UESPWiki talk:Style Guide/Place Layout

Tamriel Place Pages

I'm playing with some revisions to the officially sanctioned places template. I started with a suggestion at Oblivion Talk:Places#Suggestion. I've now proceeded to modify the Template:Ayleid Ruins Summary. I'm thinking of continuing to tweak the Oblivion Places pages, so that they do what I think they need to do within the Oblivion namespace. But I'm a bit confused as to the bigger question of how localized (i.e., Oblivion-specific) place pages should relate to Tamriel pages, and how to proceed on that front.

It seems to me that the Tamriel Place pages should not be automatically transcluded onto the localized (i.e., Oblivion) Place pages. Right now that transclusion system is not working too well. Most people don't know what to do with the pages. When the Tamriel pages are being filled in, it seems impossible to fill them out in such a way that works in all the situations where the pages are transcluded (i.e., where they've been set up for the Tamriel geography page, they generally don't work for Oblivion pages, and vice-versa). So I was hoping to get some feedback on:

• what should be on the Tamriel geography pages (i.e., Lore:Places A)?
• where should the Tamriel Place pages be transcluded?
• what should be on the Tamriel Place pages?

As far as I can tell, the main intended use of Tamriel Place pages is to transclude into Tamriel master geography pages. But right now, those geography pages aren't working too well. At Lore:Places B, for example, the road entries such as Lore:Black_Road are only half-included. At Lore:Places L, the most of the Leyawiin entry is being included, whereas other cities only have a one-liner.

In my opinion, the geography listing pages should really just be one to two line minimal descriptions of the places. There should be some mention of what game the place is included in, and then a link to a more complete page (presumably the game-specific page). So, for example, an entry on Belda might read:

A medium-sized Ayleid ruin occupied by conjurers, located in Cyrodiil between the Imperial City and Cheydinhal. See the Oblivion entry on Belda for more information.

This entry could easily be the contents of a Lore:Belda page, which then gets transcluded into the Lore:Places B page.

But then transcluding that entry into Belda doesn't work so well: in the Oblivion page, you don't need to be told that it's in Cyrodiil, and you don't need to be referred elsewhere for more information. So that's why I'm inclined to make the Oblivion and Tamriel versions of the place pages independent, without automatic transclusions back and forth.

Does any one else have any thoughts on these topics? --Nephele 18:55, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

The Tamriel pages are supposed to be encyclopedic. What I mean by this, is that it is supposed to contain basic information (a paragraph or two) about everything, and should link to the bigger article. That being said, information should only be transcluded from the Tamriel pages upon the discretion of the authors. Transclude it if it makes the article better, and don't if it interfers with the content or if it isn't needed. I'll be researching some of the work you've been doing on these pages to try to better understand your problem. --Aristeo 19:48, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

The problem is if you do that the Tamriel: pages will be largely ignored (just as they were before this was implemented). I agree it isn't a perfect solution, but otherwise there will inevitably be duplicate info. Garrett^Talk 01:57, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

In IRC, Nephele, I, and later Lurlock discussed this issue. We agreed that the Tamriel namespace is for lore, and things that are found in multiple games. Perhaps Nephele can explain our discussion better than I can. --Aristeo 02:29, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

My take on the IRC discussion is that the Tamriel encyclopedia should only have entries for the "well-known" places in individual games, i.e., places that either appear in multiple games (Imperial City), pop up on maps from other games, or come up in books used in other games (i.e, have some historical relevance). Any places that only appear within a single game should just have entries within that individual game's namespace. The problem with applying that is that I haven't played any game other than Oblivion, so it's a bit hard to be sure what places are universally known. But my guess is that basically just the major cities (nine in total, if you include Kvatch). That's all that's shown city-wise on the Cyrodiil map at Cyrodiil; plus a few landmarks like 'colovian highlands'. (Besides Aristeo, Lurlock, and me, Black_Ninja and Magnus also chimed in on this conversation; this seemed to be the consensus opinion on places in the Tamriel namespace).

So I'm thinking the various place templates should not try to transclude Tamriel:place pages, because those Tamriel:place pages in most cases won't exist. In the few cases where Tamriel:place pages are needed, they can be manually linked to/transcluded as appropriate.

There was also some discussion of books which I think came down to: most books are shared between games and definitely belong in the Tamriel namespace (although some unresolved problems with books that change content from one game to the next). There are some game-specific books that pop up, too, but it seems easiest just to keep all the books in Tamriel namespace instead of figuring out which ones are game-specific.

Apologies if I've misrepresented anyone's opinion, or overlooked something; feel free to provide corrections/amendments.--Nephele 03:00, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

What section comes first?

Some pages have "See Also" before the "References" section, some pages are vice versa. I'm just looking for guidance on what the correct layout is. My gut tells me references should be the very last section, but it doesn't seem to be spelled out anywhere ... Minor Edits 19:56, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. A lot of this stuff isn't spelled out because it's evolved over time, but I think we're getting pretty consistent now. Let's go with References being last and make it official :) rpeh •T•C•E• 09:55, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Policy / Guidelines for Place descriptions

This is concerning the location of a Place within the Description. Some pages have "directions" to a place with relation to other places. Sometimes those places are links (to the appropriate pages) and sometimes not. Some pages have no directions at all. Some have the equivalent information in the "Location" (Place template?) some do not. Some have both, some have neither.

A few examples would be:-

• Skyrim:Shimmermist_Cave which has no information at all.
• Skyrim:Ansilvund has a template location but no description.
• Skyrim:Bronze_Water_Cave has a description but no template location.
• Skyrim:Broken_Fang_Cave has both (but the places in the description are not links).

There is clearly a lack of consistency here, hence the request for guidance.

A secondary (related) question would be regarding the "compass points" used to explain where a place is in relation to other places. North West, Northwest, North-west, NW, for example, are all functionally equivalent, but inconsistent. I would imagine that the capitals only (NW, SSE etc) are pretty universally understood and would therefore be the most appropriate, though that is merely a suggestion.
Screwball 12:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it's best to follow the format used for the Oblivion Place descriptions. Check Oblivion:Places for a full list of examples. They are formatted similarly. The format can also be applied to Skyrim.

Unformatted non-abbreviated compass points (e.g. "south" northeast") are primarily used on revised articles so it's best to stick to that standard. I can't seem to find where an earlier discussion about that took place though. --Timenn-<talk> 12:35, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I did look though a number of those before posting - they are themselves inconsistent. Oblivion:Fort_Blueblood uses "SE of Leyawiin" while Oblivion:Fort_Bulwark uses "Northeast of Leyawiin" (those are in the Location field of the template) - I've no idea which are "revised articles" and which aren't. I'm just trying to avoid making a lot of changes which then get reverted or modified. Better to get them right first time. Screwball 13:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Listen, right now, we need information on the pages, as long as its readable and all, it would be nice if you put effort into it and made a really good article, but theres no need to stress about it (Eddie The Head 13:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC))

A few months ago, I combed through the wiki trying to standardize directions, using the following rules: abbreviations should be avoided (it's not like we're worried about running out of room), directions shouldn't be capitalized unless they begin a sentence, hyphens should not be used unless there are three compass points involved (north-northwest, south-southeast, east-northeast, etc.), and the same goes for their use as adjectives (northeastern, southwestern, etc.). Obviously, in-game dialogue and text is exempt. This seemed the best arrangement for uniformity because it already matched how the vast majority of directions on the wiki were used. Minor Edits 19:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that is quite clear. However, I am still unclear as to my primary question, which was whether the Description should contain location information as well as the actual Location field within the template. The links I provided above clearly show the discrepancies between pages in this regard. My personal opinion is that the information should be in both, as the Description will likely be the first thing to be read on a page, and the location of a Place is (at least to me) a vital piece of information.Screwball 20:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Skyrim Place Walkthroughs

Note: this is a followup to the Skyrim Quest/Place Organization discussion on the Community Portal.

Just to get things started, I've taken a couple points from the CP discussion and added them to the main article as proposed guidelines. I've put less work into this page than its companion page at UESPWiki:Style Guide/Quest Layout, but most of what I've written on that talk page applies equally here. Including the fact that this all that I have time to get done tonight.

Nevertheless, if there are any parts of the previous discussion that people want to pursue, here's where thoughts about place walkthroughs/guidelines can be added. --Nephele^Talk 06:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Place Page Style/Layout

Since the "big" quest page/place page discussion, can anyone (a few people) suggest some SR place pages that seem that they'd generally be regarded as well-developed? I also have a specific question: Are there any place pages that show how a summary template can best describe the situation when there are ores at a location, both in mines and as found objects/container loot? Answered by my own observation: The summary boxes seem to have specific fields for ore veins, but I guess not for ore as found items/loot. --JR (talk) 05:32, 7 October 2012 (GMT)

For ore found as objects or in containers, I would detail it like any other treasure, probably with a similar "importance" cutoff. In other words, mentioning gold ore or ingots would probably make sense; mentioning iron ingots less so, though I could certainly see a large stack right next to an anvil being worth mentioning in text, since it's a free opportunity to increase your smithing. – Robin Hood↝talk 21:04, 7 October 2012 (GMT)

Thanks, RobinHood. I got it when I realized in a flash of brilliance that "ore veins" means ... um, ore veins. One could wonder why (all) veins are important enough to merit a field in the place summary box, but found ores are not. But I would tell one to find better things to think about. --JR (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2012 (GMT)

Notable items sections

I'm sure this has come up in the past, but why don't location articles include a section that lists notable items (such as quest items, skill books, unique items, etc.)? It seems to be common practice for many gaming wikis and I think it's quite useful to have notable items listed both categorically and per location. Dbbolton (talk) 04:56, 27 March 2014 (GMT)

There is a section of the summary header where notable items/treasure should be noted that includes skill books, etc. In addition the notes section can be used to highlight any important items that it is felt needs special attention drawing to it. Biffa (talk) 17:44, 27 March 2014 (GMT)

Categorization of Quests

Having spent several days reviewing the various Skyrim quest-related pages (including the Quests page, Side Quests page, Miscellaneous Quests page, and the quest listings within all location pages linked from these three pages), I found many inconsistencies across the wiki and compared to game data. In particular, many quests were considered "Side Quests" both on the "Quests" page and in the game per the journal knotwork, but were incorrectly labeled as e.g. "Divine", "Forsworn", or other types of quests on the "Side Quests" and location pages. In addition, as a player, I find it much more useful when visiting a location to have a clear overview of which quests may be started in that location vs. which quests are merely tangentially related to the location but may only be started elsewhere.

I therefore added to many town and settlement location pages the category "Quests Starting Here", a label which to date has been consistently maintained per the Style Guide on the Oblivion and Skyrim city pages (see this note); however, for other locations such as towns and settlements, the Guide currently only recommends the label "Related Quests". Nevertheless, I maintained this "Related Quests" label on all edited pages as logically referring to quests related to a location but that are started elsewhere. Having noticed several of my edits and informed me of the current Style Guide construction, user MolagBallet (talk) asked that I post here to collect community input as to this issue. Specifically, I propose restoring the "Quests Starting Here" label to the Style guide above "Related Requests" as an available category for locations other than cities where a quest may be started (see again this note), and ensuring all pages (as per my various page edits today) list quests by their categories in line with the categories provided in the top section of the Quests page. I understand that some locations may only involve two or three quests, but I see no reason why even for a small number of quests this helpful distinction between "Quests Starting Here" and "Related Quests" should not be used. An examples of pages displaying all aspects of this revised layout: Dragon Bridge and Riften. I'd greatly appreciate others' feedback here! Mikeprichard (talk) 22:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

For the consistency issue, I think part of it had to do with the question of whether or not a quest counts towards the various Thane quest counters. I remember somebody making a big deal of that a while back and modifying quest categories using that as their criteria. I can certainly see the logic of that, although as you point out, that could lead to some things not matching what's in the CK. I don't have any particular preferences myself, apart from the fact that they should be consistent and logically organized across the wiki, and if that doesn't match the CK organization, it should be obvious why not (probably via an explanation on the category page).

Personally, I agree completely about it being useful to know which quests can be started in a given location. I think it's also useful to know which quests are related to a location, though, so that if some quest randomly sends you somewhere, you can look and see if there are other quests you can start before you go there and then do them all at the same time. However we want to do that, I think that's an important distinction to maintain, since whether it's one or the other can change your decisions about how to play your game.

One option might be to have a main "Related Quests" header and then a couple of subheaders like "Starting Here" and "Involving This Location" (or some such wording...words elude me today). I like this idea because I see no reason to have two level 2 quest headers on a page. Quests should be a single section of their own, in my view. If we do that, I would want to remove the table format that we're currently using for the "Starting Here" quests...it's too cluttered for my taste, although it does have the advantage of clearly listing the quest-giver. If we move away from a table format, we'd want to make sure that the quest description lists who to get it from, or come up with some other way of retaining that info. As you point out, though, the idea of a level 2 header and multiple level 3 headers will lead to a fair bit of header clutter if there are only a couple of quests. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 01:23, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the notion of a primary Related Quests header. The purpose of the related quests header is to tell readers which quests are associated with a location. "Related Quests" is broad, and more specific categories, such as which quests start at a location, can branch out beneath it. MolagBallet (talk) 02:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

With regards the quest-giver, could we not get {{Quest Link}} to have an option to list the giver? Kiz ^{(email - talk)} 03:08, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the feedback, and I'm glad to see agreement as to the importance of clearly noting quests starting in a location vs. other "related quests". I also wouldn't be against having a single "Related Quests" section on each page with e.g. "Quests Starting Here" and other quests as subsections within that section, though I would like to continue to see quests divided/headed by categories in line with the main Skyrim:Quests page (e.g. Main Quest, Daedric, Side Quests, Miscellaneous Quests, etc.), especially when there are more than 2 or 3 related quests for the location. However, note that the "table" format (if we're referring to the same thing) is unique to Miscellaneous Quests; I don't find it at all cluttered myself, and in fact find it much more useful than a likely stripped-down alternative which may not clearly display in one location the quest giver, quest target, any prerequisite quests, etc. In any case, this (and I suppose any other) change(s) would eventually require a fairly massive and meticulous effort across many pages for consistency and to ensure links across the site continue to properly function, but I guess that's what this whole wiki thing is all about! Mikeprichard (talk)

Not just one Walkthrough section

Add several for each zone ("outside" and "inside").

Add a section for every room and tunnel, even unnamed. True Nord (talk) 13:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think separate sections for every little thing makes a lot of sense, but there probably are some pages that could benefit from additional headers or bolded text to make things a little more clear. Adding images is also often a good way to make it clear what area a given portion of the walkthrough is covering, although it's not always helpful when a lot of the area looks the same. In the end, I don't think changing the guide's advice is warranted here. There are just too many variables and no one-size-fits-all solution. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 15:39, 17 June 2021 (UTC)