UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 55

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.

UESP App Available for Open Beta Testing

We've been slowly working on the UESP app over the past few months and are happy to announce that it is now available for open beta testing from the Google Play Store. Feedback and bug reports can be posted to the Mobile App Talk Page. -- Daveh ^(talk) 16:31, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Official Cookbook interview - looking for questions!

We were recently contacted by the publisher of the upcoming The Elder Scrolls: The Official Cookbook, and after exchanging some emails, he’s offered us the chance to submit interview questions to the author (Chelsea Cassel-Monroe, author of the World of Warcraft official cookbook). Her website, specifically the page about the cookbook, can be found here. From what the author has said in the past, it sounds like the focus of this one is the main series, and even though she couldn’t include actual ESO recipes due to licensing, did take inspiration from some of them and the lore of the races. Does anyone have any questions they’d like ask? ~ Alarra ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Interview on the Isle of Madness Expansion for The Elder Scrolls: Legends - Seeking Questions!

Hi everyone! After speaking to folks in Bethesda's PR department, we have been given the opportunity to host another Legends interview, similar to our Pete Hines interview from last year. This time we will be talking to Josh Utter-Leyton, one of the card designers at Sparkypants Studios, who also worked on the game at Dire Wolf Digital. We expressed an interest in asking questions that focused on the background, lore, and story of the new Isle of Madness expansion, but if you are desperate to ask a question that goes beyond those topics, feel free to still let us know.

Please post your questions below, and thank you to Bethesda and Sparkypants Studios for allowing us to have this interview!

- KriHavok (talk) 13:16, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Baliwogs, grummites, and scalons are classified as grummites in the game's cards. Should we take this as a confirmation that they are infact related in lore? Similarly, Gnarls are listed as spriggans, are gnarls listed as spriggans for balance reasons or are they actually related to Nirn's spriggans? Is there a chance we can see a shadowrend monthly card in honor of the shivering isles? Ex. ESO's shadowrend clannfear and weapon double card. If you guys ask questions about game mechanics, id like to ask if a card flavor text system will ever get implemented, such as lore on the depiction or maybe which person the card depicts if any. Zebendal (talk) 18:29, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

When do the events of "Isle of Madness" take place? Is Jyggalag really free after the events of "Shivering Isles"? Did the Hero of Kvatch really become the new Sheogorath or did he just went insane? Why Luzrah gro-Shar, a female orc, isn't named "gra-Shar" according to the orcs naming traditions? Phoenix Neko (talk) 22:40, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Tables In Templates

In any of our templates that allow an unlimited number of unnamed parameters, like {{Parameters}} or {{Lore Book Compilation}}, it was previously impossible to use MediaWiki-style tables in the parameter list, even with the proper escaping of pipes and equals signs; you were forced to use HTML tables. After looking into it, I found a hack of a method which I believe should work in all cases. I just wanted to post about it so that if anyone spots any issues with templates of that nature, we can back it out sooner rather than later. Please let me know if you spot any such issues.

Technical Details

The problem is that, internally, parameters are being parsed twice. Once in the original template call, and again when #splitargs splits out the sub-templates. For example,

{{Parameters
|Parameter name|optional|Table Example
{{{!}}
{{!}} Example
{{!}}}
}}

...ends up looking like this, internally:

(whatever other stuff Parameters does)
{{Parameters/Line|1=Parameter name|2=optional|3=Table Example
{|
| Example
|}
}}

That last call then gets re-parsed by the wiki, which chokes on the unescaped pipes.

The correct solution would be to use whatever MediaWiki methods are available to correctly re-emit the unparsed parameters. That, however, is beyond my skills, if it's even possible at all. So, instead, my hack of a solution was to take the parameters in the second call and replace all pipes with {{!}} calls, then allow the wiki to parse them back into pipes for a second time. A bit ugly, and a waste of time for the wiki software, but it seems to work well enough.

– Robin Hood  ^(talk) 01:16, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

ESO Red Choice Template

{{ESO Red Choice}}

Since the proposal didn't get much attention on the talk page, can we please take a look at how this template functions? It acts to hide branching dialogue paths by default on ESO pages, which is unhelpful and non-standard. The use of this template has proliferated in that namespace and I really think it needs to be changed to utilise a better format if it's going to be accepted as the norm. As it stands, I'm strongly opposed to its use while it continues to hide text from the page. There is no reason for it to use a show/hide function, particularly when the dialogue being hidden is usually only a sentence or two in length. —Legoless (talk) 15:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Other than adding categories to check dialogue I'm not too sure why this template is necessary. You can achieve the same result (without showhides) using {{FC}}. Either way, sounds like a good idea to change the showhides to indents. —Dillonn241 (talk) 18:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Skyrim Abilities/Powers Footer

Dillon pointed me towards our unused templates list the other day, and in the process of going through the small number remaining (most of which are substituted or temporary-use templates), I noticed a template that Lurlock worked on several years back, {{Skyrim Abilities}}, which seems to have been forgotten and gone unused all these years. It overlaps somewhat with {{Skyrim Powers}}, but also has several links that aren't in the powers template. Before I put it up for deletion, does anyone think it could be added to some pages, or is there anything on it that should be merged into other footer templates? Most page deletions are relatively non-controversial, but this one could serve a purpose, so I wanted to draw people's attention to it before it gets deleted. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I noticed there are things in the Abilities template that don't exist in the Powers template like the Seeker of Sorcery and the Seeker of Shadows abilities. Mind you, those are constant effect abilities, not powers per se. If they don't have their own in-use template, I don't see what it hurts to add them and any others that are missing to the Powers template, seeing as they are on the DB:Powers page already. Just an idea. the raconteur ✉ 20:56, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Upcoming Upgrade to MW 1.25

As many of you have noticed, Dave is in the process of planning an upgrade to MediaWiki 1.25. Here's a quick outline of the changes you can expect to see.

• The Recent Changes and Watchlist pages will change to use the enhanced version by default.
• Page icons are now supported natively. The means that templates like {{Page Icon}} can be greatly simplified, and perhaps even removed altogether in some cases. (Though, for consistency reasons, it's probably better to continue to use templates regardless.) See this page for details.
• For administrators, the Tags and a new EditTags special pages apparently allow more changing of tags, such as adding and removing tags, or changing tags on a revision. I don't currently have any wikis where I can check out the changes, so we'll have to see what they look like after the upgrade. (Honestly, I didn't even know the page existed until now. :P)
• Supposedly, "Clickable anchors for each section heading in the content are now generated and appear in the gutter on hovering over the heading." I tried what I thought this meant on several wikis, but was unable to see anything. Still, if it's there somewhere that I just didn't notice, it could be a useful feature. If anyone figures out what this meant and how to see the clickable list, please comment!
• Wanted Pages will no longer list broken redirects. It's unclear if {{#ifexist:...}} will still add pages to it, but we already have a solution for that issue anyway.

There are numerous other technical changes. For the full list, see the release notes. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:31, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

"Clickable anchors" are an icon beside a header that when clicked on produces an url with the section included. What icon is used for that is unknown but can probably be modified. An example appears on mediawiki (under proposed implementation). This is almost totally a reader-based change for better linking to us on other sites, as it produces an url and not the shortened form used on internal links. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:08, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Silencer! I don't see that on any wikis that I'm on, so either it's something I or the site have disabled or, contrary to what the documentation says, it was not implemented on MediaWiki wikis. I'm curious, do you or anyone else see it on other wikis that are 1.25 or later? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 22:39, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Usage of Actual Military Awards for Project Ribbons

So I was looking at the images that we're currently using for Projects on the site. These are used by the Ribbon template, and the images are found in Category:UESP-Ribbons. They were evidently downloaded from [1]. The artwork is in the public domain, so it isn't an issue of copyright infringement. However, these are actual military service awards, awarded to actual people for their service. While I have never served in the military, I do know that people who have tend to take this sort of thing very seriously, and usage of these images for contributing to a website for video games may be seen as disrespectful of those who have legitimately earned them. I'm not opposed to the idea of using images like these for site projects, but I think it might be best to alter them in such a way that they do not have this alternate meaning, which some might find offensive. The simplest alteration would be just adjusting the hue - we could even theme them to our site colors, or something specific to the games associated with each of the projects. This would be the least disruptive change that could be made, and might be sufficient to avoid any misinterpretation of these images. Alternatively, we could design new graphics that are more representative of their use - using graphics from the games, for example. (Right now, it's kind of hard to tell which ribbon is which if you don't know them well.) — TheRealLurlock (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

I would agree with designing something new, as I also found it odd that we used these when I was looking for something for the Modspace Project. I'd be happy to try designing something new, or helping out with anyone else who wants to. I would also suggest we aim at designing to {{Userbox}} dimensions, although with the 100px width continuing as default. --Enodoc (talk) 15:13, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea of using game images, since those would (at least in theory) be more representative of the actual project. Someone involved in the Oblivion Houses Redesign Project might get , while someone involved in the Skyrim Houses Redesign Project might get . Sizing might be a bit of an issue if we go that route, though, since even just those two are at 48x48 and 40x40 natively. Where previously, the ribbons were all the same size, now they become different or we have to scale them to the same size, which could look blurry for smaller originals. If we go with something completely new, we could keep sizing in mind as things are designed. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:02, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

These should be changed, but I don't think they need to look much different, just changing the colors. I would like to see colors that reflect the game (orange and blue for Arena, yellow and black for Morrowind, etc.) Either the initials for the project or an icon like RH said, could be added to make it clear what the project is about. One issue right now is that you see a bunch of ribbons but they are meaningless to almost everyone (even after all my time on the wiki I couldn't identify a single one). —Dillonn241 (talk) 22:13, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, ideally we'd want to keep them the same dimensions (or at least aspect ratio) as before, to avoid messing up the layout on everyone's user pages. But I could see incorporating the icons into an image of the proper size, with colors themed to each of the games as well. That would make these images both more informative and make them fit better with the theme of the site. "I'mASnugglyTeddyBal" on Discord was talking about whipping up some designs (I'm not sure what name they use here), so we might want to coordinate our efforts. I'd say the project leads should come up with something, but some of these projects aren't very active any more, and in some cases their leads have left the site altogether. Colors and icons may need to be chosen on a per-project or at least per-game basis for consistency. — TheRealLurlock (talk) 02:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

(←) For what it's worth, I think continued use of the ribbon graphics is fine and it's a little disheartening to have the graphics changed after so many years. If we are going to change them, I would be opposed to anything that lacks consistency, as one of the great benefits of using those graphics has been the consistent style. —Legoless (talk) 21:17, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Gamespaces for Skyrim Pinball and Skyrim Very Special Edition

I believe that both of these games should get their own namespace. Skyrim Pinball is proving to be substantial, and will likely have several long pages to summarize all information (I currently have only documented subsets of information and have it all on a single long page in my sandbox.). I would propose creation of the 'Pinball' namespace, with 'PIN' as the code for it.

For VSE, we currently have 6 pages of moderate length. I think it would be a good idea to add 4 more pages to separate out the different dungeons. At 10 pages, I think it is substantial enough to have its own namespace. I know this is a change to the decision made last summer, but I think it addresses what is a strange outlier in our current organization. 'VSE' should be the code. I'm not sure what the namespace should be called: Perhaps 'Alexa' or 'VerySpecial', maybe just 'VSE'.

Of the two, I believe the first proposal is more important. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the first purposal. Zebendal (talk) 17:42, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

My personal view is that this would be way too small for a separate namespace, but then again we have already done that for each of the TES Travels, and Stormhold, Dawnstar, and OBMob each have fewer than 50 pages. There may be an argument for just shoving each of them into Skyrim as a subspace, rather than creating separate namespaces for them. But if we can get the expected number of pages to over 30 for each one, then precedent would say yes to their own namespaces. --Enodoc (talk) 23:13, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I do not fully understand the 'too small for a namespace' argument. When it comes to DLC within an existing game, it seems reasonable, but not for a standalone game.

If we were to put these two games as subcategories of Skyrim, then searching for 'quests' in the Skyrim namespace would also bring back VSE and Pinball, which is likely unwanted. If we do not add a namespace, then we will have page names such as 'Quests (Pinball)', 'Quests (VSE)', 'Spells (Pinball)', 'Enemies (VSE)'. Organizationally, this is the same as 'Pinball:Quests', 'VSE:Enemies', etc. However, we forego the search benefits of namespaces, and the 'Magic Word' functionality they provide.

To my current understanding, either path we choose means we have the same small number of pages with their own label system. One path has a few technical benefits. What drawbacks are incurred by the namespace approach? --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 00:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I think Lost in Hyrule's points are the biggest ones in favour of separate namespaces. Having worked on a few wikis where the norm is to disambiguate games by putting them in parentheses after the name, it gets irritating fairly quickly, plus it clashes with our traditional system of each game getting its own namespace (give or take a few exceptions). Namespaces are just easier to deal with, since you can include/exclude them in searches, recent changes, your watchlist, and anywhere else that you can select a namespace. It's also easier to deal with in terms of templates. If you disambiguate by name only, you lose all of that functionality.

Having said that, a namespace with only ten or so pages is pretty small. By that criteria, I should have my own namespace! (Can I, can I, huh? Pretty please?) Looking only at gamespace pages (so, ignoring things like mod spaces and Review), and discounting Blades since it isn't out yet, our smallest namespace is currently Stormhold with 32 pages, 7 of which are redirects.

In the end, I'm leaning slightly in favour of separate namespaces for each, but it's not really a major issue either way. Also, from a technical standpoint, the difference is minimal between the two. Honestly, the hardest part is Dave or I having to redesign the search menu to fit however many new namespaces we decide on, which is still fairly trivial. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 07:17, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I am categorically against any suggestion that these spinoffs be placed in Skyrim subspaces. They have nothing to do with TES5, and it would be entirely inconsistent with our approach to Oblivion Mobile and Oblivion PSP. If a new namespace is needed instead, so be it, but I also don't see a problem with using mainspace. The most important thing should be getting these pages live. —Legoless (talk) 13:41, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Size doesn't matter. If a game needs a namespace it gets a namespace. I had been dubious about SVSE being a standalone game until I read Legoless post above. It is exactly as different to the console version as the mobile and PSP versions are to Oblivion. It isn't "Skyrim Pinball" it is "Bethesda Pinball", and the game uses the Fallout and DOOM franchise as settings too. The game uses these three as skins and it doesn't seem that we could only cover one part of that game without covering the others. I don't really see it as part of the Elder Scrolls franchise either, it's an unconnected commodity using the licensed name to generate interest, like Skyrim Monopoly (Fallout version also available). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:14, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

It'd be easy to cover the Skyrim table without touching the others. "Bethesda Pinball" is just a collection; sure you can't get the Skyrim table separately from the other two, but you can't get any of them without Pinball FX, so that particular red line is unnecessary. "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim® Pinball" is the official name of that table, so "Skyrim Pinball" would be a correct contraction. You're right that it's not really connected to the franchise, but that discussion has already passed. --Enodoc (talk) 22:30, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

(←) Considering that in over 2 years since that discussion there is no article even mentioning it, I would strongly disagree that that discussion is over and done with. If as you say the table is just one part of an even larger game, it makes it even harder to see how it can be argued that it is an Elder Scrolls game. The particulars of the table belong on a Pinball FX wiki, not an Elder Scrolls series of games wiki. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:40, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Whatever platform it is on, it is possible to only play the Skyrim table and never touch any of the others. Each table is a distinct 'game' within a collection of games supported by Pinball FX, which is basically a platform or engine. Just like all my Epic Games are on the Epic Games Launcher, all my Zen pinball games are on Pinball FX3.

Skyrim Pinball is Elder Scrolls and a game, so I believe it belongs here. My argument for a namespace is that these games both satisfy the basic reason we utilize them at all: an independent game that has the same page titles as other games (e.g. Quests, Magic, Weapons). If a game can be documented in a single page, then I would certainly agree a namespace would be pointless. Once you start having shared page titles is where we suggest to use them. Page count seems a less than perfect metric for this determination. For example, I looked at the Stormhold namespace mentioned by RH. 25 pages and 7 redirects, but most of the pages are quite short. For Pinball, I was thinking to organize them on rather long pages, one for Items and one for Quests. However, I could break Quests into a list page, one page for each of the 11 Main Quests, and a page for Side Quests, giving me 13 pages. Many of these pages would be longer than the Main Quest page of Stormhold. I could likewise break Items into a list page, Weapons, Armor, Jewelry, Potions, and maybe a separate Crafting page, and these would still be longer than the item pages in Stormhold. So my organization style would give 2 pages, but the Stormhold standard would produce 18.

From the discussion here, it seems the only downside to adding the namespaces is that RH has to add an entry on a list. I think the small benefits of namespace outweigh that small drawback, as much as I like RH! :P However, I will go ahead and document in mainspace. If we conclude that a namespace is warranted, we can move the pages over. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 00:46, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

This discussion has derailed a little into "should we document skyrim pinball, take 2". If we have to reopen this discussion agan, then so be it. But in the end, both VSE and Skyrim Pinball (if we decide to document it (again)) are separate games that, while heavily taking setting inspiration from TES V: Skyrim, have a completely different underlying game system, and therefore warrant an unique namespace. And RobinHood, once you stop being a wiki contributor and start becoming a TES game, you'll get your own namespace, too ;-) -- SarthesArai ^Talk 13:15, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Use of Pre-Release Template

I’m on mobile, so I apologize for any formatting issues, but I wanted clarity for my own understanding of the Pre-Release template and appropriate uses for it.

https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Blades:Abyss&diff=next&oldid=1941777 being “current” and correct for a game that hasn’t been officially released doesn’t mean a pre-release template is unwarranted altogether, right? The game is in early access, but it’s not fully released yet, meaning any information contained within is therefore posted “before the official release” and theoretically subject to change, correct? That’s why I added that template to every Blades page I saw that didn’t already have it, and it seems appropriate to keep it until we’re told the game has been officially released, right? Or am I not understanding the “proper” use of the template when I add it? -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 14:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

My understanding of the {{Pre-Release}} template is that it's for any information that we put out prior to the official release. While Blades may be in Early Access, and no longer under an NDA (according to their FAQ), as far as I know, it's still officially pre-release, and therefore the tag would apply. If it weren't, then the "pre-order" button available on the website would just say "order". That all being said, I haven't been part of pre-release efforts for a very long time, and I only see a very brief mention of it on Discord, at least in the channels I follow, so others may feel differently. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 15:03, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I can't really comment on Blades, as I don't (can't) play it, but I can comment on how it works for ESO and suggest parallels. Pre-release for ESO is everything that comes from before the release of content on the Live server, which includes anything from the PTS server and anything from ZOS publicity. When something is verified on the Live server, that's when the Pre-Release tag is removed, even if it is during the "Early Access" period on the Live server. So for Blades, if their Early Access acts as a beta, like the ESO PTS, Pre-Release would be appropriate; if it is literally an early release of content that won't now be changed, like the ESO Early Access on the Live server, Pre-Release would be unnecessary. --Enodoc (talk) 11:22, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

This was discussed in Discord yesterday at some length, and the gist of the discussion matched what Enodoc said above. So, as I understand it, Pre-Release tags can be removed from Blades articles provided that the information is verified in the Early Access version of the game. They shouldn't be removed en masse, however, as some information may have been taken from the beta version of the game and still requires verification that it's accurate for the EA version. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 17:18, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

This is also my understanding of the tag's usage, although it should prove less of an issue now that early access has been opened up to more people. Blades had a beta separate from early access, which counts as an official release for our purposes even if the devs haven't called it that. —Legoless (talk) 17:18, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Excessive use of similar images in Lorespace

On discord we've been having... let's call it a disagreement over the excessive use of images in Lore (Or rather, whether the use of images is excessive or not). This started with Dwemer Animunculi, which illustrates my point pretty well, but is more clearly seen in Lore:Guar which is basically a copy of Online:Mounts/Guar. I just don't see how including every possible color of Dwemer spider or Guar that ESO throws out (which is constantly adding new reskins of existing mounts) is lore worthy. Text explaining that Dwemer spiders come in many different colors and here is an image of one example of those colors would seem sufficient to me, rather than including 12 images of every possible chroma-color there could be (this is what was present before I suggested some images get removed). To illustrate the point, Dwemer Animunculi had 53 images on it as of this morning, for 15 sections, with some sections having no images at all. The average per section was about 3.5, with is skewed a bit given the amount of images in other sections.

I think we should encourage more prose in lore, rather than just image dump more and more ESO images until the page is mostly images, cause that's just a gallery. I'm not sure if there is a specific rule we can create for this, but my proposal would be to limit each section or type of creature to a max of three ESO images, unless the very nature of the creature is fundamentally changed enough that a text description doesn't accurately describe the difference. A blue cat and a red cat are not fundamentally different. A blue cat and a cat with 14 mechanical arms sticking out of its back, flippers for feet and a PhD in Chemical Engineering, that's fundamentally different and probably gets another image (probably it's own section).

And now, Legoless would like to respond to this as a counterpoint. Jeancey (talk) 20:14, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

This discussion is folly. Firstly, the comparison of Lore:Guar and Online:Mounts/Guar reveals quite tellingly that the proposer has not actually read the lore article in question, nor does he appreciate its purpose to document all species of guar. Not all guar make an appearance in ESO as mounts, but ESO mounts do provide a great quantity of new guar lore. The reason I created this page in the first place was to avoid a situation where all of these guar variants would be getting separate entries on the Lore:Bestiary list. There are enough lore-worthy variants of this creature to warrant a separate page to list them all, and for an editor to seriously propose the removal of imagery from this page on the basis that the information contained there is "excessive" is plainly ridiculous given the article's purpose.

"I think we should encourage more prose in lore[...]" I agree, and I would strongly recommend that editors try to describe in-game appearances in prose in addition to relying on imagery (as I have done on Lore:Guar and elsewhere), but it is simply not our fault that ESO has added so many reskinned breeds and variants of creatures which are then given a single line of lore-relevant tooltip text. These variants need to be documented in lorespace and there is no good argument against excluding the relevant imagery from the namespace entirely. An arbitrary limit of 3 ESO images is something which I strongly oppose as being destructive to the namespace and to the quality of our documentation.

A general rule of thumb when editing is to avoid deleting relevant information, as this rarely improves our encyclopaedic coverage of a topic. Jeancey is proposing to limit and delete information from lorespace. If certain articles such as Lore:Dwemer Animunculi are getting overwhelmed with too many images, we should be looking at creative solutions to split up that article further (as was done with Lore:Vamidium) or consolidate the imagery elsewhere. Someone proposed making a /Gallery subpage for affected articles, which I wouldn't be against in principle.

Lorespace needs to learn to adapt to the scale of new lore ESO has introduced, particularly when it comes to the TES bestiary. Kneejerk deletion is not the answer. —Legoless (talk) 20:32, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I apologize, I should have clarified. I was recommending removing most of the separate sections too, not JUST the images. I was saving that for a separate discussion involving the multitudes of fish in the bestiary, which could be consolidated in to different types (like the 23 different types of bass or whatever it was). The telling line from Wikiepdia's image guideline: "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals. However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting." I added the emphasis. I find the images in Dwemer Animunculi to be incredibly distracting, and clearly I was too distracted by the sheer number of guar images to read the Guar page, as Legoless pointed out. Some of the "lore worthy" guar on that page are: The Green Narsis Guar is a robust breed, used as the standard mount and dray-beast of central Morrowind.[7] It's named after the city of Narsis. Great. Standard mount and pack beast. Pack Guar are bred to serve as pack animals. A separate pack beast. The Common Vvardenfell Guar is the most common breed of guar. Despite the name, the breed is not limited to the island of Vvardenfell. Great. Another common breed. Apparently Green Narsis Guar is standard, but not common. The Pale Velothi Guar is a breed that hails from the ashlands downwind of the volcanic Velothi Mountains. They are used as mounts, and are renowned as hardy creatures capable of enduring especially harsh conditions.[6] Great. Another hardy guar that is just lighter in color from the others.

I seriously don't understand how those are lore worthy. The Vvardenfell guar isn't even limited to vvardenfell, so its lore info is basically "This is a guar". Narsis Guar "This is a guar from narsis." Pack Guar "This is a guar that is used as a pack animal". None of that is particularly noteworthy in a lore sense, other than "They exist". When mentioned to Legoless that I'd just add all the Guar mounts from ESO to the guar page to show just how ridiculous it would be to add all the guar there, his response was "Great, I already did that." I just don't see how constantly adding basically the same information to two separate pages is helpful to the wiki? The lore article about Guar should be about guar as a whole. It can talk about how they are used for pack animals by the dunmer, and how they are very hardy animals that can survive in many locations, and how they are important to the Ashlanders that use them to carry their tents due to their nomadic lifestyle. And all this could be accompanied by a single picture of an ashlander with a pack guar at their side traveling through rough terrain and we don't need separate sections for Pack Guar. And Green Narsis Guar (which are also pack animals) and Common Vvardenfell Guar (which are also pack animals). It's just not.... good writing... to design articles as one sentence blurbs that really just take a back seat to a slightly different colored guar. Jeancey (talk) 20:45, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understand the purpose of lorespace if you think the many breeds of guar shouldn't be listed and described on an article about guar!! I would refer you to a decade of precedent for listing variant breeds on Lore:Bestiary and hope that this speaks for itself; see for example the Grizzly Bear entry on Lore:Bestiary G from back in September 2006 which has persisted on the page to this day. According to your above value judgement on loreworthiness, "a bear that is brown" isn't worth including in lorespace. Clearly this is not the popular consensus when it comes to these matters.

This proposal has gone from bad to worse, firstly proposing the removal of imagery and now advocating the outright deletion of information for no purpose whatsoever. If you don't want to read ad nauseum about the various species of pack guar in the world of TES, maybe don't visit Lore:Guar in the first place. —Legoless (talk) 20:59, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Legoless has the right of it, mostly. Dwemer Animunculi doesn't need every variation of the same creature (as in the exact same one but from game to game), however. Encouraging more prose in lore is a fine idea as well, but significant variants can fairly be included. I also don't think we really need a discussion on this, making the proposed changes would probably have been more efficient. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 21:17, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to get some other opinions rather than just the two of us. I'm clearly not explaining myself well to you, and us just going back and forth like this isn't useful. This isn't a discussion JUST about Guar and Dwemer Animunculi, this is a discussion about the bestiary in general, thus Grizzly Bear is a part of that. And saying "It's always been this way and no one else ever did anything about it" is not a good argument to make... There's another fallacy at work here too, which is the "All or nothing" fallacy. Basically saying that "if we do this, we'll have to delete half of lore!", and I don't think that's fair... Consensus can change, and when we had static games with limited scope, the way lore was set up worked. But as an editor, these pages just make me want to say "Nope". I could add to and improve Guar, but it's so sectioned and heavy that it just makes me not want to even bother because it requires another 14 hours of research to really figure out where the one sentence I want to add should go. Anyway, I'ma take a step back and let other editors have an opinion here.

As a reply to AKB, I would have made the changes, but clearly I would have been reverted immediately because "Never delete any info from lore". Jeancey (talk) 21:18, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

ESO has created an issue that didn't really exist before. Grizzly bears are different genetically from brown bears, or black bears, or polar bears, so have different entries on them makes sense. A comparison can be made to horses pre-ESO, because they were the only animals to have any range of breed comparable to all the variations found in ESO, particularly the mounts. It looks like the guar aren't listed individually, but the bestiary is becoming a bit bloated. Pages like Guar and Horses, and Bears should help to reduce this by keeping these similar creatures listed together, but currently they are doing both. These umbrella pages are good and all variants should be listed, a mix of the Prose on Bears and the lists on the others. However, I am thinking that any with these umbrella pages, any variants listed on them should be taken off the generic bestiary lists, and make sure all the redirects link to them. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:28, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Silencer, creating separate pages allows for variants to be removed from the ever-expanding Bestiary list and reduces duplication of info. —Legoless (talk) 21:32, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

(←) the goal of uesp is to archive all information about the elder scrolls series, those articles have legitimate lore based descriptions behind them and generalising it to "they can sometimes be green" is missing the point. The lore provided by schick explains what they are and why they are different, by the definition of adding new lore, the different types are lore worthy.

It is notable in that it could not only utilize lightning based attacks from a chroma-blue status, but also shift into a chroma-green status and release toxin based attacks, and a chroma-red (or carnelian)[8] status, and emit flame based attacks.[9] A Chroma-Yellow variety exists, and is present within some automatons :created with an Ebon-Steel alloy, such as the Ebon Steel Dwarven Spider.[10] A variant of the Ebony Steel Dwarven Spider exists, created from the Infernium forge and showing flame based characteristics.[11] in the case of the dwarven spiders they have different characteristics, different materials and different purposes

that stuff has to be documented, because it's cool and adds new lore, the images are just there as a visual aid i'd rather have a page spammed with the different types of guar/spider/mount/whatever, their uses, purposes, and complementary image than no info (or reduced info). [copied from discord, sorry for formatting] Thal-J (talk)

An alternative is rewriting the content so it is not a section by section breakdown on variants, but a more normal exploration of the different variants in prose, although it would be ideal to keep them in the bestiary if that was done. Either way, if anyone just wants to make any change to these articles to implement any version, that'd be the best response. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 22:22, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Currently I have to click on multiple separate game articles when I need to read on various representations of a single monster and/or see images of these representations. In case of ESO monsters I have to click even more to find out what variations exist. This is tedious and very unfriendly to me as a user. What I see here is the proposal to make this problem even more tedious. Also I'm trying to wrap my mind around the idea that illustrations are BAD for lore articles/bestiary and to be frank I struggle to do so. UESP should document ALL variations of a single creature in one convenient place. And it should do that even more exactly because there is no simple way to describe all these variations with words when it is way easier to actually show such variations.

My position is that word excessive is appliable only when there are multiple images of the same thing, not multiple images of multiple things.

One more point. Even if these creatures are just a retexture of a currently existing one, it's not a gameplay information, it's still valid lore information. Phoenix Neko (talk) 22:32, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Phoe here, and as the person who has edited the Chroma-Colors in the Dwemer animunculi page, as Thal-J has explained, even if the colors seem insignificant in at first glance, they portray what capabilities that automaton can do (shock, fire, poison based attacks), and spreading them out across pages instead of having them in a convenient place would make them harder to find and way less convenient. Zebendal (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I feel that my points here have been misunderstood by pretty much everyone responding, so I'm just going to state something in list form, since that's what everyone seems to understand best.

• I am not advocating just deleting any text wholesale from any page. I am proposing taking the current sentences that exist, and keeping the actual information in them in paragraph form. If 8 sections say "they are hardy" and 5 sections say "they are pack animals" we now have one sentence saying they are "hardy pack animals" and the exact same information is present, as it is clearly a general description of most guar rather than of specific guar. If there is a guar that is significantly different from other guar, like, say a guar that can breathe underwater where other guar can't, then another sentence saying "the ___ guar are known to be able to breathe underwater" is appropriate.

• A point was raised claiming I suggested "A bear that is brown" isn't lore-worthy. That is a factually inaccurate summation of my proposal. My proposal would have, in that example, taken "Section: Black Bear, Description: This is a bear that is black. Section: Brown bear, Description: This is a bear that is brown" and combined them into one section, "Section: Bear, Description: Bears can be black and brown". Zero information is lost, but it is more readable to the average person when you scale it up to 20-25 separate colors of bear.

• I feel strongly that this conversation is needed in a general sense about lore, and I would prefer that the discussion be about improving the lorespace overall. I tried not to be so grandiose as to create and entire discussion about all of lore, since I felt a smaller discussion might result in more actionable solutions. I feel this is not helped by dismissing the entire discussion out of hand as "folly" without ever addressing the point that at least one editor, me, feels the information is provided in a way that isn't as helpful as it could be. If there are other suggestions than the ones I have provided and the default "let's do nothing", I would love to hear from those editors who can provide those solutions. This discussion has focused too much on Guar as a specific page rather than as a general example, so I'll shift to fish. An equivalent article on fish would feature these wonderful examples of separate, differently named fish:

• Name: Snapper Eel
• Image:
• Description: A type of eel that can be found in Grahtwood.

• Name: Swamp Eel
• Image:
• Description: A type of eel that can be found in Grahtwood.

• Name: Sand Eel
• Image:
• Description: A type of eel that can be found in the Alik'r Desert region.

• Name: Sand Moray
• Image:
• Description: A type of eel that can be found in the Alik'r Desert region.

• Name: Sewer Eel
• Image:
• Description: A type of eel that can be found in Cyrodiil.

I could go on, but you get the picture. I don't see how these are useful, separate sections in the bestiary. And that is part of the reason I took issue with the Guar page, because I was shot down when I previously tried to suggest changes to fish, with many of the same arguments coming up. Jeancey (talk) 23:14, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Without taking sides or intending comment in any other way, I think a good example of what Jeancey is suggesting already exists in Skyrim space, thanks to the efforts of one or two editors several years ago. For example, Draugr, which used to be several articles and were then combined into one overarching article with separate sections where needed, but combined info where appropriate. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:25, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

It already exists in lorespace and began six years ago. The effort tailed off after a while but many pages already exist, mainly in prose form like Bears, or Minotaur which is a good example of one way to go. Other articles like Cat, Dog, and Guar are not part of that effort and therefore have a different layout. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 23:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

(←) I think all most images of the breed are valid, its the problem of how to display them without making the page itself unreadable or jarring. Personally, I find large chunks of gallery-style images in the middle of a lore page very unsightly (and I have small images turned on in my settings). A solution is to list the Breeds (which are largely valid) as bullets/Linkable Entries and then include a massive gallery at the bottom of the page. See a sandbox I made quickly: User:Jimeee/Sandbox8.

This solution may also work for the above Eels example with some tweaking, but there are less lore details (other than habitat) in the eel variants compared to Guars. Yes, in some cases the gallery will be massive, but that's a trade-off for keeping all images and making the article itself flow better.

I think there is value in having lists from a "documenting the lore point-of-view". What I wouldn't like to see is lists replaced with a paragraphs of text outlining all the variants in prose.

As for Lore:Dwemer Animunculi, that page is getting too unwieldy and I would support splitting it up so that it serves as an overview page with only 1 image of a spider for context - then the main Spider page would have every remaining image of spiders from all games--Jimeee (talk) 10:23, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No lore information should be kept from lorespace if it is lore. However, too many images can be a thing, too, but having a visualisation from several games is a good thing. I agree that the umbrella pages are a good thing, and only the "basic" form of it (guar/wolf/bear/eel) should be listed in the bestiary. My idea is to put a "variants" section at the bottom (just like Lore:Guar's Breed section), so that people who are interested in the variants/breeds/whatever can read up on them. If, like the eels, there are no separate images or lore blurbs for them, it should just be a list; for guars there wouldn't be much change except for the section be moved down. Common occurances (such as guars used as pack beasts) should be included in the main text, too, but not every speciality of each subbreed.

Regarding the Dwemer Animunculy, I actually feel this page is a little different from out standard creature umbrella page, as the variants differ more greatly from each other than the different guars. The existance and the effect of known chroma colors should also be noted, although a single example image is sufficient. I guess everyone can imagine "green", and given an example of style, imagining "centurion with green lights" shouldn't be too hard. Otherwise, the page does feel too cluttered with images, especially if the variants are showcased here before they are properly introduced in the next paragraphs. The variant images should always show the respective variant as basic as possible (this also applies to general creature umbrellas) -- SarthesArai ^Talk 15:59, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Online: Handling Sub-Race information in NPC Summary Template

With the release of Elsweyr, and the first time having a lot of NPCs being not just Khajiit as a whole, but actually breeds of Khajiit, we need to allow putting this information into the Template:Online_NPC_Summary.

Regarding the Template:

I am against using the present race parameter for specifying the breeds (like Alfiq, Senche, ...) — as it was done with the Naga in Online-Space so far. It adds confusion for the reader. Naga are just another shape of Argonians. As much as Alfiq are just another shape of Khajiit. Following the existing pattern, all Khajiit templates would need to be renamed to race=Suthay-raht. This especially gets problematic for Khajiit we do not know what sub-race they actually are.

Also, we want to be as precise and specific as we can in the summaries. That is why I propose to add a new optional parameter to the template: subrace With this all present pages can remain as they are and slowly be reworked. Also keep just "Khajiit" if we are not sure what their sub-race is. But we also allow to make visible that Alfiq, Pahmar-raht, Naga, ... are all just sub-species of Khajiit, or Argonians.

Regarding the Categories:

The Khajiit or Argonian NPC categories must be edited so they include all the possible Sub-Race Categories. This also allows to find all Khajiit or Argonians, regardless what breed they are each. But also still allows filter by their sub-races categories.

Skotharr-do (talk) 19:17, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me, and being optional, it should be easy to implement and shouldn't break anything. --Enodoc (talk) 20:37, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

TBH, I'm not sure what the difference, in terms of usage and result, this would be to just using Alfiq as the race and then putting the Alfiq race categories nested in the Khajiit ones.... Functionally, it would appear the same, but there wouldn't be issues with people edit warring because they really think this NPC is a Cathay, while someone else is positive it is a Cathay-raht. Or someone just going and editing all the existing Khajiit NPCs that were around before Elsweyr and adding a subrace for all of them, even though it's never explicitly stated for those specific NPCs (since they all look the same, but we've gotten mixed signals on what is what). And if someone DOES do that, there really isn't cause to reverse it, but it just adds another layer of categorization to those NPCs that I'm not sure is useful...

If we just use Alfiq as the race, or Naga as the race, we'll end up with those NPCs which are explicitly different (Alfiq and Pahmar-raht, for example, are unmistakeable) in a Category, and that category in the Khajiit overall category (or the Argonian category for the Naga). Yes the infobox will just says Alfiq, but I think saying Khajiit (Alfiq) might just confuse people. The infobox is just supposed to be an overview after all.

The furstock differences is much more of a lore issue, as from a gameplay perspective, they are clearly different races in game, much in the same way we have NPCs with the Elder race in Skyrim listed as Elder in the infobox, NOT as Nord (Elder) or Elder (Nord) or anything, even when in lore it is explicitly clear for most of those NPCs what their actual race is. This is much the same situation where we have visually distinct NPCs where in Lore they are technically the same. I think we should be displaying the gameplay race, rather than the lore race and gameplay race as subrace. Jeancey (talk) 20:59, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense too. Although from a gameplay perspective, there appears to be no technical difference between an NPC, a Creature, and a Talking Activator, so perhaps we need to revisit that discussion too. --Enodoc (talk) 21:31, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

There are SOME differences, in that NPCs all seem to have a gender defined in the Lang file, while not all Creatures do (though some do have a gender listed there). I think the Creature distinction is really just a holdover from older games, and as a way to change the infobox from displaying Race and requiring a Gender to displaying Species and not displaying the gender (since forcing gender on rat seemed a bit arbitrary). So those are really just wiki considerations that I don't think have been brought up in a long time. Jeancey (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Minor Update to 'About Us' and Refinement of Our 'Mission'

On the Main page, we state that we are building a "collaborative source for all knowledge on the Elder Scrolls series of games". Similar messages appear elsewhere. I contend that this is inaccurate and should be updated. In fact, we already strive to document the Elder Scrolls entertainment series/franchise/media empire in multitude forms. (There is not an excellent term for this!) We encapsulate knowledge of the video games, novels, a comic book, companion documents, blog posts, and even some fan-conducted interviews and forum posts.

Since it is already our practice, I believe we should formalize it and declare it clearly. We strive to document knowledge related to all things TES, and should say so! --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 05:02, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Seems like a straightforward and logical change. It's probably best to call it "the Elder Scrolls franchise", which encompasses almost everything that would make sense to document on the wiki. --Ilaro (talk) 09:46, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

The term "franchise" is the best way to describe it. --Jimeee (talk) 11:05, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

With this attitude it could be justified that we document also Skyrim Monopoly and recent The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms. While I appreciate this change one could argue that this is actually a great change of direction.Phoenix Neko (talk) 20:25, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I am actually of the opinion that documenting both of those would be a great addition to the site. We also lists the novels, the cookbook, mobile games, etc. Why stop at board and tabletop games? The only limiting factor would be people willing to document them, but that's not a reason to be against their possible inclusion.--Ilaro (talk) 20:55, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Ilaro. We currently document more than just the video games. We either document all things TES or only a subset, but in either case, our messaging and policies on the matter should be clear. Thus, an update is in order! I certainly believe we should choose the "All Things TES" side. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 22:27, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

We are the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, and not the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Video Games Pages! -- SarthesArai ^Talk 14:47, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

"Franchise" would work; if anyone would rather use a different word, "universe" is also commonly used in this context. --Enodoc (talk) 17:48, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

(←) That line has bugged me for a while too. My understanding is that "Elder Scrolls universe" would mainly refer to lore and not so much things like game stats or the Monopoly game that don't contribute anything to our understanding of Tamriel/Nirn/etc. Franchise should cover every little detail of anything TES-related.

Lost, if you know which pages you saw besides the main page that limit our scope to the games, it would help to post them here so the admin who edits the main page can fix them all at once. I assume they're all either in the UESPWiki or Help namespaces?

And yes, we should definitely cover these other forms of TES content like the board games. I don't think there was ever opposition to that, just lack of motivation. —Dillonn241 (talk) 01:30, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

After a brief search, I found the following:

• Main - calls it out as a series of games
• UESPWiki:About - specifies that we serve as game guides, which is slightly narrower than our full focus
• General:The Elder Scrolls - says the series is specifically roleplaying games

In checking this, I realize 'series' is used frequently, including in interviews, and would serve just as well as 'franchise'. TES is a series or franchise, the numbered entries are the 'main series', Travels is a spinoff series, etc. Are there any objections to "UESP covers all things TES, and our statements should accurately reflect that mission."? --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 05:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

The definition goes more and more blurry. "all things TES" would also imply TES-related forum roleplay posts or unofficial developers lore which is also strictly TES-related but for many years have been out of UESP's scope. And we are the Unofficial Official Elder Scrolls Pages. I'm slightly sarcastic here, but only slightly. Phoenix Neko (talk) 11:04, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

"The entire Elder Scrolls franchise," then. --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 12:09, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

So is everyone fine with the following change? "We have been building a collaborative source for all knowledge on the Elder Scrolls series since 1995, and we could use your help!"--Ilaro (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Aye --Lost in Hyrule (talk) 01:08, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

(←) If we're changing stuff around, change where it says "All Elder Scrolls Games" under the logo to "All Elder Scrolls Content" or just "All Content", which is what that linked page is named anyway. I thought I remembered asking about that being changed years ago anyway since that was what the page was called, but it never was, and with this discussion, it's more worthwhile now than years ago to do it. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 03:25, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Since there's already agreement in principle on the changes, I'll give it roughly 24 hours and unless there's any objections, I'll go ahead and make Ilaro's and Damon's suggested changes. If we feel the need to add "franchise" or similar wording, that's certainly easy enough to do once we're sure of what wording to add. In the meantime, Ilaro's suggestion neatly bypasses the need to find specific wording at all. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 05:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

And done. General:The Elder Scrolls could probably use a second set of eyes, though, as the changes to that were a bit more substantial in order to make the wording flow correctly while still being accurate. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 05:23, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Consensus on Labeling Pre-Elsweyr Khajiit as Cathay (ESO)

All Khajiit prior to the Elsweyr chapter used the player model, which is of the Cathay furstock, which was confirmed in the Reddit aua by the loremaster, Leamon Tuttle, as seen here. https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/bwdb0r/welcome_to_the_elsweyr_update_22_aua/epwryi1/?context=3

I have spoken to Lurlock and he has told me that for this change, we need to make a consensus on the matter. My proposal is that we should start labeling Khajiit of the cathay furstock as cathay instead of just Khajiit, thus this would require all the Khajiit prior to Elsweyr to be labeled as Cathay. Khajiit is a term used to describe all the furstocks, such as Alfiqs and Senches, and isn't a term exclusive to Cathay, and this is why I encourage you all to support this change. Zebendal (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I support labeling them as "Cathay", but we should not remove the word "Khajiit". That is the most commonly used word to describe them, and it should definitely not be removed. Something like "Khajiit (Cathay)" might be a good compromise. — TheRealLurlock (talk) 23:21, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

That is a fair compromise, as Cathay are the furstock that people are most likely to think of when they think of the word Khajiit.Zebendal (talk) 23:27, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

This brings me back to the discussion earlier on how to handle the many Khajiit furstocks in general that now are present in the game spaces. See Online: Handling Sub-Race information in NPC Summary Template. Though this time it's not just about the template, but it would probably affect it. As I understood from the previous topic, the NPC Summary Templates seems meant to provide technical rather than lore information. Khajiit would need to stay there for the now Cathay, as the game itself labels them only Khajiit. But in the article's body text it always should be written like "Alfiq Khajiit" or "Cathay Khajiit" etc, so those can also be separately linked to their respective sites, and we maintain flexibility for each furstock. Skotharr-do (talk) 23:34, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we can have a Furstock type added to the NPC summary, similar to the condition type used for vampires and other such statuses only in this case it would be a section specific to the Furstock. That way we can preserve both the race as Khajiit and have the specific Furstock listed. Enderkingdev (talk) 23:37, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with "Khajiit (Cathay)" designation. Although when there is no solid way to find out most NPCs furstock then where is the value of designating them arbitrary? Phoenix Neko (talk) 00:07, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

As far as designation goes, non raht furstocks are the default if we are unable to tell the difference, as far as Enodoc and others in the discord server said. This is helpful as we know already how the furstocks look like, (Dagi looking like tiny humanoid lynxes, Alfiq looking like cats) but the raht varieties which in lore are bigger, are not presented as bigger ingame, and are visually indistinguishable, and as a result we can only tell if they are a raht variety if they themselves mention it.Zebendal (talk) 02:28, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Personally I feel the furstock page and their raht variants should be combined into one. Eg, Pahmar and Pahmar-raht should be merged with the latter redirecting to Pahmar.--Talyyn (talk) 07:54, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

(←) Like Skotharr-do, I really feel this is just rehashing the arguments about changing the template. Adding this information retroactively provides zero additional information to those pages that wasn't already true. Busywork for the sake of Busywork. I think a better solution would just to add to the Online:Khajiit article (which all these pages link to) to make it clear that NPCs labeled as Khajiit are Cathay. I don't see a real use in listing (Cathay) on 1,736 pages. In ESO, being labeled simply as Khajiit makes you a Cathay. Adding Cathay to every page would be like if you are in New York City and referring to "People living in the city" in a bunch of documentation, and then needing to change all wording to specify "New Yorkers living in the city". Like what is the point? Technically, yes, it's true, people living in NYC can be described as New Yorkers living in NYC, but it's just not helpful in anyway. I feel like this just distracts us from adding real, useful information to the Online pages that need it. And given how many Online pages need work, doing this would be actively detrimental to the wiki. Jeancey (talk) 15:17, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Linkable Entry/LE Merge

There was some recent controversy about whether to have templates at their most-used name for performance gain (often an abbreviation) or at a full name for self-documentation with the abbreviation a redirect (status quo). I believe Linkable Entry/LE would benefit the most from the performance gain because it's usually used a lot on the same page. It's worth noting that both names are commonly used throughout the wiki, Linkable Entry about 2x as often.

I propose renaming {{Linkable Entry}} to Anchor and having no shortcut template since it's short enough already. This provides a compromise to the controversy above—performance boost on pages using LE, while maintaining a short and self-documenting name, shorter on average in fact—is consistent with Wikipedia, avoids the common usage of two names for one template, and the name seems to me more appropriate than Linkable Entry for what it's doing (creating an anchor for internal links). —Dillonn241 (talk) 21:25, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like a good descriptive name. —Legoless (talk) 01:35, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

No opposition, so I went ahead and implemented this change. I left the redirects for now, mainly because it would be a lot of work to fix the talk pages. Try to avoid both LE and Linkable Entry from now on though. —Dillonn241 (talk) 23:54, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Proposal for a new namespace regarding Daggerfall Unity

Dear all,

for more visibility I post our proposal here as well, as there was no response in the forums.

Some of you may have heard of Daggerfall Unity, a recreation of Daggerfall on basis of the original assets in the Unity Engine. It got after the recent Alpha-Release some media coverage and could seriously be a revival for The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, which would be (of course) amazing.

The DFUnity Community, which is more or less the current international Daggerfall Community, plans on writing a DFUnity documentation regarding mechanics, differences, gameplay information, functionality and others. Actually it's supposed to be a wiki, where everyone can contribute and we can do a lot of interwiki-linking. For that we thought it may be possible to record these information in a separate namespace at uesp.net. You did that for Tamriel Rebuilt and we were wondering if that would be also an option in our case.

As stated already we think this would give both sides some serious advantage - we can build up on all these Daggerfall information (location, game mechanics, walkthroughs...) already gathered here and UESP may get some new visitors/editors for Daggerfall content and will be kind of an official information hub for future Daggerfall player. Of course there has to be a structure fleshed out in beforehand and we have to take care of the disadvantage, that people may add DFUnity Information on classic Daggerfall pages, but this problem could arise anyway, namely if the popularity of Daggerfall grows, and less people will (sadly, to be honest) go for classic.

Please feel free to discuss and also give input if there is something unclear, respectively if you see other problems arise with DFUnity on UESP which should be eliminated before a final decision. We are very open to discuss anything. :) --Deepfighter (talk) 16:05, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

What are the major differences between DFUnity and the original game? Are there significant gameplay changes? Jeancey (talk) 16:12, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Sadly the forums are relative inactive nowadays, a common trend on the internet. Seems other more fast-paced social media channels appeal more to the larger public. Anyway, I do like the proposal. As you already said, we already host namespaces for many other mod projects (Tes3Mod:Tamriel Rebuilt, Tes3Mod:Project Tamriel, Tes4Mod:Stirk, or Tes5Mod:Beyond Skyrim for example). So it being unofficial should not be an issue. However, I do voice the same concerns as Jeancey, how does it differ from the original Daggerfall except for the new engine? On the other hand, it's also possible to host pages on how to make mods for DFUnity or how to import new 3D models etc. It all depends on how many editors would like to work on it.

DFUnity at least gave a small influx of new editors working on the Daggerfall namespace as there is still a lot missing for that game on the wiki and all help is appreciated. --Ilaro (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your first (positive) responses. Regarding your questions - Daggerfall Unity implements Classic Daggerfall and one of Interkarmas primary goals is to stay as classic as possible, but there are some noticeable QoL enhancements. Despite the possibility of an extended modding community, which is currently already very active, Daggerfall Unity adds a lot of things which were missing or planned and didn't find their way into Classic. A not complete - but still comprehensive - list of some changes between DFU and Classic can be found here. It fixes out of the box a lot of bugs, where in classic DFQFIX is needed. Some items like torches and lanterns are usable, there are even fight mechanics planned, which come more closely to TES 3 upwards.

There are small details, which probably only player will notice, who played Classic Daggerfall before. For example are some exploits - like the racial ones during character creation - not possible anymore. If you are looking for a location and forgot the complete name, you get suggestions by typing the location name partly. On the other hand, the locations and the structure of the game are the same as far as reverse engineering made it possible. To sum it up, I think there are some QoL features/changes - and more to come - which keep the spirit of Classic and which may also justify a separate area for DFUnity. There is a need for documentation of these things.--Deepfighter (talk) 22:07, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't disagree, I'm just trying to figure out if there are a small enough number of changes that they'd be covered by a single page. Is there a reason these changes would need more than one page? They don't seem to fundamentally changed any aspects of the game and aren't complicated enough to need more than a few sentences of explanation. Could we get away with a page in the DF namespace itself? Jeancey (talk) 22:37, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

A page at Daggerfall:Daggerfall Unity already exists. Would creating subpages in DFspace not suffice? —Legoless (talk) 23:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Technically, as a fan-made entity, that page shouldn't be in DFspace at all. As an engine rebuild, it sounds most similar to Tes3Mod:OpenMW. We currently don't have Tes2Mod, but that is where this sort of thing would belong. If Daggerfall modding is entirely based on DFUnity, and there is no other way to mod Daggerfall, then calling the namespace DFUnity would probably be fine. Otherwise, and for consistency, Tes2Mod would make most sense. --Enodoc (talk) 07:03, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

(←) Depending on the scope and popularity of DFUNity, we could treat it like the unofficial patches and add information to the relevant pages in a notes section. No big overhaul is needed and duplicate pages will be kept to a minimum. Then any modding for DFUnity can be moved to Tes2Mod (for consistency with the other namespaces). --Ilaro (talk) 07:52, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

A general overview page for changes DFUnity makes seems fine. We do list changes made by the so-called "unofficial patches" in the gamespace articles directly; I think we could do the same for DFUnity. Technical information can find its home on a DFU or TES2mod namespace. There are, however, already "mods" for original Daggerfall (currently also hosted directly on DFspace, so maybe DFU or DFUmod would serve to separate one from the other, as they likely aren't compatible. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 15:33, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for discussing this so openly with us and take it in consideration. :) Secondly, we are very thankful in any way and are basically open for both ways (subpages or namespaces DFUnity/Tes2Mod:DFUnity). The basic documentation structure will be probably the same, anyway. Personally, I would go with Enodoc and would make a strict separation between both. There are not much mods for Classic Daggerfall (Eye of Argonia, Hackfall, Andyfall to name the most common), as the hacking is quite difficult. This changes with DFUnity, as it is easily accessible also for non-techies and there exist at this early stage already a lot of modifications, which may grow in numbers even more in the future.

As said, we would be already very grateful for the possibility alone to use UESP for our documentation idea. For us it's important to get the info visible and in a convenient location, which UESP obviously provides in its entirety. Besides, the best compromise would be after my opinion to handle it with TES2mod namespace and move the Daggerfall Unity page there, as well as create subpages under Tes2Mod:Daggerfall Unity. At the same time we can move all the other Daggerfall Mod pages ( e.g. Andyfall or DaggerXL) into the same Tes2Mod namespace. That would make it consistent with the structure UESP approaches right now with the other titles. If and how we add all the changes of DFUnity onto the respective Classic Daggerfall pages depends probably on the information. I think we may have to look closely where it makes sense on a case-by-case basis, e.g. for spells which were left out in Classic but added back in DFUnity. We will probably start with general pages, installation, configuring settings, adding and creating mods...and then we may will see how it evolves around that. :)--Deepfighter (talk) 15:48, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Is it finally time to create a modspace for Daggerfall. I've been suggesting this for the last couple of years with no interest so please do it now. While that's being done a modspace for Arena can be created and those namespaces can finally start to separate documented mods from the base game. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:02, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

(←) Since some time went by I wanted to ask if you could already internally decide which way to go and if not when we may can expect an answer or implementation? :) We don't want to push you, but neither want that this topic falls behind, as we are quite motivated right now and already thinking about how to also improve the Daggerfall pages next to it. Of course, if you need more information from our side for clarification purposes don't hesitate to ask.--Deepfighter (talk) 09:19, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to the creation of a Tes2Mod namespace provided all other modded content is moved over as well (Daggerfall:AndyFall, Daggerfall:Daedrafall, Daggerfall:DaggerXL, Daggerfall:DFQFIX, etc). Redirects from the Daggerfall namespace should also be maintained in the event of such a move, due to the sheer age of those pages. —Legoless (talk) 10:39, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

If there are no objections it will soon be time to ask Dave to create Daggerfall's modspace. I'll also keep pushing for Arena's modspace as it needs it too. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 03:20, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not opposing your position here, but what is the argument for an Arena modspace? --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 04:21, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Probably, OpenTESArena :)--Deepfighter (talk) 06:35, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Modspace is used to document the more technical parts of the games. Arena needs this just as much as every other game. Plus there are mods out there for Arena, including bug fixers, though nowhere near as many mods as other games. This information isn't currently documented but having the namespaces available will provide encouragement to start. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 13:11, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

So, is there consensus to create Tes1Mod and Tes2Mod spaces, with DFUnity as a pseudo-namespace like Tamriel Rebuilt? I would also add shortcuts of T1, T2, and DFU, unless there's a reason to use something else that I'm not thinking of. Does that sound good? I want to be sure before I do anything, cuz namespaces are fairly permanent in nature. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:53, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

(←) I see no reason not to proceed with that. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 22:20, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, the new namespaces now exist, albeit with absolutely no content. I've also entered the namespace info into MediaWiki:Uespnamespacelist and created a template for Daggerfall Unity, so all of the following should be red links, but at least linking to the right places:

• Tes1Mod:Main Page = T1:Main Page
• Tes2Mod:Main Page = T2:Main Page
• Artifacts = Artifacts

I'll do the search forms tomorrow whenever I have the time (edit: done!), but everything apart from that should work now. Let me know if you spot anything else I missed. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 07:02, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you so much! :) As a starting point I moved the current Daggerfall Unity page from the Daggerfall namespace to the new Tes2Mod:Daggerfall Unity. --Deepfighter (talk) 07:50, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Lore Transclusions in Gamespace

In the early days, there was the (at the time quite logical) idea to have the intro of location articles in gamespaces be transcluded from the lore page. Some examples: Morrowind:Seyda Neen and Oblivion:Cheydinhal. During Skyrim, this went out of practice for good reasons. Lore pages nowadays can include a lot of information that has nothing to do with the game itself, mostly because they can appear in several different games. It also has the problem that someone that would like to change the location intro would need to go to the lore page instead of just editing the page itself. Besides this being a barrier for more casual editors, it also has the problem that being an intro for a game location is not the purpose of the lore page. Lore pages should include lore information, while game pages should include game information (and both should include a link to the other).

I propose that we should remove transclusions of lore articles that can be found in gamespaces.

This is an immense task and just removing them would leave a lot of pages without intro. So I suggest that all the texts that are now transcluded stay and replace the tranclusions themselves (which probably can be done by bot). This way, the gamespaces are freed from the chains of lore and can be edited from their own pages again. Support? Better ideas? Or thinking its just plain stupid? Please chime in. --Ilaro (talk) 12:17, 4 October 2019 (GMT)

I've been removing lore transclusions on an ad hoc basis for what seems like forever based on the above reasoning. It has proven a particular problem with Lore Place page transclusions as these articles grow to encompass more information and future game appearances. The fact of the matter is that TES lore is moving beyond the older games; for example, it is no longer appropriate to transclude modern lore pages into Daggerfall articles, since it does not reflect that game's setting. Where appropriate, I propose that older articles have the transclusions removed and replaced with an older version of the text from a more appropriate date in time to remove any modern info.

I do have a few reservations about removing transclusions wholesale, however. For instance, it should not be done for books and notes, which already have a system set up to take account of textual differences between games. A careful examination of where transclusions are used in what gamespaces needs to be carried out before we decide to simply remove them all as policy, since there could be some valid uses outside of Place and Race pages that I'm just not thinking of. —Legoless (talk) 12:25, 4 October 2019 (GMT)

You are definitely right that not all of them should be removed. Books are a great example of legitimate use. We might also just restrict them to race and place pages if that's the preferable option. --Ilaro (talk) 12:29, 4 October 2019 (GMT)

We can make a huge dent in this by starting with the Morrowind Region template. {{Morrowind Region}} currently has the transclusion of the lore page built into the template. This means that if someone sees something they want to change on, say, Morrowind:Ashlands, for example, they click Edit on the page and they won't see any of the text, and they won't even see {{Lore:Ashlands}} that would point them to the right page and new users could easily get confused. I think disconnecting these transclusions from that template would go a long way toward solving the most complicated transclusion situation we have. Jeancey (talk) 19:29, 4 October 2019 (GMT)

The Morrowind Region template is easy and small enough in scope that I'm just going to go ahead and do it, and if we figure out later that there's some kind of issue, we can always revert. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 22:14, 4 October 2019 (GMT)

(edit conflict × 3) I'm fully in support of this idea, and I think breaking it down by category would be the way to do it. So Morrowind Regions first for example, and then moving on from there. In most places we want to do this, I think it can probably be botted just by having the bot add subst: at the start of the template. If we want to be copying over old versions of pages, it may still be easier to just break the transclusion first and replace with older text after if necessary.

For Morrowind Regions specifically, there are only nine, so we would just need someone to go through and change {{Morrowind Region|...|addbelow=(content)|...}} to {{Morrowind Region|...}}{{subst:Lore:{{PAGENAME}}}}(content).

I ec'd so many times trying to post this that it looks like you've already done that thing anyway. --Enodoc (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2019 (GMT)

I also fully support this, though I think all the pages that this is done to should get a temporary banner and/or category to ensure all the future lore is removed. —Dillonn241 (talk) 00:21, 5 October 2019 (GMT)

(←) As a starting point, I had the bot generate a list of all transclusions to Lore space, then I filtered it down by hand to exclude things like talk pages and Lore space itself, and finally, added titles to make it easier to read. As is, the list is probably a bit hard to digest, since it includes a lot of book transclusions and citations, but there might be some ways around that; I'm just not sure of the best approach. I figured I'd publish it in its current form for people to poke at, and then once we have a better idea of what would be useful, I can have the bot come up with different lists, or at least ways of filtering the existing one. I also checked templates for any other Lore transclusions, but at least in a quick check, {{Game Book}} is the only thing that came up. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 02:39, 5 October 2019 (GMT)

I think the first thing that list needs is to exclude anything transcluded through {{Game Book}}. --Enodoc (talk) 17:02, 5 October 2019 (GMT)

Done. That shortened it a lot more than I thought. Note, however, that I did this using the fastest method, which is not necessarily 100% reliable. If it so happens that a {{Game Book}} page also does a manual transclusion of another Lore page, that'll be excluded from the results, since it still sees it as a Game Book page. I don't recall if we ever do that, but it's probably very rare if we do. If we need more accurate filtering, I can always load all 5000ish pages and parse them fully. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:39, 6 October 2019 (GMT)

I just did the full page loads and tweaked the job a bit, and the list as it stands now is as accurate as I can make it. It won't catch any transclusions that use variables, because the wiki itself doesn't catch those directly, but that should only be the Game Book template, which we're not concerned with. Does anyone see anything in that list that shouldn't have the Lore transclusion removed? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:19, 6 October 2019 (GMT)

If other people are fine with it, then I think all of those on the list are good to go. It would also be a good idea to add a template with a banner like this this and an automatic category so all of them can be checked one by one for quality control. There also might be a slight problem with search engine optimization (SEO) when there are several pages with the exact same text (race pages mostly) that are not from transclusions, but we probably can't really do anything about that right now. --Ilaro (talk) 10:41, 7 October 2019 (GMT)

Sounds good! The Lore:Elder Scrolls transclusion on General:The Elder Scrolls is the only one I might let stay. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 11:34, 7 October 2019 (GMT)

(←) Okay, I'm getting very close to finishing the bot job, so I'll probably begin the run tomorrow. While you're all waiting, this is the approach I've taken. Please let me know if you spot any flaws or have any concerns:

Game Space: Transclude the appropriate Lore page(s), respecting the various inclusion tags. Within that text only, alter the following:

• {{FMI}}: Remove the nolore parameter, if there is one, and make it either a plain template if the Lore page name and Game page name match, or add the Lore page name as the first parameter.
• {{Lore Link}}: If a link can be found in the same or parent namespace, convert the Lore Link to a regular link (or bold text if the link resolves to the current page and the page isn't transcluded anywhere). If no link is found, convert the Lore Link to a Future Link with the appropriate parameters for the namespace.
• {{Nst}}, {{Tense}}, {{#ifeq:...}}: Resolve to the appropriate text.
• {{Ref}}: Remove all.

Lore Space: Load the full text of the page and then apply the following template changes to the entire page.

• {{FMI}}: If the page isn't transcluded anywhere, or if it has a "nolore" parameter (meaning all remaining transclusions of it would be suppressed anyway), remove the entire template.
• {{Lore Link}}, {{Nst}}, {{Tense}}, {{#ifeq:...}}: As above.
• {{Ref}}: Leave intact.

In all cases, the {{Old Lore Transclusion}} template will be added near the top (the bot tries to be at least a bit intelligent about exactly where), and if the page is no longer transcluded anywhere, all include tags (and the appropriate text) will be removed everywhere on the page. In practice, this is very rare on Lore pages because saved variables create pseudo-transclusions that the bot can't distinguish from real ones; it's more common on gamespace pages. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 07:40, 10 October 2019 (GMT)

Bot job is long since done, and Jeancey's already hard at work making sure the new bot never gets ahead of his edit count. :) Pages that still need checked can be found here. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:29, 10 October 2019 (GMT)

I have a question about userspaces.

I am from the NIWA, which is a series of Nintendo related series of Wikis. There they allow YouTube videos and personal images there. Since I'm new here, I'm not sure if that is allowed here. White Lightning (talk) 18:59, 12 October 2019 (GMT)

We have no policies against personal images, and a few users have uploaded them over the years, though they really haven't caught on much. I don't believe you can embed YouTube videos in any way, but I don't think there's anything that'll prevent you from linking to one. Being a new user, you'll likely have to fight our spam prevention filters a little, but I just looked, and it should still allow the link to go through after warning you. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 20:44, 12 October 2019 (GMT)

Namespace for Dawnguard

I think we need a new namespace for Dawnguard. Seeing how major expansions like Bloodmoon and Dragonborn, I believe we need the new namespace. White Lightning (talk) 16:40, 20 October 2019 (GMT)

For your awareness, this has been discussed before here for example, I don’t see that anything has change since this was last brought up and would be against changing the Skyrim namespaces and how they are configured. Kiz^{(email - talk)} 17:02, 20 October 2019 (GMT)

This was discussed again at length and thoroughly rejected just over a year ago. Namespaces for addons need to be done at the time of release, because Dawnguard is far beyond the point of easy extraction from Skyrim space. There were only two proposals to come from it that had any merit, one to move Dragonborn into Skyrim, and another to not have namespaces for addons in the future. The first was deemed to not be worth the effort, and the second will only see attention when TESVI's addons are released. This subject is closed for the foreseeable future, unless someone can work out how to actually get around the massive disruption you are proposing. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 17:47, 20 October 2019 (GMT)

It certainly wasn't rejected last year, just never got off the ground. To reiterate the point made at the time, it would be far more productive for the purposes of documenting SSE if Dragonborn namespace was merged into Skyrim, rather than fragmenting the content even further as is being proposed here. —Legoless (talk) 21:15, 20 October 2019 (GMT)

13 people commented on the thread, and only 1 supported the idea, and that was the OP. 9 people rejected the idea with the other 3 commentators either being too ambiguous about their "vote" or not even mentioning it at all. I would call that a thorough rejection, with the only things "not getting off the ground" being the counter-proposal about merging Dragonborn and not creating namespaces for addons in the future. I would count a definite 6 in favour of the counter-proposal, and 5 against that idea. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:53, 20 October 2019 (GMT)

To be honest, I would prefer Dragonborn to be integrated into the main Skyrim namespace. I saw that one of the people supported future elder scrolls games not following the same route as separate namespaces, and I hope in the future we do that. Zebendal (talk) 22:06, 20 October 2019 (GMT)

+1 for less namespaces -- SarthesArai ^Talk 15:04, 21 October 2019 (GMT)

(←) I'm fine with the idea of fewer namespaces for future games, but as I said last year, I oppose the idea of merging or splitting any existing namespaces. While there are fair arguments in favor of the proposal, and I don't disagree with those individual points, as a whole case I can't support it. That's a lot of work and a lot of stuff that can (will) be broken on the wiki that somebody has to fix really quickly after it happens so we don't affect the general user experience (and the general user experience is based around users knowing we have these namespaces, so people will be just as confused by a split or merger as they would from the existing status quo. The namespaces were fine for the last 10 years, and I see no real reason to change anything that's already existing. The existing state of the Skyrim, Dragonborn, and earlier games namespaces is what we should hold to. We have spent almost a decade using this set-up for the Skyrim namespace, and any gain from merging them is negligible compared to the work needed to make it happen... And, a stray user making the proposal each year doesn't even mean there's enough traction in the community as a whole --registered and unregistered-- to make such an ambitious change. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 15:51, 21 October 2019 (GMT)

Definitely a no for creating a new namespace. As some insight to the original decision, I believe the thought was that since a new distinct landmass was being added, it was assumed that Dragonborn would be fairly self contained and quite large. It turned out to be significantly smaller in scope than Shivering Isles (the most recent expansion to get its own namespace prior to Dragonborn). As Dawnguard seemed close in size and scope to KotN, which didn't get a new namespace, that was the path that was taken. Bethesda, for the first time, released several new versions of the same game that bundled everything together and kinda messed up the whole "self-contained" aspect of Dragonborn. It seems likely that we'll go with the Mod Header, ESO-style format for TES6, given how much of a mess the continuous content come from the CC stuff has been. Jeancey (talk) 16:21, 21 October 2019 (GMT)

Private References Cited in Lore

A citation added recently to a lore article used a UOL reference on the private correspondence between a UESP editor and a ZOS employee without the others permission. The message in question was screen captured and linked onto the wiki via external hosting. The ZOS employee in question asked a discord moderator that the conversation not be used publicly and the references/diffs were deleted from the wiki. My question is, should we have a clearer policy on what is and isn't a suitable reference to use as seem to be moving towards relying heavier on contact with the development team for information that isn't explicit in game.

Whether this wants to be wrapped into the Privacy Policy or into Help:References so as to explicitly disallow such references being used in the future unless both parties explicitly provide written consent to the publishing of such messages.Kiz^{(email - talk)} 16:46, 25 October 2019 (GMT)

If a source cannot be cited, it doesn't exist as far as an encyclopedic wiki is concerned. If it doesn't exist then nothing can be changed based on it. To use any information it needs to be traceable back to its source, we just don't need a picture of it. The source isn't the editor who asked, it's the person they asked. Any questions should probably state that any information in the reply will be used on the wiki if it is of help, so that their permission is obtained and they know exactly what will occur. What needs to be cleared up with the issue you mention, is whether the problem was with the whole information being used, or just a screen cap of it being uploaded and made public, and no problem with the information being used. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:42, 25 October 2019 (GMT)

I have been arguing against the inclusion of private correspondence in citations for quite a while now, so any change to deter this would be welcome. We should not be receiving dev complaints about material like this being posted to the wiki. —Legoless (talk) 23:24, 25 October 2019 (GMT)

I don't mind using the information, especially if it helps clear up some contentious lore issues, but it must be attributable. It's probably far too late for the Nahfahlaar‎ merge to be cleanly undone, but this issue really needs addressing so a source can be added for the two names refering to the one dragon. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:09, 26 October 2019 (GMT)

I'm not really against the use of private correspondence in citations, but it seems no clear consent was given to use it this time. They asked us to remove the quote from the site, so we can't source it anymore. We should definitely respect that and be more attentive in the future to avoid this issue. Sadly I was too hasty with the merge, but everything seemed to be in order when I did it. The merge is quite difficult, if not impossible, to be undone, and do feel responsible for that. However, I can't say I've a good solution for the Nahfahlaar‎ = Nafaalilargus problem right now. --Ilaro (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2019 (GMT)

On the topic of unmerging, I found instructions to undo a merge on Wikipedia, though it requires figuring out which revisions belonged to which. Since one of them was a redirect, that largely makes it obvious, but for that same reason, I don't think there's much reason to unmerge...the edit history there was fairly trivial. The only significant content I remember seeing was a copy-paste move that probably shouldn't have been done, so undoing the merge would mostly just be reinstating that issue. I think our best bet is to leave the merged page as is and continue on as if nothing ever happened. The talk pages were a little less trivial, but again, I don't think there's anything there that desperately warrants unmerging. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 23:46, 26 October 2019 (GMT)

You're right. That one of them was a redirect for so long makes it a lot easier, because it's really easy to distinguish which edits belongs to which page. Only the content that got moved by copying/pasting a bit too early (which actually made the merge so complicated to begin with instead of a simple move) should be untangled again. Anyway, I agree with RH that we probably should proceed as if nothing happened. --Ilaro (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

(←) I made an alteration to our UOL guidelines for this purpose. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 00:21, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

As it stands there is no source and therefore no basis for merging and consolidating the two names under one, it must be undone, unless a source is provided. Whether or not the history is unmerged, or the page is moved and a fresh redirect created, is irrelevant to the issue that it must be undone based on the information we currently have and can attribute as an encyclopedia. The easiest route is actually returning to the employee and asking for clarification on what they wished to be removed, and making sure to state that the information they are being asked to provide is for the purpose of adding to the wiki. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 02:12, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

I just want to clarify what you mean by "undone". If I'm understanding correctly, I think you're just saying that we should revert to the 22 October version, and move the page back to Nafaalilargus, where it originally was. Is that correct? If so, apart from moving the page back over the redirect (which I don't remember if regular users can do), it needs no admin intervention and anyone can boldly do it.

The only question I see then is what to do with the edits during the intervening time. Do we leave the edits visible, with the idea of showing that the idea that they were the same was overturned, or do we consider all the edits since then to be one gigantic privacy violation? If the latter, then after doing the above revert-and-move, an admin could do a delete-and-selective-restore to remove those edits from public view entirely. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:50, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

Can't we ask the zos employee to see if he can get permission for us to reference his pm? we know now that nahfahlaar=nafaalilargus and I would not have minded at all if the page just stayed as is with a simple verification needed tag on it.Zebendal (talk) 05:22, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

The citation by the ZOS employee is just the cherry on top, there is already enough evidence that ties him to being the same character, I'd like to quote CyanPancake's (RimOfTheSky) point on this very issue from the Nahfahlaar talk page:

"Nahfahlaar's recent appearance in ESO: Dragonhold all but solidifies the ties that equate him with being the same person as Nafaalilargus. It's long been assumed that they were one in the same, the wiki even saying that up until it was removed a few months ago. Similarities include, but are not limited to:

• Both are red dragons
• "Repeated alliances with mortal allies" is a trademark, allying with Ja'darri, Sai Sahan, Casimir, and Tiber Septim/Richton
• Extremely similar names, NAHFAHLAAR and NAFAALILARGUS
• Among the few dragons known to survive in the Atlas of Dragons

It might seem odd that they'd change his name from Nafaalilargus (1995) to Nahfahlaar (2011/2019) but the reasoning is quite obvious. Dragon names were retconned by Skyrim's time to be composed of three words, unlike in previous games, where you had names like Papre or Skakmat. His inclusion in Atlas of Dragons was seemingly an explanation for how to retcon a five syllable name to something consistent. It seems using his name for strongboxes during the Dragon Rise event preceding the release of Dragonhold was a way to connect them further.

I know that most people have accepted that they're one in the same, and the only hesitation is wanting a direct confirmation. Before they revealed who it was, they did hint at him in instances beforehand. One is from an ESO Live episode where the say the powerful ally is from Elder Scrolls lore and evens the odds against the dragons, another is the Website preview article where the state "When you start the zone’s main story, a powerful and famous ally from Elder Scrolls lore joins you. No spoilers, sorry!". Some argue that them saying "from lore" instead of "from a previous game" isn't direct enough, but do keep in mind they were trying to keep it under wraps, and that saying "previous game" would make it far too obvious. Of course, if Nahfahlaar wasn't Nafaalilargus, why would they keep it a secret anyways? He'd just be some dragon mentioned in one sentence of a book, it makes more sense for them to keep the return of the very first dragon ever seen in a TES game a hidden detail instead."

Building on that, ESO added treasure boxes in an in-game event "Dragons Rise" that were named "Nafaalilargus' Offerings". This event happened a mere few weeks before Dragonhold released, and it is the only reference to "Nafaalilargus" in the entirety of ESO. The fact that this reference comes out a few weeks before the main DLC comes out, which has Nahfahlaar in it, should ought to be considered as an obvious attempt at drawing the two characters together. Said ESO event also had you earning treasure pile collectibles, along with the treasure boxes. What other red dragon, in the whole of the franchise, has that unique relationship with treasure? Thal-J (talk) 12:44, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

This unmerge proposal is, simply put, a bad idea. It is clear as day that Nafalilargus is Nahfahlaar, for all of the abovementioned reasons and more. Documenting them separately does a disservice to the topic.

That said, some editors have expressed concerns over the fact that this inference could amount to original research, which is "disfavored" per our lorespace guidelines (with the caveat that exceptions can be made). Instead of unmerging the article and entirely rewriting its contents due to having no source explicitly stating "Nafalilargus=Nahfahlaar", I propose a compromise: we add an {{intnote}} which outlines the evidence that the two names refer to the same dragon while making clear that we do not have direct confirmation of this. An anchor can then be placed near the top of the page, drawing the reader's attention to this note and thereby maintaining the article's encyclopaedic integrity. See Lore:The Towers for precedent usage of this solution.

I believe a note that explains the logical reasoning for the merge while informing the reader than an inference has been made is the best way to reconcile both viewpoints here. By allowing the reader to make the connection themselves, we can safely document both names on the one page. In comparison, the proposed unmerge/split plainly goes against the developers' intentions, which does nothing but hamper our documentation efforts. If people are in agreement with this counterproposal, I or another editor more familiar with the topic can go ahead and draft the wording of this note. —Legoless (talk) 19:33, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

(←) This is more like a meta comment, but we might need a separate discussion for the merge/unmerge, because the original concern was "should we have a clearer policy on what is and isn't a suitable reference to use as seem to be moving towards relying heavier on contact with the development team for information that isn't explicit in game?" My answer to this is that I think personal communication with devs need explicit consent and be able to be sourced (written down somewhere on the wiki) before it can be used. Next comment about the dragon page should be in a separate edit break. --Ilaro (talk) 19:59, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

Edit Break 1: Intnote and Merge/Unmerge

I'm agreeing with Legoless on all points here since it seems to be the best option to take. I don't think we should start up another discussion about the merge since that's a whole can of worms that isn't worth arguing over. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:20, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

I think we should all agree with Legoless point here. His seems to be the most reasonable. Zebendal (talk) 20:29, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

Unless most of this discussion is deleted, the genie is out of the bottle in regards knowing that the two are one. That is an entirely different point to proving it. Due to the redaction in full of the developer comment, we don't know if they meant to actually confirm the supposition, and we have no idea what the current "intentions" of the devs are in confirming the information. I really couldn't care how poor the proof is (currently just the aforementioned treasure box), but until it was added/mentioned there was, in fact, no proof at all (all of the above similarites mentioned are just similarities and proof of nothing). It is now entirely pointless to continue any part of this discussion that pertains to the merge/unmerge unless someone else wants to object to the nature of it, and at this point that is best discussed on the article's talk page. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:56, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

Correct me if I am interpreting you incorrectly Silencer, but is it correct to classify your opinion on this as "I only cared that there was no proof at all on the page that the two characters were the same, however now that there is, the merge/unmerge discussion is moot"? If so, are you in agreement with the current state of the page? (Nafaalilargus Treasure box + source to prerelease blogpost as cites that they are the same). Additionally, Legoless' current solution seems to be agreeable to all so far, I was wondering what your thoughts on that in particular were. My opinion on this is that if we all are in agreement about the current state of the page, then Legoless' solution may not necessarily be needed, but can still be implemented for future reference and for precedent. Thal-J (talk) 22:39, 27 October 2019 (GMT)

Notability in lorespace

There is a bit of a problem of inclusions of game mechanics of ESO that are applied to lorespace (also referencing this post, but better to move it here). I guess that this is based on the idea that there is more than one vestige roaming around Tamriel, even though it's always used as singular when story points are completed by the vestige. In particular, edits like this where "a great number of replica(s) [...] were seen throughout Tamriel." or on Selene where "the four adventurers succeeded".

In the case of Artifact replicas, this is just crown store marketing which would apply to everything bought in the ESO store. We shouldn't mix game (or store) mechanics with lore and thus should try to apply singular form (or maybe sometimes an ambiguous amount of adventures) in these kind of cases, otherwise we get the problem that it should be described that Selene has several thousand heads displayed as hunting trophies from all the delve runs.

Besides this, I feel like we should take more care in the notability of our inclusions in lorespace. Many small topics are being added recently that might not be relevant to the topic at hand and distract from other topics that need documentation. Some might even give false precedence when prominently displayed on a small lore page. We might need to (re)define what's lore-worthy as something comparable to "information that significantly adds to the understanding of the topic". --Ilaro (talk) 22:46, 4 November 2019 (GMT)

I completely agree. There should only be references or inferences to ONE main character in ESO, since that's how the game treats the situation. The Chronicles of the Five Companions refers to "the vestige" not "vestiges". Selene isn't killed thousands and thousands of times in lore, so why would a great number of replicas exist? We have zero evidence that these replicas are used by any NPCs at all, so at MOST, a single replica could exist, but this would require the person to have received the replica from the magical store gods via the spooky floating store panel. On top of that, it's just not really relevant to these dungeon bosses that the Elder Scrolls Online party size limit is four, so only four adventurers could have possibly helped here. It's much better to refer to "the undaunted" as the ones who assisted without referring to names or numbers. In terms of the Artifacts, it's just not important that a replica surfaced in the second era. How does that replica floating around inform the reader in any way about the actual artifact itself? The replica's picture can be added because it looks like the original artifact, but that helps inform the reader about the look of the real thing. When or where the replica existed is irrelevant to the main topic at hand.

I definitely think that things like this have been creeping into lorespace for a while, and it'll take a long time to root them all out, but it's worth doing. We are often looked to as a quality lore repository, and really don't want to lose that due to people seeing marketing info and game mechanics mixed in with the lore information and just assuming we've lost our high standards. Some of these things have been on lore pages for years because they were added with other, high quality information, but that doesn't mean they should ever have been there. Jeancey (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2019 (GMT)

I'm not really a huge fan for including the line of "replicas of this artifact circulated around so and so" on articles based off it being a Crown Store item, but on some articles its not really a bad thing to include. Using that line on the Sinweaver article tells us that the artifact has been around since at least the Second Era, if it wasn't on there the only info we'd have is that it was around in the Third Era at the earliest, or Fearstruck similarly as info about the replicas would tell us people still knew what the destroyed item looked like long after its gone.

I don't think this is the right way of understanding how events occur in ESO's timeline, sure a dungeon can be run a million times over but everybody knows the events only occurred once, nobody is saying that these events are repeating themselves as its just a by-product of game mechanics. Occurrence of events if anything varies on the context its completed in; main questlines are by one person (the vestige), while group content (dungeons, craglorn etc.) is four players (12 with a trial, so usually a vague group of undaunted) and the npcs recognize all four players. In group content its a weird scenario since the game says one/none of you is the vestige while the other three members are just fellow adventurers. In the Alliance War nobody is the Vestige really, "canonically" everyone is just a soldier of their respective alliance. The context always changes things up.

I'm not really sure what this whole argument is about, it gets more confusing the more I think about it, but really I think we're just overthinking things. I don't see much of a use in changing things from how they are now :/ The Rim of the Sky (talk) 03:37, 5 November 2019 (GMT)

Agreed first of all that context is entirely relevant. Specific numbers aren't though, as many dungeons in ESO are designed for four but can be completed solo. The guideline that I always followed when considering lorespace is whether whatever it is has "historical significance" - if it doesn't, then there doesn't need to be a lore article about it and the gamespace article will do. I thought that guideline was written somewhere but maybe it isn't. Therefore I would agree with the suggestion to codify "information that significantly adds to the understanding of the topic".

On the specific topic of artifact styles, I would argue that they're not even proper replicas; they're skins, a purely cosmetic element of gameplay designed to make one thing look like another. The weapon itself is still your generic Rubedite Greatsword or whatever, not an actual replica of Sinweaver, therefore "replicas existed" is an entirely incorrect statement. You could potentially make the argument that they work like glamour enchantments, but I think that would be original research as there's no evidence of that. --Enodoc (talk) 18:33, 5 November 2019 (GMT)

I was 50/50 on having the replicas line to every single artifact page. It seemed unwieldy. The way ZOS themselves describe it for example is: "When the authentic Mehrunes’ Razor shows up, blood and carnage is sure to follow. Alter your one-handed dagger's Outfit style with a replica of the Mehrunes' Razor Elder Scrolls Artifact". Now that statement isn't lore-friendly as it mentions the Outfit system, but it gives insight into the devs intention of what these Crown Store items are. Replicas.

I'm not entirely against noting that replicas are a thing in this universe. The only thing the existence of replicas is indicative of is that the artifact's import/renown in the 2nd Era was such that people sought replicas of it. I say "people" because although we can agree there was only one Vestige protagonist, there is some evidence to suggest many Souless Ones came into being when the Planemeld began.

I would suggest a compromise and included a general line on Lore:Artifacts that basically mentions that during the Second Era some artifacts were so renowned that replicas existed - and a ref that leads to the ON:Artifact Styles page. --Jimeee (talk) 10:53, 6 November 2019 (GMT)

Alright, I feel like the following solutions can be implemented:

1. The mention of replicas could be added to the Artifact page as stated by Jimeee above, but not necessarily specify anything about the amount or whereabouts of these replicas as its not relevant to the page or can even be considered game/store mechanics. However, an image of the replica could still be added to show how the artifact looks like.

2. An addition to the lore guideline page about what should or should not be included in lore pages based on "information that significantly adds to the understanding of the topic". Gamespace articles can suffice for other information and might even be preferable before documenting info in lorespace. Although this is still a bit vague as it can be interpreted in several ways by different editors and as such is still up to the editor where info is added. It would mostly serve as a reminder to only add relevant information where necessary.

Please comment if disagreeing or if I'm missing anything. --Ilaro (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2019 (GMT)

(←) The premise of this entire discussion is negated by the contents of Chaotic Creatia: The Azure Plasm: "[...] if such a thing were possible, it would probably occur in a situation where the Mundus was in existential jeopardy. In that case the Heart of Nirn would spontaneously generate such "paragon" individuals as a way of defending itself from destruction, in a manner analogous to the way the mortal body fights off infection." There are multiple vestiges/player characters in ESO and this is acknowledged in lore. I also mentioned it in this interview, if you're looking for an additional source. Claiming that Selene was defeated by a single hero rather than four adventurers is simply false reporting. Our documentation of game events in lorespace needs to reflect the actual gameplay, since that is the source material being cited. This push to remove any mention of replica artifacts from the relevant pages seems particularly odd, given that nobody has ever objected to e.g. the Daggerfall Nocturnal quest involving a replica Warlock's Ring being mentioned on the lore article since 2012. Seems highly notable to me. —Legoless (talk) 21:45, 10 November 2019 (GMT)

No one in this discussion is saying that Selene was defeated by a single hero. If you read back, the objection is about the use of a specific number instead of something as "a group of undaunted". Many dungeons in ESO are designed for four but can be completed solo. I'm not even disagreeing there was more than one vestige. However, there certainly is only one vestige that actually performed most of the quests. The defeat of Molag Bal, Kaalgrontiid, Domihaus etc is certainly only performed once in lore, and I don't see why we shouldn't treat any other lore page the same way. So I'd actually like to know your opinion about the real proposal instead this supposed "false reporting". You are arguing against something that's not even the intention of this discussion.

Also, I don't see why the argument about Warlock's Ring is relevant here. Just because there is an example on another page no one objected to, doesn't mean that the argument is invalid (there are so many pages, there will always be something that's overlooked). I'd even argue in this case that the mention on the Warlock's Ring lore page is actually historically relevant for that particular artifact. Its name was used to trick someone, even though it was not the real artifact in the end. Nothing similar like this is the case for the replicas, there is no info about the replicas at all (there are only some useful tidbits about the real artifacts in there, nothing relevant about the replicas themselves). However, that wasn't even the main complaint about the replicas in the first place. The use of "a great number of replica(s) [...] were seen throughout Tamriel." is in my eyes just store mechanics. Combined with how the replicas are just skins, together with how we should treat vestiges in lore, I don't think it's compelling to keep this sentence in lorespace. --Ilaro (talk) 23:15, 10 November 2019 (GMT)

You are differentiating between group dungeon mechanics and store mechanics. My argument is: when ESO gameplay is cited as a lore source, it should reflect the game mechanics. There absolutely is a compelling reason to note the appearance of countless replica artifacts during that time period, and being a premium player skin has nothing to do with it. There is no reason we shouldn't be allowed to document ESO player items in lorespace. Generally I would prefer to go for completeness in our documentation, rather than delete information due to a "lack of notability" which seems to stem more from a distaste of a certain gameplay mechanic than anything else. —Legoless (talk) 21:13, 12 November 2019 (GMT)

The problem I see with these edits is that they can give a false sense of importance for these specific subjects, give definite statements about gameplay mechanics we are not sure are really reflected in lore (or are not even necessarily true in-game either, e.g. dungeons can be completed with smaller groups than four), and/or are overall not historical relevant for the page. Just because we can document certain information in lorespace doesn't mean we should. And in my opinion, they can be distracting or even detrimental to the quality of the page when included. Also, I don't think lore pages should reflect game mechanics, lore pages should reflect established lore no matter my own opinion of the mechanics. --Ilaro (talk) 22:30, 12 November 2019 (GMT)

On that, I repeat what I said before - important or not, "replicas existed" is an entirely incorrect statement. There are no physical replicas of these artifacts, there are only styles that make your weapon look like a replica of these artifacts. This is not a replica of Mehrunes' Razor. It's a Dagger of Twilight's Embrace that happens to look like Mehrunes' Razor, and lore would see it as a Dagger of Twilight's Embrace, not a replica of Mehrunes' Razor. --Enodoc (talk) 21:30, 13 November 2019 (GMT)

Well, I would disagree here - the styles are just a mechanic, since you can't in reality change the appearance of weapons, and evidence points that lore-wise they are supposed to be replicas (see Jimeee's comment). For me it would be just fine to mention the existence of replicas without going into how many there were, and in case of group content, to just refer to "(Undaunted) adventurers" without mentioning that there were four, twelve, or any other number - as Lego pointed out, multiple player characters are definitely a thing, at least in some contexts, but the actual number is not that relevant IMHO. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 07:23, 14 November 2019 (GMT)

Not to get too bogged down in the semantics here, but "looking like a replica" is a redundant sentence. Looking like something else is a pretty accurate definition of what a replica is. —Legoless (talk) 23:54, 14 November 2019 (GMT)

Wasn't sure where to put the stuff I added to a page.

Hello, I may of made a mistake on the Followers page for Skyrim, but that is where I may of messed up. I found out that you can pickpocket them for their default equipment if they aren't following you, but I wasn't really sure where I would put my findings. I may have over 3 years of Wiki experience back to when I joined Wikipedia, but I still make mistakes. Here's the thing I'm talking about: [2]

Thanks. White Lightning (talk) 18:27, 6 November 2019 (GMT)

Verifiability in Lore

I didn't forget about the other CP post I made, but this one tries to tackle quite a different problem. I'd like to make a case about certain standards we should apply while referencing lore in lorespace. This has been discussed on Discord in some manner, but no changes on-wiki can be decided there and it's way too fast paced to actually make a comprehensive list of arguments, so that's why I am posting it here.

Proposal: the change I'd like to make is that any statement with a reference that is used in lorespace (mostly in context of ESO) not only needs to cite the quest/dialogue/etc, but also should have a documentation of the original content/source material on the wiki. This documentation would preferably be in gamespace where the reference would most likely point towards in the first place. Before I'll get replies that the games are the primary source, and thus it's sufficient enough to reference without having the source material documented, especially as documentation on the wiki is not an official source, please hear me out on why I propose this change.

Lorespace has the inevitable problem that a lot of statements made there are interpretations of the lore. This is not a problem in and of itself, but it does mean we should take extra care in how we present the information. It should be possible to verify any of the references and sources used there. The problem is, especially in ESO, that it is very hard to do. Quests can only be done once per character and some questlines need to be completed in order, so it can take hours to find the specific information you need. If a patroller needs to verify this info, they need to go on a hunt in-game that can be very tedious and time consuming. This also applies to any random user that reads the site and has to do the same if they want to verify this statement. Even though the source is technically verifiable, it's not in practice. We can't ask from our patrollers and readers to do this. The user that added the information in lore already should have this info and thus should be able to provide the original material that supports their addition. The burden of proof to show that their interpretation is supported by the source lies with the editor. This is much less a problem in gamespace, as most of the info there is straight from the game. Health values, dialogue texts, quests stages, etc are just hard data that do not have to be interpreted, so even if they can be wrong, this same problem is not really a big worry there. Wikipedia strongly prefers the use of third party sources over primary sources to be used in articles for the main reason that editors have to interpret the info from primary sources while that is already done for them in third party sources. This is of course impossible for a wiki based on a game that is the primary source, but I agree with the sentiment that strong caution is needed with interpretations, and thus needs strict rules on what is allowed to assure the quality of the wiki. This would solve two things. 1: The possibility that interpretations based on original research creeps into lorespace, because now any editor also has to provide the source material. 2: It will remove a lot of pressure from patrollers working on these subjects.

As I said, this was also discussed on Discord and I got quite some comments with disagreements. I will list the most frequent ones here so that they do not have to be repeated by those who originally made the comments (unless there are some additions I missed there).

Assume good faith. This was the main one, as those kind of edits most of the time do provide a source, so I should assume they are provided in good faith. I don't deny that, but I'd like to counter that with "assume good faith does not equal assume correctness". Mistakes can be made in good faith, but they are still mistakes that need to be fixed. Assuming good faith does nothing more than that I should assume the editor tried to better the wiki or at least didn't try to disrupt it. It's not a free card to keep anything on the site that's added in good faith. It doesn't protect you from your edits needing to be altered or removed.

Lorespace has always worked this way. While I understand this sentiment, especially if it comes from editors that are actually working on lorespace a lot, it is still an appeal to tradition. Just because we did it in the past, doesn't mean we should continuing doing it. If we can do better, we should try. This problem was much less prevalent in older games, mostly because almost anything could be found with a couple of clicks in the Creation Kit or with our CSList. Even if we did do it in the past (like with an incompletely documented Redguard), it still doesn't mean it was a good practice in the first place.

If this proposal is too much to ask, then another solution might be to add a new template similar to verification needed or bug confirmed so it doesn't discourage people too much working on new lore that is not yet documented in gamespace. Fact wouldn't be sufficient, as the lack of a citation itself is not a problem in these cases. I'd really like to hear your opinions on these points as I believe this is a very important change that we can't just hand wave away as inconvenient. --Ilaro (talk) 22:42, 19 November 2019 (GMT)

The last part was my suggestion. I proposed adding a "Not supported by reference" verification template. This template would be added to new information where the reference provided does not support the information being added to lore. This would be for new information initially, in order to prevent someone from just going back and adding it en masse to information from games like Shadowkey, Dawnstar, Daggerfall, Arena, where we might not have the information recorded but it has been on the wiki for years.

This distinction is important for the second part of the proposal. If the "Not Supported by Reference" template has been on the page for a certain period of time (say, one month, three months, something like that), then the information can be commented out or removed. This is to provide the user who added the information to lore enough time to add the supporting information to the gamespace page, or for another user to add said information. That way, we don't have unsupported information forever on the wiki, but we also don't force users to immediately add information to gamespace that they discover hasn't been added yet when adding stuff to lorespace. Jeancey (talk) 23:15, 19 November 2019 (GMT)

I don't think calling it "Not supported by reference" would be the right way to go. The problem I laid out is not that I think the sources that are used are in disagreement with the statements, but more that they are almost impossible to verify when not documented. I added the last part because I do agree with the rest of your post (and arguments you made in previous discussions). We should be able to tackle statements made in lore when no proof or direct support is provided after a certain amount of time. --Ilaro (talk) 12:12, 20 November 2019 (GMT)

What I mean by "Not Supported by Reference" is that the lore page cites a specific page on the wiki, and that page they cite does not contain information to support the sentence attached to the reference, likely due to the gamespace page not being complete. It really doesn't matter whether the statement is in disagreement with the GAME, but there isn't any evidence supporting the statement on the page referenced, in most cases, gamespace. Jeancey (talk) 17:39, 20 November 2019 (GMT)

As this would be a change in our policies, I do not feel comfortable to change it without some more input. Especially because I know some people disagreed with it in the past, but I hope this might actually convince them or at the least get to a compromise somehow. --Ilaro (talk) 14:09, 27 November, 2019 (GMT)

(←) Excuse my harsh language here, but this is a destructive proposal which is essentially attempting to dictate what work editors can and cannot do on the wiki. UESPWiki is a crowdsourcing project, and forcing editors to add info to game articles prior to documenting it in lorespace flies in the face of that model. Editors should be free to work on what they want to work on; expanding our lore articles without ever touching gamespace is a perfectly valid way to do that. Claiming that something "isn't sourced" just because the material isn't hosted on the wiki is a fundamentally flawed position. The lorespace project is entirely separate from, e.g., the project to document all Morrowind dialogue. The games themselves are the sources. Adding the sources directly to the wiki has always been to aid our lorespace documentation, it is absolutely not a prerequisite.

Commenting out or removing info on this basis is entirely inappropriate, as a wiki article cannot by definition be a valid source. Any kind of garbage could be added to a gamespace page unsourced, but following the logic on display here it would be perfectly fine to then cite that page in lore. If we are assuming good faith from editors in gamespace, the same lenience should be afforded to lore articles, particularly where an accurate reference is provided.

As one of the primary contributors to lorespace, I know I would be extremely discouraged from editing the wiki if a draconian policy like this was brought in. I am very rarely in the mood to create a full ESO quest walkthrough or transcribe the entirety of a Skyrim NPC's dialogue, and that's okay. It should not prevent me from expanding a lore article with that information. If you have an issue with a specific citation due to lack of gamespace documentation on the subject, bring it up on the relevant talk page and outline your concerns. If you don't feel like you can patrol a lorespace edit due to your own lack of knowledge or inability to verify the information, then leave it for a patroller who can.

In short, letting poor game documentation impact the wiki's lore documentation is destructive to the lorespace project and I condemn it in the strongest terms. This policy is unworkable. —Legoless (talk) 23:08, 28 November 2019 (GMT)

I disagree with the proposal. As has been precedent keep gamespace and lore space as two separate projects, and treat a user preforming the contrary as a bonus. —dcking

I'm glad there are finally some comments on this as I'm not sure how long I should've waited before assuming no one was in disagreement. I strongly disagree with the idea that we can't dictate what editors can or can not add to the wiki. What do you think all our guidelines and policies are for? Sure, we can't tell them what specific topic they can or want to edit, but it's nonsensical to say that we can't tell them they shouldn't add fanfiction to a lore article for example. We already delete and change many edits that are made on the wiki, this would just make some of the edits adhere to stricter rules.

As I said in the initial proposal, sourcing the games, while admirable, is in practice not verifiable. Every user that reads the wiki should be able to verify the sources used in our lorespace, not just a select few patrollers. They should not only have to rely on the scrutiny of the patroller, but also be able to find it themselves. And we can not ask of them to first play a 4 hour long questline to get that info. You say "any kind of garbage could be added to a gamespace page unsourced", but I already addressed that in the main post. Lore is interpretation, while gamespace data usually is not. This makes it way more easy to actually find mistakes in the latter one. The burden of proof is on the editor that adds the info in lorespace to show that the source is actually saying what they think it says. It's basically impossible to remove faulty reasoning from the wiki if we can't even verify it and we need something that can prevent against that. If we have to choose between "any kind of garbage could be added to a lorespace page" vs "any kind of garbage could be added to a gamespace page", then the second is much easier to actually fix.

This basically only applies for ESO information (and maybe Blades and Legends), as we have things like CSList for older games. You didn't necessarily have to add all the Skyrim dialogue in gamespace, as anyone can easily look it up even when they don't have the game in question. ESO is different than the older games and thus adhering to "we always did it like this" is just an appeal to tradition. Things have to change to keep the integrity of the wiki to the highest standards in light of new developments.

The idea that you are discouraged from contributing to the lorespace is something to consider and one of the reasons I wouldn't mind to have some kind of compromise in this. However, I'm not sure if we should allow such an appeal to emotion to get in the way of improving our standards. I could just as easily counter it by saying I'm already discouraged from contributing to lorespace especially because there is nothing like this proposal in place. It's actually quite discouraging that I'm accused of "deleting lore" off-wiki just for trying to improve our guidelines and makes me not want to contribute to the wiki at all. So this goes both way and I ask of you to not only look at your own emotions as if they are more important when discussing this, but also consider the other party. --Ilaro (talk) 08:59, 29 November 2019 (GMT)

If a policy like this were to be implemented where the game dialogue were to be needed to add lore content, I would significantly contribute less to the lorespace. I play at a faster rate than the average person, and enjoy documenting lore asap, but documenting gamespace is something that I do not really enjoy too much and the slower pace that other contributors goes at means, not to mention that everyones at a different stage of this vast game, (ESO) then the information needed will take a while to be uploaded. I already pitched in by narrowing down my citation from the horrid "events of game" which encompasses an entire game, into a single quest. If that's not enough then im not sure I can do much. Its a time consuming process to document gamespace, and I am already giving up my free time to document the lore. If anyone would like the 5000 plus screenshots to document the Dragonhold dlc dialogue I have, feel free to contact me me btw.Zebendal (talk) 09:47, 29 November 2019 (GMT)

I'm not making an emotional appeal, I am advising as one of the main leads on the lorespace project since 2011 that this policy proposal is unworkable. I am sure there are only the best of intentions behind this proposal, and I agree that the more raw data we can host the better. However, nothing that has been said here has changed my mind about this policy. And trust me, it's equally as discouraging to see hard work deleted from lore articles as it is to be "accused" of deleting it; considering the above discussion on deleting artifact info and the ongoing deletion review of a longstanding article, I don't think such accusations are entirely without merit. —Legoless (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2019 (GMT)

UESP 2020 Calendar Giveaways!

As a small thank-you to all our admins and editors we are giving away 2020 calendars composed of fan submitted screenshots. All site admins (wiki admins, forum admins, discord admins, guild officers, etc...) are entitled to one calendar. To claim just enter your real name/address along with your wiki account name on the mailing form.

For non-admins, if you've edited the wiki at anytime during 2019 you can enter a random drawings for just wiki editors...just enter your e-mail and UESP wiki account name in the contest form. Anyone else is welcome to enter the same contest for another random drawing of several calendars.

You can see what the calendar looks like here. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the UESP! -- Daveh ^(talk) 21:14, 2 December 2019 (GMT)

Skyrim NPC dialogue formatting

A lot of the Skyrim NPC pages have dialogue shoved into the main paragraph of the page, and this makes it very hard to read due to the text all just merging together, there is also more prose than actual dialogue in some regards with things like 'X NPC says hello to you:' 'NPC:"Hi"'. I have made an example of what I intend to do if people approve of this new format change, it can be seen here: Barknar. The prose has still been semi kept, and has had the addition of player dialogue, this follows the ESO format, which is easily readable and gives context to dialogue. The project also intends to record any dialogue that hasn't been wrote down yet, with a lot of player dialogue missing, which means lack of context/evidence as the prose can't be verified if no player dialogue is present. Imperialbattlespire (talk) 15:44, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

As this is kind of similar to a previous CP discussion, I am strongly in favor of this idea and glad with your initiative in spearheading a potential project. --Ilaro (talk) 16:39, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

Copy-pasting my thoughts from the linked to CP archive, because my thoughts are basically the same still, and I'm lazy.

Using a proposed Featured Article as an example, while there's nothing wrong with documenting dialogue like this, I feel like while the style guide prefers content over accessibility at the end of the day, it does say there should be a healthy balace. After all, the UESP needs to be accessible to the average reader, or who will want to visit us? Big dialogue trees, when used correctly, can be very informative, but for games like Skyrim or Oblivion, which are being proposed for this type of content, we can expect to lose navigability when we start including every player spoken option we can find, which would invariably include some random crap like Belethor's "if I had a sister, I'd sell her in a second" line. If we can healthily incorporate and improve accessibility for quest or critical dialogues to the character (Heimskr's Talos speech can be considered important to his character, for instance) in a clean and navigable way, we should go for it. If we're including content for the sake of content, eventually there's a tipping point in my opinion where there is such a thing as too much information. As was said above, in MMOs, the dialogue is almost exclusively related to quests, at least in my week and a half of ESO experience, so we don't have much per character to incorpotate, but for major singleplayer characters, we can easily triple page lengths.

While all articles should be informative, it also goes on to say that information only important to the author or to other editors shouldn't be included in the articles. As I said, we need to worry about what's actually usable to the average user who wants quick information that's readily accessible and not lost in large text trees.

Also, I'm not a fan of the presentation for the Barknar page. If you haven't played the game and don't know you're looking at player dialogue, it reads like it's randomly repeating itself every couple of lines. It should either be a tree like the Online article in my post, which I don't approve of for Skyrim, or keep the prose. I just don't like the weird hybrid thing that is going on in the Barknar example. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 17:04, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

I am in favour of this idea, the dialogue on the Barknar page looks very clean compared to other dialogue examples. Some may have concerns about the amount of white space created by this, but I think it makes it a lot easier to parse and to read. Thal-J (talk) 17:07, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

I can agree with what you mean Damon as it does feel repetitive, if people don't want the player dialogue then that's fine, the prose can be kept, but the formatting seems to be popular so far. Imperialbattlespire (talk) 17:42, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

While I'm in favor of using the tree structure when appropriate, I think the Barknar page is not a good example because its has redundancies. For example "When asked if he heard the Greybeards summon the Dovahkiin, he will say..." then "Did you hear the Greybeards call "Dovahkiin"?". Sorry but that's a bad approach.

Instead, like I said last time, both prose and trees should be used. I wrote the Dragonborn:Neloth page and I heavily relied on the dialogue tree, because its well structured, easily scan-able and good for when you're citing dialogue in lore articles. But there is plenty of prose in those pages too. Both work well together. Readability massively important, so that is why I'm a big proponent of using multiple headings, tables, different colored backgrounds, etc on the aforementioned pages to help with that. --Jimeee (talk) 17:47, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

(←) I agree with Jimeee. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:12, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

Think I have addressed what you have said Jimeee, check the page again to see if that's what you mean, thanks Imperialbattlespire (talk) 22:30, 3 December 2019 (GMT)

Barknar was a well-written page, now it is not. It's no secret I hate the format used on ESO pages, I consider it laziness to dump the dialogue there and leave it as if that was a well-written, informative, and useful page. Dumping dialogue extends page lengths, and just gets worse the more dialogue there is. Putting it in prose is how you write normally, and it's no use complaining about walls of text because it's still a wall of text but just longer and without any context making it much harder to find something when you know the context but not the words. A page like Earl Leythen is the beginning of a good page (how it made featured with missing dialogue is anyone's guess), where it has moved away from data dumping to incorporate prose, tables, and other formatting to make the dialogue presentable. At the extreme end, there are pages like Delphine, which would be at a minimum 3x as long, and it's already one of the longest pages on the wiki. There is simply no better way to give all the information needed at once than prose, because dialogue trees cannot explain the tone, the place, and other pertinent circumstances which all are important when trying to understand what and why someone is saying something. It is prose that dominates writing everywhere because of these reasons, and that's why it should stay in prose, and ESO will should eventually adopt it. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 02:43, 4 December 2019 (GMT)

I strongly disagree with Barnar's page being well written before in the context of dialogue. I find it an infuriating trying to find dialogue merged with the main body of the page. when scanning for lore related dialogue to add to lore pages, or simply learn lore in games formatted like skyrim, I do not give a skeever's ass about the daily schedule of a npc or what they are wearing or what % chance they have of wearing a certain item. I should not be subjected to that eye sore when looking for dialogue. now I agree that the redundancies of "When asked, NPC will say" is not needed. So I hope we come to a consensus to at least reformatted the dialogue away from the main body.Zebendal (talk) 03:15, 4 December 2019 (GMT)

Yeah, I'm with Silencer and Jimeee on this one. Dialogue should be incorporated with prose, not separate from it. Just dumping dialogue is one of the worst ways to format an NPC page because it provides zero context to the dialogue and requires the reader to go to every single related quest or NPC page to fully figure out the context of the conversation. We need to make sure that people can get the context of the dialogue on the page itself, and that is done as prose.

Zebendal, to your point about not being "subjected to that eye sore when looking for dialogue", quite frankly that is never an issue on any page on the wiki whatsoever. This information is NEVER included in the section of the article that involves dialogue. The schedule and outfit information is in the initial blurb of the article, and the dialogue is always under a subheading. Trying to use your dislike for data-based information to promote a less informative display of dialogue because you find it harder to find the lore information is a dangerous precedent to set. We shouldn't format articles because one specific person dislikes certain types of important information, we should strive to include all important game information on gamespace pages. In addition, there is a major issue with using dialogue alone without fully knowing the relevant context when adding information to lorepages. The context is often extremely important to distinguish an important overarching detail that should be on a lore page for a subject and a "one-off" mention of a detail that is never again repeated and should not be applied to a concept as a whole as it would give undue weight to that detail. Without the prose providing that context, it is very difficult to tell which type of detail it is, especially when just skimming that dialogue.

It seems to me that we are discussing whether we want the wiki to be complete and helpful or whether it should be the style that requires the least amount of effort. I think we should strive to make the wiki as complete and helpful as possible. Yes, that requires more effort from editors, but it is what has set us apart from other websites and allowed us to last as long as we have. Jeancey (talk) 17:59, 4 December 2019 (GMT)

I am not in principle opposed to documenting player dialogue, particularly when it is extensive. The classic example I like to give is Oblivion:Kathutet, which goes against the usual OBNPCRP prose style in order to fully capture the NPC's dialogue tree. I think a degree of flexibility needs to be called for here when it comes to dialogue layouts. —Legoless (talk) 20:59, 4 December 2019 (GMT)

(←) Both Delphine and Neloth already feature player dialogue, the objection is to using ESO dialogue formatting as the standard instead of how these pages are currently written and layed out. There is nothing against using player dialogue where it helps, but it's often repetitive with the prose, and very often lacks any useful information, so it's either player dialogue or prose, not both. I don't want to poke in holes in Kathutet, which is similar to how Morrowind pages are written, but the person who did the dialogue did suggest it needed to be prettied up.

To cover a point yet not countered, all (or at least almost all) Skyrim dialogue is recorded in our CSList. If anyone really only wants dialogue with no context and no explanations and description of events for NPCs then they can use that. It is our "source" for "proving" prose accuracy alongside the actual games, but real accuracy comes through the ability of anyone to correct incorrect information when they find it. Patrollers are also responsible for removing recently-added inaccurate information, and the CSList is the tool available for them to check it. Lore pages come with a much stricter level of proof, and using only game pages written by other people without doing your own research is akin to using a wikipedia page to write an essay for school; it's wrong, bad methodology, and prone to being completely inaccurate due to vandals. Counter to the idea that nothing is proven unless player dialogue is present is asking why you'd believe that what was written as player dialogue was right without another level of proof that it is accurate. At some point you have to Assume Good Faith that your fellow editors are writing accurately, as those who don't will get found out and banned (deliberate inaccurate information is vandalism). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 23:49, 4 December 2019 (GMT)

I think somewhere between the two is what's needed. A prose style for the context, while allowing the page to be broken down a bit more for readability. Using the Barknar example, I think this revision, which kept the context of the prose without the player dialogue, is the way to go; where the prose explains the player dialogue, the player dialogue doesn't need to be added as well. Delphine, Neloth and Leythen are all good examples of where both parts have been used well together. --Enodoc (talk) 15:14, 8 December 2019 (GMT)

By "prettying up" I was talking about the indentation, not the general concept of player lines or dialogue trees being displayed on articles. Prose is only repetitive if it is written that way, which is the difficulty when trying to balance it with player dialogue. —Legoless (talk) 15:27, 8 December 2019 (GMT)

Allowing Other Aspect Ratios

This is a retread of a previous proposal, but it's an extremely important issue. We are arbitrarily limiting ourselves to 1:1 and 4:3 aspect ratios, for no good reason. There's no technical benefit to doing so, and this policy in fact makes it hard for people to take images, as they have to plan around the fact that they will have to crop an image to 1:1 or 4:3. Even though people have been using different aspect ratios for a decade, we still have been forcing people to try to use the previous decade's dominant aspect ratio.

This is extraordinarily difficult with games like ESO, where you already have limited time to capture images without potentially hours of retreading. This also wastes our valuable time, as people are forced to add cropping down a much larger image to somehow fit into the 4:3 or 1:1 box, either sacrificing important details from the image, somehow cramming things in at an odd angle to somehow fit everything in. One of the easiest ways is to simply walk farther away from an image, making image subjects unclear and murky, all in the name of maintaining the arbitrary 4:3 or 1:1 resolutions. We have been wasting people's time and efforts when they could have been taking much more beautiful images, by sticking to those, again, arbitrary aspect ratios.

Another exceptional example is Blades, where phones were absolutely not built with the 4:3 or 1:1 ratios in mind, making getting images from that game that match that arbitrary standard exceptionally hard. I've heard people suggest we just ignore the standard entirely for those games, but it's a problem with all the games that can display more reasonable resolutions. The same is true for Legends, where that ratio makes absolutely no sense.

I have heard people mention aesthetic or technical issues with this change, but have found neither to really be true. No real major technical issue will occur from us simply adopting better ratios, and there are no major aesthetic issues with larger aspect ratios.

In summary, we are wasting editor's time by forcing them to comply with this standard. We are missing out on some potential higher quality images since we have been forced to comply with this standard. We already don't have a reasonable way to maintain this standard with the newest games in the series. 4:3 and 1:1 are simply not popular ratios regardless, with 4:3 falling out of favor a decade ago and 1:1 never being a popular ratio.

Instead, we should embrace logic and finally accept modern ratios. For the phone games, no standard will really work due to the sheer diversity of the market, so no standard should stand. For everything else, 1:1, 4:3, 16:9, 16:10, and 21:9 should be accepted as fair ratios. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 20:39, 17 December 2019 (GMT)

Absolutely agree, 4:3 is extremely outdated and really only barely worked for Morrowind since that was around the highest resolution computers could got to back then. Modern games like Oblivion, Skyrim, and ESO all handle much larger aspect ratios. I'm often discouraged and unmotivated from taking pictures of ESO locations because I'd have to take it from a further back viewpoint, so that I wouldn't miss anything by cropping it out to 4:3. By doing 16:9 images I'm far more liberated to take better pictures that don't miss out on anything, and don't need to further crop my photos to a ridiculous resolution. Allowing new ratios is the way to go. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:46, 17 December 2019 (GMT)

I think we should shift and allow only 16:9 and 21:9 for future namespaces. AKB has graciously offered to retake all the 1:1 and 4:3 images on the wiki and replace them with the higher aspect ratios. In actuality, as long as we are consistent with the aspect ratios allowed for things, I think we should shift to more modern ratios, but we should choose something to retain consistency within the same type of images. 16:9 usually results in a better image for places, for example. I don't see a reason to force 1:1 or 4:3, but allowing any ratio for any type of image is not going to lead to a better wiki, it's going to lead to an insane mishmash of styles on pages including but not limited to, the Bestiary, Flora, Collection pages, as well as pages that may use galleries. Coming up with consistent ratios for each style of image is the best option. Have all images for collections be 16:9 or related ratio would be good. Jeancey (talk) 21:01, 17 December 2019 (GMT)

I would prefer 16:9 or 16:10 to be used as the preferred standards going forward as these are close enough to 4:3 that pages where multiple ratios will be present will have a better level of consitency through those pages as opposed to 21:9, this would allow older games to retain existing images without the need for mass cleanup for images used on Lore articles. At the same time, i'd like to see the preference option for $wgThumbLimits opened up to allow 400px settings, is this IMO improves the viewability of those wider images on the wiki. Kiz^{(email - talk)} 21:13, 17 December 2019 (GMT)

I think this would make sense. The only concern I have with 16:9 and beyond is that the images start to get very narrow, which means at the same width, you get less picture on the screen than you do with a 4:3. But that concern may be biased by it being a change to status quo rather than it being actually visually worse. It could also be alleviated by making the default thumbnail larger, and having more thumbnail size options, as Kiz suggested (we may want a different default thumbnail size anyway for mobile devices). 16:10 is also closest to the golden ratio. Anything above 2:1 I think may be too wide, which would exclude 21:9. In terms of consistency, having a bunch of set standards would make sense, but we could consider allowing anything between 1:2.5 and 2.5:1 (which would include most phones in portrait, and 21:9), with a preference towards 4:3 in old namespaces and 16:9/16:10 in new ones. --Enodoc (talk) 22:59, 17 December 2019 (GMT)

For some visual representation of what some of these changes will look like, there are some examples here. The setting referenced, would be opt-in, though with that changed the default can then be updated if desired. Kiz^{(email - talk)} 23:04, 17 December 2019 (GMT)

I am not surprised at all that the 16:10 example is (IMO) the most aesthetically pleasing. Assuming this suggestion is adopted, I'll likely be trimming my 16:9s to that ratio from now on. --Enodoc (talk) 19:32, 19 December 2019 (GMT)

16:9 should 100% be allowed, according to wikipedia, it's been the most common ratio since 2009 for all monitors and TV screens. It also makes taking screenshots for places much easier, I have a 4k 16:9 screen and so when taking screenshots of landscapes/places it ends up with really awkward resolutions when trying to downsize the ratio from a resolution of 3840 × 2160 Imperialbattlespire (talk) 23:41, 19 December 2019 (GMT)

(←) Since it has no direct impact on the discussion of aspect ratios and nobody objected to the idea, I've gone ahead with Kiz's suggestion to add the Wikipedia thumbnail size options of 220px and 400px. Those of you who currently have it set to something above 200 will need to change your settings, since you'll find that your setting has been bumped down by one size. While I could've updated the setting en masse, I prefer not to touch things that don't absolutely require it, and the number of people who've customized that setting at all is fairly small, so I figured it was better to let you change it yourselves to be on the safe side. You can find the setting on the Appearance tab of your preferences. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 16:58, 21 December 2019 (GMT)

NPC and creature images still should be 1:1. Most NPCs and creatures are higher than wide, and having a wide image showing them only adds a lot of background not needed to display the character, and decreases the actual character's size since image size is still width based.

One of the things I prefer at the UESP over wikia is how structured we are, compared to wikia which is all over the place with like, everything. Lifting the aspect ratio rule would be a step into the wrong direction, IMO. At most, I would say, replace the 4:3 with either 16:9 or 16:10, and only for the ESO + Blades namespace (+ future games), since they're the ones where large ammounts of new images are still expected. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 13:40, 22 December 2019 (GMT)

I think we should allow NPC images to be portrait to the same ratios, particularly if we are to keep focusing on the "full-body shots" guideline. --Enodoc (talk) 14:18, 23 December 2019 (GMT)

I'm with Sarthes in this. I'm totally fine with changing the aspect ratio, especially as 4:3 is severely outdated. However, I believe consistency is even more important, and thus we should focus on the newer games (Blades, TES6, and probably ESO) when we want to change this. --Ilaro (talk) 15:58, 23 December 2019 (GMT)

I also have a dislike for portrait images, especially with high aspect ratios, but that's nothing I can explain...-- SarthesArai ^Talk 10:41, 24 December 2019 (GMT)

So if this passes, 16:10 will be the new standard that will replace 4:3? if so I agree. For npc shots, will 1:1 stil be the preferred? Zebendal (talk) 21:23, 28 December 2019 (GMT)

Squares look better on npc pages, so yes. If this new thing means I have to crop less out of Place images, I'll greenlight it.MolagBallet (talk) 21:39, 28 December 2019 (GMT)

Agree with keeping NPC's at 1:1, but for places, 16:9 should be allowed since it produces higher quality images and means much less cropping/no cropping in some casesImperialbattlespire (talk) 21:58, 28 December 2019 (GMT)

Alright I think we at minimum have enough votes to pass 16:9 as the new standard that replaces 4:3. I agree with keeping 1:1 for npc images.Zebendal (talk) 00:15, 29 December 2019 (GMT)

Whatever the consensus is at this point, aspect ratios of 16:9 or 16:10 should totally be equally acceptable. There's not much need for a single standardized ratio when either of them work just about the same. The gallery changes proposal below hould help out in making them look better too.

As for NPC images, literally the only reason I use 1:1 is because that's one of the most convenient default aspect ratios my photo editing program lets me crop to. Say what you will about "TES Wikia looking nprofessional because they have too many ratios" or whatever but their aspect ratio fof 600x1000 (3:5) for NPCs actually makes way more sense because it fits perfectly on characters, who are naturally bipedal and upright and therefore, obviously, look better in a resolution that is also tall and about the same proportions as them. I'm not saying remove 1:1 as an option or even prioritize a different ratio over it, it can still work for NPCs doing certain actions or when their backround setting is important and must be included in the photo, but I am saying a ratio like 3:5 could work well if not better for NPCs. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2019 (GMT)

(←) 3:5 might make more sense for upright standing humanoid bipeds, but what about those that aren't one of these? We really shouldn't stretch too far. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 14:36, 30 December 2019 (GMT)

I wouldn't use 3:5 for creatures, 1:1 works better for big ones like trolls and ogrims for example. NPCs and Creatures are documented differently enough though that they could use different ratios if we wanted. Sometimes even 4:3 can work for creatures where the shot allows. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 19:20, 30 December 2019 (GMT)

It can, but we shouldn't make too many image ratios allowed. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 20:16, 30 December 2019 (GMT)

I agree with many points raised here and the general idea of the proposal but for now I have to simply oppose it because I think it's not specific enough. I think we should split up the discussion/proposal by at least removing 1:1 image categories from the proposal as this led to discussions about 3:5 ratios and the portrait/full body issue. Also it's a bit unclear to me if we're talking about ESO and future games or just future games. Most importantly, the proposal and many of the contributors are talking about allowing modern ratios, while some are now talking about replacing 4:3. I agree that we should stop forcing users to crop a great panoramic image to 4:3, but I don't think it's a good idea to replace this policy with another limiting policy by forcing users to upload a wide screenshot while it could benefit from being cropped to 4:3. The quality of an image doesn't depend on its ratio - 16:9/16:10 isn't better than 4:3 (or vice versa) per se. On pages with a more open layout (Quests, Places, NPCs, Lore etc.), 16:9, 16:10 and 4:3 can easily coexist. On pages with a highly standardized layout like Collections it's probably better to stick to one aspect ratio. Can we please specify if we're talking about "allowing" new ratios, having "a preference" towards them or if we're going to "replace" old standards? --Holomay (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2020 (GMT)

(←) I forgot to post about it, but I implemented these changes the other day, along with changing category names to be more consistent with each other. For the 16:9/16:10 issue, it was easiest to implement that as just a very broad range, since we already allow a bit of a fudge factor anyway. So, yes, if someone really wants to be strange, they could upload something at 16:9.5 (or 32:19 if you prefer whole numbers) and the wiki won't complain about it, but I think the chances of that are slim. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 20:36, 16 January 2020 (GMT)

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