UESPWiki:Community Portal

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This is the main discussion forum used to discuss the operations, policies, design, and improvement of UESP.

All members of the community are welcome to contribute to this page. Please sign and date your post by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar. If you would like to start a new inquiry, please place it at the bottom of the page with a two-tier (==) heading.

Other pages for community-wide or general questions include:

[edit] Contents

Major Discussions
Bread Crumb Trail -- Inactive
  • Utility and formatting of bread crumb trails.
Curing Stupidity -- Inactive
  • Dealing with very low quality edits.
Mod Info in Articles -- Inactive
  • When and where unofficial mods should be included in articles.
  • How to organize PC-specific, Xbox-specific, etc. information.
Dispute and Wikiscrolls (Wikiscrolls) -- Complete
  • A new wiki similar to the UESP.
User Page Warnings -- Complete
  • When/how to add/remove warnings to/from user pages
Page Archives
Archive 1: Feb. 2005 – June 2006. Archived by Aristeo.
Archive 2: June 2006 - July 2006. Archived by Aristeo.
Archive 3: Aug. 2006 - Sep. 2006. Archived by Booyah boy
Archive 4: October 2006 Archived by Aristeo
Archive 5: Nov. 2006 - Dec. 2006. Archived by Nephele and Wrye
Archive 6: Jan-Feb 2007 Archived by Nephele, Wrye
Archive 7: March 2007 Archived by Nephele
Archive 8: September 2007 Archived by Wrye
Archive 9: Oct-Nov 2007 Archived by TheRealLurlock
Archive 10: Dec 2007-Jan 2008 Archived by Rpeh
Archive 11: Nov 2007-Jan 2008 Archived by Rpeh

Contents



[edit] Quicky Editing Question.

I can't beleive this. I've been editing for about 7 months and I don't know this. How do you PERFECTLY scale down an image to a userbox scale? Just a real quick question. Thanks.

After you have entered the image link, add the parameter "|40px". That should work, as long as the image is roughly square-shaped. Otherwise, you may have to tweak its size a little further. --HMSVictory 05:09, 18 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Problems Saving Pages

For a while now, we've had an occasional problem where large pages "disappear" for Internet Explorer readers. The page comes up completely blank when IE people try to view it (and, no, it's not just that the page takes a while to load; IE thinks that the page has been completely loaded but that it is blank). For whatever strange reason, this does not happen if you look at the page in Firefox, which means that our editors tend to never know when the problem occurs, and therefore we generally only find out about it when readers take the time to point out the problem. The pages where this has happened most recently are Oblivion:Places and Oblivion:Merchants.

Based on some experiences over the last couple days, I am now fairly certain that this problem happens when editors try to save a large page but the site is too busy to fully process the page within the 5 minute window set by our web server. Generally this only occurs when the page has a large number of templates on the page; see also an earlier discussion on Revamping Templates. It uses a lot of system CPU and memory to process any templates; when the site is trying to answer 100 other web requests at the same time it sometimes just doesn't have the power necessary to simultaneously do particularly complex work.

The main reason I'm bringing this up is that perhaps if our editors know what to look for, we can catch these problems earlier. First, if you need to edit a complex page (i.e., one with many templates), it may be best to not do it when the site is busy. Second, and more importantly, could all editors try to keep an eye out for cases where after saving a page, the site takes a long time to process it, and then displays a blank page instead of showing the actual page? If this happens, the chances are that page is now glitched for IE readers and needs to be fixed. Don't try to do anything right that minute (if the site was busy 5 minutes ago, it's probably still busy). Instead, perhaps put a note on the talk page saying that your save of the page glitched. That will let us know to follow up later and try to fix the page. Hopefully we can then fix these problems a few hours later instead of a few days later.

Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, what to do to fix a glitched page? What you need to do is "purge" the page. One way to do this is to click "edit" then in the URL that appears on the edit page replace the word "edit" with "purge". For example, the URL might read http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Oblivion:Places&action=purge. Hit return on the URL to make your browser load the purge request. Then wait and make sure that you are shown the page! If you don't see the page after it's done processing, the page is still glitched. Try again later ;) (N.B. the purge does not show up in the page history or anywhere else, because it's not a page edit.)

Thanks! --NepheleTalk 14:04, 18 January 2008 (EST)

I finally took the time to read this. I will do the "purge" strategy if it ever happens to me. I have IE, and I have never witnessed a blank page unless an un-registered IP editor blanked it. but yes, purging the page will do. Is there any permanant "cure" (cuz I can't think of another word) to this? Good Job Nephele, highly appreciated. --Playjex 15:43, 24 January 2008 (EST)
Update: Daveh decreased the apache timeout earlier today from 300 seconds to 60 seconds. The decreased timeout has suddenly made problems with saving pages a very serious problem right now on the site. There are a large number of pages that can no longer be edited, because it is not possible for the server to process the edit within 60 seconds. I've also brought this problem up at UESPWiki talk:Upgrade History#Timeout Too Short (and for those who haven't been following the various discussions about site performance problems, the timeout change was largely in response to a discussion at UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard#Blocking Rogue IPs at the Server). As I stated at the Upgrade History discussion, it's possible that this is a sacrifice we need to make in the short term just so that the site no longer shuts for 6 hours per day (12 hours per day on weekends). But hopefully we can find some other more viable alternatives. --NepheleTalk 22:10, 24 January 2008 (EST)
P.S.: Thanks for the feedback, Playjex. Yes, I would like to come up with a permanent cure :) But it's not something that can be fixed right away, in part because it's tied into the site's various performance problems. --NepheleTalk 22:14, 24 January 2008 (EST)
Just for the record, when we say "blank page", we mean the entire page is blank. Pure white, without the tan background or the sidebar, header, footer, or anything else. This is not the same as a page which has had its contents deleted by a vandal or something. Those will still display the sidebar, background color, top-header, and footer, as well as any other non-wiki elements that display on every page. The "blank page" we're discussing here is a completely different phenomenon, caused by the server lacking the memory to render the page properly. --TheRealLurlock Talk 22:27, 24 January 2008 (EST)
Do you get an IE error saying "Page cannot be displayed" or something like this, or is it completely blank? I have experienced the former, but not the latter. --DrPhoton 03:19, 25 January 2008 (EST)
I've seen both, but the completely blank pages are often a side-effect of the server being tied up. Not sure what causes the "Page cannot be displayed" error, but I've gotten that a few times even when the site wasn't having any problems. I think that error usually means there's a problem on your end, or possibly your ISP's, not the site's. Because usually when I get it, I have the same problem with all other websites as well. Sometimes if I reset the router, it seems to solve it, too, which makes it even more likely it's a local problem rather than something wrong with the site. (Or it could be just that in the few minutes it takes me to do a router-restart, the problem has corrected itself elsewhere. --TheRealLurlock Talk 10:06, 25 January 2008 (EST)
The problem that I was describing here is one where the pages are completely blank without any type of error message. It's not a common problem; I've only seen it happen a couple dozen times over the last year. Now that I'm thinking about it some more, it's also possible that it's not specific to IE, but rather that it's related to whether or not you're logged in. When I've examined these cases in the past, I've always been logged in on FF, but anonymous on IE. And tying it to anonymous editors also provides a more satisfactory explanation of what's really going on behind the scenes: anonymous editors see a 100% cached version of the page, whereas users get a tweaked version (to get the personalized links across the top of the page).
Also, my earlier update has now been made obsolete. Daveh switched the timeout back to the original 300 second values... along with a few other major changes to the site's setup that mean that performance will hopefully be much better now. --NepheleTalk 13:03, 25 January 2008 (EST)

[Rest of Discussion moved to Morrowind talk:Artifacts, as it's become specific to that page] --Gaebrial 08:31, 7 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Wiki Glitch, or just my Comp?

Hello,

I recently hit "Random Page," and it brought me to a quest talk page. Nothing wrong with it. I hit the Random Page link again and it brought me to the same page. I tried about 6 times, and it still didn't budge. Has this happened to any of you besides me? Thanks. --Playjex 16:10, 26 January 2008 (EST)

Nope, it's not just you. See UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard#Random Page Link for the discussion. --Eshetalk16:30, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Thanks. Everytime I post something here, it turns out to be on the Admin. Board. I have to get more active on that page. Thanks Eshe. --Playjex 17:16, 26 January 2008 (EST)
That has also happened to me, so you're not alone. --HMSVictory 11:33, 29 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Two Questions: Images and Signatures

Question 1: I've read the help page on uploading images and including a thumbnail on a page , so I think I've got a good handle on that. My question is: Should the original image be resized before uploading it? My screenshots are at 1024x768.

Question 2: I seem to be having trouble with my signature. I'm trying to include links to my talk and email, but it doesn't appear to be working. I've gone to the extent of copying the code from another user's signature (subsituting my user name, of course), to no avail. My question is: Is this something that gets enabled after the initial three-day probationary period, or will my signature line not show links to me? Or (to state the obvious) have I got something wrong in the coding?

Thanks, –[[User:KJR1012|KJR1012 <sup>•[[User_Talk:KJR1012|Talk]]•[[Special:Emailuser/KJR1012|Email]]•</sup>]] 08:54, 28 January 2008 (EST)

1024x768 is a perfectly acceptable size, so don't worry about resizing your images! Also, as far as your signature goes, I think the only place you've got wrong is with your [[brackets]]. Let me see...
This should be what you want: –KJR1012 •Talk•Email•
Which looks like this when non-wikified: <sup>•[[User_Talk:KJR1012|Talk]]•[[Special:Emailuser/KJR1012|Email]]•</sup>
Hope that helps! --Eshetalk09:17, 28 January 2008 (EST)
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :-) Remember to turn on the "Raw Signatures" option, otherwise the wiki software automatically adds in a partial signature. Also Eshe's right - that's a fine size for images. It's good to be able to get a larger version when clicking on an image. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 09:21, 28 January 2008 (EST)
Merci, arigatou, danke schoën, gracias, spacibo, grazie! –KJR1012 Talk Email 09:37, 28 January 2008 (EST)

[edit] Idea, just an Idea Guys...

I have seen the "Concept Art" page for Morrowind once before. I had an idea, only an idea, that we should create a "TES Fan Art" page. It could be listed under the default of "Tamriel" I am thinking. We would let anyone contribute. Is this a possibility? Maybe we can take a vote. Please leave feeback. Thank You. --Playjex 14:21, 28 January 2008 (EST)

If anything, it'd belong in the General namespace, along with the Fan Fiction. However, I'm not sure how wise it would be to start allowing that kind of content on the site, as it has the potential to mushroom into something huge, and it takes away from the real focus of the site, which is encyclopedic content. Personally, I don't think the Fan Fiction belongs on the site either, but at least it's just text and doesn't take up a whole lot of room. (It does have Daveh's personal blessing, or I'd have proposed the whole section for deletion long ago - no offense to any of the writers who contributed, I just don't feel that this site is the place for that sort of thing.) There are plenty of other sites for fan art/fan fiction, and if you want to upload some of your stuff to one of the many sites that are designed for this sort of thing and post a link to it from your User page or something, you're more than welcome to. --TheRealLurlock Talk 14:34, 28 January 2008 (EST)
I'd be against that. The concept art is one thing - it can be interesting to see how the game ideas developed - but fan art is non-encyclopedic in the extreme. I considered putting Somercy's nice picture of me on my user page but didn't even do it there precisely for this reason. I suppose if others want to upload fan art and put it on their user pages that'd be fine, but I'd be against linking it anywhere into the main pages. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 14:35, 28 January 2008 (EST)
I agree. This kind of thing belongs on the forums, if not some other site altogether. --Eshetalk14:42, 28 January 2008 (EST)
With a wide range of free options like photobucket that offer ample storage space and bandwidth, I can't really see the logic in using our bandwidth and disk space to support fan art, unless it is for user pages. Now, this is a double stand, as we do allow fan fiction, but writing is much smaller than pictures. Now, in the future we may revisit this, especially if we start hosting plug-ins, something Daveh has said he wants to do. --Ratwar 15:06, 28 January 2008 (EST)
I agree. I don't think there is a section for fanart on the forums though. You might want to run it by the people there. However, with how slow the site can be... I'm not sure if it will be very popular. Especially with the dial-up gremlins (me). --Timmeh Talk 17:54, 28 January 2008 (EST)
This is an encyclopaedia. Our goal is to inform. Official images do this perfectly. Fan art does not. There are plently of websites that offer fan art and, if all else fails, you can just hit "Fan Art" on a Google image search. Why do we need this kind of thing here? --HMSVictory 11:36, 29 January 2008 (EST)
I apologize for putting out a bad idea HMS? As I recently said and look at the title up there ^ "Idea, just an idea..." It was just a thought. I do not mean to make a conflict of any sort, I am just here to give ideas, edit, have fun, and help others. I apologize to any who thought the same, but as I mentioned, it was only an idea. Have fun everyone, and all who left feedback, have a great day! --Playjex 15:01, 29 January 2008 (EST)
Just trying to make it clear that Fan Art has no place here. Sorry if I came across rather Draconian! --HMSVictory 11:35, 2 February 2008 (EST)
Haha, dude relax I was only kidding. Draconian? --Playjex 12:07, 2 February 2008 (EST)
Oh, I thought you would have recognised that. Draco was an ancient Greek ruler who executed citizens for the most menial of crimes. Today, the word, "Draconian" is used to describe something overly strict, such as an extremely demanding teacher in a school (I can't really think of a better example at the moment). --HMSVictory 06:12, 3 February 2008 (EST)

I'd just like to point out that the UESP is not just an encyclopedia, it is a fan site, and our goals as a fan site are to provide for the fans. That is our main goal. Our wiki structure is here to provide services to the fans of the Elder Scrolls series. Among those, providing information in an easy to read fashion is probably our biggest single service, but if there was a large need for a site to host fan art, I'm sure we'd step up to the plate. --Ratwar 15:35, 4 February 2008 (EST)

I don't know what made Ratwar say this. I have always thought of UESP as an Elder Scrolls encyclopaedia. --Mankar Camoran•T•C•E• 06:34, 5 February 2008 (EST)
Mankar, if were were simply an encyclopedia, we wouldn't have a forum, and we wouldn't be investigating avenues of hosting mods on the site. The UESP itself existed for quite awhile before it became a wiki. We are a fan site with an encyclopedia section. --Ratwar 00:31, 6 February 2008 (EST)
I was actually referring to this section alone when I said "UESP". I ignored the forums completely! Thanks for correcting me. This concept doesn't belong here, I think. --Mankar Camoran•T•C•E• 08:50, 6 February 2008 (EST)

I think that this really isn't a problem, since that because the page is buried under a chain of links that makes it impossible to find unless you know where it is, indirectly protecting it against the problems in the Gripes page. --Twentyfists 21:57, 7 March 2008 (EST)

[edit] Structure change for Help:Images ?

When I read through the Help:Images page, it seems to me that most topics are sorted the wrong way around. I would prefer to have it in a different -more workflow like- order. Are there any objections if I 'improve' the page to achieve that ? I have made my alternative Version in my current Sandbox and like to invite all to give comments. In Help_Talk:Images Rpeh suggested to wait a week and give the community some time to have a look. Thanks for watching. -- Adjego 12:58, 6 February 2008 (EST)

I've looked at your version, Adjego, and it seems to have a more logical flow to it. So chalk up one "yea" vote, I guess. – KJR1012 Talk Email Contribs 10:07, 7 February 2008 (EST)
Seems alright to me. I did wonder why that format had been chosen in the first place, but this one is much more coherent. --HMSVictory 11:33, 7 February 2008 (EST)
Thanks for the comments! There have been no negative comments, hence I have now uploaded the version with the changed structure. This version does not contain changes in content (well almost not). This is necessary as this version cannot easily be compared (diffed) to the previous one. -- Adjego 10:04, 15 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Apology

This is with reference to UESPWiki:Community_Portal/Archive_9#Tamriel_Dictionary_Content. Having volunteered to do it, I should complete the task. But, unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to do it. So I want to apologise to Nephele in particular and to the community in general. --Mankar Camoran•T•C•E• 11:10, 7 February 2008 (EST)

There really wasn't any need to apologise :) Contributing to the wiki is supposed to just be something that you do for fun when you have the time and opportunity to do so, but we all have other (real life) commitments that are higher priority than the site. One advantage of the wiki is that other people can pick up wherever you leave off. Or in other words, you gave someone else looking for a project something to do! --NepheleTalk 21:40, 14 February 2008 (EST)
Thanks a lot. You made me feel better :) --Mankar Camoran•T•C•E• 08:44, 16 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] A new home for TES4 modding information?

For a good while now the CS wiki has been the home for information on Oblivion modding, but it may be time for a new home. During last summer Bethesda did a great job of cleaning up a spam bot attack, but their involvement in the site has declined since then. More recently, we have requested Parser functions and 2 months later, have yet to get them (or hear back from our second request).

As well, as expressed in a recent thread on the Bethesda CS forum "Revitalizing the CS wiki" there is a great deal of animosity towards the CS wiki due to navigation limitations, using the wiki in a non-wiki way (though it has been out of necessity for the task, see the fifth comment here), bad information and a difficulty in centralizing information to keep it updated/good.

Hopefully a new face will interest people in the modding wiki (wherever its home) again. More importantly I hope that the navigation issues can be fixed with the extras in the UESP (bread crumb trail, etc.) and that we can get a little more attention than Bethesda is giving us. Also, moving would give us a better chance to filter the information on the CS wiki.

I guess the first two questions are really:

  • Would the users and editors of UESP want the modding stuff over here?
  • Would there be a relatively easy and quick process to move some of the categories to the UESP? For instance, the Functions list contains a lot of good information (still needs to be standardized, but otherwise good info).--Haama 15:38, 13 February 2008 (EST)
This is the sort of topic that I usually get involved in, but I've cut back on my wiki time substantially (busy with Cobl, Bash and other projects). A couple of quick comments:
  • Such a move has been suggested before. The main counterargument has been that CS Wiki was the natural site for tes4 modding information (TESCS itself links to it). However, it appears that the long time argument that Bethsoft has a limited amount of time to devote to the CS Wiki is finally becoming paramount.
  • The move will likely require a substantial amount of re-organization -- but since the move is growing out of efforts to re-organize and cleanup the information anyway, now is a good time to do it.
  • Effectively this move would expand our active editors list -- expand it with people who are technically proficient. And its always useful to have a pool of such people given the tendency of admins to come and go. (Speaking as as semi-active admin!)
  • In moving pages, some automatic text munching would be useful. NepheleBot might help here, or editors might pre-munch pages (if I were doing it, I'd probably do a python function -- something to auto-convert categories as needed).
Move specific comments:
  • The info will fit very naturally here. The only reason that our Tes4Mod section is limited is because of the existence of the CS Wiki. So, the space is reserved, it's just a matter of filling it out.
  • Re categories. I've always been more than a little wary of them, and I think that CS Wiki has demonstrated some of their limitations (e.g. splitting lists into groups of 200). Hence, while we've used categories, we've also tended strongly to use manually created indices. E.g Tes3Mod:Alphabetical Function List, Tes3Mod:Categorical_Function_List, Tes4Mod:Mod_File_Format. Newer index pages have tended to make more use of tables (more work to create, but easier to navigate).
  • With the move, the Tes4Mod:Modding page would end up being restructured. A structure like Tes3Mod:Modding would probably be better, though even that is probably too simple given the large expansion in number of articles.
  • Many of the current articles on Tes4Mod:Modding are rather outdated (e.g. Tes4Mod:Mod_Merging and even Tes4Mod:Programmers). Such articles might be updated, or moved to an Historical selection and/or flagged on the page themselves as outdated.
  • One thing that might be used a bit more is subpaging. Some of the previous objections against using it have been removed, and I've been using it on the Cobl pages (e.g. Cobl/Modders/Death_Handling). Combining that with navigation templates (nee crumb trails) is quite useful. So, we might have pages like Scripting/SetFactionRank, Scripting/Functions, Scripting/OBSE Functions, etc.
Those are my initial thoughts. Back to other projects... --Wrye 17:27, 13 February 2008 (EST)
Thanks Wrye. You hit the hammer on the nail there.
Anyone else have a comment? I haven't discussed this with the other major CS wiki editors or placed the suggestion on the Bethesda Forums thread - for now I'm just trying to find out if it would be welcome and feasible.
Oh, and to be clear - by moving the category I mean all of the articles in the category, not necessarily the category itself (good info anyway, Wrye).--Haama 12:48, 14 February 2008 (EST)
For reference, the previous discussion on this topic was at Tes4Mod talk:Modding#Migrate CS Wiki?. And my contribution there probably still summarizes my reaction ;) In particular, my primary concern would simply be that it's what the majority of the CS Wiki community wants. I don't think there are any real issues on the UESP side: the content is definitely compatible with UESP; we have tools such as bots (both NepheleBot and RoBoT now) that can facilitate any batch-type jobs.
Just to state the obvious, though: the move would be a move from one wiki to another ;) Some objections to wikis in general were raised in the forum thread; although I personally don't think those objections outweigh the advantages of a wiki, it might be hard to convince some contributors. Also, any useful components that may be making UESP attractive (parser functions, bread crumb trails, redirects, patrollers, bots, etc.) could in theory be installed on CS Wiki. So the factors that seem relevant are those that reflect fundamental differences between the two wikis:
  • Bethsoft vs. Daveh. The driving factor here seems to be lack of trust in Bethsoft's commitment (in particular future commitment) to the site, despite the fact that Bethsoft has money (e.g., no ads on the site) and promotional power (e.g., links from the CS). But even at UESP there are tasks that can only be done by the site's owner, in our case, Daveh. Daveh has doubtlessly been far more responsive than Bethsoft at providing upgrades and new features, but the bottom line is that we're just as dependent on Daveh as CS Wiki is on Bethsoft.
  • Size and scope of site. At UESP, CS Wiki would just be one part of a larger site. The larger site and larger community would have advantages (better integration with UESP would probably increase use of CS Wiki content; modders involved in both sites wouldn't have to "divide" their time; more people could help with basic maintenance and with advanced tasks such as templates; etc.). But there are some possible downsides, too. CS Wiki articles would only be one part of the site, and therefore would not dictate overall site design issues; in other words, CS Wiki articles and editors would have to adapt to UESP standards rather than the other way around ;) And the modding community would not be its own community here. For example, Haama and the other "sheriffs" would just be regular editors here (at least initially!).
I'm not bringing these points up to discourage the idea. I'd just like to make sure that any decision to make such a dramatic change is based upon full consideration of the factors, both positive and negative. But if CS Wiki wants to migrate, I would welcome the new articles and new editors at UESP :) --NepheleTalk 14:52, 14 February 2008 (EST)

I am aware that I shouldn't be commenting here, not being an admin and so forth, but I feel I must get some points across. Nephele has evaluated the situation perfectly, but I believe that before anything occurs, Daveh and the admins should visit the CS Wiki to see just how different things are there (Syntax, Namespaces, site policy, etc.), and to come to a conclusion on exactly how difficult the move would be. This is certainly not a small matter, and I think Daveh should certainly be heading the final decision. Sorry for butting in! --HMSVictory 15:03, 14 February 2008 (EST)

I've got a few reservations about this but probably nothing that can't be assuaged. At the moment, the modding sections are a fairly small part of the site and 95% of the contributions (outside the dreadful ideas page) are made by Wrye and he clearly knows what he's talking about so I don't bother to check them. If we're going to start getting a lot of edits in these areas, we're going to need people who can make the usual checks for accuracy, redundancy etc etc. We either leave it all to Wrye (something I doubt he'd want to do!), learn about it ourselves (Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to) or push the existing "sheriffs" through our patroller nomination process to get them doing the same job here. I wouldn't want to do that until we'd seen the same ability we expect from any other candidate.
That's only going to be a problem for so long, but the bigger problem is one of compatibility. If the modding community had an interest in UESP they'd already be here, and vice versa. I don't believe that's the case given the lack of activity in UESP's modding section. Thus we run the risk of creating two communities, each with its own editors and needs. If that's going to happen I'd say it's better to keep things as two wikis, possibly by creating a new one for modding on Wikia.com or something similar.
These aren't deal-breaking concerns and at the end of the day, new editors = good; new articles = good; more Elder Scrolls information = good. If those minor problems can be addressed then I don't see any problem. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 15:45, 14 February 2008 (EST)
Re "need to train existing patrollers to handle modding pages". There's no such need. Editors and patrollers patrol what they know. The expectation is that people watch the parts of the wiki that they're familiar with/interested in and ignore the rest. Hence editors coming in to add modding content, will also watch modding content pages.
"If the modding community had an interest in UESP they'd already be here..." Ummm, no. Because wikis are a type of social software, it's best to concentrate contributors on one wiki instead of splitting them across multiple wikis. Hence when two different wikis try to cover the same subject matter, typically one wins and the other loses. So far, UESP has been on the losing side of the contest over modding content; but that's now be reconsidered. If we win, our modding content will explode (and if not, we'll stay the same size). --Wrye 18:47, 14 February 2008 (EST)
I think you've missed my point but accidentally reinforced it! What I meant was that there's no evidence that the modding community is interested in contributing to the UESP articles either inside or outside the modding section - if there was any such interest I'd have expected some updates to the modding articles. That's what will lead to two communities - one group concentrating solely on modding and one leaving it alone. That leads to my other point; if we have some people interested only in modding, we can't very well make them patrollers as there's no way of enforcing a "You patrol that bit, I'll patrol this bit" system - and neither would we want to. I wouldn't be prepared to vote in favour of making new editors into patrollers until they'd demonstrated the same skills as everyone else with that role. I also think you're wrong about people only patrolling parts of the site they know about and are interested in. As trivial examples, I have responded to queries in the Tes4Mod namespace and regularly fix errors in the Oblivion:Roleplaying set of articles despite having an interest in neither.
Let me say clearly that I'm not against this idea; I simply have a couple of concerns that I would like to see addressed. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 04:32, 15 February 2008 (EST)
To be honest the CS wiki editors will probably be busy for a few months with the move/cleanup. Also, hopefully this will get some more modding contributors so we'll be busy patrolling those. There are only 3 regulars on the CS wiki - DragoonWraith (who disappears around the middle of the semester as school gets busy), Qazaaq, and I. We've had a few people help us with some rather daunting tasks (Werewolf, Red Fault, and Fella come to mind), but they tend to disappear afterwards. Otherwise, we have maybe 5 semi-regulars. In short, we won't allow your workload to increase, but nor would we be likely to decrease your workload.
As time goes on and we get more acquainted with the UESP this will change, and you'll probably be asking us to stop mentioning game settings, OBSE, and mods in the normal articles (another issue for when it comes up?).
As for your example - the articles in the UESP were written initially by Wrye, and you have a good reason to trust him! I have looked at a few of them and don't know of anything to add to them.
I've brought it up on the CS wiki, let me see what their reactions are.--Haama 12:43, 15 February 2008 (EST)
Rpeh, I understood your point(s) perfectly. Perhaps you misundertood my reply.
  • You argued that if modders were interested, we would have seen more participation. My counter was that this was not the case because participation at wikis is typically either all or nothing. I.e., if two wikis are competing for an editors attention, then the editor will usually pick one, and stick with it exclusively, no matter how close the decision was. In any case, this is a moot issue. If modders decide to be more active here, then obviously they're interested.
  • You're suggesting that we would end up with different communities (one focussed primarily on modding, and another focussed primarily on the sort of game-info issues that most of the site is about). I agree, that would pretty much happen. Our disagreement was that you see this is a bad thing, while I see it as a normal, even good thing. It's a natural consequence of the wiki expanding that you end up with different groups that focus on different things.
  • Re patrollers, it's never been a requirement for patrollers that they be able to patrol the whole site, nor is that even a "good to have". What's important for patrollers is that their edits be reliable, quality edits. Lack of expertise in a given area is not a problem so long as the patrollers don't try to fix pages which they're not expert enough to fix.
But enough of that, I don't think the above considerations are substantial issues. What I'm most concerned with is performance. UESP still has significant peformance problems. Several hours ago, I found the site to be effectively unusuable (page wait times went over a minute, and then the server started returning odd page cache complaint pages). It's my understanding that these problems are particularly a problem on Sundays (peak load time). But if that's the case, UESP may be effectively unusable as a CS Wiki replacement (Sundays is when it would be hardest hit by weekend modders looking for info).
Nor is this a new problem. Server performance has long been a problem. I had hoped that with the server upgrade, lightened load (less Oblivion players), a second person with server access, that these problems had been resolved, but it seems that they're not.
In contrast, while there are a number of problems at CS wiki, I've never seen performance be an issue. While generally speaking, I would like to see CS Wiki content moved here; low server/page performance will trump any other annoyances associated with CS Wiki.
--Wrye 20:19, 15 February 2008 (EST)

Thanks for the comments everyone - it's good to know that such a move would be possible. I've brought it up on the CS wiki - the two major editors mentioned before (DragoonWraith and Qazaaq) don't seem to be very keen on the idea. We've also mentioned it on the Revitalization thread, but barring a massive call for the move, I believe the issue is dead.--Haama 21:31, 16 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Fanfiction

Hmm... I'm not sure if this is really the right place to put this, but anyway, here goes. I am sure that you are all aware that Somercy has decided to stop writing fanfiction as she was flooded with requests and ideas. I am now (rather idioticly) offering my services here as such, as Somercy's replacement for writing up requests. I am in no way trying to stop Somercy from writing at all, I just want something to do, and I need your ideas, faithful brethren! Please, if you have any requests or ideas about your character, put them on my talk page. Bear in mind that if I do end up with too many, I will eventually collapse like Somercy, so just take it easy guys... :) --HMSVictory 06:14, 19 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] Is it okay though?

I remember I was discussing this with Eshe on the IRC one night. I greet EVERY editor/IP I see with the official "Welcome" message. She said it was not very needed, but very curteous. May I still do this? Haha, maybe I'll have to be the town crier, "12:00 PM and all is well!!!!" --Playjex 15:21, 25 February 2008 (EST)

It'll certainly be a lot of work for you! ;P It's a nice idea but I don't really think it's necessary, after all, one day you might accidentally welcome a vandal.--Willyhead 15:35, 25 February 2008 (EST)
Personally, I'd prefer to not have every anonymous IP automatically welcomed. I think it's problematic in a few ways:
  • Many people have dynamic IPs so they won't ever see the welcome message. Or the person who ends up seeing it is someone completely different. Or the person ends up getting barraged with new welcome messages every time their IP address changes.
  • The presence of a talk page for an anonymous IP is often used by admins as a signal that the IP has been warned. So when I see a blue link for an anonymous IP's talk page, I tend to assume they've previously done something questionable.
  • The standard welcome message is not tailored to anonymous IPs. I think any message welcoming anonymous IPs should at least point out that the person is free to set up an account, and that there are some advantages to doing so. But that type of information is not provided in the default welcome message, so it's essentially skipping the most important piece of information.
  • Automatically welcoming an anonymous IP who makes one questionable edit can then make subsequent notices awkward if the IP's next edit is vandalism (and, yes, that has happened in at least one case where an anonymous IP was welcomed).
  • I see welcoming as a way to reach out to someone who has joined the community. Anonymous IPs have chosen not to join the community, so should they be welcomed as community members? And in part this goes back to the dynamic IP issue: if an anonymous IP wants to be anonymous, will that person really want to be welcomed every time he/she is assigned a new IP? I'd feel more like I was being stalked than welcomed at some point.
There are cases where it's appropriate to welcome an anonymous IP, but generally I think it's most useful when the editor has clearly made multiple useful contributions to the site. At which point, it's good to reach out to the person and suggest that he/she sets up an account. It's best if such a message is personalized, to make it clear that the person's edits are considered to be valuable. Sorry if I'm biased here, but I don't consider a dozen edits to our Gripes or Mod Ideas pages to be high-value edits. --NepheleTalk 16:09, 25 February 2008 (EST)
Haha, thanks you two for responding! I know what to and not to do when I am tempted to welcome an IP .... Go into the fetal position. haha thanks guys! --Playjex 17:01, 25 February 2008 (EST)

[edit] -The Hell Is Going On?

Hey, I know I've been away for a while, so I have probably missed something big, but suddenly I'm seeing that all place names on articles are now in bold. Is this a new policy, or just something I've never noticed before? I'm sure that under the site guides, they should not be in bold type. What's going on? --HMSVictory 13:53, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

Nothing has changed since you've been away. Which pages in particular do you mean? –Rpeh•T•C•E• 03:27, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Well, on the Therana page, for example, one of the related quests has her name in bold, and I've also seen this on a couple of Oblivion NPC pages. I know that the first mention of the subject should be in bold, but now I'm seeing most place names later in the article in bold. Oh, and the Gaeldol page has "The Eight Plates" in bold, even though it's at the end of the article. I don't remember any of this when I was last here (Sorry for the break, by the way.), so why am I seeing this now? Should I change them back to normal text or not? --HMSVictory 06:14, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Ah. That's caused by a link in the quest description page. If you link to a page appears on the page itself the wiki software renders it in bold rather than as a link. Thus, Community Portal appears in bold even though it's a link. There's nothing we can do about that. It's always been like that though. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 07:28, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Really, I've never noticed that. But hang on, the Eight Plates link on the Gaeldol page doesn't link to the same one, and neither do the ones on those Oblivion NPC pages. What's going on there? --HMSVictory 07:34, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Some place names are in bold if there's nothing to link to. It's often done that way. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 08:46, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Alright then. Just seems a little odd. --HMSVictory 12:39, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Greetings from Guildknight!

She and I have kept in email contact, and she wanted me to pass along "Well, tell everyone I miss 'em, and tell Nephele I said thanks for trying to figure out the official mods thing. With no TV or Internet, I really need my Oblivion fix! I miss y'all, and I'll get back on here as soon as I can," and "Anyway, things are starting to look a little up for me and mine... it's probably gonna be another 2 or 3 weeks before we're really back up on our feet again, but at least there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel again!" So, we'll have our lady-knight back soon! Somercy 13:16, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

I wasn't aware she was gone. Why isn't she contributing anymore? --HMSVictory 13:23, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
Real life work issues. Didn't have internet for a while. Somercy 13:26, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
I know how that feels. In fact, I've just come back from about a month of in-activity myself - I only started editing again yesterday. it's only when you return that you realise how much you miss contributing. I was expecting GuildKnight's name to be flooding the RecentChanges page when I checked back but no, there's no sign of her! --HMSVictory 13:30, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Question-ia?

I want to cast a vote. I am going to be keeping a somewhat "diary" on UESP about the average life of an Editor and a New Jersian. I need to pick a name; "Tom-nia" (Tom's my name), or "Playjex-ia." You decide, or make up an even cooler name. I will pst an entry about every 2 days or so. Thanks. --Playjex 18:48, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Sounds like that belongs on a blog, not on the wiki itself. --Wrye 14:54, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
I agree with Wrye, there are plenty of free blog sites which are better suited to the task. --Ratwar 15:09, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Yes sir. Thanks. --Playjex 16:29, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Wait, may I put a link on my userpage to it? --Playjex 13:04, 27 March 2008 (EDT)
Of course you can! check out the External Links section of my Userpage. That's full of links, some more relveant than others. I know I'm not really in a position to say this, but there's nothing wron with that. No one has ever asked me to take mine down anyway. --HMSVictory 13:09, 27 March 2008 (EDT)
Haha, thanks dude. --Playjex 22:41, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Dictionary Content

I think I've found a place to keep me busy for awhile. While the UESPWiki:Community_Portal/Archive_9#Tamriel_Dictionary_Content project looks mostly robust, there are certainly many things left to add, and quite a bit of cleanup left. In addition, I brought this up before, long ago (during the discussions of NPC name pronunciations), but it seems that the pronunciation guide used on the dictionary right now is either very informal or nonexistent. Arbitrary pronunciation guides lead only to confusion, and I'm interested in revamping them to conform to IPA[1] standards. Kementari 15:49, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Hahahaha, I remember that project. It didn't even go down hill, it fell of a cliff. Well, if you do so, you'll need a LOT of contributers/ That will take awhile. Good Luck! --Playjex 16:31, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Well, I guess it just needs someone to pick it back up, care for it, and tell it that it's worthwhile. ;) --Kementari 16:33, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
True, but I still think you should run this by an admin. just to make sure. If you get approved, I'll contribute. Good Luck --Playjex 21:34, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
Honestly, it's not the admins' job to approve projects ;). Kementari's already gotten a great start on cleaning up the dictionary, and the work is much appreciated! If anyone has suggestions or concerns about the project as a whole, they can point them out here. Major projects should be discussed before they are executed, but it's not necessary for this kind of work, unless the editor is looking for help or suggestions. –Eshetalk21:45, 25 March 2008 (EDT)
I didn't mean it so much it has to be "approved" but it could be good. My project got shot down hahaha. Whatever. Good Luck! --Playjex 10:58, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Ramblings: TES3 modding and the OblivoWiki

So, first of all the OblivoWiki. Is that a horribly bad idea or what? Since they're under a NC license, they can't use UESP content... did they fork from here, are they not aware of the UESP, or what? Then again, is keeping them away from here a Good Thing? Hrm...

Secondly, TES3 modding. TES4 has the whole "Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki" thing happening, but TES3 has pretty much... well, the UESP and that's it. There's a little bit of technical info on NIFs at the NifTools wiki; if, suppose, I wanted to put some technical info on modelling for Morrowind, where should I put it? Here or the NifTools wiki?

Thanks, Alphax 09:49, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

I'm really not sure whether or not OblivioWiki knew about us when they started, but they certainly know about us now :). We've had a few conversations with them in the past, and found them to be reasonable people. There's actually several sites that compete for our audience, ranging from well established multi-game sites like GameFAQs to much smaller start ups like The Elder Scrolls Wiki. It is just that we're probably the best in organization and amount of content.
As for putting in more information about TES3 modding, we'd love to have more here. We love to expand into areas of the Elder Scrolls world, especially when there's a lack of information, which is definitely true about Morrowind Modding. --Ratwar 11:53, 27 March 2008 (EDT)
Right, I had no idea what the situation was :) It'd probably be a good idea if Tes3Mod:Tes3Mod didn't redirect to Morrowind:Morrowind - perhaps make it a portal of some sort, so that the extent of content can be measured (and give incentive for adding more)? Alphax 10:09, 28 March 2008 (EDT)
Good point. That redirect has been updated to point to a more appropriate page, namely Tes3Mod:Main Page. --NepheleTalk 11:38, 28 March 2008 (EDT)
Bit of history. In spring 2005, several people started looking at doing a wiki for Morrowind mods and modding info. I posted on the forums about the possibility, and Dave H responded that he was about to wikify uesp, so I joined with that effort and ported some of my notes from my personal site over. And of course, some people worked like crazy porting the old uesp to wiki. Incidentally, we weren't the only site. Thelys(?) also put up a wiki (focussed on mods, it died later).
Anyway, we have a fair chunk of info from the old site (a lot of function stuff originally developed by Dave). Also we have a fair amount of new material (a fair chunk by me). However, at that time the existing standards (Bible, and MW Scripting for dummies, plus a bunch of other scatter resources) were ensconsed in various sites, and authors were missing and/or reluctant to move their info to a wiki. (Many authors don't like the loss of obvious authorship.) There have been concerns about loss of tutorial info as various sites have gone down, and some of it has been archived in whole at places like Mythic Mods. During one of those instances, I suggested moving/copying material here, but again nothing much came of it.
So, in short, yes good idea to move stuff here and/or expand it. But if copying, original author's permission must be obtained. And adding new stuff is a lot of work. It is doable, but it's not trivial. (I just spent a chunk of time updating just part of the Tes4Mod section, and it was pretty time consuming.) --Wrye 20:01, 28 March 2008 (EDT)
Hrm. There's pretty much nothing on modelling (the NifTools Wiki seems to be the place), or example scripts/script extenders (Fliggerty's Morrowind Scripting Wiki). Alphax 12:06, 29 March 2008 (EDT)
Another thing to mention is that the TES4Mod namespace is intentionally being kept small, as we've made agreements with the Elder Scrolls Construction Set wiki to avoid duplicating too much content or diluting the editor pool by splitting the community onto two sites. Any detailed content on modding for Oblivion should be covered on the CS wiki, not here. No such arrangement exists with the Morrowind modding. So UESP's TES3Mod namespace is in far more need of a little love given that it's about the only site of its kind out there. (Barring things like the single-author guides Wrye mentioned). --TheRealLurlock Talk 12:35, 29 March 2008 (EDT)

Unfortunately, this discussion has apparently resulted in at least one UESP editor concluding that vandalizing other ES-related wikis is somehow justified, and, even worse, that it is appropriate in that vandalism to insult members of those communities for choosing to contribute somewhere other than UESP.

Therefore, I feel that is necessary to emphasize a few points. For those of you who feel (like me) that some of these points should be self-evident, I apologize for the lecture.

  • Vandalism is never acceptable. On any site, for any reason.
  • Other Elder Scrolls-related wikis and websites can coexist (and always have coexisted) with UESP. Just because those sites are different does not make them "bad ideas."
  • Everyone is free to contribute to any and all wikis, according to their own personal preferences. Insulting people, or in any discriminating way against people, for those personal preferences is inappropriate.
  • Vandalism in the name of UESP does nothing to help our site and ultimately only hurts it, by creating a negative impression of UESP and its editors.

Thanks to everyone who has been willing to help by contributing constructively to the site. Hopefully we can all get back to working together as a community and focussing on making UESP a site of which we can all be proud. --NepheleTalk 12:53, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Change to the Site

I'd like to propose a major change in the way we write articles for the site. At the moment we ban first person usage and personal opinions, but it becomes clear from a brief glance at the Recent Changes page page suggests that many of our users find this an unwarranted restriction on their prose skills. I think the time has come to allow people to write up their own opinions and add them to the site. For instance, I'm thinking of adding this to the Fort Carmala page:

This is my favourite dungeon! I like fighting vampires and there are lots here plus you can also find Shadow Banish wine. Also the fort is small enough not to take too long to go through.

This leads me into two other points. First, I used British spelling. I don't think there's a problem with this and we should be able to switch back and forth between different spellings of words, even within the same article. Second, although the correct name is "Shadowbanish", we should allow people to use whatever spelling they want - after all, we know what they mean. That obviously leads to "Deadric" becoming the preferred spelling for the armour and weapon material.

Some people may think this will lead to chaos, with editors continually undoing each other's work and changing favourite dungeons and so on. That can easily be stopped through edit summaries. Putting "STOP CHANGING THIS!!!!!!" as an edit summary will indicate to other editors that they shouldn't change the page without permission from the editor in question.

So that's my idea. Let me know what you think! –Rpeh•T•C•E• 01:47, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

This will lead to chaos. Wikis only work because the ultimate resolution to editing disagreements is objective facts. As soon as you introduce subjective judgements, then there is no correct answer. At which point any person's opinion becomes equally valid. And you get a forum intead of a wiki. --Wrye 01:56, 1 April 2008 (EDT)
Gotcha :p –Rpeh•T•C•E• 01:59, 1 April 2008 (EDT)
I gotta agree with Wrye, such things are better left to forums or user pages, and seeing how some forums are, I'd like to keep it that way :). The problem with first person is that we get too many battle stories from non-authoritative sources. --Ratwar 13:13, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
Sorry to ruin things, but this seems to be necessary before things progress any further... before reacting, people may want to check the date on which Rpeh posted this. Ever heard of "April Fool's Day"? --NepheleTalk 13:40, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Dark Images

I seem to remember seeing a page containing screenshots that were a little too dark to use. But darned if I can remember where it was. Anyone know of such a page? Hell, maybe I dreamt it. Anyway, I was wondering if I might have a crack at cleaning some of those up.– KJR1012 Talk Email Contribs 05:08, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

Don't remember any images being too dark, but if you want to get new screenshots, there are a lot of new ones needed, linking at Ships... ;) --Benould•T•C 05:39, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
I think you mean the list here, but there's more on there than just images that are too dark. Help yourself to any or all of them! –Rpeh•T•C•E• 05:58, 2 April 2008 (EDT)
OK, thanks for the link, Rpeh. I've tested my skillz on the page for TB:Jeanne Andre. Don't really know why I've decided on fixing images, when there are so many pages that don't have images yet. But oh well; one MORE task to work on. – KJR1012 Talk Email Contribs 06:56, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] I'm Busy Again

For all who have may/may not noticed, I have been decreasing my Wiki time. For a second time, I will be taking a very long break for personal reasons (which may be viewed on my User Page). I made a comeback during December as a full throttle editor again, but time has caught up with me. Good Luck to all editors, and thank you. I will be editing minimally here and there. I will be back editing fully during the Summer. Thank You. --Playjex 23:18, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] This Has Always Been Bugging Me

A month or so ago, I edited a page, and chenged the word "NPCs" to NPC's" for I thought I corrected it. Eshe undid this edit, for she told me that "NPC's" was the possesive. Well, I was scanning through some pages today when I came across these article titles. I was quite dumbfounded. Which is the correct grammar; "NPCs" (as in plural) or "NPC's" (as in plural)? Thanks. --Playjex 12:09, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

Eshe was right. If you want to designate a plural you just add an "s", with no apostrophe. Thus: Bandits, Marauders, NPCs. Using an apostrophe designates the possessive: the bandit's axe, the marauder's sword, the NPC's house. Of course that changes again with "its" but we don't need to worry about that right now. So yes, those titles are wrong. Shall I leave you to fix them? –Rpeh•T•C•E• 12:13, 5 April 2008 (EDT)
Alright, it's done. Thanks. I was confused with reality's grammar and the grammar of an NPC. I don't know. I understand now. THANK YOU A LOT! --Playjex 12:20, 5 April 2008 (EDT)
Incidentally, this and other common spelling oddities are discussed on the Spelling page. You might want to look over the list there and see if there's any others you were wondering about. --TheRealLurlock Talk 23:40, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Templates

  • Do you think this is a waste of time and effort, or is there a possible use for it? --  Adorlin  ►  18:54, 8 April 2008 (EDT)
I like the idea. It's something I've had at the back of my mind for some time now because I think the one thing the site doesn't do well is classify information. We've got categories and breadcrumb trails but neither have the power to perform the broader grouping you can achieve with that sort of template. One thing I'd say is that before any such project could begin, we would need to plan as many of the templates as possible so that there's no need to change everything when it's halfway through. Also, the thought of each page having 20 such templates on it is horrifying so we'd need to think about which areas really need them. Anyway, the discussion is open now so let's see what others think. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 04:00, 9 April 2008 (EDT)
  • Right now I'm trying to figure out what the hell is different between stock wikimedia and UESP, because the collapse code isn't working... o_O --  Adorlin  ►  10:51, 9 April 2008 (EDT)
Check out Template:Hide. –Rpeh•T•C•E• 11:51, 9 April 2008 (EDT)
  • Not quite the same thing, but I suppose I can work with that... thanks --  Adorlin  ►  19:18, 9 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] IRC

As many of you may know, the UESP has an IRC chatroom located on Chatspike.net known as #UESPwiki. We moved to our current channel last summer, and since then, we have had phenomenal growth, going from a small channel with about 5 people at maximum to a channel that usually sees about 15 people during peak hours. We’ve also seen a steady decline in the number of administrator in the channel, with Lurlock, Nephele, and myself being there for substantially less time. Also, we’ve had a lack of patrollers coming into the channel. These two things have started to cause large gaps in our coverage of the channel. Of course, these gaps have existed before, but now that we are a larger more trafficked place, people notice, which reflects badly on us as both a site and a channel.

[edit] Concerns

  1. I’d really like to see more ops and half ops, preferably coming from the wiki. Now, we need people who know how to use IRC (like banning, kicking, etc.), so if there’s people like that who currently come to the channel, and who wish to become a half-op, let me know, and we’ll discuss it.
  2. Piracy. We’ve had problems with pirates coming into the channel. It is just simply people that they pirated the game. There’s been a disagreement over how to deal with such things. Some think there should be a warning before a kick/ban. Personally, I think that a straight ban is in order.
    • Piracy is illegal. Them not talking about it doesn’t mean they didn’t do something illegal. Allowing them to stay in the channel does, in some way condone the activity.
    • As a fan site, we’ve got a ton of Bethesda’s property here. Now, it is used under fair use, but none of us really want to have to deal with Bethesda getting mad at us, if they see our actions as condoning piracy.
  3. Ops/Half-Ops that aren’t wiki people. We’ve had trouble with this before, but if we don’t get more Ops or more activity out of the ones we have, I’m going to need to start bring others on to help look after the channel.

[edit] Feedback

Really, at this point, I’m looking for feedback on all of this, and what direction y’all want to take this in, especially the piracy thing. I plan on making a decision on what directions I’m going to take in about a week, but until then, let me know your thoughts. --Ratwar 13:48, 14 April 2008 (EDT)


[edit] Chat Community

Although I haven't had the time or energy to contribute to the wiki as much as I would like to, I really admire the amount of work that goes into the Wiki and really think that DaveH and company are amazing.

I've been helping with the ES chat community since 2001 and have also spent 4 years moderating the official Eldrerscrolls forums, so I am pretty familiar with Bethesdas stance on piracy. Ratwar is really being put in a spot about this because he is now moderating ESF and as the channel founder of #uespwiki this reflects on him, so he is under some pressure because he could be directly accountable to Bethsoft on this. He is also an OP in my channel, #elderscrolls, and Freddo and I brought the Elderscrolls community to Chatspike server in 2004. The piracy issue puts me in a spot with Ratwar because I can't have someone who owns a channel or website that condones piracy as an OP in my channel. That has always been the case.

The reason why warning a pirate doesn’t work, is just because you warn them doesn't make the fact that they have pirated the game disappear. They are still sitting on a stolen copy. Of course, the only way that you can know for sure if someone has pirated the game is if they say so, but anyone who would come into a channel and state that boldfaced like I've seen on two recent occasions, is being very disrespectful to all of UESP, their image and to the admin.

Secondly, providing game help and walkthroughs by hand like that people who have pirated the game only serves people who are stealing from the very company you are representing. "Helping people who pirated" encompasses in game walkthroughs, not just "helping people install a pirated copy" as certain folks seem to think.

Anyway I've seen folks coming in at night and discussing their pirated game and nothing being done about it. The ban list is clean, and these people are returning and talking to channel members with no repercussion. The only way you can be clear that you don't support piracy of Bethesda’s software is to block their access. Wagging a finger at them isn't going to do anything. You can't be wishy-washy about this if you want to maintain good standing in the community.

--Archeopterix 14:30, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

Well I've slept on this, thought about it deeply, and I'm still deeply angered by the suggestion that I, Ratwar, UESP or anyone else "condones" piracy. It would be a laughable suggestion if it wasn't so serious. Of course we don't condone piracy and to suggest that we do simply because it occasionally gets discussed in a channel with our name on it when nobody is around is like saying the government condones murder because not every murderer gets caught.
Warning pirates at least lets them know that we won't tolerate it and that other people regard it as wrong. They can, in fact, feel the disdain of the community. The sort of kick/ban you're suggesting doesn't do that. Banning a pirate makes no difference to the fact that they still have an illegal copy of the game.
Anyway. To address Ratwar's call for comments: I don't care. The IRC channel stopped being a useful forum for discussion a couple of months back. Most of the admins and patrollers have long-since stopped using it and it now serves merely as a forum for questions from people that can't be bothered to use the site. Until I hear that it's improved I won't be using it any more.
–Rpeh•T•C•E• 03:41, 15 April 2008 (EDT)
Well it hasn't always been "while no one was around", and most times it was while there were active users around and no ops, and it has been while there were active ops around and said OP actually defended the pirate. That certainely was condoning piracy, and putting a huge smear on your whole community. Also, just because there are no ops around does not mean that "no one around" and to imply that puts you in a very arrogant light. There seems to be times when your channel needs opping almost nightly (just before you came in tonight there was a kid with a New Zealand ISP trolling your channel) and no one to moderate. That makes your channel looks sloppy, and it makes it a target.
If the channel is not useful to you, fair enough. But I don't think your defensiveness is appropraite, especially when you openly admit you don't know what's going on. If you're that disinterested, perhaps that demonstrates that you aren't the best choice for moderation of that channel. As founder, Ratwar has been provided with logs and IPs and he may share them among ops as he sees fit.
--Archeopterix 5:04, 15 April 2008 (EDT)
I meant nobody with the authority to kick or ban as you well know. During a recent incident, you didn't respond to the pirate in question other than to pass a message to me on a private channel. I was away at the time and returned to see that you hadn't said a thing to the user in question. Surely that means you are condoning piracy? In the incident to which you refer, which I well remember, the first person to mention anything to do with piracy was you. I'm sorry if this is defensive but I think a version of the facts with at least one foot rooted in the truth would be useful. here.
–Rpeh•T•C•E• 05:22, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

Back to Ratwar's original points:

  • Piracy: I think adding a statement to the IRC guidelines making it clear that discussion of piracy is forbidden in IRC would be useful. And I'd support including in that statement that immediate kick/bans may be used in cases where piracy is discussed. I've always considered that to be part of the channel rules (implicit in the existing rule "The channel does not support law breaking of any kind"). Spelling it out explicitly can only help.
  • New ops: I've also always assumed that non-wiki ops (or half-ops) were permitted on #uespwiki. In particular, Magnus has always been an op in #uespwiki despite the fact that he is not an active wiki editor. In theory the same could be done with other people who are active in the channel. However, I think it's only fair that any such people should be required to go through a nomination process comparable to that required for other ops/half-ops in the channel. In other words, a nomination process similar to that required for patrollers and administrators should be done, to ensure that the person has the community's support. I'd suggest that the nomination process be done on the wiki's IRC talk page (if it's necessary more than a couple times, a separate page could be created, but for now I don't see the need). All wiki contributors would be free to participate, but the opinions of people who are active in IRC would be given more weight in making the final decision.

But I'm not sure that original list of points really addresses the problems that have occurred lately in the IRC channel. In particular, despite innuendo to the contrary, I'm very confident that everyone with any authority in #uespwiki agrees that piracy is illegal and that piracy should not be discussed in IRC. So adding new policy rules emphasizing that point won't really change anything. What I see as a more significant issue is whether or not channel ops should have any discretion when it comes to deciding what needs to be done in a specific situation. Should channel ops have some leeway in deciding when to apply immediate kick/bans? Or should any person who says the word "pirate" or "piracy" (or even "download") be immediately kick/banned no matter what the context and no matter who the person may be?

Personally, I feel that channel ops must be free to use their own judgment to decide what is or is not appropriate in a given situation. I think it's the only way the channel can function, given that it is possible to discuss piracy without saying the word "piracy." A subjective decision is necessary to determine at which point between "I'm having problems running Oblivion" and "Go to site xxx to download free software" the discussion crosses the line from acceptable to unacceptable. If it's impossible to come up with clear, objective rules about what words/sentences are forbidden, then enforcement of the rules has to rely upon individuals making a subjective decision about what does or does not break the rules.

Furthermore, the practice on both UESP's wiki and UESP's forums is to warn users before banning/blocking/kicking whenever possible. This is true even in cases of piracy, and I could point to numerous examples where a user has been warned about piracy-related discussions, in most cases without the user subsequently being banned/blocked. Given that mistakes and misunderstandings are far more likely in IRC than in wikis/forums, and given that the #uespwiki rules emphasize that the channel is supposed to be informal, I don't think that that the rules applied in #uespwiki should be significantly less tolerant than the rules used elsewhere in UESP. Especially given that, if Bethesda really thought that UESP's policies with respect to piracy were inexcusably lax, it's pretty safe to assume that Bethesda would be more concerned about cases on the wiki and forums. The incidents that have happened on the wiki and forums are permanently included in the site's records and can be accessed by absolutely anyone with internet access. Why worry about a case known only to the 15 people active who were active in IRC at the time, when there are cases visible to billions of people? Why worry about a case where the only evidence is unverifiable IRC logs, when there are are cases with unaltered histories documented on UESP's web site? If we really think it's necessary to start modifying policy based upon hypothetical scenarios involving paranoid Bethesda executives finding any possible excuse to target UESP, then IRC policies really shouldn't be our top priority.

Back to the real issues in IRC.... Channel ops need to be allowed to use their own judgment in deciding what to do in any situation. I don't think that a channel op should ever be treated like a criminal or threatened with legal action over a case where a judgment call was used in deciding what to do in an ambiguous situation. I'd say the situation is clearly ambiguous in a case where two other ops and a halfop were all actively involved in the discussion and failed to take any action (which was the case in one recent incident that has fueled this controversy). Which also means that Ratwar's second issue (piracy) is at least partially related to his first issue (shortage of IRC ops/half-ops): if ops in the channel are harassed over their judgment calls, then it's only going to discourage people from wanting to participate in the channel. It's not the only issue behind low numbers of ops/halfops, but it is unquestionably one issue.

Finally, I think that any changes to #uespwiki should take into account the channel's primary reason for existence: to help UESPWiki editors. If we don't focus on the channel's purpose, then changes are likely to turn #uespwiki into a generic elder scrolls discussion channel; such channels already exist, so why should #uespwiki be changed into a duplicate of those channels? We should be finding ways to increase the numbers of wiki editors who use the channel, rather than finding ways to increase the numbers of non-wiki editors. Adding new ops with no wiki knowledge will not encourage more wiki editors to use the channel; nor will alienating existing ops via false accusations of "condoning" piracy. If there really is a problem with anonymous UESPUsers misusing the channel, why not tackle that problem directly? For example, we could delete the "Chatroom" link on the left-hand wiki tool bar. IRC links could instead be added to pages used only by editors (e.g., Recent Changes); an IRC link could also be added to the standard new-editor welcome message. It seems to me that such measures would be far more effective at dealing with the actual problems in #uespwiki; given more than 10 minutes to think about it, I'm sure we could come up with other possible solutions, too. --NepheleTalk 01:20, 19 April 2008 (EDT)

Whoa! This is what I get for not paying attention to the Community Portal.
First of all, I think removing the channel is a bad idea. It seems like everyone is waiting for a magical thing to happen to increase the activity of the channel. I know it sounds cheesy, but the only way to increase it, is for people to come online. I was under the impression that the recent inactivity was because a few of our regulars were absent (e.g. Nephele taking a break, rpeh on holiday), but this doesn't seem to be the case. Inactivity won't solve by itself, it takes effort to keep the channel running.
I have found the channel to be a great help for discussing methods and ideas for the wiki. And also a great source of just fun chatter (there is nothing wrong with that, is there?). Now what is the difference between how it used to be, and what it is now? Just a few months. There are still UESPUsers signing on, questions asked, it is just the regulars that are missing.
And if a new editor happens to come online with a question, how would you recognize someone like that, if he/she leaves quite soon afterwards, because no one responds?
Monitoring. I feel a bit left out in Ratwar's conclusion. I may be just a half-op, but I'm usually online on IRC. My Away status doesn't mean I don't watch it. On a few ocassions I have noticed activity, and entered active conversation. Conversations are usually short, and have ended before I noticed them, but I haven't seen much need for moderating lately.
If there is need for someone to remain on standby as long as he's able, I'm willing to chip in a little more.
Piracy. I don't think this is a big problem. I haven't seen any talk of it myself, but I keep logs, so if there is something too check I can. How to deal with talk of piracy? If someone mentions he/she owns illegitimate copy, just tell them you won't be helping them. "I'm sorry, I can't help you with pirated copies." will do, I think. If they persist on that subject, you can warn them. Kicking/banning is always an option if things get out of hand. I don't think Bethesda will be bothered if we simply prohibit talking about piracy. No need to immediately kick someone. It's Bethesda's concern to fight piracy, not ours. We do not condone it, but we can't pursue people who do it.
I urge for a second time not to delete the channel. Nothing has happened to cause bad blood, or anything similar. The only reason is inactivity.
There are always a couple of items I feel like discussing, when the right people are online. --Timenn < talk > 08:07, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
I agree with Nephele and Timenn. I know the issue with piracy is more important to some than others, but I don't see why simply asking someone not to talk about it is a problem. If they persist after being warned, a good kicking is certainly in order. One of the issues I've seen is that some people simply aren't aware that what they've done is illegal; while this doesn't make it any less illegal, it seems somewhat wrong to ban them from conversation just because they've done something they didn't know was wrong. In any case, I agree that ops should be allowed to use their own judgment in cases like this. That's the benefit of having humans to watch the place, I think--if we wanted to immediately ban everyone who talked about something that's against our rules, we might as well have a bot do it.
I would very much like to see the channel stay open. I haven't been around very much over the last several months due to a screwy internet connection that makes it essentially pointless for me to even try signing on. Fortunately, that seems to have been fixed as of yesterday afternoon (hooray!), and as long as it remains stable I can be in the channel to keep an eye on things.
Anyway, those are my thoughts :). I for one have really missed being able to talk to other editors in the channel whenever I have a question, or even just for fun. It's been great for building community in the past and I hope that with a little patience it can be that way again. –Eshetalk 12:27, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
I suppose completely shutting down #uespwiki is one way to deal with problem. At least if the only priority is guaranteeing that no piracy-related discussions take place in IRC. And especially if you really believe that the channel ops "condone" piracy, and therefore can't even trust the IRC regulars to use the channel responsibly.
For that matter, why don't we apply the same "solution" to the wiki itself? Let's just lock the entire UESPWiki database and prevent anyone from editing. It sure would save a lot of trouble dealing with pesky vandals. And why should I have to put up with being the only active admin on the wiki for a few days? Given how "unfair" the situation obviously was over the weekend, I should have just shut down the whole wiki. Oh, wait. Except the top priority on the wiki isn't preventing vandalism. And I realize that the other admins have other things going on in their lives at various times; in turn, when I've been too busy to chip in for a few days (or a couple weeks), the other admins have covered for me, without complaining or threatening to shut down the wiki. Nobody has signed a contract saying "I must make a token appearance on the site every day no matter what or else my privileges will be revoked."
If there is really is such a crisis right now in #uespwiki, it seems like there are a lot of other options that could be considered, even if only as temporary measures, before jumping to the conclusion that the only solution is to just permanently kill the channel. I already mentioned perhaps making links to IRC less prominent and more editor-specific (and for clarification, when I said "delete the Chatroom link", all that I meant was to delete the one word, "Chatroom," from the sidebar. I was not suggesting deleting the entire channel or the entire IRC page). Another possibility is that the channel could be turned into a fully-moderated channel where everyone has to be voiced before they can speak; the regulars in the channel could all be given +v status. Or the channel could be set to invitation only. Yes, those are both somewhat extreme measures but they're far less extreme than just killing the channel completely. Assuming (which may be too much nowadays, I don't know) that we trust the channel regulars to not break any laws in the channel, it seems like either of these two measures would be completely effective at preventing inappropriate discussions from taking place. In the meantime, other options could be discussed -- and, most importantly, the channel would remain available to wiki editors who want to use the channel.
I thought the main priority of the channel was to be a resource for the community to use as needed (and when needed), in which case it seems like the community should at least be asked for its opinion before any drastic decisions are made. But obviously I was very misinformed about the channel's purpose and priorities. --NepheleTalk 20:18, 22 April 2008 (EDT)
Well, now that I have Eshe and Timenn as definitely being around to help run the thing, we can put off closing it indefinitely if need be.--Ratwar 18:05, 23 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Decision

As the only op in the channel for the last week (besides Magnus), I've decided that there's really no reason to keep the channel open. I am going to close it. --Ratwar 17:08, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit] UMP- bugfix mod section for Morrowind

This is a proposal to add the UMP- The Unofficial Morrowind Patch to the Mods

Quote: What it is:

"The Unofficial Morrowind Patch (UMP) fixes almost all of the bugs and problems with Morrowind and its expansions. While the official patches by Bethesda only fixed a couple of dozen bugs, this patch fixes several hundred. The goal of this patch is to make the game completely bug-free (within the abilities of the TESCS)."

WHAT IT DOES

The Unofficial Morrowind Patch does following: Fix any bugs in the quests that make them incompletable or skip you ahead. Correct spelling & grammar mistakes in the dialogue and object names, and give them a uniform appearance. Make global scripts end when they are no longer needed. Make quests be marked as Finished so they no longer appear in the Active Quest list when they should be. Correct any mesh or texture problems in the objects. Correct incorrect subtitles Add any objects that were not included in the ESM files, but were included on the game CDs Fixes many other bugs and problems with the game" [2]

[edit] Discussion moved from Wrye's talk page:

Wrye, I posted this a few weeks back with no reponse, is this (still) worthwhile?

Would it be OK to add an unofficial bug fix section similar to what is done for Oblivion? I am thinking of the following: The UMP is highly regarded in the community, and fixes a lot of annoyances. I think it would be a great addition to Tes3Mod. There is no contact info given on the site, not sure what needs to be done to get permission. Any thoughts?

Cheers, --Benould•T•C 18:15, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

First, you should checkout this discussion if you haven't already. That's the archive of where we were discussing adding UOP documentation. Then, you should probably bring the subject up on the Community Portal.
Second, I'm pretty rusty on my Morrowind stuff, but generally, it seems like a good idea. A few specific thoughts though: I recall that there was a second competing patch (that was less large? maybe it was incorporated?). This confuses the situation somewhat compared to Oblivion (where there is only one mega-patch). That may warrant consideration.
In short, bring the idea up on the community portal to see what the reaction is. If there are no objections, I'd say go ahead. --Wrye 01:49, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
I'd like to get some input before creating the page in Tes3Mod:Mods. Also, if anyone has a way of contacting the author, I'd like to hear his opinion. As to wether to then integrate what the mod fixes into the Morrowind pages, that would be a separate discussion. For now, I think a page with a general description and a link to the specifics would be enough. --Benould•T•