UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 20

Sounds on the Wiki?
 

UESP Watch

I've seen several mentions of this across the site since I started editing, could someone explain what it is? Thanks Corvus 22:13, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
:It is a blog run by "Tiber Septim" a editor on the site. It basically blogs, a rather biased and uncensored version of the happenings of UESP. UESPWiki has no affiliation with UESPWatch in any way.--             22:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
::Ah I see, explains why the mentions of it haven't spoken too fondly of it. Thanks for helping again Corevette, haven't checked the patroller nomination but hope it works out OK :) Corvus 22:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Internal Links

Hey I'm still new, I was just wondering how to make your own links; say if I want to say "Xivilai" and attach a link to bring that to the Xivilai section of the Oblivion: Creatures page without having the [Oblivion:Creatures] default link?? help? Dayne 05:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC) 

:You put in   or the applicable section. For example you could use   or  --       06:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

::THANK YOU SO MUCH! thats heaps better thanks Dayne 11:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
:::Hey it worked perfectly for daedra but with places i type in  and the OB still came up. same with the SI in  is there a way to avoid this?? Dayne 12:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

::::ya'll dont worry i fugured it out ;) Dayne 12:30, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Number of page views?

How come the info about how many times a page has been viewed (that used to be at the bottom of the page) isn't there anymore. Is it because of a site upgrade? -- 76.120.200.30 15:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The main namespace, and its use (or lack thereof)
 

Oblivion Leveled Creature/Monster list
I am looking for a list or table of all animals/monsters/creatures/etc and the levels they start appearing at, in order of level. Something like "At level 1 - imps, rats, goblins, stunted scamp..." and so on for the levels where tougher monsters will start appearing. Is there something like that on this Wiki? --Julia 16:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
:That would be --             16:25, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
::I was hoping for something that also included humanoid enemies like Dremora, but I guess that works. Thanks!--Julia 16:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
:::Then of you go to  it will include the leveled list.--             16:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

"Special" tips?
 

'Must Have' and Mods
 

Morrowind NPC Redesign Project
 

Archiving Process

With all respect to Vesna, who recently went through the Admin Noticeboard, Community Portal, and other archives :), I'd like to suggest that we abandon our current archive process in favour of just standard chronological archives. The main reason for this is that I believe the current process is overly-cumbersome in that you have to not only archive chronologically, but also archive discussions separately, categorize them, do some   tagging so the header and such don't get transcluded, and then transclude the new page into the original archive. I can't speak for any of the other archivers, but the whole process involved here very much discourages me from ever archiving any of these pages.

I think a simpler approach, if we need more than a chronological one, would be to create an "important discussion" template that would add a box to the top of an existing discussion and, if desired, add the page to a category. There aren't so many important discussions in any given archive that multiple important discussions, even if they're in the same category, would be terribly difficult to find.

If we adopt something like this, I would suggest that existing archives be left as they are and just move to the new process, though if some zealous user feels the need to re-convert them to whatever new process we decide on, I suspect it wouldn't be all that hard.

Any thoughts from anyone else?  ‒ Robin Hood    20:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

: I disagree. Archiving by date is only useful if you have some idea when things happened, and for new users, users who have taken breaks, and users who find that time seems to pass more and more quickly these days... it's not helpful. I think the categories should be more granular, not less. rpeh  21:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

:: Categories could still be used to organize and find information in the archives; they would just link to an entire archive page and then you could find the specific entry from there. If more granularity is desired, you can still refine the categories further.  ‒ Robin Hood    02:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

"Photo" Category
 

Roleplaying to Userspace
 

Bot Request - HotnBOThered
 

Userbox Templates
 

UESP: subjective/opinion-based content?
(moved to  per previous policy on long discussions)

Maintaince Guidelines
(moved to  per previous policy on long discussions)

User Age Categories
  

Elder Scrolls Date Template

I've noticed a couple of people using subpages to display dates in Elder Scrolls format, so I figured we could use an official template for it. If all you need is today's date, simply use   and you're done. There are a number of other options as well—see the documentation for details. Note that I used the month spellings from the table at ; if you want something else, you're out of luck.  &ndash; Robin Hood       

the forums have gone...tiny!

hi! i just went on the forums to find that all the letters on every thing have gone to the sizes of periods! help please!--  00:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

:never mind i fixed it--  00:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Trademarked Company Logos

Several of you with userboxes that display company logos are going to hate me in the next little bit, but it came to my attention while doing the   that using company logos in userboxes goes against their copyright guidelines. I just got to   and discovered the same thing for them as well. In each case, I'm flagging the images as Speedy Deletions and replacing them with suitable text. Yes, it sucks, and the text looks ugly, but I think it'd suck a lot more if Dave got hit with accusations of copyright infringement, so away they go.

My intent is to look for appropriate policies as I come to each company logo as I do the userboxes (reviewing the ones I've missed after I'm done) and get rid of those where we don't comply, but if someone's feeling really eager to help and can find their way around corporate policy documents, by all means feel free to help. The sooner we get rid of images we have no right to, the better. Based on a quick check of "fair use" (US) and "fair dealing" (Canada), all the game-related images are acceptable (as we already note here), but I think we'd be hard pressed to justify a userbox as truly documenting something about the game, so they're not allowed.

Sorry guys!  &ndash; Robin Hood    05:35, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

:Just for the record, I'll follow Krusty's lead on this one and remove the entire custom Userbox on any user pages where a trademarked image is used directly. Any other pages I will deal with on a case-by-case basis.  &ndash; Robin Hood    22:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

::Nitpick: Dave wouldn't get hit with a copyright infringement suit, he'd get hit with a trademark infringement suit. Trademark issues are far more risky to companies than copyright issues because trademarks can be diluted through inaction to defend them. I realize it's hair splitting to most folks, but the difference is quite important. Arthmoor 23:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

:::Yes, you're absolutely right. I realized I was interchanging the terms when they're very different concepts, and I've started to try to use the term "trademark" where appropriate.  &ndash; Robin Hood    23:35, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

  A user has objected to the removal of the entire userbox, suggesting instead that only the image be removed. I'm fine with this idea. Does anybody else have opinions? (It was also suggested that a non-trademarked replacement be found, but I think that's up to the individual user to decide.)  &ndash; Robin Hood    01:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

:I don't really see the urgency of this matter. The logo's are not abused in any way, they are only used to describe the product mentioned. The logo's are not used for anything other than identifying the company, I don't understand how that can be harmful. Sure it is not according to the explicit letter of the law, but it always surprises me how some people crusade harder for such discrepancies than the companies themselves. We are not a legal institute, we're just a website. If a company truly would opject then they're free to notify us of it, we are not concealing the usage. 

:When you check the rationale for using logo's of companies, then you see that third parties are free to use to, under certain conditions. It's similar to how a news site may show the logo of a company when they have an article on something related to it. It's only an internal policy decision of Wikipedia that determined that these conditions mean that users are not allowed to use these logo's on their userpage. If we were really forbidden from using company logo's then we shouldn't use logo's for indicators of platform-specific bugs in Bugs sections on articles. --Timenn-  11:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

::While I agree its probably not urgent, it may as well get done while someone is in the mood to do it. There is no explicit need for this site to use the logos after all. That said, on reflection I do think keeping the userboxes in existence is a good idea, because it can be helpful to know what platform someone is on when looking for in-game testers. Jadrax 11:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

:::We technically need not use images at all, but they can surely be more descriptive. Likewise, I think a logo can abbreviate a company's name easier than text. --Timenn-  11:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

::::Oh, I would not disagree. But I think that falls under nice to have, rather than need to have. Jadrax 11:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

:::::I think there has been something of an overreaction here. To quote Wikipedia: "The essential function of a trademark is to exclusively identify the commercial source or origin of products or services, such that a trademark, properly called, indicates source or serves as a badge of origin". Nobody is trying to pass anything off as an Apple/Nintendo/Microsoft product here, and the images were so small that they couldn't be used for that purpose even if somebody wanted to. When large versions of the Windows and Apple logos were uploaded, I reverted them for precisely that reason.
:::::By using a small graphic to say that one is playing a game on a Windows system, or that one would like to play it on an Apple system, the user is actually benefiting the company described to a small extent. I cannot believe that a company would sue UESP for this, and neither can I believe that it isn't covered by fair use. rpeh  11:46, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

::::::So far as I can tell, though obviously I'm no expert, it's not covered by fair use. Fair use, as I understand it, includes the right to use trademarks to document information about a product (which is why they can be used on relevant pages of Wikipedia), but not to document information about yourself. So, rather amusingly, I believe it's legitimate to use the trademark in saying "Oblivion runs on Windows" but not "This user runs Oblivion on Windows". (Although it could be argued that we're documenting Oblivion and not Windows and that therefore the use of the Windows logo is invalid even there.) Also,  says that we use "fair use" on the site, since this is a Canadian-based site, I suspect "fair dealing" might actually be what's applicable here, and it's much stricter. But even if US law does apply, I don't believe we can say we fall under Nominative use, as all three of the conditions mentioned in that article cannot be satisfied. For use on a userbox, we have words available, which would seem to satisfy the "only uses so much of the mark as is necessary for the identification (e.g. the words but not the font or symbol)" part of the requirements.

::::::Ultimately, I think this might be something for Daveh to decide. We can justify it to our heart's content, but he's the one legally responsible for the site, so it should probably be his decision as to whether he wants to risk a trademark violation suit or whether he feels that there's no basis for concern in that area.  &ndash; Robin Hood    15:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

:::::::Fair Use is also a concept that's only applicable to copyright law, and my only understanding of it is based in US law since that's where I'm at. If this website is in Canada, then Canadian law would apply, as well as Canadian trademark law.

:::::::I doubt Microsoft or Apple are going to come calling over the use of the logos even in userboxes, but with all things trademark related it's probably better to be safe than sorry. Even so, they're not going to jump immediately to a big lawsuit over it. A cease and desist order would arrive first. Arthmoor 18:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

  I agree, it's unlikely that anything major would come of it, and that there would certainly be steps taken before a lawsuit. Still, our policies do say to get rid of copyrighted material ASAP, and I pretty much figured trademarked material would go along with it. We should probably direct Daveh to this discussion (done!) and get his opinion on it. Honestly, I'd love to keep them, but from a legal standpoint, I don't think we should. I've heard that Apple is especially vigilant about their trademarks, and I assume there may be others that are as well.

Also, on a side note, the US apparently does have Fair Use for trademarks as well...at least if Wikipedia's anything to go by.  &ndash; Robin Hood    19:42, 25 August 2010 (UTC) 

:How about the Xbox logo? Is that trademarked?--       19:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

::While it is, they have a very liberal usage policy. I think we might actually get to keep that one! See this link.  &ndash; Robin Hood    20:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Userbox Revamp

As you may have been aware, there was a project going on to revamp the userboxes site-wide. This project is now complete!

What does this mean to you? It means you can have custom text and custom colors on any userbox you want. No more need for custom userboxes just for small changes! For more details on the new parameters, please see this section of the Userboxes page. Here are some quick examples:

 
 
 

 
 
   &ndash; Robin Hood    23:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
:You've been changing Userboxes? I had no idea. :) But that does make them a lot better, seems like it was worth the effort! --    00:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)