UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archive 21

Spam Wave

Is it just me, or are we getting an abnormally large amount of spam recently? We currently have some spammers to deal with here, here, and here. --AKB   04:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
:And  . Kitkat xxx   06:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
::Yep, it has increased to new heights. Truly annoying and it seems to get worse. We'll see what we can do. --Krusty 06:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
:::My guess is that a lot of it is people typing stuff in manually rather than a bot doing it. The problem is that the links they're adding are varied rather than the usual pattern of one link being spammed repeatedly. That means that adding each link to the blacklist won't have any effect. rpeh  09:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
::::Actually, having looked at the links, they're all Polish sites. It would be very extreme, but if it continues we could block all .pl links for a short period. If the current wave doesn't stop, I'll do that - as long as someone promises to remind me to undo it again in a week or so! rpeh  09:52, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

  Okay, this edit prevents all URLs ending in ".pl" from being added to UESP. As I said above, this is pretty extreme but as the spam wave shows no sign of slowing down, I think it's fine for a short while - two weeks?. UESP doesn't have many links to Polish sites, and we'd have half as many except for a user rewriting the Links page in his sandbox. If someone does have a valid link and triggers the filter, the message they receive directs them to places where they can post a message. rpeh  08:16, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
:: Oh, and the suggestion that admins should approve accounts is pretty much a non-starter. Since people can post as anons, it wouldn't be much use in any case. rpeh  08:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

  I removed the block on Polish links and we got spammed in less than twelve hours. We can try again in another few days. rpeh  20:08, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

::Are .pl accounts blocked again? Kitkat xxx   20:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

::: Accounts, no. Just links. Try creating a link ending in ".pl" and you (should) be prevented from doing so. rpeh  20:26, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Copyright Categories

I'd like to take the categories off our image templates - at least for a little while. Right now, I'm having to keep running RoBoT to generate a list of images without categories as I'm trying to make sure every image has a proper category. Personally, I think it would be best if we removed these categories permanently: they aren't really useful, and it means that the wiki's built-in special page is largely useless. Removing categories for good won't even hurt our ability to make lists of copyrights, as Whatlinkshere can be used for the same purpose (example).

As admins, we need to start checking each uploaded image and making sure it has an appropriate copyright template and an appropriate category. I've found far too many images that are undoubtedly copyright being uploaded with "public domain" or "fair use" templates, and we can't do that.

So does anyone have an objection to the categories being removed for one month, and does anyone have an objection to the categories being removed for good? rpeh  00:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

:I don't really see an issue here. The only argument that really could be raised is the functionality of    , and that's a minor one. I can't really think of any time I really used the categories, either. ''   ( ) '' 00:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

:: Sounds like a good and useful idea. I just skimmed through an awful lot of uncategorized images today, and we need to get them into categories asap - and I guess this is the best way to get an overlook. Go ahead. --Krusty 00:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

::: Okay, since it's easy enough to undo I've been bold and done it - except on :Template:Nolicense, which should be flagged anyway. It'll take a while for the task queue to work its magic, but we should have a proper list within a few hours. rpeh  01:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Move Request

Could an admin please move  to ? My reasoning hasn't been questioned so far, so I'm taking over a month of silence as a sign that no one objects. Thanks. --Legoless 18:30, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

: Done. Sorry for the delay - I hadn't noticed that request. Solitude is definitely the more common name. rpeh  18:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested Semi-protection

I'll once again request that the pages mentioned at  be protected. Users agreed to have them protected, so I do not see there being any issues. Thanks. ''   ( ) '' 18:11, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

:Unless I'm missing something, those articles were protected by Rpeh sometime just after that discussion.  I just added the protect tags.  --GK  18:52, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

::Yeah, I think I missed that. I think I looked at the main glitch page and erroneously assumed they all weren't protected. Thanks for clearing it up. My bad though. ''   ( ) '' 19:01, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

:::Looks like I forgot to add the relevant template. It's worth mentioning that when Daveh upgrades the wiki we should be able to add the   "magic word" to the   template and flag protection automatically - since almost every article should have a trail template. rpeh  20:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

::::I actually think I had this in mind when I was re-requesting. ''   ( ) '' 23:19, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

New messages for anon IPs

It seems to me that our current way of handling the problems with new messages at pages such as  is just perpetuating the cycle. Every time someone edits that page, it resets the "you have new messages" flag for that IP in the database -- causing the message to start get adding to the cached versions of even more new pages on the site.  Therefore, any list of to-be-purged pages needs to be somewhere other than the user talk page.  I've set up a new page at  to handle it, and I'll try to modify all of the user talk pages accordingly.  --Nephele  05:41, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

: Well it would only cause the cache update if the IP was accessing the site again, but yes - much better to do it this way. Thanks. rpeh  08:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Skyrim Preparation
 

Add an id

Can an administrator add an   (such as  ) to  (the forum notice) so that users can hide it with CSS if they wish? Thanks. elliot   06:12, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

: Actually this is probably a good time to start a discussion about whether or not we still want that banner in place. rpeh  06:20, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

::I don't think it would really hurt to keep it up, especially with Skyrim coming out. I just don't need to see it. :) elliot   06:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

::: Well I've added the id for now. rpeh  08:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

::::Thank you! elliot   15:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

202.61.38.125

This IP has repeatedly added links to this site.- *Show IP - despite being advised and told to stop. After the spam was reverted for the third time, I gave a warning, but I'm not sure how to deal with this, since the link seems vaguely uesp-related, and it isn't conventional spamming. Any ideas? Kitkat xxx   06:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

: That IP has been blocked at Wikipedia for doing the same thing. It seems to have stopped for now but if we get more links I'll block it. rpeh  09:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Tes5Mod

I think we should probably set up the Tes5Mod namespace -- assuming we want to use the same namespace structure that we've used for Oblivion and Morrowind.  My primary interest right now is to create placeholder articles for documenting the .esm file format -- and provide some talk pages that would be a logical place to discuss plans for how to decode the file format.  So do we want to use the name 'Tes5Mod'?  Or is there some other way that we want to organize Skyrim modding-type information? --Nephele  19:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

: I think this is a no-brainer "Yes". Morrowind's ESM had a header of "TES3", Oblivion had "TES4", and even if Bethesda decides to change their naming convention in the wake of Fallout 3 having a "TES4" header, I think it's more important to take things from a TES perspective. Let's go for TES5Mod and hope that I'm not around when the tenth game is released... rpeh  23:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

:: Done. -- Daveh 23:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

:::Thanks!  I think it's now added to all the namespace-documentation pages, too. --Nephele  01:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested block: 

Honda1996 has continued his disregard for policies and procedures when it comes to the wiki, despite being warned, blocked, and warned again. Not only does he continue to remove the official warnings on his page, he has a habit of reverting and reverting some more behind the premise of "standing up for what he believes in". Here are just a few examples:
[ [ [

Prior warnings:
[ [

Ridiculous antics:
[ [

I would have blocked him myself but I felt that since I have minor involvement in wouldn't have been appropriate. I believe another block is warranted (in months) as well as the reinstatement of his warning and the removal of the copypaste warning he placed on mine. All of these behaviors show that he is only here to cause trouble. elliot   20:48, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

:Agreed. This is getting out of hand. Kitkat xxx   20:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

::If I can throw in my three cents, I don't believe that he is such a problem for the project that he should be banned for longer period of time, however removing the warnings on his page is unacceptable, moreover the quotations in articles are subject for further discussion and mutual agreement among us. Existing editing war is not serving any purpose --Arkhon 20:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

:::I think Nephele got the block just right with a day. But Krusty did that before.  Kitkat xxx   21:01, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

::::I blocked him because of the edit war at .  I would have liked to have given him a chance to read the followup message I posted on his talk page, but things were getting too insane too quickly.  --Nephele  21:02, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

:::::I'm not too sure 1 day will be enough, but the block can easily be reinstated if necessary. elliot   21:04, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

:::::: I have said this hundreds of times, but here we go again: when an editor starts edit warring, take a deep breath and wait with all the reverts, warnings, guideline-reminders and endless links to said editors’ past mistakes on the AN – all administrators are perfectly capable of looking up Edit Histories and there is absolutely no reason to ‘waste time’ with the links. Just take that deep breath and revert the thing tomorrow, even if the whole quote-thing started as being ‘NBD’.  --Krusty 21:09, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

:::::::I agree, one day is a fair decision even though he was blocked before for 6 hours by Krusty [  claims to be autistic which is very serious disorder of neural development but we all must stick to the rules, regardless of our weaknesses. --Arkhon 21:12, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

    Krusty, it is customary to post links when bringing up a member's activities (especially over at Wikipedia). So, no, I didn't waste my time with something that I chose to do. Sorry Krusty, but I'll handle it how I see fit. elliot   21:14, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Deleted Histories

Forgive me for bringing up a seriously minor point, but I just happened to notice that there are several deleted revisions of . It's nothing useful - basically bots created a link to the old dictionary pages, categorised it, moved it around and then it was proposed for deletion when the dictionary was killed off. I was going to restore these edits (and others at the other magic pages) so there's a full history of the page, but I thought I ought to ask first, as it would be a non-standard use of the deletion functions.

There's no particular reason to do this, other than to present a fuller history, but there's no reason not to either. Does anyone object? rpeh  20:39, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

: I think it's a good idea to restore them. --Legoless 20:43, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

::Fine by me --Nephele  20:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

::: Okay I've gone ahead and done it. Thanks. rpeh  20:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit History Inconsistency

There is something really weird going on with the article . The edit history for the source simply doesn't match up with how older versions of the article are displayed. The current article shows explanations for most cities (for me), while the source of the page suggests that there should be none (purging the page didn't cure that). Going back to older versions shows that the number of descriptions is slowly growing over time, while this shouldn't be happening going by the diffs of the source. It looks like there are two different versions of the article, one that is displayed and another version for the source code. The fact that the strangeness persists throughout the history rules out http caching issues on my side I would think. --Alfwyn 16:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

:you can transclude information from a page for example   would give you the argonian information from the lore page hope that helps, im going to bed (           16:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC))

:: The descriptions are created through the template Place Link. The infobox on the individual city page has a   section that is referenced by the template. Those descriptions are then added to  when they are added to the place infobox. --           16:22, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

:::I see, it seems to be some site specific save/load magic hidden in the template, that didn't seem to activate when I tried the same source in the sandbox. --Alfwyn 16:24, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Site Email (Again)

I've re-setup UESP domain e-mails (name@uesp.net) which are available if desired for any of the site admins. The previous attempt was to self-host the e-mails on our servers which took far too much of my time to manage (I'm busy enough with the rest of server administration). This time I'm just using Google Apps which makes it as close to no work for me as possible although it does cost a bit per account which is why I'm limiting it to admins/senior editors. If you want one just [mailto:dave@uesp.net e-mail me or see the Mail article for (a few) more details. -- Daveh 00:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Spam attack again?

is it just me or are we getting alot more spam than we usually do? (           06:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC))
:I've noticed it too. We've had a lot of accounts and pages being blocked or deleted for spamming external links recently. --AKB   14:38, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

: These things go in phases. There have been a number of wikis affected by spam users with names of the form Capital Letter, Name, Two digits - like JDyer50, JLandon87, LHope28, CStrouse96 and CForrester66 that I blocked at the Oblivion Mod Wiki, or MCarillo23, YIsaac96, TFrasier38 and LBenge28 that Nephele, Krusty and I have blocked here. It's odd that given the number of accounts that have been created, more spamming hasn't been done, but I don't want to complain about that!
: Typically, someone comes up with a way of circumventing the captcha, creates a load of accounts, posts a load of spam, then we either use the blacklists to stop them creating more links or block the underlying IPs and it dies down until somebody comes up with something new. Unfortunately there's no realistic way of stopping this. We just have to deal with it whenever it starts happening. rpeh  15:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Welcoming Members

This is a revival of a previous discussion on welcoming every single new account that's made, the original can be seen here. We currently have an unofficial policy (At least as far as I'm concerned, I am unaware if this has somehow changed without my knowledge) when it comes to welcoming new members, you don't welcome them before they've made an edit. This is in contrast to the original decision, which says it's okay. While I'd prefer for us to not welcome users who haven't edited yet, I'd be happy to just have some kind of policy as it's clearly needed. Of course, there are times when I welcome new users who haven't made an edit yet (Whenever I invite someone to make an account I do this), so it may be smart to allow certain exceptions (Such as when you've invited an user to create an account). Besides reasonable exceptions, this is just a bit annoying as it can easily flood recent changes with edits. If anyone else have thoughts on this issue, I'm all ears, let's just get this resolved so there is a clear course of action in the future. --AKB   16:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
:My opinion hasn't changed in the last two years. elliot   16:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
::I'm not convinced any official action is needed at all, but seeing how this subject turned into a rather hot topic, it might be necessary. Maybe a new message concerning this subject could be created over at . I think that's all that needs to be done, especially since welcoming new users is not wrong per se and apparently customary at other Wikis.           17:25, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

:::My opinion. It seems like welcoming every new member is very unnecessary. A word that I always misspell every single time dang it. But anyway, many people create accounts and never use them, or of course the spammers and other vandals. Personally, I will only welcome an editor that I see make their first or second relatively useful edit. I can see how it might be argued that welcoming someone would make them more active and all that blah, but I think that people who are making an account that actually plan on editing will have that set before any welcoming. Welcoming seems like such a inconsequential topic though, and it seems superfluous to have a set change in policy or something. --           19:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

::::I agree it's a pretty minor issue.  On the other hand, it seems to keep resurfacing -- even before the discussion AKB mentioned, there were at least two other discussions.  So I'm sure it will come up again in the future.  Given the amount of attention it's already received in the past day, it seems worth trying to create some type of summary of what's been said.  Although, splitting hairs, I don't think we're aiming for a policy, but just a guideline -- the difference being that a guideline is saying "this is what's normally done" (but there will be exceptions) instead of saying "this is what must be done".
::::Now that all of the preamble is out of the way.... I'd prefer that new users not be welcomed until after they've made some type of constructive edit, for all the reasons that have already been stated.  --Nephele  21:08, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

:::::I'm not really warm to the idea of welcoming users before they edit, but I'd be much more concerned with a well-intentioned editor being scolded for welcoming users who haven't edited.  It seems like a no-brainer to me- to welcome someone once they've begun contributing- but I'd rather we not have a guideline that will end up causing warnings for editors who are only trying to be friendly.  --GK  15:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

::::::I don't normally mind, but when we get 100 such welcomes in a 15 minute period it stretches the point. Welcoming users one at a time isn't a problem, it's when people go back through the logs and welcome everybody from the past several days that it gets annoying. rpeh  15:56, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 Wasn't the biggest problem that welcoming every user just creates a lot of unnecessary talk pages (aside from clogging up the recent changes)? GuildKnight, has someone ever gotten a warning for welcome messages? Because that's just wrong. I even did this myself when I became a Userspace Patroller. I did this because I remember being welcomed, which I thought was really nice (of course when I found out it was just an auto-message sort of thing it was less special, but still nice), and being a Userspace Patroller, I felt it was one of my duties to do so. But yeah, I realized afterwards that many people signing up here is the most they ever will do. So now, whenever I see a new user who has made 1 or more edits, constructive or just userpagelike, I give them a welcome. Best thing to do about people welcoming every user is just to point out the futility in a polite and appreciative manner nonetheless. ~ Dwarfmp 21:28, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

:After a bit of though, I've come to the conclusion that a guideline is more appropriate. More importantly, this sort of behavior should never receive a warning unless it's done to purposely disrupt the wiki (Which would be next to impossible to prove unless they explicitly said that was what they were trying to do). Too summarize, if we were to have a guideline, it would be something like: ''"You should only welcome new users after they've made at least one edit, assuming that edit wasn't done to vandalize the site."'' That pretty much covers what we're already doing. Not sure if we can actually mention this anywhere besides this page (Maybe on the Messages page?), but that's essentially what I think we need. --AKB   16:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

:: To be clear, nobody should ever get a warning of any kind after giving somebody a welcome. There have been three or four cases where an admin or patroller has had a quiet word with a user who has given a shed-load of welcomes, but that's it. What happened here was that several - also well-meaning - regular editors jumped in both on my talk page and the new user's talk page and this gave the impression of piling-on.
:: I'm not going to criticise anybody's actions or edits but I would ask that in future when something like this happens, people leave the response to the patroller du jour as it were - ie, whoever found the problem and had to deal with it. In this case, I posted the message so I should be the person to follow up. Next time it might me Dwarfmp or Kiz or some other user. Leave it to that person and it'll be far less intimidating.
:: As I said, I'm not criticising anybody here. Everybody has acted in good faith and done what they thought should be done.
:: We can all (and yes I mean me too) take this as a lesson on how to deal with new users. rpeh  20:08, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

:::I have, somehow missed this, but I think - reaction massive for such a small problem. Just need a sentence or two to the individual user on his talk page or however is convenient by the first person to pick up on it. Job done, no guideline on 'Welcoming' just lets not welcome every user on the User Creation log without a talk about in about a 2 minute period :) --       20:21, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

::::Truthfully, what really made me post this was the previous time this came up (See this topic), I just used this opportunity to bring it back up as it'd be silly to bring back up such a minor issue without reason. The simplest solution to a problem is usually the best, and letting whoever responded to it be the one to resolve it is quite simple. Since this problem comes up so rarely and the circumstances around it can easily be quite different, I believe treating this case by case would probably be for the best. I don't think anyone likes discussing this, so let's just leave this problem to whoever responds to it. --AKB   20:38, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism of Harm's Folly

This IP address  has repeatedly vandalized the Harm's Folly page Here and here and I recommend that an administrator take action against this account at first convenience. I warned the IP after the first attack and another one occured a half hour later. Thanks. Sn0L3prd 04:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
: Gotcha. Although the vandalism seems to have faded away now, the nonsense itself qualifies for a week-long block. --Krusty 05:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
::Wait, didn't we blacklist Nigga?--I a m g o o f b a l l--Need Something? Drop by on my Talk Page. What I've done for this site. 01:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Semi-protection (yet again)

I really hate to bring this up, but  seriously needs to be protected. If the examples in the history are not proof enough, then the general consensus formed under the DR should convince you. I don't understand why this has been ignored for so long. elliot   03:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

: Quite simply, the Protection Policy doesn't give us the option to protect pages because we don't like the edits being made to it. Pages like  warrant protection because people kept adding incorrect information, which required checking each time. With Useful Spells, it's just spells that aren't very good. These are always pretty obvious, and reverting doesn't take long. I know there's an exception with , but there's a long-standing history with that page, and frankly now the whole /Proposed nonsense is over we should probably unprotect that too. rpeh  05:47, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Gaedrion

Gaedrion has repeatedly been warned to use the show preview button and has blatantly ignored those warnings. He/she continues to make tons of tiny edits to his/her and is disrupting the Recent Changes page. Even a block from Rpeh didn't seem to have any effect. What exactly is policy for people who refuse to use the show preview button? He/she's not vandalizing the site, but it's still disruptive. Kitkat xxx   21:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

: I've blocked him again - three hours this time.

: Just to be clear, I have no problems with people using UESP to store their fanfics, and previous discussions have made it clear that most other people are fine too. My problem is with people who treat UESP like a word processor. When you start doing that, you end up with dozens of edits that all need to be patrolled when you're doing nothing more than tweaking some character names, grammar or spelling. When you start doing that, you're disrupting the site and it starts to fall under the Blocking Policy.

: As far as I'm concerned, this guy has had a decent set of warnings, a couple of short blocks, and from now on I'll have no problems with anybody handing out blocks if the same editing pattern resumes. With the imminent release of Skyrim, the last thing we need is someone using the site as a spell checker. rpeh  22:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Temporary Role Changes
 

More Skyrim-Related Policy Changes
 

Restricting Anonymous Editing (or Not)

I'm starting this topic primarily to prevent other discussions from being side-tracked by a potentially lengthy and inconclusive discussion over whether limits should be placed on who can edit Skyrim articles. In other words, should anonymous editors be prevented from editing?  Should newly-created accounts should be prevented from editing?

I feel, fairly strongly, that anonymous editors and new editors should be allowed to edit all articles.  Furthermore, I don't think any pre-emptive changes should be made unless there is clear support for the changes.  In other words, if there are doubts about whether restrictions on anonymous editing are needed, we should wait until after Skyrim is released to see whether such restrictions are truly justified

I've covered some details on this subject in a blog post.  In brief my main arguments are:
We need anonymous editors to quickly create content.  UESP needs to have quest walkthroughs for Skyrim as quickly as possible, and I don't see that happening unless we allow anonymous editors to post those walkthroughs.
We need anonymous editors to collect enough content.  Whenever there is a random element in the game, we need the combined experiences of many players to discover all the possible outcomes.  So we need dozens of different editors contributing to quest walkthroughs if we want to document Radiant Quests -- or if we want to document bugs.  That means we need all the help we can get.

Overall, I don't think we can responsibly put any restrictions on who can edit unless there is a guaranteed replacement for those editors' contributions.  For example, the previous section proposes to limit new page creation -- but only because a bot will be creating placeholders for all the Skyrim pages.  Bots can not generate quest walkthroughs, or place descriptions, or NPC summaries.

But anyone who feels differently is free to add their counter-arguments. --Nephele  02:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

:I know that this is somewhat unrelated, but I have been considering utilising the forums to address the both points Nephele has raised, that is, that Forum users may be able to contribute to quickly establishing walkthroughs, and reporting bugs, etc., which can be transferred to the wiki and later verified more substantially. This is something I agree is important, so although I'd support allowing anonymous and newly registered users to edit, the forums could also be used as an augmentation to this process. --OblivionDuruza 05:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

::A couple of months ago I thought turning off anon editing for a while after 11/11/11 was a no-brainer but since then I've heard some very good arguments why it's a Bad Idea. Nephele's blog post goes into good detail, but the two main points are the ones bulleted in the first post here. One of the reasons for creating a slew of new admins is that it will help give us the eyes to ensure that any spates of vandalism can be dealt with as quickly as possible, which makes restricting editing less necessary. I'd rather have a comprehensive site and have to deal with the occasional hilarious post about genitalia than have a half-empty site that probably still gets vandalised by named editors anyway. rpeh  08:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

:::Just a suggestion but maybe for the first day or two only patrollers and admins etc. should be allowed edit. That way all the namespaces, skills, tables, books etc. can be added without all the disruption. then a day or two later, anybody can edit to get all the info needed. Besides, most people will probably play skyrim non-stop for the first day or two anyway.RIM 20:46, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

::::Even disabling anonymous editing is a hard sale, trying to argue that it would benefit the site to disable editing for everyone who isn't a member of "staff" is an impossible position. No matter how hard we work, we're not going to be able to do all of the heavy lifting here. If we were to do this, we'd drive away a lot of new users who came in to help out due to the new game. Disabling editing, especially on such an important date, will be catastrophic for the site from every point of view. It's bad for the long term editors who will have far to much ground to cover. It'll be bad for the potential new users, who will be turned away from the very start. It'll be bad for the site long term, as the site's growth could be severely stunted just from that one day. 

::::I think I speak for most people here when I say that the UESP simply can't afford to limit our pool of potential editors on such a grand scale, even for that little time. --AKB   23:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

:::::I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that some of the world's most knowledgeable TES experts edit at UESP. I'm not claiming exclusivity - there are a load of incredibly knowledgeable people who don't edit here - but we're pretty good. The point is that at midnight on 11/11/11 everyone starts from the same point: zero knowledge. That means a brand new IP editor knows as much as Daveh and so there's no reason why the latter's opinion should be accepted but not the former's. Of course we're going to get IP vandalism, but we're also going to get vandalism from named accounts, and we've taken steps to deal with all of this. 
:::::One point that should be made here is that everything proposed so far is preemptive. If we get deluged by nonsense IP edits beyond even the scope of range-blocks, then we can start thinking about this again. For now, let the people write. rpeh  00:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

 I've said it before, but just to note it here, too: I don't think we can afford to lose the extra input that will be provided by anonymous editors.  --GK  19:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
:Agreed. The sheer number of hours of collective gameplay experience skyrockets with their inclusion. If anything gets out of hand, we can put limits to editing pace; however, I am not too sure that it will be necessary. elliot   21:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)