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Related Quests and Radiant Options

Basically, I'm wondering whether we're considering quests which include a large amount of possible, radiant locations to be "related" to all those locations. I just want to make sure edits like this one are appropriate. I looked at the location list of radiant options on Skyrim:Arniel's Endeavor and noticed that some of those pages consider Arniel's Endeavor to be a related quest, while others do not. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 22:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I think random locations should no be listed. At least if the list goes past five locations. Really minor quest would have longer pages than a good-sized quest.--Br3admax 22:18, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow. This isn't regarding whether the radiant locations involved in a quest should appear on the quest page, but whether a link to that quest should appear on those place pages. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 22:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
seems like the same problem to me, a list that may go into the fifties, for a simple one cell retrival. What I mean is, cogs are everywhere, in dwemer ruins. Every page about dwarves shouldn't link to the above link. The article should tell about the likely type of location instead of by name.--Br3admax 22:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that we don't want radiant locations listed. More specifically, I think that having the quest listed with some kind of notation that it is radiant is the way to go. Not listing these locations would be a mistake as a large number of quests would not have any location listed at all. I can't see this option as a good thing. With that said, I feel we need to decide on either a template or a consistent way to indicated radiant quest locations. Thuraya Salaris 22:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
We should still list it, we should just figure out the limit, once it reaches a point of, maybe 10 quest, we should stop listing a say their may be more. Ofcourse, I only care about conserving space, so if theirs a way to do that, do it.--Br3admax 22:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Br3admax, I still think we might be misunderstanding each other because of your cog comment. I was referring to the list of radiant locations in Part 2 of the Detailed Walkthrough on the Arniel's Endeavor page and the pages for the places the player may be sent to collect the Staff of Tandil; it's not related to any cog-collecting portion of the quest. This isn't about whether every places with cogs should list Arniel's Endeavor as a related quest, but whether the radiant locations where one may collect the Staff of Tandil should mention Arniel's Endeavor as a related quest. Are we on the same page, no pun intended? Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 22:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I get it, it's just also part of the same quest. You are talking about random locations, I'm talking about possible. I just think they can all be related, without being mentioned every time. I guess I got kind of confussing when I brought in possible. I really trying to say, all random locations shouldn't have their pages changed. The possible part was a hypothetical--Br3admax 22:46, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

() Okay, let me clarify this into a simple yes or no question: Is the fact that a quest marker may direct a player to a certain location so the associated objective may be completed sufficient to warrant including that quest as a "Related Quest" on that location page? Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 22:54, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

() My simple response is ,no. I can't say for others.--Br3admax 22:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

May I present my solution? I believe we should only include a Radiant quest on the Quest giver's NPC page, and the location he is at. Ex. If the guy running "Shop A" gives out a Radiant quest, then we only include the Related Quest link on the NPC's page and the page for "Shop A", but we don't do it on "Shop B" or "Dungeon A, B, C, or D" which are all possible locations that this radiant quest can send you to. SnowmaneTEC 23:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
We could always have a page of radiant quests and make a "quest link" to the radiant page saying they/it are/is involved in a radiant quest. Clears up the multiplicity of links that may or may not be relevant. In terms of what belongs, we can do GTD (giver, target item, destination) with multiple options of course. elliot (talk) 23:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
To clarify, you're saying we should revamp Skyrim:Radiant by including a comprehensive table of radiant quest options, make some template/standard notice that a target is a radiant option, and include it under Related Quests on applicable pages? Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 02:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what I think is best, but Elliot's idea is sound. You could have two separate tables, one listing quest and what places are possible and one listing places and what quests are associated with them. I suggest two tables because having them in a single sortable table would be very difficult if not impossible. However, we may discover that there are just a dozen different lists of possible places and radiant quests use those lists; I don't know because I don't have the CK. In that case, we could just have one table with "List ID", "Quests", and "Places". On the other hand, what places have more than half a dozen Radiant quests associated with them? If there are few or none, then having something like this could work:


Radiant Quests

It's just an idea. ?• JATalk 02:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

() There was a discussion here about adapting the templates to read the information from one another and inform the user. We could also set up a radiant option with it as well, which would achieve our goal, I believe. elliot (talk) 02:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I have an example set up in my sandbox. elliot (talk) 02:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I think we probably should include the Radiant quests on place pages. Whether we use Jak's style or Elliot's doesn't make a big difference to me, just as long as it's obvious which quests are Radiant and which aren't. The one advantage to Jak's method that I can see is that if the list becomes cumbersome, we can always use {{Showhide}}. Robin Hoodtalk 04:19, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I think both JakAtackka and Elliot's ideas would work well, but Jak's idea might be more user-friendly for more inexperienced editors. Of course, if Elliot's idea could be implemented quickly by one or a few editors, it might be simpler/faster to do it that way. On a side-note, I'm curious as to why some of the descriptions in the quest links say 'radiant quest' at the end, and others don't (even when they are)... anyone know? In Jak's example, two out of three of the radiant quests say so in the description, but the first one doesn't... I've noticed this on other pages as well. Elliot, would this template fix of yours address that? Alphabetface 04:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I could easily implement mine. First, I would add the radiant option for {{Quest Header}} on all the radiant quest pages. Then I would edit {{Quest Link}} to instantly update all the quest links. This is probably easier than adjusting all the formatting on the NPC pages. elliot (talk) 04:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Then my vote is for your method, since it sounds like it would be faster. I thought this was about location pages rather than NPC pages though? Alphabetface 04:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) In my particular example, Arniel's Endeavor isn't actually a radiant quest. It has a radiant part to it (Part 2), but the rest of the quest is not radiant. This, however, is a rare occurrence. Also, Rescue Mission should be under Radiant Quests. You're right, though, the labeling of Radiant quests is inconsistent. This needs to be fixed, regardless of which method we use.
As for which method to use, implementation would be equally simple/difficult with either method. My method doesn't involve changing the Quest template, but changing it isn't a big deal either way. Here are examples of the two different methods in action: mine and Elliot's. I added a few extra Radiant quests to demonstrate how numerous Radiant quests would look. ?• JATalk 05:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I like the Jak's method better in terms of appearance, but it seems like it would take longer. That could simply be my inexperience as an editor though. I know that many quests have particular radiant components to them rather than being completely radiant quests, but the lack of consistency or specification about this in the quest link description is what bothers me. I honestly think either method would work, so I guess it's just a matter of reaching a consensus so we can start fixing the issue. Alphabetface 05:34, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
The problem with just changing the templates is that you'll end up with the quests out of order, e.g. you'll have a Radiant quest, then a regular quest, then two Radiant quests, etc. Also, we will have to go through each and every Place page to add the Radiant quests to them. If we're going to do all that anyways, we might as well do mine, since it flows better and is easier to read. Also, since the consensus seems to be that we do want to list the Radiant quests on the place pages, I'm going to start compiling a list of what places have what Radiant quests (so that way I can do each place in a single edit) ?• JATalk 05:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

() Yeah, having seen them side-by-side (or tab-by-tab, anyway), I have to agree that I like the appearance of Jak's much better, and as he points out, it wouldn't be a significant difference in workload either way. Robin Hoodtalk 05:54, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

You wouldn't have to go through each and every place with quest to change mine. I would just have to change the template and it would automatically be updated. I, frankly, don't see a problem with having (radiant) after each quest. Plus, such information would be controlled on the actual quest page, instead of each and every individual place and NPC page. For pages such as Skyrim:Miscellaneous Quests/Solitude, there is no way to really group them all together without over complicating the structure. Perhaps there can be a mix of the two style. elliot (talk) 06:37, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the cities should be handled differently. The issue is that right now, the place pages don't have the Radiant quests even listed on them, and if we're going to go through and add those, then implementing my design would be simple. I do like the idea of having (Radiant) at the end of each Radiant quest link, so we'd effectively be using both styles. ?• JATalk 07:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Both styles wouldn't be a bad thing. Redundant, but it would be useful to spot errors between the quest and place pages. As already mentioned in IRC, the Miscellaneous Quests table could just be ordered in two sections, with a second header midway through the table for Radiant Quests (which actually would then more closely resemble the proposed place formatting). Robin Hoodtalk 07:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

() Sorry to take so long to chime in here, but I'd been taking a break from Skyrim quests and all of their associated chaos. Now that I am thinking about quests again, I've read through the discussion more closely and realized that I think the discussion has missed some major issues.

The single biggest issue is that the above discussion only looks at "simple" radiant quests. Take Arniel's Endeavor, for example. Its quest target is defined to be any Warlock Lair -- in other words, only 20 possible locations, which is a "manageable" number. The real problem cases, in my mind, are the quests that can happen in any dungeon. Fetch me that Book! defines its quest target as "any dungeon that contains a boss chest", coming out to more than 200 possible locations. I don't think it's practical to add that quest to 200 separate pages, nor do I think it helps readers to see it listed on every single dungeon page. In addition to various "any dungeon" quests, there are also Thieves Guild quests that essentially have "any store" or "any house" as the target.

I think the only way to handle "can happen anywhere" quests is to have a single page that lists those quests. If we really need to also state the information on every single place page in the game, it would be better to have a standardized note that is written once and transcluded on all the pages (something to the effect of "See page X for information on quests that can happen anywhere in the game"). A "can happen anywhere" type of page might also be a good place to list various events that people keep trying to document on every single NPC page -- Hired Thugs, inheritance letters, etc.

I don't know where exactly to draw the line between a quest that "happens anywhere" and a more typical radiant quest. Once you starting looking through all the different quest target definitions, you realize that there is an entire spectrum of possibilities.

For example, Trouble in Skyrim (for which the current radiant info is horribly incomplete -- I thought CompanionsAllowedRadiantHolds meant only in Whiterun, but I think it's a dynamic variable that can potentially include any hold, depending upon other game factors). It can take place in any Bandit Camp, Draugr Crypt, Falmer Hive, Forsworn Camp, Hagraven Nest, Spriggan Grove, Vampire Lair, or Warlock Lair. That isn't quite the same as any dungeon, but it's pretty close to "can happen anywhere".

Then what about a quest that lists 6 possible occupant types instead of 8? Or just 4 occupant types? Or The Forgemaster's Fingers that is 6 occupant types, but only in 3 possible holds? The upshot is that it might be best to use the number of possible quest targets to decide whether a quest belongs on the "happens anywhere" page. --NepheleTalk 20:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Those are some good points. I've been compiling a list of all radiant quests and their locations, in an attempt to determine exactly that. I've been only covering general locations (such as Redoran's Retreat), not houses, so the list isn't very long. I'll let you guys be the judge of whether or not to include the quests on their page. ?• JATalk 03:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"Cut-off" Number?

Okay, this topic has been discussed in detail already, and I know different editors have been making changes to the way radiant quests are listed in the 'Related Quests' sections of pages (I've seen both Jak's & Elliot's ideas in use). But I don't believe any consensus has been reached as to where to draw the line when listing these on location or NPC pages. Since some radiant quests have as little as five radiant options for individual components, while others have 200 options, we are dealing with some pretty extreme differences in number from one radiant quest to another. Can we come up with a cut-off number for some consistency? I'll throw some numbers out there just to start: 20 for radiant options on the location component, 10 for radiant options on the NPC component. I'm not set on these numbers, but just trying to kick off this detail of the discussion a bit. Thoughts? Alphabetface 04:03, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I was surprised by how quickly this discussion died. I think those numbers are pretty good. ?• JATalk 04:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
The fewer the better. In fact, I'd be fine with keeping them off the pages unless they have specific targets. Instead of putting radiant AI quests on the pages, put the variable for Radiant Quests on the page, and then have that link to a page with all the Radiant Quests that can only happen for that variable. For example, a location that is counted as a Warlock's Lair would link to a page containing all the Radiant Quest that target a Warlock location. That page could be further divided into other variables such as hold, etc.
My main reason for this is simplicity. I want an easy to follow format that means that an editor without any knowledge of our policy on Radiant Quests can look at a location page and think, "Oh, the Radiant Quests are over here" rather than "Oh, they listed some Radiant Quests but not others, I need to add them!" Then a patroller has to check and make sure they actually shouldn't have been listed, and thus we waist basically everyone's time.
That's just my thoughts though. To be honest, if we're going to decide on a number greater than zero, we really need to know how dense radiant quests are. For me, the most important thing is to keep the location pages from becoming simple lists of Radiant Quests. To really do a through job we'd have to decide how many Radiant Quests links make a page too cluttered, and then base our cut offs on things to keep that from happening.--Ratwar 04:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Ratwar: I understand the desire for simplicity, and you make a good point about editors unaware of the policy feeling the need to add quests simply because they're not mentioned. However, I don't think going to the extreme of "keeping them off the pages unless they have specific targets" is the answer since some quests have a much lower number of possible targets, like five. I really believe something with a 1-in-5 chance is worthy of mention (with Jak or Elliot's method of noting it's a radiant quest, of course). That's why I believe the cut-off number is important. I just threw out some numbers in my post above to jumpstart the discussion, but I'm not completely opposed to them being smaller if others think that would be better. Alphabetface 18:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
To be honest, I'd prefer Ratwar's idea, but I'm not really sure how much the Radiant quests share lists. If it's significant, then by all means yes, but so far it doesn't seem to be a great enough pattern to link to a single page. You can look at the list that I've been compiling. Other than Bounty: Dragon and Dragon Seekers, there isn't much of a pattern. As you can see by my list (which covers maybe 70% of the Radiant quests which use actual dungeons), most quests use around 15 different locations. ?• JATalk 19:14, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

() I want to restart this discussion because there are too many variations on the different pages. Basically I would say it doesn't belong on a page if there is more than 1 radiant location, and all guaranteed places/NPCs should have it. Example: the Thieves Guild The Heist Job has 29 known locations and Merida's Beacon has 153 locations and both are radiantly assigned, alternatively The Bonds of Matrimony is set. The Forgemasters Fingers is a good example, the six settlements and the givers should have it because you will get it the first time you go to it, but the location recieved should not because it is random.

Also Quest ordering mostly seems random to me, as in a new one is just added to the bottom of the list, there should be an order to them, I'm in favour of the same order as the Quests page, ie Main Quest, Factions, Other, although alphabetically has been mentioned, which I wouldn't mind as long as there is consensus. The Silencer has spoken 15:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

When it comes to Radiant quests I'm inclined to just stick with sorting them alphabetically, due to their low significance (n general) and the fact that ordering them the same way as we order quests would be a whole lot of work with very little benefit. Due to the complete lack of discussion, I think we've implicitly agreed that the Radiant quest cut-off number is 15, so if the quest has a possible 15 locations then you'd add the quest to that location's page but if it had 126 locations then you wouldn't add it to the location's page. Going by my partially complete list (found here) you can see that few quests would meet this criteria, so we won't end up with place pages with a bloated "Radiant" section. • JATalk 19:08, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Radiant Templates

So, I have the template up and running in order to distinguish the different radiant quests. Right now, myself and Jak are going through the hundreds of pages that have them and organizing them based on the following criteria:

  1. Make sure all quests are alphabetized.
  2. If there are three or more radiant quests listed, make a note and place {{#define:radiantlinks|false}} by the quest links. This removes the radiant links from the quest link.
  3. Separate the radiant quests and non-radiant quests if and only if there are three or more radiant quests listed.

This is a merger of both my and Jak's ideas on how to take care of the problem. If people wish to join, or if they see an issue that is to be corrected, please follow the above criteria. Examples can be found at Bilegulch Mine, Stony Creek Cave, Cracked Tusk Keep, Lod's House. I just want to get everyone on the same page before these are changed. Thanks! elliot (talk) 07:32, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, and way to go on tackling this issue with such organization. I look forward to seeing some consistency across the various pages in the future! ABCface 17:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
No problem. Although, I should mention that Skyrim:Legate Rikke is on example of the exception to this rule. Since she is part of a major storyline, it's best to leave it how it is (similar to Skyrim:Imperial Legion). Obviously, you can just decide for yourself if this organization is necessary, but feel free to comment here if you are unsure. elliot (talk) 17:40, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Would 'The Bonds of Matrimony' be considered a radiant quest for this method of organization? I've seen a lot of NPC pages which have a label of 'Other Quests' above that one. ABCface 17:50, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I probably wouldn't consider it to be radiant. elliot (talk) 18:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured I'd just leave that one the way it was on the Farkas page I just edited. I'll keep making these changes on any pages I see which need it. Thanks for the info. ABCface 18:05, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Blades Pictures

The site has virtually no real Blades pictures. At this point anything is good. Ofcourse, if someone has already found some, please put them in the article and related quests--Br3admax 22:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization question: "Hold" or "hold"?

Editors seem to differ on whether each instance of the word "hold" in regards to the holds of Skyrim should be capitalized. Based on my usage there and the link, I obviously believe that it's most appropriate not to capitalize unless it's part of a proper name, starting a sentence, or quoting text inconsistent with this standard. While I recognize that the internal consistency of articles is all that really matters, I would prefer a site-wide agenda as it's more professional.

Sorry to nit-pick about so much trivial crap recently, but, well, the name says it all; it's what I do. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 02:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

It should definitely be lower case. It's like province, state, country, and city. elliot (talk) 02:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
And like the above, it should be capitalized when it's an entity. "The State of Maine's debt", for example, but "Maine is a state with debt". (PS, I have no idea if Maine has a debt.) At least that's what my sources say, but they're Canadian. American English may differ, and that's what we use here. Robin Hoodtalk 04:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
No, it doesn't differ, and every state has debt. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 05:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I've begun to clean up the typos for Hold, but I found Jarl is under a similar situation, so look for titles as well please. Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 04:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that. In regards to "Jarl", it's a really close call, but I think the opposite should be true, and every instance should be capitalized. Referring to real-world sources, we wouldn't capitalize emperor or king when referring to the role itself, so that would dictate not capitalizing "Jarl" in every instance. However, how the TES game(s) treat a word should be our polestar. To determine that, we need an in-game source that's unambiguously referring to the office of Jarl, not any specific Jarl(s) (as that would independently justify capitalization) or a specific Jarl seat (e.g., Jarl of Whiterun, Jarl of Winterhold, etc.). However, very few in-game sources use to the term to unambiguously refer to the office and not a specific person or seat. In fact, I can only find one that is most definitely referring to the office of Jarl: Skyrim's Rule. Jarl is not capitalized in Annals of the Dragonguard and Lost Legends, but both seem to be departures from the norm, and I would consider Skyrim's Rule to be more authoritative, as it's more directly focused on the relevant subject matter. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 07:06, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Then again, Skyrim's Rule is written by a Redguard foreigner to Skyrim, and what the hell does he know about spelling. I don't know; like I said, it's a really close call. I flip-flopped twice just while writing the above. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 07:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah, good points, I was only basing the usage of the word from similar words like king and queen. Skyrim's Rule only capitalizes the word, but it looks pretty weird if you ask me. Most dialogue and in-game texts will have grammatical errors which are conversationally fine, but I'm not sure we should be using those awkward texts as examples for our own "encyclopedic" style articles. I'm still adamently against "all the Jarls in Skyrim", but of course will capitalize "and all the Jarl's penguins oil the Jarl of Penguin". Lukish_ Tlk Cnt 09:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
(For grammar wonks only): Haha. I love Minor Edits's questioning the authority of the Skyrim's Rule author, not just because it's funny, but because it's an excellent point. The various perspectives and Minor Edits's feeling that it's a close call are understandable, I think, because the issue gets complicated pretty quickly even in the standard "authoritative" style guides. There is variation among them, especially when we get down into the nitty-gritty details, (e.g., many say "hold/state" when we're talking about a geographical entity, but "Hold/State" when we're talking about the government of one, even without its name connected), and a lot of variation among "respected/recognized" writers' and organizations' usage practices. I'm inclined for trying for consistency with some of the most general-level (as opposed to detailed/specific-use) conventions that are most widely-held (on this issue, but not on all because I like some of the more "cutting-edge" trends in usage and style that are not yet widely "officially" sanctioned). Some say the "Jarl" (or "The Jarl") when referring to a particular office-holder, while (most, I think) say "jarl" in such cases, but "Jarl Elliot". I'd go with that, myself, for both h/Hold and j/Jarl. But it's an uneasy perch: The White House's website uses "the President" in every referral to the current one. Skyrim's Rule uses "Jarl" generically, and also "Housecarl", but not "court wizard." Maybe that so-often cited authority, "the game," or Bethesda, itself decided against worrying too much about a standard in this area. Could that be the standard, then: don't always worry about a standard? I'd support a convention or set of conventions, if one is agreed-on, but maybe some degree of slipperiness can be seen as a perfectly justifiable standard in itself. After all, have you seen the news that they've now clocked particles travelling at speeds greater than that of light? So, we apparently cannot even say "e=mc2" anymore, maybe more like "e may approximate mc2, give or take". Most of us feel more comfortable with concrete rules, and consistency generally looks better, especially within a page, but I think we pay a price on either end of the spectrum. Trying too hard to find "the one right way" usually results in a sort of falsely-constructed "truth" and it's often a comfort that soon feels insecure no matter how strongly we wish we could stand on it. I think that's one reason why many of us can be so emotional about it. Then we get more emotional the more we want to hold on to something, until we get so emotional we feel angry and turn off others (you'll recognize that I've had some experience with this in ... another area recently, but I think essentially the same dynamic is at work. We love to get a handle on complexity, and once we feel we've got something that's been hard-won, we will fight if someone asks us to let go. Maybe nothing turned me more in the direction of a grammar "liberal"/"descriptivist" than the usage note on who and whom in the American Heritage Dictionary: [1]. The following is also both funny and thought-provoking: [2]. Do I sound pedantic or condescending? I just got tired of writing "I think" in every sentence. I am just thinking out loud. --JRTalk E-mail 14:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
While we're at it, I generally see "The Reach", ("The" capitalized), but not in the book, "The Madmen of the Reach." Has anyone looked into that? Seems like "The" should always be capitalized as it is clearly an official two-word name of the hold. I started to "correct" sr:Forsworn and then lore:Forsworn for consistency on this, but now I'm puzzled. --JRTalk E-mail 15:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I have not been capitalizing "the" in the names of holds unless they start a sentence. I haven't brought it up before because I've found no conflict. All Skyrim sources and dialogue I've seen do this; even older sources pre-dating Skyrim like PGE1 refer to these holds as "the Reach", "the Pale", and "the Rift". Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 21:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

() One of the loading screen tips says "Each Hold tracks its crime separately." I don't lean either way in terms of capitalization, but if this is at all important to the decision, there it is. --Velyanthe 22:17, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Aaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!! Minor Edits is right. Here's "the Reach" in our journal (stage 100). I'm hyperventilating. To me, it implies that a resident must answer the question, "What is the name of your hold?" with "Its name is 'Reach'". I need a Valium. --JRTalk E-mail 01:52, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Lulz; your edit summary made me dizzy. I just don't have enough hands to give those puns the facepalms they deserve. Anyways, does anyone else have any thoughts about these issues? Suggestions on how to treat j/Jarl would be particularly helpful, as I could really go either way on it. I'd love to get a communal stance, even if the conclusion is simply "articles can differ".
And thanks, Velyanthe, that's definitely relevant. Bethesda has not been totally uniform with their grammar choices, that loading screen being one example, but I don't think that should stop us from being consistent Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 21:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
On jarl/Jarl: I wouldn't fight ME's inclination toward always capitalizing it for the reasons he gives above. But since he's asking for input, and the usage is not consistent in-game, I propose not capitalizing it unless attended by a name "Jarl Karl"; "The Jarl of Winterhold sends word that..." or clearly used to refer to a specific jarl. Treat it as a "job title", including the convention to capitalize "when a very high ranking office is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name", as is fairly-well prescribed in Wikipedia's Manual of Style here: [3]. I also propose formally adopting this for all job titles and incorporating same into the appropriate style policy/guideline on the wiki ("Housecarl" and "Steward" not qualifying as "very high offices"; nor "captain of the guard [of Whiterun]").
On hold/Hold, I propose "hold" when used generically (unless, of course, used in the title of e.g., a wiki page or a book) and "Hold" when used as part of the proper name. On the finer point of using the word to refer to a specific hold, I think it may come down to choosing a convention among varying sources. Maybe this is best left not codified into policy, as it delves into a quite particular level of detail. If we do want to specify a standard extending that deeply, I'd propose uncapitalized when not used as part of a proper name: "The Rift is famous for its ____. The hold is also renowned for ____. Whiterun Hold, in contrast offers little ____ but abundant ____. That hold is also a center of commerce in the province." If we want to specify even deeper, I would support capitalizing the word when it refers specifically to the current government/administration instead of the place: "Besot with Forsworn incursions, the Hold adopted severe policies that ...." Same with province, city, town, etc.
I'm unsure if anyone but me was capitalizing "the" in "Dawnstar is the capital of the Pale," but I see that both the game and most or all "authorities" don't capitalize "the" in such cases, thus: "I'd love to visit the Netherlands". Exceptions seem to exist in legal writing and sometimes when an "official" name is used to designate an entity with a proper name: "Congress incorporated The State of Alaska in ...".
If we decide on something to put forth for consensus, and achieve such, I would neither mind nor particularly crave taking a stab at editing a policy/guideline document.. --JRTalk E-mail 03:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Oh no! The journal capitalizes "Captain of the Guard" here. I meant no disrespect, Captain! Maybe more info is needed on such titles, including "housecarl" and "steward" ... Bandit Chief?? Ai-yi-yi! --JRTalk E-mail 03:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with JR. For example, when used as a title, "President" is capitalized, but the office itself is referred to as the "presidency". "Jarl" should be treated the same way. Also, "state" is normally used in it's lowercase form (I live in some state down south) but it is capitalized when used in a title/proper noun (I live in Washington State). "Hold" should be treated the same way.
I also noticed the capitalizing weirdness with "the Rift", "the Pale", and "the Reach". Your example is good - we say "I'd love to visit the Netherlands", thus we should say "I'd hate to live in the Pale". ?• JATalk 05:14, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Solutions to Bugs

For those of you who are delving into the Creation Kit to find the source of various bugs, I've added a new modnotes parameter to the {{Bug}} template that will allow you to document your findings for those that are interested (most likely, those working on the Unofficial Skyrim Patch) without cluttering up the page for those who aren't. For those using the default Monobook skin, these comments will be completely hidden (and if it's a major concern for those who aren't using Monobook, let me know and I'll badger an Admin to make the necessary changes to our CSS files so that the notes are universally hidden).

If you want to display these comments, simply override the modnotes class within your monobook.css file with something like:

.modnotes {display:block; border:1px solid lightgrey; font-style:italic; padding:0.5em;}

Note that the "display" property is the key to displaying the notes—the rest is entirely up to you to specify how you want the notes to appear.

Depending on whether you've made the above changes or not, {{Bug|This is a bad bug.|modnotes=This is how mod notes will appear for you.}} will give:

  • This is a bad bug. ?
    Mod Notes: This is how mod notes will appear for you.

Robin Hoodtalk 23:03, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Individual weapon pages?

It may be a good idea to create each weapon its own page with an images and info. Similar to the individual artifact pages. — Unsigned comment by Jpalmss (talkcontribs) at 02:27 on February 24, 2012

There's alot of general weaponry, and relatively few artifacts, meaning that you're talking about creating quite a few pages. There's little unique info on each generic weapon (unlike artifacts), and we would wind up repeating ourselves quite a bit, so I don't think this is the best approach. However, it may eventually be appropriate to create pages for the various types of weapons, which has been done for past games. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 02:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, pages for the various types of weapons (or at least the base weapons) has already been done for Skyrim. See SR:Iron, SR:Steel, SR:Glass, SR:Daedric, etc., etc. I don't see why we would want to divide the information any further than that. --NepheleTalk 02:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Minor Edits and Nephele. We don't need to create a ton of pages for all the weapons. Following the standards set for the old games will be fine.--Ratwar 03:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Some Weapons (Like Falmer Weaponry) don't have a page of their own, though, which can be annoying if your looking for more info.--Ericaxe 10:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Quest Header issues?

I'm not sure if this has to do with the Quest Header template, or something completely different as I don't know much about templates, but I've noticed many quest pages start the page with {{{iconrow1}}}|style="font-size:110%; text-align:left; vertical-align:top;" colspan=2| or something along those lines recently, and I am not seeing changes in the revision histories of those pages to explain the issue. I just figured I'd point it out in case someone who knows about this stuff can look into it. If I'm just loopy and the problem's already being worked on and I missed the topic somewhere, sorry. I'm a little on the tired side lately, and I'm not sure my brain's always working quite right lately. :P Alphabetface 00:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I recently changed the template. Can you provide links? elliot (talk) 00:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
The miscellaneous Bard's College quests are affected, as well as the 'No Escape from C... Mine' but I've gotta get off here now, so no time for links. Sorry, baby calling. Hopefully that will give ya a start, though. Alphabetface 00:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I discovered the problem. The icons are auto-generated through the template if none is provided. Having the empty parameter on the page breaks the "definitions". It's best to remove those like I did here. elliot (talk) 00:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
And fixed. elliot (talk) 00:50, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Lore Places Project

So some of you might have noticed I've been doing a bunch of work cleaning up the Lore Places pages and categories. I'm thinking now though that it may be on the level of a new project, to do the job right and recruit other people to help out. Here are some of the changes I'm proposing:

  • Improve the Lore Place Summary template. In particular, the "Region" field needs work. This was always a bit iffy. While it made sense in Morrowind, in Oblivion, the regions are not so clearly defined. (Reading the first paragraph of Cheydinhal, you'd think that the city lies in three different regions, which isn't far off since the regions in Oblivion overlap and have soft borders.) Also, categorizing locations by region means that at least for Oblivion, each region category ends up with a very small number of articles - generally only one, since no regions other than the cities were deemed worthy of inclusion in Lore-space. For Skyrim, they're not even called "regions", but "holds". And for provinces other than Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Morrowind (specifically Vvardenfell, since mainland Morrowind is still unknown), and maybe Hammerfell, we don't even have this information, since the only game that allowed you to visit these areas was Arena, and it never got more specific than province. What I'm saying is this field should be optional. Currently, leaving it out causes you to get an error on the page saying that it is missing data. True, but it's data we're not likely to have for a very long time, so we should be able to just leave it out without an ugly error message.
  • Add a summary to every place page in Lore space. Obviously, this depends on the template being fixed to support places not seen in games first.
  • Remove the automatic link to Lore-Places from the Lore Places Trail template. Once the summaries have the information, the main category will just serve as a parent category to all the provincial and regional sub-categories. Possible exceptions would be for things like Lore:Nirn or Lore:Tamriel, or anything from the other continents, alternate planes of existence, etc. Mainly, you'll be able to easily tell how much work there is left to do by how many pages are still in the main category and not in sub-categories.
  • Clean up all articles for places seen in games - many of these still have game-specific info that does not belong on Lore pages. This should be moved to the game-spaces for the games in which they appear.
  • Past-tense all articles for Morrowind locations that were destroyed in the 4th era. I've created a template, MWTense, to use on verbs to give a different verb tense when the articles are transcluded into Morrowind space, so that they appear in past tense only in Lore space. It's already in use on a number of pages and pretty self-explanatory. (I'm not sure exactly how widespread the devastation was, so we'll have to decide which cities should get the past-tense treatment.)
  • Add in-game images where appropriate. Most of the articles have images in their game-space but not Lore space. We can just use the same images. Transclusion onto the Lore Places list pages is not a problem since the templates are "noinclude"d anyhow. Obviously not much can be done about locations not seen in games.

So, anyone else want to get involved in this? If we get a few people, I'll go ahead and make a project page for it where we can go into more detail on stuff. --TheRealLurlock Talk 21:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I was actually looking into this when I saw you messing around with it. I'll take the template for this project, since I have a million ideas as to how we can optimize it running through my head. I might be able to use a trick with catpagetemplate in order to minimize the number of categories that would be needed, as well as fixing the trail issue. I'll start working on a format for this. elliot (talk) 21:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd be happy to add the MWTense template to pages, though I'm also not certain what was destroyed. Pages say "most of Vvardenfell", but I have no idea if any specific places weren't destroyed. I'll wait until a decision has been reached about what should be considered destroyed, though. --Velyanthe 21:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Well it wasn't just the moon-crash and the volcano. Apparently all of the Telvanni cities (which you'd think from their location might be spared from the volcano) were sacked and destroyed during the Argonian wars. I'd thought maybe some places like Gnisis could have survived, but the existence of "New Gnisis" in Skyrim suggests otherwise. Failing that, there's just Dagon Fel maybe, and the locations on Solstheim might still be around, as well as places on the Morrowind mainland and possibly Telvannis (though again - Argonians...) --TheRealLurlock Talk 22:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

One more thing I just thought of:

  • Wherever possible, place pages should include a map. In particular in the case of cities and other settlements, this should be a map of the region/province showing where the settlement is located, and NOT a map of the settlement itself (which is game-specific and should stay in the game space). Also, (and I can't believe I have to say this) we should NOT be using maps which do not actually feature the settlement in question. I noticed a bunch of the Morrowind articles were using the Racemap05S-Morrowind.jpg image, which features a grand total of 4 cities on Vvardenfell. On any other place page, this should not be used because it doesn't contain information relevant to that page! I've removed them in the process of adding summaries, but surely we could come up with a map which does show the location. --TheRealLurlock Talk 22:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Those are all good points. I'm not sure that the assumption that Gnisis was destroyed because of the "New Gnisis Cornerclub"s existence is good. For example, there's a New Mexico, but plain old Mexico is still around. New Zealand from Zealand, New Amsterdam (renamed New York City) from Amsterdam, New Jersey from Jersey, etc. etc. According to lore, Solstheim is almost certainly still around. In the book On the Great Collapse, it is mentioned that Solstheim was offered as a Dunmer sanctuary after the Red Mountain erupted, and that book couldn't have been written more than a few months after the Great Collapse in 4E 122.  ?• JATalk 22:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I'll try to pitch in. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 00:01, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
What's the difference between {{MWTense}} and the already-existing {{Tense}} templates? It would seem better to focus on a single tense template, to expand its vocabulary. I'm also not too sure about the place summary boxes. There was talk before about removing them entirely, and it seems very limiting in its current use (although that can be expanded). Wouldn't it be better simply to add the categories than to have a box which lists them? I'll try to help out content wise, but I'm currently focusing on artifact articles in lorespace when I have the time to write one. --Legoless 01:41, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, wasn't aware of the existing Tense template, though I do see some problems with it. Giving the thing anything like a decent vocabulary would cause it to become quite large, and possibly result in heavy processor use on pages where it's used. My template is just a simple #if statement, true or false, so the computation time is likely much less since you provide it with both the present and past tense words, and save it the trouble of doing a long #switch table look-up. (Potentially very long if we expand its vocabulary too much.) And you don't need to edit a template every time you come across a new word you need to use it for. So in exchange for slightly more typing on the part of the editor, you're getting faster performance and unlimited flexibility without requiring the template to be edited. I'd say that's a pretty good trade-off. --TheRealLurlock Talk 04:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Much better implementation than the pre-existing one. --Legoless 04:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

() I've restarted the template and categorization process. Basically what I was aiming at was something seen in Category:Lore-Places-Tamriel-Cyrodiil. It makes it more understandable than having a whole bunch of different categories. I am also planning on filling Category:Lore-Places-Tamriel with all of the cities for easier navigation. They will be separated by province in that category. I know you wanted it to be empty TRL, but I don't think that would be too beneficial. elliot (talk) 05:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, mainly my reasoning behind emptying the category is so that we can easily tell what has and has not been looked at. One of the things you can do in the purview of a Project is to add a tag at the top of every page in the category (via bot, probably) which also puts them into a special maintenance category. As we go through the pages, the tag can be removed and then the category will gradually empty so we can see what kind of progress we're making. I've never used a bot before, but I've got an account set up for it (TheFakeLurlock, naturally), so if somebody sets me up with some baseline code and I get the account to be bot-activated, I could probably figure it out. Or we could get one of the existing bot owners to do it. (Which I think just includes Nephele and RobinHood at this point, since Rpeh is gone again.) --TheRealLurlock Talk 06:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Okay, that make sense. I think that adding the tag would be sufficient enough, since it seems like an easy thing for a bot to do. It would be best to work out of that category rather than an actual content category. elliot (talk) 06:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Easy-peasy for a bot to do. As I just told Elliot in IRC, someone bug me tomorrow and I'll get on it. Obviously, you'll want to create a specific template for me to add, or let me know if you just want me to add a generic one like {{Cleanup}}. Oh and just to confirm, you'd want the tag added to everything in Lore-Places? Robin Hoodtalk 06:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
With the exception of the categories and alphabetical listing pages, yes. And it should also be noinclude'd so that the tags don't show up on the list pages or in game-space transcludes. I'll look into creating a tag and project page tomorrow morning maybe. Going to bed for now. --TheRealLurlock Talk 06:38, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

() Ok, so I've created the page at Lore Places Project (shortcut: LPP), and a markup template at Template:cleanup-lpp, which should do the categorization magic. (I copied everything from the OPRP project. May be a bit excessive, but it's temporary anyhow.) Thought about creating a Ribbon ribbon for it, but couldn't decide what image to use. (In fact, looking up the actual meanings of the ribbon images we're currently using, I think it might potentially offend military service-people to use them in this way, so I'm not crazy about the ribbons in general. If somebody else really wants ribbons, they can go ahead and do the leg-work on that.) So, add your names to the list if you're on board, and as soon as the bot gets started adding the tags, we can go ahead and start. --TheRealLurlock Talk 14:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I'm about to run the bot. As always, just post to its talk page to stop it if there are any problems. Robin Hoodtalk 21:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Apparently I lied. I just noticed the bot isn't checking its talk page because apparently I commented that out temporarily at some point and never put it back. Looking at the changes so far, I don't see any issues, so rather than stop, fix, and re-start, I'll just let it run. If anyone's interested, ETA is 22:20 UTC. Robin Hoodtalk 21:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Is it safe to assume that all places in the Ashlands and Molag Amur regions as well as anything remotely close to Vivec were destroyed? That leaves Gnisis and the surrounding area up for question. ?• JATalk 00:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

[[Lore:Courtly Roles]] (or something similar)

If you look at the wanted pages and the history of page requests, there are a lot of different demands for pages of various types of governmental offices throughout Tamriel across multiple namespaces. I made one myself a couple months ago. I think the best arrangement would be have one Lore appendix with linkable entries describing all of them that we know of. A master list of governmental positions, delineated by province (Imperial heirarchy first) and ordered by importance. Everything from Emperor to Chancellor, Counts to Captains of the Watch, Skyrim's High King right down to Court Wizards and Stewards, Hortator to the wise woman of an Ashlander tribe or Orc stronghold, the Mane to the local moon sugar dealer, and the list goes on. Save time and space, solve red links, and in the end, heighten consumer satisfaction. I don't see a problem, though maybe the title could be better. Maybe [[Lore:Offices]]. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 07:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Lore:Offices is probably best. Browsing through the thesaurus... Alternatives I can come up with are [[Lore:Courtly Positions]], [[Lore:Courtly Jobs]], and [[Lore:Positions of Power]]. ?• JATalk 08:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


There was a discussion on my user page about the usage of navboxes. Since it was only me and one other person, I wanted some more general feedback.

This wiki really loves to use namespaces extensively, and that's fine given the nature of the content. It also has a downright absurd number of categories, the majority of which are not especially useful to viewers. Despite these two navigational tools, it has relatively few navboxes. Players seeking to look at the next tier of smithing need to jump to the general smithing page first. Players who want to skip ahead in a quest chain need to go through each individual page or search the appropriate faction page. Players who want to figure out how to become Thane of various holds need to jump around several different pages. Navboxes would solve all of these issues.

Other wikis use navboxes far more extensively than we do. The Fallout wiki is a good example, as Fallout is a game that very closely mirrors the Elder Scrolls. The Minecraft wiki is also a good example. In fact, the only wikis that use navboxes as sparingly as this wiki does are typically very shoddy and have very few pages. There are many good reasons for this.

The primary argument against navboxes seems to be that "it's not the way we do things around here", which is never a good reason for anything. I realize it's a bit of work but I really feel that it's holding the wiki back.

The navboxes I would propose would be one for each major faction quest chain, one for smithing, one for daedric quests and artifacts, and one for each city containing the sidequests for that city. Thank you for reading this and I hope you consider my proposition. --Theothersteve7 15:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned on your talk page, I definitely don't think that a navbox for Daedric Quests and Artifacts is necessary, since (as the hyperlinks indicate) information for both is already there, and it's pretty easy to find it. There are a few places where I think navboxes could be useful - this is not one of them. A navbox for city sidequests is completely useless, because you can quite easily find that information listed under that city's page, for example Whiterun and Solitude. Also, where would you really use it? Most side quests have some Radiant element to it that involves numerous locations, making this impractical. Just finished a side quest and want to see the next one? Most modern browsers include a "back" button, plus the location(s) are almost always listed on the quest's page.
Other than that, though, I don't have a strong opinion either way. ?• JATalk 18:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Lore Alchemy

So I was toying around with the idea of creating a set of pages devoted to Alchemy ingredients in the lore space. It's possibly of interest to see what ingredients have been used in multiple games, or even if they have had only one appearance, just to have a sort of master-list of ingredients from all games in one place. I started in my sandbox, with just the 'D's. (Gives a good example of one page of this, showing ingredients whose names have changed from game to game, for example.) I modeled it after Lore:Artifacts, though there are obviously far more of them, so there'll be one page for each letter of the alphabet (except Q, X, and Z, which don't have any). I realize this may overlap with Lore:Flora and to a lesser extent with Lore:Bestiary, but this page serves a different purpose, focusing on all ingredients, not just plant-related or creature-related, and showing their alchemical properties rather than merely their names. A brief description might be warranted, but I would not suggest putting images on these pages. (The 'S' page would have 54 entries, 2 of which appeared in 2 games and would need 2 images each if we were doing that. I think that's a lot of images for one page and could make the page really long and waste a lot of white-space.) This would be more of an index, or an appendix maybe. I'm also not sure what to do with specialty quest-related ingredients (Deformed Swamp Tentacle and Dog Food being examples on this page). Seems to me those aren't really relevant outside of the games they appear in, so maybe could be omitted. I debated showing only ingredients that had appeared in multiple games, similar to the Artifacts page, but that gives you only 30 at the most (being generous with similarly named ingredients, e.g. Lavender vs. Lavender Sprig), whereas the total list contains over 400. Any thoughts? --TheRealLurlock Talk 05:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

A small 24px icon beside the entries could be useful. This is how it would look for Daedroth Teeth:
OB-icon-ingredient-Daedroth Teeth.png Oblivion Night-Eye, Frost Shield, Burden, Light
I am totally for the creation of this section, since a historical perspective on Alchemy would greatly benefit the Lore section. I think that it's acceptable to have both Lore:Flora and Lore:Alchemy, since the former deals with the plants themselves and the latter deals with how their harvested ingredients are used to create potions and poisons. ?• JATalk 05:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to the idea of making a page for Lore:Alchemy, as it would solve one or two red links, but I'm not sure how going into such detail regarding the alchemical properties of each ingredient in this format will really be helpful to the reader. There's plenty of alchemy guides outside the UESP for players to refer to that can be much more helpful to them. What you said about quest-related ingredients, that they're not relevant outside the game they appear in, is pretty much true for the alchemical effects of ingredients in general. I think very few people will be interested in side-by-side comparison of what each ingredient has done in each game, comprehensive though it may be. It's just too intertwined with the game mechanics of a particular game to be noteworthy in the lore, even in an appendix. Our gamespace pages are solid; we should rely on them for the game-specific stuff.
I think it would be more suitable for lore if it were a basic, encyclopedia-like summary. Basically, it could just redirect to Lore:Magic#Alchemy, or else we can take that text, polish it up and add the appropriate bells and whistles, and make that into a proper lore page. Also, if we're gonna have a page for Alchemy at all, we should likely have some for Smithing and Enchanting, too. Anyway, just one guy's opinion. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 05:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The problem with images is that at 24px, they're un-recognizable smudges, and at larger sizes, they'd make some of the pages very long. I could see doing the images maybe at the size they appear on Daggerfall:Ingredients (though even that's starting to get too large). Trying out a few just for comparison:
The detail starts to be visible around 48px. That might be a reasonable compromise, though I'd have to see it on a full page, especially on ones which appear in multiple games - Daedra Hearts for example, appear in all four games. (AFAIK, Arena didn't have Alchemy.) That would look something like:
DF-icon-ingredient-Daedra's heart.png Daggerfall (as "Daedra's heart") Increase Willpower
MW-icon-ingredient-Daedra's Heart.png Morrowind (as "Daedra's Heart") Restore Magicka, Fortify Endurance, Drain Agility, Night-Eye
OB-icon-ingredient-Daedra Heart.png Oblivion Restore Health, Shock Shield, Damage Magicka, Silence
SR-icon-ingredient-Daedra Heart.png Skyrim Restore Health, Damage Stamina Regen, Damage Magicka, Fear
The Morrowind icon actually had to be enlarged. Oblivion and Skyrim are roughly the same size icons. Oddly the only one that's actually reduced in this case is Daggerfall's... --TheRealLurlock Talk 06:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
As far as relevancy of alchemical effects in lore space, the same could be said of the enchantments on the Artifacts page. It is interesting to note, for example, that Daedra Hearts have Restore Health and Damage Magicka in both Oblivion and Skyrim, but Restore Magicka in Morrowind. (There's a general trend of more negative effects starting with Oblivion, since you couldn't make poisons before that.) --TheRealLurlock Talk 06:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

() I am not sure that the copying of the artifacts style really works for the ingredients. I whipped up a little table that plays off of the ingredient pages from the different games. It may be best to have a big table, rather than 26 different pages. elliot (talk) 06:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what the real difference is there, other than that you've now added a header row and it's sortable for some reason. Are you proposing putting all 400+ ingredients on the same table? In that case an alteration would need to be made in that in your version, the name of the ingredient doesn't show. Also, you'd lose out on some of the organization because some related ingredients won't be alphabetically adjacent anymore. (Going by computer alphabetization, Daedra HeartOB and Daedra HeartSR will appear first, followed by Daedra SilkOB, Daedra SkinMW, and Daedra VeninOB, and then finally Daedra's HeartMW and Daedra's heartDF respectively - the apostrophes and capitalization count.) Also, with a single table you miss out on the ability to provide descriptive text for each entry, not to mention a single page that long could be problematic in and of itself, which is why I proposed separate pages in the first place. One thing that occurred to me since we're now adding height to the rows for an image would be that you could conserve space by stacking the effects rather than putting them in a list, like so:
DF-icon-ingredient-Daedra's heart.png Daggerfall
(as "Daedra's heart")
Increase Willpower
MW-icon-ingredient-Daedra's Heart.png Morrowind
(as "Daedra's Heart")
Restore Magicka
Fortify Endurance
Drain Agility
OB-icon-ingredient-Daedra Heart.png Oblivion Restore Health
Shock Shield
Damage Magicka
SR-icon-ingredient-Daedra Heart.png Skyrim Restore Health
Damage Stamina Regen
Damage Magicka
or possibly
DF-icon-ingredient-Daedra's heart.png Daggerfall
(as "Daedra's heart")
Increase Willpower
MW-icon-ingredient-Daedra's Heart.png Morrowind
(as "Daedra's Heart")
Restore Magicka
Fortify Endurance
Drain Agility
OB-icon-ingredient-Daedra Heart.png Oblivion Restore Health
Shock Shield
Damage Magicka
SR-icon-ingredient-Daedra Heart.png Skyrim Restore Health
Damage Stamina Regen
Damage Magicka
Then you could maybe make two or even three columns of them on a page, or use the space on the right for description or maybe even other images. (In game screenshot rather than just icons, maybe.) This would definitely need to be on separate lettered pages though, given the number of images we're talking about. --TheRealLurlock Talk 12:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
The first of the above tables is much better, and having an adjacent description would work out well. This is how a table with only one row would look:
Daedroth Teeth
OB-icon-ingredient-Daedroth Teeth.png Oblivion Night-Eye
Frost Shield
Daedroth Teeth are an alchemical ingredient harvested from the deadly Daedroth, a rare Daedra with crocodilian features. Although their existence has been known in Tamriel for hundreds of years, the alchemical properties of their teeth were not discovered until just before the Oblivion Crisis.
I think it looks good. ?• JATalk 18:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd leave out the phrase "an alchemical ingredient" from the above description (since everything on the page would be an alchemical ingredient, so it's redundant to say that in every description). I'm not sure whether a header row makes more sense than the actual headers I'm using (which allow for TOC creation and sub-page linking, though a LinkableEntry could take care of the latter.) Otherwise, not bad. --TheRealLurlock Talk 05:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

() A lore page for ingredients was proposed before, when Lore:Flora was getting revamped, but the idea was eventually shot down. I'm still not convinced that such a page would add to lorespace, especially considering its size and overly game-referencing content. --Legoless 19:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

All I can say is that there's clearly interest in such content, and it can't hurt to have it in one convenient place. But this is why I brought the subject up for discussion rather than just going full-speed into creating this, as it will require a bit of work to put together. --TheRealLurlock Talk 05:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
More power to you, but I'm full up on tasks at the moment. Also, useless. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 05:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Probably no more so than Lore:Artifacts. I can see an interest in comparing uses, descriptions, and effects of ingredients over ES history in much the same way that page does. Robin Hoodtalk 05:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I meant I'm useless, not Lurlock's proposal. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 04:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
LOL...yeah, slightly misunderstood you there! :) Thanks for clarifying. Robin Hoodtalk 05:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I know Legoless has been working on that, and he's been pondering the idea of making a whole Lore category for artifacts (and possibly other notable items), so he's probably the man to talk to about criticisms of the handling of artifacts in Lore. I'm just saying, I'm of the opinion that the payoff here in terms of consumer satisfaction is going to be relatively slim compared to, say, a well-made artifacts catalog, to use your example. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 05:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
The difference there is that there is pre-existing information on Artifacts, but there is no alchemy information in Lore whatsoever. And if this project does take off, I will help out. ?• JATalk 05:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

() While I'm not entirely sure we should be doing this (as I already tried to create this,but had it shot down), but if we are, why stop at alchemy? Why not create a similar collection for armor or weapons? I'm not bashing this idea, not at all. I'm simply saying that if we were to do this, we might as well cover everything that's worth mentioning. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 16:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I didn't know about the mobile games, so I'll add those to my lists. Also not sure about Redguard and Battlespire, not to mention Stormhold and Dawnstar. I can post the lists I've got pretty easily, but getting all the effects and images in there might take more work. I think maybe the reason this might have been shot down was that it was all on one page, which is a real problem for a list this large. Splitting it by letter not only alleviates the problem of one giant monster-page, but also allows for additional information to be added, so it's more than just a list. I don't know, I wasn't around at the time, or I'd have probably supported it. --TheRealLurlock Talk 04:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I pointed out to the group working at lore at the time that it was all there for my own personal convenience, somewhere (there were a lot of conversations about lore going on at the time). It would of been an even bigger hassle creating an upwards of twenty sandboxes to organize it (in retrospect, it would of probably had been easier to organize off-site with a word editor), let alone creating more comprehensive entries for each item while I was still organizing it.
As for Redguard, there appears to be exactly one potion you can make in the game. I can't find any evidence on the site to suggest that there are alchemical ingredients in Battlespire or the other TES Travels games, and the Battlespire pages seem to be comprehensive enough, and not many people played the Travels games, making a search for more information almost certainly futile. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 13:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I've made the changes based on this discussion on my sandbox. Occurs to me that we're still missing most of the Skyrim icons, so somebody should get on that. (Don't have the game yet myself or I'd do it.) Also for the mobile games - Shadowkey just reuses the same 3 icons for everything, so not sure what to do with that, and does OBMobile even have icons? We'll also need to write up some descriptions, I just lorem ipsum'ed the thing for now (with the exception of JA's contribution on Daedroth Teeth), so we can see what it would look like with text. We might even be able to fit screenshot thumbs on the right side with this format. --TheRealLurlock Talk 13:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
The page looks great on a narrow window (1024px wide or less) but on a wider window I don't think it looks as good. Maybe that's just me. There is definitely room for a screenshot (or two), which could be beneficial. Maybe a thumb of the place the ingredient is harvested from? I went ahead and added an image of a Daedroth (since that seems to be our example) to demonstrate how it looks. Again, it looks excellent on a narrow window, but awkward on a wide one. ?• JATalk 19:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
On the subject of Dawnstar and Stormhold: both have items which could be considered "ingredients" (here and here), but they don't function as such. Dawnstar's consumables might be worth adding as well. --Legoless 19:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I added top-alignment to improve the layout a bit. It's possible that certain entries would actually share a picture - for example we now have an image of a Daedroth for Daedroth Teeth, but presumably Daedroth Sac just above it also comes from Daedroths (I assume, never having played Shadowkey), and they could use the same image. Or we'd need a Daedroth from Shadowkey to use, but if we're doing that, then we end up duplicating the Bestiary pages, having an image for every game in which a Daedroth has appeared. (Though in this case, the other games don't produce the same ingredients, but imagine how many pictures we'd need at Daedra Heart...) I don't think the layout is too bad with just one image per entry though. Even when I only use half of my 1920 width on this monitor, it still looks fine. The other entries look a little sparse, but once we put real text rather than lorem ipsum, it'll be much better. --TheRealLurlock Talk 22:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

() Okay, so I just discovered Skyrim:Food. A lot of the items (e.g. Carrot, Leek, Potato, Tomato, Venison, etc.) listed here appeared as alchemy ingredients in previous games, and cooking seems to have some things in common with alchemy. So should these be included on the alchemy pages? Along with a note of course saying that they are not ingredients but actually food. --TheRealLurlock Talk 04:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced that the community believes this is necessary. "All I can say is that there's clearly interest in such content". TRL, I fail to see this interest. Only you and JA have supported this so far explicitly, and many editors have opposed it or had reservations. The forced implementation should raise eyebrows, and the project should bow to consensus and discussion before any type of implementation is addressed. The table looks messy at best, and the entire projects relation to Lore is questionable. Perhaps a combination with Lore:Flora could work, but it would need to be executed better. Having said that, I still don't believe this is necessary. elliot (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Nobody's forcing anything. It currently exists only in my sandbox, specifically so that we can achieve a consensus. That said, the 'D' page is just about done, minus descriptions and a few Skyrim icons we still don't have on the site yet. I think it works this way. --TheRealLurlock Talk 13:40, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood Quest Line and Lore

In a nut shell, I want the community to agree on an answer to this question: Is Skyrim:Destroy the Dark Brotherhood! a divergent ending to the Dark Brotherhood quest line, or is it an abandonment of the DB quest line?

This is about what we can currently say in Lore. Only accurate and verifiable information is acceptable; it is the requirement that information be "verifiable" that makes the events of divergent quest lines in a new game unfit for Lore until Bethesda picks a horse or otherwise glosses over the inconsistency.

We do, however, presume that the player character initiated and completed the quest line of all major factions, so all the events of a quest line which is linear and undeviated by players' free will are presumably verifiable (above a certain threshold to omit game-specificity).

Here, in order to determine whether the later, significant events of the Dark Brotherhood quest line are "verifiable" in terms of interpreting the lore guidelines (e.g., whether we can say that the assassination of Titus Mede II took place without any additional guidance), it must be known whether Destroy the Dark Brotherhood! is an alternate path of the DB quest line, or simply a non-starter.

In my view, it's an alternate path (albeit a short one), as it's a recognized in-game quest with its own parameters for completion, not a mere "Aw, you gone and spoiled your game" journal notice like certain non-starter options in past games. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 01:52, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

My view's the same as yours— it's an alternate path, not a non-starter. Alphabetface 02:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
It is in my opinion an alternate path, and I would be surprised if Bethesda ever truly told us which path was actually taken. On the other hand, I expect the lore to say that Titus Mede II was assassinated, and that the exact evens about who did it or why are lost to the mists of times, if the Dark Brotherhood isn't directly implicated. That's how I think the Lore should be written.--Ratwar 03:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Agreed - this is an alternate path. Perhaps you could combine the two paths, like this: "Although the Dark Brotherhood's presence in Skyrim was destroyed, they managed to assassinate Emperor Titus Mede II, the emperor of the Empire at the time, before being snuffed out.". It could stand to be reworded, but I would go for something like that. ?• JATalk 04:26, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
That would be inaccurate- it's either one or the other; the Brotherhood is either wiped out, or it lives on, based on the player's choice. And since neither has option has been verified, there's no real in-between option. We typically just remain silent.
A followup for Ratwar, since I'm a little unclear on your ultimate stance: do you expect the lore to say all that now, or is that just your expectation of how we will eventually be writing after verification? Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 04:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
We cover the events of Red Mountain without there being a verified story. Bethesda covered the option of the player killing Vivec without verifying a story, simply saying that he disappeared. I expect lore to say that now because the events are unclear. On one hand, it is clearly possible that the last known Dark Brotherhood sanctuary was wiped out by the player. On the other, you can't have an Emperor live and die at the same time. Perhaps if he hadn't been killed by the Dark Brotherhood, Amaund Motierre would have found another way. It is going out on a limb a bit, that is true, but I think it is either that, or consider 'Destroy the Dark Brotherhood!' as a non-starter. Sorry if I am rambling, it has been a long day.--Ratwar 04:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Information doesn't necessarily have to be true in order for it to be verified; verification relates to source material, not the information itself (that's where accuracy comes in, as in, "This statement accurately conveys information from a verified source" or "The game data verifies that the sic tag is accurate"). So even though there are multiple conflicting accounts of what happened at the Battle of Red Mountain in the First Era (which is what I assume you were referring to), anything we can say about it is "accurate and verifiable" as long as we're accurately relying upon a verified source. The divergent effects on a quest line due to player choice (or randomized elements of the game) renders the impacted events unverifiable, hence, here we are.
While Bethesda can certainly cover any choice in any game after the fact via a variety of possible methods and explanations, I don't think it's appropriate for us to presume how they will eventually choose to resolve present divergences. If we adopt a policy of letting unverifiable information remain on the pages, even temporarily, I think it likely we will harm our credibility and, inevitably, harm readers by perpetuating misconceptions amongst them (even if the misconception is only that something is known as "the truth" when it is not). Further, the policy would assume that Bethesda (or at least, reliable OOG) will eventually resolve divergent events, and we have no guarantees that they will necessarily see fit to do so in every case, or that they will do so at the first opportunity. So that means even just temporary allowances of unverified info (and let's face it, we're talking about leaving stuff on the pages for years without verification) would in effect become indefinite.
Anyways, you say it is either/or: either we compromise the accurate and verifiable nature of the content, or we consider the DTDB! quest a non-starter. But there's a third option: silence. What's wrong with not trying to speak to matters about which we do not have reliable information? In my opinion, verification on this particular matter will come in due course, and until then, it's not like we're going to forget about it. I understand the desire to sprint right into it and plaster everything we think we know on to the lore pages, but patience is a virtue, and editing a wiki is a marathon. All will be done in due time. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 06:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

() Personally, I don't think it is as deep as you are making it out to be. It's best to consider the impact and scope of the quests in the game. And considering the two (not three) options we have, we should consider the Destroy quest as a non-starter. elliot (talk) 07:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I was being offered a false choice which did not treat the natural effect of considering it to be "alternate path" as an option, so there were "three" options in that context. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 08:05, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
IF the events of the DB questline are going to be mentioned, it has to be done right. "Conflicting reports out of Skyrim claim that Emperor Titus Mede II has been assassinated, others that a major division of the Dark Brotherhood has been wiped out." That's accurate and verifiable, and may actually dove-tail nicely with how I presume Bethesda will eventually solve any major conflicts: a dragon break. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 08:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I say we avoid the road less travelled. We've always assumed that every major questline is canon, and when the entire DB Skyrim questline conflicts with a single quest involving wiping the guild out I say we favour the questline. I'm not saying we should completely ignore that option; it is still worth noting on the Brotherhood's own article. But the events of the questline should still be stated as fact, the same as we do for the others. --Legoless 19:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Legoless, but on another matter what about the events of the civil war which has huge consequences for Tamriel depending on who wins? RIM 20:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Clearly the Empire wins. We know that because they have better quests in their quest line, so that whole Stormcloak thing doesn't count. That's the new approach, right? Variants of quest lines we think are better can be stated as fact? Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 23:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Minor Edits here. Regular quest line endings are either just killing the contact to get you into the guild or getting kicked out for the last time. This is clearly different, because not only are you denied access, but you completely obliterate what could be the Dark Brotherhood's final presence in Tamriel. I like Minor Edits' phrasing, because it's clear enough to state what could've happened yet ambiguous enough to account for both, mutually exclusive possibilities. ?• JATalk 02:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

() I don't think any of it should be stated as fact, though "conflicting reports" could work. If there's ever a mention of it in future games, it will very likely say that Titus Mede II died, either saying he was killed (not necessarily by the DB) or giving no cause. I'm pretty sure it would be safe to say that he died, though. --Velyanthe 02:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Its an alternate path period. Its recognized in the game as such, clearly other people agree. I also agree that this should'nt have been made such a big deal because the game clearly shows it. By the way may i say ive been using this wiki for 7 years now and its pretty awsome so thanks to everyone for putting in on the goodness. --User:Mahjition 1:54 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Mahjition. It's an alternate path, and should be recognized as such. --Ericaxe 6:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
There are some established facts from both versions. I detailed them on the lore talk page and J'ZhirrthePriest put them into the main page. A little edit and both quest paths are included while detailing the facts. Have a look, I think this is the most that can be included at the minute. Unsure if emperor is canon killed, but imo he will die in unknown circumstances. The Silencer 22:50, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
God, the Dark Brotherhood Lore page is a mess. I'm gonna try sifting through it. I don't really like how J'Zhirr phrased it (nothing personal) but there's a lot of stuff about that page that I don't like. ?• JATalk 04:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
I did my best. Lets continue to try and create the best summery without setting anything in stone until we come to a conclusion.--J'ZhirrthePriest 05:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not saying you didn't do your best. That entire section needed work, not just your contribution. I went ahead and tried my hand at it. It still needs work, but it's a bit better now. ?• JATalk 06:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I like what you did at the end, it leaves it to go both ways. But can we say that the emperor was really assassinated? That doesnt seem up to us. Also, can we talk about the split? I feel that because of the varying accounts of the origin (i.e Sacred Witness vs. Fire and Darkness) we cant say that " this IS where it happened" or irl "would have happened" --J'ZhirrthePriest 00:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC) But you probably meant " would have if this theory were true"... That makes more sense. --J'ZhirrthePriest 00:18, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Skyrim Quest/Place Organization

I think we need to have a general community discussion to make sure that, as we continue to reorganize, clean up, improve, and expand Skyrim pages, we're all working towards the same picture of how the content will ultimately be organized. In particular, this in response to a request about reorganizing the content on Saarthal, Under Saarthal, and Forbidden Legend. Where does the main walkthrough information for Saarthal belong? What details belong on each of those three pages, and how do we limit duplication of content?

My basic opinion is that we should follow the same structure that we used during Oblivion, Miscarcand being one example. Oblivion:Miscarcand (place) provides the primary place walkthrough, and the quest page only covers those points that are required to advance the quest.

In particular, I think this is the only logical structure given that we are planning to eventually add interior maps for all places, with overlays detailing where all points of interest are located. Those place maps belong on the place pages. Therefore, any information that ties into those maps belongs with the maps on the place pages. Any type of walkthrough information where you'll eventually want to say "See location X on the map" belongs side by side with the map.

Given that Saarthal prompted me to start this discussion, let me use Saarthal as an example of what information I think belongs on which page.

I think the vast majority of the information that was recently removed from Saarthal actually belongs on that page. Describing where to find the original artifacts ties into the map, so it belongs on the place page. Generic draugr enemies, traps, and their locations will all be shown on the map. Nordic puzzles have no connection to either quest; they're just standard nordic ruin furniture and we'll probably end up having a standard way of describing them on the place pages ("You need to set the pillars to: pillar A, eagle; pillar B, snake, pillar C, dolphin") that will, yet again, refer to the map.

If three-quarters of the information on where to go and what to do belongs on the place page, then it will also need to touch on some quest-specific information just to make sure that it provides a complete picture. You don't want the walkthrough to just end abruptly before getting to the end of the dungeon. So therefore the place page will need to state that there's a boss enemy named Jyrik Gauldurson and a big glowing orb, and that Tolfdir needs to interact with the orb before Jyrik can be damaged. But details on the relevance of those events don't belong on the place page -- at that point the place page should link back to the quests.

So then what belongs on the quest pages? I'd say the quest pages should focus on the information that is specifically relevant to the quest. What you need to do to complete the quest stages/objectives (with references to the place page for details). Quest-specific dialogue and background information belongs on the quest page, including one-time events/information -- things that would not repeat if you returned to the place two months later.

So Under Saarthal should cover what Garniel and Tolfdir tell you to do. It will need to cover the fact that you need to collect four artifacts, and what those artifacts are -- but for details of where the items are located, it should point to the map on the place page. The quest is where any information on the other students belongs (what they do/say, whether or not they get in your way). The fact that a Psijic appears and what he tells you. How far through the ruin Tolfdir will go initially (although that probably also would get mentioned on the place page). Then skip to the fact that Tolfdir reappears at the end, what he has to say about the Eye of Magnus, and what he does to activate the Eye and make events proceed. None of the generic dungeon-crawling information in the middle of the walkthrough has any relevance to the quest. Or perhaps another way to see it is that none of that dungeon-crawling information has any relevance to the overall College of Winterhold quest line -- as you proceed on the quest line, you won't want to go back and see how to solve the nordic pillar puzzle, but you may want to go back to Under Saarthal to see what the Psijic said, or what you were originally told about the Eye of Magnus.

Forbidden Legend, in my mind, should have the least information of the three pages. Most of the Saarthal section on that page should be replaced by some type of minimal statement such as "You are required to be on the Under Saarthal quest to explore this location. See the place and quest page for details. At the end of the dungeon you will encounter Jyrik Gauldurson". Forbidden Legend should then go on to detail who Jyrik is, what loot you get off of him, how that loot ties into the overall quest, and the significance of the Gauldur amulet.

Other alternative layouts won't work in the long run, in my opinion. For example, if we really think that Forbidden Legend should have full walkthroughs of each of the places you visit on the quest, it means that quest page will end up being maybe three times longer than it currently is. That quest page will need to contain full maps of every place you enter, and full details on those places. For example, complete information on Geirmund's Hall needs to contain details of the hundreds of mushrooms found there and details on the unique Skyrim:Pearls found there. Those details aren't relevant to the quest; people who might want to go back to Geirmund's Hall to get respawned mushrooms or pearls won't want to go back to a subsection buried two-thirds of the way down the quest page to check map details. If there's general agreement that the excessive details don't belong on the quest pages, that implies that the quest page should not be striving to be comprehensive. If the quest page is going to have to say "see Geirmund's Hall for complete information", then why should any of the non-quest-relevant information remain on the quest page?

Obviously we have many already-written (and well-written) quest pages that will need to be revised based on these suggestions. However, I think it's better to start that process now -- and do future quest revamps with this in mind -- rather than to wait until adding maps to the place pages forces us to address it. Any feedback or other opinions? -- Nephele 18:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Wow, you covered just about everything! All I can really say is that I agree with you on basically everything you wrote. This will really clean up a lot of inconsistencies across the wiki, and I really think it would benefit the site. Your use of Saarthal is a perfect example of this situation. Alphabetface 18:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with most of what you say. What about places like the Twilight Sepulcher, which are only dedicated to a single quest? If you look here, you'll see that this isn't an isolated case. I think that your idea is very sound, especially since it's based on what we've done in the past; I'm just curious how these exceptions would be handled. ?• JATalk 18:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Good point. I think there are indeed cases where trying to divide information between a place and quest page would just cause unnecessary confusion. However, I'm not even sure whether we really got around to handling those places properly in Oblivion. Oblivion:Paradise is the first example that comes to mind, but even there we have a separate Oblivion:Mankar Camoran's Paradise page for the place, and we never did proper maps (in part because it's a separate world, rather than a cave, which makes Paradise even worse as a general example).
So, forgetting Oblivion examples. My first thought is that if a place can only be entered as part of a quest, has no (significant) overlap with any quest, and you'd never want to (or be able to) return to the place, then the information should all be covered by the quest page. In those cases, it's likely that it will make more sense to put any place maps on the quest page; the place page should perhaps just be a redirect to the quest. As far as overlap with other quests, I'm thinking of Stones of Barenziah as a potential example of non-significant overlap -- it only takes a single sentence to state where the Unusual Gem is located, and the information could potentially all be put in a single note, because it is not integral to the walkthrough.
I haven't made it to Twilight Sepulcher myself yet, so I can't say from personal experience what I think in that case. Some of the most obvious examples that do come to mind are "The Mind Of A Madman" (the world inside Pelagius' head in the The Mind of Madness) and Misty Grove (from Sanguine's quest). Breaking up the quest walkthrough and forcing readers to jump between the quest page and place page would provide no benefit. On the other hand, I think other locations visited during those quests, such as the Pelagius Wing or Morvunskar, probably should have separate place pages containing their information.
Although Saarthal is a place that can only be entered after starting Under Saarthal, the overlap with Forbidden Legend and the fact that you could be sent back there later (for example, by Dungeon Delving) imply that there is a need for walkthrough information separate from the quest. For the places on Dungeon Quests, I'm also inclined to think that most of the walkthrough information belongs on the place pages. In most cases, you entered the dungeon for some reason that's not related to the quest -- potentially because a radiant quest sent you there. If you're in a rush to complete that other quest, you might ignore all the dungeon-specific backstory, but you still want to know where on the map to find the boss and the boss chest, and what's going to try to kill you on the way there.
So I think for me some of the key factors are:
  • Where should we put maps of the place? If the maps really make sense on the quest page, and there's no need for the maps separate from the quest, then the entire place page may be unnecessary.
  • Are there multiple reasons/objectives for visiting the place? If readers will have different perspectives, then the place walkthrough needs to be written to be independent of those perspectives. On the other hand, if there's only one motivation for being there, there can be a single "biased" walkthrough that it is focussed on that sole motivation.
  • Any information where "see X on map" fits logically into the sentence should be on the same page as the maps.
  • Is the information relevant every time you visit the place (belongs on place page), or only during the quest (belongs on quest page)?
  • In other words, all additional details related to a given point should be collected in one single place -- multiple options for how to get past an obstacle; bugs that can occur and their workarounds; details of leveled bosses or random loot; etc.
Elder Scrolls games are open-ended, which is presumably why many of us enjoy them. However, when there are a million possible routes to a given destination, it's impossible to organize the site to have absolutely no redundant information. So we can't aim to completely eliminate the overlap between place pages and quest pages, but we do need to have some underlying method to the madness. --NepheleTalk 20:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Also, just for reference, it's not the first time this has been brought up. Bleak Falls Barrow is another problem case that was discussed at The Golden Claw and subsequently on a user talk page. --NepheleTalk 20:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Honestly, I do disagree a bit. In my perfect UESP world, the quest pages provide all the information required to complete a quest. That's primarily because I see the wiki as a walkthrough site for quests. That's how it got so big in the first place, and I believe that's how we'll stay popular. I'm not sure if removing relevant information from the quest page is the best way to achieve that goal. If information is necessary to complete a quest, then it needs to be on the quest page (so things like puzzles that need to be solved would appear on the quest page). If the main reason to visit a location is a non-radiant quest, then I think the dungeon details should be on the quest page.
I do realize that my opinion on this is probably more focused on what the UESP used to be (just quest walkthroughs), but I still see that as our primary purpose. I think Nephele's way of doing things is logically sound, if you consider the quest and location pages on an equal footing. Personally, I see the quest pages as more important (and when we could still easily see page views, Oblivion:Quests was far more visited than Oblivion:Places).--Ratwar 04:34, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I disagree as well. I wrote the Forbidden Legend page and I made a clear-cut choice to ignore both the Under Saarthal page, along with the place page. First of all, the Under Saarthal page was less than good at the time (probably still remains that way) and the Saartahl page is bound to be changed into more familiar place page stuff sooner or later. Also, and this is what I find most important, the whole “redundant info”-guideline is OLD. With the OPRP and OBNPCRP we decided to add tons upon tons of redundant information on pages, simply to ‘focus’ on the subject at hand. Yeah, Phintias says something about another NPC, which is part of Phintias’ dialogue – but it is also part of the rumor section of the other NPC –and so on. These older than old guidelines are not there for us to discuss endlessly (and definitely not to just make an ugly “For walkthrough info see the Saarthal article”-link and destroy the layout of a page like Forbidden Legend), nor is it there for a reason to oppose an article for FA-status.
My point is, that Forbidden Legend and Under Saarthal needs separate walkthroughs, even if it seems redundant. A walkthrough focused on Forbidden Legend, and one focusing on Under Saarthal. I spend an awful lot of time ensuring this was the case with Forbidden Legend – and that it was as detailed as the rest of the article, which brings us to the last point. Consistency in writing style, and substance. Let’s say that we put in a link to the Under Saarthal page and remove the walkthrough from Forbidden Legend. For starters, people uninterested with the College of Winterhold will have to dig through another, more College-focused, walkthrough than necessary to find the information they want. They also have to figure out that it is not necessary to do anything else than claim the amulet fragment and move on, something that would be a mess to describe on the Under Saarthal article. The place page, although empty at the moment, will end up with the usually OPRP-approach, it will link to a map and will rarely touch any of the related quests, and will prove useful for detailed exploration. When we get to the full NPC treatment of Tolfdir, we will add the exact same info – again – this time focused entirely on Tolfdir. That is 4 versions of the same quest, but each of them with a different focus. The way it should be – not to avoid redundancy, but to avoid confusion. --Krusty 12:21, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to disagree too. If someone comes to a quest page and sees that it doesn't tell them where to go to proceed, then they'll need to switch to the place page to find that out, then back to the quest page to figure out where an item is... It sounds like quite a hassle. We've already got quick walkthroughs anyway. --Velyanthe 15:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Our site guidelines on redundant information are not out-of-date, irrelevant guidelines. They are absolutely critical guidelines that are the only way a wiki can possibly aim to maintain accurate information. There needs to be single page that everybody knows is the primary place for detailed information on a given topic, so that all updates only need to be made to one place.
Huge chunks of wiki infrastructure are there solely because reducing redundancy is a priority. For example, the #save/#load features that ensure that when an editor fixes/adds a skill book location, that exact same information is simultaneously displayed on the Skill Books page. The fact that we even use transclusions anywhere on the site is solely to reduce redundancy. Numerous templates are in place to make such transclusions possible (such as {{Lore Link}} and {{MWTense}}. If it's an obsolete policy, there are a lot of editors doing a lot of work to support the policy. The fact that all those mechanisms are in place probably makes it easy to overlook just how many problems are caused when information is duplicated -- but having been active on the site before we implemented those mechanisms, I am very familiar with the nightmares that result.
The new page request that triggered this discussion summarizes the problem in its first two sentences:
There were 3 walkthroughs. There are/were many errors.
Even if three separate walkthroughs are originally set up to each be an accurate, complete, self-contained walkthrough of the same place, the fact is that none of those walkthroughs is final or complete. Over the next couple months dozens of edits will be made separately to each of the walkthroughs, and the end result will inevitably be that each of the three will contain different information. (And in the process any consistency in writing style has vanished).
Take just a two-sentence description of a puzzle. A mistake might only get fixed in version A. A strategy for how to solve the puzzle only gets added to version B. A bug report only gets added to version C. A map showing where the puzzle is located only gets added to one of the three versions. Two months later, you end up with a situation where a reader on our site has to fully examine all three walkthroughs just to get complete information about that single puzzle. In the process the reader finds out that one of the three says "snake,eagle,dolphin" and the other two say "snake,dolphin,eagle", and is left with absolutely no idea of whether any of our articles contain any correct information. Each of the thousands of readers of our site should not be told that they are expected to combine three articles themselves; our editors should be doing that work. Krusty, you say that you don't want someone doing Forbidden Legend to have to read through CoW-specific information -- but your approach will end up forcing readers to do exactly that, because that will end up being the only way to get complete information.
If we want to provide quality information, and continue to be trusted and respected by our readers, we have to set up the site in a way that minimizes the amount of work that needs to be done every time new information is added to the site, and maximizes the chances that any information found by a reader is as accurate as possible. That can only be done if we reduce the number of duplicate copies of information on the site. Or, more specifically, as I said in my previous post:
When information needs to be repeated on both the quest and place page, the repeated information should be as "non-controversial" as possible (for lack of a better word); if future editors are inevitably going to want to expand/modify the information, it should not be repeated.
Basic facts such as "there is a puzzle that needs to be solved" probably will inevitably need to repeated in multiple places. But the details of how to solve the puzzle, bugs that happen when doing the puzzle, etc. should only be provided once.
In response to Ratwar's comments, I think Skyrim's structure greatly increases the importance of place walkthroughs. The fact that the majority of the game's quests are radiant means that in most cases you cannot go to a quest page and expect it to tell you how exactly you need to complete the quest, because you are being sent to just one of twenty possible destinations for that quest. On top of which, the developers intentionally stacked multiple quests in the same dungeon (even without radiant quests being added in -- such as in the example of Saarthal), making it impossible to have separate, independent walkthroughs for every single quest. So I think for Skyrim we have to give place walkthroughs at least equal importance to quest walkthroughs. --NepheleTalk 17:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I really think this is the wrong approach – seriously, I considered making some kind of fancy transclusion page and merge Under Saarthal and Forbidden Legend, but the focus is different, and the walkthroughs should be different. Walkthroughs are not always about ‘the simple way of doing it’, it’s about how to enjoy the quest and see everything it has to offer, background story and details included. With a transcluded page (or some kind of new way of doing the dungeon walkthroughs), we will lose that feeling. For Forbidden Legend, having to join the College of Winterhold is a necessary evil for many non-mage characters, so I seriously think we should separate them. Mind you, these two quests are so similar, I’d call them an extreme example – as a matter of fact, I can’t think of similar examples in Skyrim. Problem is, Under Saarthal is a minor part of Forbidden Legend and the’yre bound to clash, regardless of how we do it. As for all the radiant quests that can interfere with each other, that’s more or less ‘too bad’ in my opinion. Several Companions quests takes place in dungeons already reserved for radiant quests – but I think a “true” quest line and radiant quests should be treated differently, maybe with the aid of some better and more detailed place pages – but dungeon walkthroughs should still be found on the ‘real’ quest walkthrough. We did it all the time in the Shivering Isles namespace, we did it 50% of the time in OB namespace, so if we’re going to change that, we’re facing the site’s biggest cleanup project ever. What we learned from detailed projects like the OPRP and OBNPCRP is that most of the OB quest pages now pale in comparison to their place/NPC counterparts – and I’m simply trying to avoid that with Skyrim. Right now, instead of having this discussion (I find it too early, actually) we should figure out how to create the “ultimate” place page – not only would it give users some guidelines on how to actually write them, it would also make this discussion a lot more relevant. --Krusty 18:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I think we can all agree that Radiant Quests pages don't need to cover walkthroughs of every dungeon that they could occur in. For those pages, there is no question that the place walkthrough is as important (if not more important) than the quest walkthrough page. That's something I think we can all agree on. I don't think that we can compare a major quest line like the College of Winterhold to radiant quests, and I believe that having a policy that hurts Under Saarthal because of radiant quests isn't a good thing.
You do bring up some very good points about redundancy. Editors have fought long and hard against it for good reasons. I just don't think we need three quest walkthroughs in the specific example you brought up. Saarthal is closed until the Under Saarthal quest. To me, that means for at least 90% of players, the first time they'll want a walkthrough of the place will be during that quest. So why not just have the walkthrough on the quest page, and have Forbidden Legend link back to the Under Saarthal for the relevant parts? Thus we get rid of redundancy and keep all the relevant information on the first quest page likely to be viewed.
The other reason I don't like non-quest walkthroughs is spoilers. See, if someone goes to a quest page, they have got to understand that to give a walkthrough we need to reveal spoilers. Going to a location page potentially spoils quests that the player has no knowledge of at the present time. Now, I know we don't avoid spoilers here on the UESP, but we also don't end the walkthrough of joining the Dark Brotherhood with "You have now taken your first steps towards killing the Emperor!". That's unavoidable if we start combining quest walkthroughs on place pages.
In the end Nephele, if you don't think this is a viable solution, I won't argue with you. You've obviously spent far more time under the hood with Skyrim than I have, and I honestly have nearly zero idea on how many quests this effects. I just want to do due diligence.--Ratwar 18:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The way I see it, this argument boils down to "Are we creating an encyclopedia of the Elder Scrolls?" or "Are we creating a travel guide for the Elder Scrolls?" My view has always been biased towards being an encyclopedia...which happens to have some walkthroughs and other descriptive information on relevant pages. The encyclopedic version focuses more on having the right content in the right place with minimal overlap; the descriptive version focuses on giving you all the information you could reasonably need, all in one place, regardless of whether that overlaps with anything elsewhere.
I can't claim to have done anything related to Forbidden Legend, Under Saarthal, Saarthal, or the College of Winterhold yet, but having a quick look at the relevant pages, it strikes me that you wouldn't be going back-and-forth between the pages all that much if everything you needed was on the Saarthal page. You'd go there, do the entire walkthrough as a single "entity" for lack of a better term, then go back to whichever quest you were in there for originally (which will always be Under Saarthal first, if I understand correctly). This is no different than something like the Main Quest, which is obviously divided into multiple subpages. The way I see it, proposing to put three different walkthroughs of this on three different pages just because there are some differences depending on what exactly you're doing is akin to saying we should have a single Main Quest page that walks you through the entire Main Quest all in one page, including covering optional quests, etc., for convenience. My instinctive reaction to that idea is: "No!" It would create utter confusion. As I've said, I don't know enough about the specifics of this example to be sure that holds water here; nevertheless, I think it's a good general principle.
There will obviously be times when some information needs to be repeated. I don't think a summary walkthrough of Saarthal would be inappropriate for Under Saarthal, but it should focus on covering unique experiences within the dungeon as a result of the quest, rather than specifics of the dungeon itself (which should be on Saarthal's page) — something on the order of "Tolfdir will take you through Saarthal, talking to you/doing these things along the way...". That summary should be a paragraph or maybe two at most. Mentioning anything like dungeon-specific information on the quest page, or talking about Tolfdir and the College of Winterhold on the Forbidden Legend page strikes me as very out of place. I'm not there for place-specifc information, I'm there for information about the relevant quest. To use Forbidden Legend as an example, if I understand correctly, that quest can start well after you've finished Under Saarthal, so why would Tolfdir or a walkthrough of Saarthal have any place on that page whatsoever? You've either already been through Saarthal or you're doing the two quests concurrently anyway. Refer them to the Saarthal page for the walkthrough and mention that the Under Saarthal quest is a prerequisite to gain access to Saarthal and leave it at that.
In essence, I think we should describe places on place pages and quests on quest pages. Describing places on quest pages or quests on place pages is only going to get us into trouble in the end. Robin Hoodtalk 23:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Look, our last two Featured Articles both contained detailed dungeon walkthroughs (which was one of their strengths, according to the people that voted), just like the best walkthroughs in OB namespace. It’s not terribly complicated – we are here to provide detailed information (and mention each and every possible action within a given quest), not to provide people with the ‘quickest way to get through a dungeon’. We got rid of that hopeless philosophy a long time ago, and it would be incredibly unhealthy to let it return now. A sentence like “Follow the mage through the dungeon and experience stuff” is equal to a sentence like “follow your map marker to your destination and kill everybody”. It’s just not up to standard and it’s the very reason I started to rewrite quests in OB and SI namespaces back then, basically because they lacked….heart. I simply cannot believe we will lower our standards based on the assumption that it should be “easier” for gamers to click on a quest from an entirely different quest line (or a place page with 30 map icons and long lists) than having the exact and needed information on the quest people are playing. Layout is another concern of mine. If we replace all dungeon walkthroughs (for easier maintenance) then they will look bad and messy. Imagine Forbidden Legend with a “Saarthal” header and then a link saying something along the lines of “For detailed walkthrough, please see the Under Saarthal page, but please ignore the mentioning of the other, nervous guildmembers, and avoid going back to the College after the quest”. Sorry, it doesn’t make any sense. As for maintenance, I personally volunteer to take responsibility for all ‘infected’ pages so they’re consistent with the puzzle solutions. I’d much rather take on the extra work than see the standards lowered. --Krusty 23:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

() We have a vastly different view of lowering or raising standards. Not providing conflicting and/or redundant information is what I consider to be raising standards, not lowering them. I'm not concerned about the "quickest" way to get through a dungeon, I'm concerned more with having "complete" information about a dungeon, a quest, or whatever else. "Follow the mage through the dungeon and experience stuff" is perfectly acceptable, and I think even desirable, on a quest page. (Okay, not quite in those words, I was summarizing for the sake of not re-writing those three pages as part of this discussion, but it conveys the gist.) The quest page is about the quest, the place page is about the place. Why would you try to intermix the two? It only creates a chaos of incorrect or outdated information. I appreciate that you feel that it's got less heart, but I don't really think that's what we're here for. I know I'm not...I get the "heart" from the game itself. From UESP, I'm looking for information, nothing more.

I should note—and judge me on this however you will—that I don't participate in Featured Article nominations or anything similar because to a large degree, I don't believe in the process. FA's are about what's pretty and what appeals to people, not about what's factually sound and only somewhat about what's complete. At least that's my experience of them. Robin Hoodtalk 00:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I've been thinking more about this, and I'm not so sure anymore. I believe that the Lore section should definitely be written as an encyclopedia. However, it seems that the gamespace sections are written as more of a travel guide. Why is this? Two reasons: 1. That's what the casual editors are making and 2. That's what is most useful to about 90% of the people who view this. For Oblivion, most dungeons were dedicated to a single quest, so a walkthrough being placed on the place page made sense. It did break the flow of the article somewhat, but it made sense when you used it enough, plus the majority of quests were talk to somebody, kill a bunch of other somebodies, often take a something, and talk to the first somebody again. Skyrim, however, is a different matter. Most dungeons are involved (or can be involved) in a bunch of different quests - that points to having everything (or most of everything) consolidated on a single page. However, these quests often only use parts of the place, and you lose the focus and specialization of having the walkthrough on the quest's page. However, this doesn't work for Radiant quests.
Is redundancy something that should be avoided or tolerated? With our Featured Articles, as Robin Hood mentions above, it seems that most people, myself included, really like and prefer more specialized quest pages. Those are by far the most useful to casual readers who come here because they want a walkthrough and they happened to click the link to our site. By contrast, no place pages have been Featured Articles. I don't think the process is broken, because it is a very good barometer of what the public wants and enjoys. Is this website ultimately dedicated to the users, or the content? ?• JATalk 01:44, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit Break

You make some good points, Jak. I don't know if historical precedent is something to really go by here, but it occurred to me that this isn't the first time we've dealt with this sort of issue before. The Imperial Prison Sewer in Oblivion had much the same issue and we struggled with how to handle it for quite a while as I recall. In the end, we chose to split it off into two different place pages, with the walkthroughs on their respective quest pages. Splitting it out isn't going to be a viable choice here, though, as I don't think we want a dozen different descriptions of the same dungeon all on different place pages...for however many overlapping locations Skyrim has.

Amusingly, this lends support to both points here: the walkthroughs were all written on the quest pages...but at the same time, Scheduled for Execution is written exactly as I was suggesting Forbidden Legend should be: it describes briefly that you take the same route as in the tutorial (which inherently you've already done), links to the tutorial, and then goes on to highlight what's different this time around, leaving the reader to link to the additional information if they need to. The only difference here is that we're suggesting that the central source of information be the place page instead of another quest's page (which I think Krusty and I are sort of in agreement on...linking quests to relatively unrelated quests, or repeating the walkthrough from one quest on an unrelated quest's page is not ideal).

I think a part of the decision here should be based on how much overlap and how much difference there is in the general case. If the only real difference in most cases is "this room opens up" or "this object appears that wasn't there before", then I would see the place page being the central location for the walkthrough with differences described on that page as well as the quest page. If there are substantial differences in how you would go through the dungeon, then there's an argument for separating it for each quest. My ideal would be a combination of the two: broad walkthroughs on quest pages with the nitty-gritty on the place page. This is similar to how Wikipedia often does things with having a small section in an article, but a "Main article: Bla bla" at the top of the section for those that need the full treatment.

The fact that place pages aren't nominated for FAs may be an indication that we aren't giving them the attention they deserve because historically we've relegated them to being map and item-list pages rather than fleshing them out in their own right. I see Skyrim as encouraging us to rethink that. But if people really prefer specialized quest pages, then we'll figure out some way of dealing with it. Transclusion might for part of the solution—or we just learn to live with the fact that there's the possibility of conflicting information. It happens on wikis by their nature—I'd just rather we avoid it as much as possible. Robin Hoodtalk 02:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Wow! I didn't realize that I was opening a can of worms. I'm new here, and new to these games. (My younger brothers and nephews have been playing since DaggerFall, but Skyrim is the first I bought.)
When I was trying to make sense of this particular problem, I found an errorful Saarthal page, a fair Under Saarthal, and lastly (after Talk began) the better-written Forbidden Legend page. I removed the worst text entirely, and proposed merging the better two details in a subpage.
It seemed to me that the detailed walkthrough (only the detailed walkthrough) could be transcluded into all 3 pages. Then each page itself could have the summary and short notes related to the specific quests.
I agree with Krusty that flipping back and forth would make the Forbidden Legend quest page much harder to read. I agree with Nephele that maps belong on the place page. My solution (a transcluded subpage) should make those both easier. That's wikilinks! If the user clicks on a link it will bring up the place page.
It seems there are many of these pages, and I recommend standardizing on "<place>/walkthrough".
--DayDreamer 03:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Trancsluding anything should be out of the question, IMO. It does nothing but confuse readers. I dislike it with the lore pages (when transcluded to gamespace), and I would b mortified by it here. I have been thinking about this for awhile, but I won't write a lengthy reply to it. Anything quest related should go onto the quest page. Anything place related should go on the place page. Even if the two intertwine, this can still be achieved. If there is some minor redundancy between the two, that is fine. We need to think of it like this: people go to place pages to find out what's in the dungeon/ruin/etc. This would be the different zones, treasure, people, and so on and so forth. The "place walkthroughs" shouldn't been excessively specific regarding the quest. Now, the quest pages are used by readers as a guide. The information in the page should be relevant to the quest, such as targets, NPCs you speak with, etc. This information should be paragraphic, while the place page should be more... list-like with a few descriptive sentences. If this information overlaps, it's not a big deal. People are going to either page for similar reasons, but the stylistic difference between the two should be clear. Places should detail the place, and shy away from full fledged walkthroughs when quests are associated. And the quests should shy away from being specific about the place, unless there is a clear relation to the place. Things such as traps should be avoided on the quest page. Hmm... I wrote more than I thought, and I probably repeated myself, but I don't think this is a big deal, and much of it needs to be ironed out in practice, rather than in discussion. elliot (talk) 03:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Since this discussion influences the current FA nomination in a negative way and nobody seems to have anything new to add, I’ll close down this discussion within 24 hours, using the consensus template. Unless somebody disagrees hysterically, consensus will be that dungeon walkthroughs do indeed belong on the quest pages. --Krusty 16:13, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Where exactly does this rush to close the discussion in 24 hours come from? Unfortunately, I'm on the road right now with very spotty internet access making it quite difficult to write a full response to all the feedback that has happened in the last couple days. Nevertheless, from what I have been able to read, I don't see any consensus to put full dungeon walkthroughs on the quest pages. Furthermore, I don't think that the FA process should take priority over giving editors a chance to create a good quality article -- but right now I'm getting a very strong impression that edits to Forbidden Legend aren't really welcome.
If I get a chance over the next few hours, and if my internet access doesn't flake out again, I'll try to assemble some of the other comments that I've scribbled down. First, however, it seems clear that I need to read through the entire discussion yet again to see whether it's possible I've wildly misinterpreted most of the other comments -- because I'm clearly not interpreting the comments the same way as Krusty. --NepheleTalk 18:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't really see any sort of consensus either, it seems there are still conflicting opinions throughout the discussion. Both sides have good points and reasons which have been brought up, but as for consensus, I don't see how it's been reached. Alphabetface 18:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorry Neph, but you used the current FA nomination to get your point across and to start this discussion, in the process halting the nomination and confusing a lot of people on how to write quest pages and articles in general. I don’t mind discussing this endlessly (and I’m ready to do so), but you need to remove your addition from the nomination – otherwise, this discussion should face the exact same deadline as the FA. And yep, this is definitely personal – I spent 14 real-life days creating that page (and involved an awful lot of people when creating it) and I’m 110% proud of it. What if I suddenly pointed to some age-old guideline that we haven’t used in years, undermining all your hard work in SR-namespace? Please consider if this discussion is actually healthy for the Wiki right now – and if you’re ready to change 70% of our quest walkthroughs (including the current FA, and the one before that) to avoid ‘redundancy’ so we can fit it into the small box suggested by that guideline. In any case, I hope more people will participate in this discussion, because silence is definitely not golden in this case. --Krusty 19:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Just chipping in! I think it seems silly to undo (or atleast) re-write all the Oblivion pages for NPCs, Quests and Places with have all (or mostly) been recently updated with information that, by the referred guidelines, would now fall to be redundant. Why waste so many weeks/months adding content to then have to tweak it across the board? I think the right course of action would be to re-write the guideline on the matter. But with specific Skyrim instructions, so as to all Places have full walkthroughs so that any quest(s) that go there will be described. Radiant Quests may also need a mention where no specific place exists for the quest. I think too many articles go against the guidelines to make it worth a re-write. Although, I think the true (and proper) course of action would of been re-write the guidelines at the time with a proper voting procedure, bit late now however. --kiz talkemail 19:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

() In terms of the timing of this discussion, I started it because current events seemed to require it, not because I personally wanted to spend a ton of time hashing this out right now. It seems to me that there is a problem when an article is being considered for Featured Article status (at which point we tend to discourage major edits), while simultaneously another editor is proposing making major edits to the article. Ignoring the situation is only likely to cause larger conflicts later (such as edit wars involving articles highlighted on the main page of the wiki). In addition, this same question has previously been brought up for Skyrim articles without any resolution, so continuing to have disconnected discussions between two or three editors seemed unlikely to result in any progress. Therefore, I felt that a community-wide discussion was the only appropriate course of action.

If there was a problem that affected the Skyrim-related contributions I've made, I'd want it brought up sooner rather than later so that the problem could be addressed before more articles were affected. Which has in fact happened multiple times already with my Skyrim contributions. My interest in bringing this up, as I stated in the very first paragraph of the discussion, is to help us as we move forward with improving Skyrim content -- make it so that everyone is working together using the same overall organization. Hundreds of quest and place walkthroughs are likely to get written in the next couple months, so I think the sooner we work out what goes on those revamped pages, the better for everyone involved in doing the work. I'm not proposing anything remotely resembling a revamp of Oblivion -- especially since I think what needs to be done for Skyrim is based on what was done in most cases for Oblivion.

In any case, given the immediate issues prompting this discussion, I focussed on Saarthal, even though it may not be the "best" example. I can see the logic behind having the primary walkthrough be on Under Saarthal instead of Saarthal -- in particular, since the dungeon is locked until you start the Under Saarthal quest. My main concern with that organization is that we would still need a separate Saarthal page and we would presumably have the maps on the Saarthal page. Having the primary walkthrough on a different page than the maps is likely to make the walkthrough be unnecessarily awkward. Nevertheless, having the walkthrough once on the Under Saarthal page is preferable to having all the information repeated three times over.

I share the opinion that trying to write a single mega-walkthrough and transcluding it on all pages is the wrong approach to take. I think it's better for each page to have a separate focus -- with quest-specific information only appearing on that quest's page. Place pages would focus on the place-specific information -- which means that place pages would not contain unnecessary quest spoilers, as a result making it easier for readers to avoid spoilers than if the primary place walkthrough is on the quest page. It seems like many of us agree that the pages should each have their own focus -- at which point the disagreement is more about how focussed each of the walkthroughs should be.

I've spent some time thinking about the question of "how much focus", and I still come to the conclusion that as a reader, in the end having detailed walkthroughs on all three pages isn't really helpful. All-in-one comprehensive walkthroughs work well in linear, non-sandbox games, but that is not the type of game that we're trying to document. The fact is that there are three separate pages where readers are likely to start looking for information about Saarthal. If we don't properly cross-link the walkthroughs, we're basically concealing information from readers, which is only going to cause readers to feel deceived when they later stumble across one of the other walkthroughs. If we do properly cross-link the walkthroughs, any reader looking for complete information will feel compelled to read all three walkthroughs. (Readers who don't want any detailed information, on the other hand, probably aren't even interested in most of the information ciurrently on Forbidden Legend.) Readers won't know whether the three walkthroughs are kept in sync -- regardless of whether that's actually being done. Therefore, readers will end up constantly flipping back and forth between three separate pages, comparing the walkthroughs line by line. Personally, I'd rather have a quest walkthrough that clearly tells me "go to page X for full details on this location", and know that I can simply switch to page X and focus solely on that page until I get to the end of the dungeon.

Furthermore, even though quest walkthroughs are clearly important pages on UESP, I don't think that means that readers are actually looking for narrative stories to read from start to finish. In other words, given a free hour, our readers don't want to spend the time browsing UESP to read stories -- they want to spend that hour playing the game. I'm willing to bet that the single most common reason why readers pull up a quest page is because they've already started the quest but they have now encountered a problem/bug/obstacle. Those readers are simply interested in getting the most complete possible information about their problem -- they want to know every possible workaround, bug fix, etc. -- and therefore they are best served by having one page dedicated to discussing those details instead of having the information spread across three separate pages.

Personally, when I pull up quest walkthroughs, I'm not interested in the details of how to get through the dungeon. I'm interested in quest-specific information. I want to know what happens if I choose to help person A instead of person B. I want to read through the quest dialogue (especially whenever there are dragon translations). I'll read a quest ahead of time to get a general sense of what to expect during the quest -- in particular to see whether there are any quest conflicts, bugs, etc to keep in mind. In any of those cases, I'm not interested in the locations of minor loot chests or step-by-step instructions on how turn the pillars for a puzzle. Therefore, I would find a quest article that truly focussed solely on quest-specific information to be more useful -- in other words, higher quality -- than a quest article that asks me to scan through extraneous information.

Of course, every reader on the site probably has different priorities and interests, so it's impossible to generalize and say what is most useful for every single one of those readers. However, my conclusion after considering known reasons for looking for information on UESP, is that most readers are probably best served by having place pages that provide the place information, and quest pages that provide the quest information. Some overlap and repeat will be necessary -- but that can easily be done while still maintaining the separate focus of each article. --NepheleTalk 19:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Nephele and I are in complete agreement here. I have two further thoughts to add, though. First, to illustrate why we need walkthroughs on place pages, imagine you get a Radiant quest that directs you to a dungeon you've never been to before. (I'm using "dungeon" for convenience - obviously it applies to whatever type of location it is.) The only logical place to find the walkthrough for that dungeon is going to be on the place page. It would be rather silly to have to link through to a quest page to find a walkthrough for that place, if there even are any quests for it. So to me, it seems obvious that there needs to be a walkthrough on every place page.
That brings me to my second point. Rather than debating this back and forth in a theoretical sense, I wonder if it might be useful to mock up the quest/place pages each according to how we'd like to see them, then we can all look at real examples of the final product and get a better feel for how they would work. Even if we don't yet have maps for Saarthal, we can leave placeholders there and show how the rest of the walkthrough would work. Would that be a useful thing to try? Robin Hoodtalk 03:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
We're not talking to each other. We're talking past each other. Robin Hood, nobody is arguing that we need to have Radiant Quest dungeon walkthroughs on quest pages. That's obviously pretty crazy.
I also think that we do need to settle this before we start having Forbidden Legend as a FA. I also don't see any reason to rush this discussion for the FA nominating process. Having a solid policy trumps FA.
Nephele, to be honest, I don't understand why we have to have the maps on the Saarthal page and not the Under Saarthal page. I say put them everywhere. They're the one thing that can be shared really easily between all three pages. I'd also like to point out that having a broken up walkthrough may conceal information from the reader, but if that information is a spoiler, I'd rather it be concealed. If it isn't relevant to the quest at hand, the reader probably isn't too interested in it anyways.
To be honest, I think our biggest difficulty is you think, "Personally, I'd rather have a quest walkthrough that clearly tells me "go to page X for full details on this location", and know that I can simply switch to page X and focus solely on that page until I get to the end of the dungeon." and I think "I want a quest walkthrough that clearly tells me how to get through the dungeon". I want the information to be easy to access on the wiki, and I know from experience on the official forums, when someone asks for help on the Under Saarthal quest, they'll be linked to Skyrim:Under Saarthal. I know it is just one more link that a potential reader has to click to go to the Saarthal page, and honestly, it isn't that big of an issue, but my personal preference is still to eliminate that one link because I really don't think it is necessary, especially in the case of Under Saarthal.--Ratwar 04:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I didn't really think we would be. My point was more that having some place pages having walkthroughs and others not would be inconsistent, so it seems to me that we need to ensure that all place pages have walkthroughs. It certainly makes sense to me to include some level of walkthrough on the quest page—I think we all agree on that—the question is merely how much detail we're going to go into there vs. linking to a place page. I think you hit the nail on the head with your statement that "If it isn't relevant to the quest at hand, the reader probably isn't too interested in it anyways." That's exactly what I'm thinking. Basically, my biggest concern is that we not repeat unneeded information.
Speaking hypothetically, since I haven't done Saarthal yet, let's say Saarthal has a side passage, and you could abandon Tolfdir to go down that side passage and grab some treasure. To me, that sort of information may not belong on the Under Saarthal page at all, since it's not directly related to the quest, but at the same time, I can certainly see an argument for a brief mention like "there's treasure in some of the side passages you may want to grab". The place page, however, should not only detail the side passage, but exactly what kind of treasure you can find there. This is where I think a practical example might be useful; we can then all look at it and decide whether there's too much detail, too little, or it's just right. – Goldilocks...errr...Robin Hoodtalk 05:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Again, the question is do we care more about the users or the content? If we care more about the content, then we should place the walkthroughs on the place pages. That's the most logical way - everything will be on a single page, solving the problem of Radiant quests requiring it. If we care more about the users, then we should have very detailed walkthroughs. That's the most helpful way - they Google "Forbidden Legend", for example, and they use whatever tells them the best information. Nothing is more of a turn-off for the casual browser than a "Click here for more info". If, on the other hand, they find a very detailed, thorough, well-formatted and well-written article, they'll use it, and probably come back for more. That's how I got hooked on this wiki in the first place.
I think that a lot of the opposition here (for both sides) is that either choice represents their fundamental beliefs about what the wiki is about. Catering to what the users want and just what the users want (by user I mean a general browser that came here from Google, etc.) opens the floodgate to an unprofessional wiki. Truly, that's why our wiki stands out - professionalism. We make high-quality articles, have high-quality editors, have a highly polished look and feel, and (this is actually a pretty important one) are not overrun by ads. By reversing our policy (look at it however you want, that's what we'd be doing) then we not only change the way we write articles but also our fundamental ideas of the wiki, and then we'd devolve into the other wikis, which are overrun with poor-quality articles written by a bunch of 12 year olds that don't know the difference between a "q" and a "k".
On the other hand, a website's success is ultimately driven by how much the users like to use it, and most causal users will pick a poorly-written guide that's useful over a well-written guide that's not as useful. One good example (mentioned above, I believe) is Miscarcand (quest) and Miscarcand (place). Let's say you're an average browser. You're stuck on that quest, so you google "Miscarsand" (you're spelling isn't very good). You find the quest page (that's the first link on Google) and skim through it. You see a page of bugs and a blurb of quest info, with a little sentence inside that says "Details on the interior of Miscarcand are provided on its page." You click on it. You read the place page, and it's mildly informative. Sure, it has what you need, but it's just missing that special touch that makes you really want to come back. That's the problem. Compare that to Forbidden Legend. That is an excellent article. You're stuck on that quest, you google it, and you find that page and think, wow, this is really useful! In-depth walkthrough, lots of pictures, helpful info, it has it all! It even has that special touch that makes you want to come back for more. That's the kind of reaction we want to solicit, isn't it?
I don't have a strong opinion either way, so I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. We've more or less skipped the subject of redundancy. Is having two or three separate walkthroughs on the same place necessarily a bad thing? I don't like it, but it would give us the freedom to write very good and highly focused articles for each quest. With the number of editors we have on this wiki, plus with the overall usage declining, we're not going to have much of a problem transferring any bugs saved on one page to another (if it makes sense to do so), so that won't be a problem.
I hope these thoughts are somewhat coherent. ?• JATalk 06:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I think it's possible to have both our place pages and quest pages be high-quality pages that impress new readers with their depth and details -- even if the pages contain different content and have different focuses. I'm working on revised versions of Saarthal and Under Saarthal (as I can find time) which I think demonstrate just how much information there is for each page. At least, they can serve as concrete examples for this discussion. I should be able to post something by the end of the day tomorrow -- if nothing else, I'll have new descriptions of the first half of the dungeon.
Also I'm also a bit wary of applying Jak Attacka's logic and concluding that Under Saarthal should have more complete information than Saarthal based on the assumption that readers are more likely google the quest name than the place name. Even when the place and quest have different names, it seems inevitable that a significant fraction of readers will google the place name instead of the quest name. In the specific example of Under Saarthal, I'd bet that most googlers are lazy and just type "Saarthal" instead of the full quest name. So organizing content based on where first-time visitors are likely to end up seems flawed; I'd rather organize content based on where it logically belongs.
Finally, for what it's worth, I also just noticed that Unfathomable Depths and Avanchnzel are currently set up in the opposite way than Saarthal/Forbidden Legend: the entire walkthrough is on the place page, and the quest page is nearly empty. So our starting point for Skyrim is not one uniform format/organizational system. We currently have a lot of different approaches being taken by different editors, which is why we need to come up with a community consensus about what approach we want to standardize around. --NepheleTalk 18:43, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm eagerly waiting your examples. Will you please remove your comment from the FA nomination? -- Krusty 20:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)??
In the interest of allowing this discussion to proceed independently and be decided based on its own merits, I've withdrawn myself from the FA discussion. I'm also assuming, though, that the independence goes both ways: this discussion is free to consider whether Forbidden Legend needs to be revised, and make any resulting changes to the article, regardless of its FA status. --NepheleTalk 21:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit Break 2

() It's not a really a discussion, but thanks anyway. --Krusty 06:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I've redone the first halves of Under Saarthal and Saarthal -- I'm planning to get my revised versions of the second halves of the pages posted, too, but for now this is hopefully enough to at least demonstrate what I think is possible. The place page focusses on the place, while the quest page focusses on the quest. Each page is full of detailed information, but there is only minimal overlap in content between the pages. I think both pages accomplish the goals of providing readers with high-quality pages that can impress new readers and attract them to the site.
The question that I'm unable to answer is whether the organization ends up making sense to casual visitors to the site. Do you think readers will understand the difference between the two pages, or does it end up just being confusing to figure out what information is provided where? --NepheleTalk 20:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm still looking over both pages, but so far, Under Saarthal looks exactly like what I'd want in a quest page. An IRC user, Ijiero, had another good idea: add reminders to the page (I'm thinking HTML comments) to encourage users to check any related pages, like Saarthal and Forbidden Legend, that might also need updating. It's not a perfect system, certainly, but it would have the advantage of being easy to tell people where else to check/edit without cluttering up the visible page, and any quest/place project later on would have a handy list of pages that need to be checked for inter-page consistency. (Note: Related Quests on the Place pages partly serves this function, but there will likely be times when quests should say "such-and-such other quest should also be checked" and there may be times when we need to cross-reference between places as well.) Robin Hoodtalk 21:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Haha, these two examples gave me a mental flashback to the day I ran into Saarthal while writing Forbidden Legend. I quickly realized that there is no ‘easy’ way to do this, as we basically have two quests tied together in a way which makes it impossible to figure out what is best for the three pages. While Under Saarthal looks good now, it also visualizes my confusion with this discussion perfectly. As of now, we have:
  • A Place page that has no other choice but to become a quest walkthrough of sorts, yet it is on an impossible task with two different (but equally important) objectives.
  • A good and detailed Under Saarthal page, focused on what it should do, namely the story, the relations and concerns of the other characters and an extended Tolfdir, with a College of Winterhold feel about it.
  • A Forbidden Legend page, which boils down the info for non-mage characters, but in a way so it is clear to everybody that the Gauldur Legend takes a front seat to Tolfdir’s ramblings.
So, what did we learn here? It’s safe to say there’s no way we can ever create a Saarthal place page without redundancy if we want dungeon walkthroughs on quest pages, regardless of our approach. Quest-related dungeons (that you can’t even access before you’re on the quest), and their descriptions, are bound to be quest-related. For the sake of the story of the different quests (a thing I value very highly, and it seems Neph does the same) I have a few suggestions, although I’ll wait until Neph finished the other halves of the pages. So far, good work to the Neph – it’s definitely a step towards something good, and, regardless of the outcome, two new good articles will see the light of day. Win-win and all that. We'll see how it goes with chapter two of the pages. :) --Krusty 23:33, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Okay, it seems like the pages are finished. I think we should keep this discussion alive, if for nothing else, then for people to actually know what they’re supposed to add to quest pages – including me. As I wrote in the post just before this one, we’re basically facing an entirely different beast with Skyrim, and I’m convinced that focus is more important than a few pages with redundant info. As long as the articles are focused on the quest/place at hand, we can do no wrong – but we will have to add the info to a few extra pages, if someone changes it for the better. Neph, you took on a big assignment there and the quest page is a beaut. The place page, however, seems a bit huge (and the links put there to make it easier for people seems confusing), and I think the next step would be to figure out how we create these maps for Skyrim dungeons. Alfwyn tried to put up a discussion somewhere, but it was ignored. If we want better place page work, we better figure this out asap. When we have a Saarthal map, I’ll give the OPRP style a shot in a sandbox – just to see if that method works. If anyone disagrees with this, please respond now – otherwise, I’d like the Forbidden Legend article treated fairly on the FA – so please consider changing the “for now”-like votes to either yay or nay. Thanks. --Krusty 23:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
My primary concern remains the same as it has been all along, so at this point, my vote remains unchanged. As far as I understand it, you can do Forbidden Legend well after you've done Under Saarthal, and if you do, you'd presumably be doing it without Tolfdir there to walk you through it. If I'm correct in that understanding, then I feel that all mention of Tolfdir should be removed, except perhaps in the lead paragraph, since he may not actually be with you. If, on the other hand, there's no way to avoid doing the quests concurrently or Tolfdir will be with you even if you've already done Under Saarthal, then I'll definitely re-evaluate my vote. Robin Hoodtalk 01:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
On a side note, there are also only four votes, I would say, since I don't see "Neutral" as being a vote either way. Robin Hoodtalk 02:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

() In terms of "what did we learn here?", my main hope would be that we've learned that there is another viable option for how to handle walkthroughs, other than the ones that had previously been used and/or proposed for the Saarthal pages. To recap those previous options:

  1. Three basically independent walkthroughs (e.g., Saarthal, Under Saarthal, and Forbidden Legend as they existed on Feb. 19) -- all covering the same basic information with the same general focus, but with random differences in details and various discrepancies.
  2. Reducing one of the pages to a glorified stub (as done to Saarthal).
  3. Using a subpage to create a single, mega-walkthrough that is transcluded, identical, onto all relevant pages.

On the other hand, what I've tried to show is that it's possible to have a place page that has a place-specific walkthrough and a quest page that has a quest-specific walkthrough -- that each of those two walkthroughs can be substantial, while differing significantly in focus and content.

If we can at least agree that what I'm suggesting has more potential than the other options, then I think we've made significant progress. It gives some idea of what belongs on pages instead of alternating between blanking pages and moving huge fractions of pages from one place to another. Some of the details can continue to evolve as we move forward. Yes, we need to start working on how to generate maps for the place pages -- but I think it's equally important to first establish whether or not the place pages are going to be anything more than glorified stubs. It's relevant to know whether or not the maps are going to be accompanied by walkthrough-type descriptive information.

In terms of Forbidden Legend, I disagree with the assessment that it's a walkthrough for non-mage characters. I still think that Forbidden Legend would be a better article if most of the Saarthal walkthrough was removed. It misleads readers into thinking that it provides complete information, yet it doesn't provide enough information to really help readers who need help. Unfortunately, I think in order to fully explain myself, I need to pick apart some of the details of the current quest page. I realize I'm putting the article under a very unfair amount of scrutiny. Normally after analyzing an article in such close detail, I'd simply go ahead and make any edits I thought necessary, without having to first justify the edits by providing detailed criticisms of other editors' choices.

As one example, take the information about loot and chests. The walkthrough has statements such as "investigate the chamber for a bit of minor loot" or "examine the area for some minor loot in locked chests". First, the minor loot/locked chests have no relevance for completing the quest. Second, I don't know why those specific locations deserve to be singled out as worthy of further investigation/examination. The implication is that those are the best places to look for loot. But the reality is that the walkthrough only mentions two of five identical TreasDraugrChest chests, and since they contain random loot, it's likely that the two mentioned don't contain better loot than the three that are left out. Minor loot is mentioned while the walkthrough ignores items that are potentially worth thousands in gold (such as the leveled sword, leveled dagger, and leveled helmet -- which can be glass/ebony/daedric at high levels). The upshot is that readers will either use the walkthrough's loot information (and miss the majority of the loot in the dungeon), or else they still have to scour the dungeon on their own to find all the loot, effectively ignoring the walkthrough -- in neither case is the walkthrough's loot information helping the readers. Finally, in an attempt to be brief, the walkthrough is technically inaccurate, since it says "locked chests" whereas only one of the two chests in that room is locked. I admit, it's a very minor nitpick, but I think it's symptomatic of the types of problems that come up when a walkthrough tries to add information more for the sake of "heart" than for the sake of focussing on useful information -- but then can't afford to spend more than one phrase detailing the filler-type extras.

The information on the Forbidden Legend page is also not correct when it comes to the dungeon's puzzles, specifically the sentence: "Facing the gate the two pillars to the right will cause each other to move, while the pillars to the left will cause the adjacent pillars to move". Of the pillars to the left, one causes all four pillars to move, the other makes three pillars move. On the right, one of the pillars doesn't have any side effects (activating it only changes that one pillar). And the puzzle solution is, in my opinion, overly confusing compared to either of the options on the Saarthal page. Even if there's disagreement over whether the Saarthal description has the "best" solution, I'd rather only need to work on getting one complete and accurate description of the puzzle, instead of then having to also create an overly-brief and inaccurate summary for a second page. That is exactly why I didn't include any details about the puzzles on the Under Saarthal quest page -- the puzzles are not really part of the quest (they don't affect the quest any more than the random loot chests do) and can't usefully be condensed.

In my opinion, any walkthrough should be consistent in terms of what details are or are not contained in the walkthrough. If some loot and chests are mentioned, then all comparable (or greater value) loot and chests need to also be included. Also, any information that is included should be contain sufficient details to be useful and accurate. However, expanding the Forbidden Legend article accordingly will create a bloated walkthrough where the important information is lost amidst the extra details. Therefore, I feel that the article would be better without any of those inconsistent/inaccurate extra details. --NepheleTalk 04:27, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

First of all, RobinHood70, you really should play the quest. It’s gaming for ten minutes (tops!) before you reach Under Saarthal, and a bit of in-game knowledge on the place is required at this point, because this is an incredibly important discussion.
Second, we’re getting a bit formal here, and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Let’s just keep in mind that we’re spending all this time on an place example otherwise unheard of in Skyrim, and with that in mind, let’s move on. Of course we can mention the occasional chest without mentioning ALL of them. That’s not how it works. What I hate about bad walkthroughs is when they lose descriptions of their surroundings and when I’m forced to click back and forth to more ‘detailed’ pages to figure out where I am. That’s why I include small snippets of location information – who cares about the chest and what it contains? It makes for an easier and friendlier walkthrough with a bit of hearty, but brief, descriptions, so people don’t have to look at the really detailed walls of text on the place pages at all times. Without hesitation, I’d include info on a shiny soul gem to a walkthrough if it is a better way to make people locate where they are – and I’ll gladly ignore the boss chest around the corner if it is hidden. So, basically, let’s not shy away from some descriptions of the surroundings.
Third, some people are there for the treasure (even if Saarthal is quest-related for everybody, regardless of what we say), some people are there for the CoW, some people are there for the Forbidden Legend quest. It’s incredibly simple, really. If we want to shoot ourselves in the foot, head, or whatever, we over-organize things in an attempt to be clever. I based the Forbidden Legend page on my own experience with the game, where I was incredibly angry that I had to join the College of Winterhold to get the third amulet fragment – and stopped with the quest for a very long time. With that and all the anti-mage posts on the talk page, I more or less decided to write a ‘quick’ walkthrough, and ignore the force-fed Under Saarthal quest as much as I could, even make fun of Tolfdir when possible, simply because the old fool is a necessary evil to get the fragment – that’s an attempt to give the walkthroughs a bit of heart, or personality if you will.
Lastly, I can’t stress this enough. Let’s make a map for that place and see how it goes. Without a proper guideline for place pages, we’re basically guessing away and is on our way to change the entire walkthrough style based on non-existent place articles. A map could also shave away 2/3 of the current place page (sorry, it’s too long and really should resemble the OB place pages a bit more) because we’d have the A, B C and Ds to refer to at all times.
Lastly for the second time, if there’s anything wrong with the Forbidden Legend quest, like the occasional locked chest and/or a poor puzzle solution (I was 100% certain I was correct when I wrote it, so I’ll go back one of these days), or ANY quest page, it’s more than okay to change it right away. Just make sure it’s like that in-game, not just in the game data.
Lastly, for the third time – a quote: "In my opinion, any walkthrough should be consistent in terms of what details are or are not contained in the walkthrough." I’m so sorry to bring the bad news, but that will never happen, no matter how hard we try or how much we debate – it is impossible in Skyrim. --Krusty 07:07, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
While I will admit that playing the quest would be helpful, there are days when I don't get to play the game at all, so when I do, I play for fun, not to add more to the work I do on the wiki. I generally prefer magic-using characters, so I'm sure I'll get to Saarthal in the relatively near future, but I'm still using my first character, and she's a stealth character, not a mage character, so my focus right now is on Thieves Guild quests...I can't do everything, despite the attempts of NPCs throughout Skyrim thinking I can. (Is there anybody in this entire game who doesn't offer you a quest?)
I have to say, though, that by and large, Nephele and I agree. Eliminating a "re-Under Saarthal" from Forbidden Legend to me seems to be a crucial step. I can't imagine ever thinking of it as a Featured Article if it's got that as a prerequisite when you might well only be going through Under Saarthal and then starting Forbidden Legend when you read the writ. For that matter, what happens if you just grab the writ and don't read it? As Forbidden Legend stands now, there's only a couple of sentences that are actually relevant in that scenario. The rest of it is just crowding the page and making it harder to figure out what it is you actually need to do.
As far as consistency of what and how we describe things, I see no reason at all that that can't happen with Skyrim. Wikipedia manages it with far more complex issues than this, and I'm sure we can too. Consistency can even vary from page to page to account for different environments. I don't propose, for example, that we only document "significant" treasure in the startup dungeon. At that point, apples might well be significant. ;) But we can decide, for example, that in the description of that place, talking about food or otherwise minor treasures is relevant, whereas in almost any other quest, it probably won't be.
The one thing that has become clear to me in all of this is that Oblivion's place pages are not something we should be modelling future place pages on. Yes, maps would help and "see location X on the map" would minimize some wording, but in the end, I think we can put more "heart", to use your word, into a place page than what we ever did with Oblivion. Clicking on a random Oblivion place page, I came up with Bramblepoint Cave, and it makes a great example. You can't look at that page and tell me it has a whole lot of heart. It has only the most minimal text, but a whole ton of lists and bullet point information. I don't find that terribly exciting, personally, but with a re-think, I think that it could've been. I'm not proposing we go back and re-write everything—I'm not insane!—but I think we can aim higher with Skyrim.
Finally, I think this discussion would go a lot smoother if loaded statements are avoided. This entire discussion is, or should be, about exploring the merits and drawbacks of each way of doing things, not about sniping at one another. I understand that you're frustrated, but there's really no call to be so dismissive of other points of view or to try to hurry along a single FA that's currently lacking in both consensus and in the required number of votes. Let's move on to a different FA that's not as problematic in terms of what goes where and take our time with this one so we know we're giving as many people as possible what they're looking for. Dragon might be one possibility, since it's been nominated, but there are lots of other articles that I'm sure we can look at if not that one. Robin Hoodtalk 08:17, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but if you want to participate in this discussion, you need to travel to Winterhold and get going. I sacrificed the entire game for this Wiki, so I’m sure you can do that one thing – for the sake of this discussion. Here’s a few tips. Save your current game where it is now and travel to the CoW. Join and complete the first short quest. Then you are in Saarthal. After playing through it, load your old game and pretend it never happened. It takes the same amount of time you just spent writing your latest reply. Also, exact in-game information on how Forbidden Legend is triggered can be found here and by following the link to the bugs section. That research alone took me two full days to write, so please.
Also, this has NOTHING to do with Forbidden Legend. Throw it off the FA, I don’t care. It has everything to do with the Wiki and how we organize things and write our content. Don’t ever underestimate that for the sake of discussion. I realize that we will not reach a consensus with the current three participants (everyone else seems to be ignored, which is why people shy away), so from now on, I’ll stay away from this discussion, I write no more quest walkthroughs and focus on NPCs and maintenance duties. Have a nice never-ending discussion and please, if you catch me writing NPC pages that doesn’t fit yet another age-old policy, let me know. --Krusty 13:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
To be honest, I wasn't going to get into this discussion because I thought you guys had some idea of what you wanted to do (and because I haven't been here for pretty much all of the Skyrim stuff), but having read a bit more closely I see I misunderstood. If it would help things at all, I can try to catch up and weigh in. Alternatively, it seems it might also be a good idea to take a break and approach the topic later. –Eshetalk 14:03, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I think another voice would be very helpful here. Despite our apparent differences, I honestly think the styles we're proposing aren't that far apart, but a fresh set of eyes would be beneficial. And yes, Krusty, when I have more than the one hour to play that I've had in the last three days, I was thinking I would do exactly that. And thanks for the link, but if it's possible to trigger the quest by reading the writ alone, then we have to assume that at least some people will do it that way, so that's the way I intend to approach it. Robin Hoodtalk 17:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Believe it or not, I realized shortly after my last post that I think we may have already reached a consensus on the big picture questions that most needed to be worked out. I figured I'd sleep on it before writing a new post, and in the meantime the conversation has taken a somewhat unexpected turn. However, I don't think it's changed the big picture.
Multiple editors in the discussion have explicitly said that they are in favor of quest walkthroughs on quest pages and place walkthroughs on place pages. And Krusty's responses to the revised Saarthal and Under Saarthal articles also seem to support that same basic approach -- in a big picture sense, at least. Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but between comments saying that the revised articles are improvements over what was previously there, plus statements such as "As long as the articles are focused on the quest/place at hand, we can do no wrong", I can't see any other conclusion. We seem to agree that pages with walkthroughs are better than stub pages; we seem to agree that identical transcluded walkthroughs aren't the way to go; we seem to agree that walkthroughs on different pages should focus on different aspects of the walkthrough. Those are the biggest points that I have been trying to address since the start of this discussion.
If it's best to simply bring this discussion to a close with nothing more than a big picture understanding that quest pages and place pages both need walkthroughs (but not identical ones), then so be it. I still think that is a lot of progress compared to where we started.
I'm not saying that we've resolved everything -- there are obviously still questions in terms of how much information should be repeated between articles. The only reason I went into details about Forbidden Legend in my last post was to attempt to take one relevant article and use it to look at concrete examples where partial/summary information was being added to an article, and to understand whether or not that information was enhancing the article -- because we didn't seem to be making any progress talking about those questions in an abstract sense. I still think it would be useful to also reach a consensus on some of those secondary points. However, if we're giving up on this discussion, I doubt it's worth responding to any specific feedback on those points. It's probably best to stick to the big picture if that's all that's likely to come out of this. --NepheleTalk 18:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit Break 3

() (edit conflict × 2) My WikiBreak (which I've done a terrible job of maintaining) has given me a chance to watch this discussion unfold. I have to agree with Krusty here. Oblivion was efficient, sure, but (as Robin Hood said) it's just a bulleted list. Sure, there's all the information you need, but no heart to it. There's nothing that makes you want to keep reading it. It's almost hard to read, it's so bland. We can do a whole lot better than that for Skyrim, and we have to, if we want to keep our loyal readers. I prefer having separate walkthroughs, because different information is relevant for each time you go through. If you need to go through Saarthal for Under Saarthal, then the focus will be placed on Tolfdir. If you are just going through Saarthal for the treasure, then that information should be on Saarthal's page. In this case, we could have a sentence at the top of the place page saying something along the lines of, "This walkthrough is for if you have already completed Under Saarthal. For a quest-specific walkthrough, go here."

However, I'm not sure about Forbidden Legend. My belief has always been quality over quantity, so I'm leaning towards having the specialized walkthrough in that article as well. You can have another disclaimer at the top, saying something like "This walkthrough is for if you haven't completed Under Saarthal. For a more general walkthrough, go here". In general, people won't go through Saarthal, kill Gauldurson, and not take his fragment of the amulet, so having a more focused walkthrough assuming that you are doing Under Saarthal makes sense. ?• JATalk 18:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

As much as I dislike the repetition, and I can see errors creeping in when we have the same information repeated in several places, I also understand the desire to have a walkthrough be reasonably complete. So in the broader sense, I think we're agreed that something has to go on both the quest and the place pages, and from what I've seen, I think Nephele's done a good job of delineating the two.
As far as the specifics of Forbidden Legend go, Jak's response reminded me of something I'd thought of earlier that would make that page much more palatable for me while still keeping the full Saarthal walkthrough. At the beginning of the Saarthal section, simply add a bolded "If you haven't done Under Saarthal: ..." or similar text, as Jak suggested. I think this will be the most common scenario from what I've read, so it makes sense that that should come first. Then at the bottom of that section, add another small paragraph saying "If you've done Under Saarthal and this quest activated when you read the writ: (or however else you can activate it) ...". It lets me quickly skip to the relevant details if I've done Under Saarthal already, but still keeps the full walkthrough all on one page if I haven't. Also, by doing that, you can elaborate on the issues that starting the quest that way will create and include the workarounds right in the walkthrough where they're most likely to be noticed. Robin Hoodtalk 19:30, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I just stumbled over this discussion again and was surprised at how big it has become. Last time I saw it, only Nephele's first post was there, and it seemed relatively routine. It seems that it was more involved than I initially realized. I have only skimmed all the text, so I will not venture an opinion on this yet, but I would like to add some considerations to the discussion.
Firstly, we should be careful of drawing on the given examples too much. Saarthal, Under Saarthal and the Forbidden Legend are related in a peculiar way. They are three separate pages that will probably deal with the exact same event in the player's game experience. Saarthal is a place that you cannot enter unless you do the quest Under Saarthal and, if you do Under Saarthal, it is unlikely that you will not complete the Saarthal segment of the Forbidden Legend. With this intrinsic relationship some redundancy is probably necessary but it should not be allowed to creep over into other pages unless there is a really good reason. We have already experienced a light taste of the problems with redundancy with the Forbidden Legend puzzles. If this happened to new articles, with some justification for redundancy, how much more havoc would occur if older less related articles had redundant info.
Secondly, for what it is worth, I decided to find out how the average user looks things up and contacted some of my gaming friends. I made sure that they did not edit and were unaware of this discussion before soliciting their user habits. The vast majority play the game and go with the flow. They only look things up when they get stuck, encounter a bug, encounter a choice that they are uncertain about, or if something looks like it was intended for some use but there seems no pertinent purpose. They will look up the word they remember in relation to the thing they are looking up. That word is usually the name of the place they are at, the organization that sponsored the quest, or an important person in the quest. This came as a bit of a surprise to me (I usually look up quest pages) but there it is.
I hope these observations will be useful. Coronus 20:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Like Coronus, I asked my friends about this, and they all had this to say: They much prefer focused walkthroughs (which we've already established), if they are reading it for a quest they prefer a quest-specific walkthrough rather than a generic one, if they need a generic one (say, to retrieve a unique item they missed) then they'd prefer having a general walkthrough, and they don't mind there being two different, very similar walkthroughs for the same place. They are average, intelligent gamers, so I think they establish a good baseline.
Coronus: I think this is an excellent example, if nothing else than to show what kind of crap we're going to run into. The best part about this example is, it demonstrates where not two but three walkthroughs are possible. I don't see how the issue with the puzzle solution is really an issue at all. The other option is that we have an incorrect solution on one article, rather than an incorrect one in one article and a correct one on another. I'm not sure how big of a difference that makes. If anything, it would help us, because it takes a lot longer to find incorrect information than conflicting information. ?• JATalk 06:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

() I lack the perspective to do more than share some of my personal preferences and totally subjective thoughts. There are so many factors to consider, both in isolation and from a systemic perspective, that the whole set of issues seems like it needs a problem-solving approach that a trained engineer might take in looking at a complex system. I do care about the outcome of this discussion, but I honestly do not have the knowledge, or the time and motivation, to try to analyze everything that would benefit from careful thought. Given this, I have a lot of respect, for example, for Nephele in some of her posts above in which she is beginning to enumerate and specify the major issues, even making a list at one point, and at the same time that she has clear opinions, has been calling for more input throughout and she has shown that she is really considering a wide range of input and is open to evolving her own point of view. If she and the other "main" participants in the conversation so far are willing to put that kind of effort and thought into this discussion, I am certainly going to respect and appreciate the outcome, even if it's completely different from what I'd personally like to see. Basically, then: My thanks and support for whoever is willing to continue to do the hardest and most time-consuming work on this issue. It is benefiting from all the input, I think, but ultimately will need some leadership: Maybe developing a sort of "menu" of several sets of options, and presenting them as potential guidelines/policies.

When I go to a quest page, I want to know how to do the quest, essentially following the objectives of the stages and doing what the designers of the game intended me to do (of course, sometimes that intention is to allow, encourage, or force flexibility or choosing options that result in different consequences). I like to have alternatives, tips, and some degree of other kinds of information pointed out along the way through a walkthrough. There are two keys to this last issue for me. First: Is the page formatted and organized in such a way that I can quickly locate what I want to find if I don't want to read the whole page? Second: Is there some reasonable balance with respect to how much detail is included, and how wide the scope of potentially relevant information is set?

I do want to be walked through locations on quest pages when a location is necessarily or very likely involved in the quest, especially when a place is labyrinthine (maps are not always as helpful as narrative in this respect, especially when there are multiple levels). I want at least some kind of information about enemies I will encounter, and sometimes I absolutely do want to know where "danger points" are, be they traps (especially potentially fatal ones; certainly not a textual description of every bear trap in an extensive location) enemies, etc. I want to see some combat strategies, especially for difficult encounters and also certain "creative" strategies that may be particularly effective, interesting, or fun, and which I might have missed on my own. (Although, again, I want a lengthy and detailed walkthrough very easy to navigate so that I can skip past things that I want to discover on my own, and zero-in on an area that I'm stuck on.) And sometimes I like to do a quest on my own, and then save my game, re-load, and do it again after reading a quest page, so that I can finish the quest having used my resources more efficiently or find things that I may have missed.

Fairly often, a keen observer can see that the developers have placed certain resources around locations where those resources are likely to be particularly valuable in accomplishing the objectives that lie ahead. It can be very useful to me to have this kind of information included in a walkthrough, especially when the information is not obvious. Other times, such things can be found even when it may not be clear if the developers were thinking about it. One example that comes to mind is the following: If a player does "Way of the Voice" early in the game, it is common to run into trouble with the frost troll encountered on the 7000 steps. If someone starts early, they are unlikely to yet have Clairvoyance. The most obvious route from locations where a player is likely to start off (say Whiterun), follows main roads with marked signs pointing to Ivarstead. If one does have clairvoyance, however, the game directs the player through a complex and unmarked route through mountain passes, and this involves passing by Valtheim Towers, which happens to contain tons of restore health potions. These potions can make the difference between being able to survive the battle with the frost troll or not. It seems to me that some players would like to have this information, and some would like to find their own way (and their own solutions to this kind of challenge). I was in the process of writing a much more detailed walkthrough for the quest (here) in which I try to give users easily-navigable choices in terms of how much guidance and detail they want in various aspects. I am not under and delusion that hundreds of people are going to be interested in looking at my experiment, and it is far from the point where I want to officially ask people for feedback, but I mention it here because based on what I was seeing at the beginning of this conversation, I decided to abandon the project as it didn't seem to fit with what several people were calling for. At this point, I am really impressed with how much people have shared of their ideas and preferences, that I feel comfortable including these thoughts, and maybe continuing to work on the write-up and then seeing what people think. I am completely aware that it is very different from most quest walkthroughs, and I decided at the outset that my motivation was to write it for my own entertainment, fully aware that it may be very far from what others want.

On quest walkthroughs, I like to have some moderately-important/useful to very-important/useful items pointed out to me: Again, I would want to go to a place page to see everything that exists inside a particular location, but if a quest will take me on a route through a certain part of a location, I like to know if I'm passing by a room that contains "worthwhile" items (yeah, I know ... how to define that?) ... let's say at least something more than goblets and carrots, and I might like a brief idea of what I would find if I visited section of a location that I don't need to tour to get the quest done.

I (and again I stress that this is only personal)have minimal use for reading all of the dialogue that NPCs say while doing a quest walkthrough. I find it boring to read and generally of no use. Exceptions include very brief bits that "move the story along" or that represent choices that carry meaningful consequences. I can see the value of having NPC dialogue available as a reference, but too much of it is a distraction to me. A solution for this (to me as a user/reader) might be to place all of this in a separate section, to provide a link to it on another page (maybe the NPC's page?) or to use the showhide function so that I can expand it and read it if I want to. Under Saarthal, as currently written, contains much too much of this for my taste. It makes my eyes glaze over. I also generally want very little "lore" information placed on quest pages. Again, little tidbits can be referenced here and there, helping to serve as glue to hold a narrative together, but I usually find it a distraction, and I very much prefer links to lorespace pages so I can easily decide when I want to get into something more deeply out of interest, but which is not critical to know in order to accomplish a quest.

Given the complexity of many (most?) quests, I think that including separate sections near the top of the detailed walkthrough (perhaps), such as "Obtaining/Initiating the Quest" and "Quest Order Notes" is extremely useful. Whether a quest page includes a duplicated copy of a map or links to a place page seems unimportant to me, as long as the map info will be very easy to get to when I want it.

I want place pages to include everything possible about a place. That is where I want to see the locations of pretty much everything, and lists of what can be found in a place. Most of the current place pages are already useful to me in the form they are evolving toward. Given the nature of Skyrim, a general walkthrough of a place (at least most places) would be very useful. That should guide me through a place beginning at the "main" or "front" entrance, and taking me through the place, pointing out where target items, enemies/bosses, boss chests, etc., would be very useful. So a "find the book/kill the bandit leader" quest that could point to dozens of locations should list the possible locations (or if they are very numerous, probably just contain a statement to that effect), and be set up so that a step/section of the detailed walkthrough tells me to visit the place page for a walkthrough.

Yes, this means duplication of information. Again, I do not know enough about how the game works or how this wiki works to confidently say what is best, but I think I would like to see whatever information I need in the place I expect to find it. (Again, at the simplist level, this is "how to achieve the stages of quests" on quest pages, and "all about this location" on place pages. Sometimes, there should be differences in such walkthroughs. A special example is Infiltration (quest) and Treva's Watch (place). If doing the quest, the game wants players to use a secret back entrance tunnel and the "front gate" is locked. After this, the location serves as the site of a number of "find the x" and "kill the x" quests, the walkthroughs for which would sensibly be located on the place page, and take me from the (now open) front entrance, to the locations of my target. There will be inconsistencies, but sometimes there should be, as the focus is different. Even when not, my gut feeling is that the editors and users of the wiki are very good at identifying errors between two or more pages, and if one version is clearly the best in some aspect, using it to update the other. It also allows for a certain level of variety, which can be a positive thing.

A given quest page, for example, may not be written in the style I personally like, but others may appreciate it. That's fine. But if overly-detailed standards are held up, then people who write quests with a different style will feel discouraged, or worse: be "informed" that their efforts don't meet standards. There is a need for some kind of standard(s) to be specified to some extent, but I think it should allow flexibility. A quest walkthrough should effectively walk a user through a quest. There may be different styles and ways to do that effectively. If only one way is the "right" way (and that way is too tightly constrained), then many people who like to write or re-write quest walkthroughs in substantial ways will feel discouraged and maybe stop. Would that be a loss or a benefit to the wiki as a whole? Hard to predict, I think.

I know that I have neglected some vital issues here (despite the criminal length of this post), so just some of my own strongest thoughts so far. --JRTalk E-mail 02:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Wow. That's a long post. Funny you should mention eyes glazing over... ;) However, I largely agree with what you say. You mentioned creating a menu of sorts for organizing the different options, so I'll do that with this below poll. Add a new table cell for your vote, and sign it with just your name, not the date (use ~~~).
When I say walkthrough on one or the other, I mean the main walkthrough. The other page could have a very simplified or partial walkthrough. This discussion has become so long, everything has started blending together and I can't keep track of which user supports which idea. This is not intended to alienate anyone at all - I just want to see, in very simple terms, where everybody stands. ?• JATalk 06:23, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I vote for having information on both pages. I kind of hesitate to say so, because the idea of trying to write and maintain both (or all) versions of a walkthrough makes my OCD hurt...yet I really think it's going to be necessary, given how complex Skyrim is. I think place pages should be pretty comprehensive in detailing everything about a place, and quest pages could do with a decent quest-specific walkthrough too (though it could be a much simpler version, for sure). Honestly, if it were me, I would want to just be able to go to a quest page and rely on that page to get me all the way through the quest, rather than having to refer to the quest page and the location page. Of course, if I just found a place without being there for a specific quest, I would want to find walkthrough information there too. My hope would be that if we stick with putting every detail on place pages and only quest-specific stuff on quest pages, it should satisfy users' needs without getting into too much directly copied/redundant text. –Eshetalk 16:54, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Is there any way we can eliminate some of the redundancy through creative transclusions? Like put the walkthrough at "Game:PlaceName/Walkthrough" and just transclude that on both the place page and quest page, adding in any quest-specific stuff to just the quest pages. Sort of like what we do with Lore place pages and their game-space counterparts. I'm pretty much indifferent, so not voting. Just throwing this suggestion out there in case it hasn't been considered. --TheRealLurlock Talk 02:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
On this basic issue, my vote is for "both", but I do think that ultimately several interrelated questions should be bundled: Option A (Quest pages should always contain m, never n, o to the pth degree; q optionally and allowing for significant flexibility/variation; and Place pages should ....; Option B: Quest pages should ....). Address maps, transclusions. Is it ok to reference traps in some walkthrough narratives? I sometimes see editors reverting contributions with comments like "no battle strategies", while at the same time, the page they have themselves written contains several battle strategies. To what extent can or should we try to set standards for such, and to what extent do we "let the wiki do its work" and allow such things to evolve through editors' contributions, deletions, discussions, messy as they may often be? On a place page, do we aim to include as related quests every possible quest that can occur there (implying that quests like Shalidor's Insights are listed on almost every place page?) Include radiant quests, but only when the number of possible locations is constrained to some specified extent that we should try to specify to some degree? Elliot made some kind of point in the vastness above about allowing some issues to proceed kind of "organically" at least for a while, and that should be considered, too. We could end up "overspecifying" so that we have an elegant and fairly clear set of standards that no one then actually wants to follow. --JRTalk E-mail 03:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Wrapping Up

Everything I've seen over the last couple weeks leads me to believe that on the Big Picture question of "what page should the walkthrough appear on?", we have already reached a consensus: to have walkthroughs on both pages. Other than Lurlock's comment just now (which I'll come back to), every other opinion since March 5th looks to me like it supports having two different walkthroughs (as do a fair number before that). So instead of requesting a vote from everyone who has already expressed an opinion, I think it would be more efficient to instead say if you disagree with that consensus, speak now or forever hold your peace. OK, "forever hold your peace" is a bit of an exaggeration, but without any contrary opinions, I think we're ready to wrap up this phase of the discussion.

The vast majority of the recent discussion has been about the details -- about starting to spell out specific guidelines for quest and place walkthroughs. A huge number of interesting points have been made, and I don't want to cut off that discussion. However, I think it should be continued separate from the current discussion. Editors are already finding it nearly impossible to read through this entire discussion and figure out what has or has not been said. It's already more than 100KB in size -- meaning the archive of this discussion alone will be larger than nearly every other page on the site. If it keeps expanding into more and more aspects of "how" to do walkthroughs, instead of "where" to do walkthroughs, this discussion will become completely impossible to follow -- and it may never end. Therefore, once I've finished posting this, I'll start working on setting up followup discussions that can focus on the walkthrough guidelines.

In the meantime, I'd like to suggest that you only add to the "Skyrim Quest/Place Organization" discussion if you have more comments specifically addressing "where should the walkthrough appear?"

Which leads back to my response to Lurlock: having a shared transclusion was brought up earlier, and several people were against the idea. I agree that it's not really a workable solution. There are problems with unnecessary quest spoilers being added to place pages -- since readers only expect to find place information, not full quest information, when they follow a link to a place page. Conversely, details about where to find every potion and iron ingot don't need to be in the quest walkthrough. If the place page is focussed on the place and the quest page is focussed on the quest, there really isn't a huge overlap between the two pages. Furthermore, any overlapping information isn't concentrated into one blurb of text that can be transcluded and then added to.

So, does that work for everyone? --NepheleTalk 04:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Followup: I've started to try to mold some of this discussion into preliminary guidelines for the Style Guide, specifically Quest Layout for quest walkthrough guidelines, and Place Layout for place walkthrough guidelines. For any followup discussion about "how" to do the walkthroughs, there's a Skyrim Quest Walkthroughs discussion and a Skyrim Place Walkthroughs discussion. Brand new discussion on those topics is welcome on those talk pages too -- including any criticisms of what I preemptively started adding to the main articles! --NepheleTalk 06:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Works for me. ?• JATalk 06:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Skyrim misc quest tables need editing

I noticed that many of the tables for miscellaneous skyrim objectives listed actual quests that appear in the journal by mistake. In some cases, the information about the quest giver and starting location was wrong as well. I couldn't figure out how to edit the tables, so I thought I'd bring it to the attention of someone who could. The quests that are incorrectly listed as miscellaneous objectives are:

  • Promises to Keep
  • The Golden Claw (This is listed twice in the table as well)
  • Kyne's Sacred Trials
  • A Return to Your Roots

ThuumofReason 22:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

How are they not miscellaneous? elliot (talk) 22:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Miscellaneous quests are defined on the page as tasks that "appear in your journal, but...are listed in the "Miscellaneous" section...The actual name of the quest is not visible in game, but only any objective associated with the quest." Since all of those listed are actual quests with names and entries, they should be listed under "Quests Starting Here", not "Miscellaneous". ThuumofReason 23:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not certain about those particular quests, but some full quests begin as misc objectives. I think this is true for the Golden Claw--you can learn of it from overhearing a bandit conversation or from talking to the guy who wants it back, which would explain two different possible objectives. --Velyanthe 23:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I just checked the quests in game, and they all have the Miscellaneous knotwork on them, which means they are miscellaneous. It would be best to change our definition, since it is clearly wrong. elliot (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Basically it's about two different definitions of "Miscellaneous Quest". Skyrim:Quests defines them as all quests not part of one of the major quest lines, Skyrim:Miscellaneous Quests defines them as appearing under "Miscellaneous" in the journal. Where does the name "Miscellaneous knotwork" come from, is that found in the game files? --Alfwyn 23:38, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
No... it's not a name. In the journal, under the "Miscellaneous" section, the knotwork around it is that image... I didn't just make it up. elliot (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

() The knotwork doesn't settle it either, though. In My Time Of Need uses the same knotwork, yet it's not listed under the Miscellaneous tab. Robin Hoodtalk 01:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we need to switch to using Side Quests for non-quest-line quests that do not show up in the miscellaneous section, and using Miscellaneous strictly for quests in the miscellaneous section (see this discussion). I think the quest "Type" in the CK is what determines whether a quest is considered to be a miscellaneous quest, but I'm not entirely sure. I suppose one way to test that theory is to use the bot to tag every quest based on the CK type, and then see whether or not anyone reports discrepancies. Based on one test, it seems to be doing a better job than the knotwork, since In My Time of Need is tagged as a Side Quest, not a Miscellaneous quest. --NepheleTalk 01:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
RH, yeah, I knew they showed up as their own section, but they are miscellaneous because they basically aren't a part of a questline. I should have been clearer, sorry. I made the definition in my head and forgot to tell everyone else! :) But the side quest recommendation does satisfy any type of discrepancy there might be. Then we could split the page into two. elliot (talk) 03:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Makes sense to me, Nephele. Robin Hoodtalk 03:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree. Plus, there's that one achievement for doing 10 side quests, and that would support your suggestion as well. ThuumofReason 15:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

How many locations can be discovered? How many cleared in Skyrim?

This question has been asked many times, but if we want to put all of the "Completion" information in Skyrim, we need these two data points. People have tried to ask in various places for months. I'm sorry if this doesn't belong here, then what does? I propose a Skyrim:100% Completion page where we list what all must be accomplished. (And discoverable locations + clearable depends on questlines. Noteably *spoilers* DB: The Katariah is clearable. Main Quest: 3 Great Lifts + 1 Tower of Mzark). Civil War:... I'm not sure. When I've won as the Stormcloaks, there is an Imperial camp in every hold, and only a Stormcloak camp in Haafingar. Either way... I'm not sure. --Minimang 00:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Make icons more Skyrim-like?

The current icons that indicate if a person is a merchant, blacksmith or trainer etc on all the Skyrim pages give too much of a Oblivion feel in my opinion. I suggest to change these into icons that have a more Skyrim feel to them. I also made recolors of the icons currently in use. These already feel much more like Skyrim icons in my opinion, but I think completely new icons would be better.
icons-1.png EpicSpam 15:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's necessary to use different icons for Skyrim pages, especially if it's simply because of the theme. I'd prefer using official, outdated icons over recoloured/fan-generated ones. --Legoless 16:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
If we're going to create new icons, we should use achievement icons from Skyrim, like we did with the Trainer icons. I'd personally like to see all of our Oblivion-era icons replaced with Skyrim icons, but the replacement icons will have to look good. ?• JATalk 21:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I made some Skyrim icons using the achievement/map marker icons. I also split the merchant catagory into food, alchemy and general goods since equipment and spells merchants already had their own icons.
SK-icons-NEW.png EpicSpam 12:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I completed a full set of icons. All these icons were made using achievement icons or map markers except for the fence and general store icons. The fence icon is a remake of the oblivion icon and the general store icon was made using the in-game coin texture.
SK-icons-NEW-1.png EpicSpam 18:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Those are pretty good. I'm not so sure about the house, inn, companion, and jeweler icons (the last two don't really fit). I prefer colored icons, but making white ones for now is probably wisest. I see what you're trying to do with the general store icon, and maybe it'll look good colored, but righ now it's a little "eh". The other icons look great! We might want a blacksmith icon. ?• JATalk 20:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi there EpicSpam - those icons are really nice. Definitely an improvement over using Oblivion's, at least. I'm not sure if this degree of consistency is particularly necessary (if desirable to begin with), but perhaps the icons could use the shades of beige that I used in my Skyrim skill icons? Just as a suggestion. I definitely think that your designs would complement the Skyrim pages quite nicely. StoneFrog 22:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not much for criticising artwork, but I don't have any reservations about using these new icons. Using the achievement icons was a good idea. --Legoless 23:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The problem with the achievement icons is that, except a few of them, they don't clearly represent anything useful. Using them would, in my opinion, only confuse users instead off helping them to easily recognize and find NPC's which provide certain services. Personally I think it would simply be impossible to find achievement icons that clearly represent the services an NPC provides. Also when re-sized to 22px the achievements icons cam become even more vague as to their representation. EpicSpam 13:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Those icons look pretty good. I think the fence icon could be red, the inn icon could have a moon over the building, the alchemist icon could be green and the spell icon could have blue and red on either page. Just an idea though, you can do whatever you want with them. Good work! RIM 19:08, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
I like the idea of icons, which could be really useful, but I think the fewer the better. Keep things simple, not all complicated and complex. I like the basic idea, though. --Ericaxe 18:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

() I like these icons you've made, EpicSpam, they look good. The only one I'm not so sure of is the Jeweler icon, and is it possible to rotate the Equipment icon about 45°? Either way, I'd be in favor of having them implemented across the Skyrim namespace. You did a good job on them. ABCface 09:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I was just browsing the task list and came across "Upload all available icons -- skill icons, magic effect icons, quest icons, etc. -- and replace the Oblivion icons currently being used." And I thought...hey, wait a second, didn't I see those somewhere?
And yes, yes I did! I think these icons are great. We should start using them! eshetalk 18:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

this wiki has insane statistics

why is this unofficial? Deathsculler 16:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Because its not owned, run, nor-endorsed by Bethesda in any way. Its owned, and run by Daveh and the little community here. --kiz talkemail 17:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Redguard dialogue

I recently acquired a copy of The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and I've been playing it obsessively since. There is a lot of dialogue in the game, almost all unique. The question is, do we want to copy all of this down? I would make articles for each of the NPCs and record the dialogue there. I know that at most 0.01% of users come here for information on Redguard, but I'd enjoy doing it and it would boost UESP's credibility significantly, for caring enough about older games to create a full-size namespace just for them. Thoughts? ?• JATalk 23:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, we do have a namespace for it. I think it would be best to tackle the dialogue like we do with any NPC in Skyrim or Oblivion. elliot (talk) 23:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Alright, that's what I was thinking too. I'm looking at Oblivion:Jauffre, and it looks like all of his dialogue is recorded there. I'm doing N'Gasta's dialogue right now (he's one of the main characters and the only Sload to exist in an Elder Scrolls game) and it looks like most characters in the game will have dialogue sections on par with Jauffre. Thankfully, there are only about 30 unique NPCs. ?• JATalk 00:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
It would be good to split the Redguard:Characters page into separate pages for each NPC. However, it might require a specialized version of the NPC template, to handle the specific stats currently being shown for the Redguard characters. --NepheleTalk 00:14, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree - I'm currently typing up Redguard:N'Gasta. I'm afraid I don't know how to get the NPC stats. Right now I'm just recording their dialogue, which takes forever. Half an hour in with N'Gasta alone and I still only have about a third of his dialogue T_T. ?• JATalk 00:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Could someone take a look at N'Gasta please? I'm not sure how best to format the dialogue. ?• JATalk 00:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I looked into this before, back when that video walkthrough was still up. I added a dialogue section to a quest page, having typed it up out of curiosity. Might save you a bit of time. --Legoless 00:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me there. I'm definitely going to separate quest-specific dialogue and regular dialogue. I'm not sure about the formatting of the dialogue that I've done. I'm trying to go for something like Skyrim:Scouts-Many-Marshes's dialogue, but the whole topic and sub-topic hierarchy complicates things a bit. Is the header and sub-header system good, or should it be replaced with something else? It makes the TOC rather long, and the bold header looks awkward right above the bold text. Thoughts? ?• JATalk 01:26, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

() I know this is a more or less dead topic, but I need an opinion. I have two different set-ups for dialogue: here and here. Which is better? I've got a lot of dialogue to go through (because all of it is unique) and I really need to know what format to use going forward so we/I don't have to start a clean-up project to fix the poorly-formatted dialogue. ?• JATalk 01:28, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Both seem to suit their purpose: the former for cutscenes; the latter for general dialogue trees. I don't think there needs be a consistent style across the namespace. --Legoless 22:56, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Bot request

Whew. Sometimes I feel like a bot myself, but this is more than even I want to take on myself. The category Category:Morrowind-Images-Icons-Effects now contains duplicates of almost every image, one with spaces in the name and one without. This is a holdover from back in the day when we weren't able to move images. I'd like a bot to go through and update all links on pages to the non-spaced names to use the spaced names. (The spaced names are also used by templates, so it makes more sense to use spaces.) After that, it should mark all the non-spaced name images for deletion. Alternatively, if we're really concerned about file history, it could delete the newer images and move the old ones into their place, but a.) that's a lot more work, and b.) the images in question are identical, and were created by Bethesda, not any of us. There's also duplication in some of the other icon categories, but those might be more difficult to deal with, so we can start with just these. --TheRealLurlock Talk 16:03, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Do we have anyone active with a bot around? I know Nephs on the road, RH should be around somewhere? I'd do it by hand (with help), but I can't delete images, so someone would end up doing that for me at any rate. I presume theres a few of us semi-bots around somewhere? --kiz talkemail 20:27, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
The simplest thing to do would be to turn the duplicate images into redirects to the desired image. Having a bot sort out which image name we want to keep is not easy, plus some of the uses are auto-created through templates, making bot edits impossible -- and also making redirects preferable overall. --NepheleTalk 20:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Would it be possible to have a bot do what it can, and then do the rest by hand? --kiz talkemail 20:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Blech! While this is rather messy, I think Kiz is right that a bot can be of at least some use here. It looks like a lot of the template calls are already using the spaced versions of the file names, so those may not be as big of an issue as they seem at first glance. The unspaced ones seem to be largely used in straight-forward Image links. What I would need in order to approach this at all would be a table listing basically "Replace this with that" for each file name. The bot could then go through and do whatever it can, then a human can go through after it's done and see what's left. I think Neph might be right that redirects may be necessary (or at least highly desirable) in many cases, but I suspect a good many might just be able to be deleted after the bot's done. Robin Hoodtalk 00:35, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure all the template-created links use the spaced-versions (which is why they were created in the first place). It should be fairly straightforward to get a list of every page where the non-spaced ones are used, and from that you'd then know where all the edits need to be made. It's not as many as it might seem - many of these are just used all together on a few pages, so once you get the big pages, there's only a relative handful of individual links to clean up. Still more than I felt like tackling on my own (especially after that long run today.) Another related (and simpler) task that could use a bot is moving the Morrowind-Ingredient Icons to Category:Morrowind-Images-Icons-Ingredients so that it's consistent with the rest of them. (And no, I didn't just create a new standard - most of those categories were already there so I went with the majority, since only one was using a different format.) --TheRealLurlock Talk 03:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

() Okay, I'm about to start working on the code for the first request. I don't anticipate it'll take too long. In the mean time, can someone have a look at my sandbox and make sure that a) all the replacements make sense, and b) any of the ones I tagged in the bottom section have replacements created, if it makes sense to do so (and then move them into the appropriate row in the top section). Also, there were actually three variants of Night Eye. I've tentatively tagged both "Night-Eye" and "NightEye" to be replaced with "Night Eye". Does that make sense, or should I prefer the hyphenated version? Robin Hoodtalk 04:49, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Code's ready to go. I just need a second set of eyes on the sandbox, and someone more familiar with the intricacies of Morrowind space to answer the above questions. Robin Hoodtalk 05:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with those on the bottom which should have spaced versions. Those will be the easy ones, however, as there is currently no duplication to worry about. Just rename them and fix the links. (You might handle that task separately. No point in creating duplication just to fix it again.) Night Eye should use the non-hyphenated one. The hyphenated spelling was used in Oblivion, but in Morrowind, it's just "Night Eye", no hyphen. --TheRealLurlock Talk 01:55, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I'll get the bot started on that shortly. For the ones that can just be moved, I'll move them by-hand (far faster than moving them with the bot) then add them to the bot's list of links to replace. Robin Hoodtalk 02:42, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Bot is off and running. It seems to have some strange double-initialization thing going on that I'll have to track down, but the task itself seems to be unaffected, so I'm letting it continue and I'll track down the bug later. ETA is 3:25 (UTC). Robin Hoodtalk 03:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Errr...mostly done. A typo resulted in the odd double-initialization/edit summaries, and using the wrong Regex syntax resulted in file names with spaces instead of underscores being missed. (Amusingly, for the programmers out there, I was trying to use UltraEdit's syntax instead of .NET's. D'oh!) So I'm just going to run a test to make sure that everything's okay this time around, then I'll set the bot on...ummm...Phase II, yeah, that's what we'll call it. ;) Robin Hoodtalk 03:41, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

() And done! Looking at the first several, the only remaining page on most of them was my sandbox (which I'll leave there for now for ease of checking what's left), and doing null edits on the others got rid of them, so I suspect most of those duplicates can be Prodded at this point. I can probably put the bot to work on that if we really want it, but I think as a safeguard, it might be best to have a human go through them. As we've seen above, my bot is a little underdeveloped, and still needs debugging from time to time. :-/

I know there was another request in here, and I'll come back to that later tonight or tomorrow. Right now, I wanna get some patrolling done. Robin Hoodtalk 03:59, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, don't worry about the other request (moving from :Category:Morrowind-Ingredient Icons toCategory:Morrowind-Images-Icons-Ingredients), I already did it myself. I noticed in retrospect that the other games don't use the word "Images" in their icon categories, but that's just nitpicking. As long as there's consistency within games, there doesn't necessarily have to be consistency between them. For instance, there's still a lot of Morrowind images which don't have the "MW-" prefix, because we hadn't really established that standard yet. I think it wasn't until after Oblivion came out that we started doing that. (And I don't even want to delve into the chaotic mess that is the Arena and Daggerfall pages - that was like the Wild West back then.) That's okay, though. I can live with a few things being improperly named. It was just the redundancy of having hundreds of duplicated images that was bothering me. --TheRealLurlock Talk 12:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Okay, so I just checked, and it seems to have gone mostly well. There was a bit of confusion with the Night-Eye/Night Eye, but I took care of those myself, so I'm pretty sure all the non-spaced names can now be safely prod'ed. --TheRealLurlock Talk 12:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I missed the Night-Eye check in the original, but the second pass should've gotten them, I would've thought. I'll have to go over your contributions and see what it missed. There are things like talk pages and User space where it's supposed to skip them, but it'll be useful to know if it missed anything it should've picked up. (Edit: they were all effect links, so not catching those was expected, since they're not full file names.)
Oh, as for standardization of older names, now is not the time, but simple bulk search and replaces are one of the easiest things a bot can do, so if we want to later on (i.e., when Skyrim dies down to a few dozen edits a day instead of a few hundred), we can look into this sort of thing. Robin Hoodtalk 04:14, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


Well, across my many edits, I began to notice a few things with the 'edit page' when you want to edit something on the page. When you've edited what you wanted, etc, sometimes you wont scroll down enough to see the notice there about previewing your edit before you save the page. Now this is located just underneath the button, and I was thinking, shouldn't it be placed just above so people can actually see it before the Save, Show Preview, and Watch Page buttons? I just thought I'd bring this little thing up, just as a suggestion that could perhaps new users. Also could we maybe have a notice about the edit summary? Because it's hard going through to check changes to find what the changes are basically - some people don't write any edit summaries and that creates more work. Thanks, Helenaannevalentine 19:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think everything you asked for is there by default, it just needs to be enabled (My Preferences -> Editing, then there's some tick boxes). I should be possible to enable some of those by default, but they're a bit intrusive on new users who might not know how to opt out of them. --kiz talkemail 19:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
To be honest I think that most people who make more than two or three edits have a reasonably good understanding of how to show preview etc. The show preview button is right beside the save page button and just below that is a bright red notice asking people to preview their edit. If anybody else agrees with this idea I have no problems with it though, I just think that there is no real need for a change at the moment. RIM 19:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't know about the 'show preview' suggestion of your post, but I think adding a notification to the Messages page regarding Edit Summaries would be useful. I've wanted to mention this issue to users in the past, and I think having a standard message for this topic would be nice. I'd add one myself, but I don't know that it would sound professional and friendly enough. I'm always scared with things like that, that I'll sound offensive or conceited in some way, which is why I use the messages from that page if they're available. Making one available for this topic would benefit the community, IMO. Alphabetface 19:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, one way (I used to have it enabled, but it gets irritating when doing some of my copy/pasting tagging for deletion) is to blank the save button off until you've clicked the preview button once. The blank edit summary one however works like this - if you click save page without and edit summary it previews your changes, with a prompt at the top saying 'You have left a blank edit summary'. If you click save again it saves the page as normal. We have messages for Show Preview, however edit summaries aren't really needed. They're nice of course, but for patrolling you have to open the edit at any rate. --kiz talkemail 19:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I know you can change your own preferences so that this is the case, but there are some users who make MANY edits to pages without posting edit summaries, and a notification message like this would help in that case. I really don't want to point out individual people here, but I really think it would be a useful notification to give to certain users. Alphabetface 19:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
And what i'm saying is making the Edit Summary option opt-out rather than opt-in, so that it is enabled by default. Making the need for us to post messages left. Because if they miss the message each time a talk page post won't do much either. --kiz talkemail 19:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Okay, that does make sense, so the default setting would be for the opt-in to be automatically checked. I think that would be a really good way of handling the issue, is this something only administrators can do? And how would it affect users who have already set their preferences? Alphabetface 19:52, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Having edit summaries enabled by default is all well and good on devices such as a computer, but I know from personal experience that entering an edit summary on another device, ie; a Kindle/DSI/tablet, is very difficult, if not impossible in some cases. Wouldn't a prompt just be easier? Kitkat TalkContribE-mail 20:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

() It is just a prompt, all it would mean is clicking the save button twice. After the first click the page reloads with a message on it. Your still not forced to enter one, just reminded. Also, the Force Preview idea doesn't make you read the preview - you can just click save afterwards. Some browsers can bypass the blockout on the save button anyway. It would also be made so you could opt-out. An Admin at least is needed, I don't think they need server access. Although they might to play around in My Preferences. It would probably only affect new users, although I presume you could affect all users with it as well. --kiz talkemail 20:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I didn't realize using devices other than regular computers made it more difficult to add edit summaries, this certainly would affect some users when it comes to this. Knowing that, maybe that's why certain users make so many edits without providing any sort of summary. It's good to know this. Thanks for that info, Kitkat. Alphabetface 20:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
I can confirm what Kitkat says. Just now I tried commenting on this page with an iPhone and it was more or less impossible. At some point we're going to need to make a mobile site. That's on my list of things to do, but it's pretty far down (largely due to its difficulty). ?• JATalk 01:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
With KitKat's responce to other devices - yes it is quite difficult. Sometimes I edit from the Playstation if I cannot have access to my laptop, and sometimes it limits the number of characters that I may use, etc. I'm just suggesting that the notice: Please preview your edit (using the "Show preview" button) before selecting "Save page". would be placed above the buttons, rather than just below it, so that it is easier to see for newer users. Helenaannevalentine 04:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Possibly sponsoring Steam mods for Skyrim

With the arrival of the Steam Workshop, I feel we should also display mods from the workshop. Fact is, soo many mods already exist, and even with the filters it's hard to pick mods out from the myriad amount of pages. It'd certainly help a lot of people by taking away the need sift through the (currently) 547 pages of mods, by showcasing the mods that might otherwise be overlooked in favor of another mod, misrepresented, or may be underrated. Mods definitely do add variety to any game, and I also feel that authors of mods with talent that go unnoticed, is a crime. — Unsigned comment by FireAcolyte (talkcontribs) at 04:04 on 14 March 2012

I don't think that is a great idea. In the other namespaces, unofficial mods have only been shown on the site if they were particularly large, popular, and important mods, such and the Unofficial Patches for Oblivion and Morrowind. If we start showing whatever mods we find, we are inviting users to link any stupid mod they find, and the site would turn into a useless link farm. ESQuestion?EmailContribs 04:12, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, that's why we also introduce a quality standard for it to be shown. Mods like houses, weapons, and spells wouldn't generally be shown cause they all do the same thing. However, if a mod in these categories do showcase something unique (as in, it uses effects well, the design/concept is brilliant, it adds in little touches that make it stand out. Stuff that shows dedication, skill, and hardwork.) than it'd be worth showing cause they put in that extra effort that makes it special.
Generally, I'd say something among the line of quests, enhancements to how something works, or mods out of the ordinary. Things that show innovation, not run of the mill. For instance, someone is in the Alpha stages of recreating Black Marsh from what they've read describing what it looks like, the culture, and how things work. Something like this would deserve to be brought out of obscurity cause it requires effort, attention to detail, and constant refinement.
I realize if people saw that we were showing mods, they'd try to line up to get their work displayed. They'd be moths to the flame, they all think they are worthy of the flame, though only a select few would feel it's warmth. No, that's why we'd exercise content control. That weapon might look cool, but what does it do that stands out from all the others doing the same thing? Does it have it's own animation? Is there an interesting quest you must go through to obtain it? What makes it special? Those are the questions that could be asked. Looks cool, is crafted after this popular thing, is enchantable...Doesn't cut it.
Like I said before, this would be to show off those with talent who may not have the attention they deserve. Though I did say it in a rather broad perspective. — Unsigned comment by FireAcolyte (talkcontribs) at 05:01 on 14 March 2012
I have to agree with the establishment here. We have content relating massive bug patches (like the MPP) and massive expansions into Tamriel (like Tamriel Rebuilt and Stirk), and it should stay like that. If similar things happen soon for Skyrim, it seems reasonable that we might include them. But, then again, we must take into account articles like this, this, and this, though personally I find those unnecessary. Halfstache 23:59, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

() So, as of now, the only reasons I see against this are:

1. It could lead to mass linking. Though that is countered by content control.

2. It should remain solely for popular mods/bug patches: Why? Just cause they are popular doesn't mean they are the mods that are only worth knowing about. Just cause something is undiscovered, generally doesn't mean it's bad, it just hasn't gotten proper word of mouth.

3. This is what see being a deterrent: It takes a lot of work to maintain, but than again, so doesn't this whole wiki. It's established, but still a work in progress. — Unsigned comment by FireAcolyte (talkcontribs) at 01:02 on March 15, 2012

Please sign your posts. This would not be a productive use of editors' time. Like you said, the wiki takes a lot of work to maintain properly, and our time shouldn't be deviated into "showcasing" every little mod that pops up. And then you say, "But wait, it wouldn't be every mod." Well, who decides that, and how? You're talking about thousands of hours of evaluation and deliberation to create a catalog that would, at best, be marginally helpful to the handful of players who would take advantage of it. And you might say "Well, we don't have to put that much time into it." Well, then it'll look bad and make this wiki look bad; if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. It's just not worth doing in my opinion. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 01:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
What was done with Oblivion was a page was made including unofficial patches and linking to lists made by users and people not on this site. I personally feel as if that would be a good way to go, considering how much debate there would be over what mods are good and what are not. I don't feel as if FireAcolyte's idea is very plausible either, but setting up a page like the Oblivion one wouldn't hurt. There'd be nothing to add to the page for now, since I haven't seen anyone with a list and there's no unofficial patches, but at some point it could happen. --Velyanthe 01:20, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, that seems more reasonable. Maybe I misunderstood the scope of FireAcolyte's proposal, but if a single link-filled page like that would suffice and people can agree on its content without major blood-letting, I have no problems. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 01:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Having experienced the chaos of having people adding and removing recommended mods for Oblivion, and the endless debates that generated, I have to agree that following the style we eventually adopted there is the same way to go this time around. Overnight, debate vanished, everyone was free to put up their own lists, and there was no added burden of maintenance since it was all in User space, which is the user's own responsibility to maintain. Robin Hoodtalk 01:35, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, this is the first time I've done this, so the traditions of posting escape me. I had to look around to see what you meant by signing, so I'm hoping I did this right this time around.

Anyway, on to the discussion at hand. No I never meant every mod out there, I acknowledged that I said it in a broad perspective when I meant a more narrow use on how this would apply. I will be the first to admit that I sometimes do not clarify on what I meant, and it causes confusion.

As for deciding on how to determine mods, it's a bit simpler than you'd probably think. We make exclusions to common categories that are currently over-saturated on the workshop. This would detail houses, spells, weapons, textures, etc. And focus on projects that are either large-scale, like the project where a modder is trying to recreate Black Marsh from scratch. Or less common results such as quests, system enhancements (Such as changes to the combat/trade/interaction system. And those mods are currently being worked on as we speak), and mods that aren't currently run of the mill.

As for how this could manifest, while not originally what I was aiming for; I will admit the idea of a Skyrim mod site strikes me as rather appealing. Same goes for user created lists, though either does detract from the idea of trying to show mods from users who have talent that probably isn't recognized. Site though would reduce the time it would take to sift through compiled mods, versus the Workshop which is a bit finicky, though it may be just me.

My original idea though wasn't going to be compiling mods to show rapidly. I was thinking 4 or so mods every week, or bi-monthly. This gives time for consideration, and ensures the mods we show meet the criteria standards. Either of these I guess would be fine, and wouldn't keep us on this first step. --FireAcolyte 04:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree that this would probably not be in the best interests of the site for the reasons listed above. ThuumofReason 10:12, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, Thuum. FireAcolyte, I know you're looking at "underdog" mods, but if someone wants a really good quest mod, they can go to "most downloaded" or the equivalent on a number of mod sites--the Workshop being one, Nexus being another, etc. Those download numbers already give an excellent idea of what mods are liked by many people and are thus recommended. Those same high-download mods would probably be the only ones that the community would unanimously decide to be featured, since people's tastes are so varied.
This site isn't about opinions anyway. We intentionally go about removing opinions from articles. I don't feel as if it's necessary at all to have an opinion-based article on a wiki--we're here to provide concrete information. Userspace pages allow those opinions as they are not actual articles, hence why they were used in the Oblivion mod page. --Velyanthe 19:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, once again, there is something I feel is being overlooked. Opinions, yes, those can be an issue when deciding content to cover. How do you know if a person is being overtaken by the flash and pizaz of a mod? Sure, they can argue that a grove being bathed in sun-shafts looks nice, but it doesn't really show talent. Versus let's say, a battlefield. A battlefield can be simple to design yes, however add in an object they are fighting over, for sake it's the White Gold Tower. It'll take someone with dedication to add in the detail of a major city that has been shown in Oblivion, to scale and design. And than to add in the smaller details, bodies, arrows, flames scorching the buildings, siege machines, destruction on the buildings.

All of this, while sounds like the final quest of the main storyline in Oblivion, will take painstaking effort to achieve a satisfactory outcome. So basically opinion can be overridden if one looks at a mod and how it was designed. If a mod looks pretty, but bores you to death, it's not made as well as you think, since no thought was put into the mod being effective and enjoyable. It's consideration like this that matters.

Anyway, at this point it may seem like I'm just trying to blow smoke. So I'll respectfully bow out, thanks for reading though.--FireAcolyte 21:21, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

In-game photographers, please read!

Hey people of the UESP! Skyrim content grows bigger and bigger these days, and I was wondering – who is able/willing to provide images for the large articles? It will probably be the usual quest-related NPC-story images, but a list of nice image providers would be most useful – so please sign this post if you’re interested in doing a few fun action shots from time to time. ☺ --Krusty 01:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I am available from time to time for photo ops. If you need anything let me know and I'll see what I can do ... or let you know if I'm too short on time (its probably best if you use my talk page since I don't check the listed email very often). Coronus 02:11, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm willing to take shots of things I have experienced before, so for example: not about quests I haven't done yet ~ Dwarfmp 00:05, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not the greatest out there, but I'll surely be willing to help if it's needed. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Keys Page

For anyone not watching the Skyrim Keys page, terrifyingly-named contributor, The Silencer, has developed a major upgrade in this sandbox and is asking for input on an issue on the Keys talk page. His excellent work definitely merits the feedback he solicits. --JRTalk E-mail 05:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Template Images

So, I've come up with a new concept, I wanted to see what other people thought of it. A while ago, I made a bunch of Morrowind map images based on a common template. It occurred to me that it would make sense to make that template available to the general community in case other people wanted to make use of it as well, which encourages a consistent look on multiple images. So I uploaded the image, but to further encourage the use of template images, I put a little gallery of images using the template onto the image page itself, as well as a note (transcluded from the template image itself) onto all of the images using it. Now if you see one of these images, you can click on it to get to the template, and from there to any of the other similar images, and perhaps be inspired to make your own images using it. You can see the results at MW-map-Template.jpg. Might be a nice idea to add more such templates for the other games. What do people think? --TheRealLurlock Talk 04:00, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Bug Template

For those of you who are tracking down bugs and confirming that they exist, I've added a new parameter to the {{Bug}} template so that you can indicate they're confirmed. Not surprisingly, it's just a matter of adding |confirmed=1 to the template.

This will, in all likelihood, ultimately replace the current vn parameter, as people were often getting confused and not adding vn for what seemed likely to be one-off bugs, or adding it even though the talk page had several confirmations of the bug. The idea is that now, bugs will be considered unconfirmed by default, though for the transition period, those with no tag at all will still be listed as outstanding.

Please note: if you're the one adding the bug, do not add the confirmed tag yourself unless someone else has confirmed it on the talk page, in a forum, etc. (Patrollers: watch out for this.) Robin Hoodtalk 05:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. How will we keep track of bugs have been confirmed by one person only, and is then confirmed by a second person a month later? ?• JATalk 05:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I've understood clearly, but if I have, I don't think we really need to worry about it all that much. It's possible the same person who added the bug will come back and confirm it much later, but I suspect those cases will be rare, and if it seems like it's probably a one-off, we can always trace through the page history. The other option is to have an addedby/confirmedby structure, but I suspect that would break down in no time flat as people forgot to add one or both. Robin Hoodtalk 06:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
No, you understood correctly. You're right, that situation won't be very common, so it won't be much of an issue. ?• JATalk 06:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Training Skills Page

I would like to propose a new page for training skills in Skyrim. The new page would be in the style of Increasing Skills but obviously with a lot less content, due to the speed of leveling skills having no effect on maximum level. The page would be a mixture of tips and possibly expliots, the Free Skill Boosts already have a lovely page of their own and it wouldn't be here. Failing that, a page for skill exploits should be okay, there is a section in the Glitches page but this could be succesfully adapted into a training tips page. The Silencer 08:53, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I would agree to this new page. I don't think that exploits should be included, though, and should be left on the Glitches page. --Velyanthe 15:19, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Having a look around, each expliot is listed on three* pages so far, leveling, glitches, and the individual skill pages, there was discussion about the free skill boosts page including this but it was decided it didn't fit. There really should be a training skills page as there are lots of pages detailing how, that shouldn't have it, and it would fit with the profile from oblivion. The Silencer 19:26, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
I think part of the discussion here (and why I directed The Silencer here rather than New Page Requests) needs to be about the best way to handle these tips. In other words, should "normal" skill training be on the skill page, or on a page of its own? What about exploits? A new section, a new page, the Glitches page? And if something is an exploit, at what point does it become an exploit? For example, a common method of training Sneak, which I believe works in both Oblivion and Skyrim, is to auto-run against a wall while you're close to someone hostile but can remain comfortably hidden. While it's a stupid thing to do from an in-character perspective, it doesn't seem like an exploit to me, because it's an intended part of the game mechanics.
My preference, personally, would be to put regular methods of gaining skills on each individual skill page, but put exploits in a Skills section on the Glitches page. If, instead, we opt to create an Increasing Skills page, then I would say exploits probably should go on that page, but in a separate section entirely. I don't have a strong opinion here, though—there are clear benefits and drawbacks to any choice we make. Robin Hoodtalk 20:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think exploits should be listed on the regular articles for the individual skills. Although specific pages for increasing skills aren't necessary in my opinion, they probably would be relevant and useful to many other players, so I'm not opposed to such pages being created. Any leveling tips which are exploits should be added to their own section on such a page (or if those pages don't end up being created, then to their own section on the skills pages themselves since they would be more relevant there than the Glitches page). ABCface 08:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Consistency in Quest Descriptions

One major inconsistency I am seeing throughout the Skyrim namespace is placement of periods. Some quest descriptions end with one, others do not; I think it's pretty even at this point. Because of the need for consistency within pages, I would ask that a decision be made on whether or not quest descriptions end with periods. It is very awkward to view a page and see some end with periods and others without; it looks sloppy, in my opinion. The Side Quests, College of Winterhold, and Ulfric Stormcloak pages are good examples of this.

There are some other sections on pages where a similar thing happens, especially with "Notable Loot" sections or other lists: Some pages add periods, others do not. Perhaps I'm being too nitpicky, but I would like for there to be consistency between pages on this, especially if they are in a similar category. Consistency on the pages is the highest priority, but since we have that in most cases, would it hurt to create it between the pages? I started to alter period placement on Ingredients pages in the "Other Uses" sections after seeing one with a period after the sentence/listed object, but I think most of them lack periods; that's what led me to bringing this up.

Quick Walkthroughs on quest pages also do the same thing, even between related quests, such as between Joining the Stormcloaks and The Jagged Crown. --Velyanthe 00:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Both the quest description and the quick walkthroughs should have full stops to be consistent with the other namespaces. --Legoless 01:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Awesome, I was unaware of this. --Velyanthe 01:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

They have names

There are a few NPC pages with notes similar to this one

There is also a male Imperial in Skyrim with the name Sergius Turrianus. on the Oblivion:Sergius Turrianus page

Esbern is also the name of one of the main characters in Skyrim. on the Oblivion:Esbern page

This seems utterly pointless to me unless they are suspected to be related. These were added in october 2011, but what is it there for? The Silencer has spoken 20:41, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that the only reason for such notes on pages for 'unrelated' NPCs with the same name is for disambiguation purposes, such as the notes at the top of the NPC pages for Skyrim:Karita (bard) and Skyrim:Karita (warrior). This doesn't seem necessary across different namespaces, though, especially considering the NPCs in question don't seem to have any sort of relation to one another, other than name.
BTW, did you mean to post this to the Community Portal? The AN is typically used for topics related to administrative tasks or issues. ABCface 20:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Exactly, I put a note between Ansilvund quest and location in skyrim, but these are differnt namespaces. The Silencer has spoken 20:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Honestly, it is pointless. Unfortunately, people will keep adding the info over and over and over (maybe it's funny, like etymology?), so it's a battle we can't win. Fortunately, there's not too many instances of matching names, so it's not too bad. --Krusty 21:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
If there is a hint of ancestorship eg the Motierre's then possibly. I wasn't here for oblivion, so the standard set between Morrowind and Oblivion (or before) should be followed. Also etymology seems to be being kept off Skyrim but some say Oblivion pages have it, as the etymology comes from a non elder scrolls language shouldn't it be kept off. So what I'm asking is, do they get removed or left? (I like rules). The Silencer has spoken 21:16, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
General opinion seems to be negative, though there doesn't seem to be complete consensus. --Velyanthe►Talk►Email 21:29, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
I would personally like the "similar name" trivia to remain. It's not unique to the Oblivion/Skyrim namespaces (see, for example, Stormhold) so removing it all wouldn't be very constructive. I don't see why the notes are being regarded as etymology, which a completely separate issue. --Legoless 21:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Just for the record, I din't compare etymology with matching names - it was supposed to be a joke. Other than that, I agree with Lego. --Krusty 21:48, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

() Sometimes it could be close to the same as etymology. In MW, OB, and SR, there's a character name Aerin, though that's a very common name (Erin/Aaron). If there is a visible relation (same family name and race, for example), I do think it's notable (like with Dreth, I believe). For Sergius, it's quite an odd last name and both are Imperial, so it wouldn't be a stretch to think they're related. Both Esberns are Nords and magic users, though the OB one was a priest and trained the Illusion skill, while the SR one isn't strong in the Illusion department and is a Blade. Might be notable, might not be.

But I think that's generally what's being done anyway. --Velyanthe►Talk►Email 21:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I tend to think that it shouldn't be mentioned unless there's reason to believe that it's more than just a passing similarity. I make a great example of this: as many of you know, my real name is Robert Morley, I also have English ancestry (albeit a few generations ago), but I'm not this guy, nor am I in any way related to least not that I'm aware of. Granted, game developers are more likely to include people with common bloodlines, just to pique people's interests, but as far as I'm concerned, any given name could well be the equivalent of John Smith, in other words, so common for that race that identical first or last names were bound to happen. Robin Hoodtalk 02:54, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
it's useless trivia, but one might also argue that it is only a single line of text, so why worry. At least if you leave it in, then you wont have to edit it out every time someone thinks it's interesting enough to add. Just a thought. --A CavemanTalk 11:14, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
I think it's worth adding, if for no other reason than to help people navigate. If an anonymous user searches "Esbern" and is stupid/accidentally clicks on the Oblivion article when they really want the Skyrim article, then having that line there will help them quickly rectify their mistake. Plus, I like learning about these cross-game connections. It's fun to learn about how consistent they've been with something as little as names. • JATalk 00:23, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

New patch released for Xbox

My x box just downloaded a new patch. Is it the one with the new kill moves? — Unsigned comment by (talk) at 22:40 on 5 April 2012

I'm checking right now. Unfortunately, I have to apply a bunch of updates to my Xbox (I only connect to the internet periodically because I have to do it through my laptop) and this limited satellite internet connection is really killing me right now. Can someone else confirm this? I'm partway through my second update - it's about 100mb and I'm downloading it at 10kb/s. Yay, it'll take another 3 hours to finish... (-_-;) • JATalk 01:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
It has kill moves for archers now! — Kimi the Elf (talk | contribs) 01:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's more info. elliot (talk) 01:46, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Cool, you're right! I just updated the News to reflect this. If you don't like how I did it, then feel free to change it. • JATalk 03:28, 6 April 2012 (UTC)


Moved from User talk:RIM for wider discussion

Are you still wanting names of NPCs who need dialogue added to their page? I have a very long list of names for ya if you so. :)ABCface 00:54, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I forgot about that! Sure, if you still have them I will add dialogue to them, thanks:) RIM 14:53, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Be careful what you say, I told you there's a lot! Here goes: FarkasVilkasBrelyna MaryonErandurGolldirIlliaUrag gro-ShubDrevis NelorenEnthirPhinis GestorAncanoPavo AttiusErik the SlayerAhtarAnnekke Crag-JumperDerkeethusMjoll the LionessUthgerd the Unbroken... Don't say I didn't warn ya about the length of the list. :P And you definitely shouldn't feel the need to do any of these, I just added their names to my Desktop Notes over the course of a week or so in between editing/patrolling whenever I could remember to, since you asked about it before. Have fun! ABCface 19:18, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I'll get started now! RIM 08:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Ok I have the last four done, only about 14 more to go:)RIM 09:21, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Is the dialogue in the CK anywhere or can it only be found in-game, I've added some dialogue but it's such a pain reloading save after save on the PS3. The Silencer has spoken 14:16, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

() It's in the CK, usually under a quest tag. Simple copy-paste once you've found it. Vely►Talk►Email 15:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Or, for PS3 users without CK access the CSList was set up just for people like you! (And me for the matter!) --kiz talkemail 15:40, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Yeah you can use that to add dialogue. Sorry you had to get it from the game itself, that must have been annoying! I think we should come up with a way to add dialogue for people like Ulfric, Gen. Tullius and Farkas who have hundreds of lines. Maybe have it written quest by quest? The problem is that few people if any had that much dialogue in Oblivion. Thanks for the help:) RIM 16:33, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
The CSlist yeah... Thanks? (actually it looks useful), looking at it though, it seems that NPCs without unique voice acting don't have dialogue listed eg Valdr, while others, eg Uthgerd, do, is it there or am I blind? The Silencer has spoken 16:45, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
The CSList is a minefield, it should all be there. Its finding it, some of it may be on quest stages on on quest flags. It might be on the NPC record or on the Base NPC record. It depends :/ The CSList, while great, isn't user friendly in the slightest! --kiz talkemail 17:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
^Ain't that the truth! I've been trying to learn more about using the CSList for a little while now, and while I know a lot more than I did a few weeks ago, most of it still confuses the heck out of me. :)
Anyway, RIM, if you'd like me to keep adding names to my list as I go, I can give ya another list later. I'm on here all the time anyway, and it's no trouble to add names to my notes in between editing/patrolling. Just let me know. ABCface 19:04, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Wow, I've never heard of the CSList. I'm on the 360, so I too have been gathering dialogue the old-fashioned way. I'm currently working on Paarthurnax, and judging by his insane amount of dialogue getting it via 360 would've taken about a week. •JATalk 20:06, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

() It will be impossible to have all dialogue on some NPCs pages, look at Arngeir on the CS[4]. The Silencer has spoken 23:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Which brings up the question on how we handle dialogue. If we wanted to do some nested collapsible tables/ShowHide system, that'd be great, except that every major NPC page would be gigantic when you went to edit it. On the other hand, we can't completely ignore it - for example, Paarthurnax's dialogue (look here) provides some critical insights on the Dragon Language. And what about conversations between two NPCs? Do we list it on one page and link to it on the other, duplicate the information, have a main article for conversations that we link to, or do we even mention it at all? I ran into a similar problem with the dialogue on Redguard (look at N'Gasta - that's just from the first time you meet him). How do we handle this? • JATalk 00:32, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we make an exception, a separate page for their massive amount of dialogue, with a few pertinant bits in the article. Haven't a clue what to do about two NPC conversations with each other. The Silencer has spoken 00:39, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
At this point, there’s no need to be too worried about how to handle layout and massive amounts of dialogue. The vip NPC method (as seen on OB pages like Modryn Oreyn and Martin) works well with SR NPCs too. I’ve written quite a few complete SR NPC pages, e.g. Grelod and Ahlam, works okay for now. Of course, some dialogue will be shared, but it will always be like that and there’s no real need for too many tranclusions and/or links. The conversations is where the true personality of the NPCs are hidden, so it’s good to go anywhere. --Krusty 05:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Maybe we should have a page for npc pages that need dialogue? Alphabet's list would help there. So basically if people see an npc page with little or no dialogue they could just add the name to the list on the page. I tried this with my user page but nobody noticed. Or we could have a Skyrim version of the oblivion npc redesign project? RIM 14:08, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
TBH, I don't like having all of the dialogue as a blob of half-italicized paragraphs - I find my eyes glaze over just looking at it. The Silencer is right, perhaps a Dialogue subpage would work best. Perhaps there could be a Skyrim:NPC Conversations article? Or we could just duplicate the text on both NPC pages - I'm fine with either one.
As for a list of NPCs that need dialogue, I think that's practically every NPC in the game. Most of them have only one or two lines of unique dialogue. Also, how do we handle quest-specific dialogue? Does it go on the quest page (under a /Dialogue subpage) or does it remain on the NPC page? Or both? Another factor in this is the significance of their dialogue. For instance, Paarthurnax's dialogue is very interesting for those trying to learn more about the Dragon language, and Mjoll the Lioness's dialogue is interesting because of her comments for each of the locations visited. Many NPCs, on the other hand, don't have as interesting quest-specific dialogue. • JATalk 14:34, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
And another quick question: do we record all dialogue that's in the game files, or only the dialogue that is found in game? Having gone through Paarthurnax, Odahviing, and Alduin (I was looking up Dragon dialogue) there's no way in hell I'm going back and checking if they say every single line of dialogue found in the game files. • JATalk 14:38, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't mean right now, maybe in a while. Just add any dialogue you can that you feel is important, if we listed every single line of dialogue it would take ages to write and read. As for the quest dialogue I think that a few lines should be added to the NPC if possible withouut overdoing it. For example, look at this page. RIM 14:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I think all dialogue that is said (bar perhaps hellos and goodbyes) in game is note-worthy. Dialogue should be handled how the OB pages were, some used italics in sentences but there are also some (especially VIPs check Sheogorath for an example) that used tables to great effect as well! I don't see the need for a subpage solely for dialogue. --kiz talkemail 14:52, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

() (edit conflict) Check out Ysolda's page for a split between her dialogue, the sections that reveal a little about her and are always available I incorperated, but the quest specific for ANTR went in a table because only a little gets revealed on one playthrough. She doesn't have anywhere near as much dialogue as some others, but besides genereic Hello. and such thats all her dialogue. It's a small example of what can be done, but like Martins page, I think we can shove a lot of quest specific dialogue into separate sections on for example Ulfric and Parthunax, but perhaps in hidden tables. The Silencer has spoken 14:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should move this to the community portal or admin noticeboard to see what others think? I like Ysolda's page:)RIM 14:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I've move the most pertinant part of this conversation about dialogue layout, the rest can be found at User talk:RIM, because we need a solution to the question about where do we put Ulfic's and Parthunax's massive amounts of dialogue. The Silencer has spoken 15:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I think that important or especially notable dialogue should be merged into paragraphs or otherwise visible if at all possible, but the rest for those NPCs should be put into a collapsible table or subpage. Collapsible table would be my preference. Vely►Talk►Email 15:38, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Etymology removal

Moved from Administrator Noticeboard Robin Hoodtalk 21:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Why are Etymology-related edits automatically removed from articles? I find it a notable fact that a VIP NPC like Vilkas, for example, means wolf, which is definitely related to his role in the game ~ Dwarfmp 19:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be an unwritten rule that apparently dates back to Oblivion time (i've asked about this before). There used to be a Lore:Etymologies (this page basically), however once that was deleted they were never put on articles and have been removed many times before now :/ --kiz talkemail 19:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Not really an administrative issue, though we stopped allowing them as nearly all were pointless and nearly everything had a double meaning. It got really silly with some as virtually everything has a different meaning than its intended one (The name "Lewis" also means "a device for lifting a dressed stone, consisting of a number of pieces fitting together to fill a dovetailed recess cut into the stone.", but that obviously would be irrelevant to a character name Lewis.), so it was easier to not allow any that weren't based on in-game languages then just a few. However, I do think we should make the enforcement of this unwritten rule more lax for obvious cases where it was most likely intended (such as with Farkas and Vilkas). As long as it clearly has something to do with the character (like a barbarian with a name literally translating to barbarian, or someone who betrays you having a name that means "Untrustworthy"), I don't see a problem allowing them. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 20:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I was just thinking about this same thing earlier when it came up, and I do remember how it got a bit out of hand before...I with AKB though--I think we should be reasonably able to keep it just to significant ones (like Vilkas and Farkas), and that should be fine. eshetalk 20:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
It just seems a bit... ambiguous maybe? Thats my only problem with that guideline. Its very opinionated, i'd very much like either: allow them all or allow none. --kiz talkemail 20:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

() I have faith that our editors will be able to determine the relevance of an etymological note within a few seconds. It's not the hardest thing to do. Take for example Kalorter meaning "heat", that is easily a coincidence. "Skooma" meaning "immoral", less so. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 20:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I still think its another cause for arguments, the people most likely to add the etymolgoies are those that will edit war. It just concerns me a bit thats all. I think i'll be easily over ruled but i'll let others speak. --kiz talkemail 20:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I'm well aware of the issues, it's why it was banned before. But that still doesn't mean we shouldn't try it again, since people are going to add them anyway. As long as we make it clear that only etymologies clearly relating to the subject are allowed, I think we can end most arguments over it with a reasonable amount of discussion. Allowing them again will require more work on the patrollers part, but I don't see why that should keep us from adding notes that in some cases are clearly relevant and many users fervently want to see. The only issue comes with actually making sure they remain relevant. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 20:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
It's like distuingishing any other type of note, whether someone is secretly a necrophiliac or whether someone has brown hair underneath their hat, well, it's basically the same issue. Of course, one can't remove all notes to prevent bad ones ~ Dwarfmp 20:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with AKB; I think there are some real-world etymologies that are a bit too on the nose to be considered coincidental, and since in many cases these notes are added over and over again (poorly) by anons, we're better off allowing some etymology notes. It's basically a question of relevance: what can we reasonably expect the reader to find interesting about any given subject? And I think it's overbroad to dictate that readers will categorically never find the meaning of a character's name in a real-world language to be interesting. If the meaning of a character's name significantly relates back to the character, I think it's worth mentioning it. Vilkas and Farkas is the best example, but while we're add it, I think the meaning of Heimskr's name is also pretty interesting, and it (in my opinion) bears a significant relationship to his character. Point being, while we would be opening the door for a few talk page debates, I think we should trust the community to remove etymologies which have no relevance, but we shouldn't ask editors to enforce a blanket ban on real-world etymologies. Minor EditsThreatsEvidence 21:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm with most everyone else here. I also like seeing links that seem to be relevant to the real world. I think if we take the approach of setting a high bar for relevancy, we should be okay. In essence, if there's any objection to something, it shouldn't be added unless it's clear that basically everybody can see the link except for that one person (cuz there's always that one <g>). Robin Hoodtalk 21:35, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

() The history of this particular (and highly-contested) case is of course available to anyone with the patience to wade through it. My recollection, which could definitely be wrong since it's been a while, is that a Patroller simply elected to remove it as "irrelevant" or somesuch the first time (which is obviously fine, but was ultimately merely the opinion of one editor), and every other Patroller then automatically followed suit indefinitely - which since there was clear consensus in favor of the note essentially turned the whole thing into a Group v Group Editwar that's still going five months later. There will undoubtedly be dozens of contested cases in the future "if the rule is relaxed" (not that there ever actually was any such rule: certainly nobody ever directed anyone to a Policy on it while 200RR-ing the edits) but I'd be surprised if all of them combined match the traffic that's been generated over Farkas and Vilkas, so it would make sense to make an exception for those two even if the rule actually existed. Aliana 22:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I know the issue was discussed some time ago, and it wasn't just one editor, but that was in regards to Oblivion etymologies. Thanks to "etymology" being a fairly uncommon word on the wiki, I've been able to find that discussion here, however it continues into a page which has now been deleted. Would it be useful to ask an Admin to undelete the talk page so we can follow the rest of the discussion? Anyway, as I recall, the creation of Lore:Etymology led to all kinds of half-baked suggestions being added to it, which in turn led to a unanimous deletion review. The general sentiment after that was that the line was too blurry and it was easiest to just forbid them completely. There was probably even some discussion to that effect, though I haven't spotted it if there was. Once Skyrim came along, we of course just continued as we'd been doing with Oblivion. Nevertheless, as Wikipedia is fond of pointing out, consensus can change, and from the looks of the discussion so far, I'd say it has. Anyway, not really a point to this other than to cover what I recall of the history of etymology and how we got to where we are now. Robin Hoodtalk 03:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I've restored Lore talk:Etymology. Not sure why a talk page was deleted. --Legoless 12:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
So, are there any objections to this? If not, going forward, we should treat etymology additions on a case-by-case basis. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 20:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

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