UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 40

Quest Objectives

Now that I'm going through and verifying the original Quest Stages tables, I'm reminded that I did them differently for Dragonborn compared to Skyrim because of the fact that the quest stage and quest objectives aren't actually linked, like we'd first assumed. So, my first question is: should we try to harmonize the two namespaces so they're all using the same style?

If you answered yes to that, then my second question is: which style do you prefer, single-table or two-table? The two-table format is easy, but doesn't currently indicate which quest stage any given objective occurs at. Either switching Dragonborn space to the single-table format, or switching both spaces to a modification of the two-table format that indicates which stages things happen at, would be a fair bit of programming, but I should be able to do it at this point. Or we can go for some other alternative altogether, if anyone has any other ideas.

Or should we just leave well enough alone?  &ndash;       02:21, 27 November 2013 (GMT)

:As Dragonborn has Skyrim as its base game, I think we should put them both in the same style. As someone who makes great use of the CK and console commands if a bug occurs, I appreciate the objective number in the Dragonborn style. But on the other hand, you have no idea when this objective is displayed, so I'd suggest a variation of the single-table style, showing the number of the objective (like the example shown below, in the showhide tag) --        17:48, 27 November 2013 (GMT)
 
 
 

::Alfwyn started doing something along those lines on a few articles. I like how much you shortened the text, though; it really makes quest objectives less intrusive.  &ndash;       18:39, 27 November 2013 (GMT)

:::I also think they should be presented in the same style, and I like SarthesArai's way of combining them so it's easier to see where objectives fit in. --Enodoc (talk) 19:20, 27 November 2013 (GMT)

::::Shortening the text looks good to me. The combined style will work for the vast majority of quest, and I favor it, because it takes up less space than two tables. But there are a few quests where the objective is not tied to a quest stage, but rather to activating something or going near some point. Those will need a bit of creativity. --Alfwyn (talk) 14:07, 4 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::Those untied objectives still have an index though, right? (I don't entirely know how objectives are stored) If that is the case, they can be rows on their own, in between the rows containing quest stages. --Enodoc (talk) 17:43, 4 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::That's not a bad idea, Enodoc. It wouldn't be that much work to track which quest objectives I've listed, then dump any leftovers at the bottom of the list, or on a separate page, and then we can figure out what to do with them from there. The real trick is going to be to figure out whether or not we've already done things like this, and if I should clobber any customizations or if I can manage to figure out if there have been substantial manual changes and just flag those pages as needing human intervention.

::::::In any event, I'll probably get started on this project next week once I've finished getting the spell skill XP information up. There's a fair bit of work to redoing all the quest comments, and I have other things on my agenda, so I suspect we're looking at a few weeks before you actually start to see the bot making any changes, but it is coming. I'll probably do Dragonborn and Skyrim spaces as separate projects, since DB needs a complete re-write whereas Skyrim just needs a bit of tweaking, but we'll see.  &ndash;       18:43, 4 December 2013 (GMT)

  Okay, so as those of you who watch bot edits have probably figured out, I'm getting closer to making this a reality. The hard part, figuring out what's currently on the page and preserving most of the information that's not in the CK, is done. I just have a few more data updates so that things like   tags and more descriptive quest data that users have entered all get preserved, but the programming itself is done. The much easier part, strangely enough, is creating the replacement tables and getting them on the page, and I'll probably start that in the next day or two. Here's a mockup of what I intend them to look like. I'm posting it now so that if there are any thoughts on better ways to do things, it's all worked out before the bot makes the changes. This mockup is a mishmash of quest info and example data, just to show the various aspects that are different from what we currently have.

 


;Things to note
  tags will be preserved.
Most additional quest comments that weren't part of the CK data will be preserved in some fashion, though sometimes slightly differently than the original for better clarity given the new format (e.g., Paarthurnax being alive at stage 996, above).
Links will be lost (e.g., Hard Answers). I could have preserved these in the same way I did with the sic tags, but links have only rarely been added to the Quest Stages tables, and I thought consistency was the better way to go. If we do want to add links to these tables, I think a better approach would be to do a separate bot run later on and add links to all NPCs, Places, etc.
Some quests that had had information deliberately stripped (e.g., Battle for Solitude) or had had it customized to fill in values for global variables or single-option aliases (e.g., A Return To Your Roots, stage 20, or Dragon's Breath Mead, stages 10 and 15) will be reverted to the original   or   text. Again, this is mostly for consistency, and again, if we want to change these, it makes more sense to me to do them en masse via the bot (possibly needing human help, I'm not sure) rather than piecemeal. (Some may make sense to do/re-do by hand, though, like the various CW quests, since they're moderately complex. I'd like to see what they actually look like once the bot's done, though, and then consider what to do.)
Custom title changes (e.g., Arniel's Endeavor) will be lost, but noted on the bot's Results page. Most of these are actually desirable changes, but it was more effort to do the programming than it would be to just re-insert the custom titles again after the bot run for the few pages where this occurs.
Existing "missing" entries will be ignored. While most are correct, some are a bit of a mess due to the old misunderstandings about quest objectives, having multiple quests, and having about three or four standard formats for listing these. All previous formats will be discarded with extreme prejudice ;) in favour of the template's missing parameter (with bullet-points for multiple quest pages, like I believe HnB did them last time around).

;Things I'd like feedback on:
Repeated Stage Entries: This is something that neither NepheleBot or HotnBOThered have handled well in the past. For most stages, there's a single possible journal entry. Sometimes, however, there can be more, with Trouble in Skyrim being the longest example, I believe, having nine separate entries. As you can see on that page, NB just put an "or" between each one within the same section. That looks nice on some quests, but it can actually be confusing in cases where there are multiple objectives involved. There are also quests like Blood on the Ice, stage 250, where at the same stage, the Finishes/Fails flags are different, and the quest will only complete at that stage under certain conditions. Putting them each in a separate row resolves that issue and makes it easier to document. HnB put them in separate rows, originally, but with nothing to distinguish them (e.g., Retaking Thirsk, stage 200), which makes it easy to think there was a bot error or something. I think the additional gray (x) makes it clear that they're distinct, but it might also be confusing if people are using the console   commands, so I'm open to other ideas.
"Unknown" entries: Per Enodoc's suggestion, I'm listing these at the end of the table, which we can either leave there, or move to other stages or split out into different descriptive sections...whatever. I think this will work out well, and doesn't look cluttered. How does this look to others?
'''OR'd objectives: I think The Fallen is the only one with three objectives, but how does this look? Do we want it like I have it at stage 996 (which is how the game displays it, give or take the quest comment)? Should it maybe use commas between the numbers (e.g.,  )? Or perhaps something more different like " : Talk to Paarthurnax   or  : Talk to Arngeir or  : Talk to Esbern"?
Anything else''': If there's anything else you think could be formatted or presented better, now is the time to say so! Easier to add/change a little programming now than doing a whole separate bot run after the fact.  &ndash;       22:39, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

::I would really like to avoid duplicate quest stages. What is stage "100 (3) and 100 (4)" is omitted to tell us? There is only one quest stage 100. Those cases will probably need manual review anyway, because documenting the condition of the different entries might be useful.

::I don't think that links in the quest stage table are actually useful.

::On the other hand I don't really like the combination of objectives at stage 996 - it's three objectives, 3 lines for it are clearer.

::Several of the Skyrim pages had changes to the bot generated tables that where useful or have other stuff like more than one table on a page - is there really a need to almost rewrite them from the ground? We can change back all those bot changes of course, I just don't know what the ratio of unwanted changes/real fixes is. Or would changing the objective lines there suffice and do the rewriting for Dragonborn only?

::Something only a bit related - what would be useful would be a way to clearly indicate which text can actually be seen ingame and whats only text in the game data never to be shown. --Alfwyn (talk) 23:23, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Taking your points in order: Yeah, I can see what you mean about the multiple quest stages. It's one of the drawbacks to having a Journal Entries template rather than a full-fledged table. With a table, the solution would be simple: rowspan=x, there, done. Removing the extra numbers when doing the "missing" parameter is easy enough. I added that specifically to solicit this kind of opinion, actually. :) Similarly, I could remove the (x) and just repeat the numbers, or combine them into a single box like NB did, but I really think that'll come out more confusing in the end.

:::Having the OR'd objectives on three lines is easy (easier than combining them, in fact), but when presented in your journal, it actually does appear as "Talk to Paarhurnax or Talk to Arngeir or Talk to Esbern", so that's what I was intending to duplicate. If we want them separate, I'm more than happy to do so; it'll simplify the template as well. The only thing then is to figure out how to clearly indicate that you only do one of the objectives, not all of them. Maybe that can be as simple as adding "or" at the beginning or end of the line?

:::This isn't a complete re-build. That's what the last couple of weeks of programming and test runs have been about: parse what's on the existing pages and figure out what needs to be preserved. Nearly everything that we would want to be preserved will be. (The bot's results page is a bit misleading that way at the moment, since all the various Quest Comments and such that have been added since the beginning will actually be included in the final result. I've just changed the format or wording slightly on some of them, and moved a few of them after the objective, so it's flagging them as non-identical.) Some things will still need to be handled by hand, but not much, and what does need to be handled will be flagged on the bot's results page. I think the CW quests are really the only place where there will be significant change, and that's mostly because they're currently presented fairly inaccurately in any event.

:::Similarly, if we want to, it's easy to have the bot also preserve things like the globals and single-option aliases. The existing programming can handle that, I just have to copy the current text into an "overrides" table and when the bot does its run, it'll spit out exactly what was there before. There are only a handful of cases where that's been done, so it's really not much work to do that at all. As I said, I was more worried that we do things consistently.

:::Do you have an example of where multiple tables have been added to a page? If you just mean the integrated tables, like Arniel's Endeavor, that's all been taken into account. Rather than have the bot decide on its own what needed to be done, I started by having it pull a report of all the existing Journal Entries tables on a page, then did my programming from there. So, all the integrated tables will come out looking the same as they are now (with the exception of the titles, as I mentioned above), in the same order, but with all the objectives updated to use a consistent style. Similarly, the Unfinished Quests page will also be handled correctly, despite the unusual layout of having multiple tables on the same page.

:::As for the text that'll never be displayed in game, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about objectives or journal entries that are never used? Or something else? If it's stuff that's not used, I'd say we should either remove it entirely or change the style to put it in a different colour or something, so that it's obvious at a glance that it's not part of the in-game quest.  &ndash;       00:16, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

::::Well, in the example there is no missing quest stage 100. Probably just two empty log entries, with two non-empty log entries and at least three of those cases with conditions. But yes, I see a fundamental problem, that the finish flag was tied to a quest stage and not to a log entry.

::::I see what the combined objectives of MQ301 are about now - didn't realize the way they were presented in the game. In that case forget what I said, your example looks good.

::::And well, if most of the stuff stays, it may indeed be easier to change unwanted things back - if there is a good way to find those.

::::Stuff that is not seen ingame: about half the quest journal entries - because the quest ends up in misc and only objectives are shown. Currently there is not much indication for that on the quest pages. But well, I guess that may go beyond that bot run. --Alfwyn (talk) 01:03, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::I didn't realize that there were that many journal entries that went unseen. I can easily get the bot to add something like a "Not in game" template (or whatever we want to call it) around the journal entries for Misc quests. We can figure out the exact formatting we want for that later.  &ndash;       01:45, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::I just had an idea for the objectives: what if we make them look more or less like they do in-game (see above)? It's very non-intrusive, since the objective numbers only show up on hovering. Come to think of it, we could do the log entry numbers the same way and just have them only show up on hover. It still means repeating stage numbers, but at least they'd look like all the other stage numbers.  &ndash;       02:46, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::::I don't think that hiding information here is good. We are not trying to replicate the game, but displaying useful information about it. About ORed objectives, we probably need a multi-line approach here after all, since they may be given at different quest stages (see for example MQ205, stage 20/30). For quest stages with multiple log entries a rowspan approach may be the best thing - the first line would need a parameter that the next n-1 lines will be for the same stage.  --Alfwyn (talk) 12:11, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::::Is it possible to put this   under the objectives? I was desperately searching for the objective number until I read your post that they hover. For the multiple log entries, would it be possible to do it in some way like this:? (Sorry RH, but you startet shooting Arrows)
::::::::
:::::::: --        12:24, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

  I was thinking initially that the objective numbers are unimportant, but we do sometimes need to see them for quests that have objectives stuck in their logs or whatever. I do like the bullet style, though, because at least for me, it's immediately apparent that that's an objective. Underlining is certainly one possibility, though I think it'd get to be a bit much when it's on every objective. Alternatively, I'm wondering if something like "♦ Visit your new property in   hold  " would work. I think that would look a bit strange, though, if there were quest comments right beside the objective number. The "Objective #: ..." style may end up being the best choice after all.

One way or another, I think you're both right and that we're looking at including a rowspan in the template somehow; I don't see any way around it. I thought of just hiding the cell divisions, but that still leaves the objective number at the top, which doesn't quite look right...it becomes unbalanced with the "Finishes" icon, even if you top-align everything. As far as the technical details of the template go, I'm thinking of a style that doesn't quite work like an HTML table would, in that after the first rowspan row, the template would still have three parameters per row, but if the first parameter were ^, let's say, no cell would be output in that position. It works around needing to handle varying numbers of parameters or counting rows within the body of the template, which would get very messy. The tricky part is how to specify the rowspan itself. I'd thought of a named parameter approach like "rowspan100=2", which would allow a construct like #inherit:rowspan }, but with multiple quests in the same Journal Entries template, all quest stage 100s would then inherit that same parameter. I suppose one workaround would be to include the quest ID as part of the name as well (so, rowspanBYOHHousePale100=2), but that's rather long, and could get hard to maintain. For example, if someone alters the id parameter, perhaps to add a note to it for some reason, the table would become a royal mess. I'm thinking the only practical way to do it will be to resort to just plain parsing the first parameter, maybe something like "rowspan-2 Objective text", with the dash being to avoid having to worry about equals signs.

As far as ORed objectives, I'd just been thinking I should do a search to see if that sort of thing ever happened, but you've saved me having to do that. I'm thinking of two possibilities: always go for a multiline approach, or be adaptive (easy to do, given how I've coded things internally) and spit out an extra "or" before the objective if it's the first one in a given stage and is flagged as ORed with the previous one.  &ndash;       18:32, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

:Regarding the rowspan implementation, yes, parsing the first paramater will probably the least messy approach. I tried some test implementation. A ^ as index to indicate cell skipping works well. If a rowspan is desired, that implementation specifies it after a : at the index. That should be reasonably readable, but any other seperator like " rowspan-" would do too. Anyway, a testcase can bee seen here. But that takes only care of different journal entries and the finish quest flag that is tied to them. Objectives in many cases may not use the same conditions as the journal entries and would need duplicating (how often is that the case in practice ?) unless there is a good way to indicate that the objectives apply to all the different journal entries. Anyway, the same problem would be present if duplicating the quest stage. --Alfwyn (talk) 17:35, 29 December 2013 (GMT)

::That looks great, and I like your idea with the :, that's much cleaner than my idea. The bot code is more or less ready to go apart from the rowspans, but I've got family coming over today, so it'll be a little while before I get back to it, plus I'll want to do lots of testing before letting it actually run. If you want to put your Journal Entries code in place, I'll use that style when I do the bot programming. I don't think we'll be able to do much with the objectives that repeat. I'm not sure how often that happens, but I'll add a little code just to spit out some quick info and see if there's anything we need to really look at.  &ndash;       18:01, 29 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Okay, I've put a few examples in the bot's sandboxes (1, 2, 3). Other than the links at the very top of the page, they're exactly what the bot is producing. You'll notice in Sandbox 2 that the notes at stage 60 have been preserved, though moved to the end where I think they read better with this layout. Sandbox 3 is a more extreme change, showing what one of the CWSiegeObj quests looks like once the bot's done. I have a little more tweaking to do for tomorrow, like I'd like to get rid of the duplication at MQ205, stage 50, but we're pretty much there. Oh, and speaking of duplication, while there are some cases of objectives being re-used in the same quest, the ones I looked at are all separated by other things (e.g., Trouble in Skyrim, where the same objective repeats at each of the stage 10 log entries).

:::Any thoughts on the SRQRP   parameter? That'll no longer be applicable after the bot run, but perhaps we should leave it on, but clear it, for the Unknown objectives, or maybe even add a category directly to the Unknown box that can be removed once they're all well documented?  &ndash;       05:18, 30 December 2013 (GMT)

::::Looks good. And yeah, objectives written/checked doesn't apply after that anymore. We had that because of a systematic problem (stage number is not always objective number). Ideally we would gain some experience with the changes before deciding if any SRQRP action is needed. Some way to find all pages with unknown objectives would be nice, though. --Alfwyn (talk) 13:55, 30 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::Okay, I think we're ready to go. I ultimately decided not to remove duplicates because I figure if there are any, it's quite possible we'll want to document them separately, and if we don't, it's not a big challenge to remove them. (As it turned out, MQ205, stage 50 ''isn't'' a duplicate anyway, with Esbern/Arngeir being different between them.) I'm just about to go eat, and when I get back, I'll do some final checks on some of the harder pages, just to be sure we're getting what we expect. So, the actual bot run will probably start in about 2-3 hours.  &ndash;       00:56, 31 December 2013 (GMT)

Edit Break - Quest Objectives
  Okay, the bot run is done. The momentary disconnect part-way through caused a bit of an issue with much of the Dragonborn results, but that was dealt with easily enough. I'm not sure why there are so many false reports in the results after that, though. I'll be looking into those to see what actually needs attention and what doesn't. I suspect it was some minor coding change that ballooned out of all proportion. The only other issue was human error: as I was looking over the previous version of the results, I realized there were some changes in the Skyrim:T... area that I'd never seen before. I suspect I got distracted and skipped over them without realizing. No major difficulties with that, though, it just means a little manual copying over of what used to be there.  &ndash;       06:30, 31 December 2013 (GMT)

:I've started looking into some of the results, should I delete them from HotnBOThered's result page or mark them in any way? --        11:56, 31 December 2013 (GMT)

::I changed the table at Before the Storm a bit, duplicating the objectives that are shown for either log entry. The way it was before it could have been read, that either the objective or one of the log entries is shown. The case of stage 160 is not that obvious, but looking at the conditions, it is guaranteed that one of the entries is shown. And in each case the quest finishes - it's not an empty entry that finishes the quest, or one of the log entries. In the end it will be clearer if we have different cases shown at a stage meaning alternatives and not "and/or" possibilities. We might even add quest comments which alternative applies if that is not apparent. There is a possibility that for some quest the conditions for the alternatives overlap or that we have a true "and" for entries - we can still add a quest comment clarifying that if the situation arises. --Alfwyn (talk) 16:19, 31 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Sarthes: Yes, please do remove those entries from HnB's results. I'll go slap an   on it now.

:::Alfwyn: Agreed. It just makes sense to combine things like you have.  &ndash;       17:42, 31 December 2013 (GMT)

::::Another thing to discuss: How do we want to handle quest stages that start other quests? We don't have them mentioned in the major quest lines, but recently   because of this. My opinion is not to show this, but if we do, we should do so for all quests. --        13:20, 3 January 2014 (GMT)

:::::I think it depends, though I'm hard pressed to say what it depends on. The gist of it is that I don't think we should be noting trivial things, like starting a hidden dialogue quest, or when one quest starts the next one in sequence at the very end of it. It may be more notable, though, when a quest starts another one mid-way, or if there's a non-obvious transfer point from, say, an introductory quest to the main one.  &ndash;       19:32, 3 January 2014 (GMT)

Sandbox mistake?

This userpage was made recently, and I can't make any sense of it. It almost seems like it's supposed to be a sandbox for a Morrowind NPC, but a quick search didn't reveal any NPCs by the name "Brurid", only "Brurid's shack" and several mentions in dialogue. The thought struck me that it might be a user describing his own player character, in which case I would want to remove the MWOP header.

I've never played Morrowind, so I wouldn't know, but is that an actual character in the game? ThuumofReason (talk) 15:17, 28 November 2013 (GMT)
: Yeah, he's a real character. --Skyrimplayer (talk) 15:23, 28 November 2013 (GMT)

::As long as it isn't adding it to the categories it's alright for now.      18:32, 28 November 2013 (GMT)

Christmas Presents from the UESP

Happy holidays from the UESP! To celebrate Christmas this year the UESP is giving gift certificates from Symbiote Studios to many of its most active members. I basically took the top 40 or so wiki contributors for the past year, the forum moderators and a few other people who have worked hard this year making the site the best one out there. Feel free to nominate someone (including yourself) if you think their contributions to the site merit a small thank-you reward. 

I'll be sending out the confirmation e-mails later today which you'll need to reply to in order to receive the gift certificate, assuming you want it. You may also be able to convince me for a gift certificate from another store (I wanted to use the Bethesda store but they don't currently offer gift certificates). I used the e-mails from your wiki/forum account so if that is out of date you may wish to update it and let me know if you don't get an e-mail. 

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! -- Daveh   13:41, 6 December 2013 (GMT)
:Merry Christmas Daveh!        19:43, 6 December 2013 (GMT)
::Aww, thanks, Daveh! Merry Christmas to you too! ThuumofReason (talk) 13:34, 7 December 2013 (GMT)
:::Thank you!! :) Happy Holidays to everyone! My New Year's Resolution is to return to fully-active status.  
::::Thank you, Dave! It's very much appreciated. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Yule Tidings, Happy Solstice...all that jazz.    &ndash;       20:50, 7 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::Thank you, Dave! :) Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to you and to everyone! --Holomay (talk) 14:57, 9 December 2013 (GMT)

Update --  I've sent out the certificates to everyone who has replied so far and you should get them by the end of the week (if you don't please let me know). For the bunch of you I haven't heard back from you can let me know at any time before or even after Christmas. -- Daveh   20:48, 17 December 2013 (GMT)

:Hey there Dave, just wanted to let you know that I replied and still haven't received anything back. Not like I'm in a hurry or anything, just letting you know! Thanks again!        05:13, 23 December 2013 (GMT)
::Good to know, I'll check on it when I get back from Christmas. -- Daveh   22:54, 26 December 2013 (GMT)

::Got my necklace in the mail a few days ago! Thanks again, Dave! ThuumofReason (talk) 18:27, 26 December 2013 (GMT)

:::As did I. I truly appreciate it, thank you once more. Also, anyone who has had issues with this, I would recommend re-emailing Dave about this. --AKB   22:25, 26 December 2013 (GMT)

::::I also haven't recieved anything yet. I've sent another confirmation email. --        12:05, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::Arrived. Happy new Year! :-) --        19:16, 3 January 2014 (GMT)

Archive Search

The Silencer prompted me to integrate the search functionality into our   template earlier this evening, and I've just done so. For the time being, I have it displaying as part of the header and turned on by default. I'm not so sure I like that particular style, but I don't like anything else any better, so I'm going to throw this one out to the community and see what you guys think. (For the old-timers who may remember previous discussions about this from nearly two years ago, we didn't have Lucene search installed back then, so it wasn't possible. Now we do, so it is.)

So, does anyone have style suggestions? And should it be displayed or hidden by default?  &ndash;       01:57, 8 December 2013 (GMT)

:I'd prefer it hidden by default, and possibly at the bottom of the table. It is only useful in a small number of cases (e.g. Easter Eggs, Admin Board).      02:02, 8 December 2013 (GMT)

::That's easy enough, although if we do that, it'll get hidden automatically along with the rest of the table on pages like this one. I don't think there's a way around that, but I can look into it if we want that option.  &ndash;       02:22, 8 December 2013 (GMT)
:::First off: thank you, thank you, thank you for implementing this! Second, the search box doesn't seem obtrusive to me in it's current form, but I won't argue the point if others want it to be hidden by default. --Xyzzy     16:44, 8 December 2013 (GMT)
::::So, we've got one person that wants it hidden by default and only enabled for certain pages, and one that doesn't mind it but isn't really concerned if people want it hidden. Is there anybody who would actively object to having it hidden? Also, top or bottom of the table? If it goes anywhere but the top, it'll end up being collapsed or not, according to whatever the rest of the table is doing (unless we put it outside the table altogether...that might be doable).  &ndash;       21:22, 15 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::I vote to put it at the bottom, so it falls into the show/hide with the rest of the archive table. :D        09:21, 16 December 2013 (GMT)
::::::I prefer it at the bottom, but it's not something I feel strongly about. —      16:37, 16 December 2013 (GMT)
  I prefer it at the top, though I am indifferent. What I am more concerned about is under what circumstances should the search bar even be visible? It's certainly helpful on the AN, CP, and content articles where there are many, many archives that could be searched. However, it seems rather useless to me on pages where there are only 2 or 3 archives, like here. I, personally, am of the opinion that the search bar has negligible use being visible in these instances. Could it be added to the template that we need, say... 4 or 5 pages linked to the table before the search bar is even visible? That's something I'd like to explore, perhaps. -     16:58, 16 December 2013 (GMT)
:More people seem to prefer it at the bottom, so I've moved it there in its own cell for now and it will show/hide with the rest of the table. It still shows by default and the   feature works as before, pending further discussion, since people seem to be more divided on that.  &ndash;       20:54, 16 December 2013 (GMT)
::Now that I'm actually seeing it, especially on pages with very much archives (like the community portal or easter egg pages), I don't think the bottom is the best place. I think we should not do what is best for us ten regulars that already know half of the archives but rather the average uesp-user that vistis this site for only his fifth time. Once he sees the large archive table to check, he becomes so discouraged that he leaves the site and doesn't even scroll down enough to see that there is a search function. If he instantly sees the search bar, it makes things much more easy for him, and he knows he doesn't have to open each archive. (okay, I may exaggerate a little bit, but in general, that's my point) ;-) --        19:11, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
:::I'd forgotten about this issue until Kiz asked me to look at his sandbox the other day. I really like what he's done with the Archive Table. How does this look?  &ndash;       02:25, 28 December 2013 (GMT)
::::Looks great to me. Placing it at the top of the page just makes more sense to me. --Xyzzy     02:39, 28 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::Okay, I've moved it back to the top in the example; I'll do so in the regular Archive Table tomorrow if there are no overwhelming objections.

::::: I'm thinking the scrolling style of Archive Table would go in a new template rather than just replacing Archive Table, since you have to size it manually for the height, and at least on Chrome, for the width as well. I'm sure we don't want to do that for every last Archive Table on the wiki. :) Still, I think that style would be great for archives like here and AN.  &ndash;       04:17, 28 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::After a month of having it, I'd rather see it at the top now. It kind of defeats the purpose to have it hidden away. I think thats what most wanted too.      00:41, 26 January 2014 (GMT)

Numidium Naming

I was looking at our article and saw that it had inconsistent usage of 'the Numidium' vs just 'Numidium.' I was going to fix it, as I've typically seen it referred to just as 'Numidium', without an article, but I looked into it and the sources seem to be very conflicted. Even within a single letter from Daggerfall, the usage changes: "a gargantuan creature called the Numidium" but "the Totem, with the rest of Numidum, was lost". The most common usage in those letters in the no-article version, though. 
:The Arcturian Heresy: "He blows the Numidium apart."
:Response to Bero's Speech: "we don't know how Numidium was created"
:On Morrowind: "rumors suggest that Vivec offered Numidium"
I think we should have a declared usage for the wiki to keep things consistent. I personally favor the no-article version, since it's typically used as the name of the construct ("the golem Numidium"), not a description. -- Hargrimm  19:54, 11 December 2013 (GMT)

:I agree, remove the offending article. --AKB   19:57, 11 December 2013 (GMT)

:: Both seem to be correct, I don't see any sense in choosing a favourite to be used site-wide. There are plenty of items with similar issues, e.g. the Goldbrand. —Legoless (talk) 22:30, 11 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Red Mountain also faces the same issue (but is a bit more difficult). In cases of inconsistent article usage, I would look at the matter historiographically and choose whatever the latest trend is in the TES-verse (to better complement the lore perspective). Only one source in Morrowind refers to "the Numidium". All sources in Oblivion refer to only "Numidium". And it's noteworthy that the only contradictory source here is The Arcturian Heresy, as Michael Kirkbride recently denounced that work as "the worst thing I've ever written".      22:57, 11 December 2013 (GMT)

::::I would favor the no-article version, as it's the most common spelling. ThuumofReason (talk) 00:09, 12 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::The most common spelling is what we're looking for, but the most common spelling from the right time period, not the most common spellings in the games overall. You wouldn't expect a modern-day encyclopedia to be written in the parliance of 1813. Red Mountain is a great example. Before the Red Year, the only references to "the Red Mountain" in the games were Poison Song (which referred to the "War of the Red Mountain"), and a line of dialogue each from Gentleman Jim Stacy and Almalexia. In Skyrim, two centuries later, 80% of the new pieces of writing which mention the mountain refer to it as "the Red Mountain". That doesn't happen by accident. Further, the three which don't use the article are older documents: Rising Threat, On the Great Collapse, and Faded Diary - all documents which were written in the early years of the Fourth Era and logically shouldn't be expected to use a modernized vernacular. Thus, the exceptions prove the rule. In Skyrim's dialogue, the majority of NPCs refer to "the Red Mountain", with mainly older folks, such as Neloth, dropping the article and calling it "Red Mountain". I think there's virtually every indication that Vvardenfell's Red Mountain is now the Red Mountain in the eyes of the people of Tamriel, so that's what we should be calling it in the lore section. Obviously, the Morrowind namespace would be a different story.      03:54, 12 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::I'd happily take care of transclusion issues, by the way.      04:17, 12 December 2013 (GMT)
 I'm talking about Numidium though. ThuumofReason (talk) 11:50, 12 December 2013 (GMT)

Variable IDs of add-on content

As most of you have probably noticed, we've had lots of editors change refIDs of quests/items/NPCs/et cetera added by add-ons in our articles based on what their console tells them in-game, not understanding the variable nature of them. I was perusing The Fallout Wiki when I noticed this Quests and Achievements table has a hidden text note as part of their variable IDs. This seems like a great way to document this. Is this something we want to do here? --Xyzzy     17:24, 17 December 2013 (GMT)

:Doesn't sound bad, possiply a template? --        17:41, 17 December 2013 (GMT)

::Good idea! I like their solution too, it's just what I was thinking of: forcibly take the right six characters, so even if someone does enter 04012345, the output will still be xx012345. Of course, ideally I'd like to have all our IDs in a template, like we'd discussed a long time ago, so we can control the formatting with CSS. I could probably put the bot on that (either for DLC only or for everything), though of course, it can only guess at what's actually a Form ID. Still, there's not a lot else that's going to start with either 00 or xx and otherwise conform to an 8-digit hex number.  &ndash;       19:08, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
:::Sounds good to me. ThuumofReason (talk) 21:43, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
::::This seems ideal to me. —      21:59, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::I'd actually considered this a few months ago. My thinking ended up that we don't see THAT many changes over a long period of time to really justify the amount of botwork that would be needed to implement this. Every DLC Item, NPC, creature, etc would need it to be added, and we get MAYBE one attempted change a month, on average. I'm not saying it isn't feasible, because it is, but I just don't see it as much of an issue anymore. We rarely get the attempted changes, and when we do, they often only change one or who IDs, which is very easy to switch back. That was my thinking anyway. Jeancey (talk) 22:18, 17 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::I like this idea, and it could be built into the existing   template; if the entered item is 8 alphanumeric characters long (not counting parentheses) and begins with something other than "00", then it is reformatted as a mod ID. •        02:02, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

  If I'm going to do a bot run on the pattern anyway, I'd actually move any non-ID text into a   template, then let ID do its job only on things that are truly IDs. Otherwise, the text processing gets really cumbersome, cuz you'd have to check it for length, whether it's actually an ID or not, even if it is 8 characters (cuz   would turn out badly if it was seen as DLC), and do the appropriate padding and formatting as well.  &ndash;       02:52, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

:Since this seems to have unanimous support up to this point, I've gone ahead and done some of the preliminary work. The bot brings up a good point, however, since the first thing it found during its dry run was in Morrowind space: what do we want to do with Morrowind IDs (like BM_NordicMail_PauldronR), which are more like EditorIDs in OB/SR? Should we:
:*just convert them to  , or
:*format them the same as IDs, but without any kind of FormID checking so that if we later change FormIDs to   or make them all full-size, as suggested in the previous discussion, the Morrowind IDs would all follow?
: &ndash;       04:52, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

::I've re-designed the ID template under the assumption that it'll only be used for IDs from now on, and I've pretty much got the bot ready to convert everything else to use the   template (including Morrowind IDs for the time being), though it'll need some final checking. Here are some examples of the new FormIDs:     →  ,     →  ,     →  . Unlike The Fallout Wiki's version, it's meant to handle both regular and DLC form ids, so requires the full 8-digit number, and expects it to start with 00 or xx. Anything else will be corrected to "xx" and add the page to an error category so it can be easily spotted and fixed. (So you can still do the "fox pics" thing, but it will generate an error.) It also adds a hover-text option as the second parameter, so that we can clarify what ID represents what in lists. Lastly, the template makes use of several styles, which will allow users to override the size, colour, or case of the id to suit their liking, or even hide them altogether, just by adding a CSS style to their Common.css or Monobook.css page (see the various .id styles on my CSS page).  &ndash;       20:45, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Hmm, nicely done, but two things: should we really link to TES4Mod-space from skyrim-articles? (I know there is no difference but anyway...) Considering that for 99,9% of the skyrim-players the mod with the index "01" is Update.ESM, should we allow 01-formids to be valid as well in Skyrim- and Dragonborn-namespace? --        20:56, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

::::I meant to mention that I was linking to Tes4Mod space but I forgot. Right now, I believe that's the only in-depth article we have on FormIDs. I would suggest either moving it to Help space outright and doing some re-writes to account for both Oblivion and Skyrim as possibilities, or creating a separate Help article on them that's perhaps not quite as in-depth, but still covers the basic idea of how things get renumbered. As far as Update.esm, conceivably you could decide not to have it as 01, but I think that's so unlikely that it makes no sense for us to worry about it, so allowing 01 would make sense. It would only take a couple of minor tweaks to the template to allow that.  &ndash;       21:18, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::For Skyrim there is  - it is not as in depth as , but that wasn't the intention. Feel free to link to a more in-depth technical one there (ideally a Tes5Mod one that needs to be written). But the Tes4Mod article particularly doesn't explain what xx stands for. Ideally there would be a player-friendly article in the Oblivion namespace I guess and the template linking to the appropriate one. --Alfwyn (talk) 22:50, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::  I take that all back. Looking at the article, I can see a number of gamespace-specific links that would be useful to keep in. I'm going to copy it over to Oblivion space with suitable rewrites and then make the appropriate changes to the template, then we can get the bot started. (ID templates in Morrowind space will all be converted to Smalls, so a Form ID article won't be necessary there.)  &ndash;       22:04, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

  Okay, so it looks like we're ready to go here. I'll be putting the bot on the conversions momentarily. There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here, though, so a number of existing uses of the ID template will temporarily lose parentheses and perhaps a couple of other minor issues until the bot has finished its run and I put the updated template in place. (Putting the template in place first would have created even more of a mess wherever the template was used for plain text.)  &ndash;       22:28, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

:And we're done. Please let me know if you spot any issues apart from those listed on . Also, does anyone have any feedback on what to do with those ones? If we can, I'd like to get rid of any extraneous text around the IDs. If not, there are parameters in the new template to handle the added text.  &ndash;       00:17, 20 December 2013 (GMT)
::First off, very nicely done! Second, couldn't we just use the ID template for the actual ID on those pages and just place the extra text ("ID", "Before", etc.) outside of the ID template? I altered the one on  by putting the HF template outside the ID template and I think it looks fine. --Xyzzy     05:59, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

:::That's what I'm thinking, yes, or get rid of it altogether if it's not needed. The addbefore and addafter have been added so that we can be sure that the text follows the size and style of the ID itself. That's especially useful for either custom CSS or if we decide to change styles site-wide at some point (e.g., make all ID text regular size instead of small).

:::The reason I'm asking for opinions, though, is for things like Breezehome. Getting rid of the text altogether makes it unclear what the before and after IDs are, but repeating "ID before" and "ID after" really clutters the information. I have no idea what the best choice there is. It's easy enough to just convert them and not worry about it, but I'd like to get our IDs as consistent as possible since we're looking them at anyway.  &ndash;       07:13, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

::::I think the best is to do things like "ID:...", "ID before:..." in the same style as the ID (included in the ID-template), but  -tags or commas outside.
::::I also started a sandbox of a generic help on Form IDs yesterday, should I continue or is the current information enough? --        13:32, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

::::: Looks good. I think there will always be exceptions, were absolute consistency will not be the best choice. As long as those are really exceptions we can just work around.
::::: As for a generic form ID article, is there enough different information, or will updating the existing ones suffice? --Alfwyn (talk) 14:36, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::: In retrospect, I think I was being too anal about having everything look identical. We may want to consider being consistent about parentheses...perhaps using them only if there's surrounding text, like in World Interactions? As far as the Form ID article, I rethought that and don't think there's really a need for a generic version anymore.

:::::: Also, just so everyone knows, I've finished with the IDs that the bot tagged as odd, so there's no more of those to do. I'm now moving on to the ones in the error category, most if not all of which are coming from other templates.  &ndash;       02:51, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

 Hey RH, since you're the one who tweaked it, the   template is acting like my Facebook link is an ID, and adding xx before it...        11:56, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

:Taken care of. --Alfwyn (talk) 14:36, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

Gallery Sections

So, Biffa just asked on my talk page about the placement of Gallery sections on pages—specifically whether they should come before or after the Notes and Bugs sections. We've generally been putting Notes and Bugs as the very last which makes them very easy to locate if that's what you're looking for, but at the same time, the argument has been made that galleries are probably less important than notes or bugs, so should come after. Looking around, we have several examples of both styles, though in the eight or so that I opened, Gallery before Notes seemed more common. Any thoughts? Once there's a consensus, I'll put it into the Style Guide.  &ndash;       18:59, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
:I'm in favor of putting the gallery after the notes and bugs. The gallery seems to me to be the least relevant to the actual article of all the sections, as we already have gameplay-specific images embedded in the article. --AN&#124;L (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2013 (GMT)

::As each page is properly done up the notes will move up the page to under the quests. Skyrim is not a good example for consistent layout, Oblivion is sorted through the OBPRP. The difference with Skyrim is a more focused text walkthroughs, replacing the generic, and awfully simple "mark-the-map-with-letters-and-explain" method that was used. I'm in favor of the gallery at the end, because then you don't leave a page with you last thought being "bugs".      19:22, 17 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Is this going to apply to all namespaces or game-specific? For Lore pages, I like the gallery above the notes, since I feel like it marks a separation between the notes and references, which are most often out-of-universe metacommentary and remarks, and the main content, which is all 'in-character'. That's the way the Lore guidelines are laid out, anyways, so if a consensus is reached to change the order it should be reflected there. -- Hargrimm  19:43, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
::::What Silencer said. —      21:59, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::I think galleries should usually be at the very bottom of an article, if only because it makes the page look more organized than sticking it in the middle of 2 text sections. Having all the text and then the majority of the images just seems better to me than text-images-text. ThuumofReason (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
::::::Gallery after Notes & Bugs seems logical to me. --Xyzzy     22:08, 17 December 2013 (GMT)
 Just chiming in with my support for this, it makes the most sense to me.        02:31, 19 December 2013 (GMT)
::Seeing as I started it, I'd better through my two pennies worth in, I prefer the layout with the galleries at the very bottomm, but that purely from an aesthetics point of view. I agree with several of the comments in favor of this ordering from a gameplay and wiki POV too though.
:::I've just noticed that the notes section on an update I've done to Fort Felhammer has been moved to above the main walkthrough and not after. Now I'm really confused as I've always been taught that they should be after the full walkthrough, not before. The order I have consistantly done and not previously had a single problem with is:
::*NCPs Living Here or Residents.
::*Related Quests.
::*Walkthrough.
::*Exterior.
::*Interior.
::*Notes.
::*Bugs.
::*Galleries.
:::Can we not get consensus on the ordering either for everything or at least define it for each type of page. i.e Lore, NPCs, Places, Quests, etc. 

::::Just to clarify, as Hargrimm mentioned, I'd support revising the lore guidelines, as well, but references there should still come after the gallery, at the very bottom.      17:59, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::Biffa, look at the OBPRP for a guide on how to layout pages. Skyrim is not organised and the only reason I changed it was because I wrote the page. Once a places project for Skyrim starts it will follow the way I have made the majority of the pages I have written, because I followed the OBPRP layout. The lack of changes to the pages you have written should not be taken as they are correctly laid out.      19:11, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

 
I can only disagree, comparing Oblivion to Skyrim just isn't feasible, what is right and works best for Oblivion pages isn't necessarily best for Skyrim pages, they are different games after all. The whole layout of the place pages are totally different and while I accept I've done far less updating than you, that doesn't mean my comments or opinions should count for less. The whole purpose of this discussion is to reach agreement as to how Skyrim pages are to be laid out. I've proffered how I've been instructed to lay place pages out during my work in SHRP and others and seeing as how every single one of my pages have been updated by lots of different regular wiki'ers, I can't agree with your comment that the lack of changes is what is provoking my reasoning. 

I think you are getting ahead of yourself to state that the Skyrim place pages WILL be laid out the same as the OBPRP layout. It seems that so far the consensus is for galleries to be below notes and bugs, and not one person has mentioned putting notes above the full descirption in the way you have updated Fort Fellhammer. Just because you wrote the origin basic information on a page doesn't give you ownership of that page, this is supposed to be a shared responsibility, otherwise what is the point in allowing anyone other than yourself to do updates? Biffa (talk) 21:32, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

:Actually this isn't about organising Skyrim's dungeon pages, which will be laid out differently to the House pages. As a major contributor to most of the "finished" Skyrim dungeon pages so far, I have had a major say in how they will be laid out when done. Of course if a project does deem to make them different to Oblivion's by that single section placement (which would be strange) then they would be changed. The house pages, which I have also had a say in how much detail they get, again as I wrote the majority of the "finished" ones before the project began, were deliberately given a different layout due to the different focus of the pages. 
:Until a project begins there is little reason for proof-readers etc to bother standardising page layout, unless of course they, as myself, see that it is useful to have that done if and when a project starts. And again, there is little reason to believe that a project for Skyrim would change the section placement, making them different to both Oblivion and Morrowind. 
:This is simply about gallery placement, which has not been a major feature in any gamespace until Skyrim. A proliferation of pictures, aligned with a severe lack of completed pages, has seen a huge increase in the usage of galleries, simply to have the pictures being used (so they don't get tagged for deletion as unused) until someone gets around to writing the page. The only major difference to previous games is a hesitancy to use the maps alongside the text walkthrough thus relegating them to the galleries, as without the markups they are less useful.      22:01, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

::Try climbing down from your high-horse and engaging in a more rational, calm, constructive discussion, I had hoped I'd made my point of view clear with regards both galleries, notes and bugs, the consensus above seems to imply that notes and bugs, along with galleries should be at the bottom. I've yet to see your reasoning for wanting the notes section before the full details of the place the page is there to describe, apart because you want it there and hat's how it was/is done for Oblivion. As I've previously said just because it's right for Oblivion (or previous games) doesn't make it right for Skyrim. 

::The page exists to describe a specific marked location within the game world and what can be found there. As such the main walkthrough of what can be found there should take precedence in the ordering of paragraph headings. Whereas the notes heading is there for interesting or unusual points of interest in and around the specific location. This give the information on the page in a logically ordering starting with a brief description of the type of place, it's location, who can be found living there, what quests are linked to the place, what can be found there, any interesting or unusual points of interest, any bugs encountered there and any images that can't fit into the page elsewhere regardless of whether a page has been completed or not. Biffa (talk) 12:45, 20 December 2013 (GMT)
:::Let's all take a step back here before this gets out of hand, and address some things. First, this discussion is only about gallery placement. We don't need to discuss the layout of the rest of the articles here, let's save that for a different discussion. Consensus so far seems to be that galleries should go below the notes and bugs, so we seem to be headed in that direction. We can all agree on that, at least.

:::My second comment is to Biffa: While you have done a lot of work in adding information to the dungeon walkthrough pages (and meaning no disrespect, as you've done a great job on it), we haven't really formally decided how the dungeon layout pages will go, and from what I've seen so far, some major cleanup will be needed to the dungeon walkthroughs. At some point, we will have to decide how the layout will work, whether it will go by the same standards as the Oblivion pages, and so on; when that happens, we'll make a project for it, but at the moment we don't have any clear guidelines, so it would save us all a lot of effort to just hold off on that for now. On those points, Silencer is correct.

:::That being said, some of the things you said did come across as being a little "high horse-y", Silencer. I probably missed a discussion somewhere that would have given perspective on your position, but Biffa is quite correct that your word is not inherently more valuable than his just because you wrote a lot of the pages. Even though it is quite likely that we'll end up using the Oblivion layouts as guidance for Skyrim projects, there are differences between the games that must be taken into account.

:::Getting back on topic, since we all seem to be in agreement about the galleries being below notes and bugs, shall we start implementing the changes? ThuumofReason (talk) 14:08, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

::::Similar to what Thuum said, this discussion has shown that the community is in favor of these changes which, in my opinion, trumps any previous decisions that have been made, project or not.        14:47, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::Fair comments folks, I wasn't trying to cause disruption, but have probably taken comments in the wrong way, Apologies to all especially Silencer. I only raised this point here due to the way I was responded to when the notes section for Fort Felhammer was moved unnecssarily and when I asked why, this all started, also because the comments above were indirectly talking abut notes being at the bottom of pages and not above the main walkthrough. 

:::::I want/wanted clarification of where I should currently be putting this section on future pages from multiple sources as previously I've had pages that I've added to, where people have come along and updated them by moving the notes section to the bottom and now the other way around?

:::::As I have done several times with things I don't understand, I was asking to avoid unnecessary work for people, updating my posts if I can get things right the first time. I always review any updates to pages I've added to, so that I can get better and be of more assistance. This is my first time ever working on a wiki or anything similar, and I know I'm inexperienced which is exactly why I question things. I love contributing and feeling I'm making a difference and want to work with and gain knowledge and help from the Silencers of this site, who have done so much on this site. Biffa (talk) 18:17, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

  Okay, since there seems to be a consensus, I've done a quick-and-dirty list of 68 pages in Skyrim or Dragonborn space where there may be a gallery ahead of a Notes or Bugs section. If we want to expand the search to other spaces, that's easy enough, but I figured those two are the priorities. All I actually looked for was " &ndash;       21:46, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

:I removed the false positives (mainly quests and item pages). Different focus = different layout.      22:05, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

::I think I'll get on moving the galleries. Just to be clear, are we moving the Maps sections below the Notes/Bugs as well?        22:11, 20 December 2013 (GMT)

::: I was initially abstaining from this discussion, but I have to oppose this. On lore articles the gallery section is usually essential to the contents of the article, since most articles have, at most, one regular embedded image. Listing the gallery below the notes section makes no sense. See, for example, . It has zero embedded images, but having the gallery located right below the main body of text serves to illustrate the article. Lorespace is not in the same boat as Oblivion or Skyrim; the Gallery section isn't for maps or miscellaneous, otherwise unused flavour images. I support keeping gamespace galleries at the bottom of long dungeon walkthroughs or whatever, but I can't support arbitrarily changing the lore style guidelines to suit. Can we hold off from changing policy and making site-wide changes for now? —Legoless (talk) 15:55, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

::::I agree. With everyone taking issue with whatever I tried to say it seems to have been neglected to specify that lore shouldn't be part of this. There was already an agreed layout including galleries that makes sense in lore space that had no real need to be changed. I'd support changing that guideline back until this part is fully agreed upon.     

:::::   Beat me to it. —Legoless (talk) 16:05, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::This is why I specifically asked early in this discussion if the conclusion would apply to Lore pages, and the only response I ever got was Minor Edits supporting it, with no dissent. I also personally like the gallery above notes, but no one else spoke up to agree, which is why I changed it after this discussion had reached a point of taking action. Also, since it's a FA I'm a little leery of touching it, but is there a reason on Scourge that one of the gallery images couldn't be highlighted at the top of the page for more visual interest and to break up the long lines of text a bit, as on Mehrunes' Razor or Skaal? And according to either version of the Lore guidelines, the See Also should be above References. -- Hargrimm  16:13, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

Gallery Sections, Edit Break 1
 I tested out moving the Gallery below Notes on Lore:Scourge, and I have to say that I don't see anything displeasing about it. If this article is the main impetus for making Lore articles the exception to the rule for gallery placement, I have to disagree. --Xyzzy     17:04, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

:This discussion centered around Galleries, Notes, and Bugs, without mention of See Also, References, or even the lesser seen navbox templates such as  . It agreed to place the galleries at the end of the page, when zero discussion took place upon the effect of such a rule on the lore pages where more sections appear than simply notes. Instead of trying to understand what I was saying above people seemed more focused on criticizing the way I said it. In short what was a well intentioned question has descended into a farce, trying to force changes on multiple articles across multiple namespaces that had literally no need for change. These are the wrong changes in the wrong places, being discussed by people that haven't given due consideration to the complexities of implementing such a rigorous rule, that in actuality can and will be overridden by better suited discussions that have a proper focus and are being discussed by people who actually know what they are suggesting. In very short, this is too broad a suggestion to be taken wholly seriously.      17:36, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

::I wasn't thinking of Lore when I first asked the question. I think guidelines for Lore and for the rest of gamespace will naturally be very different, so I would have no qualms with putting galleries somewhere else in Lore space. Since I don't often venture into that space, though, I'll leave it to those more familiar with it to hash out. Oh, and to Silencer's point, I don't think this needs to be an overly hard rule. There will always be exceptions, especially on things like item pages, where several galleries interspersed with relevant notes, or galleries above the notes, may look better.  &ndash;       18:44, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

:::I tried asking this above, but never got an answer. Are we moving Maps below Notes/Bugs as well? As soon as I know, I'll get on moving them on the pages in RH's sandbox.        01:53, 2 January 2014 (GMT)

::::That is something I'd oppose. I believe the maps are sometimes compared to the walkthrough by other users, and therefore should go as close to it as possible. I'd even suggest to put the maps at the beginning of the respective walkthrough paragraph. --        16:11, 2 January 2014 (GMT)
:::::The walkthroughs for the main quest articles in Daggerfall do it pretty well I think: they give step by step directions on how to get somewhere and include the relevant map image for each place. Not saying we should base the whole thing on Daggerfall (that's actually a bad idea on several levels), but it certainly does help to have the maps close to what you're reading, as it illustrates a point. For this reason, I would agree with Sarthes that maps should not be at the bottom of the article, and I would be open to putting them at the beginning of the relevant paragraphs, though I would also urge caution about including more maps than necessary. ThuumofReason (talk) 16:18, 2 January 2014 (GMT)

Journal Entries

Hey guys, just wanted to mention that my recent change to the Journal Entries template (in preparation for the associated bot run, which I'm guessing will be in about a week or so) didn't quite work out as expected. It did indeed get rid of the ugly spacing between the log entry and the objective (e.g., Rejoining the College) and that makes a lot of the journal entries look much better. On the other hand, there are pages like The Lost Expedition, where MediaWiki insists on adding spacing we didn't ask for, making them look awful. I can't make any sense out of when MediaWiki wants to add extra spacing and when it doesn't; it seems to work on an "I felt like it" basis, though clearly, multiple &lt;br>s have something to do with it.

As you can see in the example below, once the bot run goes through and the quest objectives are using the new   template, it'll look better overall, but in the mean time, if anyone thinks it looks ugly on too many pages right now and wants to revert, by all means, feel free. Just make sure you revert both   and  .

 
 
 
 &ndash;       22:36, 20 December 2013 (GMT)
:Were those pages missed when the 'empty quest stages notes' where added, I thought they were all done? Is it worth a re-check? --  Kiz  12:07, 22 January 2013 (GMT) 17:09, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

:: Looks good! I've noticed that strange table spacing thing myself in other places (eg. Fable Wiki); it seems to be dependent on where    are in relation to line breaks in the code. For example, if you have the   s and the  s all inline, I think the spacing would be consistent; also, the first line break in the code after the {| will start a new line regardless of   --Enodoc (talk) 17:19, 21 December 2013 (GMT)
:::I don't know what you're talking about to be honest. I don't see any spacing or whatever, where exactly is the problem? Anyway, if you're changing the quest stage tables, is it possible to have the stage number centered? ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 18:16, 21 December 2013 (GMT)
::::Kiz: I'm doing a bot run some time soon that'll completely obliterate the existing stuff (noting any changes from the original) and replace it with the objectives where they're supposed to be and the missing stages and such all done consistently, so don't worry about it. Probably afterwards there'll be a few tweaks to be made, but I think, by and large, the bot run should eliminate all the previous issues.

::::Enodoc: The new template is using &lt;div>s rather than &lt;br>s, so it doesn't suffer the problem. It'll only crop up if someone wants to add information and starts using &lt;br>s with line breaks to space things out. You're right about the line breaks interacting with &lt;br>s, though. I've generally been putting them inline when there's been a problem, but it makes the wiki text more difficult to read.

::::Dwarfmp: Look at Stage 20 of The Lost Expedition—you'll notice that the journal entry is in one block, the first two objectives are in another block, and the final objective is on its own. When you edit the page, though, you'll see that it's just one line after another with &lt;br/>s at the end, which you would expect to produce consistent spacing, but it doesn't.  &ndash;       18:33, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

:::::The reason for that is, that mediawiki wants to add a paragraph, because of the breaks. Now the coding of the template prevents the paragraph to extend to the last line, so the second to last line is chosen. Traditionally the solution is to uglify the code by putting all things into one line. For templates the solution used here is    . For this case     seems to work well, another option would be using a list and surpress the dots via style - but anyway, the breaks have to go to get realiably rid of the forced paragraphs inserted. --Alfwyn (talk) 19:13, 21 December 2013 (GMT)

::::::I'm sorry but, I'm still not following. I see ''"I've discovered Stromm's [...], Objective 20, 30, and 40"'' all nicely underneath each other in one block under Journal Entry. I was simply wondering if centering the Stage number under Stage/Index was possible, since it'd look better I think ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 01:58, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

  You don't see a little too much space between the stage text and the objectives, then again between the last and second-last objectives on The Lost Expedition page? Odd. I looked in all five major PC browsers and they all show the same problem. Maybe there's something different about your setup. As for the centering, that's easy enough.  &ndash;       06:07, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

Outdated page and banner?

As everyone who has pushed the "edit" button in the Skyrim namespace will know, there is a rather ugly (though I guess that was deliberate to make it stand out) box that gives basic instruction on editing in the Skyrim namespace while it was so new, and there was also  , linked to in the banner that expanded on this. I completely understand and agree with the logic provided for their creations when the space was created and we had a bazillion users and edits being made, but now things have quieted down quiet a bit since then. While they certainly aren't hurting anything if they stayed, I was curious if they ought to be updated or outright removed? The namespaces related to Skyrim are rather solid at this point, and the content within is no longer necessarily relevant.

Anyone have any opinions on this here and what could be done, if anything? -     02:23, 23 December 2013 (GMT)
:Maybe remove the banner for those Wikians who have been auto-approved? Is there a way to do that? That way, new editors will still have it available to consult. It doesn't bother me that much - I have mastered the art of ignoring things of such a nature - but yeah, it is ugly. Likelolwhat (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2013 (GMT)
::There's no way to do so with what we have, but if we really really want to do that, there's an extension that'll get us there. Oh and I agree, it's time to get rid of it for everyone unless we go for the autoconfirmed option.  &ndash;       06:33, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

:::Could we adapt it to a more generic introduction to our style and have it ready to use for new games?      19:09, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

Skyrim Places Project?

Sorry for the noob question, but is there going to be a places redesign project for Skyrim? (Separate from the houses, of course.) I'd certainly be hyped up for that. I've seen a couple references to the lack of one, but nothing substantial. (In the meantime, I'm stalking the place stub category.) I think the place pages as they are - even the ones that look complete - are so inconsistent in design that it seems really up to the editor adding the information to figure out what information to add and where to put it. Likelolwhat (talk) 02:54, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

:I'm going to assume that the answer will be very similar to this one. Like it was stated there, the stub tag pretty much accomplishes the same thing as a project tag. Of course, this is all assuming, someone of a higher power could overrule this.        03:50, 23 December 2013 (GMT)

la Grande Bibliothèque de Tamriel

Does anyone know any of the editors over there? I just noticed a pair of articles that seem to have significant portions derived from UESP articles without a source (see Gary Noonan 1 and Michael Kirkbride 2). I don't want to raise a stink about it, but if they're using our articles as a base (which appears to be the case), they need to cite us. I'd like to get in contact with them (and avoid ruffling any feathers) if anyone knows them.--Ratwar (talk) 14:17, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

:I am aware that website exists, but not anyone from there. You might want to check those links, as neither seem to lead to a page anymore. --AKB   14:32, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

::I don't speak French, so I'm going off a google translate version that I know is not perfect, but their pages don't seem that similar to ours. There aren't a whole lot of ways to say things like michael kirkbride left morrowind in development. --AN&#124;L (talk) 15:57, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

Community Interviews!

The first of the Community Interviews has been posted (well done Velyanthe on being first in), and a reminder to anyone who hasn't yet to fill in this form! Which I should probably do... --  Kiz  18:56, 27 December 2013 (GMT)
:: Thanks for assisting with the format Kiz - looks super! (And yes, do fill out!) --Avron the S&#39;wit (talk) 19:00, 27 December 2013 (GMT)

Radiant Text in Objectives

The recent updates to the Quest Stages sections of various pages have highlighted an inconsistency in what we've been doing for Radiant quests (or maybe just something nobody's gotten around to?), specifically in regards to the   and   parts of the stage/objective text. In many of those cases, there's only a single possibility for the alias or global. Kill the Vampire is one example of this: it will only ever be given by Sybille Stentor, and since there's only a single vampire lair in Haafingar, you will always be sent to Pinemoon Cave (which is what the page used to say, in fact, but I favoured consistency over readability during the bot run). So, for cases like this where there's only one possible choice, should we be replacing the text with whatever it would be in-game? I think I know what the community's gonna say, but I thought I'd throw it out there, just to be sure.  &ndash;       22:19, 31 December 2013 (GMT)
:If there is only one choice, that we can verify, then I think it would be better to replace the   tags where possible. I think readability is (in this case) more important in this instance than conistancy, but that might just be me. --  Kiz  22:32, 31 December 2013 (GMT)
::I agree, if there's only one possible thing it can say it doesn't make much sense to say anything else. ThuumofReason (talk) 23:34, 31 December 2013 (GMT)
:::I completely understand and accept the above arguments for readability over consistency, but for me, regardless of how many options are available, if   is what the game says, then I feel like we ought to say it like that, since we're reporting what the game actually says. -     23:49, 31 December 2013 (GMT)
::::Well, the game actually says "Battle for Solitude" and not " Battle for   ". It's the game data that shows those aliases and we are forced to use them in cases where there are multiple possibilities for the city. And yes, I'm all for filling aliases out with values actually shown ingame where it is possible. --Alfwyn (talk) 23:57, 31 December 2013 (GMT)
:::::I'm supporting filling in unique aliases. About the CW quests  Battle for    and  The Battle for   : Displaying the "I am to join Ulfric Stormcloak in the final attack on Solitude, putting an end to the Imperial Legion in Skyrim, once and for all." objective in the table of  is highly confusing, I'd suggest cropping these tables to only show the objectives relevant for this radiant option. Maybe we should make a short page " Battle for   " where the whole table is shown and direct the reader to the Battles for Whiterun, Windhelm and Solitude pages, depending on their interests. (if you know what I mean) --        16:12, 1 January 2014 (GMT)
::::::I don't think we really need to debate on the point of the CW battles. We had already reduced them, and its only due to the update by the bot that they all got put back in.      16:16, 1 January 2014 (GMT)

  Agreed. The CW ones pretty much have to get updated no matter what. As you can see from the current version of those pages, though, there were significant alterations to the stages resulting from the bot run, so I figured it was best to let it do its thing, then work from there.

On the larger issue, since we're almost unanimous (and I think even Damon was suggesting we use what you see in game), I've added a list of all the pages with aliases or globals to the bot's results page. They'll have to be gone through one-by-one to determine which ones have multiple possibilities and which ones have only a single possibility. Oh joy. :Þ We may want to move that somewhere else, depending how long it looks like it'll take to review them all.  &ndash;       22:06, 1 January 2014 (GMT)


Strange Show/Hide happenings

When you show the Archive Table on this page, the table drops down, but due to the show/hide in the first section you cannot access a link on the list (the link I wanted to use, coincidentaly) and the show is on top of the date which is kind of ugly.  I'm using Chrome which is up-to-date so is this a design bug or something that could be looked into? Yes, this is the tiniest thing ever, but with this affecting the show/hide surely it affects somewhere else too? Incase I was unclear in some way... --  Kiz  07:45, 3 January 2014 (GMT)

:It was all a dream. ;)  &ndash;       08:11, 3 January 2014 (GMT)

Possible massive site wide project

One thing I would like to see on the site that I have been considering for a while is printer friendly versions of item lists. I am looking for feedback on whether or not anyone else would be interested in this kind of resource. It would be in the form of links to text files of item lists or something of the sort. The lists would be like what is already on the site's items pages except without pictures and with little check boxes for the benefit of collecting. I can imagine alchemy ingredient effects, book or weapon collections, enchantments and spells would all benefit from this. Obviously this would be a greater benefit to console players who do not have such information available at their fingertips or to those who do not have convenient internet access. This however would step on the toes of the official Skyrim strategy guide book that you can buy but it's not like this entire site doesn't do that anyway. Looking forward to feedback. |)474(4V57 23.29.221.126 02:52, 8 January 2014 (GMT)
:I'm sure you can find this information on the internet somewhere, but it just isn't what our goals are. You are free to use the information here to create such a list, but our goal on the wiki is to present the information in a way that best suits the majority of our users, and I haven't heard many people want something like this. That's not to say that many people don't, just that they haven't expressed that. We generally do not present the same information in more than one way here on the wiki. Hopefully that all made some sort of sense! Jeancey (talk) 03:25, 8 January 2014 (GMT)
::  The main issue I see with this is that it serves only a very small number of people. Very few people are into any kind of 100% completion type of scenarios, I think, whether it's a true 100% completion, or even lesser versions of it, like completing all quests. And, of course, what each different person wants may vary significantly. If this is something we do at all, it might be simpler to collect all of them into a small grouping of text (or Word?) files, zipping them, and then uploading them. It would save creating some really ugly and redundant text-only pages. Perhaps one file for the base game and one per DLC? The other option is to just use the existing category lists (e.g., Skyrim-Items) and make your own checklist from those.  &ndash;       03:28, 8 January 2014 (GMT)
:::Creating files was what I intended, I didn't want duplicate pages with ugly information also I thought text might be more universal than word but I don't know much about these things. I just often find myself going back and forth writing things down because I don't want to print stuff out. I can imagine different people WOULD want different things making a large zip file excessive. I know duplicate information is frowned upon here, I just can't help in thinking this type of resource would be is of value. I guess I could just buy that book. |)474(4V57 23.29.221.245 04:05, 8 January 2014 (GMT)
::::Personally, if I want to print out a list from an article, I just cut and paste the info to a text editor, then tweak it and print it out. Unless we get some large response from users who want this, I don't see it as being worth the effort, unless someone just feels like doing it for fun. I wouldn't be opposed to it if the interest is there, though. --Xyzzy     04:22, 8 January 2014 (GMT)
:::::You can always create the article yourself as a sub-page under your user name (for example: ) and if its finished and gets enough interest it can be moved to a permanent page. Its an intereting idea but unfortunately there is usually more than enough that needs to be done that we have to be a bit picky on projects. -- Daveh   11:15, 8 January 2014 (GMT)