it, but at the same time, to try to encourage them back to at least professionally cordial interactions if possible.

To summarize, I don't think there should really be a hard set of rules here, unless it's absolutely required for the two individuals involved. To quote one of my favourite movies, I think we should look at them as "more what you call guidelines than actual rules". ;) – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:00, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Page split-and-merge proposed

Please see Morrowind talk:Special Magic Armor#Merge this page away. Summary: they all either generic or are quest items, so the page of 6 items is pointless and confusing. Update: Proposal also covers Morrowind:Special Magic Weapons. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 03:40, 2 March 2018 (UTC); updated: 03:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Improvement to "Key" tables for quest indices

The CSS tweak made here should be applied to all the quest index pages, to make them easier to visually understand.

The difference:

Before	After
Denotes a required path. You must complete this before starting the subsequent quest. Denotes an optional path or quest.	Denotes a required path. You must complete this before starting the subsequent quest. Denotes an optional path or quest.

I don't have time to do this myself right now. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 10:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

PS: If all these keys say the same thing, just make it a template, instead of manually having it in all such pages. :-) — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 10:37, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree, much more visually readable, and a Chart Key template should be made along the lines of the quest objective notes and other table keys. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 15:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

ESO NPCs without obvious unique dialogue options

Many NPCs in ESO cannot be activated ("talked to"). They still might offer generic greetings or comments when passing by or trying to activate them without apparent success, ie without opening a dialog window (like "Hm?" "Hello" "I need a break" etc.)

One thing I haven't seen documented anywhere (if it is, feel free to link examples) is that these very generic-appearing NPCs will rarely but offer quest- and location-specific comments the same way (passing them or trying to activate them). I don't mean ones like "So, you're the one who saved the queen, eh? You don't look that special," which is quest-specific, but basically any Altmer anywhere can say it randomly after completing A Hostile Situation.

I mean comments from "locals" who will have unique comments sometimes even depending on the quest stage. These unique lines will not have a subtitle and may not be repeated ever after again, so they are very easy to miss. For example, I've only ever heard Eafinme say the line I documented on her page after completing the Haven objective but not leaving the area after completion. If you leave the area and return at a later point, you may never hear it. Also, she never repeated it. (Only ever tested with two characters, so might not completely be true.) Same with e. g. Manroth. I only noted these because I made a video at that time of the gameplay. I have some more to add as I'm paying attention to them now, but I totally missed these before. I think these comments are worth noting on the character's pages. (Otherwise, you might miss out on some fun. Like in the case of Glarin.)

My point is, there are lots and lots of NPCs who, despite mostly acting like moving decoration, might actually have something unique about them-which also sounds like a lot of hassle to check, re-check and document. On a lot of pages, I noted these NPCs as having no unique dialogue earlier, which might not be the case at all.

I am very much open to suggestions on how to best document these. This looks like a lot of work. Cheers, Cailin (talk) 21:26, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

It's about two different things. Some NPCs, while not offering the conversation window, do have lines unique just to them, which they deliver when approached or "activated" with the action key. These should be just documented on their pages. The other thing you mentioned are lines that depend on your quest progress and usually on the race of the NPC (this can lead to funny situations like Ashlanders praising the Three). I believe someone once wanted to document them on a page called Online:Rumors or something like that, but it never happened. Still, I believe the idea was good, and it would be really cool to have such a page. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 21:49, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I would be inclined to emulate the Daggerfall namespace's implementation of universal quest-related dialogue (i.e. placing the rumour at the bottom of the page) for ESO quest pages, by placing a Notes section saying something like 'After completing of this quest, male Bretons will say "Sud-Hareem's a friend of mine."' For individual NPC's specific quest-related dialogue, I would argue in favour of placing these on individual NPC pages. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 21:52, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Update: In addition, an Online:Rumours page would be quite nice, so I've gone ahead and tried out a mockup on User:Fullerton/Sandbox5. I think a page like that would be quite beneficial to people wanting to track down dialogue they've heard. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 22:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Nice to know others also call those lines rumors! I've added them earlier to some quest pages, but if we're to collect them, I can surely contribute. This way it might be easier to note if a quest's rumors are already documented or not. Cailin (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Seeing no opposition to the implementation of the page, I'll proceed to publish it on Rumors once we resolve the issue of different voicetypes—while all boars and sows talk alike, I'm fairly certain that different ethnic groups have one or two voicetypes between their ethnicity-gender combinations. Ideally the information would be presented in tabulated form rather than in a list, but I'm open to suggestions. Thoughts, anybody? Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 09:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit: It may simply be preferable to use basic descriptors to describe voicetypes, like "human male old" and "young boar", or "stern sow" and "soft Altmer male" since it's unlikely that there are official voicetypes. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 23:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Questions for Bethesda/ZOS/Dire Wolf at PAX East

PAX East is one week away, and I’ll be going - and I even applied and was accepted for a press badge on behalf of the UESP. This means I get to enter the expo hall an hour early, and I was also able to book an hour-long appointment with Bethesda/ZOS to get a hands-on look at the new Legends/ESO expansions and ask questions. However, I really can’t come up with many questions to ask, so I need suggestions! If you have any you’d like me to ask, please let me know here. Note that they typically don’t answer questions about unannounced content (e.g. “where is es6”, “are they ever going to do xyz”) or stuff along the lines of “can you add (thing I think is cool)”. ~ Alarra ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• What happened to the Interactive Map of Tamriel and is there a chance we see it back?
• Was Loremaster's Archives abandoned forever?
• How heavily does Summerset rely on undisclosed Bethesda concepts?
• Were new creatures created from scratch by ZOS?
• Is Artaeum on Nirn or is it on a different plane?

Phoenix Neko (talk) 21:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

A question that you could probably have expected me to ask:

• It says Queen Ayrenn has "opened the borders to foreigners". So what is the status of Summerset with respect to the Three Banners War? Is it considered part of Dominion territory like Auridon, or technically Neutral like Vvardenfell? Or is it similar to Orsinium, with the leader being officially aligned with the Dominion but the territory itself being effectively Neutral?
• Will we see the villages of Potansa and Runcibae in-game, and if so, where are they located?
• Has the lore of the "Sunbirds of Alinor" been expanded upon?
• PSJJJJ are notoriously reclusive and isolationist, with a "complex, ritualized [induction] method not understood by the common people". How did you come to the decision to make them a joinable faction, and what steps have been taken to make sure their legacy of "seclusion" is upheld?

Enodoc (talk) 21:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

BGS question rather than ZOS question:

• Have you played Beyond Skyrim: Bruma, and what do you think of Beyond Skyrim in general?
  • (If there's a generally positive response to that question:) Are you looking forward to the next installment of Beyond Skyrim? Where would you like to see them go next?

Enodoc (talk) 21:20, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Quest-related Dialogue

Recently, I have seen a number of ESO NPC pages utilizing "Quest-related Dialogue" as a header. I believe this is an inadvisably ill-advised turn of phrase, as this precludes other quest-related events, such as Spinner Maruin ditching his title to become simply Maruin at the conclusion of Throne of the Wilderking, or quest-related followers who tag along for the sake of it. While I understand that some NPCs are truly limited to dialogue in quests, this set shouldn't detract from conformity and uniformity among our NPC pages in the ESOspace. I propose that "Quest-related Dialogue" is switched to "Quest-related Events" so that non-dialogue events can be included too (e.g. Kor meeting you outside Anvil). Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 09:09, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I believe "Quest-related Events" has been the standard for years anyway. Any dialogue that falls outside of a quest would typically found in other sections/headers like the lede or "Other Dialogue" --Jimeee (talk) 11:57, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Remember to properly capitalise it (Quest-Related Events). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:27, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

A second phenomenon I have observed is the tendency to place all dialogue, quest-related or no, into the "Dialogue" section. I believe this should be reserved for non-quest-related events, because otherwise the "Quest-Related Events" section becomes limited to purely non-dialogical events such as "Almalexia is in the temple. See #Dialogue for what she says to you". I'm inclined to suggest that all ESO NPC pages are brought back into line with uniformity. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 23:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Its likely people are placing all dialogue under one heading (I've done it myself) is because its a quick place to dump text without thinking too much about page structure or flow. Solid, standardized NPC articles take time to develop and they will eventually I'm sure (there are just too many NPCS in this game) but at least if the dialogue is all there its better than nothing. --Jimeee (talk) 08:18, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

TES5Mod: Mod Authors

In the past, the UESP has had a number of discussions regarding documentation of modifications ("mods") in the TES5Mod space. With the implementation of the Creation Club, the Bethesda seeks to more directly interface with a constituency of the community—the mod authors. With these mod authors becoming a more active part of official releases, it's about time we begin documenting them as official content creators and community members, much like the page for Michael Kirkbride. It may be worth listing Skyrim mod authors who make mods and work on Creation Club, as they may become more prominent in official materials in the near future. As an example, I have created a mockup of a potential infobox for mod authors at User:Fullerton/Sandbox2 (as yet incomplete, and will need work later) and an example of a potential mod author page at User:Fullerton/Sandbox4 (Elianora). Would these be considered adequate, and do you all agree with this format for the documentation of mod authors? Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 10:31, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, and I'd be happy to include that theoretically as part of the Modspace Project if you like, but we may need to have a discussion about where these would live, since authors may well have authored for more than one game. --Enodoc (talk) 16:48, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

No. Our focus is and should be on the content, not the people. The people we do document are generally extremely notable for their contributions involvement in the ES games. These authors will mostly fail the notability clause for documenting people as per wikipedia, nevermind the limited number of people we document due to their relevance to ES fans. They are not anywhere near as notable or comparable to the actual production staff of the games that we don't document either. Not only that, but we should really be spending our time on documenting the mods before we get anywhere near the back-end stuff like totting up who was involved in what, and wasting our time on making special cases out of a few select mod creators.

If and only if, the only logical place to put the pages would be in General, due to authors not being confined by one game. All people really want when they look at an authors page anyway is a list of what else they have created. This can easily be accomplished by creating categories, which might also help to push the modspace project along, as the only way a mod would get into the category is for someone to write a page for that mod (Mods-Authors-). This could be linked through the front page of each modspace. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:56, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Saying that though, you bring up a good point with categories, and we could always go down the (seemingly-taboo?) route of "category pages" if we want to add a bit more info. --Enodoc (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

We document content that TES fans follow. Many TES fans follow individual mod authors to monitor their releases, and there is no reason that we shouldn't attempt to retain their viewership here by providing author information on this website. And at the rate that Creation Club is currently progressing, many mod authors will be making multiple mod releases per year, and at that point they become consistently-releasing TES creators. I would say this makes mod authors candidates for documentation, and I'm not asking to document randoms - merely Creation Club content contributors. Per Enodoc, Category articles seem (as well as inherently repugnant) to be an odd solution as they do remove the mod authors from any content space, which may make them harder to find and more inconsistent per gamespace articles. And it may be helpful to have mod author documentation on the Modspace project, as it provides an umbrella for mod documentation. I can see the concern about multiple games, but I cannot see the issue as of now based on the fact that if we only count official contributors, we only have authors for Skyrim (and Fallout 4, though that's hardly relevant). Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 23:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

We don't document content that TES fans follow, we document the games, and by that I mean the content of the games. Everything else is supplementary. We siphon off the coding data to modspace, we document the companies making the games and extremely notable persons involved with them, we document a few of the more notable interviews, etc etc. As I already said, I know people follow particular authors/modders, but we should not be documenting them as "people", they have done nothing to deserve that any more than any other person who has worked on the games or their add-ons. This isn't about profiling Creation Club authors over randoms, its about elevating them above those who did far more work making the actual games the Creations are such a small part of. Who said anything about butchering the category namespace? All it would be is "This category lists the Creations author by xxx.", the same as any other category. There is then a list of the Creations below that in alphabetical order. Half the authors seem to be unknown anyway, its not like Bethesda is providing a comprehensive list of all the authors, so you are potentially advocating elevating those who are known above those who have done more work with Creations simply because you don't know the full facts. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:03, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

As long as there is a lot of content to be put on mod author pages, I can't see a chance of any worthless articles undermining the wiki.

In the absence of any UESP policies relating to the notability of real-world people, we fall back to Wikipedia and their policies on the matter. Whether the community decides to branch out in another direction is another thing. Mod author pages could be handled on a case-by-case basis. •D. G.|Talk|Work• 19:06, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) With the advent of the Modspace Project, mod authors are going to become more notable on-wiki. Now I don't agree that all mod authors have to be documented, and I specifically believe that having worked on official content (i.e. Creation Club) should be the precondition to working on this sort of thing. This will limit mod author documentation to very few people, and those people are certain to be documented. — Unsigned comment by Fullerton (talk • contribs) at 23:16 on 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Skyrim Ingredient Combinations Tables

Discussion moved from User talk:Dillonn241#Alchemy

Can I ask why you have added only a select few combinations for each ingredient. For instance there are at least 6 4-effect combinations for Troll Fat include Two-handed, but you haven't included any, and at least 53 possible 3-effect combinations that include Two-handed but you only have one 3-effect potion listed and it isn't one of them. You also haven't listed a single 3-ingredient potion anywhere. There are also the potions that change depending on whether you have the Purity perk to remove positive and negative effects from poisions and potions respectively, but we can pursue that later. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:17, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

If I missed any two ingredient combinations, that is my own fault and I'll go ahead and fix them. However, the intention was to put only two ingredient combinations because, simply put, there are far too many three ingredients ones. I originally thought to put a select few three ingredient potions—those that unlock all four effects on the primary ingredient and those that have five effects (no six effect potions exist). Otherwise, you end up with a list that's 10x longer than the current one, and not really useful. Just imagine trying to find the ones that work for the ingredients you have. We wouldn't list duplicates (Honeycomb + Bee, Bee + Honeycomb) so they would be scattered throughout the list.

The idea with two ingredients is that you can fairly easily create three ingredient combinations from the list. Just select an ingredient and then another one from either the first ingredient's list or the second ingredient's list that contains another effect. Doing this, it's easy to see when you're creating a redundant three ingredient potion that can be reduced to two. It's also trivial to find potions with many effects; look for ingredients near the top. Perhaps I should add a note at the beginning of the combinations section explaining this? Or if you think it's a good plan, I could add the select few three ingredient potions I mentioned below the two ingredient ones.

As for the Purity perk, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I'm pretty sure the way the perk works, you can determine what changes for a given potion. Am I wrong? —Dillonn241 (talk) 22:43, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

That is not consistent with our presentation of information. There is no logic to neglecting three-ingredient potions as it is not "easy" to see what else you can add, as the possibilities are just so huge (53 alone for one ingredient for a three-effect potion with three ingredients). Even just using the effect rather than the third ingredient leaves that example around 20 options. Every one of those 53 is a unique combination of three ingredients, there are none that are just the same ingredients in a different order. The two-effect potion is just duplicating the effects page, where it is far more useful with its list of all the ingredients that mixed together give that effect (and sometimes more). The Purity perk is easy to work out, but still changes a three-effect potion into a two-effect potion, making it uncertain which table it should belong to. That is why on the Useful Potions page there are separate tables for with and without the perk.

I don't understand your intentions behind this. If it is for useful combinations then there are far more useful potions using three ingredients and hardly any two-effect potions should be there, if any. If it is for learning all the effects using the least amount of potions, then copy the given example from the alchemy page, add in any workable substitutions and be done. If your intent is to list all possible combinations, then you cannot leave out the three-ingredient potions, no matter your scruples about doing the work to figure them all out. That is the reason they were never there in the first place, there are far too many possibilities, and doing 10% or less of the work just makes the pages worse. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 23:16, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with this reply, but I'll offer a compromise. I can add all three ingredient combinations (minus duplicates) below the two ingredient ones, but in a show/hide format. I don't really see the usefulness of such a table; others have confirmed that it is easy enough to find any three ingredient combinations from the tables I added.

Regarding usefulness, this table is far more useful than clicking through various pages to find which ingredients combine with the ingredient you have, especially for multiple effect potions. With this list, you can see all the two ingredient combinations at a glance, and three ingredient combinations with a small amount of work. It's exactly the same thing that ESO ingredient pages do (though ESO purposely makes only a small number of three ingredient combinations possible, allowing a useful table for them).

Finally, leaving out three ingredient combinations was not an act of laziness. I generated the tables with a computer, so generating the others would be trivial. —Dillonn241 (talk) 23:53, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Your intent would be really useful in regards my point making, if I hadn't already made that clear in writing it above. I get you wanted "to put only two ingredient combinations" on the page, but that isn't an intention, that's a cop-out "because, simply put, there are far too many three ingredients ones"; why did you want to put the potions on the page at all? Are you seriously contemplating adding the multitude of possibilities through three-ingredient potions to all the pages? The pure length of those tables is why they are not on there already. The table wouldn't be useful, but neither is a less-than-half-complete table with a few minor possibilities that have no logical basis. We have links to multiple alchemy calculators available, as well as listing all the ingredients on one page which can be used to quickly see what options you have through simple use of ctrl+F. You don't even need that once you have all the effects known in your game as the unavailable options are greyed out. In fact, once you have the effects known the only real use you have for those pages is to find more samples, its far too easy to make good combinations ingame at that point (and the best potions are on the Useful Potions page). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:24, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I won't stop you if you want to undo all 110 edits, but I won't help you either. I think it's a very bad idea. I only suggested the compromise because the way I read your replies made me think that you wanted every combination listed. —Dillonn241 (talk) 00:50, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) While it's certainly subjective, I don't think it's a bad idea to have a list of ingredients that combine well with a given ingredient. It would probably be smaller to do that as a central list, but more intuitive/accessible when there's one on each page. Maybe list potions that are high in value, as well as those with good combinations of effects, like Health Regen + Magicka Regen or whatever. Whatever we do, it seems a bit of a waste to simply undo 100+ edits that have the potential to add useful information to each page. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 01:12, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

As long as Dillon's suggestion of Show/Hides is followed, I really don't see the problem with listing every single combination possible in the game. UESP is an encyclopedic resource of sorts, and there's no problem with completely documenting the games. You won't have to see the ugly lists if they're by default hidden, but those who are interested in gleaning maximum value from an ingredient they're carrying could show the table and see for themselves. I really do believe that the removal of information on pages like this is fatuous and pedantic. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 03:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with Silencer. There is little point in only listing some combinations, because it makes the whole thing feel half-done, whereas whole lists would be, as he says, very long. Nobody is blaming you for laziness though, Dillonn, but if I was crafting potions and was interested in certain combinations I would want a complete picture, hence I would use the alchemy calculators instead. To summarize, I don't think this is a meaningful improvement for the namespace. Tib (talk) 08:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

If the choice has to be between all or nothing, I definitely agree with Fullerton and I'd much rather have all than nothing. Incidentally, I have no idea what an alchemy calculator is or where to find one, and details on the possible combinations is the sort of information I would expect to find on a UESP page. Since the combinations are not listed in this much detail anywhere else as far as I can see, the ingredient pages are as good a place as any for this information. However, given how long it would be if all the info is included, it should probably be the last thing on the page, not the first. --Enodoc (talk) 09:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

By my estimate, any I am going for the smaller side, there are at least 10,000 possible combinations in the game. There are over 2600 different potions, which vary between 1 and nearly 200 combinations per potion (Slow+Fortify Carry Capacity has about 195 combinations by my count, the vast majority of them using Trama Root). A potion of Fortify Health+Fortify Blocking has 39 combinations, all of which use Boar Tusk. A potion of Fortify Health+Frenzy has 32 combinations, all of which use Boar Tusk. On the same page with of the calculator there are another 25 potions/combinations using Boar Tusks.

I am fine with listing useful potions, I am fine with listing a potion(s) to learn all the effects in as little combinations as possible. I am not fine with listing less than 10% of the possible potions, but neither am I fine with listing all the potions. The amount of combinations is not useful to know. There is a huge problem with duplication too, every single listing has at least one other listing on another page. These potions do not fit with being on the ingredient pages, neither do they fit with the effects page (for multi-effect potions), that is why we have a Useful Potions page, where useful potions are listed. The page includes multi-effect potions, useful combinations, valuable potions for both coin and leveling the skill. I have no problem undoing 100 edits when they are actually detrimental to the pages. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:19, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) We should remain consistent across namespaces, and ESO lists potion combinations. At this point it's simply counterproductive to say to users "we cannot help you, please consult a [mythical] 'Alchemy Calculator'". As Dillon says, it's easy to extrapolate three-attribute combinations from the two-attribute tables, which really means that the two-attribute combinations should be fully documented. I believe it's honestly denying a service to readers to refuse to document potion combinations. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 23:16, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I want to bring up this topic again since the Rare Curios Creation just added about 50 new ingredients. I could redo all of the tables again with the new ingredients, but I'm starting to think the combinations should just be removed. For one thing, it makes any error found in the effects or multipliers very difficult to update completely. I wouldn't be surprised if another Creation added even more ingredients. The effects pages should be sufficient for most purposes. —Dillonn241 (talk) 00:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

ESO does list all combinations, but there's one key difference between the two games in that ESO allows you to explicitly make poisons instead of potions, and in a poison, there are no undesired effects - any effect in a poison is helpful to the player and/or detrimental to their opponents. This is not true in Skyrim. Only mixtures with no positive effects can be used as poisons, so any combination with a mixture of positive and negative effects is pretty much always undesirable. So I'd say it's best to list any potions where all the effects are positive, or poisons (where by definition they are all negative), but listing any combos where they are mixed seems unnecessary. (Unless they're useful in some other way, like selling for profit or something, but I don't know how much of that there is.) — TheRealLurlock (talk) 01:01, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Modspace Project - New Modspace Guidelines

Hi everyone, please see below my proposal for the new guidelines for modspace. The intention is that the new guidelines will 100% replace the existing ones, as all the parts in those which remain relevant have been included (although reworded).

There are a couple of other wikis and other information sources out there on mods, so we would like to distinguish ourselves from them in the way we approach mod information: Content-Focused: The main focus of mod documentation should be on the content that it adds to the game. If there's not much content, there's not much to write about! This however doesn't exclude "small" mods, as some small mods can still add quality content. The focus is on the content, not the delivery of the content, so download and installation instructions are not required. Link to the mod's Nexus page for delivery information. Completing Articles: There are likely to be significantly fewer players of any given mod than there are for an official release. In order to avoid pages being left as stubs indefinitely, try to collaborate with other editors who may be interested in documenting the same mod. Informing, not Endorsing: The aim of the wiki is to provide information for fans and players. The inclusion of a mod here is for informative purposes only, and should not be seen as an endorsement of that mod. Open Documentation Style: There are no specific style guidelines or restrictions for mod documentation that make it different from documentation of official content. Quests, places, characters, items, and spells should be documented in the same way as they are for official content. i.e., the goal is to follow the existing guidelines set out in the Style Guide. In effect (combining this with the "Content-Focused" rule), this means that modspace should be treated in the same way as gamespace when it comes to adding new content.

Once they're at a stage that everyone's happy with, I'll bung them in a template and go around replacing them on all the different pages (then only one thing needs to be edited if we change them down the line). Thanks! --Enodoc (talk) 20:00, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Full support for this. Little comment needed, in my opinion. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 23:16, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems nobody else really cares, so I'll take that as support in absentia for the new guidelines. --Enodoc (talk) 14:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I was actually frowning at the previous guidelines the other day because I thought consensus had been reached on changing them. Full support from me regarding this change. —Legoless (talk) 15:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Mods vs Add-ons vs Official Names for Official Content

Currently, the wiki's organisational structure is conflating Mods with official content. There's a {{Mod Summary}} template, which is stated as being for "official mods", and a Mods category for each gamespace which contains all the official add-ons. Now while under the technical definition, these things are indeed mods, under common usage (including by Bethesda), the term "mods" refers only to unofficial fan creations.

Therefore I think it would be prudent to rename the Mod Summary template to something else, freeing up the name "Mod Summary" so that it can actually be used for mods in modspace. Concurrently, the <Gamespace>-Mods categories should be updated such that they are not including official content (or possibly just deleted, since most of those are already in the Gamespace-Official Add-Ons category anyway). It's not really particularly relevant exactly what it gets renamed to in the long run, but I think the most logical option is probably "Add(-)on Summary", being the most recent official term.

On that note however, I think it's also worth bringing up the issue of cross-gamespace naming of official additional content. Currently, these are universally called <Gamespace>:Official Add-Ons, which may be internally consistent and the most recent official term, but is not official or accurate for the older games. The official names for these pages should be Morrowind:(Official) Plugins, Oblivion:(Official) Downloads and Skyrim:(Official) Add-ons. It would improve navigation and accuracy if these pages are actually named as they appear in-game, as that is what people would likely be searching for, so I would suggest we move these pages to the official titles. Redirects would of course remain for anyone who continues to search for "Add-Ons" across the board, since we have had that format for a long time. ("Add-on Summary" is still probably the best name for the template, but any of the others would also be valid.)

The template itself also needs to be properly updated to accommodate things like Creation Club, Xbox One, and PS4, so that can be done at the same time that the pages are moved to ensure the links and categories stay up-do-date. --Enodoc (talk) 21:30, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Full support from me on all points. I think Mod Summary is a poor name given its current usage, and same for the Mods category. Mods in the common sense belong in TesXMod namespaces, no exceptions. "Add-ons" is a good catch-all term for "plugins", "downloads", "add-ons", and "Creations", but there is no excuse not to use the official wording otherwise. There are still many instances of "plug-ins" on the wiki, so precedent is no argument. If we really wanted to standardize this, then we would be calling Creations "add-ons" as well. —Dillonn241 (talk) 21:42, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

We've already had this argument about the names of the pages. There was very little support for having each page named for what each game calls it, as even within each game different terms are used by Bethesda. Favour was found with keeping ourselves consistent in the naming of these pages and creating redirects for all terms for all games (not just the terms used for each game). There is no value in bringing this up again and changing them all for absolutely no gain except to have another argument. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

If this is the case, we should be calling Creations add-ons, and also move Online:DLC to Online:Official Add-Ons. There is nothing more special about these particular terms that they should bypass the add-on naming convention.

We should be using the most common name if there are any alternate names. Using a name like "add-ons", which I don't think Bethesda ever used to refer to Morrowind or Oblivion content, is simply unencyclopedic. —Dillonn241 (talk) 21:58, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Bethesda cannot decide on a consistent name for each game, nevermind all the games, that is why we, the UESP, had a lengthy argument and agreed that we would be consistent so our readers would know exactly where to go for each game. Ripping that agreement up with no clear reason to is against consensus. If you want to waste your life arguing the same topics over and over every few years be my guest, I just think that when something potentially tricky to find agreement with has been settled, it should be left alone. Go and read the actual discussion before you start throwing terms around that do not apply. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:06, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

It's not about consistency, there are literally decades between the games and if you look how the terminology changes, you can easily see that Bethesda simply follows the fashion, so to speak. Which leads me to the conclusion that the below argument by Legoless is quite legitimate. Pushing for consistency across namespaces will create a different kind of confusion, so there really is no wiki-perfect solution here anyway. Tib (talk) 22:55, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) I fully support the use of different terminology in each namespace for the sake of accuracy. Trying to find a compromise word is a perennial debate (e.g. the transition from "plug-in" to "add-on") and I think we have set good encyclopaedic precedent with the use of terms like "DLC Game Pack" and "Creation" in relation to newer releases. Bethesda has given us a consistent word for each game and I don't see a good reason not to use them other than for arbitrary cross-namespace consistency. Morrowind's free DLCs have always been "plugins" and nothing else. —Legoless (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I am also in support of Dillon. The "Mod Summary" name is simply outmoded and conflates too many different terms. With the fractionating of official releases into "Creations" and "Plugins" etc, it's unwise to place these all under one blanket. As the Modspace Project is beginning to 'get off the floor', so to speak, the documentation of mods becomes more prevalent, which means it's important to 'nap the issue in the bud', so to speak, and this is, I believe, the best way to do so. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 23:16, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the previous discussion (one of many, but I think that was the one that resulted in the current state); yes, I do remember it and I was supportive of whichever way consensus went at the time, which ended up going towards consistency over accuracy. But that was nominally before ESO released, and definitely long before the Creation Club became a thing. Since that time however, we have gone for accuracy over consistency for everything new; ESO's content drops have been called "DLC" and "Chapters", rather than "add-ons" and "expansions". Add-ons incidentally are something verifiably different to DLC in ESO, so we can't use that term there anyway. Creation Club content is also invariably called "Creations" rather than "add-ons". Thus I thought it was time to revisit the original consensus, given the fact that consensus can change, to see if anyone was interested in continuing the current standard practice of using the official names, and applying official names back to the older content. There has never been a state where everything has been correct, but at this current point in time, there can be. If Bethesda happen to change the names for existing things again, the discussion will inevitably come up again. But right now, the official terms are all verifiable as stated, so I'm not sure why Silencer thinks some of them might not apply. --Enodoc (talk) 23:36, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The term I was referring to was unencyclopedic. If we are going for another ride on this never-ending roundabout then there are some arbitrary decisions to be made. Bethesda uses the terms Expansion and Plugin for Morrowind, they use the terms Plugin and DLC for Oblivion, and have used both Add-on and DLC for Skyrim. The bolded ones are the terms they used on their website for hosting the download links. If we are going to get all technical and pissy about naming them "correctly" then the "Official" part of the name needs to be dropped too, it's not like we have Unofficial Add-on pages anyway. The Creation Club is an add-on to Skyrim, the content that comes from it is not. ESO is an MMO, and it is an exception given the vast array of different content added to the game, and the vast amount of it too. It isn't possible to have one page for all the content added, and even the patches could be considered add-ons given the vast changes and additions they make at times. I am fully aware that consensus can change, I just think you need to show that the original decision was wrong or outdated in order to drag up a settled contentious issue. As it is the original decision was made knowing these facts about the official terms that Bethesda threw around and decided that being consistent was more important that arbitrarily deciding which of the official terms was the official term. Inconsistent naming was a problem in the past, which eventually led to consistency. Reverting that change will only mean another revision back to consistency in a few years time. Save everyone the hassle and just don't do this. BTW, change the mod summary template name. But will everyone be happy with a generic name such as Addon Summary because Morrowind officially doesn't have any add-ons (so we need an Expansion Summary just for MW)? Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:03, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Legoless about using different terminology in each namespace.

Having consistency for the names that any and all supplementary content (add-ons, downloadable content, expansions, plug-ins, etc - whatever you want to call it lol) is given across namespaces is nice, but at the end of the day, Bethesda use different terms (all of which are official) for the aforementioned supplementary content for different games on their website, and we'll have to accept them and move on. Better to provide accurate information than unofficial, Fake terms. My main concern is that this will take a lot of time and effort, but I believe it is for the best. If we use the official terms, we cannot go wrong at all. •D. G.|Talk|Work• 02:22, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Expansions, DLC, and Add-ons were the terms used on the website at the time, but given that no longer exists (except for Skyrim), the logical thing is to default back to the in-game terms. For Morrowind, that's a bit of a misnomer as there is no "in-game" term, but Plugin is what is used in the Readme files, and is what was used on the Oblivion-era website. (The two true Expansions have always been considered Expansions, even under the current system, so this is just regarding the names for the eight official esp files.) Oblivion has been inconsistent throughout, being called Plug-ins on the main website at the time, Downloads on its official Downloads page, DLC on the website more recently, and Downloads (again) in-game. Since Downloads is the in-game name, and the only one that can still be directly seen, that one clearly takes precedence.

My argument for the original decision being outdated is as presented above. We are not following that practice for ESO or for Creation Club. ESO as you say is logically a reasonable exception, but the original discussion precludes that exception because it ends with the decision to call all ESO expansions "Add-Ons" anyway, which has not been followed. Creation Club meanwhile is nothing more than a content delivery system for additional content (just like Nexus or the Steam Store, but in-game instead of external to it); following the original decision of across-the-board consistency for labelling additional content, all Creation Club content falls under the label of "Add-Ons", and this has not been used either. Thus the original decision is outdated in practice, and it falls to us to form a new consensus. We either expand the new practice from ESO and CC of using the official names for everything across the board, arrive at a new consensus which supports the current status quo, or follow the original consensus as writ and move all ESO and CC content to the Add-Ons label. --Enodoc (talk) 09:41, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) I don't remember if I ended up specifically posting on the previous discussions or not, but I do very well remember arguing the losing side against Jak Atackka in IRC for accuracy instead of consistency back in the day. Consistency is all fine and good, but if we are working so hard to be accurate on everything we can be accurate on, then why are we taking the lazy way out and making a one-size-fits-all thing based off one game's naming style and hammering it into every game? For whatever the reason, whether it's practical or just inconsistency by the developers, there are numerous distinct name's for each game's supplemental content, and while it can be obnoxious to find if you're not completely familiar with, the fact of the matter is it's the UESP's job to be encyclopedic. That is our highest priority on the site, to make sure everything is encyclopedic, and right now I see information that for five years has been willfully inaccurate. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 14:36, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Is anyone even listening anymore? There is no single official term for any game, to keep pushing that point as if there is is not accurate or truthful. If you decide to change things you still have to settle on arbitrarily choosing one of the terms that Bethesda has used in its correspondence and dialogue regarding each game. Add-ons was chosen because it is short for additional content, a term that applies to every piece of extra data released where expansion, DLC, and plugin do not; it is coincidental (but not entirely) that it is one of, and the main term used to describe Skyrim's three pieces of extra content. It is simply idiotic to hold as an exception a decision made about a page before we knew the possible content of the page. It has since proven that there was and there is no way that ESO can have a single page about extra content, to suggest that just says you are not taking this seriously. I think I've repeated myself enough, I just hope someone takes their blinkers off before they fall over the cliff. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:33, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Enodoc explained where these three names come from. They're taken directly from the games themselves: from the readme for Morrowind, and from the menu item for Oblivion and Skyrim. From what I can tell, these are the only terms that the average player would be able to see without looking on website archives or in the game files. It's less arbitrary to choose these rather than add-on, which is never used in relation to Morrowind or Oblivion. As Creation Club has shown, it's also more flexible to allow multiple terms depending on the game/type of content.

One analogy I can think of is the word "computer". You can say phones, tablets, and laptops are all computers and you'd be correct (just as plugins and downloads are both "add-ons") but saying phone is more specific and no one that I know of calls a phone a computer. You still have variations like phone/smartphone/mobile, but it's better to decide on one of those instead of calling every computing device you come across a "computer" without question. —Dillonn241 (talk) 19:13, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Think I've said a lot already, but I don’t think anybody should contradict an official source of information because they think a term used in a secondary source (or even an unofficial term) sounds better. That's not (or shouldn’t be) how it works. People who have an interest about additional/supplemental content for Oblivion will see within the in-game name for such content is "Downloads". Plus, it's not like people will consider that an unfamiliar term. •D. G.|Talk|Work• 20:47, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

(←) So there has been no further comment here for a few weeks, and everyone who has commented is in agreement with the suggestion except for Silencer. Therefore if Silencer is willing to concede to the use of the in-game names, even if he does not agree with that decision, then we can all proceed forward with consensus to falling off this cliff. --Enodoc (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

In response to the thread overall, I support the accuracy over the consistency. Someone playing Morrowind in OpenMW, or Oblivion on an old PC or in a VM may have never touched Skyrim or later, and will be on forums about the game(s) they are playing not ones they aren't, so they're not going to be encountering the later terminology. The side-wide consistent names for these articles have been around a long time, keep their old names as redirects, and it's a win–win. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 11:11, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Book Formatting

As you've probably noticed, the book templates have been getting an overhaul this last week or so. As part of those changes, a discussion arose on Discord about the format of the books. What we realized is that none of the books since Daggerfall have been first-line indented. Alfwyn even realized this fact in this discussion just over four years ago. For whatever reason, however, only ESO books were changed.

I'm proposing that we change the format to match the in-game format for all namespaces. So, Daggerfall would be the only namespace that gets first-line indents from now on. Does anyone see any issues with this? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 20:41, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

No issues, makes sense to me. --Enodoc (talk) 20:42, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Support, let's make it happen. I include an image of the strange, ugly spacing this default layout produces. —Legoless (talk) 20:32, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I support this change. The Daggerfall books should also have paragraph spacing like the others for clarity and accuracy. —Dillonn241 (talk) 22:59, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Okay, this has been done. It may require a hard refresh to see the change. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 05:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Mobile Skin

Thanks to a recent discussion, I've now discovered the easy way to make CSS changes for mobile. In addition to fixing some alignment problems on mobile, I've also added the basic tan background to most things. A lot would still need done to make everything mesh, but it's a start, at least. I don't have a cell phone of my own, since I don't really have need of one, so I have no feel for what's good and bad in a mobile version of the site. So, what I'm wondering is: how much do we want to customize the Mobile skin? Do people even want the tan background, for that matter, or should I just stick with required formatting fixes and that's it? The flip side of this is that I can copy the entire site CSS over to the mobile CSS page, in which case things like custom table colouring for different schools of magic would start showing up, and a lot of Legends space would get custom colouring, etc. Thoughts? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:06, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest maybe trying the #fbefd5 on the whole background and not using the parchment texture at all. Also the background currently goes away when you open the side menu, but I'm not sure what that's related to (other than presumably it being a different css class). Custom table colouring I think would be good, but we probably need to iron out some other things too. --Enodoc (talk) 13:58, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposed Changes to Lorespace Sources

It's been apparent for some time that our policy when it comes to sources in lorespace has become quite outdated. While there have been discussions of this nature in the past—in particular the Echkin debate in 2015—I believe the consensus which was reached at the time was incorrect, and I think it's high time these issues are reexamined.

There are three policy areas in particular which I feel need to be addressed if we are to maintain the high standard of documentation UESP is known for:

• OOG Label: Currently, unofficial/developer texts are cited using the {{OOG}} template. These secondary sources are not necessarily "canon" but are often included to provide a rounder background to lore articles. The nature of these sources is described in greater detail on General:Unofficial Lore.
• Loremaster's Archive: Unlike all other lore texts taken from the ESO website, we currently have a strict and rather convoluted policy when it comes to the use of Loremaster's Archive Q&As in lorespace. This stems from the abovementioned Echkin debate, where consensus established that the Q&A answers are valid sources but the questions and the usernames are not.
• Schick Interviews: Lawrence Schick, ESO's Lead Writer and loremaster supreme, has conducted several in-universe interviews with various community members, many of which are already hosted on the wiki. The most recent interview, A Matter of Voice and Brass, has led to some recent edit warring due to disagreement over the inclusion of these texts as sources in lorespace. We currently have no real policy when it comes to these community interviews, which is a problem because the ESO team are going to continue to facilitate such interviews.

All three of the above policy areas have proven to be a source of confusion for readers and annoyance for lore editors. The reason I am starting this discussion is to first briefly outline why our current policy is illogical and outdated, and to then hopefully work towards implementing sensible proposals which are agreeable to all in order to rectify these issues.

• Proposal 1: OOG->UOL: The term "OOG" has been a misnomer on the wiki for many years. It stands for "out-of-game", but anyone who is familiar with lorespace should know that there are plenty of legitimate lore sources outside of the games. General:Unofficial Lore cites a 2006 fan interview which states that "only things that have been published in Elder Scrolls games should be considered official lore", but the page itself notes that this statement is severely outdated as it fails to consider the two official novels.

However, the novels are far from the only out-of-game source which is not subject to the OOG label. Firstly, there are the myriad article series on the ESO website, such as Loremaster's Archive and Meet the Character. There are also older sources, such as The Daggerfall Chronicles, a book which provided the first ever Tamrielic timeline. As such, the use of "OOG" as a term is entirely inaccurate and has confused many readers and editors alike.

Solution: We need to change the term to something which reflects the category of sources which actually use this label. My suggestion is "UOL" for "UnOfficial Lore", to reflect the name of the General:Unofficial Lore article. I'd like to point out that I could not care less about which acronym is ultimately agreed upon, as long as it's accurate. "OOG" is not accurate, and that is why it needs to go.

• Proposal 2: Cessation of Cherrypicking of Official Sources: Loremaster's Archive is an official source. It does not use the OOG label, and with good reason: it is an official article series, authored by ESO's Lead Writer and published on their website. It is an article series specifically written about the lore of TES. Having submitted several questions myself, I can testify that the questions go through an approval process and are occasionally edited.

As such, it is inconceivable that UESP's current policy is to accept sections of these articles as undesputed fact while disregarding the rest as fanfiction. The questions may have been authored by fans, but without the questions the answers have no context. They are an essential part of the text; indeed, many of the answers include usernames and make reference to the contents of the questions. The exclusion of that material from lorespace is nothing but cherrypicking, which is unencyclopaedic. The purpose of the wiki is to document, and we are failing to correctly document these texts.

Much of the controversy surrounding Loremaster's Archive is based on fears of a "slippery slope" fallacy, whereby the quality of our lore articles would be negatively impacted by the inclusion of "headcanon" contained in some of the questions. This argument has no merit. It is a far more grevious detriment to our articles to purposefully not document and cite all relevant information. If Bethesda/ZOS didn't want that material to enter the lore, then they shouldn't have published it in an official lore text. That's on their head; it's not our job to pick and choose which official publications deserve to be documented.

The other issue which often gets raised is in relation to some of the earliest Q&As, which included a few out-of-universe questions and lore-unfriendly usernames like "kevkev21". However, it is quite apparent that ZOS shied away from including low quality questions like that as the series developed, preferring instead to publish only in-universe questions. We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater, especially since there is zero reason to ever cite kevkev21 in lorespace. These low quality questions are so few in number as to be an irrelevance.

Solution: Treat Loremaster's Archive Q&As the same way all other ESO texts are treated: as valid sources in their entirety. If people are concerned about alerting readers to the fact that certain information comes from fan-provided questions, we could always utilise the OOG UOL label to highlight that it may not reflect established lore. This would also prevent creation of articles like Lore:Echkin, since OOG UOL texts are secondary sources and cannot be the primary basis of articles. Either option is fine with me, but the one thing we cannot do is continue with this unencyclopaedic and illogical cherrypicking.

• Proposal 3: Formalise Schick Interviews: We need to come up with an agreed policy on how to handle these community interviews. They aren't published on any official website, but they usually are shared by ZOS via social media (for example, this tweet promoting the abovementioned Dragon Bones interview).

From speaking to those who have carried out these interviews, I am aware that the questions are thoroughly vetted and edited prior to publication. I'd say Schick is possibly the most reliable source in TES at the moment, so I don't see the logic behind excluding these interviews from lorespace as long as they are clearly marked as OOG UOL.

Solution: Treat community lore interviews the same way all other developer texts are treated: as secondary OOG UOL sources which may not reflect established lore but which can be used to flesh out existing articles. We already do this with older developer texts, such as the various developer roleplays hosted on The Imperial Library which obviously had far less editorial rigour behind them.

I am strongly of the opinion that the above changes are for the betterment of our lore namespace. I would ask that the usual controversy and drama regarding "canon" be put aside in favour of viewing the proposals as they stand. We are a wiki; our purpose is to document, and these outdated policies are hindering that function. I appreciate those who have taken the time to read this far and look forward to hearing your input on the above. —Legoless (talk) 19:51, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't edit in Lorespace much, but these seem like very logical proposals for keeping up with/organizing lore coming from official sources (people actually working on the games and trying to keep the TES universe consistent).--FioFioFio (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Supported on all points. Although ZOS/BGS will never give a clear cut answer on their opinion of the universes' lore and how it should be handled (at best, they avoid it all altogether), it's pretty clear from their actions and open-mindedness that they want these studio-community interactions to be considered official and enjoy doing them. And considering that the LAs and the In-Universe Interviews go through a very lengthy editing and reviewing process, if they don't want something to not be brought into the fold they won't let it in. Trust me on that, I know from personal experience. Which is why cherrypicking makes no sense. And if someone gets angry about the lore implications of that, then that is just personal bias slipping through. The lore is what you make it to be, and you shouldn't let a change of policy influence that. But by neglecting things that don't need to be neglected you're just ruining the archiving capabilities UESP prides itself on having. I can understand having strict policies on a leash, but you're starting to choke yourself out here. --IceFireWarden (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm fairly new to doing actual constructive edits in Lorespace, but these proposals seem reasonable and useful. OOG is easily the most confusing aspect of the namespace. Echo (talk) 20:34, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) I'll deal with the easy one first; I completely agree with relabelling OOG to something else, and given the already-extant page that is directly called "Unofficial Lore", that seems like the most logical replacement.

The last one next; any initial concern I may have had over including Schick interviews was allayed by the suggestion that these are vetted by ZOS before publication. I would like official confirmation from ZOS themselves of that stance (and am trying to secure that confirmation), but good faith dictates that we must accept it at face value. If ZOS vet these interviews (and similarly by the fact they engage with them at all), they must approve of them being published, and that puts the interviews in a similar position to any other UOL content, and they should be treated as such.

Given that statement therefore, and in order to maintain consistency, my previous stance on the Loremaster's Archive is untenable. Lego makes a good point on that by saying that BethZos themselves are in full control of what goes on their website, and therefore they are the data controller for what enters lore through that route. By posting it on their website, they have shown direct approval for the content contained within, even if we do not agree with some of it (and that is not our place to decide).

Therefore I agree with all the proposals and the suggested solutions. --Enodoc (talk) 20:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Not that I spend a whole lot of time editing here, but this proposal looks fine to me. We actually had a similar discussion about renaming the "OOG" tag on the Wikia a couple months ago, although we haven't actually made any official changes yet. Two of the suggestions were to use "UL" (unlicensed) and "UO" (unofficial). I'm personally slightly hesitant to use the term unofficial because to many users that word just means pure fanon, which isn't necessarily the way I would describe many out-of-game texts. But I guess it would still be less vague than "OOG." —Atvelonis (talk) 20:48, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I would like a better term than UOL, but the reason for a change is sound. I support making a change. I also agree with the other proposals. Both the LA and the Interviews are 'more official' than the various RPs that are referenced. In that case, they should be granted the UOL label. As to LA, I would be inclined to say that the questions could be considered UOL, and the answers would be OL. This correctly allows officially published information into the lorespace, and allows references to questions they allowed to be published as secondary information. It doesn't eliminate the context of the answers, either. And no one is going to reference kevkev21, as Legoless mentioned, so I don't think we have any slippery slope problem from this. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 20:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Created an account just to say that I wholeheartedly support this change. Maztiak (talk) 20:55, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

(←) I am inclined to agree with Hyrule on this. While a change is needed, "UOL" is an odd acronym to choose, especially because of the unnecessary addition of an extra letter into the initialization - why the "O"? I also agree with Hyrule on Loremaster's Archives; Due to the nature of certain questions (such as the infamous "kevkev21" or questions that imply out-of-time people or objects being extant during the ESO), then they should probably be considered what we're currently calling "OOG" and the answers, of course, as unequivocally official lore. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 21:01, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the UOL change. I was going to change the policy in regards Unofficial and Out-of-Game being not the same thing, but kind of forgot about it. I believe the consensus from that discussion is enough to proceed with changing the out-of-date section and wording.

I am very very much against taking any "fan" made or spoken text as official, when they are simply questions put to the developers to answer how they see fit. You cannot ignore "canon" in a discussion about what to include or exclude from our lore pages. "Simply" changing one source from unofficial to official will have a dramatic impact on what lore pages exist. A very recent edit included an entirely unheard of ring as something that existed in lore, where the only two mentions of the item on the entire internet are by the same person. One where the ring was invented, and the other, using a semi-official method to bypass our rules on lore sources to insert this made-up item into lore, by mentioning it under cover of "roleplaying" a person in the world of ESO, and it was ignored by Schick in his response. If we are to no longer take a "cherrypicking" attitude to these lore sources, the only acceptable solution is to not use them as official sources at all. The wikipedia policy on cherrypicking has nothing to say about this use, their is no "unofficial truth/knowledge" that wikipedians can ignore when it comes to writing an article. We simply cannot allow our lore to be treated as the personal playpen of certain people who think they know better than everyone else. This "slippery-slope" is not a joke, nor a situation that is an imaginary fear of many people. We have lists of "notable" members of many factions on our lore pages, and these usually amount to nothing more than a list of all the people we know belonged to that faction, so someone merely claiming to be a member when submitting their question suddenly becomes someone notable in lore simply because they are "known" to "belong" to that faction. Similarly, if the writers decided to answer a question that mentioned Frodo or Gandalf, do they become a part of lore because they were mentioned by the fan, even if the names/part of the question were ignored in the answer. Taking only the answers as official is more than logical, and is a very clear separation between what is and what is not used.

Treating the role-playing interviews as secondary sources would solve some of the issues above, but I don't think that is the right path. All of the information that comes from Schick is meant to be official and treated as lore, or at least the interpretation of history by a scholar or two that exist in the Elder Scrolls universe. The older interviews are usually treated as official, with the same disregard given to the interviewers questions as the newer ones are getting, even though the older interviewers didn't have the ego to try and insert their personal inventions into lore by hijacking the interviews to their own ends so it isn't strictly necessary to do that for them.

As much as you may try to claim that questions are edited, there is a lot of gibberish still in them that is routinely ignored in the answers, as well as the names of the submitter which for obvious reasons could not be edited. I accept that a lot of our policies are hastily mangled heaps of compromised compromises, but they are that way to protect our lore space. Yes I said protect. Our lore space is the most revered of them all, as I've said before, people treat our lore as "the uesp says it so its true". Accepting any sort of fan-invention as lore when the developers and writers have purposely ignored addressing it is the beginning of the end of our position as the most trusted authority on the Elder Scrolls. Yes, sometimes we are even considered to be more authoritative than the writers and developers. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:07, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

If by ring that doesn't exist in the lore you're referring to Denstagmer's Ring, then I would like to refer you to Morrowind. It was an item in that game. I think you meant to refer to the Mirror of Hard Truths, which is my own invention. The whole point of these interviews and LAs and RPs is to learn new and unknown lore, and when I come into these settings as Eis I do so as someone who actually lives in the setting instead of a mere Author Avatar that only inquires about the information he already knows. That's frankly boring and counter-productive in my opinion. Therefore, I don't see how that's hijacking the interview when making new lore is the entire point of them. And yes, these things get thoroughly edited. If the Mirror upsets you so bad, then I hate to see your opinion on things me and others have tried to do that got rejected. --IceFireWarden (talk) 21:39, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I suggested this on Discord and I think the common terms "primary source" and "secondary source" are the best choice here. Games, novels, and things like that are primary sources for this wiki. Secondary sources are what I believe OOG is currently used for. The acronyms for these should be 1st and 2nd respectively, or maybe 1ST and 2ND if caps are preferred.

As for the ESO texts, I'm not completely convinced that everything about them should be considered equally. If the developers have clearly shied away from out-of-universe names, then perhaps there is good reason to ignore these for that reason alone (rather than them being not important enough). I'm fine with the questions themselves being used in lore, if they remain under the secondary source label. I'm thinking the answers might qualify for primary source status though, for reasons I assume are obvious. —Dillonn241 (talk) 21:27, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth: Denstagmer's Ring. It's not exactly unheard of, it appeared in one of the games, so that's about as primary a source as you can get. — TheRealLurlock (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Using primary and secondary sources is also a good suggestion. I believe Lady Nerevar was the one who initially brought it up on Discord, citing a 2006 post from Ted Peterson on the issue. I think it might be prudent to quote that post in full here:

"I would like to propose that instead of there being a black-and-white distinction between canon and non-canon, loreists refer to Primary and Secondary Sources. A Secondary Source, such as a comment from MK or a reference in the Trial or RP, may be 100% accurate and become a Primary Source when it is later published in a game; it may remain a useful reference, such as a scholar's commentary on Shakespeare, which is informed and likely true, though not actually part of a play or sonnet; or, it may be disproved on later Primary Source evidence." (source)

As I said, I'm not overly concerned with the label used as long as it's accurate. —Legoless (talk) 21:35, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3) The ring does exist in lore (as evidenced by the fact the page already existed); it's the mirror that doesn't. I was trying to be careful by adding the mirror into whichever page it was as nothing more than a passing reference, as fits other stuff that comes from OOG/UOL sources. It's a bit of a strange comparison to make, but I think that the fact ZOS allows the interviews to take place in the first place, and then vets them before they're published, goes a long way to making these even more "official" than the MK texts from the old forums that we've had as OOG for years. They never had approval from Bethesda, as far as I am aware, but we use sources like Nu-Mantia Intercept for passing references all the time. Therefore I think the following definitions would work:

Schick interviews, being officially vetted/approved/supported but not officially published would be considered Unofficial;

Loremaster's Archive, being officially published but containing fan-created questions, would be somewhere between Unofficial and Official; going back to the previous discussion, we could use the same split and take the questions as Unofficial and the answers as Official. But since the answers are currently considered OOG anyway (and the questions ignored) I'd be happy with just adding the questions as OOG/UOL as well.

Enodoc (talk) 21:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, the answers aren't currently considered OOG. They're used as regular primary sources, like all other ESO website lore texts. —Legoless (talk) 21:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Oh, whoops. In which case, I'd be happy to have the questions as secondary if there cannot be consensus in having them as primary. --Enodoc (talk) 21:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

(←) OOG has been a misnomer for quite some time already and I completely agree with changing it's name. I believe Silencer is raising some important points about using the fan-made questions in lorespace. I am strongly against using those as primary source. However, I think Lost in Hyrule's might be the correct solution in the end: treat the interview and LA answers as primary sources, but the questions as secondary. --Ilaro (talk) 22:19, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the mirror not the ring. A comparison just popped into my head, using unofficial sources is a lot like using frog DNA to fill in gaps in DNA sequences, you only take what you need, but you already have a starting point. If you only used frog DNA you get a frog, but using it to fill the gaps allows you to show the bigger picture, and in the end you get a lot of mangled corpses. Primary/Secondary sounds alright, but I'm not sure on the proposed "2nd" for marking the source, I'd like to use just letters to clearly differentiate it, perhaps "sec", but no strong feelings on it. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:36, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Is there any practical difference between how primary and secondary sources would be used in articles? Right now, UESP makes a distinction between official media sources and OOG sources in how they're cited, but in the article text there's no real difference. OOG info is presented alongside or threaded into official media info. Presumably, the same would happen with the new distinction of primary/secondary, except that fan-written questions would become acceptable secondary sources. To bring up an old discussion as an example, a fan question in this live Schick interview mentions that Emperor Ami-El succeeded Belharza to the throne and was later poisoned by his daughter, and asks if the Dark Brotherhood had a hand in it. Schick answers by saying he'd have to interview DB members to find out. In this case, Schick's answer contains no substantial lore and does not explicitly corroborate any content in the question, while the question itself is arguably fanfic without that corroboration even if it was vetted for Schick to answer. If the question is elevated to the status of "secondary source", then it could be inserted into the relevant UESP articles where it would acquire the veneer of canon lore in the same manner as OOG info despite its dubious origin, which I can't help but find concerning. Croaker (talk) 23:41, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I dispute the claim that OOG sources are treated identically in article text. Our lore guidelines spell out quite clearly how OOG sources are to be used in articles: "OOG should only be used when it helps to explain in-game content. The UESP need not start documenting every fact mentioned in OOG. Using solely OOG to support definitive statements of fact should be avoided." All articles which cite an OOG/UOL/secondary source should bear these guidelines in mind. Usually this is done by adding an element of uncertainty (e.g. "it is theorised the Dark Brotherhood had a hand in Ami-El's demise"), and our guidelines also specify that "any OOG should appear low on a single-topic page for which it is substantially relevant". Furthermore, there is a ban on transcluding OOG information into multi-topic articles such as Lore:People A.

As can be seen from the above, we already have strict guidelines in place when it comes to secondary sources in lorespace. There is no reason that these same guidelines cannot be applied to Loremaster's Archive questions, especially since they are from official lore texts authored by ESO's Lead Writer and Loremaster. I cannot emphasise that last point strongly enough. —Legoless (talk) 00:03, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, the transcribed audio interview I linked to isn't part of the Loremaster's Archive (it just has "Lore Master" in the title), so it would fall under your third proposal, not the second. My issue is that I wouldn't want any part of the question I highlighted to be mentioned in UESP articles at all, because its context suggests it is pure fanfic material that either slipped through vetting (assuming any vetting was done for this particular live interview) or which Schick made a conscious effort to disregard by providing an ambiguous answer. This Ami-El question is an outlier, sort of a wolf in sheep's clothing situation, and I feel the current policy to completely dismiss fan questions as valid lore handles it safely, whereas the revamped policy ("Treat community lore interviews the same way all other developer texts are treated") introduces a loophole that would allow the info to be added to articles (if not by me, then by someone else). Croaker (talk) 01:12, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps for secondary lore sources that people find dubious, perhaps you could make an annotation concerning the issue on the page? Either way, since this entire policy change centers around not cherrypicking I feel that removing something like that would be counter-productive.--IceFireWarden (talk) 03:21, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

As another TESWiki user who's violently popping in - saw this on the Imperial Library Discord, hello - I want to say that this sounds like a good decision to me. Like Atvelonis said, we had the same discussion on the Elder Scrolls Wiki on Wikia, albeit twice. If anyone was curious, the ideas that were discussed are here, although I'm not sure if they'll really bring anything to the table on this discussion. For the same purposes as Fullerton, Atv, and llaro have mentioned, this proposal sounds like a step in the right direction for Elder Scrolls communities to me. I don't think we'll ever have a perfect way of putting these terms, but that doesn't mean that they can't be improved. The Crusader of Truth (talk) 03:11, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

(←) Proposal 1 - sure, and agreed. I would vote for "Unlicenced" (UL or ULL?) Rather than "unofficial". Unofficial is as frequently a value judgement and comes with years and years of baggage. Unlicenced is a simple distinction - did this text appear in something a Zenimax Media Company paid for?

Proposal 2 - sure.

Proposal 3 - I fail to see the distinction between loremasters archive interviews and interviews with Schick outside of that series. Surely if loremssters archive is citeable as a truthy primary source, an interview conducted by only one person should be as well? (~~ Lady Nerevar, who forgot her password) — Unsigned comment by 23.127.165.105 (talk) at 04:22 on 18 May 2018 (UTC)

At this point I'm leaning toward "Unlicensed" as well. I'm not so sure referring to OOG texts as "secondary" sources is really that helpful. Primary/secondary sources is already a term used in academia to refer to a text's origin, specifically if it was written as a firsthand account of something (primary) or based off of existing firsthand accounts (secondary). This is a pretty widely understood definition, so I would tend to think that reusing the terms for a different purpose would end up confusing readers more than anything else. —Atvelonis (talk) 05:50, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

As someone who edits mostly in lore namespace, I'd say that the original proposal sounds like a great improvement, and I would wholly support it. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 06:30, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I share the concerns of Croaker and would oppose the inclusion of echmers, mirror of hard truths, or protonymics, as they are all fan-made concepts sneaked into the LA without any in-game source. If we strictly adhere to "OOG (aka secondary source, aka UL) should only be used when it helps to explain in-game content.", then I don't see as much of a problem, because that would per the guidelines exclude the aforementioned fan-made concepts. --Ilaro (talk) 07:56, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

To Lady Nerevar's point 3, I think it is in part countered by your point 1. The individual interviews, such as the recent one by IFW, did not "appear in something a Zenimax Media Company paid for." Thus, it only meets the criteria for Secondary/OOG/Unofficial/Unlicensed, not Primary/Official/Licensed, even though the work behind it may be at a similar level to LA. I also disagree with the idea of 'baggage' surrounding the terms. If we begin to use and then popularize the use of Unlicensed, then at some point, people will use that term with derision. If we well define "Unofficial Lore", and someone later says "Unofficial means its bad", we can point to our standards to explain why that is incorrect. We would likely have to do the same with any other naming scheme. The reason I am in favor of Primary and Secondary is it reflects through simple language our standards. "This is a source we primarily use to construct our articles. This source is one we would use secondarily to supplement our articles." And it even allows us to discuss Tertiary sources, like fan theories or projects. We could make a classification system, "Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3", but that would seem less than desirable.

I agree with the concerns mentioned by Croaker and Ilaro about things solely from Secondary sources featuring prominently in articles. As an example, I cannot find a reference to Leaper Demon King on the Mehrunes Dagon article. To my knowledge, that's from an OOG source, and it doesn't even have a footnote on that article. Yet in the recent Peryite edit, two artifacts were listed as belonging to Peryite. One appears in Morrowind with no details about it, the other is a fan creation. They were both listed before Spellbreaker, the only artifact we know from a Primary source is related to him. That is something that I do not think would be acceptable. At most, I could see a footnote to the page mentioning "Some have attributed this ring and mirror to Peryite", linking to the interview from which they came.

However, I believe that this is something that could be moderated with relative ease. The questions still matter for giving context to the answers, but should only be used in a supplemental fashion, as others have stated. I guess the question here, then, is this: Does this position represent a disagreement with the above proposals, or is it rather an appeal to maintain rigor with the policies regarding Secondary sources? I think it is the latter, which means I still support the above proposals, with the proviso that questions get Secondary and answers get Primary. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 15:01, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Not sure I entirely agree. The term "out-of-game" doesn't have nearly the same kind of stigma that "unofficial" has, even though it's the most widespread descriptor right now. People definitely have external biases about these words already, and our choice of terminology isn't necessarily going to change those; we have to work with what readers come in thinking.

I still feel that the primary/secondary designation is confusing. "Primary" can already be used to refer to something like NPC dialogue or a note written during a quest, and "secondary" to refer to something like Brief History of the Empire, which discusses events after they happened (the same way it's done in real-world history). Beyond that, using primary/secondary has the same issues with subjectivity that UO and OOG have. It doesn't present an actual system for categorizing the sources, it just uses a different naming scheme for what we already do.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but regarding the fan interviews, ZeniMax still sponsored them, no? If developers were doing the interviews as part of their jobs, not just in their free time, then ZeniMax is still paying for the production of that material. Whereas a random Reddit comment that a developer makes would be considered unlicensed/etc. —Atvelonis (talk) 16:06, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I also agree with the idea of using Unlicensed Lore rather than Unofficial Lore, as it does carry less negative implications than the latter.

In regards to the Mirror of Hard Truth and Denstagmer's Ring, this is once again a problem that stems from the need to prioritize a piece of lore over the other. While I do have no problem with having primary and secondary sources - although Av did have a good point about those two terms being poor - I still think that excluding them from the main article is a definite type of cherrypicking. Questions and comments coming from in-universe characters should still be considered trustworthy, considering that they do exist within the setting and would have more knowledge of it than we do. Like Hyrule's concern over the comment about Emperor Ami-El, I believe a better alternative is to just acknowledge what these characters have said and use the secondary source tag rather than reduce them to something that smells of negativity and condecesion. In truth,this is where the Unreliable Narrator trope comes into play. Even if you can't take it 100% face value, a source is still a source.

Two good examples of this I can think of are: A) In the LAs, a user named Mr. Flippers submitted a question and in the response Divayth Fyr referred to him as a mysterious transmundane entity. This is a character that has no "primary source" in the lore and yet Divayth Fyr of all people confirmed his existence and state in the universe. B) In the recent Dragon Bones Interview, a quote from Shalidor's insights was discussed that was never mentioned before in the lore but was acknowledged and even approved by other characters similar to the protonymic situation. In these situations, there were no mentions of these in officially established lore but they were still acknowledged in universe as as a credible source.

I'm okay with distinguishing lore sources between "in-game", "licensced" and "unlicensed", but let's try to not make that a bigger problem than what we already have now.

Also to clarify, Echmer have never been mentioned in anything. Just echkin, which is a whole notha subject altogether.--IceFireWarden (talk) 16:14, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

(←) Just a disclaimer that I'm both an avid writer of fan fiction (in case its assumed I am against all forms of fan fiction) and lore editor here.

Proposal 1: OOG->UOL: I agree here. OOG may still hold some weight as a term among the lore community, but for our purposes its not accurate and I prefer the UOL tag and the OOG statement tweaked.

Proposal 2: Cessation of Cherrypicking of Official Sources:

Firstly, the term cherrypicking is a complete misnomer and unjustly frames the policy in a negative light from the get-go. It would be cherrypicking if the community accepted the entire Loremaster's Archive as "official" but only then chose to cite certain parts but not others - this is not the case. There was uncertainty among the lore community if Zeni/Bethseda themselves considered the questions to be official lore (see below). Especially when entire parts of people's questions were utterly ignored in the answers.

There has been talk of personal bias slipping through when talking about this subject. Firstly I want to point out that we are all biased in own way or another regarding this discussion - none of us are immune. We all have motivations in being for or against this. The reason are numerous (including some looking to establish what should be considered official/unofficial, some seeking an end to the canon arguments and some even seeking to have their own headcanon recognised) but all sides have inherent bias. Even some of the language used in the original post is biased towards reversing this policy. Some replies:

The lore is what you make it to be, and you shouldn't let a change of policy influence that.

Exactly, which begs the question why are we having this discussion? Not recognizing headcanon on the wiki doesn't erase it from your mind.

The whole point of these interviews and LAs and RPs is to learn new and unknown lore, and when I come into these settings as Eis I do so as someone who actually lives in the setting instead of a mere Author Avatar that only inquires about the information he already knows. That's frankly boring and counter-productive in my opinion. Therefore, I don't see how that's hijacking the interview when making new lore is the entire point of them.

I think this is where your own bias shows. The intent of the LAs clearly mean different things to different people. However the scope of the LAs was never explicit. But people have not only ascribed or assumed their intent, they are claiming thier interpretation is the only correct answer. I'll say that again - at no point has ZOS declared anything in regards to the intent of officialdom of the LAs. Fans did that. Some will say that we don't need a declaration from ZOS and it should be obvious the entire LA is official. To that I ask is UESP reduced to making assumptions now?

Some people took the LAs and opportunities to ask the developers questions and get new lore from the writers, sort of like asking them to fill in the gaps in the established lore. Others took the LAs as an opportunity to not only ask but try and sneakily insert their own lore and see if it would be recognized (which it never did apart from Lyranth's paleonymic, which is now considered official). I know for a fact that some fans were doing it for that reason because I saw people over on the teslore subreddit frequently gloating about how they "made <whatever> canon". I'm all for new lore, provided it comes from an actual writer. There is clear difference and that's the problem people ultimately have.

There is this belief that ZOS/BGS will never give a clear cut answer on their opinion of the universes' lore and how it should be handled. This is actually false. Examples to the contrary are as follows:

When Creative Director Paul Sage was asked in an Q&A: "Was the Elder Scroll of Chim put in the game to confirm CHIM?" he replied:

"The way we approach our lore... is for it to be true... it has to have been something that was actually played in the other games. That doesn't mean that from a certain scholar didn't have a certain slant on history, as scholars will. There has been throughout the Elder Scrolls series... kinda... purposeful books that are written from a certain slant which tend to be retconned in a certain way. I think that's one of the things when you're looking at CHIM as an example of "hey this is something that did appear in a book, this is something that was there" but probably if you'll reveal more about this you'll find out more about what it is."

Then we have people believing from this video that Schick is a proponant for abolishing canon when really he was talking about the unreliable narrator and its importance in TES lore. All he might be abolishing here is misconceptions about canon which only complete lore newbies would hold in the first place. And infamously, we had good ol' Pete Hines who said "only in-game sources are canon", which many people (myself included) disagreed with.

The point here is to illustrate that even between the devs there is inconsistency over what is or is not considered official. However we here at UESP have the audacity to decide for them? Given the above, its disingenuous to make claims they will never give a clear cut answer in order to support an argument.

I agree that the purpose of the wiki is indeed to document, as Legoless said - however that doesn't mean we document everything about TES, otherwises we would be hosting MK's Obscure Texts. We are certainly not "failing to correctly document these texts" because we are literially hosting them in their entirety on the site as individual pages!?

The crux of the LA questions and answers is simple: The questions contain fan headcanon and by reversing this policy we are introducing headcanon into the lorespace.

Now if that okay with the community, then that's fine, but lets not beat around the bush. For some reason, there is a push to treat fan headcanon on the same level as actual developer texts. Lets be 100% clear, the entire LA is not authored by ESO's Lead Writer and Loremaster - only the answer.

The argument is that the entire LA is official by virtue of it being published on the official site and the devs editing/vetting some parts is weak. If that's our gauge for officialdom, then there is no question that Men'Do's Trave Stories qualify for the lorespace. Those unfamiliar with Men'Do, it was originally a fan-written column on the ESO subreddit that Zeni decided to publish in their site.

A cursory look at one of the latest LAs gives some examples of LA questions that could possibly enter the lorespace (Note: everything below was ignored in the LA answer):

• A new two Yokudan deities named "Hoodoc" and the "Bat God of Talks and Makes Others Listen". (Headcanon relating to Echkin Mythos and unsubstantiated in existing lore)
• Ami-El's is now the son of Belharza (Unsubstantiated in existing lore)
• Hnes Rax is a possible alternate name for Hew's Bane (Unsubstantiated in existing lore and based on a fan-made map, the artist of which misread the name on the Western Tamriel map)
• Men of Tor/Taur is an alternate name for minotaurs. (Unsubstantiated in existing lore)

Yes, you can say that these statements, per policy, should be couched in uncertain language - but why even introduce this uncertainly? Its not detrimental to the wiki to omit headcanon. Once more, I'm all for inventing your own headcanon, but for it to be proliferated into the lorespace is somewhat alarming. My preference is to keep it far away from the verifiable lore articles UESP hosts. Personally, the bigger tragegy is the vast amounts of ESO lore that is yet to be added to the wiki.

My Proposal: Given that many people are looking to include LA questions in the lorespace, I will compromise and propose per policy of "any OOG should appear low on a single-topic page for which it is substantially relevant".. This proposes that statements or lore tidbits based 100% on a LA question should appear in the "Notes" section of lore articles only and not in the main body of the text. This is curently how the lore on Scenarist Guild is handled. They, of course, would be referenced with UOL.

Proposal 3: Formalise Schick Interviews:

The same proposal as above. However this one is even weaker because it wasn't even published on the official site. The interview was promoted on their social media with a link to the Imperial Library. They also promote TES cosplays and fan art. Now we are now taking direction from some social media manager regarding officialdom, but ignoring the words of the creative director himself? Seems kinda odd.

Honestly, this entire thing could have been avoided if ZOS just gave a big disclaimer that said everything in this text should be considered official. --Jimeee (talk) 16:16, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

On the terminology, I think "Unofficial" is the best way to go, not least because it's what we use almost all the time when trying to explain the UESP's stance on what is considered "canon" without actually using that word. Primary and Secondary I don't think are the right terms, as they have official definitions in scholarly use which don't quite align with what we want to do with them here. If the game is a primary source, any website about the game, including the UESP and the Elder Scrolls website itself is a secondary source, and if you wanted to alter that definition you'd have to use terms such as "official/unofficial" to explain how something is considered secondary. "Unlicensed" meanwhile has too many formal/legal connotations, because it implies that someone has actually specifically checked whether it is a licensed work or not. Official and Unofficial meanwhile can be clearly defined without requiring additional interpretation, as well as being what we use all the time to explain "OOG" already. --Enodoc (talk) 18:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Re Lost in Highrock: "To Lady Nerevar's point 3, I think it is in part countered by your point 1. The individual interviews, such as the recent one by IFW, did not "appear in something a Zenimax Media Company paid for."" The interview was conducted with Schick in his capacity as the Lead Loremaster of Zenimax Online, with company permission, company editing, company oversight, and company money. He is an employee, writing on behalf of the company - his work is automatically licensed. Furthermore, the creation of devs while under company employ belongs to the company as a matter of contract. I would also disagree with Enodoc regarding official and unofficial being clearly defined labels. (Lady N, again). — Unsigned comment by 172.58.92.247 (talk) at 03:10 on 19 May 2018 (UTC)

If the definition of "licensed" would include, rather than exclude, IFW's interview by that reasoning, then that label is not fit for purpose. --Enodoc (talk) 08:46, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Whether we call it licenced/unlicensed or official/unofficial, IFW's interviews (and similar ones conducted by other people) are no different than the Loremaster Archives with the exception of two points:

1) One, the questions are submitted by one person rather than by a variety of people. They are still edited and selected just like the questions for the Loremaster Archives. If at some point only one person got their questions into the Loremaster Archive, would it be any less official? In my opinion, no.

2) They are not published on elderscrollsonline.com. They are however endorsed by Zenimax Online because they are edited by them, created by them during their paid time at work, and promoted by them on social media. If these interviews were posted with no changes on elderscrollsonline.com, would it make them any more official? In my opinion, no. The content and the people behind it is the same. The answers are created by Schick, as part of his job, for ZOS publicity. If you're going to take two functionally identical pieces of media (Loremasters Archives and non-Loremasters Archives interviews), both created by an current ZOS employee as part of his job at ZOS, they must either both be official or both be unofficial.

2b) If "is it published on elderscrollsonline.com" is the only criteria that makes Loremasters Archives superior to any other interview conducted with Schick, this post by Lawrence would be "unofficial" while Men'Do's travel guides (100% fan made content) would be considered "official." Lady Nerevar (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

That reddit post you linked to is a perfect example of what the OOG tag is currently used for, so yes, that would be considered "unofficial". Random developer posts have always been treated as such. The difference between the Men'Do series and the Loremasters Archive series is that the latter was specifically written to contribute to the lore while the former was just community outreach (publishing the writings of a popular reddit user). See this discussion for the logic behind why we do not document Men'Do. It might be "official" in that it was published by ZOS, but it's irrelevant for our purposes. —Legoless (talk) 01:12, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I think what Lady N is trying to say is that the entirety of the Unofficial vs. Official stances are inherently flawed, especially if one decides that one of the main factors is if it is hosted on the site themselves. I agree that the entirety of the Loremaster's Archives and In-Universe lore interviews should be considered official due to actual extensive involvement with the creators themselves. In regards to Men'Do, it should be clear that the entertaining series was nothing more than a community project that received little involvement with the studio and should therefore be considered 'unofficial' (although cataloguing it is still not a bad idea).

What might make things easier for UESP is to update General:Unofficial Lore to reflect these new perspectives and perhaps add quotes, statements, and off-website articles made by current and former developers that are still relevant to the lore of the series and expand its background info. Adding the rest of the in-universe lore interviews that had actual involvement with the studio to the wiki would also be very beneficial overall. Perhaps even pointing out "OOG" statements that have become prevalent in the series might also be a great aid to new and current users.

In the end, I propose that both the questions and answers of the recent in-universe interviews and LAs be considered official lore and allowed to be used in the lorespace when relevant as they are fully licensed and paid for entries that expand the background lore of the series, while removing the idea behind primary and secondary lore which would only serve to cause huge rifts in the community. I also propose that OOG simply becomes Unofficial/Unlicensed Lore and that its page is severely given an update. Additional interviews and relevant articles should also be added to UESP for archiving purposes for the reasons stated above.--IceFireWarden (talk) 20:22, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

(←) Has anyone given thought that even fully official and licensed in-game content can be excluded from lore. There are several works of fiction in the games, and while some parts may be used in lore, the events described within are not considered or added to the history pages as actual historical events. These works are excluded because we know they are fictional. The same goes for some of the lies told by people within the games, as well as untruths, and even basic typos. All of this could be considered cherrypicking, as we are ignoring some or parts of potential sources. Time and again we have always chosen to ignore fan-involved sources when it comes to our lore pages. This is not because we dislike fan-created lore, but because we have taken a particular stance on what our lore pages consider lore.

To push and push and push for fan-created lore to go on our lore pages is to undermine what those pages stand for, it is also disingenuous to suggest that they should because people want it, as at least a sizable minority, if not a majority of those who enjoy the series would not want it. They do not want to read the history of the Elder Scrolls only to find that someone with no involvement with Bethesda or ZeniMax has simply made it up, and then it becomes completely irrelevant once the next game comes out with a version of events that is totally at odds with what was written here. The UESP is supposed to be an encyclopedia of the series, not the personal play-pen of a few self-involved egotists wishing to project their personal inventions where a large amount of people do not want them. Stop thinking of yourselves for once and start thinking about the thousands of people who read our site every day and have no idea of what you are about to inflict upon them because they are only readers, not editors. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:52, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I imagine that Silencer is going to 'cop a bit of flak', to take a colloquialism, for that argument; but I find myself in concurrence with him. Many of our readers couldn't care less about the echkin debate, and Silencer brings up a good point about people lying. Often, the Loremaster's Archives or the in-universe roleplay interviews are given from the perspective of a character in-game. We can't just acknowledge these as fact when often these characters have agendums to push and lies to tell. Quite frankly, it's not our place to decide who in the universe of the Elder Scrolls who is the unreliable narrator and who isn't. Silencer brings up a good point in response to Eis Fire Warden's earlier claim that the Loremaster's Archives' purpose - while Ice Vuur claims that they are for the creation of fan lore, as the UESP we exist only to compile and archive lore. We do not create; the UESP's purpose is to take what is part of the Elder Scrolls universe and record it. To try to become all-encompassing is a foolish proposition.

However, I doubt this is reason to decline the inclusion of Unlicensed Sources (a term, by the way, I concur to the use of) in certain articles where they may be useful; however it's unwise to take these as gospel and perhaps anything including a fan's perspective could be considered an Unlicensed Source - in essence relegating the questions to UL while preserving the answers' statuses as canon in the Loremaster's Archives.

To summarize, we are a wiki where documentation has its place; but Silencer is correct in that certain demarcations should be made. I myself am not brave enough to repeat what he's said; nor to agree with it wholly, but certain aspects of the ad-hominem attack could be considered legitimate. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 22:37, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't see how namecalling and ad hominem attacks contribute anything to this discussion. Furthermore, it seems to me like IceFireWarden is being taken completely out of context here. No one is suggesting that UESP should create lore; on the contrary, we have specific guidelines against the inclusion of original research on lore articles. The entire crux of the argument for this policy change is to fully document all material and perspectives, so I fail to see how in-universe fiction or the unreliable narrator trope have any relevance to this discussion whatsoever. Excluding "fan-created" lore in 2018 means excluding official material like The Nameless Mage. To include sources like The Nameless Mage in lorespace but ban Loremaster's Archive questions is cherrypicking, plain and simple, and does not reflect the current body of lore which we seek to document. —Legoless (talk) 23:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

PCLS Edit Break 1

I think everyone's moving slightly too far towards the extremes here, and started flipping between them rather than looking at the core. UESP has survived for years by pootling along in the middle ground, and that's where we should aim to stay. Not disregarding everything fan-created, as some seem to want (bye-bye MK's Obscure Texts and any reference to them, if that's where this goes), but also not officialising everything fan-based solely due to the involvement of ZOS staff (who wants to make a lore page for Hoodoc then? That's what this route means). The best course of action is to update General:Unofficial Lore with a clear definition of where the line is, because that line only exists if you stay in the middle ground.

Official

Anything written and published by Zenimax

Greg Keyes

Anything else Zenimax explicitly state is "official" content (e.g., Creation Club)

Unofficial

Things published by Zenimax that are not written by Zenimax (e.g., LA questions)

Things endorsed/approved by Zenimax that are not published by Zenimax (e.g., in-universe interviews)

Things written by former Zenimax staff that are not endorsed/approved by Zenimax

--Enodoc (talk) 00:14, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

That seems like a good compromise to me, and per the above I believe there is sufficient consensus to update General:Unofficial Lore accordingly. —Legoless (talk) 00:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

To be clear on this discussion, "from my point of view, the canon is evil", but I understand importance of delimiting these concepts for the sake of documentation, even more so in such an important wiki like UESP, which has been admittedly used as a source by Elder Scrolls developers many times.

What I'm seeing from this discussion is a tendency to stratify canonicity, specifically when it comes to questions in the LAs and Schick interviews, much in the same way Star Wars used to do (and now you understand my use of prequel memes in my opening statement), which is documented here: [1]. Needless to say this is a convoluted mess we would be better off avoiding.

When it comes to the topic of the questions in interviews and such, the best course of action in my opinion is to only refer to the (portions of the) questions when the answer specifically refers to them. That way sources remain developer-using-an-officially-sanctioned-medium-only, with the OOG (or whatever it becomes called) information only working to support that bit of information, never being used as a fact on its own.

Keep the use of the OOG/"Unofficial" sources to the questions and treat what Schick wrote in the LAs and in-universe interviews as regular sources, with just as much credibility as in-game books. That's my opinion on this. Bryn (talk) 00:53, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and +1 Enodoc's idea for a compromise. But before I leave the remainder of this conversation to y'all, just some things I'm going to say.

First off, I'm very disappointed and insulted by all of the personal jabs and roundabout/polite insults that both me and LadyN have been subjected to throughout this entire conversation. Especially since both of us have been quite cordial and genuinely polite. It's quite rude and definitely not okay, especially when a lot of the things we have been quoted on or said have been exaggerated, taken out of context, or have been twisted around to make it seem like we have some sort of hidden agenda when that is not the case. I never stated that UESP is supposed to create and expand lore - I said that the point of the Loremasters' Archives and the In-Universe Interviews was to create and expand upon the lore of the games, and that UESP's job is to archive all of it and not dictate what is and what shouldn't be considered official lore as that policy boils down to cherrypicking what you guys want, not what is stated.

I also don't care about whether or not echkin or any other Uutak material is hosted or not, as that is not the point I'm trying to make. And yet people seem to always want to bring them up into these conversations just because I'm the creator. Do I make references to the UM? Yes, I do. But I do so not just because of my own voalition, but because many at ZOS/BGS like and support the project and okay with me referencing it. And if it is fine with them, then it is fine with me too: if it wasn't, I wouldn't do it. The project itself should not be used as an excuse to claim that I have some sort of hidden agenda when that was never the case.

One of the main points of this conversation was to change the definition of OOG and point out that the LAs and IUIs are officially licensed products and should therefore in their entirety be treated as an official lore source, which we both as well as Lego and Enodoc have used facts to support but others have either ignored in favor of personal attacks or bias/nitpicked. They are edited by, reviewed by, approved by, paid for, endorsed, and involve ZOS/BGS employees and are therefore officially licensed products. This an unchangeable and undeniable fact, regardless of any personal thought or opinion. And the underlying issue that many people dislike about it isn't even a viable one. It is simply "because a fan did it and therefore it cannot be considered official."

If we use this logic, then what about the books and names for the gods in Daggerfall that were written or inspired by fans? What about PGE3, which was developed and inspired by a fan-induced community roleplay? What about fishysticks? What about the Meet the Character event? Or the dozen other fan-created ideas or references that made it into the series?

Let's not even get into the numerous references and inclusions of actual developer and former developer documents and comments on numerous websites and personal conversations that were made to expand upon the lore, which is an entirely different matter in and of itself.

It is here where this policy and system is exposed as inherently and undeniably flawed. Because the LAs and IUIs are no different than those examples. And UESP has no jurisdiction over what should or not be considered official lore - its goal is to archive it, plain and simple. Not to have an authority over what should be the "universal canon" or not. As it has been stated in this debate by editors here, you view yourselves as the "guardians and protectors of our lore". This isn't your lore. It's ZOS/BGS lore, and to blatantly try to dissect what they have made and done with the community in mind shows how bias many are in their idea that they should control how it is viewed and managed. And you wonder why the LAs stopped. And why these IUS are so few in number and hard to do. Why do them at all if you don't care about the main point behind them? But what should I know? I'm just an egotist trying to insert my views into this world.

In the end, something that is officially licensed shouldn't be ridiculed or cherrypicked apart just because it involves the participation of the fans. It is strangely convenient that many people tend to forget that TES became so popular and created such an expansive and beautiful world in the first place was because of the help of its fans, but nowadays anything done by the community or for the community is looked down upon and viewed as negative. I'll never truly understand it.

But that was the point I was trying to make here. Whatever you guys decide on now is your choice, because I'm going to abandon this debate with my support for Enodoc's idea due to the mistreatment and honest bullying that took place in it. A compromise is fine, all things considered, but the underlying point of all of this was completely and utterly missed. Peace.IceFireWarden (talk) 01:47, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I am in full support of Enodoc's compromise proposal. Fullerton ﴾_talk﴿ 05:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

(←) I support Enodoc's proposed compromise.

I am conflicted about this issue, evidenced by the fact I've been laying in bed thinking about a response instead of just sleeping! In part, I understand Legoless's statements that 'it's all lore, it doesn't matter of some of it is bad, we still should record it.' On the other, I don't believe kevkev21 is a part of Tamriel! (Yes, it's the silliest example)

Essentially, it is my subjective view that some lore sources are 'better' than others. I put more weight behind an answer composed by Schick than I do behind a question asked by Mr Flippers. I believe that we will continue to be selective about how we represent lore going forward, even if we were to choose "all official" as our policy. People would still think "I am not citing kevkev21 in this article." And so, we decide whether the "cherrypicking" will be case-by-case or standardized. (As an aside, that term seems to be used a bit differently on Wikipedia than we've been using it here. It seems to refer to misrepresenting one or several related sources to support a point the source doesn't completely make.)

IFW, I don't think any should have insulted you, nor do I think including your personal theories in interviews was malicious or devious. I believe you when you discuss how there was official work involved in the interview, including editing passes. You demonstrated how a reference to the jills was removed from the recent interview, suggesting that they censor topics they consider a problem. I also do not know how much weight that holds. Perhaps Schick did all of the editing himself, as part of an allowance of hours for community outreach. Maybe they only remove stuff they specifically have issue with, and left in some stuff they thought was harmless. There are lots of things that are somewhat uncertain in this area.

I do not believe it is accurate to say that those of us opposing 'full officialdom' have missed the point of this conversation. We have made some different value judgements, in the same way that value judgements determined the Men'Do stuff shouldn't count. In light of all that, I reiterate my support Enodoc's points, as I think they most effectively let us document details from these resources, without labeling as Official those things which give some of us pause. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 05:10, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

All this talk about "cherrypicking" and no one has yet to reply to my point about actual cherrypicking: The quote by Creative Director Paul Sage vs Schick's view vs Pete Hines view. All this time we have decided to ignore what Pete and Paul's actual explicit words are regarding lore vs Schicks talk about the unreliable narrator.

But anyway - literally no one will say that Schick's reddit post is not official. No one will agree today that anything that isn't in a game is, by definition, "unofficial" (See Interactive Map of Tamriel) - so this isn't really a sticking point for us.

But let's be honest again. There are times when we have disregarded this rule on a case by case basis. Specifically the Prima Guides, which have the 100% endorsement of Bethesda and contain a bunch of lore, but are a bit dubious and error prone. So we literally cherrypick the bits that seem ok.

The Nameless Mage was explicitly declared to be official. And once more this is the crux. There are a bunch of people who want an explicit declaration that X is official from Bethesda (or as close to possible such as a ZOS writer actually writing lore in some manner - like the reddit comment or LA answers) and another bunch that are ok with assuming that by virtue of the piece having condition x, y and z that it should be considered official.

Endoc's proposal is similar to my own earlier. Statements or lore tidbits based 100% on a question in a LA or interviews should be referenced with UOL - and by default appear in the "Notes" section of lore articles, and not in the main body of the text. I am being specific about the notes section because there are no doubt several use cases that I have not considered where such lore statement could appear, so this is playing it safe and making the distinction as clear as possible. --Jimeee (talk) 08:39, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Limiting information to the Notes section is a needless formatting restriction which I cannot support. However, we should certainly endeavour to include the conflicting quotes from Sage, Schick, Hines et. al. on General:Unofficial Lore and explain why we choose to ignore those statements. Use of OOG has always been done on a case-by-case basis; the purpose of this discussion is to remove the blanket ban on certain sources, not to remove editor discretion. —Legoless (talk) 12:27, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I can't watch the video to see what Schick said right now, but I agree that it's important to go back to Sage and Hines and their "only in-game is canon" and explain based on the reasons given here why that doesn't quite work anymore. (That view was presumably the basis for the original tag being called "Out of Game" in the first place.) It is with that in mind that I derived the suggestion for the Official/Unofficial split too. --Enodoc (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I just want to address some points here, I am not trying to start any arguments this time.

I'd like to make another clarification of something that appears to be being misrepresented. The UESP does not record Bethesda/ZeniMax's official lore. What we do/did is document the games and associated materials published by them as lore. We chose to only record what they published. Bethesda's official line on lore is non-existent, they don't have one, and they won't give one, for the precise reason I gave above; they want people to enjoy their games as they see fit. This is different to their internal process which clearly has a defined lore from which they create the games, but even that is not what we record, because we record ret-cons and conflicting lore, where they would disregard the old version when going forward with their next product.

Blanket-bans are not uncommon on wikipedia, they ban all certain newspapers for one, so you would need to source a different newspaper for exactly the same story for it to be acceptable. "Blanket-bans" are not bad when applied properly.

Fan-created material is an outdated catch-all phrase that only applies to things outside the game, in the same way that OOG is an outdated term, I apologize for its usage in creating any confusion. The fishy-stick and aedra's names are not "fan-created" once they are included in a game, nor is the Nameless Mage, as again, we document the games/products without question as to why they are in there.

The prima-guide is something I opposed being used as an official source, and if I remember correctly it only had one use in lorespace at that time. It was being used to expand upon a known topic, and was the best source of information on that topic when Skyrim was released. Its status is enough to warrant notes about its errors being created on various related pages in gamespaces.

I am starting to feel that Unlicensed should definitely not be used, it is a term that has the connotation that the work was not authorized where would have needed to be. Unlicensed work is also generally susceptible to legal ramifications. I suppose the same could even be said of Unofficial, it doesn't carry the same connotation that you need a license/permission to make such work. Beth/Zeni actually encourage such work to happen, as seen with the work they published on their site, or the things they highlight on their social media outlets and even their blog.

The only problem with Enodoc's proposal is the severe reluctance from Beth and Zeni to use the term "official". Requiring that it be explicitly declared official would rule out quite a lot of work that is already taken as official, it would even apply to some of the games if they were not already included by default. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:43, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. But in some ways, that's not a bad thing, as it allows us to define what "unofficial" is in terms of everything else, as suggested above. Other words that mean the same thing (like "canon") are viable substitutions. Like when someone said definitively that "ESO is canon". If there are some things that are currently considered "official" but would be rendered "unofficial" by the proposal, it would be worth covering them off now so we can ensure the definitions are robust. --Enodoc (talk) 00:22, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

"What we do/did is document the games and associated materials published by them as lore." This is actually the crux of this proposed policy change, because article series like Loremaster's Archive are official products specifically written to contribute to the lore. Failing to document them means lorespace is failing in its purpose.

"The fishy-stick and aedra's names are not "fan-created" once they are included in a game, nor is the Nameless Mage[...]" The information contained in The Nameless Mage does not appear in-game, which is the reason I brought it up in the first place. —Legoless (talk) 10:24, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support all three proposals, perhaps with some refinement. The first is a no-brainer, since the current name/acronym is misleading.

  The second proposal seems entirely reasonable, with the sole potential exception of a case where the LA material conflicts in some way with in-game material (either because the LA material is mistaken, or later in-game material diverged from an old LA answer). In such a case, treat the in-game material as more authoritative, but probably also note the LA version. It's not like we're unfamiliar with the fact that the in-game material can even be self-contradictory, and we even know for some "lorey" topics that it's intentional, to show fictional writers in the game disagreeing with each other about ancient history. Toward the endgame of Morrowind, this is even a significant plot point (twice). The third seems like a reasonable approach. While the human source is arguably the most reliable single human source for such answers, their publication isn't official, so they should be treated as unofficial, but high-quality.

  I agree with some comments above that "secondary" and "primary" have been misused and that this is introducing confusion and conflict. These terms already have clear academic meanings, and we shouldn't be redefining them on the fly. For a wiki context, the material at wikipedia:WP:PSTS is probably a good enough overview of the meanings. However, UESP doesn't use primary and secondary sources the same way WP does, but virtually the opposite: we trust the most primary source the most (the game itself tells us most reliably what the game says/has in it), and secondary sources least (we don't really care if, say, GameSpot says something that can't be verified in-game or in the CS; gamer mags and e-mags get stuff wrong all the time). A particular kind of "primary source", namely some random schmoe declaring something on a forum site, isn't actually a source at all from a UESP perspective, but just noise.

  Perhaps more to the point, wikipedia:WP:RS is highly relevant (not as a set of rules, but as a logical system of source evaluation). It goes into considerable detail about source quality, which is what we're talking about here. The official material has what WP would call a highly reputable publisher (in this case, the most reputable possible for in-universe material, from UESP's viewpoint). Depending on exactly which Bethesda developer made something up at any given time, the probably unknown author of that detail may or may not really be a reliable author (i.e., compared to Schick, who may or may not have carefully reviewed every single bit everyone put into the game). We'll never know, and just have to trust that by making it into the game it's become canonical and should be treated that way, absent later game material contradicting it, or Schick declaring it an error that slipped in (as Bethesda's formal loremaster, he has that power, I would say). An example of a low-quality official source would be, e.g., Argonian nomeclature in Arena: they all have Latin- or Greek-derived names, a system that was later scrapped for Argonians and used almost exclusively for Imperials (though with the occasional Altmer or other glitch slipping in). So, it's entirely possible for official sources to conflict and for us to prefer one (probably a later one, but maybe sometimes a "bigger game" one, especially when comparing the major games to trivial stuff like the mobile games, which seem to have had less than stellar Bethesda oversight).

  Similarly, an in-depth LA or Schick Interviews answer may actually be a higher-quality source than vague or incomplete info pulled from in-game dialogue. Remember that the characters in the game aren't always honest and are not omniscient. Example: The player character refers to Severa Magia as the Dark Brotherhood's "local Night Mother" in the player Journal, but no one else ever refers to her as "local" or suggests multiple Night Mothers operating simultaneously in different places, and we know from broader lore (in Oblivion, etc.) that the DB only has one Night Mother at a time. Further, we have conflicting in-game information about whether there have been a series of NMs, or just one [up to Magia's death and replacement by the time of Oblivion] who had unnaturally long lifespan and might have even been some kind of demigoddess. This is intentional (the fictional books in the game are often dubious or biased and are meant to be taken with a grain of salt; doing so is even part of the plot sometimes, as in interpreting Nerevar's history and the details of the Nerevarine prophesies in Morrowind).

  Finally, I don't think we should be using any unofficial sources that amount to fanfic, at all. Why would we? I could go make up something right now and post it to some forum that TES gamers like, but that's no reason to cite it here, for anything. In the odd case that some bit of something like that has eventually made it into a later game through Bethesda liking and adopting it, it becomes canon and isn't fanwankery any longer, despite its ultimate origin. Also make an exception for unofficial lore from actual Bethesda developers; this is only "quasi-unofficial". Basically, the dividing line between citable and not citable as a source should be whether it has Bethesda authorship at one level or another, or was just written by some player (or modder). I can't see any real difference between citing player-authored pseudo-lore, and citing the events and characters in third-party mods as if they're part of the game itself. We're really clear about not doing the latter, so I'm not sure why there's even any debate about whether it's okay to do the former.
  — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 00:15, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Consensus

Since this discussion had petered out and in an attempt to wrap it up and reach some type of formal consensus, I have decided to tabulate the responses to date. Just to be clear, this discussion was not a vote, but I figure looking at the numbers should offer a much clearer overview of the discussion than trawling through the immense paragraphs above:

Proposal 1 (renaming OOG):

• Unofficial Lore (UOL): 11 for UOL only, 14 total
• Secondary: 1 for primary/secondary only
• UL (Unlicenced Lore): 2 for unlicenced only, 4 total
• UOL/Secondary: 1
• UOL/UL: 2

Renaming OOG to UOL is the clear consensus here.

Proposal 2 (Loremaster's Archive citation):

• Entirely Official: 7 supporting this, 10 total when including those willing to compromise
• Questions as OOG/UOL: 6 supporting this, 9 total when including those willing to compromise
• Questions Official or OOG/UOL: 3 willing to compromise
• Questions OOG/UOL and Restricted to Notes: 1
• No Citation of Questions: 2

This has by far been the most contentious proposal, and given the above range of views I think it's fair to say there has been a strongly agreed consensus for the inclusion of material from LA questions in lorespace in some form. The compromise to cite LA questions as OOG/UOL received fairly wide support from those who continued to participate in the discussion and engage with points raised by those against any inclusion, so that seems to be the agreed solution resulting from this discussion.

Proposal 3 (Schick interviews):

• Citing as OOG/UOL: 13, or 14 when including those willing to compromise
• Citing as Official: 1, or 2 when including those willing to compromise
• Official or OOG/UOL: 1 willing to compromise
• OOG/UOL and Restricted to Notes: 1
• No Citation: 2

Seems fairly clear-cut that these interviews, both questions and answers, can be cited in lorespace in the same fashion as other developer texts are currently treated, i.e. as OOG/UOL references.

Both General:Unofficial Lore and UESPWiki:Lore will need to be updated on foot of this discussion. In addition, a bot run will likely have to be carried out to convert all instances of OOG to UOL. —Legoless (talk) 14:21, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Deletion Procedures

Since we just had a bit of an incident around this, I'd like to remind everyone of our deletion procedures in the event that the deletion is contested. Per our deletion policy, if someone removes a {{Prod}} from a page, it should be assumed that they object to the deletion. That is the correct thing to do. Ideally, they should then proceed to the talk page to discuss the deletion, but if they don't, other editors should. A {{Prod}} should not be restored unless there's agreement on the talk page to delete the page.

If a talk page discussion fails to produce consensus, then the next step is to take the discussion to deletion review so that the entire community can participate in the discussion. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:47, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

That is not what the policy says. The policy says exactly this "If the "proposed deletion" tag is removed without explanation, it should be assumed that there is an objection to the deletion." As our policy lacks any guidelines to this situation, it would revert to wikipedia, where it does say that a prod should only happen once (and that is once in its entire history of existence). A removal, even one done in bad faith, should never be reverted. However, the wikipedia article is clearly unusable here, as its methods are totally at odds with the way things happen here, as well as our policy. To this end Deletion Review has almost become defunct, replaced by prod for articles that might receive an object, where on wikipedia prod should never be used where an objection may be raised (there are very few pages created here that would not receive an objection, particularly by its creator, and for new pages prod is totally useless given that same reason, forcing every new page to go straight to deletion review).

Removing a prod may be classed as an objection, but it does not count when evaluating the assumed discussion that occurs afterward. Having a discussion in that case is beyond useless, as you then need to go to a deletion review in order to propose the page for deletion again, else how does the page be deleted. What you have instead raised is that the policy is badly out of date, but I will refrain from rewriting it until by some miracle the page that should be deleted is deleted without a deletion tag being put on it.

No, screw that, a deletion that should have occurred nearly three months ago has been totally forgotten about because there was no template to indicate the page was under review for deletion. The policy is clearly wrong, as is our complete lack of coherence on what to do in these cases. I'm going to make some proposed changes now. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Our policy is clearly missing the explicit statement that proposed deletions should not be reinstated without consensus, but historically, that was our practice. I believe Wikipedia's procedure was also in line with that at one point in time, but whether or not it was, it clearly no longer is. I agree completely that Wikipedia's current procedure makes no sense for us at all, and we should define our own procedures more explicitly.

From a purely administrative point of view, restoring a deleted Prod is problematic, since the deleting admin could fairly easily accidentally delete a page when the deletion is contested if they don't look closely enough at the history or if the history doesn't make it obvious (the latter being admittedly unlikely, but not impossible). For that reason alone, I'd rather not see Prods restored without consensus.

On the topic of overlooked discussions like this one, it's up to those involved in the discussion to seek wider consensus if it's needed. If we want to template that in some way, we can probably do something along those lines, or even a simple "Deletion Discussions" category would probably do the trick. Either way, deletion discussions would be more readily spotted. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 01:55, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Deleting an article without looking over it properly is a different problem. I've made the proposed wording changes at the policy talk page for convenience due to its size. The page that should have been deleted shows a clear need to have the template on the page until a decision is taken that it won't be deleted. I've actually done that myself and I consider that now to be the wrong course of action. The only viable solution is another template, or a parameter that (as well as reducing its size) shows that the page is clearly under discussion for deletion and needs to be contributed to. The clear fact of the matter is that no-one cares about talk pages until you do anything, or have a template on the page that requires your attention. I think the only reason we don't like prod/speed templates on the page for a length of time is their size, not their purpose. Anyway, I'm going to bed, feel free to tweak any wording on my proposal as it was rather quick, and I'm sure there'll be another 122,163 characters on the page by the time I get back. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:58, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Prefer more discussion, over people unilaterally deleting things or restoring templates that will effectively lead to the same result. I agree that PROD isn't really a very useful process on this wiki. I would think that just using the deletion review page, or turning it into "Pages for deletion" venue more broadly, would be the way to go. To the extent the page is a bit moribund, it wouldn't be if deletion and undeletion discussions were centralized there. Just kind of combine WP's PROD and XfD processes. Especially since we may need to delete things other than articles (someone PRODed one of my redirects, and I've proposed deleting a template, and so on), and the rationales for deleting or keeping different kinds of pages are apt to be wildly inconsistent. E.g., the reasons to oppose a particular redirect or type of redirect (typically for internal policy and procedure reasons that only matter to editors and possibly only to admins) generally bear no relation to why to delete an article (e.g. because it's a bunch of nonsense, or is an accidental content fork of a page we already have, and other reader-affecting reasons). — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 03:47, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
PS: The same page would also be a good spot for systemic merge discussions. It's been my experience so far that proposing them WP style, on the talk page of one of the affected pages, produces little input. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable declaring a consensus to do it when only one other party responds (or none do, thus no explicit objections). An example: Morrowind talk:Special Magic Armor#Merge this page away, which would do away with three separate pages via merger. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 03:58, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Change the "Tribunal:" namespace shortcut from "TR:" to "TB:" (or make both work)

Nearly everyone in the Morrowind player and modder community abbreviates the Tribunal expansion as "TB", and uses "TR" to mean Tamriel Rebuilt. This isn't new, though it's more important now with the sharp uptick in Morrowind/Tribunal/Tamriel Rebuilt popularity due to the release of a stable, fully playable version of OpenMW about 2 years go, making it all accessible to zillions of formerly TES-deprived Mac and Linux users.

"TR:" is used here only because UESP long-timers have conditioned themselves think in "TR = Tribunal" terms. But even back in the 2000s, "TB" was common anyway, since Tamriel Rebuilt got started right after the original game was released and has been running continuously since then. Consider this: The project is almost as old as Wikipedia, and actually pre-dates Tribunal. It's been "TR" longer and more extensively than Tribunal ever has.

While the intentional focus of the UESP site is on the official content, we need to take into account readers' and editors' heads, too. Permitting only "TR" for Tribunal is counter-productive, editorially, because the real player community, which means the stock of incoming editors as well as readers, are mostly mod freaks, and the largest and longest-running active modding project, pretty much ever, is Tamriel Rebuilt, which we all call "TR" for short. The entire community habitually uses "TB = Tribunal" and "TR = Tamriel Rebuilt", because "TR = Tribunal" is ambiguous and confusing.

Alternatively, we could have both "TB:" and "TR:" resolve to "Tribunal:"; we're not going to give Tamriel Rebuilt its own namespace here. But there's no reason to continue permitting only the ambiguous and confusing abbreviation, even if some old hands here would continue to use it habitually.

This proposal comes out of previous (unresolved) discussion here and here.
— Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 03:22, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Addressing only the technical side and not considering whether we actually should do this or not, adding a TB namespace alias for Tribunal is trivial, and either Dave or I could do it in minutes. You could immediately start using links like [[TB:Article]] while still retaining the ability to use [[TR:Article]]. Pretty much everything after that gets hard, though, since you generally have to pick one or the other, so if TB is chosen as the primary, then we would have to change some template names, a lot of template parameter names and values, category names, and probably several other things I'm not thinking of. That would be a fairly substantial undertaking just for a slight improvement to consistency with the outside world.

Coming from a different angle, the down side to allowing both is that people may become confused as to why we have two fairly similar namespace aliases where we only used to have one. Chances are, they'll ignore the new one in favour of the established one (much like using TESO for Online is unheard of, and even ESO links are fairly rare, despite being fairly intuitive). – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 07:19, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

My views on this have already been outlined in the above-linked discussion on Template talk:TB. In short: no. —Legoless (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm curious where TB is in common use. If I look at TESWiki, for example, they also use TR. I found several mods that use TR to mean Tribunal in their description or file name. On forums, I also saw TR used a fair bit to mean Tribunal. Yes, clearly TB is also in use, but it seems to be in the minority from what I found in a quick search in various places. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 19:44, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to change the abbreviation for a decade old namespace. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:51, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't believe having both is a proper solution to the issue. The purpose surely is to change TR to TB, and phase out/remove the use of TR as an abbreviation for Tribunal. It doesn't make a lick of sense to include TB but still allow TR, because the majority of edits will then continue to use TR. A TR template could then easily be adapted for use for the Tamriel Rebuilt area within the modspace, making linking easier. I firmly believe that our readers are more largely comprised of non-modders than modders or mod-users, though that has little relevance as a reader will never see or use the namespace shortcut whatever it may be. I am also a firm believer in context. We have so many of our own ways of doing things, that learning the shortcut namespace link for Tribunal is going to be one of the first that they would catch on to, given that our lack of a namespace for Tamriel Rebuilt means there will actually never be a compelling reason to use TB instead of TR. An important thing to note is that our file naming system uses the shortcut initials, and is part of the reason ON has become not just dominant, but almost exclusively the only shortcut used for Online. If we were to change to TB and have that as the default the files would need to be moved (not to be used as a reason to not change), as keeping TR available and in use for the files would see TB sidelined like "ESO" and make the effort that went into getting a change go to waste. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:15, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm in agreement. I don't think TB should be used at all. Like RH, I haven't seen TB used much of anywhere, and I was very active in the Morrowind community pre-Oblivion, including with mods and some work with Tamriel Rebuilt. I don't think it's needed in such an old namespace to change this. I also have my doubts over the impact that OpenMW is having. Most of the people who would have wanted to play morrowind on a mac will have gotten it some other way, like parallels. Linux is basically a non-issue at this point. Any gamer who uses a linux based machine will also have a windows based machine to play games on, especially someone who enjoys games from the early 2000s. Thus, I don't think there is any sort of significant need to change the namespace. If the first time we've heard about a high use of TB 15.5 years after it was released, then clearly it doesn't have THAT significant of usage.

TL;DR: No. Jeancey (talk) 02:22, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

(←) Not sure how useful my feedback is at this point (as we're already at a consensus), but I'm inclined to say "no" as well. Renaming TR to TB would be a ton of work, even if we put bots on the task, for no appreciable benefit. Having an alias doesn't seem to be much more useful, because those abbreviations are primarily used by the wiki editors, who so far have been just fine with using TR.

I get where you're coming from Dark, and I think had we had the discussion way back when the namespace was first created it may have been wiser to use TB, but at this point there's little incentive to make the switch. • JA^T 03:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking at it from the other side, we already have TR3 as an abbreviation for Tamriel Rebuilt, so I don't think using TR as well is necessary, particularly since TR is already in use. (Also according to UESP:Namespaces, it seems that TR3 is supposed to be a functional shortcut for the Tes3Mod:Tamriel Rebuilt pseudospace as defined at MediaWiki:Uespnamespacelist, but it doesn't seem to work.) --Enodoc (talk) 23:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough; I made the case, and if it's not convincing, so be it. Would be nice if "TR3:" worked, just have a shortcut. I didn't realize we had much in the way of Tamriel Rebuilt material at all. I'll be playing it next time I fire up OpenMW for a new game, so I might add some content on it. They've put out a lot of additional material just in the last 2 years. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 10:38, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

TR3 does work if you use it as a template (e.g. {{TR3|Artifacts}}), it does not work as an inbuilt shortcut like TR does. In response to Enodoc's observation the Namespace page was updated to explain this better. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 12:19, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Skyrim Very Special Edition and where to place it

The Alexa version of Skyrim is a new speech-based Skyrim game. However, it is not really a Skyrim port, but just inspired by it. This would make it strange to put it in Skyrimspace, but I also think it does not deserve its own namespace. Do we want to put it in General? Lost in Hyrule already made a nice draft with the game mechanics here, so you can check out how much the game differs (a lot) with the main game. Any thoughts? --Ilaro (talk) 09:02, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

If it's not going to have many pages, General would probably make sense. If it's got enough content and mechanics that it will need multiple pages, it should probably get its own namespace like ObMob. --Enodoc (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Skyrim VSE is an odd one, as it Bethesda making a parody version of its own game. It is like OB Mobile in that it is a stripped down version of Skyrim. However, it doesn't use much from Skyrim except the name of the hero, three shouts, and the weapon name modifiers. I don't think there are going to be many pages, as there is little difference between the places or people, and everything you need to know can be linked to a Skyrim page. As it doesn't have anything different, the potential for extra pages being very small, and it being a "version" of Skyrim, it should be in Skyrim-space (with extra pages being sub-pages). As it is an official Elder Scrolls game, the only two alternatives are a new namespace, which seems completely disproportionate to what it is, or Main Space, which has so far only been used for the cancelled games which only have one page. General is not the place to put information about an official game or version in the series. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I see two options: either a separate namespace like OBMobile—which seems unwarranted given its size—or a standalone page like Eye of Argonia, with additional subpages as needed. Generalspace would also work but we have no precedent for using it to host entire games. Skyrimspace is not appropriate as this release really has nothing to do with the 2011 game. Despite the name, Very Special Edition is not a "version" of TES5 no more than Oblivion Mobile was a version of TES4 (despite the devs insisting otherwise). It's a separate game. —Legoless (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I think this should go in mainspace like the canceled games and have subpages. There should also be a link in All Content next to Canceled Games. On a related note, the portal page for Canceled Games should probably be moved to mainspace because all three games are there already. —Dillonn241 (talk) 21:23, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Dillon and I have been doing most of the information gathering on the game. It's turning out to be somewhat substantial. Sure, it's only variations in text for the most part, but there is quite a lot of it! I quickly skimmed through Oblivion Mobile, and I would not be surprised if we end up having roughly as much material as that game. I don't know if that knowledge influences how the voting would go one way or another. I think it is substantial enough to have its own namespace, but due to its nature, I would also think it reasonable to put it in mainspace with subpages. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Checks and Crosses

This seemed like such a simple thing to deal with when I first noticed the issues, but the more I looked the more complicated things got. With the number of pages that would be affected by any change, I thought I'd better bring it to CP for discussion. So, here goes....

Earlier today, I noticed that we seem to have a very random grab-bag of checks and crosses on our site. To wit:

File:Ico-Tick.png	A 20×20 pixel green check mark.
File:Check.png	A 25×24 pixel green check mark.
File:Yellow Check.png	A 25×24 pixel yellow check mark.
File:Ico-Cross.png	A 22×22 red cross.

Noticeably, the middle check marks are fairly thin and don't match the cross, which is quite thick. Also, as you can see with the black background, the top check and the cross have the issue that there are white borders around them. This is noticeable on various Morrowind magic pages (and possibly elsewhere) where we're using different background colours.

My first thought was to just head over to MediaWiki Commons and grab their versions at a nice high resolution (or vector versions, though we've had some issues with those here in the past) that can easily be scaled to whatever size we want, but I can't seem to find any check mark there that quite matches ours. I was able to find a version of the red X we're using, but it's in a different shade of red and the licensing is a bit unclear. It says it was released into the public domain by the creator, but our version of it pre-dates the released version of it by three years, so I imagine it doesn't actually belong to the purported creator (unless they also created the one we got ours from, or converting it to SVG counts as a new work). Although, if nobody's complained about it on MediaWiki for 8 years, I don't imagine it's a big issue.

Anyway, for the green check, my preference would be Commons' Green Check as our standard check mark. There are many other options on their site, though, or we can grab one from somewhere else if we can find something in the public domain. There's also a yellow version of it available, or we can figure out some other option for the one page that's used on. (I'm not worried about HoodBot's page, as that's very temporary.) For the cross, I'm not too thrilled with the one Wikipedia uses for their "Not done" template, though the darker, squarer one looks a bit better to me. Again, there are options.

Thoughts from anyone? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 02:24, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

PNG versions of your first two external links are my preference for the check and cross. To get yellow, the check can simply be recolored so that it matches the shape. In that case, it may be best to have several colors available for future use (black, blue, gray, green, purple, red, yellow). —Dillonn241 (talk) 02:55, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

As long as they don't have the ragged white border of our current red cross, I'm ok with just about anything. --Xyzzy ^Talk 03:55, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

The "Equis_roja" png seems closer to our red X but lighter. It's six months later than the other but seems clear to be in free use. Not too fussed about which tick to use, but the common wikipedia one is alright. All ticks should be the same shape from now then, we can recolour them as and when. The alpha needs cleaned up more importantly than trying to find an exact match for the ones we have. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 17:24, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to let this drop for a while. I've had other distractions and a lot of bad days lately, but I hope to get to this within the next couple of days. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 22:59, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

(←) I would say to see [2] and [3] which lately have multiple output options (more for the tick/check than the cross), and which at their documentation link to more roughly-similar icons. The default output of both templates uses a nicely, subtly gradient version. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 00:41, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

That's good, some time can be saved by using their code. I still favour using only one style for each. I also suggest we limit the usage of other colors to specific reasons that apply to all pages that use it, eg Yellow means roughly "yes but under certain circumstances" on all pages it is used on, and not be used on different pages with each page having its own specific reason. I also suggest we use the same names for our templates as wikipedia, as a tick doesn't always mean yes, and a cross doesn't always mean no. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 16:45, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Okay, for the time being, we're using the exact same images Wikipedia uses, which seems to have been the consensus. I've also added {{Tick}} and {{Cross}} and imported much of Wikipedia's functionality for those (though not all, and some of it is a bit different...I'll do doc pages for them soon). The older templates {{V}}, {{X}}, {{Yes}}, and {{No}} are now redirects to Tick and Cross, as appropriate.

I've also updated all the major templates to use the new images and/or templates. This should ensure that ticks and crosses are much more standardized across the entire wiki in the future. There will undoubtedly be many un-templated image links left. I'll wait until the job queue has caught up and then review those individually to figure out what's best in each case.

The one issue that I'm aware of is that hover text currently doesn't display at all. This is because the Wikipedia version of the templates disable the ability to go to the image page by clicking on the image. That, in turn, disables the hover text. The obvious workaround is to simply re-enable linking to the image, but I think it's probably better if we don't do that. I'll look into other options. That turned out to be simplicity itself to fix. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 06:26, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

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