UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 8

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Community Portal discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page.

Contents 1 Transparent Namespaces 2 Proposal: Recommended Mod Lists 3 Site Slowdowns 4 Task List 5 Uncategorized 6 Userboxes 7 the pilgrimage 8 Dienerandamovie 9 Protection policy confliction 10 209.11.242.250 11 Aristeo and Irc 12 New Archiving 12.1 Advantages 12.2 Cons 12.3 Details 12.4 Suggestions 13 Buggy Bug 14 68.151.0.186 15 Oblivion Places Redesign Project 16 NepheleBot 17 Policy Question: Proofreading Talk pages? 18 Redirect Madness 19 Page Missing 20 Tamriel Flora 21 Criteria for Patrolled Edits 22 Patroller Nomination Guidelines 23 "Wisdom of the ages" bug? 24 Recent Changes 25 New Vandal 26 Help Tooltips 27 References 28 Pronunciation Project 29 Sensitive issues in IRC 30 Wiki and Forums Being Down 31 Vandalism Policy 32 Multi-language UESP 33 Necromancer/Conjurer Pages Missing 34 Reorganizing Tamriel Books 34.1 Transcludes 34.2 Formatting 34.3 Progress 35 DEFAULTSORT 36 Oblivion NPC IDs 37 Vandal Squad 38 Image Cleanup Project

[edit] Transparent Namespaces

The way UESP uses namespaces is pretty different from the standard wiki setup and it is, frankly, probably one of the bigger obstacles discouraging new readers and editors from using the site. It's also an annoyance even for experienced editors... I wouldn't even want to estimate the amount of time I've spent typing "Oblivion" or fixing my "Oblivoin" and similar typos. Last night it suddenly occurred to me, why should we have to type in namespaces all the time? Why we can't we make UESP work more like Wikipedia?

No, I'm definitely not talking about reorganizing the entire site and abandoning namespaces as a way to organize information. Instead what I'm suggesting is having the wiki software automatically fill in the namespace for readers and editors: 99% of the time the namespace you want is the one you're currently working in, so why not assume that unless specified otherwise? There are two specific ideas that I've come up with:

• Automatically add the current namespace to links when a page is edited. Wiki software already expands links on pages. If you type in [[Oblivion:Monsters|]] on a page, save, then edit the page again, that link has been magically changed to [[Oblivion:Monsters|Monsters]]. Why not do the exact same thing with namespaces? Since we don't use the main namespace at all, a namespace-less link like [[Monsters]] can safely be assumed to be a mistake. So if you type in [[Monsters]] on an Oblivion page (or an Oblivion talk page), the link would be automatically changed to [[Oblivion:Monsters|Monsters]]; if it's on a Morrowind page, the same link would be changed to [[Morrowind:Monsters|Monsters]]. Any links with a namespace would be left unchanged ([[Tamriel:Monsters]] for example), and any links starting with ":" would be left unchanged (so to link to the main page, you'd type [[:Main Page]]).

• When the "Go" search button is used, automatically add the current namespace Right now, if you type in Monsters in the the search box in the upper left corner and click "Go" you're always told that no such page exists and forced to look through a long search page. But if someone is on an Oblivion page, the chances are that what they really wanted to type is Oblivion:Monsters, so why not make that guess and automatically open up Oblivion:Monsters, just like would happen on Wikipedia? The Search part of the function wouldn't be changed at all, just the list of pages that it considers to be matches when "Go" is used.

Neither of these changes would be too difficult to implement. Yes, it requires directly modifying the wiki's PHP code (which only Daveh can actually do). But the amount of coding involved isn't much. I've already worked out exactly what's needed for the first option, and even with a couple extra bells and whistles it's only six lines of code added to a single PHP function.

The only other "problem" I can foresee is that existing links to the main namespace would have to be changed at some point so they wouldn't be automatically converted next time the page is edited. But there aren't too many such links. For example, there are only 43 links on the entire site to our most popular page, namely [[Oblivion]]. 10 of those links are from the Oblivion namespace and wouldn't even need to be changed. So 33 links would have to be changed from [[Oblivion]] to [[:Oblivion]]. Typing in 33 colons and in exchange saving myself from typing Oblivion a few thousand times seems like an easy tradeoff ;) And external links to the site would be completely unaffected by the change, so there's no risk of breaking links elsewhere on the web.

Are there are any other problems that anyone can anticipate if these two changes are implemented? Or is there anyone who thinks either one is a bad idea? I definitely don't want to pursue making PHP-level changes to the wiki if anyone has concerns. But it seems to me that the changes would be easy but dramatic improvements to the site for everyone who uses it. Also, are there are any other ways in which namespaces are cumbersome that could potentially be fixed while we're at it? --Nephele 12:50, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Wow, you think a lot. I'd say to try it on one area (perhaps just Oblivion) for a while, and then if all's well, implement this plan site-wide. That way, we know what's what about it. I still can't really picture it. Would we still be able to type everything out, if we wanted to?--Somercy 12:59, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

It's actually easier to implement it everywhere at once; doing it in a more limited way would require different coding or additional coding.

And yes, you'd still be able to type out full links if you wanted to. Basically, anything (correctly) done right now would still work. But now you'd have the option to not type the namespace part of a link if you don't want to. And if a wikipedia user added a bunch of wikipedia-style edits to a page, those would all be automatically fixed instead of being added as red links. --Nephele 13:16, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

My only objection is that you didn't think of this months ago. ;) If I counted the number of times I've had to type out "Oblivon" or "Morrowind" for every link on every page I've ever worked on - Well, let's just say it would be a very large number. Presumably, if we did this, those shortcut links in the Wiki markup box below the edit window would be rendered obsolete. I've made extensive use of them, especially after I modified them to include the | symbol and save a step, but it's still an annoying extra mouse-move and click. Only complication I can think of is if for whatever reason you actually WANTED to create a page in the Main namespace, there'd be no easy way to do it. But there's so few pages in the Main namespace, and very little need for more, so it wouldn't be that big a problem. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 15:13, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, if it's any consolation, I've probably typed "Oblivion" about the same number of times ;) But you do have me beat on the "Morrowind" count. The shortcuts in the markup box would still be occasionally useful, such as when creating a Tamriel link on an Oblivion page. But you'd be using them a lot less often.

It would still be possible to create a page in the Main namespace. Some methods (such as typing in a URL) would be completely unaffected. For others, you'd just have to type one extra colon:

• If you create a red-link then follow it, add a colon. So type [[:Dragonfire Castle]] to create a red-link, for example. That'll work right now and will continue to work, completely unaltered by my new-fangled ideas.
• If you type in a name in the search box and hit Go, same idea. Type ":Dragonfire Castle" and that will force the search to try to go to a main namespace page (that won't work right now, but it would be added as part of this modification).

So just like right now you need to add a colon to the front of Category links or Image links, you'd just do the same thing for main namespace links. Hopefully that would be easy enough to remember for those who need to do it. But it wouldn't generally be the first option presented to new editors. Hmmm... unless they use the Go button on the Main Page... but if desired we could tweak that, too. Either force some default namespace (e.g., Oblivion) when users use Go in the main namespace. Or bypass the "You can create this page" if someone types, for example, "Dragonfire Castle" instead of ":Dragonfire Castle" again, only when starting from the main namespace. I'm not sure which makes more sense and/or is less confusing... --Nephele 16:45, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Y'know, redirects are cheap... why can't we just create forests of redirects, and dabs where needed? Alphax 22:05, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, redirects were my next idea... especially after the next wiki upgrade which will make redirects much more powerful. I think there are several things that can be done with redirects to help make it much easier to find information. But I see redirects as a tool that fundamentally work within the namespaces (i.e., a redirect from one Oblivion page to another) rather than as a tool that can somehow make namespaces less obvious.

The whole reason for namespaces is to organize the information into different sections according to game. For redirects to do what I've suggested above would require that every single page on the entire site would have to have a corresponding redirect page within the main namespace. That would destroy the entire organizational system created by namespaces (mentally I'm picturing taking a file cabinet and dumping all the contents on the floor). Not to mention take forever: creating 15000+ redirects would take hundreds of hours. I'd much rather have editors spending that time creating content instead of mindlessly creating empty redirect pages.

For alot of pages, a redirect wouldn't even be possible. For example, a main namespace "Thieves Guild": should it redirect to Oblivion:Thieves Guild or Morrowind:Thieves Guild or Tamriel:Thieves Guild or...? The namespaces are there because there are many similarly named pages in each game that need to be distinguished somehow.

Finally, even if someone did want to create 15000 redirects, in order to maintain the system and have it continue to be useful for more than a week, it would require that a new redirect would have to be created every time a new page was created. It would be an endless process with editors constantly spending more time creating redirects than actually improving the site. So I'd much rather spend a few hours tweaking the wiki software than trying to solve the namespace difficulties with redirects. --Nephele 22:53, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Ok, good too see that you've thought this through. Go forth and code! Alphax 02:13, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

At last, the changes proposed here have been implemented! So feel free to start testing out the new features.

For editors, it means that when you're editing you can:

• continue to add links to pages using previous formats, and just remain blissfully unaware that anything has changed
• or, you can start using more wikipedia-like links. So links like [[Thieves Guild]] or [[Vilverin]] are now possible! The only catch is that you have to be working within the same namespace. So if you're on an Oblivion page, those two links will work and be changed into [[Oblivion:Thieves Guild|]] and [[Oblivion:Vilverin|]]. If in doubt, just use the preview feature and see whether your links are coming out as blue links or red links

For readers, it means that the "Go" button in the search feature is now much more likely to actually take you to the page you want.

This is all pretty new, so there may be a few wrinkles that will need to be ironed out. One initial problem with in-page links getting messed up has now been fixed. I'll also provide more detailed information on these changes as I get a chance (in particular, update the help pages).

If you notice any other new strange behaviours, please let me know! --Nephele^Talk 14:43, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Okay, one strange new behavior I don't much like - If you type something into the Search field from any of the special pages (most notably including Special:Recentchanges), and then hit Enter or the Go button, your search turns up zilch. Do the same from any namespace and it works - e.g. search "Cheydinhal" from the Oblivion namespace, and it goes straight to Oblivion:Cheydinhal. Search it from any other namespace (including the Main namespace) and it goes to a search, with the Oblivion page on the top of the results. But from special pages, this search doesn't work anymore. Is there any way to get the site to treat searches from special pages the same as it treats searches from the Main namespace? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 12:38, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes, I've been noticing this too. It shouldn't be too hard to get the Special namespace to work like the other namespaces. We should check that some of the other namespaces don't suffer from the same issue (Image, MediaWiki, etc...). -- Daveh 13:13, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Image works, as do Category, UESPWiki, Template, General, and Help. MediaWiki doesn't. Just gives an empty page, without even an error message saying why your search didn't work. Granted changes to Mediawiki pages are only for admins, and rather uncommon even then, so it's not as critical that this work in that case. But the Special pages, particularly Recent Changes, are likely to be used by lots of people. Another one that doesn't work is the User namespace. That's another one that would be nice to fix if possible. I didn't check all the Talk namespaces, but I assume they work the same as their respective pages? Not sure. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 15:06, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Yep, I had noticed this problem, too, but it's not yet clear to me what to make the go button do on these pages. In general, what's the best behaviour for the go button in all of the non-content namespaces? Right now, for example, if you're on a UESPWiki page and type something into the search box, the modified search engine checks to see whether there is a UESPWiki page with that name (always after checking the main namespace). But it seems unlikely to me that readers are really going to want search for a UESPWiki page. So the options that occur to me are:

• a) Change Special/Mediawiki/User only so that the go button does what it originally did (check the main namespace for the entry then give up and show a search)
• b) Change Special/Mediawiki/User only so that the go button works like it now does on the main page (check the Oblivion namespace for the entry, then give up and show a search)
• c) Change all non-gamespaces to work the way the main page now does
• d) Change all non-gamespaces (except Special/Mediawiki/User) to search in that namespace first for a match, then check the Oblivion namespace for a match, then give up and show a search
• e) Make all the non-gamespaces do really comprehensive searches (go through Oblivion, Shivering, Morrowind, Bloodmoon, Tribunal, Tamriel, stopping when it finds a match). Basically look everywhere to see if it can find a match before giving up.

Options a), b), and c) are really easy to implement. d) and e) are just one step more difficult. I'm inclined to think that e) is the best way to go. And adding the code for e) would then make it really easy to do better gamespace searches too (e.g., on an Oblivion page, search Oblivion, Shivering, and Tamriel). Or is that overkill? (It would take some extra CPU to do so much searching... although finding a page match would always save the really CPU-intensive final search through every article's text.) Would c) be completely adequate? Any votes? --Nephele^Talk 23:24, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

I'd be fine with any of those, though a) seems like the simplest and fairest to me. I'm not sure I like the idea that Main Page searches always check Oblivion first, to be honest. Maybe because I've been doing a lot of Morrowind work lately, but I think if you do a search on any concept that is common to multiple games, you should get search results that let you choose which game you're interested in, rather than having the site just assume you wanted the Oblivion page. The site is called "The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages", not "The Unofficial Oblivion Pages", after all. Thus, I'm not so hot about b), c), or d). e) is a possibility, provided that it doesn't automatically go to the first one it finds if there happen to be more than one that match. Otherwise, it'd be a purely subjective judgement call which namespaces take priority, and I disagree with that idea. But really, any one of these solutions would be much better than the way it is now, with the searches simply turning up nothing. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 01:00, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

I realize it is biased to choose one game over the other. If you use the "go" feature on a given game-related page, the search always looks in that game's content. And the search feature has not been changed here: if you click on "search" instead of "go" the search still uses the search preferences that you have set up and works the same way it always did. The "search" button will give any reader the list of possible pages and full freedom to choose which one they want. But the "go" button is set up to work differently from the search button, and is supposed to try to actually go straight to the requested page.

A lot of users are going to start from the Main Page, and having "go" just check the main namespace leaves us with original situation: the "go" button basically never works for any new readers. Instead of having the "go" feature work for nobody, I'd rather choose one namespace so that at least sometimes when readers on the main page use "go" they end up finding the page they're looking for. And I chose Oblivion because it is by far the most heavily visited game (at least based upon a comparison of page access statistics for Oblivion:Oblivion vs Morrowind:Morrowind), and therefore that maximizes the odds that "go" is checking the game that a reader is interested in. In other words, it wasn't a subjective decision to choose Oblivion but rather one based upon site statistics.

My problem with option (a) is the same as my problem with the default option for the Main Page: why should the "go" feature basically be completely disabled on all Special/Mediawiki/User pages? That situation is hardly different than the current situation. Why not make it so that at least some of the time the feature works? I'd rather be biased and help some readers than be fair and help no readers.

Any option that checks more than one namespace will have to stop at the first page it finds. The functions are all set up to exit as soon as a match is found; changing that would start to get ugly, waste a lot of CPU, and introduce a random element that I'm not really too comfortable with (if a reader uses the go feature one day to find a page, I think they should be able to expect that doing the same thing the next day takes them to the same page, instead of a different random page).

Basically my idea with the "go" button has been to find ways to maximize the chances that a reader is taken to the page they're looking for when they hit "go". The "search" button is always available for readers who want to see a list of options. Or more experienced readers can make sure that "go" does what they want (use "go" from the right namespace, or spell out the namespace, e.g. "Morrowind:Seyda Neen"). Hopefully that logic makes some sense :) --Nephele^Talk 02:03, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Here's my idea of the ideal way for this to work, not sure if it's technically possible, though.

1. First, the system searches for any page title matches.
2. If there is only one title match, it automatically goes there, regardless of current namespace.
3. If there is more than one title match, but one of them is in the current namespace, automatically go there.
4. If there are two title matches, but one of them is in the Tamriel namespace (and the user is not currently in the Tamriel namespace), automatically go to the other one.
5. If there is more than one title match, but none is in the current namespace, run a search, showing the title-matches first and then text-matches.
6. If there are no title-matches, just show a text-match search.
7. If there are no title-matches OR text-matches, then go to the "Create a page" option - but with a caveat:
   1. If the user is in a content namespace (rather than a support namespace or the main namespace), have it choose to create a page in that namespace.
   2. If the user is not in a content namespace, change the message to suggest that they probably should be.

This would solve the problem of people creating pages in the Main namespace when they shouldn't be, as well as making searches pretty straightforward from anywhere on the site. Even if you search a game-specific concept like "Cheydinhal" from the Main Page, you'll still go to Oblivion:Cheydinhal, because there are no pages about Cheydinhal in any other namespace, except Tamriel:Cheydinhal, which is an exception by rule #4. But if you search a general concept like "Agility", you'll get a search that shows both Oblivion:Agility and Morrowind:Agility right at the top, and then text-matches below them. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:45, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

OK, I think I've got that coded up (although not forwarded to Daveh yet), with a few minor tweaks/differences:

• If you're in a content namespace, it's only going to check related namespaces (so a go to "Rare Items" from an Oblivion page will never take you to Morrowind:Rare_Items, and instead give you the option to create the page; but a go to "Dawnfang" will take you to Shivering:Dawnfang).
• I'm not tweaking the search page, so what happens if it falls through to using the search page will always be the same, default behaviour: a section of "Article title matches" (or "No page title matches") followed by a section of "Article text matches" (or "No page text matches"). The article title searches won't necessarily match the titles found by the "go" function. The search page will show all matches in each namespace, not just best matches (e.g., do a search on "Creatures" and you get a lot of title matches). Also the search page uses the reader's preferences, so for logged-in readers it will possibly check different namespaces than the "go" feature (Possible change: the go-to-any-gamespace list could be changed to only use gamespaces in the reader's current preferences).
• The "create a page" option comes up whenever the reader is in a content namespace (whether or not there are text-matches).

Does that sound like it's close enough to your ideal? Using the reader's namespace search preferences is an idea that just came to me while I was typing this up; I'll rummage a bit more and see just how difficult that would be to incorporate. --Nephele^Talk 13:49, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Sounds about right. (I'm a bit busy this week and next which is why I'm slow to respond.) Anyhow, any change would be an improvement on the current system, so I'll go along with that for now. Would like to see what other posters think, though. So far it's just been you and me discussing it, and I don't think either of us is exactly the "typical" user here... --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:04, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Proposal: Recommended Mod Lists

This is something that I've been thinking about off and on for a couple of years, but is now getting bumped up my priority list because of discussion on the forums: Turns out the Aelius, fairly well known for his recommended mod list, barely plays the game and hardly even reads the readmes. This fits something that I've noticed before...

List makers have a pronounced tendency towards arrogance. (Certainly NOT all of them, but several.) Since most players get lost in the sea of mods that are available, they (very reasonably) look for good lists for recommendations. But that means that mod usage can be heavily affected by some list saying "get this mod!" -- which means that mod makers are inclined to curry favor with list makers. Some list makers seem to really get off on that, and start expecting people to do ridiculous favors for them (like explain in person stuff that is already well covered by the readme!!!)

One way to avoid this tendency seems to be to have several editors for the mod list. OTOH, too many editors and after a while there's no standard -- too many mods end up on the list. So single editor is not good because they tend towards arrogance, and anyone edits is not good because there's no standard. (Wiki's work in large part because you can always appeal to fact to resolve a dispute, but recommended mod lists are inherently opinionated.)

Actually, probably even more of a problem than arrogance is abandonment -- someone starts a great list, then abandons it.

So, what I'd like to suggest is that we host several semi-protected lists here. Here' how it would work:

• Under Oblivion, have a "Mod Lists Section"
• Under that, have individual lists that are edited ONLY by designated editors. These pages would be "So and So's recommended mods list", etc.
• The pages would be semi-protected (so that only signed in users could edit), but there wouldn't be any extra server specification that "only designated editor XX can edit this page" -- rather that would be done by convention -- i.e. any edits by non list editors would be summarily removed.
• However, other users could still visit the talk page and suggest mods and post arguments, etc. there.
• If the editors for a list leave, then either new editors are designated, or the list is frozen. But being under CC license, the current list could be forked and a new list could be started. E.g., Bob is the editor/author of "Bob's List". Then Bob quits the scene and list is frozen. Jan comes along and Jan and copies "Bob's List" to "Jan's List" and then proceeds to be the editor for that.
• Lists are by invitation and/or consensus agreement. List maker should already have built a decent, respected list. Whether to allow it here would be by a discussion on the community portal.
• If someone starts a list, then they're agreeing to keep editing it for a while -- i.e. it's not just a one time thing, but something that the list builder is committed to.
• Editors should understand that their list is NOT their home page or their user page, and should not be used for rants, general opinions, etc. It's just a list -- we expect it to be opinionated, but it needs to be primarily as a list. They also understand the nature of cc.
• If there's a major dispute over the list, it can be resolved on the community forum. In an unusual case, we might freeze (or very unlikely) delete the list.

What do you all think? --Wrye 19:13, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Not much apparently! :lol: No problem. Moving it back to the backburner.... --14:46, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

Sorry, still avoiding the place as I Havant received Shivering Isles yet... But yes, I have now read through and I agree with all your points and ideas! Jadrax 10:11, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I was trying to volunteer everyone else to do the job! :lol: Didn't work too well, and I'm somewhat overloaded these days. I'd kind of like to if not host mod lists here, at least include a page of pointers to some of the better ones. But I've done almost 10 Wrye Bash releases in the past week and still have a list of stuff to do, so I probably have the time soon. --Wrye 21:24, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I could help out as well, since I'm a bit of a mod junkie. I tend to dabble in a lot of random mods, and also tinker around in the construction set once in a while. I do agree with how the Wiki format is great for listing good mods. One question, though... this would be a list of recommended mods, not just a general list, right? --Talon Lardner 09:11, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Moving this from backburner to sideburner... I've added a new page Oblivion:Recommended_Mods which is primarily intended to list recommended mod lists, with some evaluation of them. There's still room for hosting some more "owned" lists as suggested above, but again it would take a dedicated proven editor to do it right, so I'm not really expecting that to happen. (Yes, we have dedicated, proven editors here, but they're all busy with other stuff!) --Wrye 22:07, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Site Slowdowns

With the release of Shivering Isles UESP has seen a noticeable increase in traffic (~20-30% more). As a result, during peak use periods the server is getting more hits than it can handle. This has caused some noticeable slowdowns, to the point of making the site nearly inaccessible for a few hours at a time during really busy times (i.e., Sunday afternoon). Daveh knows about the issue, and is planning to double the server's RAM (from 1 GB to 2 GB), which will double the number of allowed connections at one time (from 50 to 100). However, that upgrade won't be possible until at least the end of this week, because Daveh is on travel at the moment. So in the meantime, there may continue to be a few hiccups. It's the price of being a popular web site :| --Nephele 18:28, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

The site was down about twenty minutes ago and seems to be running slowly now. What's up with that? BTW, was the site ever upgraded (in hardware)? It was my understanding that things were going to be cranked up a bit a while ago. (E.g., note about doubling RAM above.)

The annoying thing about this was that I had been starting to do some stuff at CS wiki (because we sort of ceded CS4 tech stuff to them), but was getting fed up with sloppiness there and had reached the decision to move my new entries back here -- only to find the site down -- again. So CS wiki lacks profesionalism, long term commitment and copyright specification. And this site goes down when it gets popular. Frustrating. --Wrye 16:49, 3 June 2007 (EDT)

Weekend afternoons are always bad and today in particular there is one annoying IP (152.66.223.106) that is doing "what links here" requests and searches on every page on the site, which are just hammering the server's CPU. And somehow the IP seems to be getting around some of the site's anti-bandwidth-hogging controls.

Daveh hasn't done any RAM upgrades yet, I believe in part because he's debating whether to do the RAM upgrade or just upgrade the entire server. My impression is that there will be some sort of hardware upgrades happening in the not-impossibly-distant future. --Nephele^Talk 17:03, 3 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Task List

I'd like to create a useful Task List page for the entire community to use. My impression is that a lot of new editors would like to contribute, but don't know what needs to be done (other than spellchecking and cleanup, which isn't everyone's favorite job). On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that most of the experienced editors have lengthy lists of jobs that they think could be done (or at least, I know I do!). It seems like there should be some easy way to share that information. I've tried to reorganize the Task List page so that it can fulfill that purpose.

One reason I'm bringing this up now is that the huge interest in adding pages describing Shivering Isles seems to confirm that there were a lot of editors who wanted to add to the site, but just didn't know what needed to be done. And I'm guessing in a few weeks some of the Shivering Isles momentum will wane, once the obvious red links and empty quest pages have been filled in. I think having an idea list in place at that time will be useful, so that some of the new editors can find other things to work on if they're interested. Also, it will be worthwhile having a way to start to keep track of remaining Shivering Isles-related tasks.

For the Task List page to work, though, it really needs to be something that editors other than just me find useful ;) So I'd really like to get feedback from everyone on how to make this as useful as possible.

• Does anyone else think that a Task List page is worthwhile? In particular, are there really editors who'd like ideas on what needs to be done? If I've misjudged the situation, then it's probably not worth pursuing this idea.
• Are the types of ideas that are currently listed on the page useful? Is there enough info for editors to get a basic idea of whether or not it's something interesting? Are these ideas the types of projects that editors would like to know about? Or should the page be taken in some other direction?
• How detailed should the tasks be? This is one that I've struggled with somewhat: I don't want it to be an hour-long task just to add an idea to the page, because most editors won't want to put that type of time into writing up an idea, especially if they're not sure anyone else will want to follow through on it. But it also needs to be possible for someone else to figure out what actually needs to be done. So I've tried to compromise: allow the descriptions to be brief, and then encourage people to ask for more details. When someone asks, anyone with ideas about the details can step in and answer the question. I know from my point of view, I'm much more willing to spend the time on details if I know someone is interested in hearing about them.
• Do other editors have ideas that they'd like to add to the page? Is it fairly straightforward to add an idea?

I see the current page just as a starting point to give everyone some idea what I'm talking about. Any ideas about how to improve it are welcome! --Nephele 18:32, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

This page looks like a good way to get people involved in the site and should point editors in the right direction. However, I think many will find themselves lost when it comes to actually do the edits, as there isn't a clear procedure on how to proceed or project organisation for most of the tasks. What I mean is that we lack the organisation of projects like the Morrowind Redesign Project, which takes editors almost step by step on what needs to be done on certain pages. If more of these projects were created, I beleive it will be clearer to editors what to do. --DrPhoton 03:21, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Good point. A few of the tasks could be fleshed out more so that it's easier for any editor to pick them up. In particular, the Tamriel:Books and Tamriel:Dictionary suggestions really amount to converting those pages to a standard format. A style guide describing the format really needs to be written, in which case those tasks could basically just link to the style guide. And I think having more projects would be great... if someone is willing to take the time to provide the detailed procedures.

But then the question that comes to mind is, should the Task List page be limited to only those tasks that include clear instructions on what needs to be done? My feeling is that no, it shouldn't. I think if it's limited to only be fully-fleshed out projects then basically nobody will ever want to add tasks to the page. For example, a couple of the tasks that I added are suggestions made on talk pages (Sigil Stones, House Upgrades). While I'm patrolling recent edits, it's not a big deal to add a one-line description of any such suggestions with a link. But if I have to fully research what needs to be done and write it all out, I know I basically won't want to go to the trouble: if I spend that much time on it, I might as well just do the whole thing myself. For a lot of shorter tasks, I don't think they lend themselves to being turned into full projects. But having a central list of such tasks is still useful, I think, even if the number of editors who might know how to pick them up is more limited. --Nephele 16:57, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Uncategorized

I've just noticed that two of the special pages on the site are a little less useful than they should be: Special:Uncategorizedcategories and Special:Uncategorizedpages. First of all, they seem to be exactly the same. Uncategorized Categories should only list categories, but it's listing pages as well. Secondly, it would be very helpful if certain types of pages could be exempted from this list. Namely, all talk pages and sub-pages really don't need to be categorized, so they should be left out. Is there any way to change this? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 16:47, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

I brought this problem up to Daveh a while back (User_talk:Daveh/Archive_Feb_2007#Configuration_Tweaks) but it doesn't look like he's gotten around to fixing it yet. It's a fix that needs to be done by Daveh, and I can't even help by supplying him with new PHP code, since the code that needs to be fixed has already been customized by Daveh. --Nephele 17:09, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Userboxes

Okay, so I've been going a little whimsical adding Userboxes. Previously, we only had two:

So I added:

to represent the new ranks we have around here. Additionally, I added some game-specific ones:

Mainly because I already had the icons available from when I made the new stub tags the other day. (Wasn't sure if KotN was big enough to warrant a Userbox, but hey, I had the icon already.) We still need them for the older games, and possibly Tribunal and Bloodmoon, though most people who know about Morrowind are likely knowledgeable about those as well by now. Other ones I was considering were, "This user is knowledgeable about Elder Scrolls lore", and possibly a few other wiki-specific ones, like people who know about making templates or working with images, charts, or are willing to engage in boring, repetitive tasks (e.g. Adding all the Oblivion NPC Summary templates, etc.), people who just go around making small spelling/grammar corrections (WikiGnomes) or people who just go around making things look pretty (WikiFairies), etc. Additionally, I was considering adding categories to these Userboxes, so that adding them to your User page would automatically add you to a category of other users who have also added the same Userbox, so if you wanted a list of users knowledgeable about, say, Morrowind, you'd go to Category:Users Knowledgeable About Morrowind or something. Any thoughts? Suggestions? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 21:35, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Wow, I'd been thinking almost the exact same thing :) I think the patroller user box and the game boxes are great, and adding more boxes that describe what types of things editors like to do and/or know how to do on the wiki would be even better. My impression from wikipedia is that user boxes are pretty popular if they're available. Having more available here would it make it really easy for everyone to advertise what they're interested in.

And your idea about automatic categories would make the boxes even more useful, and could potentially augment/improve the mentor program. For example, having cross links between the user boxes, the categories, and the mentor page would make it easier for editors to find out about the mentor program. It would also make it easier to find (and provide) assistance at a less "formal" level than mentoring. --Nephele 22:09, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Random selfish/whimsical idea: how about a user box for editors who are actively avoiding learning about Shivering Isles until they get a chance to play it? It could use the SI logo with an "X" over it, for example. Although I might be one of the few editors to use it ;) --Nephele 22:42, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

If you want to make Userboxes that will be used only by you, feel free to do so ;) Anyhow, before I add categories, is there a way that you know of to display a list of available Userboxes without having their categories appear on the page? Because it's just occurred to me that if I added categories, then the Community Portal page would suddenly be added to all those categories where it doesn't belong. (Incidentally, I was considering starting a UESPWiki:Userboxes page, just so there's a single place with a catalog of all available Userboxes. That would also suffer the same problem. Only thing I could think of would be to subst: all the templates and remove the categories when they're used in this way. If you've got a better idea, let me know. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:40, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

One idea is to have the template check the namespace, and only add categories if it's in the "User" namespace. I could set up a template ("Userbox Category"?) that takes care of the details for all the userboxes, so you could just add {{Userbox Category|Users Knowledgeable About Morrowind}}, for example, to the userbox template. <grumble>You'd think one little userbox wouldn't be too much to ask for in exchange for creating a fancy new template</grumble> ;) --Nephele 00:02, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Voila: Template:Userbox Category. I tested it on the Oblivion userbox, and it seems successful: AlbinoMudcrab, Lurlock, and Ratwar are now in the category, and Community Portal isn't. (I haven't created the category yet, in case that's not the correct category name... update as you want). --Nephele 00:24, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, on the up-side, I brought in a snazzy new template from Wikipedia, which makes it a snap to make your own Userboxes. Take a look at the changes I just made to the game-specific ones. One easy way to do it would be to simply change the colors around on the existing one, like so:

Feel free to change it as you see fit. Enjoy. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:29, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Cool. Been meaning to make use of something like this... Heh, heh, heh... --Wrye 03:30, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] the pilgrimage

i have the Kinghts of the Nine installed and i cant find the prophet in anvil, and the chapel isnt destroyed. why? 24.237.123.186 01:52, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

My first guess would be that you have other mods installed that conflict with KotN. You may want to make sure that KotN is the last mod being loaded (see Tes4Mod:Mod_Management#Load_Ordering). Also, read the notes on the Pilgrimage page where at least one specific mod that is incompatible with KotN is mentioned. --Nephele^Talk 02:10, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Dienerandamovie

I just wanted to let the other admins know that I do not feel that it would be appropriate for me to initiate administrative action against this user. Since I was the first person to get involved with reverting this editor's changes, and since he has made some personal attacks against me, there are possible conflicts of interest. Therefore I feel it would be better for another admin to get involved and decide what should be done, if he continues to make disruptive edits. --Nephele^Talk 15:35, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Are we 100% sure that 71.166.119.245, right? I'll be happy to handle it. --Ratwar 15:48, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Yep, I did a Checkuser, and that's the only IP address he's used so far when he's been logged in. --Nephele^Talk 16:21, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

You might want to add 62.212.92.79 to that user... this IP is attacking Nephele's page. --GuildKnight (Talk) ^contribs 20:59, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

That one and 72.36.170.42, but I doubt either of those will be making more edits anytime soon... --Ratwar 21:21, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

He's back to vandalizing NPC pages. He seems intent on removing any and all info not visible in-game. (Levelling info, non-playable classes, non-joinable factions.) --Deathbane27 21:49, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

I blocked him again. I'm not sure what his deal is. --Ratwar 22:34, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Protection policy confliction

Moved to UESPWiki:Community_Portal/Aristeo_and_Irc#Protection_policy_confliction.

[edit] 209.11.242.250

209.11.242.250 Has been vandalizing NPC pages at a ridiculous rate. Just a wild guess that it's Dienerandamovie again.

Yep. Blocked. --Wrye 22:17, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Aristeo and Irc

Moved to UESPWiki:Community_Portal/Aristeo_and_Irc#Aristeo_and_Irc

[edit] New Archiving

As the UESP ages, archiving pages has become a major task, and organizing them has become an increasingly large problem, most notably on the Community Portal. Nobody wants to wade through a large number of old discussions at the top of an active page, but the current system of archiving date-to-date doesn’t say much about the content of the pages. Therefore, I think we should create a new system as follows:

Archive Page

• Community Portal (Header)
  • Archive by Date (Secondary Header)
    • List of Archives by Date
  • Archive by Subject (Secondary Header)
    • Server Issues
    • Relations with other sites
    • Policy Issues
    • Dealing with Stupidity – Anonymous Users and Content Problems
    • IRC Issues
    • Issues between Members

• Administrative Notice Board
  • Archive by Date (Secondary Header)
    • List of Archives by Date
  • Archive by Subject (Secondary Header)
    • Vandalism
    • Requests for User Privileges Changes
    • Policy Issues
    • Discipline Archive

[edit] Advantages

1. Unified Archive- The Community Portal and Administrative Notice board often have similar discussions, so a unified Archive makes sense.
2. Easier Access to Archives- Archives done by content will make it easier to find what has already been said about topics
3. Easier Access to Active topics- Less clutter at the top of the page
4. Update Links- Implementing this system would kill two birds with one stone so to speak, if we updated the links in the archive at the same time.

[edit] Cons

1. More work to archive pages

[edit] Details

Links to Archive-

There would still be links to the Archive Page at the top of the both pages (Community Portal and Administrator Noticeboard), as well as links to the two most recent Archives by date.

Updated Links-

These could be done either by changing the original link or by inserting the correct link after the original like [[link|link]]^{[[Truelink|*]]}

Discipline Archive-

Several people have recently called the pasting of warnings to a user page an attempt to “embarass users”. Personally, I don’t think the policy was written with that in mind, but they do have a point. Therefore, dated warning messages can be removed from a user page, if that user has stayed out of trouble for a month, and placed in the archive. The main purpose of keeping the messages close to the user page was to allow people to know they are dealing with a person that has been known to violate UESP policy. If they’ve been clean for a month, chances are that they’ve changed their ways enough to remove the warning. Of course, reminding Administrators to do the moving will be totally up to the Users in question.

Actual Pages-

Each discussion would be a page, like [[Community Portal Archive 1/Discussion]], and then transcribed to the relevant pages. Categories could be added to the individual pages to show the content of the discussion.

[edit] Suggestions

So, what does everyone think? --Ratwar 15:26, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

Overall, I like the idea... although I think it will take someone with a bit of motivation to get it set up and start to convert at least some of the existing material to the new format ;) Basically, I agree that we really do need a way to make it easier to find old discussions on various topics.... I know I regularly find myself going through every archive of this page to try to find old discussions that I remember as establishing the community consensus for various issues.

Just to clarify (or perhaps) tweak some details, let me outline what my understanding. So next time this page gets archived,

• The entire "Transparent Namespaces" section would get moved to its own page, with a name like [[UESPWiki:Archives/Transparent Namespaces]]
• "Proposal: Recommended Mod Lists" would get moved to [[UESPWiki:Archives/Proposal: Recommended Mod Lists]]
• Ditto for the rest of the page discussions
• A by-date archive listing would be created, say [[UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 7]] (or [[UESPWiki:Archives/April 2007]] if we're trying to make this a more unified system?). The contents of that page would be:

 {{UESPWiki:Archives/Transparent Namespaces}}
 {{UESPWiki:Archives/Proposal: Recommended Mod Lists}}
 ... etc
 

• The new individual archive pages would also be added to (transcluded into) by-topic listings. I'd guess we'd probably add to Ratwar's list of topics as the system evolves, I'd think topics like "Site Organization" and "New Articles" might perhaps work for these two specific examples.

I'd suggest that there are a few discussions that wouldn't need the full treatment. Just as an example, UESPWiki:Community_Portal/Archive_5#Nath_Dyer was a one-time question that has been addressed and I can't imagine ever needing any followup (at least not in the community portal... if anywhere, at Oblivion talk:Easter Eggs). Those could perhaps just be copied directly into the by-date archive listing.

Also (once the basics get put in place), there are a handful of other places where I've noticed important discussions pop up; those discussions could also get incorporated into this unified archive. For example, in Oblivion_Talk:Oblivion/Archive_1#Article_Titles some decisions were made that continue to be relevant. I'd suggest that discussion could be moved to its own page within the archive (probably with a note about the original source of the discussion), then transcluded back into Oblivion_Talk:Oblivion/Archive_1 (so those archives continue to be a complete record of that page's discussions), and also be transcluded into any relevant topics.

I also think the Discipline Archive could be useful. I think any user who is actively blocked needs to continue to have the blocked notice (and probably any warnings that led to the block) still on their page: they are not members of the community and it needs to be clear why not. But users who have moved past a warning/temporary block and have since been contributing productively to the wiki shouldn't need to have out-of-date warnings prominently advertised on their user pages. One month sounds like a reasonable time frame. I doubt/hope there will never be a large number of users in that category, but just the principle of letting users know that they can (mostly) clear their names is important. Moving the notices to an archive (instead of just deleting) is necessary so that in the future admins can find the information when needed without too much effort. The archive page should perhaps have an explanation at the top that the warnings are not considered to be active any more, but are being kept just for record-keeping.

So, that's my feedback for now... long and verbose as always :) --Nephele^Talk 17:35, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

---

I think that maintentance cost would be too high. I think that everything is already pretty well handled by current system. Keep in mind that the active topic can be used more than we have been using it. E.g., my original itention was that the Copyright subtopic be kept under Major Discussions because it perenially arises -- and later questions often tie back to earlier issues. Server issues might also be kept a single topic, but server issues are more usually new issues each time.

Another possibility is that at the top of any topic (current and/or archived) there could be links back to previously archived topics and/or related topics). Most topics won't require this, so such links can just be added on an as-needed basis.

Searching: A secondary consideration is searching -- how easy is it to find a past conversation that you knew you had? This really is a search functionality question. Current search seems to be pretty good -- so long as use appropriate checkboxes at bottom of dialog. But perhaps some technical things could be done to make it a little more accurate or easier to configure. (Just an "uncheck all" or "check all talk pages" might help.)

Another possibility is adding topic collation pages as necessary (as I did for Dispute and Wikiscrolls).

In general, UI and development wise, you have a low end with little organization -- but requires no maintenance. And then a high end -- much more organized, but less flexible and requires more maintenance. Better is in-between -- and adaptive system where you can add more order as needed, but leave most stuff less ordered. I think our current system does that pretty well. I think that what you're suggesting it too much on the high order/high maintenance cost side.

That's my two bits... --Wrye 19:57, 20 April 2007 (EDT)

You bring up some good points Wrye. I have definitely wondered if such a system is worth the amount of time spent doing it, but my conclusion is still different than yours. The main reason I'm making the proposal is that while I like adding topic collation pages, I hate adding them to the top of the page. It makes the space seem cluttered, as do the ever increasing number of archives. I want to eliminate this clutter. My other complaint is that the current system is in large part useless. We have an archive system for record keeping purposes. I think it makes sense to have a filing system for the records.

In any case, do you mind me updating some of the archives, even if you feel it would take too much maintenance? If the system proves too unwieldy, future archive will simply not be converted to the new system. --Ratwar 13:32, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

Go ahead. I've made my points, but I could be wrong. Trial is the best test. --Wrye 20:16, 23 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Buggy Bug

Yeah, an anon user encountered a bug when using the {{notice|}} feature. Whenever an '=' is in the notice, the message goes crazy. As in:

If you're seeing this message, insert "message=" at the start of your message to fix the problem.

instead of (using nowiki tags):

Ratwar = cool

Is there anything we can do to fix it? --Ratwar 22:30, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this is impossible in wiki mark-up. The = sign inside any template is reserved for variable declarations. Putting it inside nowiki tags seems to work, as you've discovered. The only thing I could think of that would make them any easier would be to make special template just for = signs, like we did for the | sign by using {{!}}. Only thing is what would you call it? {{-}} maybe? Or {{~}} or {{#}}? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:35, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

I introduced a way to fix the problem. You can now use "message=" to make it clear that the text you're providing is a message, and then the message can contain equal signs:

Ratwar = cool

Before it was interpreting the message to mean that the parameter "Ratwar" was being assigned the value "cool", but then didn't know what to do with the parameter "Ratwar" and couldn't find anything to fill the message with, so it was reverting to the default message (which should perhaps be changed to something less confusing, but it's too late at night for me to want to mess with that right now). --Nephele^Talk 03:07, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm the anon user in question, and I was trying to do something along the lines of

With this fix, this external link with an equals sign in its url won't make the notice box barf up lorem ipsum.

With the new "message=" syntax, it works just fine. 65.14.2.104 11:32, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

Anyone mind telling me where it pulled the Lorem Ipsum from? I kinda like the way it sounds...Somercy 12:01, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Nevermind, I googled Lorem Ipsum for myself...Somercy 12:04, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] 68.151.0.186

- - Another sex-obsessed vandal on the loose. Joy. --Deathbane27 22:38, 25 April 2007 (EDT) - :Blocked --Wrye 23:01, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Oblivion Places Redesign Project

I've initiated a new massive undertaking, namely to revamp all of the Oblivion place pages, as described at UESPWiki:Oblivion Places Redesign Project. The plan is to expand and improve the pages describing the various ruins and caves. For those familiar with the recent revamp of the Oblivion NPC pages, this project will be somewhat similar in that I'll be generating a large part of each page's contents automatically from construction set data. Editors will then need to integrate the computer-generated content into the existing pages and improve it. However, this is a much more complex undertaking than the Oblivion NPC pages, which is why I've opted to create a formal redesign project.

I'm announcing it primarily to solicit some feedback from the community on the layout and contents of the new pages. I've put together some examples: a new page layout, the automatically-generated data, and the automatically-generated map overlay. There are still a few more tweaks that I'll probably be doing, but I think these examples are close enough to the final version that it would help me a lot to hear from people. Does the new page layout have all the information you think you'd need when exploring a dungeon? If you might be interested in getting involved with the project, do you think you could make use of the automatically-generated info?

Also, if there are any editors who are looking for something to work on, feel free to sign up for the project and get involved. I'd like to try to get this past the planning stages and make it possible for people to start working on pages within the next week or so. Or if you're really eager, you could start right now with working on some of the places that are already provided at Data or Map Overlay ;) --Nephele^Talk 02:55, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] NepheleBot

Because organizing one insanely large project (i.e., #Oblivion Places Redesign Project) isn't enough to distract me from doing any real editing around here, I've decided to start another: NepheleBot. Basically I'm proposing to create a bot account that will be used to do automated maintenance-type editing of UESPWiki pages. The details are provided on the user page, and I'd welcome any feedback on the idea at User Talk:NepheleBot. Since this is the first bot to be used at UESP I wanted to make sure that the community is aware of it and make sure that there aren't any objections. --Nephele^Talk 21:36, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

I made some tests last night using NepheleBot, in particular to make sure that the bot scripting is properly responding to the various controls and limits that I've put in place. All the tests were successful, so I feel like I'm ready to move ahead and start making full use of the bot. And based on responses it seems like nobody would object to giving this idea a try. So I'm proceeding with asking Daveh to give the NepheleBot account official "bot" status. --Nephele^Talk 17:01, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

NepheleBot is now fully operational, and I've kept the bot busy the last few nights getting some tasks completed (and after three days the bot is already #9 on the active users list... although the bot probably shouldn't even be shown on that list). As far as I can tell, everything has been going really well (and many of the fixes I've had to make were from me trying to manually add links to the bot's automatic list). If anyone else has noticed any problems, or has any suggestions for things that need to be changed, let me know! --Nephele^Talk 11:56, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Policy Question: Proofreading Talk pages?

The user Robert Smith is proofreading and editing the talk page for 100% completion. I mean, he's bringing it up to standards, but it sorta strikes me as...wrong...to edit the comments and questions a fellow editor posts. I'm curious as to what the official policy is on that. Somercy 10:05, 19 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes, modifying what other editors have posted on talk pages is not generally appropriate. See UESPWiki:Namespaces#Talk Namespaces. But as far as I can tell, Robert Smith has only been revising posts that he originally made on Oblivion Talk:100% Completion, so there doesn't appear to be any problem. --Nephele^Talk 11:52, 19 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Redirect Madness

Over the last week there have been a few changes to the wiki software. Among other things, the changes mean that redirects are now a much more useful tool, in particular shortcut-type redirects. To take full advantage of this new capability, I'd like to start creating literally thousands of redirects. This will make it easier for editors to create links and it will make it easier for readers to find the article that they're looking for.

Up until now, to create a Spider Daedra link, for example, an editor would have had to type [[Oblivion:Spider Daedra|Spider Daedra]]. That was the only way to create a link that would take a reader to the correct section of the Daedra page. The upgrade to wiki version 1.10 earlier this week simplified things substantially: now the Spider Daedra redirect page can be used in a link and will take readers to the correct place. In other words, editors can simply type [[Oblivion:Spider Daedra|]] and it works exactly the same as the much more complicated orginal link. Some additional changes were implemented earlier today that make things even simpler: now an editor can just type [[Spider Daedra]]. In other words, by adding just 4 characters to the existing text a word can be turned into a link, instead of the 35 extra characters required by the original link. It's not just easier to type, it's also much less error-prone.

Also, I'm hoping that readers will start to use the "go" feature in the search bar a lot more often because basically it now works, whereas it used to never work unless you understood UESP's namespaces. So any reader who types "Spider Daedra" into the search box while reading an Oblivion page (not while reading a UESPWiki page like the community portal) will end up being directed straight to the article they're looking for.

Both of these features only work, however, if pages with those names exist... and that means there need to be a lot of redirect pages. Try doing the same thing with "Dread Zombie", for example, and it fails because there's no redirect page for Dread Zombies. So what I'd like to do is use NepheleBot to start going through and creating redirects, basically for nearly any topic that is likely to be linked to or searched for. I'll start with creatures and items in each of the namespaces, and then add other categories as necessary.

• These will be redirects within a given namespace (from one Oblivion article to another, for example), not redirects from the main namespace. In other words, they will work within the existing organizational system of the namespaces instead of trying to bypass the system. The transparent namespaces should hopefully have eliminated the need to create redirects in the main namespace.
• The redirects will be always be singular rather than plural. I know right now our articles aren't too consistent on singular/plural. However, consistency will be important if editors are going to be able to easily create links, especially with so many new possible links. And overall, singular redirects seem easier to use than plural ones: it's easier to change a singular into a plural (e.g., [[animal]]s) than the reverse ([[animals|animal]]).
• I'll add categories to the redirects such as [[Category:Oblivion-Creatures-Daedra|{{PAGENAME}}]] or [[Category:Oblivion-Items-Swords|{{PAGENAME}}]]. This will provide another way for readers to find an item that they're looking for (especially with items such as swords, where it's never clear whether to check Oblivion:Unique Items, Oblivion:Leveled Items, Oblivion:Generic Magic Weapons, etc.). Also it will allow search engines such as google to index the redirect pages, basically making it easier for readers to get directed to the best page right away.

Finally, I think overall we should start actively using redirects when creating links instead of avoiding them. Not only are the redirects easier to use, they're also better for long-term organization of the site. If at some later time there's a decision to break up a page, then the redirect pages just need to be turned into articles; there's no need to search out all the links to the original article and update them (like I'm facing doing right now for Oblivion:Ingredients and the new ingredient pages).

So any objections or recommendations? BTW, I think this will be my last crazy, over-ambitious proposal for now... getting all of these ideas implemented should keep me busy for a while :) --Nephele^Talk 02:03, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

No objections to you doing a heck of a lot of work. Cheers... --Wrye 15:33, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

This sounds great! It will make our lives (and edits) much easier. --DrPhoton 03:08, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

Well, if everyone is in favor of it, I guess go ahead with it. My only really worry is about the massive number of new pages that this system will create.--Ratwar 17:13, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

I've gone ahead and added a pretty complete list of redirects to the Oblivion namespace, including a whole bunch of new categories to list all these pages. Other than a few more links to advertise the categories, I think Oblivion's redirects are mostly done.

Before expanding to another namespaces, I was thinking of waiting a couple weeks to see if Daveh notices any impact on the server from this round of new pages. It's hard for me to guess how the redirects should affect server performance. It's a large increase in page count (at least the total count on UESPWiki:Statistics, not the "legitimate" page count), but not really a significant change in the database size since they're all small pages. And if the redirects really help readers to find pages more easily, it could decrease the server's workload (fewer time-consuming searches through the whole database, fewer extra page views from readers pulling up a bunch of incorrect pages). But the server is currently near its capacity, so I don't want to be doing anything that worsens performance. If after a couple weeks Daveh doesn't see any signs of trouble, I'll start moving ahead with other namespaces. If on the other hand the redirects do seem to be problematic for the server, I'll hold off until Daveh makes a decision about possibly upgrading the server. --Nephele^Talk 12:21, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Page Missing

It was mentioned on the forums the other day that the Oblivion: General Magic Apparrel page is completely blank. Just thought I would let you know. Bear 24.220.136.136 16:42, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

The most similarly named page that we have is Oblivion:Generic Magic Apparel, which at 82 kB in size definitely can't be described as blank. And it hasn't been modified in more than a month so there's no chance it was blank, even briefly, recently. So I'm not too sure what exactly would have led to this rumour. If someone tried to access a non-existent or misspelled page, such as "Oblivion:General Magic Apparrel" then they wouldn't exactly get a page containing information. Or occasionally a page gets vandalized and parts of it get deleted, so if someone happened to pull up the page in the 15 minutes it took an editor to notice the vandalism and fix it, then perhaps the page would be blank. But all such problems get reverted pretty quickly, so probably by the time someone had posted on the forums the problem would already be fixed.

If you could provide more specific information on what the problem was I'll definitely look into it, but at the moment I can't see anything that appears to need fixing. --Nephele^Talk 17:07, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

You are right it is called generic magic apparrel and if you click on your on link here you'll find nothing but a blank page. Was noticed sometime last week I think. I just had never used the wiki like this before and new that you guys patrol this a lot and thought you would have fixed it by now. Bear24.220.136.136 17:53, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

OK, on further investigation there seems to be a problem with that page in IE. Firefox and Mozilla are still displaying it without problems, but when I tested it in IE I got a blank page. It is probably a configuration problem introduced by the site's wiki upgrade last week; I'll look into some more and see if I can figure out what's causing it and get it fixed. Thanks for pointing it out (and your persistence in insisting there was a problem even when I couldn't see it at first ;). --Nephele^Talk 20:40, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

The page is now visible in IE (at least for me... let me know if you're still having problems), but to some extent with a temporary fix. Or at least one that doesn't help us to figure out if there are pages suffering the same problem. For anyone else interested in sleuthing here, the problem is definitely with the table of contents. Disabling the TOC completely (__NOTOC__) worked to fix it, as did changing the TOC to a right-aligned floating table (the current status of the page). My guess is that it's being triggered by the fact that this page's TOC is more than a page long, causing it by default to push all the page's contents too far down the page for IE. But I'll spend some more time in the sandbox confirming (instead of continuing to experiment using one of the largest and most bandwidth-demanding pages on the site). --Nephele^Talk 20:56, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm giving up ;) I can't get the bug to reappear anywhere anyhow (pulling up old version of GMA page, reverting GMA page to old version, copying GMA contents to sandbox, clearing cache multiple times, etc). Without anything to experiment upon, I have no way of even starting to look into what happened. If anyone else comes across any blank pages, please post some info and I'll look into it. But at the moment I'm putting it down to a freak occurrence that perhaps would have been fixed by just purging the page to update it at the server end. Just to be sure, I went through the 20 largest pages on the site and checked them all in IE (IE6, BTW), and didn't hit any problems there. --Nephele^Talk 21:42, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Seems to be working fine now! When the report first came to the forums I checked the page but dismissed it. I figured it was either being updated or needed to be replaced after some vandalism. Came back to it today(still missing) and figure I would learn how to at least report it to you. Like I said the link is working fine now. Thanks for checking into it, you all do a wonderful job here. I have been reading hints on the wiki for a few years now and am grateful for the info I've found here. Bear24.230.188.173 22:32, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

There is a cave between Redwater Slough and Leafrot Cave called Blood Clot Cave. I cannot find mention of it anywhere on this site, so I thought I'd bring it to your attention. There are Argonian Smugglers in it. I hope you make a page for it - just in case anyone cares. -ruthless813

There is no such location in the vanilla version of the game, which means it is probably a location that was added by a third party mod. This site does not make any attempt to document the infinite number of locations that have been or could be added by third party mods. --Nephele^Talk 01:16, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Tamriel Flora

I have begun work editing the unfinished tamriel flora section. in tamriel flora A, B and C I have used my template but after coming across page D I noticed a different template was used. I'm asking if I can carry on using my template throughout the tamriel flora section over the ones being used at the moment. --ChadFromCky 12:34, 25 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes, the Template:Flora Title and Template:Flora Entry templates were written to be used on all the Flora pages, but since the Flora pages are all very new the templates haven't been incorporated yet. I'd say just make sure to incorporate the information that's already been added to the page when you change over to the templates.

And for future reference, you don't need to ask before making straightforward edits like this to a page. You can read UESPWiki:Consensus for more information. If in doubt, the article's talk page (e.g., [[Tamriel Talk:Flora D]]) is probably a better place for questions that only affect one article. --Nephele^Talk 13:00, 25 May 2007 (EDT)

Ok thanks, I probably worded the question wrong but I got the answer I needed.

[edit] Criteria for Patrolled Edits

I recently updated the criteria for patrolled edits. Any feedback can be left either on the patroller talk page or here. --Ratwar 16:12, 29 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for doing this. I think the criteria are now a bit more clear to everyone. Maybe we should also make more clear the minimum standards a patroller candidate should meet. --DrPhoton 03:00, 30 May 2007 (EDT)

That's the next thing on my to do list. --Ratwar 12:16, 30 May 2007 (EDT)

Just keep in mind that it's a lot easier to add someone than it is to remove them if they become a problem. (As we all know too well.) It's probably best to be conservative in adding people and keep an eye out for dictatorial tendencies. It might be desirable to emphasize that patrollers should be content creators first, and (minor) admins second. (BTW, I'm much enjoying being back to "semi" active status now that things have quieted down. Nice to see things going so well.) --Wrye 02:53, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

Yes, adding people is much easier than removing them, but I don't feel that being a patroller gives them any more of an ability to hurt the site than being a regular editor. Personally, I think all the admins and patrollers should consider themselves editors first. Of course, I could do a rewrite (or add a section about the duties of a patroller perhaps) to include such a clause, if you'd like me too. --Ratwar 12:19, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

That's a general policy question, so I'd like to see other admins chime in. There are some con arguments as well as pro. But I don't want to break my "semi" active status by spending too much time thinking/arguing about it. :lol: --Wrye

One thing to keep in mind - as of the last upgrade, the system does keep track of who patrols which edits. It can be found in the logs for the page. The only problem with it is that I'm not sure there's a way to list all patrols by a given patroller. (Which would be handy if you noticed that a patroller was behaving in a questionable manner.) Anyhow, might want to change the text to reflect that. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:47, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

Actually, I just realized it is: Example. So that should make it easy enough to track down misbehaving patrollers should it be necessary. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:54, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

I updated the page to reflect it. --Ratwar 01:05, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Patroller Nomination Guidelines

I just finished updating Nomination Guidelines on the patroller page. Once again, any feed back is welcome and can be placed either here or at the articles talk page. --Ratwar 12:42, 30 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks again for doing this. The guidelines look a bit loose to me, but I guess otherwise they wouldn't be guidelines... What I would do though, is to separate the style from spelling and grammar; they are two different things. --DrPhoton 03:21, 31 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for the feedback. I tightened the 100 edit guideline by adding Edits to your own User page, or User Talk page should not be counted as part of the 100. I also separated spelling/grammar from style because your totally right about them being totally different things. I did try to keep the guidelines rather loose, since I don't want to keep anyone from being a patroller that would help the site as one. --Ratwar 12:10, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] "Wisdom of the ages" bug?

Since this question was specific to the Wisdom of the Ages quest, I've moved it to Oblivion Talk:Wisdom of the Ages where it will be easier for others with the same question to find it. --Nephele^Talk 15:24, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Recent Changes

Not sure if im asking this in the right place, but I dont know where else to do so. On the recent changes page there are numbers after each page title. What are these? I hadnt seen them before the last upgrade. I know its not life or death thing, but I just wondered :) -Lordsword 8 11:13, 4 June 2007 (EDT)

The change in article size as a result of that edit, in bytes. Large negative values are also bold-faced to make them stand out more. If you look at an article's history, the number there is the total size of the article. --Nephele^Talk 11:22, 4 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] New Vandal

Granty has been repeatedly vandalizing several pages, and I'm upto mychin trying to fix all his edits. Can someone block him? He is obviously not adding anything helpful.

In other news, I learned how to revert edits... :o). Somercy 12:00, 5 June 2007 (EDT)

Never mind, Nephi just blocked him. Somercy 12:01, 5 June 2007 (EDT)

It crossed my mind right before leaving for work to do a Checkuser on this guy, but didn't have time right at that moment. Looks like delaying that check was a bad idea, because the check made it clear that he's a repeat vandal who's been using multiple IPs and accounts. So I've upgraded every account and IP used by him to a permanent block. --Nephele^Talk 12:32, 5 June 2007 (EDT)

Oi! I just knew he was something to distract me from my Physics classwork.Somercy 15:23, 5 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Help Tooltips

I couldn't find it anywhere but please excuse me if this idea has been introduced before.

Recently, I was flicking through a few pages and found references to renown, with no explanation of what it is. A quick search shows that one or two pages explain it but most don't. Now we could easily add the explanation in brackets but I've seen a neater (to my mind) solution on other sites and I thought I'd see what you all think. Please take a look here for an example.

I imagine there are other words that could use definitions but I have to confess that I haven't found any yet. I probably wouldn't be in favor (I'm learning about the spelling now!) of using this method if it was just on one term.

Rpeh 06:54, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

Tooltips are definitely an idea that could be used more widely. My one suggestion, though, would be to use the existing template Template:Hover, which is already used on several pages for this purpose, instead of introducing a new template that does the same thing. --Nephele^Talk 13:13, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

Hmm. I'd disagree with your second part. That template should be deleted and the standard Wikipedia/WikiMedia [1] one used instead. More people will be familiar with that one. Rpeh 13:29, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

In my opinion, the template name "H:title" really doesn't tell anyone what the template does. The "H:" naming system is part of an organizational system that may be used at Wikipedia, but I don't foresee ever being introduced here, so using a name based on that organization doesn't seem to be helpful. And the template at wikimedia is also called "Hover" [2], so it seems like by using Hover we're not introducing a completely new name for the template. --Nephele^Talk 13:44, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

Fair enough, although it does tell people what it does if they know HTML. Plus, your link is a redirect rather than main template. Actually, that's a good idea. I'll put a redirect on the title one and get to work doing the changes for renown once I've finished uploading my latest batch of images. Rpeh 13:53, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

[edit] References

I might be doing something wrong here, but I can't get <ref> lists working on here. I've just discovered what a fantastic resource the Tamriel namespace is and was flicking through when I came across Black Marsh with its reference list. I noticed that several of the footnotes weren't used and was going to clean up the page when I remembered how Wikipedia does it, with auto-generated lists. When I tried that, however, I just got the tags appearing on the page with no links. So two questions:

• Does UESP support these lists and just how stupid am I if it does and I'm doing it wrong (extra credit may be given for describing just how stupid I am anyway)
• Does the community think this is a route we want to take? I don't want to try to turn this into Wikipedia but given that the Tamriel namespace is such a detailed resource, some form of reference linking would seem to be a good idea.

Rpeh 05:51, 15 June 2007 (EDT)

It's not a bad idea, but you'll have to do it manually for now - Wikipedia-style auto-generated reference-lists do not work on this site as of this time. I think a plug-in would need to be installed in order to make that possible, and only Daveh can do that. There hasn't been much demand for it, so I don't know if it's likely to be implemented at this point - especially since it would require a good deal of page-reworking to incorporate that in in some cases. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 07:35, 15 June 2007 (EDT)

I'll have to add the Cite extension to get this to work, which is easily done if needed. I just don't want to add it unnecessarily. -- Daveh 10:41, 15 June 2007 (EDT)

Well, I have done a manual cite list for Tamriel:Sheogorath, so I wouldn't mind having one for future expansions of that section. I've also recently commented that the Oblivion:PS3 article may need some sources, since the information there has been subject to some debate. --Ratwar 13:15, 15 June 2007 (EDT)

The other thing to keep in mind is that Wikipedia is a huge site, covering every topic you can think of, and drawing from millions of diverse sources for its information. UESP deals with a narrow range of topics, and our source for information is almost always the games themselves (or their Construction Sets), so references aren't really that big a deal, since it's usually pretty obvious where the info comes from. Some Tamriel articles might have more diverse sources, but usually the info comes from in-game books. If we could have in-site references, pointing to the books where the info originated, that'd make sense. There's only a few places where off-site references would be needed, and most of those are already done manually. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 08:42, 16 June 2007 (EDT)

I agree that lists can be done manually, but they also need maintaining manually and that hadn't happened on the first one I found. I don't want to create unnecessary work for Daveh but if it's not too mu