UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 47

ESO: Generic NPCs with variable parameters

There was a discussion on generic NPCs whose race and gender vary. However, it does not look like it came to a consensus. As of now, we have a lot of pages (e.g.,  or ) that hold very little usefull information, but produce lots of overlapping categories:
 
From what I observed so far, if I'm not mistaken, those characters are randomly generated (especially now, since they became killable) and we cannot simply list all possible variations, like this, for instance. 
So, this is what I propose:
create a page (e.g., Online:Generic NPCs), which lists all such NPCs. Perhaps, something like this?
do not use   for each NPC
create redirects from single pages to that one page and add those redirect pages to   and   categories correspondigly. 

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?   ~Shuryard (talk) 16:24, 20 March 2015 (GMT)

: The problem with that would be the size of such a list. There are many types of generic NPCs in the game, and each have specific locations and appearances. The summary tables might be useless, but I still think separate pages are the way to go. Of course, a page at Online:Generic NPCs with links to all of these pages sounds like a good idea. —Legoless (talk) 16:42, 20 March 2015 (GMT)

::Ok, I think you are right, it is a long list... Any suggestions or comments on this layout?   ~Shuryard (talk) 06:44, 22 March 2015 (GMT)

::: Looks good. I was concerned dividing the types by zone would result in a lot of overlap (e.g. with Guild Savants, Pact Guards etc.) but it looks ok. I'd consider maybe trying to make the "neutral" table more open to change, so that Cyrodiil doesn't have to be listed separately and any future zones can easily be incorporated without adding another column. Maybe two separate tables would be the easiest way to go about it, unless anyone has a better looking layout in mind. —Legoless (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2015 (GMT)

:::: I put Cyrodiil together with the neutral zones into the "Disputed and Neutral Territories" table for now. And I've started the page. Thanks!   ~Shuryard (talk) 12:17, 24 March 2015 (GMT)

::::: I have removed the links to the categories which no longer have pages in them, due to the switch that was added to the template resulting in one category per race. --Enodoc (talk) 13:20, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Various and Varied ESO Suggestions

So, I've been coming up with a list of large changes to the ESO namespace that I wanted to discuss. Some of them are more straight forward that others. I fully expect some of the suggestions to be supported unanimously and others to be debated endlessly. I will put all of the suggestions here, and once we figure out which ones are the most contentious, it might be best to separate the discussions about them into separate CP posts. I would do them all separately, but there are quite a few of them and it seemed spammy to make a new post for each one. With that being said, here goes:

# New/Modified Templates
## I am proposing two new templates, or one new template and one modified template, depending on peoples thoughts. The first one is extremely non-contentious. In previous games we had a faction parameter in the data and used this to create categories full of people in that faction. Since the faction aspect of ESO is more lore-based than gameplay based, the current faction option is simply a link in the infobox. The category of people in each faction is still quite useful, however, so I propose either a new   type template, or a modification of the current   template so that it won't just put everyone into the Online-Mages Guild category, for example. I would like some opinions on the best way to go about this, and I would suggest HnB be used for implementation, as it can simply convert the links currently in the infobox to the new format.
## The second template I am proposing is much, much more contentious and would require constant maintenance. I have mentioned it to a couple people before, but here goes. I am proposing an "Up-to-Date" template, which would take a patch number in and post a message at the top of the page if the patch number in the template does not match the most recent patch number on the Online:Patch page. this message would be something like "This page was up to date as of patch X.X. The most recent patch may have made changes to the information on this page." This template wouldn't go on every single ON namespace page, because that would be ridiculous, but I propose putting it on any page with a Sic tag (as they, at some point, fixed like 45 Sics. Every major patch seems to have the "we fixed various typos" note), and any page with numbers that are likely to change from patch to patch, such as the skill line pages, race pages, and possibly the champion system page. This template would not post any visible message if the patch numbers match, and could be removed from pages if the typo has been fixed. Also, pages that are out of date would be put into a separate category to make it easy to see which ones still need to be checked.
# Template Changes
## I propose several changes to the existing templates. The first is a change to the NPC Template to indicate if a person can be killed or pickpocketed. I don't view this as contentious really, since it is easy to check in-game and it is useful information, but it is a significant change given the sheer number of NPCs that need to be updated. I believe this is just one proposed addition since (I think at least, correct me if I'm wrong) everyone who can be pickpocketed can also be killed. This, obviously, doesn't apply to hostile NPCs.
## In a similar suggestion, this one comes with a question attached. Is the pickpocket difficulty set for each NPC, or does it vary in some way? I'm not talking about the success %, because that is affected by the Legerdemain skill line, but the actual stated difficulty of Easy, Medium or Hard. If it is set and constant for each NPC, I propose adding it to the template as well, likely on the same line as the above killable/pickpocketable variable.
## In another similar suggestion/question, I have noticed that some NPCs will attack you if they catch you pickpocketing, and others will simply yell at you. Is this also set and specific to the NPC, or is it variable in some way based on some unknown conditions? If it is set and specific, is it quantifiable? In other words, will we be able to come up with a value that we can add to the NPC template?
## Another question, this one stems from a change I saw a few days ago where the level and health for all three alliances was added to the page. Thus the level variable had values for Normal, Cadwell Silver and Cadwell Gold. Is this something we want to do, or do we want to simply put the main alliances info?
## Related to the last one, soon the veteran system is going to be removed completely. While we don't know exactly what is going to happen, it is likely that the stats of the second and third alliances will stay the same, just have a different displayed level/gold reward (or no level?) How do we want to deal with this, most importantly for the quest pages.
## Finally, do we want to add the lock level and trespassability to place pages for houses? Is the lock level constant across all levels, or based on your characters level?

I know that these are a lot of changes and some are more explained than others. Please comment on your support or opposition to them and ask any clarifying questions you may have. Also, answering my questions would be extremely helpful :). Thanks!!!! Jeancey (talk) 01:01, 20 April 2015 (GMT)

:If I'm understanding you correctly, for 1.1 the easiest thing is probably to just modify   to spit out both a link and a category given a plain-text version of the faction. HnB would still have to go through and replace the links with plain text, but the existing template could easily do the rest, I think, with no need for a new template or modifications to  . Or am I missing something?  &ndash;       02:18, 20 April 2015 (GMT)
::Fair enough :P Jeancey (talk) 02:43, 20 April 2015 (GMT)

:::1.1: Sure, that makes sense.
:::1.2: Theoretically this is a good idea, particularly with the sics. I wonder though whether it would be too cumbersome to include many other things under the same banner, and take the rest on a case-by-case basis instead. We would however have to be diligent to add   when a patch changes something (as we did with Update 6). My reasoning behind that is that things are "not changed" more often than they are "changed", so pages would say they are out of date when actually the information is the same. Although as I type this, maybe a shortlist of the most changeable things, like skills as you say, would be good to include.
:::2.1: Definitely a good idea. This was already mentioned above, but I don't think it got very far yet. I think the term for these white-glow NPCs is "Justice Neutral", so we could use that (or just "Neutral", which is a bit shorter), or take it in reverse and mark NPCs it doesn't count for as "Essential" like we have done before.
:::2.2; 2.3: Sorry, don't know.
:::2.4, 2.5: We had a bit of a chat about this on Blood and the Crescent Moon (for quests) and NPCs (for NPCs). I think it's a balance between avoiding unnecessary confusion, and ensuring necessary accuracy. For quests, I think recording the different gold rewards is useful, but other than that, only the main alliance info is needed; all the changes for Veteran versions are listed on Cadwell's Almanac. The removal of VRs won't remove Cadwell's, so I think leaving it like this would be best. When that does happen, all we will need to do is update the values and the details on Cadwell's Almanac. For NPCs, it would probably be more useful to display each different version of the stats, particularly for those NPCs that are enemies or neutral.
:::2.6: I'm not sure whether the lock level is constant or not, but the "owned" parameter I added in response to the above I think also indicates whether buildings are locked. If the lock level is constant, it could be added in the article text rather than in the infobox, like it is in other namespaces.

:::Since we're on ESO namespace suggestions, I had a couple myself that I have been considering:
:::  
:::# Update the   on pages to show the XP values for discovery and completion (just the first alliance ones for those places with veteran versions), and also tweak the Completion parameter to link to a specific part of the page so we can use more consistent wording and do away with the hover (which doesn't work on mobile devices anyway).
:::#* Objective (Quest Hubs): Remove hover, link to Related Quests where the Objective and its quests are listed 
:::#* Dungeon Clear (Dungeons, Group Bosses): Link to a section where the enemies to be killed are listed, so they can be taken out of the infobox to make it cleaner
:::#* Destroy the Anchor (Dolmens): Just remove the hover, it doesn't really add anything (we could potentially add a link back to either Dark Anchors or Dolmens)
:::#* None (Landmarks, etc): Add this so it's specifically stated that there is no completion XP given
:::# Update the   on quests which scale so that XP Gain is given a class rather than a value, based on these XP multipliers, and add the relevant class alongside the value for other quests. 
:::These would provide more information at-a-glance, and provide a better setup for future quest zones where the content is all scaled.
:::Enodoc (talk) 18:38, 20 April 2015 (GMT)

:::: I thought pickpocket difficulty was determined by the level of the NPC, but I may be wrong. Don't have much input on the rest, although if work is being done on the ESO NPC summary box, would someone mind taking a look at this? —Legoless (talk) 19:01, 20 April 2015 (GMT)

 The bot's working on 1.1 by removing the current links, temporarily leaving the displayed faction as plain text. Once it's done, I'll save the template changes, which should re-link them and add the appropriate faction category.  &ndash;       03:32, 3 May 2015 (GMT)

: Thanks!! :) Jeancey (talk) 06:12, 3 May 2015 (GMT)

:: The new change to the summary template seems to be causing the faction row to appear on all pages (see here). —Legoless (talk) 12:54, 3 May 2015 (GMT)

::: Fixed.  &ndash;       16:01, 3 May 2015 (GMT)

::::  
:::: I got it, never mind :) The faction page wasn't created.  ~Shuryard (talk) 06:50, 4 May 2015 (GMT)

  Once I've done a couple of final tests of XP values, I'll be ready to go on 3, if there are no objections. How are the other points progressing? --Enodoc (talk) 13:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

:Following another round of numerous changes in the Imperial City / Update 7 patch, I went ahead and created Jeancey's proposed template from 1.2:  . I would suggest that the first pages to take on this template should be the individual pages for Skills and Sets. The functionality is already built into the skills summary template, so only the Sets need this added directly. --Enodoc (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

A Case for Gallery Tags

ESO map sections consistently make use of embedded thumbnails rather than the gallery tag. I've been switching them over where it affects the layout of the page, but this is seemingly a contested issue. My main issue with embedding the images is that it usually causes weird spacing if placed anywhere but at the bottom of the page, and on smaller (i.e. mobile) screen resolutions it just outright breaks (see this). I think we can sacrifice thumbnail size for the sake of the normal gallery feature. —Legoless (talk) 21:33, 29 April 2015 (GMT)

:I'm interested in the reasoning behind it as well actually. I only changed that one because it was inconsistent with the others, but I'd like to know why we seem to favour   over    , particularly when the former breaks the page like in the example. You get a nicer image size and border with the template, but it doesn't wrap like gallery tags would. Is there a way to change the style of    ? If it could look like what you get with  , but function like the gallery tag should, I think that would be an ideal solution. --Enodoc (talk) 21:54, 29 April 2015 (GMT)

::I just popped in for a few minutes, so I didn't play much, but if we want the galleries to look more like the Multiple images template, it's mostly doable (see here). That obviously still needs a bit of tweaking. Unfortunately, it looks like the gallery itself decides on the image spacing, so the gaps between the images would probably have to be what you see there unless I can find some kind of workaround. Being a CSS change, that would be global to all galleries across the entire site if we make that change (unless, of course, we want to let users just add it to their custom CSS if they want it to look that way).  &ndash;       00:27, 30 April 2015 (GMT)

:::I like that example actually, it does away with those individual image borders and looks quite nice. If we found all the right elements of padding, width and margin we may be able to come up with a good spacing. Would it not be possible to define it as a new class, so it would only apply to those galleries that were given that class, eg    ? That way, it wouldn't affect all galleries across the site (I personally would be happy if it did, but others may not). --Enodoc (talk) 08:51, 30 April 2015 (GMT)

:::I had a look at the page style and it indeed seems the spacing is pre-defined by something, as it's directly in the style code for the individual elements, which can't be overridden as it's inline.
 
 
 
 
:::Wikipedia now seems to have an option for gallery modes, one of which is called "packed" and shrinks the horizontal space quite a lot. Although that may only be an option from a later MediaWiki version (what's ours?). --Enodoc (talk) 12:01, 30 April 2015 (GMT)

::::We're way back on 1.19. :) I think the gallery options are the ideal solution, because my CSS-fu is really not that great. I'm pretty sure what you describe can be done, but I'd have to do some research to figure out how. Looking at the MW code, it appears to have been added in 1.22, so if we can convince Dave to do an upgrade soon, that would be an option with anything we would upgrade to. I know we put off upgrading to 1.22 because of ESO, but I think that's probably died down enough at this point that an upgrade would be doable, if Dave has the time. I'll send him an e-mail and see what he says.  &ndash;       19:08, 30 April 2015 (GMT)

  So then, it appears we now have some more options in this respect, thanks to the MediaWiki upgrade. Using the same example as RH's concept, here's what the Bthardamz gallery looks like in different modes:
 
Both packed and nolines achieve the intended outcome of reducing the horizontal space as well as looking tidy. If we were to use nolines, we may want to consider setting   so there isn't a weird bit of lighter padding around narrow images (we could set that anyway, as it doesn't seem to directly affect traditional galleries at all due to the set colour for   being the same).

What does anyone think of these alternatives? --Enodoc (talk) 22:04, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

:I like the packed look, personally.  &ndash;       05:18, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

:: Traditional would be my choice. Not sure if I'm a fan of the centring of the packed look. —Legoless (talk) 12:35, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

:::So far, the discussion revolved around map images, so I hope it's ok if I jump in with a general thought about galleries and how they affect all kinds of images. What still bothers me about galleries is that the resulting images are smaller than our default thumbnail size, and, to put it bluntly, this is the reason why I believe that to end up in a gallery is the worst thing that can happen to an image. It's hard enough to create a screenshot that looks good in full resolution and in thumbnail size, but it's almost impossible to take the even smaller gallery size into consideration. Also, while I don't think that frames are always a good layout choice, in the wiki context I like the look and the functionality of the frames around the images in thumbnails and   - they have a pleasant distance from the image border and they include the captions, neither of which is the case in galleries. Would it be possible to create a fourth alternative that makes the size and framing of gallery images consistent with our thumbnails? --Holomay (talk) 13:54, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

::::The small images is one of the reasons I dislike galleries as well. Is the default "Thumbnail"/"Multiple images" size 200px? It's possible in any gallery tag to set the sizes to be 200, so that would partly address that. These three options are the only available basic states that were introduced with MediaWiki 1.22, and it's not possible to change the sizing much (we tried), as widths and margins are defined inline directly by the gallery tag. Therefore something we can't do is define 200px as the default. We can set it per-gallery though. We should also be able to do some CSS that gives galleries a similar style to thumbnails. To avoid damaging the existing galleries, we could focus on experimenting with the CSS for one of the other modes. Regarding packed, it's possible to force it to the left with style="text-align:left" in the gallery tag. --Enodoc (talk) 14:30, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::Here are a couple of design concepts for nolines and packed: 1, 2. The only difference between them is the second simulates a narrower screen where the gallery wraps with the page and adds a new line.
:::::These are coded to simulate how they would look with 200px images, like Thumbnails and Multiple images.
 
 
 
:::::The CSS used is:
 
:::::One of the important parts here is  , which overrides the default   display of galleries and therefore prevents the gallery container from spanning the width of the screen (unless broken onto two lines like in example 2). I think this design replicates the style of  , which is what I think we were going for, while eliminating the problem of the template not wrapping long lines. It's the whitespace that occurs within the gallery space when it does wrap that I like least. --Enodoc (talk) 17:54, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

  So... any further comments on this? I would like to propose that the above code be added to our CSS, as it won't affect any existing galleries, and then we can test the different layout modes directly on certain pages to see how they look in different contexts. --Enodoc (talk) 13:35, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

: I've added a couple of galleries (to City of Ash and Chateau of the Ravenous Rodent) using the packed style if anyone is interested in seeing them in context. To see the intended style, since I don't think it has been added to site CSS yet, you'll need to input the above CSS in your own common.css. --Enodoc (talk) 14:10, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

::Sorry, I'd forgotten about this. The CSS has been added now. I optimized it a bit, so let me know if I broke anything in the process.  &ndash;       17:36, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Pluralizing a Single Entity

It seems to be a point of contention which hasn't been discussed (or at least, I can't find the discussion). Take Silyanorn Ruins as an example, because that's where I noticed it today. ''Silyanorn Ruins is... was changed to The Silyanorn Ruins are...''. This is a case of a single entity having a plural name, and because it is a single entity, I think it should be treated singularly. The ruins are considered part of one place, and the name of that place is Silyanorn Ruins. Hence "Silyanorn Ruins is over there" as a compound noun. In the real world, take Borobudur Temple Compounds; it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing three temples, so the word Compounds is plural, but the site itself is a single entity.

The addition of a definite article also changes the intent of the name; the place is named "Silyanorn Ruins", and "Ruins" is part of its name. Adding "The" in front implies the name of the place is "Silyanorn" and turns "Ruins" into an adjunct, which would be written as The Silyanorn ruins..., not The Silyanorn Ruins. A definite article should only be used in the case of ruins being an adjunct, not a proper noun. The only exception would be when the definite article and adjunct are both themselves directly part of the proper noun, like The Banished Cells. That would also be the only instance where the place would be treated as a plural.

Anyway, that's my little grammar rant. Discuss...  :) --Enodoc (talk) 22:27, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

: Yep, I agree with leaving out the definite articles. It isn't "the ruins of Silyanorn", it's a proper place name, e.g. Dublin City. —Legoless (talk) 22:39, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

::I also agree with leaving out the definite article. As for whether to treat it as singular or plural, that varies from one English variant to the other. American English usually chooses the singular for a collective noun, where British English tends towards the plural. Since we generally follow the grammar of the games, and they use American English, I would say that we should follow suit here too and use "is".  &ndash;       23:24, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

:::Well, the reason is that they are the ruins of x. Every ruin existed as a non-ruin at one point, and generally they had the same name minus the 'Ruins' part. In the example, Silyanorn Ruins are the ruins of Silyanorn. Because they are the ruins they didn't want to label it as simply Silyanorn, so they added the ruins part, which because of game limitations appears as Ruins. I can't think of a single real-world example where the ruins of a place have 'ruins' as part of their given name, even where a new place built nearby with the same name exists. Any real-world ruins known as 'X ruins' or 'the ruins of X' will always have it written in lowercase. The only supposed ambiguity arises from Bethesda and ZeniMax's usage of all caps in place names. Establishing that the 'Ruins' part of the name is a game limitation, where in fact the actual name is 'X ruins', it is then proper to use 'The' and 'are'.      00:03, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
::::I agree with Silencer here (obviously, as this discussed is a result of my edits). Ruins isn't part of the real name. It's a description of the state of the site. Describing a plural as a singular without the definite particular sounds weird if you say it outloud. If you say, to use your example, Dublin Cities is, it just doesn't sound write. There is a difference between the actual name of the location and a descriptor of the same location. Jeancey (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
:::::"The Silyanorn Ruins are..." is more grammatically correct than "Silyanorn Ruins is", even though Silyanorn Ruins is the given name of the location. If you take a look at the introduction for our article on Throat of the World, there's a similar pattern. We don't say "Throat of the World is the highest mountain in Tamriel," we say "  Throat of the World is the highest mountain in Tamriel." Even though it's a proper name, and even though the definite article isn't technically part of the name, the sentence flows better if we include it at the beginning. The proper name of the location is always in boldface anyway, so it's not like we'd be giving incorrect information.      10:50, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::: That may be the case grammatically, but take a look at  and you'll see a bunch of examples without the definite article. —Legoless (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
:::::::Are you suggesting that the singular entity grammar rule is the same as the plural entity grammar rule? All those mines are X Mine, a singular entity. If any of them were named X Mines then it would use plural grammar (and a proper comparison), but seeing as they are all singular they rightly use the singular.      15:02, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: How about , , , Dragonborn:Snowclad Ruins, , ? Also, if we're arguing only for plural entities, the Throat of the World example is similarly without merit. —Legoless (talk) 15:10, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::::::I give up, grammar is not this hard to understand. Context is everything. The use of an s at the end of a noun does not make it a plural entity, and the lack of an s does not mean it is a singular entity. Failure to understand that places can have very similar names yet are entirely different does not mean that bad grammar should be forced upon them by those that cannot understand grammar.      15:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::::::: There is nothing to understand about the clear precedence at Snowclad Ruins being used to support Enodoc's original argument. —Legoless (talk) 15:32, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::::::::Except that you ignore the possibility that one example does not make a rule. Break down the name of the place to see how wrong you are anyway. They are ruins that are clad in snow. Was there a place called Snowclad that fell into ruin? Possibly, but highly unlikely. The probability lies with the name being forgotten and then having a generic name applied. You ignore the majority of places that are written correctly to support an incorrect position. Should all inns without The have them removed or applied, what about the ones with The in the name have that recognized by capitalizing all instances. Should it be The Rift, or the Rift, should this apply to every page that looks similar with no recognition of context, are there no exemptions to rules, despite that being a rule itself...      15:47, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
  While I do prefer the "are" form to the "is" form, there is certainly precedent within the context of UESP place articles to support the usage of "is". It sounds to me like what we really need is to decide upon a certain set of grammar rules to go by and just defer to those going forward. This isn't the first disagreement over grammatical issues that has popped up in the last several weeks, and the key issue here seems to be one of subjectivity in the use of language. As we've seen here, this can lead to conflicts between editors, so maybe it would make sense to come up with a clear-cut set of guidelines, or maybe decide on a single source to defer to in case of disagreements (like Webster's or something)?      15:57, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
:Sounds OK, as an independent arbitrary when disputes arise. Are you referring to Miriam-Webster dictionary? I find it rather lacking in places compared to other online dictionaries/language sites. American English is of course the starting point, but uncommon usages should never be replaced with more common usages simply because they are uncommon. As an encyclopedia it has been pointed out that our style is (or should be) more formal than other places. Most recent 'developments' in language are frankly a laziness in language. This leads to ambiguity and outright false statements in common speech (I could care less is a rather apt example). We have a responsibility to be clear in what we say, to proactively prevent questions on the meaning of something written in an article. If this means that we end up using grammar oft less seen, it would only be following places such as wikipedia in being responsible for what we write. Choosing to use 'acceptable' grammar is not the same as using correct grammar.      16:38, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
::I went Googling on this issue, and didn't find much by way of guidance (perhaps because I can never remember the various names for different parts of speech beyond the basics), but I did find one completely unofficial mention here. The OP makes a good point, as does the person in the accepted response.

::As far as whether places like Silyanorn Ruins are proper names in themselves or whether they're intended to be descriptive (e.g., the ruins of Silyanorn), if we allow that they could be descriptive, then plural grammar is definitely the way to go, I think. But if we do go that route, it's going to require some tricky judgement calls. I believe in the past, we decided to treat everything as a proper name unless there was a clear indication otherwise, but I think Silencer has a point that locations like Snowclad Ruins seem unlikely to be proper names. But what about places like Anga's Mill, for instance? Is that the mill that belongs to Anga (in which case, where is she?), or is it officially known as Anga's Mill (c.f., Smith's Falls, which eventually dropped the apostrophe)?  &ndash;       18:00, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

:::Snowclad Ruins is an interesting example. I would see it as "Hey, look, there are some snow-clad ruins. Let's name that place Snowclad Ruins." From then on, Snowclad Ruins is the name of the single site, so I would ask you "Where is Snowclad Ruins?", because that is the site's name. When a plural description of a site becomes the given name of that one site, I would claim it loses its plurality. --Enodoc (talk) 22:59, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

::::That's about the long and short of it. "Silyanorn Ruins" should be treated as singular, and in this case, no article is needed.      23:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
:::::It feels like whatever way this is explained no-one is listening. Go ahead and make up whatever rules you feel like, I for one will be using correct grammar on any pages I write.      23:50, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

::::::Which correct grammar are you referring to? "Silyanorn Ruins is" or "The Silyanorn R/ruins are"? I was easily able to find real-world examples using both styles (e.g., "Luray Caverns is open every day of the year" vs. "The Carlsbad Caverns are an extensive cave system..." [  &ndash;       00:51, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

:::::::I agree with you, Silencer, that context matters, but we have to agree on what the context is here. I think that you're treating "Silyanorn Ruins" as how people refer to a collection of ruins in the wilderness, which would support "The Silyanorn R/ruins are". I'm thinking of it as the name of a videogame location (this is a gamespace page, after all), so "Silyanorn Ruins is" seems appropriate. But I don't know what the best way to treat it is. I love lamp. I just hope someone let's me know when/if a rule is agreed upon; I'm good either way.      01:28, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 Seconded. This is way too much fuss over a single sentence for my taste.      11:03, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
:Looking at ruins and such on Wikipedia, there's a total mish-mash of styles there and nobody seems to really care. So, maybe the best way to handle this is not to, and just have a rule of not changing whatever style is currently there, unless it makes that particular sentence or article flow better somehow.  &ndash;       22:00, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
::I think the issue here, RH, is that British grammar, by and large, uses is and American grammar uses are. That's why Wikipedia is such a mishmash. Half of the pages are written by British English users. We use American grammar here, which by and large uses the "what sounds right" rule. In this case, The Name Ruins are sounds better than Name Ruins is. Jeancey (talk) 01:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

::: It's been discussed several times before, but when American English allows for two sets of rules and International English doesn't, we've gone with the International option to accommodate both variants. "Sounding right" is always going to be subjective. —Legoless (talk) 03:08, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

What? 20 Years Already!

Sometime this summer/fall the UESP turns 20 years old. I don't remember exactly when the UESP launched but it was sometime mid-1995. Since a few of our editors/users weren't born yet or don't remember 1995 this was:
:* 3 years before Google
:* 6 years before Wikipedia
:* 1 year before Bethesda's first website
:* Popular browsers were IE1/2, Mosaic, Netscape
:* The entire web was only 20-30,000 sites
For a little nostalgia you can still view the Old UESP Web Page as it looked in 2005 which is very close to how it looked since 1995. You can also see the even the older Daggerfall WWW Faq which was the precursor to the UESP.

For the first 10 years of its life I was the sole caretaker of the UESP. People would send in tips/hints/cheats and I would manually edit and organize HTML pages. Since we've moved to the Wiki format I've taken more of a sys-admin/developer role and managed the back-end and the site has evolved as a community effort. 

I'm not sure I've mentioned this to anyone, but over the years I've talked to various people from Bethesda/Zenimax and the one constant thing they mention is what an incredible resource the UESP is for the Elder Scrolls. Developers from several ES games have used the site extensively to research various topics. The ESO devs joked that they were worried we would figure out what they were doing before ESO was made public due to the sheer number of page views they made! So I hope everyone involved in any way with the UESP is proud of what we've accomplished...I know I am.

I'd like to celebrate our 20 years somehow later this fall and have a few ideas but am welcome to entertain suggestions. Here's looking forward to the next 20 years of the UESP and Elder Scrolls games. -- Daveh   21:18, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

:Congratulations on the twenty year anniversary of the UESP! Thanks for all the time and dedication that it takes to set up and make this phenomenal site possible for all of us! -      &hearts;    22:24, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

::If it wasn't for the UESP back in 2002, I don't think I would have ever had made it far past Seyda Neen. The UESP and TES are simply inseparable to me. I began making little adjustments here and there as a way of saying thanks to everyone who made this the best videogame fansite ever. My name is my way of recognizing that I'm merely polishing a diamond. Four years later, and I still can't thank you enough. As for how to celebrate, let me drink on that get back to you.      23:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

:::Heh, it was this site that saved me from the cryptic, but wonderful mess that is Morrowind. Congrats on having the patience and motivation for running a site as long as I've been alive!        01:23, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

::::Major tangent: Guys, Zenimax made a very, very good point. We should be able to tell whatever projects they might be working on based on what they search for on the UESP. All we have to do is create a log of any IPs based in known Zenimax/Bethesda areas, look at what they're searching for, and we will know exactly what they are working on. "Oh, they're reading a lot about Imga right now, I guess they're going to be a part of their next project somehow". WHY DO WE NOT ALREADY DO THAT. On the practical side, there isn't much of a clear benefit for us, besides pointing us towards areas the devs, and therefore we, should care about a bit more, but I think I speak for us all when I say we should definitely do this for the secret joy of being able to spy on the devs, based on what they look up here. 

::::As for what we should do for the twentieth anniversary, I do believe the traditional twentieth anniversary present is China. Joking aside, some giveaways of some kind might be nice, I can chip in myself since we're planning a few months in advance. We might want to let Bethesda know, actually, they might (almost definitely, I would think) care, and might be willing to chip in prizes for whatever we intend to do themselves. --AKB   02:39, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::It's hard to believe that the site is almost as old as I am. I've used the site as my go-to source for Elder Scrolls information since around 2008 when I got Oblivion. I only started editing on the site last year, but I plan on editing on this site for a long time to come. Congratulations UESP on 19 (almost 20) years and I can't wait to see where we go from here! I wonder what the 40th anniversary will be like? Lorenut (talk) 02:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::One thing that I can say that it feels wonderful to be a part of the UESP and work with you guys, even though I joined as an editor-lorist just last year. I don't know any ideas to celebrate, but my personal tribute to UESP is my main ESO character with whom I roleplay - an important part of his background is being a member of the United Explorers of Scholarly Pursuits, our in-universe equivalent. :P -- ( ) 03:23, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

 Besides being an inseparable place from ES universe, this site is also two more things for me. Firstly, an inspirational story: if you stick to your hobby long enough and faithfully enough, it can become your destiny and a full-time job :) Secondly, a great mix of the high standards and a supportive atmosphere here, which makes me not to just "add stuff", but to learn more and improve my methods, be it content-wise, template-wise, etc. Thank you, fellow editors! And let's party! :)  ~Shuryard (talk) 04:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

::It just goes to show what you can achieve with some passion and teamwork. So much has been done, yet so much left to do (un)fortunately. Maybe the team keeps changing over time, but the site keeps growing, the games keep coming. I've officially joined the site for almost 5 years now, but I'm not planning on leaving, I hope there will be many more. We should definitely make a newsitem for this at some point ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 13:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

::: There's been one proposed for a while now. —Legoless (talk) 14:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
::::Even though my career means I can no longer devote the same energy to the site as I used to, I'm still proud to be a part of the best Elder Scrolls fan community on the net (it's not bragging if Bethesda agrees!). Now if only I could find some way to work being a patroller into my resume...      14:19, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::A giveaway would be the simplest celebration. At the very least, we could make a ESO guild event, set a time and place to have a birthday party for the UESP in ESO. We could incorporate a giveaway into that, but I imagine some users would also like a way to participate and prizes which are not ESO-related. Another way to celebrate might be to expand the UESP's web presence somehow, like by making a Twitch channel. A phone app is another possibility, but that obviously would be way more complicated.      17:56, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::I'm totally for the idea of an ESO guild event :P -- ( ) 18:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
:::::::I support all of what has been said before now. Jeancey (talk) 18:15, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Mod Header

I've added Crown Store  s to a couple pages, although at the minute the icon appears too large and the strange caching is making it difficult to work through. It probably won't be needed as much in the Online namespace, but it might be a good idea to mark DLC- or Store-related articles with it. —Legoless (talk) 16:57, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

:Sounds good. I created a   template a while back as well, which pops up an inline Crown  that can be used like   and  . Would it be worth having different versions of Mod Header for each DLC later on, so that things that come with Wrothgar (for example) aren't confused with things that come with the Thieves Guild (for example)? --Enodoc (talk) 17:33, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

:: Not sure if that's needed. Labelling all Crown content equally is how it's done in-game, and it seems the most aesthetically pleasing to use that Crown icon rather than trying to make new DLC-specific ones that don't always look so great. I think   will also work with this new setup, so we might want to think about using it for sections on pages like  as well. —Legoless (talk) 18:54, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

  Continuing on from this discussion, does anyone have a preference for using DLC-specific mod headers or the current general Crown header? —Legoless (talk) 20:51, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
:Honestly, I'm worried it's going to be too big with the cover art. If we could find a specific icon to replace the crown store icon, I'd be willing to consider it, but the proposed icon put forward by Enodoc just seems too big. I think if and when actual expansions are released for ESO, those should have their own specific icons, but right now we have 6 or 7 announced, large patches that would just cause confusion if we separate the icons. What happens if there is a Dark Brotherhood location in Murkmire. You need both DLC to access it. Which do you put? I think the current crown store icon is the best method for now. We can re-evaluate once IC is released if we need to. This isn't that hard of a think to modify in the future if needed. Jeancey (talk) 23:12, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

::Ah, good point, I hadn't considered possible cross-overs. But in that instance, couldn't we just put both, by using two Mod Headers? They are designed in such a way that they could stack if necessary. So, for your example, we'd use the Murkmire icon and the Dark Brotherhood icon, and that way people would know that they had to have both, rather than just an arbitrary and indeterminate "Crown Store" icon which could mean anything from the store. The size of my proposed icon was random; it could easily be a bit smaller:
::
::The design is such that it keeps the essence of the Crown Store icon, but also identifies the relevant DLC pack. --Enodoc (talk) 08:24, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

::: If we end up using more than one mod header, then we could simply keep the Crown icon and stay consistent with pages like , and add a second DLC-specific icon (e.g. this). I really don't think we'll be seeing any DLC overlap, but a third icon would also then be viable. That way, we provide visual cues and useful links for Crown-locked content *and* DLC-specific content. —Legoless (talk) 17:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

:::: That works for me! Before we decide on using the cover image over anything else, I would suggest waiting for the content to pop out on PTS, so we can see if there's any in-game icon for the "Imperial City DLC Pack" in the Crown Store or Collections screen. --Enodoc (talk) 18:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

left|link=Online:Imperial City
::::: The in-game Imperial City icon is awesome. I suggest we use that for the DLC pages. Doing DLCs like this would also be a good way of showing what ESO Plus members get for free (without having to use the Crown Store). --Enodoc (talk) 22:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

:::::: So use that icon and the Crown icon on IC pages, then? Which ones do we want to add it to? I've only been putting a Mod Header on place pages, but we could start labelling everything if that's the consensus. Having that IC icon next to earnable collectables with   might be useful, but I'd be against labelling things like the new crafting materials that can be traded or kept if ESO Plus expires. —Legoless (talk) 22:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

::::::: I suggest we start with places, quests, enemies and NPCs. I agree that there's no real need to stick it on items that are tradable. --Enodoc (talk) 23:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

  I was thinking further on this, and I'm wondering if the use of the Crown Store icon is potentially misleading. Unlike other Crown Store items (eg Pets and Mounts, which we'll probably be adding   to), Imperial City doesn't require use of the Crown Store, as if you have ESO Plus you'll have the DLC anyway. I would suggest therefore one of two options:
# Remove the Crown Store mod header from the IC pages, except the root page; or
# Add an ESO Plus mod header to all the IC pages in addition to the Crown Store header
Either way, I think we need an ESO Plus mod header wherever there is a Crown Store one. I think to avoid clutter, I would prefer the first option, where we'd add ESO Plus to the Imperial City root page, and take Crown Store off the others. --Enodoc (talk) 00:00, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

: I don't think ESO Plus access is necessary to point out, for the simple fact that the DLC access is temporary. DLC packs are still a Crown Store item, and need to be purchased with Crowns to truly be owned. There's very little reason a reader would ever want to go to our ESO Plus article when reading about the Imperial City, and simply following the Crown icon will provide a link and explain the subscription access caveat in-depth. Three icons would definitely be overkill, and I can't see how removing the Crown icon would be beneficial. I feel that having a stylistic consistency for all pages related to "premium" content is important. If we stop considering DLC to be Crown Store items on the wiki, then by the same logic Mind Shriven Horses aren't strictly Crown Store items either, since they are/were technically (and permanently!) obtainable through competitions. If ESO Plus ever gets expanded further the idea of a third icon might be worth reconsidering, but as it is it's more of a technicality than anything else. —Legoless (talk) 01:03, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

:: Ah sure, that makes sense. The only reason I think removing the Crown Store icon might be beneficial would be to indicate that that specific thing can't be bought in the Crown Store separately. Take, for example, the Mind Shriven Horse again. That's an item directly available in the Crown Store, so that's why you'd have the Crown Store icon, regardless of any other sources. The Necrotic Hoarvor pet, though, is a reward for completing Imperial City content and cannot be purchased in the Crown Store, so having both the Crown Store icon and the Imperial City icon, as it would be under the current setup, could be misleading. --Enodoc (talk) 12:18, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

::: True, but technically even our Imperial City hub page isn't a literal Crown Store "item", since we're treating it as a place page rather than a DLC. Using the icon as a paywall indicator makes the most sense to me, personally. —Legoless (talk) 15:36, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

40px|left
:::: The in-game Imperial City icon has been changed for launch, to something very similar to this (also left). Do we need to change the Mod Header icon to match, or can we leave it as it is (since I much prefer the current icon)? --Enodoc (talk) 16:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

::::: Sounds good to me. The WGT icon is still used in-game anyway. —Legoless (talk) 16:15, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::: OK cool. I'll move the one we're using to ON-icon-Imperial City for continued use in the Mod Header, and upload the new one for the Store listing. --Enodoc (talk) 17:30, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

ESO Strongholds

I was about to go through and recategorize all Mages and Fighters Guild locations as "Strongholds" as was done for the Main Quest when I noticed that we have . Categorizing by place type isn't very useful in ESO at the best of times, but that page is an odd mixture of quest-specific Strongholds and already-existing places (e.g.  is just a part of ). I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but there's a need to separate these questline places from regular zone places and a single article seems like the best bet. Any thoughts? —Legoless (talk) 18:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

:Background to the current setup:
:We decided before that Strongholds was specifically going to refer to the Daedric locations in Coldharbour (because "Daedric Ruins" didn't really fit for them), a name which was based on the loading screen of the Castle of the Worm. All other places on Tamriel would then be slotted into the existing types we had, and all of them fit well. Abagarlas and Mzeneldt, for example, can't really be considered anything but an Ayleid ruin and a Dwemer ruin (respectively). If I was looking at a list of Ayleid ruins, I would expect Abagarlas to be on it, rather than shafted into some other category. The same with Stirk (which does use the Ayleid Ruin icon). "Realms" was decided as a collective for everything outside of Tamriel. Personally I think it works quite well as it is, and I don't see the need to separate the quest line places from the others, particularly if the description already says it's quest specific (like Emeric's Dream). --Enodoc (talk) 21:48, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

:: It works fine when viewing a page like , but there's no way to access Abagarlas, Stirk or Eyevea from . Unlike, say, Emeric's Dream, those places are all zoneless. Instead of changing the place types, perhaps it would be better to make a zone-style page for these places? For example,  is categorized as "Places: Mages Guild / Towns", but our Mages Guild article describes quests and skills rather than places. For lack of a better term, I think something like "Other / Towns" would work as a hub page just as well. Ultimately, zones are much more important to ESO readers than big unsorted lists of places, and these quest-specific places are unique in being outside that system. —Legoless (talk) 22:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

::: Could we not just add those places onto the Main Quest/Fighters Guild/Mages Guild pages? Otherwise sure, maybe "Online:Unzoned" (or some-such) is the way to go. I was thinking a similar thing when going over the Regions template, so thanks for bringing it up! --Enodoc (talk) 22:23, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

:::: We could, but the faction pages already have their hands pretty full and don't even list named and generic members yet. Having separate sections on an Unzoned place page makes more sense to me. As far as the Regions template, a new row in the Neutral section (e.g. "Unzoned: Fighters Guild • Main Quest • Mages Guild") could help divide them up that way by treating the questlines as subzones, and could easily be expanded in future for TG and DB if necessary. —Legoless (talk) 22:45, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::  is created. Do we want to recategorise these places into Online-Places-Unzoned? It would make adjusting the trails easier if we used that instead of the existing Online-Places-Main Quest/Online-Places-Fighters Guild/Online-Places-Mages Guild. --Enodoc (talk) 00:09, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

::::: Oh, I also added Eyevea to the template separately, as it's acting as a subzone really due to all its associated shops and the like. Places like Abah's Landing and Clockwork City may follow suit. --Enodoc (talk) 00:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::: If we're listing Eyevea separately, we'd also have to add the Earth Forge. Shops might make it an important location, but no more important than any other city and we can't list those separately. Also not quite sure about including zone-bound places like the Harborage on the page, but it does no harm. Nice catch with the World quest places, I had forgotten about them. Recategorizing to Online-Places-Unzoned sounds good. —Legoless (talk) 00:29, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::: I agree that Eyevea and the Earth Forge should be treated the same. Currently Eyevea is being   which was why I put it there, but maybe it would be better to put Eyevea's stores in Online-Places-Unzoned as well, for consistency, since no other stores are categorized into their town. Yeah I wasn't sure what to do with the Harborage and Ragnthar, since they are zoned but still only accessible during their associated quest lines. Currently they're categorized into all zones and their quest line, so they would paradoxically end up categorized into three zones as well as "Unzoned". Probably won't hurt though. --Enodoc (talk) 12:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: I've switched the Eyevea places over to Unzoned. —Legoless (talk) 14:26, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::::: Cool. I've found the bit in the template that was keeping things in the quest chain categories, so they're empty now and I've proposed them for deletion. --Enodoc (talk) 22:06, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

  Ian has suggested (by virtue of going through and changing them all) that we scrap the Stronghold classification and shift those all into Realms. What does anyone else think of the idea? A reminder that the Stronghold type came about because they are all interior locations in Coldharbour for which the "Daedric Ruin" type didn't seem fitting (otherwise we'd have used that), and that those considered Realms are pockets in their own right (even if they are pockets of a larger realm), which are largely exterior locations. --Enodoc (talk) 10:29, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

ESO Item Categorization

 

: Please ignore it, as it applies to individual item pages only :)  ~Shuryard (talk) 14:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

The Elder Scrolls: Legends

Bethesda announced that The Elder Scrolls: Legends, an ipad/PC card strategy game, is coming sometime this year.  So, as far as wiki work, here's what we need as far as I can think of so far:
Link to the  page on the main menu on the left?
What abbreviation should we use in image names and stuff? LG?
Licensing for images?  So far I've just used the "Bethesda Softworks" one. In the trailer, they've got both Bethesda's logo, and also the logo for Dire Wolf Digital.
Anything else that needs to be done/decided? ~     05:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
:We would need to create an actual namespace and move that page into it. Despite appearances, you didn't create a page called "Legends" in the "Legends" namespace, you created a page called "Legends:Legends" in the main namespace, if that makes sense. Creating a namespace isn't terribly difficult, but it's definitely a first step that should be taken before we go creating any more pages for that namespace.  &ndash;       07:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
::Oh, thank you, I wasn't aware of that. Is that something the admins have to do? ~     07:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
:::It's actually something only Dave or I can do, since it has to be done directly on the servers. Unless anyone sees a reason not to, I'll go ahead with that part of this later today.  &ndash;       13:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

:::: Legends: and LG seem fine with me. —Legoless (talk) 14:10, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::I agree with Legends and LG for the namespace. Images should also be LG. Based on what we know right now, Bethesda Softworks should be fine for the licensing, although we may need to set up one for Dire Wolf, depending on their involvement (we don't know all that much yet). --AKB   14:32, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::Okay, I believe everything's done that needs doing in terms of getting the namespace up and running. Since I was at it anyway, I added the link to the sidebar as well. If that's premature, any admin or patroller can readily undo that part.  &ndash;       16:41, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::::All right, thank you! :)  ~     00:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::::   has a Dire Wolf Digital option now. —Legoless (talk) 01:28, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

 This is probably as good of a place as any to bring this up, but I think something's not quite right with the shorthand   links.  will bring me to the title page, but  does not. Instead, the LG link is linking to the Dragonborn namespace. Forfeit (talk) 06:24, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

:It's all in your imagination, honest!   It was just a cut & paste error when I created the namespace. It's fixed now.  &ndash;       06:53, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

ESO Place Types

Stemming from this discussion, I think it's far past the time we should be rethinking our ESO Place lists. Firstly, I'd just like to point out for those who don't play ESO that places in the game are primarily zone-based, and therefore grouping places based on "type" is far less useful that it was for the likes of Skyrim. Currently, places are categorized based on the icon they use on the zone map, with a few carry-overs from other namespaces such as . These place lists also include unmarked places which logically fit into the category, despite having no marker at all (e.g. ). However, it excludes places which have a different icon, e.g.  would logically fit into , but isn't (or shouldn't be) listed there because it's a delve.

This categorization makes sense and works okay, but is also unnecessarily confusing and frankly almost entirely useless to readers. There are a myriad of problems with the current system, which I'll outline below:
Sacrifices accuracy of the lists, e.g. Dwarven ruins page excludes half of in-game Dwarven ruins.
Running counter to this rule, unmarked locations are included.
Causes undue segregation of locations which are, in essence, very similar.
Can act as a misnomer, e.g. listing the ruins on Auridon as Ayleid.
A large number of exceptions exist, making categorization by icon almost useless. 

The game has been out for well over a year now, and a pattern has clearly emerged when it comes to categorizing places based on gameplay. The majority of these different icon-based categorizations are actually all a similar type of place: quest objective locations. The only Dwemer ruins that use the Dwemer icon are the ones that center around a specific quest chain; other Dwemer ruins serve as delves or public dungeons, and are rightfully categorized as such.

Based on gameplay, the following are the place type lists I'd like to propose:
Trials
Group Dungeons
Delves
Public Dungeons
Group Delves
Dolmens (include Bruma, exclude Cloud Ruler)
Striking Locales? (currently "Landmarks", only include those which contribute to an achievement)
Crafting Sites
Wayshrines
Mundus Stones
Settlements? (overworld places with their own maps)
Quest Hubs? (all remaining overworld markers)
Unmarked Locations
The current categorization of PvP and service places are fine, since those places all serve a common purpose/feature.

The above list is obviously up for discussion here, but I feel it groups places based on their actual function rather than any perceived theme. Grouping unmarked locations together is already what is being done on zone pages, and makes a lot of sense to me. They'd also have nowhere else to go if we group all quest objectives together, and it would match how we've treated these kind of places in the other namespaces.

Finally, I'd like to point out that we've ignored icons before when they get in the way of common gameplay factors. —Legoless (talk) 17:38, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

:That seems reasonable to me. The sub-types of the quest hub icons often do not correspond to actual places, and so grouping these separately creates more confusion than order. Only one note: there are some overworld places which have their own map and are not settlements (Arcwind Point springs to mind here), so "settlements" may not be the best name for that group.

:Still, that does not fully eliminate the problem of icons: the category of a place, determined by the icon, shows up in the Online Place Summary table, creating nonsenses such as "Lighthouse: Greenheart" or "Ayleid Ruin: Labyrinth". -- ( ) 18:44, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
::If you use the parameter to define it instead of the default, you can make it say whatever you want. That really isn't an issue in my opinion. In terms of the suggestion, I have no issue with the solution that Legoless has offered. Jeancey (talk) 18:48, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

::: Yep, that would be changed to "Quest Hub: Labyrinth" or whatever. For the Settlements category, I meant places which highlight on the zone map. Each zone only has two of these. —Legoless (talk) 18:58, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
::::That's not entirely true. Some only have one, some have three. Off the top of my head, Malabal Tor has Velyn Harbor, Vulkwasten and the Baandari Trading Post, and I believe Alik'r has three as well, as does Stonefalls. There are likely others with three too. Jeancey (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::  Theoretically it's a sensible idea, and the proposed suggestion makes sense for gameplay. What would happen in the case of Daggerfall and Aldcroft, which are both quest hubs and settlements, compared to Marbruk and Belkarth, which are just settlements and not quest hubs?
::::: I don't want to entirely lose the place types though, as whether it's useful for gameplay or not, there are really only a limited number of locations that don't work by icon, and we've already been calling some of them something more accurate (eg, Firebrand Keep was always called a Fort, even when it used the City icon). Most of the time, the icons do work: everywhere considered a Grove is a "natural wilderness"-style location, everywhere considered a ruin is in ruins, and everywhere considered an Ayleid Ruin, while not always Ayleid, does always have the same architectural style.
::::: Would it work, instead of/as well as using "Quest Hubs" as a massive list of all of these, if we had grouped pages based on the icons, using the same names that the sections on the zone pages use? That way, we don't lose the distinction of what the place is in its type parameter, but it becomes a bit more generalized. Alternatively, we just take a bit more lenience with the icons and shift the types around to what the locations themselves represent more closely, like the Unmarked Locations.
::::: In summary – gameplay-wise I like the idea, but I don't want to lose the distinction of what the icons represent. If that distinction wasn't important, the icons wouldn't exist, and there would just be one "Quest Hub" icon for everything. --Enodoc (talk) 19:41, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::I also want to address each of the issues directly:
::::::*Sacrifices accuracy of the lists: True, but all things with the Dwemer Ruins type and icon are Quest Hubs. Something that is a ruin of Dwemer civilization, and thus a Dwemer ruin, does not have to be considered a Dwemer Ruin by type. Delves that are Dwemer ruins do not conform to the gameplay of a Dwemer Ruin-type location.
::::::**Running counter to this rule, unmarked locations are included: Yes, because while not quest hubs in the true sense, are all quest-related, and those that are not (eg Hfirorg Farm) correspond to marked locations that are also not quest hubs (eg Marbruk). The number of unmarked locations is comparatively small, and classing them visually by type based on the existing types seemed the most logical solution. Delves et al. are not included because their gameplay essence is different to that of these quest-based locations.
::::::*Causes undue segregation of locations which are, in essence, very similar: Similar in gameplay process, not in design. Nordic Ruins and Caves are quite similar in gameplay as well, but they're still separated based on icon and design.
::::::*Can act as a misnomer, e.g. listing the ruins on Auridon as Ayleid: We did say before that a note under the Auridon section explaining the difference would suffice.
::::::*A large number of exceptions exist, making categorization by icon almost useless: Exceptions can be considered individually, there really aren't that many of them.
::::::--Enodoc (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::: I don't have a problem with keeping around list pages for, say, bodies of water or Dwemer ruins. I'm sure people would be interested in seeing them all together on a page, and it gives somewhere to link to when describing places that use that tileset. What I am against is using it as the main form of categorization. A list page would be much more useful if it lists *all* Dwemer ruins or *all* natural caves, regardless of the gameplay encountered there, which can't be done with the current gameplay/icon hybrid system we have. All I'm proposing is organizing by zone and by gameplay criteria, rather than zone and place type. Places like Aldcroft are an exception to the rule, which is why the Settlement/Quest Hub divide is a little shaky, but I think it's one that's still worth making due to the importance of major settlements if nothing else. —Legoless (talk) 20:47, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: Then could we do it in reverse? So the main list of Dwemer Ruins would be the quest hubs, and at the bottom there would be a list of "Other Dwemer Ruins" which would include Delves and the like. --Enodoc (talk) 23:15, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::::: That would mean quest hubs would stay divided though. A single page listing each quest hub in each zone seems the most useful to me. —Legoless (talk) 00:00, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

:::::::::: Yeah, I see your point there. So could we have a trail that says, for example, "Online: Places: Grahtwood / Quest Hubs / Groves" for Brackenleaf, and ''"Online: Places: Alik'r Desert / Delves / Dwemer Ruins"'' for Santaki? Then the type isn't entirely lost from the page, non-quest hubs are added into the types, and you still get the general categorization into Quest Hubs as well.
:::::::::: On a tangential note, where, under your proposed system, would you put Cyrodiil Ayleid Ruins or The Harborage? They're not quest hubs, they're not unmarked, and they're not settlements. --Enodoc (talk) 10:06, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::::::: The Cyrodiil ruins are future quest hubs I believe, but I see the problem. If there are marked places in other zones which similarly serve no purpose, it might be worth making a separate page for them, but nothing springs to mind other than Cloud Ruler Temple. The Harborage is totally unique, given that it can be ported to from the Tamriel map, but I don't see a problem with listing it as a quest hub rather than making a separate category for it. Maybe if anything similar ever gets added we can reconsider. A threeway trail sounds like a good compromise. —Legoless (talk) 14:16, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

  Just dawned on me, a page for Craglorn's Group Events would probably be a good idea. —Legoless (talk) 18:49, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

:Yeah that would make sense. According to ESOHead, the collective term for places like the Cyrodiil Ayleid Ruins and Marbruk, which also includes all Striking Locales, Mundus Stones and Crafting Sites, is "Explorable" Locations. Not sure if we want to use that or not, but just thought I'd mention it here. --Enodoc (talk) 20:14, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

:: So group locations based on whether they have an objective or not? The problem with that approach is that it would split up major settlements. —Legoless (talk) 20:34, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

::: I think that's really unavoidable, otherwise we are creating an extra location class for our own benefit and splitting up some of the Quest Hubs. Hoarfrost Downs is a Town, a Quest Hub, and a Settlement. Marbruk is a City and a Settlement, but not a Quest Hub. Shinji's Scarp is a Town and a Quest Hub, and it has shops, but it's not a Settlement. Alcaire Castle is a Fort, a Quest Hub, and a Settlement. Wayrest is a City and Settlement, but it's an Unmarked Location and not a Quest Hub. Camlorn is a City and a Quest Hub, but not a Settlement.
::: If we are keeping the Types as a third trail parameter, there will still be an overall collection of Towns and Cities, so maybe a separate class and list of "Settlements" is actually not necessary anyway. --Enodoc (talk) 20:53, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

:::: Sounds okay, but I'd rather not combine Mundus Stones, points of interest and crafting sites with these miscellaneous non-Quest Hubs like the Cyrodiil Ayleid ruins and Marbruk. I can't really think of a good name for them though, especially since "discoverable location" is already the name we give to places with a map marker. —Legoless (talk) 21:27, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

:::::Sure, that's fair. Not everywhere needs a three-way trail, and those can stay as two-way. I think "Explorable Location" is a safe cover-all for the non-Quest Hubs with icons. In that case, the main "class"-type list looks something like this:
:::::*Crafting Sites
:::::*Dolmens
:::::*Dungeons
:::::**Delves
:::::**Public Dungeons
:::::**Group Delves (needed? or will Delves suffice?)
:::::**Group Dungeons
:::::**Trials
:::::*Group Bosses
:::::*Mundus Stones
:::::*Striking Locales
:::::*Strongholds
:::::*Realms
:::::*Wayshrines
:::::*Quest Hubs (everything else with an Objective)
:::::*Explorable Locations (everything else with an icon and without an Objective)
:::::*Unmarked Locations (everything else without an icon)

:::::And then we have the secondary "style"-type list, which is no longer restricted to just being Quest Hubs or limited to having the right icon (and so can include delves, crafting sites, and the like without conflict):
:::::*Ayleid Ruins (possibly change to "Elven Ruins")
:::::*Battlefields
:::::*Bodies of Water
:::::*Camps
:::::*Caves
:::::*Cemeteries
:::::*Cities
:::::*Crypts
:::::*Daedric Ruins
:::::*Docks
:::::*Dwemer Ruins
:::::*Estates
:::::*Farms
:::::*Forts
:::::*Gates
:::::*Groves
:::::*Lighthouses
:::::*Mines
:::::*Ruins
:::::*Sewers
:::::*Ships
:::::*Towns

:::::So the last question is, how do we want to show it in the Place Summary? Should we use "Quest Hub", "Explorable Location", and "Unmarked Location"? Or would it be best to keep the "style" type in the Place Summary and just use those "class" types in the Trail? --Enodoc (talk) 19:27, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

:::::: I think the class would be the best thing to put in the Place Summary. For Group Delves, I separated them because their gameplay is entirely different from regular Delves. Being instanced and group-bound unless soloed, they play more like a Group Dungeon than the classic open-world Delves. "Explorable Location" is fine with me; I was thinking "Miscellaneous Location" or "Major Location", but they don't really suit. I don't think we should be considering Realms as a class though. It's very much a "style" page, decided by lore rather than function. In function, The Refuge of Dread is a part of Firsthold and Chateau of the Ravenous Rodent is Unzoned. I think the easiest solution for those Unzoned places is to simply leave them with the current two-way trail and treat them similarly to other minor locations like "Homes".  —Legoless (talk) 19:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

::::::: OK cool, I wasn't really sure what the plan was for Realms and Strongholds, so leaving them as they are is probably best. --Enodoc (talk) 22:57, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Edit Break 1

  I've started work on , , and . They only include Ruin and Ayleid Ruin types so far, and it's gonna be slow going. I don't trust a bot to assemble the list, since a couple Quest Hubs don't have their objective listed yet. I've listed Lake Mist Ruins as an Explorable Location, since it grants discovery XP even though its map marker is seemingly bugged. I've also done nothing with Stirk, since it seemingly acts like a Quest Hub despite being unzoned. I haven't actually seen how that functions in-game, so someone else will have to make the call on whether or not we give it a three-way trail. —Legoless (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

:Stirk works just like any other Quest Hub, so a three-way for that one would be Unzoned / Quest Hubs / Ayleid Ruins. I would also suggest that, for consistency, we use the current sectioning layout that already exists on the Stores pages, combined with the territory sectioning on the Zones page, to get something like this:
 
:I'll also add the editing of Place Summary to my list of things to do, as there are a couple of other things that I want to do with Place Summary in addition to this. If anyone else gets there first, the best thing to do would be to have  |type=   and  |addtrail=/  . --Enodoc (talk) 22:11, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

:: Slight problem with the three-way trail: "Dolmen" is considered a style, while it ought to be a function. For all intents and purposes, Bruma is a Dolmen. Would "Cyrodiil / Cities / Dolmens" work? —Legoless (talk) 20:27, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

::: I would actually have said Dolmen was a class type, so most Dolmens would only get a two-way trail, with Bruma being an exception, as "Cyrodiil / Dolmens / Cities". --Enodoc (talk) 22:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

:::: Sorry, that's what I meant. I'll try that. —Legoless (talk) 22:13, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

  Everything except Unmarked Locations is complete. It seems like Vulkhel Guard Lighthouse (which is located within a city) has been given a major place style rather than being categorized as "Other Buildings" similar to Windmills. Other than that, every unmarked place that was on the style pages has been added, so all that's left to do is scour zone pages and maybe look for orphans.  and the zone pages also need to be divided up according to the class/style distinction and the new categories respectively, and most of the individual trails need to be switched. —Legoless (talk) 17:17, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Edit Break 2
A couple of things that I was wondering about if we get to a place where such a situation arises:
Mixing Building types and Style types: Mentioned above in the case of Lighthouses, but can also apply to things like the Tribunal Temple, which can be considered a Temple (one of the "Houses of Worship" set of Building types) as well as a Fort (a Style type) due to its icon. Personally I would like to keep the "buildings" separate from the "POI styles", except perhaps in the case where the POI is directly named after the building (such as the North Beacon lighthouse building within the North Beacon lighthouse POI), but only then if the building has a door with that name on it.
Style Type Duality: There may be certain places which could have two style types; for example, Town and Dock, or Town and Ruin. The Trail can't go further than 3-way, so should precedence go to the icon style, and the extra styles be ignored? I think using more than one style for any page could get confusing.
--Enodoc (talk) 10:08, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

: Things get a bit messy if we start trying to categorize places by all possible styles. I'd say stick to the icon if it has one, or use the most appropriate style if it's unmarked. I think the more pressing question is what to do with things like , which was recently categorized as a Ship but without changing the trail. —Legoless (talk) 10:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

::For Captain Bones' Ship, as a specific example, Ship would work as a Style type where Group Boss is the Class type. I was thinking we could get the bot to go through :Category:Online-Places, look for all instances of self-defined categories, and get it to exchange the category for the addtrail parameter of the same category. In the instances where addtrail already exists, the bot would not change it, and would dump a list of those instances for someone to look through after. This is probably best done once we have exchanged the types for Quest Hubs/Explorables/Unmarked, which I was working on yesterday. --Enodoc (talk) 11:25, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

  As I've been going through the locations and redoing the summaries, I've been thinking it may be worth coming up with a Class type for those locations that are visited only during their quests and do not appear directly within the zones; this would include Unzoned places like Abagarlas and Mzeneldt, as well as Quest Chain places like Nchu Duabthar Threshold and Silatar, and most of the Realms and Strongholds. Any ideas on a name? "Quest-Specific" could work, but seems a bit clumsy. --Enodoc (talk) 22:07, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

:Also, now that the Class type "Landmarks" has become "Striking Locales", I was thinking of bringing back "Landmarks" as a Style type, as somewhere to put all those places that I have dubiously been allocating existing styles to. Would that be a good idea? --Enodoc (talk) 01:11, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

:: Using Landmarks as a style seems like a good idea to me. Not quite sure what kind of class those quest-specific places should have. Would it just be the Unzoned places, or do you also want to include things like Emeric's Dream and Nchu Duabthar? I'm not entirely convinced they need a separate list - would leaving them with a one-way trail like Buildings not do? —Legoless (talk) 01:59, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

::: I would want to include places like Nchu Duabthar as well; having them as "Unmarked" seems inappropriate, as they are not placed within a zone where they could be marked, and not having a Class at all means they would only have a Style type. This would make their summaries inconsistent as they would be the only places where the Style is shown in the summary rather than the Class. --Enodoc (talk) 13:46, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

:::: So we want every page to have a class then? What about minor places like ? For things like Nchu Duabthar, 'Quest-Specific' sounds pretty good to me. —Legoless (talk) 19:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

::::: Minor places like the Davon's Watch windmill are just Buildings; they don't really need a "class" and a "style" because there's not really any more to say about them. We have a few different Building types, and it would be inaccurate to additionally classify those with the sort of Class types we use for "named locations". Same goes for the different types of Services. I do want to try and separate the Building types from the POI types as much as possible, but you run into a bit of a snag when the POI is exactly a Building, so there could be a bit of crossover. --Enodoc (talk) 21:23, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

:::::: Ah, okay, I was confused by the mixing. —Legoless (talk) 22:39, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

  Regarding keeping Building types separate from POI types, in the case of lighthouses (mentioned above), I was thinking we could perhaps change the Style type from Lighthouse to Beacon (which may better represent Greenheart, Riverwatch and Crown Point), and then have Lighthouse as a Building type. In the exact case of a POI being a Building, we could move such buildings into the Landmark style. --Enodoc (talk) 11:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Mentor Program

There's a severe lack of available mentors right now, if anyone is interested in helping new members. —Legoless (talk) 20:12, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

ESO: Locations of Crafting Materials

I have a request for those editors who play ESO. I hard-coded zones where crafting materials can be found into the template. I would really appreciate it if you could check those locations on the pages that already exist,  , and let me know if more zones need to be added for some of the materials. Thanks!  ~Shuryard (talk) 16:51, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate Images and Category Confusion

Concerning   and  , why are we using both the flora filename path and the node path? I recall some kind of consensus (perhaps informal, though) back when I started uploading images of nodes from Online that node, the broader path and category, was better, or at least not objected to.

Related to the filename split is the category split. We now have  , where we have been using the broader :Category:Online-Node Images before.

I would like everything to stay 'node'. I also like the newer images better (there's another duplicate at  , which should be deleted anyway since it's the wrong resolution; also see :File:ON-node-Dragonthorn.jpg). So someone can deal with deleting and moving stuff over. But the point of this discussion, beyond pointing the issue out, is to decide whether we stay node or go with subcategories of node. Thoughts? —          00:09, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

: Sticking to node seems like a good idea. —Legoless (talk) 01:56, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

::I went ahead and prodded   and  ; for the latter I saved it and re-uploaded it over :File:ON-node-Water Hyacinth.jpg. I'd like the Flora category deleted if possible. We shouldn't be confusing people and Node works just fine. There aren't even that many flora in ESO; way less than there were in Oblivion for sure. —          01:16, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

::: I've gone ahead and speedy deleted them. —Legoless (talk) 01:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

:::: Thank you! —          01:29, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Interesting ESO Images

I came across some interesting URLs while working on the ESO language files today. They are of the form:

:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  
:*  

Now %u in C/C++ represents an unsigned integer so if we substitute a few numbers in we see things like:
:*  
:*  
:*  
:* ...

I have not seen these images in any of the unpacked PC data so thought they might be useful/interesting to someone. Note that these are the only "http" related URLs found in the en.lang file. -- Daveh   19:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

:Those are pretty neat... I think they're connected to the social systems of the XB1 and PS4; so say a friend just joined a guild, it would say something like "Enodoc joined a guild in Elder Scrolls Online", and the linked image would show up in your Activity Feed with that text. --Enodoc (talk) 22:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Echkin/Giant Bat Debate

'Lo everyone, I'm IceFireWarden (or IFW or Warden depending on personal preference). You've probably seen me around various TES lore sites, and I like to come by here and help out when I can. I'm also the creator/founder of the Uutak Mythos, a massive world-building project centered around the island of Yneslea in the background lore of the TES games (featuring the most prominent beings of the project, the Echmer). If you guys want to know more about the project and perhaps even contribute to it, send me a PM and I'll try to get to you. But that's not why I'm here today, at least not entirely. As you guys know, ZOS has been doing a serious of articles known as the Loremaster's Archives that answer fan questions dealing with the lore, and we've been uploading them to UESP. I've been sending in questions to them as much as I can and I often drop refs to the UM (mostly for fun and games), mainly through the use of the echkin (who in Uutak lore are devolved Echmer who became the giant bats that plague Tamriel). Through these references, we've kind of learned more about giant bats and the roles they play in the ES world. I asked Legoless about it, and he told me to ask it here for better reception: But should I create a lore page for giant bats, and allude to their alternative title of echkin in it? I know that my questions I send to the LA tend to dip into my own lore a lot, which is why I understand it if you don't want me to do it. But if you want me too, I will strictly just use the information I sent in through the LAs as references and not my own imaginations. What do you all think?IceFireWarden (talk) 03:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

: The answer of Lady Honnorah left me an impression that she was talking about the giant bats in general. The giant bats are known in Tamriel and it seems that she never intended to confirm their fanon (?) name nor any alternative background for them. So yes, while she did tell us a lot about the (common) giant bats and their role, she didn't tell us anything about echkin/echmer. That's just your personal interpretation. Phoenix Neko (talk) 12:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:: While the answers should be considered canon, I'd say the questions should not. Even if the staff of zenimax online edites it in small ways, it may not reflect canonical lore. Otherwise, we could say that the   was already pointed at during ESO's time. --        13:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

::: Considering that echkin in the UM are the progenitors of all giant bats in Tamriel, not just a specific set, you could argue that our in-universe discussion created at least evidence of an alternative name for the creatures that's also been mentioned in a few other LA's before this one. But because that's my interpretation, I can see why you and other scholars of the UESP might not want to take that route (wink) :P. In regards to the questions shouldn't be considered lore but the answers should, that seems silly; considering that both the questions and the answers introduce new lore to the game series intentionally, as this is developer correspondence with the community, and that's what the Loremaster Archives are all about. Take the questions out of the mix, and you remove at least 1/2 of the lore introduced in this series. I think what may be the cause of this strife is that UESP has been a source of pure, uncorrupted fact for so long that it's hard for the wiki and its members to adjust to putting up articles featuring speculative material. Which isn't necessary a bad thing, as it keeps the wiki tidy and respectable, but can also lower its quality as well. Another good question to ask at this moment is are the Men'Do Articles going to be added to UESP? While written by a fan, it seems officially endorsed by ZOS themselves. Hopefully more users will come by and help answer my original question and this new one so we can come to a conclusion.--IceFireWarden (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:::: You said about the additions to the lore. It always was made in two ways: by devs and by fans. The devs' vision is shown by the games, additional materials (like PGEs, Cyrus comics, and IC dilogy), and their half of FAQs. And the fans' vision is shown by fanfiction, plugins, and their half of FAQs. That's where we get the resolution of these conflicting (I see it "conflicting" as plugins and fanfiction could sometimes be most crazy) sources. Some part of the fans' input is repeated by the devs so it is clear that this part is already included in their vision (or will be included). And some part is left untouched and not included in their vision (as they don't really have to consider fully to what extent the fanfiction goes). In many of their interviews one may ask the question OOC and still get an in-character answer. Lore articles on UESP consist of the information only from the devs' side. Such was the policy of UESP for years.

:::: For more of my points see this page.

:::: One more point: it was decided that player characters' names from the interview are to be left outside the Lore section as they can be lore-unfriendly. This decision can be reasonably interpolated on any fanon in the fans' part of the FAQ. Phoenix Neko (talk) 14:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

  The Men'Do series was discussed here, and a decision was reached to exclude those articles from UESP on the basis that they are entirely fan-written and act as a community outreach program more than anything.

Personally I'm strongly in favour of considering the questions to be legitimate sources, since they're published as official texts and with the specific intent of building/clarifying lore. ZOS wouldn't (and haven't!) published any questions that veer too far into fanon. Several people have made the argument that accepting the questions as lore sources will lead to a slippery slope where UESP lore articles will be entirely self-serving and inundated with fanwritten information. For this reason, it was decided against acknowledging Q&A usernames due to the high probability of them not being lore-friendly. A line was drawn, and I think it's important to stick to that. The true slippery slope is trying to cherry-pick what we accept and what we don't. If we add Ruby Isles as an alternate name, then we should add echkin, with zero consideration for that word's use in any fanfiction. In TES, echkin has now definitively been linked to giant bats and has been published by ZOS. This is not the acceptance of fanon in lorespace, it is working with legitimate lore sources to create an in-universe view of the topic. It's the exact same situation as the Spheriphem or the (rumoured) NPC in the Imperial Sewers that references MK's fanfiction about Ayrenn being a Dwemer cyborg. TES is filled with Easter eggs and nods to the community, and so is its lore.

That Q&A that references the Oblivion Crisis is early on in the series where they weren't as diligent with the questions, and since we're not actually acknowledging the existence of the users, the fact that a future event was mentioned is quite meaningless. It's clear from Auctor's response that the Crisis was *not* known about 800 years early, and in any case it's hardly the first timey-wimey bit of confusion in the lore (most of which we usually ignore).

As a compromise, I'd be willing to support marking all Loremaster's Archive questions as out-of-game sources, as we've done with actual unofficial information in lorespace for years. I'd prefer not to have to do that of course, but it might be something to consider. —Legoless (talk) 14:53, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:I think tagging them as OOG is the right thing to do, since they don't appear directly in any game or other TES-product (like the Novels and game-accompanying books). If comparable to anything, it's the developer's text at the Imperial Library, which are all treated as OOG. --        15:23, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:: Well, actually the developer texts aren't officially endorsed by anyone. They're completely unofficial, but they come from the horse's mouth so to speak and therefore were often useful/necessary in rounding out certain topics. The ESO website is arguably as much of an official product as a Prima game guide. Marking the actual answers as OOG wouldn't be appropriate at all; I simply suggest tagging the questions as such, so that readers could question the info's canonicity for themselves. —Legoless (talk) 15:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

::: I agree with SarthesArai's first point that the questions should not be included at all, as they are solely fan-created products. If something from the question is needed to provide context to the answer, then that should be fine, but not any fan-created lore. Taking the example of Echkin again, there is no reference to that term that I can find anywhere in BethZos produced lore (and I include TIL OOG in that category), so it has no business being on UESP. A lore page about giant bats, sure, but no reference to Echkin, as that term doesn't exist. --Enodoc (talk) 19:53, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:::: What of the term " "? ZOS asked for fan submissions and then used them. The fact that ZOS didn't directly quote the contents of a question doesn't eliminate the fact that they chose to publish it in a web series specifically dedicated to lore. Something of that calibre, I would argue, has much more reason to be on UESP than any archived developer text. Deciding over a year later to completely remove all reference to user-submitted questions would not only be counterproductive and a disservice to ZOS' efforts, but would be the utmost definition of cherrypicking. If Loremaster's Archive questions were presented without usernames attached (and with a bit of proofreading and polish), this discussion might not even be happening. If we start discounting official sources based on who supposedly wrote some of the content, we're guaranteed to have a terrible time incorporating ESO into lorespace going forward. —Legoless (talk) 20:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::Sorry, but as much I respect all the Echkin work you have done, I feel this is indeed a slippery slope. Accepting Echkin as an alt name means accepting the minor details of the memospore transmissions that have also been mentioned. Memospore was in Battlespire, but all the little details around it are either MK or fan made. Malkur Valos lore is sourced from  and ESO, not the fan submissions that may have been drastically edited.

:::::Personally, I didn't agree with the addition of "Ruby Isle" either, but I didn't pursue it further. However it seems this is going to be a point of contention as more Q&As are added. I understand its cool to have your own headcanon as part of TES lore, but realistically Zenimax or Bethesda are never going to explicitly say "Belharza is the son of Alessia, Echkin and Ruby Isles are or are not actually canon" unless it appears in a later game - so it leaves these additions in a weird limbo, neither confirmed or denied. And that is my biggest issue. 

:::::We can argue that they would not have published the question if they disagreed with it, but we can only guess the process that they use, or if they let things that do not reflect Bethesda's greater lore library (which we are not privy to) slide. If the community decides to keep these additions after this discussion, then like Legoless said, I would prefer the questions be referenced "OOG" and the answers not. It will look weird, but it gives a much clearer picture to the reader.

:::::In regards to ''"If we start discounting official sources based on who supposedly wrote some of the content, we're guaranteed to have a terrible time incorporating ESO into lorespace going forward."'' The addition of ESO to UESP has been stellar so far, and I'm certain it will continue. The vast vast majority of info is directly from the game - the LA and OOG stuff is a tiny compared to it. --Jimeee (talk) 20:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::: Regarding Malkur Valos, ZOS said "this is a use-submitted story we make canon". The Loremasters archives are more like "these are use-submitted questions we answer canonically". At least the way I see it. --        20:46, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

::::::: "We can argue that they would not have published the question if they disagreed with it, but we can only guess the process that they use" - I would like to remind that I offered to ask ZOS directly and (kinda) officially how we should treat the unedited part os the questions. Phoenix Neko (talk) 21:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: I would actually draw a rather different conclusion from the Nameless Mage competition. "The winning entry had not only a creative and unique name for our Dark Elf mage, but was also coupled with an interesting backstory that our Content Designers will be able to seamlessly integrate into The Elder Scrolls Online." The text that we currently host at  is 100% fan written, and (AFAIK) none of it actually appeared in-game bar the name. If we decide to discount usernames, user questions, and part of official answers that mention usernames, it would be entirely hypocritical to then accept Malkur Valos' backstory as canon. His relation to Gavis and Ovis Velas totally qualifies as headcanon. But we accept it on the wiki since it's an official, lore-friendly article. The distinction doesn't end at question and answer, and it won't as long as ZOS continues to publish lore-worthy info on their community columns. —Legoless (talk) 21:19, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

  While that text doesn't appear anywhere in ESO, I recall him talking about being raised on the Isles and therefore having a different view on oblivion and daedra, so ZOS took his provided background as well. He of course didn't talk about the Valos brothers that appeared in Tribunal though. --        21:38, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

: Really? I don't recall ever seeing it in dialogue. —Legoless (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

::@Legoless: The way I see the Nameless Mage is Zenimax explicitly said "this person's backstory is canon despite being 100% fan written". That's the difference - they declared it. Which is why his relation to Gavis and Ovis Velas is supported. The LA questions are a different beast and I'm not sure if they can be considered they same way by virtue of them simply existing on an official site (otherwise Men'Do's Travel Stories would also qualify). Personally, I don't think the devs take the questions too seriously, and like to have a nod and wink at some of obscure/out of place stuff that appears (Oblivion crisis, memospore, etc).

::@Phoenix Neko: You can try, but it's unlikely you will get a solid answer - and it will probably vary from person to person. Some devs will speak of canon in vague, unoffensive terms like Shick. Others like Pete Hines will deny anything that even smells of fanon, and others like Paul Sage seem half and half. --Jimeee (talk) 21:49, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

::: Well, I don't see the possibility of me asking them on behalf of UESP, but some of you guys might, on the otherwise. Chances to get a solid answer most likely could rise if they see the importance of it, so it should be formulated as disambiguous as possible. I believe that Schick (accordingly to his position and experience) should understand the importance of treating the sources correctly. Phoenix Neko (talk) 22:00, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:::: "The winning entry had not only a creative and unique name for our Dark Elf mage, but was also coupled with an interesting backstory that our Content Designers will be able to seamlessly integrate into The Elder Scrolls Online." If that is an exact quote, then to me, that means ZOS canonized every aspect of the Nameless Mage, so it falls under BethZos lore and our article is 100% valid. ZOS haven't canonized the questions in the Loremaster's Archive, they've just provided canonical answers, so I don't think anything in a question can safely be considered canon. I hadn't realised that "Ruby Isle" was also a term not found anywhere in lore, otherwise I would oppose that too. On that note, I would say that if anything else has been added that is solely derived from the questions, and not the answers, of Loremaster's Archive, that should also be removed, as it is not canon. --Enodoc (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

::::: I wasn't gonna participate in this one, but just for the sake of reaching a conclusion, I concur with a lot of the reasoning above. Non-proliferation of information derived from the questions themselves in the lore section is the wisest course of action for the time being. However, I believe there's a case to be made that Echmer/Uutak Mythos should have a page in the woefully under-utilized General section. It is a substantial fan project which is related to the Elder Scrolls games, but not directly about the games.

::::: I'm trying to look at the matter through the eyes of a newbie TES fan a few years down the road, someone who is reading through the loremaster's archive without being privy to all this context. They might want to know what this "Echmer" thing is all about, and if they're interested enough to do a search, it seems like we should have a page somewhere to accommodate. Seems like exactly the kind of general TES-related information the General section is there to document. I don't know if we'll be able to reach a consensus on that, and it's really another discussion entirely. But the case is mounting, imo.      21:52, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::: I...huh. I really don't know what to think about that. I mean, it's a good idea (and I have to admit I'm pretty flattered by the consideration), but I don't know how it'd would work exactly. I mean, if it became a thing I can already tell I'm going to be the one writes it lol, but beyond that...how would it function? Of course, I think this is a community wide issue that everyone would have to vote on.--IceFireWarden (talk) 03:36, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

::::::: If it did exist in the General section, it would basically be an overview, with an external link to wherever your texts are hosted. Probably not a fully fleshed wiki-style project... although the unofficial mod Tamriel Rebuilt did, long ago, get its own namespace. --Jimeee (talk) 09:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: Tamriel Rebuilt is actually in the Tes3Mod and Tes4Mod namespaces, where technically any modding project can be documented. Several other mods were deleted for not meeting wiki standards though, since all work died out on them. I'd be okay with a general Uutak Mythos article (ala ), especially since we already have a fanfiction section in that namespace. —Legoless (talk) 10:48, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

   is the best place for this phenomenon (in the finest sense of the word) imo. I want to clarify (a bit too late, maybe) that I respect Uutak Mythos and my position was never meant to attack it nor to offence any fan-made project in general. Phoenix Neko (talk) 14:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

:: Trust me, there was no offense taken. The reason why I asked this question in the first place about the echkin/giant bat thing is because I respect UESP, and didn't want to just come out and start fiercely editing away without any consideration towards the other users or the dynamic of the website. I deeply appreciate everyone who came by and commented on this matter, and helped sorted it out. If I have any objections, it's just that I don't think that the fanfiction general page fits the Uutak Mythos, as it's more of a world-building project than an in-universe story. --IceFireWarden (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

::: Er...did we ever come to an agreement for this? (Bump)--IceFireWarden (talk) 03:51, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

:::: Well at the moment if we do a tally, the consensus for the question "Should the Loremaster Archive questions be considered canon" is: 

:::: Support: 2 (IceFireWarden, Legoless)
:::: Against: 5 (Phoenix Neko, SarthesArai, Enodoc, Jimeee, Minor Edits)

:::: A 5-2 is considered a clear consensus against the LA questions being considered canon and referenced as such. I believe an actionable consensus is that opposition can be overcome if the supporting votes have a lead constituting 100% or more of the opposing votes (see example).

::::In regard to how we should deal with the questions. We have two options that have been brought up. No inclusion or marked as OOG. This one is a unclear. Legoless as suggested referencing them as OOG (meaning "unofficial"). Personally, my first choice would be not to have them included at all, and I believe Minor Edits would also prefer this? ("Non-proliferation of information derived from the questions"). I can't say for sure what the others would want as their preference. Feel free to comment as this is dragging on a bit. --Jimeee (talk) 11:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

::::: I was more talking about the '' page haha, but in regards to the canon lore questions I would support them being OOG content. Even if they aren't official, they're still included in official material edited by and released by an official source. --IceFireWarden (talk) 22:59, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::: On the questions, I would agree with Jimeee on non-inclusion, per my reasons above. On including Uutak in General, I think that would be fine. But I would also say fair's fair, and if Uutak Mythos is included in General, someone who knows what the hell C0DA is should do a General:C0DA as well. --Enodoc (talk) 08:31, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

::::::: So, are we going to remove all references derived from the questions (such as, for example, the dubious status of Morihaus as a demiprince here and here, or edits on Alessia, or edits on etymology of the term "Minotaur", and many other instances)? Phoenix Neko (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: Ideally, yes. But I don't think we've had enough comments specifically on the inclusion of the questions to come to a consensus yet; we're at 5–2 of them being non-canon, but only 2 (or 3) to 1 on non-inclusion. Assuming the non-canon proposed consensus holds, feel free to add your own view regarding OOG vs non-inclusion. --Enodoc (talk) 20:05, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

::::::::: Then I'm against of the inclusion of the questions or information derived purely from them. Phoenix Neko (talk) 07:19, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::::::: To try and wrap this up, at the moment the consensus for the question: "Should lore that is only supported by the Loremaster Archive questions be marked as OOG, and not removed." is:

::::::::::: Support: 1 (Legoless)
::::::::::: Against: 3 (Phoenix Neko, Enodoc, Jimeee) 
::::::::::: Probable Support: IceFireWarden
::::::::::: Probable Against: Minor Edits (based on earlier comment) and Vordur Steel-Hammer (based on this)

:::::::::: It would have been good for more people to have voted to get a clearer consensus, but I don't think we will get any more and its been over 3 weeks. An explicit 3-1 (or probable 5-2) is still clear consensus so I think it's safe to say this one is decided. If there are no other objections in the next day or so, I think its safe to start removing LA questions lore. --Jimeee (talk) 10:58, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

::::::::::: I'll go ahead and toss myself in as Against there to help the process along. There's already been such an avalanche of new lore from ESO, much of which hasn't been integrated into Lore quite yet, I don't feel we need to resort to user-written, unconfirmed materials. -- Hargrimm  14:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

:::::::::::: I'll throw in my vote as an "Against" as well.  My personal viewpoint is that even if their question gets used, that doesn't make the information in the question canon if the answer does not confirm it as such - for instance, "echkin" was never referenced in the answer; it seems to me that she was just talking about giant bats, and Belharza and Morihaus were never mentioned in the answer about minotaur.  I feel that if the answer doesn't touch upon it, the fact that it's in the question is irrelevant to the lore, because they chose not to include it in the answer.  ~     17:53, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Hoodoc
Mostly because I think this is related to the above and I'm curious more than anything. Does the mentions of Hoodoc in the LA be edited out or what? I couldn't really care, as a lot of shit has been going on in my life recently and I've quit lore possibly permanently because of it. I just don't want to cause problems for ths wiki.IceFireWarden (talk) 17:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:Loremaster's Archives are quoted verbatim, so we repeat exactly what we're given. Nothing gets edited out, but since there's no other information about Hoodoc in existing lore, we also can't extrapolate anything from it. Just because he/she is mentioned in the answer, doesn't mean that they actually exist; for example, someone could go into Daggerfall and ask King Casimir about Lord Enodoc of Dumnonia. If he replied "Lord Enodoc? Dumnonia? I'm afraid I don't know much about the lesser kingdoms of High Rock," it doesn't suddenly mean that there is now a Kingdom of Dumnonia in official lore, it just means he repeated the question and courteously dismissed it. --Enodoc (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Altmer vs Bosmer - ESO NPCs

Hi there, there are several ESO NPCs where people cannot seem to decide on their race. I know the discussion on these has come up on the irc in the past, and there were differing opinions both there and in guild chat, and the pages have been edited recently.  When the pages were first created, I think the consensus was that they were Altmer, mostly because Bosmer cannot have blue eyes in the character creation. (screenshot)  And some Altmer can be fairly petite, for example Irien.  I have also recently noticed that some of them that have blue eyes also have very bright red hair, which isn't possible for Altmer (screenshot). I decided to post it here to get more opinions on these particular NPCs so we can decide definitively what they are, or perhaps make a decision to leave the race off these characters who are in question. 
Here are the ones in question:
Gaireth: I would say Bosmer. Short, the "-eth" ending is more Bosmer-y.  Difficult to tell if she has the Bosmer accent or not, and Mages Guild robes aren't affected by race. She has blue eyes, which Bosmer cannot have in character creation, but she also has very bright red hair, which Altmer cannot have in character creation.
Gannel: Hard to say, but I lean toward Altmer. The other acolytes are Altmer, she's wearing Altmer-style clothing, and though you cannot speak directly to her, the few things she says sound like they're in the Altmer accent.  However, she has bright red hair, which Altmer cannot have in character creation. Hard to see her face to see her eye color or height.
Doralineth: Hard to say. She's short, and the name is Bosmer-y, but she is wearing Altmer-style clothing, and her eyes are blue.  Hard to tell what sort of accent she has.
Sirreth: This one hasn't been changed recently, but she's also been in question.  She's taller than her clearly Bosmer companion but that might just be her posture. Name sounds Bosmer-y.  Accent and eye color are hard to tell.
What do you guys think? ~     01:28, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
:All four of those NPCs, at least with my horrible vision, have barely noticeably yellow skin, so I'd say they're all Altmer. --Rezalon (talk) 01:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
::It's actually quite easy to see the difference between the Altmer and Bosmer in ESO. First off, Altmer names never finish with -eth. Second, the easiest way for me to differentiate them is their eyes. Altmer eyes are most of the times very pointy where Bosmer's are more flat. So, these four are actually all Bosmer. Also the clothing in this game doesn't affect the race. For exemple, there is an Altmer in Mistral wearing Khajiit clothing. --Ian Da Man (talk) 02:15, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
:::Doralineth is definitely a Bosmer, confirmed that in-game. As for the other three, after a quick glance at screenshots Gaireth and Gannel look very Bosmer-ish, I only have some doubts about Sirreth. But I'll check that in-game tomorrow. An easy way is just to listen to their dialogue, whether generic or unique, as Bosmeri and Altmeri accents are very easy to tell apart. And also remember that Bosmer can have blue eyes in ESO (coincidentally, one of my characters is a blue-eyed Bosmer), so having such eye color doesn't exclude that possibility. -- ( ) 04:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
::::I linked a screenshot above, though, that I took in-game, showing that blue eyes is not a possible selection for Bosmer in character creation, as well as one showing that that bright red hair isn't possible for Altmer - however, Gaireth and possibly Gannel (I can't see her eyes in-game, she doesn't seem to look up) have both.  That doesn't mean, of course, that NPCs can't have "impossible" combinations, but it might be something to take into consideration - and it was something we did consider when first setting their race on the page. As far as the accent, I'm not that great at telling the differences between them, unless they're very obvious, heh.  ~     07:35, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
::::: Here is a screenshot of my Bosmer character, you can clearly see that she has blue eyes. -- ( ) 15:52, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
:::::: I checked all of these in-game thoroughly, taking several factors into consideration, and as Ian Da Man says, all of them are Bosmer. -- ( ) 17:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Beyond Skyrim pages

I understand that there are pages dedicated to the Tamriel Rebuilt and Stirk mods, as if they were treated as separate games. I wonder if it would be appropriate to do the very same with the Beyond Skyrim modifications when/if they are ever released (obviously not treating them as official lore though, like the Tamriel Rebuilt and Stirk mods).

On that note, I also wonder if it'd be appropriate to list Tamriel Rebuilt and Stirk mods along with the official TES games in the toolbar to the left. --Rezalon (talk) 06:19, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

:I don't see why not, as long as there would be sufficient information to write about it, and sufficient interest to keep it updated. Similarly to TR and Stirk, it would belong in the Skyrim Mod namespace, guidelines for which can be found here.
:As for whether we list them in the sidebar, I would say probably not, as that could be considered favouritism of those mods over others. But I do think the sidebar should link to All Content, as you can get to the mod areas from there. --Enodoc (talk) 12:15, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
::I agree with Enodoc, we shouldn't list any unofficial mods in the sidebar, but there's no reason not to have a namespace or articles for a similar mod to Tamriel Rebuilt as long as we have enough to write about and there's enough edit traffic going forward to justify keeping it. I also like the idea of the sidebar linking to all content, as that can help our newer readers find information that might otherwise be buried in other links, like Arthmoor's Unofficial Patches.      13:37, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

::: It would be entirely inappropriate to link to individual mods from the sidebar. The mod namespaces are already linked to from the main page of each game (e.g.  links to Tes4Mod).

:::In theory, the wiki is open to hosting info on any third party mod, but in practice very few have received enough attention in the past. This has led to mass deletions, such as with Midas Magic. If someone wants to document Beyond Skyrim, I say go ahead, but if the pages are left largely unfinished or if they become outdated then the mod will no longer match site standards and will need to be moved to userspace or deleted. —Legoless (talk) 14:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

::::^Second.   ( )  14:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Notes on NPCs with the Same Name

There has recently been a discussion on Dragon Guard's talk page about the addition/removal of notes on various pages about NPCs that have the same name as other NPCs (e.g.,  / , Aldos Othran/Noveni Othran, and OB base Arielle Jurard/OB Fighter's Guild Arielle Jurard). There was a brief discussion on the issue years ago on  and I'm pretty sure there have been other discussions as well over the years, plus probably a few edit summary comments, but to my knowledge, there's been no clear decision. I believe we need a community consensus as to which notes we should add/keep and which notes we shouldn't add or should remove.

The two issues I see as important in deciding whether a note is warranted are:
whether they're the same game, same game but mods are involved, or totally different games; and
whether the match is first/only name, family name, or both.

The note on Esbern, to me, is not notable, since the name Esbern could well be a common name for a Nord man, like Chris, John, or Rob would be for us. Family relations, or lack thereof, are perhaps a bit more of interest, but my preference would be to go with only noting those who are related and not mentioning those who ''aren't. When both'' names match within the same game, including mods, as is the case with Arielle Jurard, I think a note is warranted just to clear up any confusion. When they're in different games, I don't think it's notable unless they actually are the same person. And if they are, I seem to recall an old consensus that we would only create the note on the page for the newer game, so as not to give spoilers to those playing the older game, but I'm not 100% sure that was the consensus, and I don't really have a strong opinion on it in any event.

How do others feel? And are there any other things we should take into consideration in deciding?  &ndash;       22:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

: I don't particularly mind if random notes like Esbern are removed. Identical names used to be much less common back then, which is probably why they seem a bit silly looking back. However, I really don't want to see a consensus here on indiscriminately removing all notes of that nature, since a lot of them have clear worth as trivia. Aldos Othran/Noveni Othran are interesting enough in my opinion, and Arielle Jurard is obviously necessary to note. The Stormhold notes also should remain, since that game is so small anyway and has very little other pieces of trivia (and very few named NPCs as well, for that matter). If we decide to remove the pointless notes, I'd prefer it to be done on a case-by-case basis, and only for cross-game/totally irrelevant links. —Legoless (talk) 22:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

::I'm of a mind that (as a wiki) our purpose is to display factual information and let people figure it out from there. Saying "In Oblivion there's an NPC with the same name" is factual, there's no need to parse any information; it just is what it is. If the information is true and pertains to the NPC, I don't see any reason to remove it. -- MetaCthulhu (talk) 22:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

:::(This is for across all of the games) I think if two NPCs/people/named things share just the same first name, then don't put it in the notes, but put it in the top under the "this is X, you may be looking for Y, or Z" template. If they share the same last name, and they may be related but it's not mentioned at all in the game or in the rest of the page above, put it in the notes. If they share the exact same name and AREN'T the exact same person, put it in the top under the same template. If they are just one person who appears in multiple games, put that under the notes. --Rezalon (talk) 00:43, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

:::: Using the   template for all NPCs that share a first name is overkill. It should only be used for navigational purposes in place of a proper disambig, e.g. Online:John might link to Online:John Doe but not vice versa. —Legoless (talk) 10:07, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

::::: We could just have no rule except: "If a note is contested, a consensus will be established to sort out the problem." But if you decide that those notes aren't important enough to include, then that is what would be done. These two options are good, but feel free to go for something else if you would like to.   ( )  11:14, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
::::::I agree that there's no point in having a note if the first name is the only thing shared, since that would just clutter the page with information on irrelevant NPCs. However, I do think that working on a case by case basis for family names is a good idea. We really don't even need to establish any special rules, since the default procedure for controversial edits is discussion and consensus. As Legoless said, attempts to establish clear-cut rules on matters involving gray area tend to backfire, so we would probably be better off just keeping things simple.      14:28, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

  Regarding family names, every NPC article should have valid weight (i.e., no NPC article is no better than another to include name-related notes). Therefore, we should really maintain a consistency (or if not, a similar consistency) between NPC articles. It does depend on a few things, however. Considering some NPC articles have those notes and some don't: all or nothing. In other words ("all"), we could keep the notes and leave everything as it is. Alternatively ("nothing"), we could purge all pages of the long-running stream of notes. I'll just recap: we secure the notes for posterity, or we can put them, as I put it, "Out of sight, out of mind." What's it going to be?   ( )  21:55, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

: That's exactly what I'm arguing against. There's no need for it to be all-or-nothing when there are already clear exceptions to that rule of thumb. —Legoless (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

:: Yeah, I think Legoless has a point. Any kind of brightline rule we put in place is bound to have exceptions. An excellent example would be M'aiq the Liar, who has now appeared in four different ESO games. Technically speaking, we only have the first name to go on, even if there's a descriptor after it, and I know there's been some speculation as to whether it's actually the same person or not between the four games. Nevertheless, it's an obvious character to link across all the games. Esbern, probably not so much. To some degree, there's probably always going to be a judgement call involved.  &ndash;       22:21, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

::: The question is: how exactly will the wiki benefit from these notes? If there is no advantage to them, then what would be the point? When these notes are added, I do understand there is a reason behind it (i.e., they aren't added for the sake of it), but if they are going to hold the wiki back, then we must remove them. With these notes, people could be thinking "What if Elenwen from Morrowind is the same Elenwen in Skyrim?", when in fact, it's anyone's guess. Let's keep the notes to a minimum—let's not make a habit of it; i's undesirable for editors to be complaining about them.   ( )  19:10, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

:::: Actually, I think consensus here is that the notes do serve a purpose in some cases. I'd agree with keeping similar observations to a minimum going forward, but I'd like to propose that any notes that are removed as a result of this discussion should be moved to the talk page in case anyone objects. A similar procedure was done in the past when culling Notes and Bugs sections and it worked out very well. —Legoless (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

:::::The notes have served their purpose. I think they should be removed.

:::::Legoless: so is that the answer? Have we established a consensus?    ( )  10:53, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

:::::: Unless anyone else wants to raise an objection to the talk page idea? —Legoless (talk) 19:08, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

  The talk page idea? Where the note will be moved? I don't feel the need to go posting all these notes on talk pages. I think it's kind of pointless. We will still have it in the article's history, so putting it in two places is rather unnecessary.   ( )  19:29, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

: Moving notes to the talk page for discussion has been a common practice for years. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. —Legoless (talk) 20:01, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Online NPC Summaries

Just to let everyone know, there's been an update to the   to allow for multiple factions. This requires a bot run to update all the existing factions to the traditional   style, so until that's done and the wiki finishes re-categorizing everything, Online NPC factions will be unlinked and the categories will be incomplete. The bot run is likely to take a couple of hours and categories may take a little while to update after that.  &ndash;       21:31, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Bug template

I have no idea why, but it appears as though the Bug template suddenly decided it no longer wanted to work correctly, showing &lt;cleanspace> tags all over the place. I can't see any reason why this started happening or why this template alone was affected, but nothing else I've looked at was a problem. It seems a simple dummy edit was sufficient to solve the problem, but if anyone notices this happening with other templates, please let me know.  &ndash;       00:20, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
: Looks like Online NPC Summary is doing that too.  Examples here and here. ~     05:31, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
::Okay, I did a dummy edit on that one as well, which confirms that that's sufficient to fix the problem. Pages may need to be purged to get the fix to show up.  &ndash;       14:41, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Online:DLC link in menu as "Official Add-Ons"

Copied from  and cleaned up for this page:

Similar to Skyrim and Oblivion, shouldn't there be an "Official Add-Ons" link linking to  in the menu bar? I also don't think the Crown Store should be linked, especially due to it being a lengthy page. I ask because this page lists the major "DLC"/pieces of content a player has to pay for/whatever you want to call it (currently IE and Orsinium, I assume Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be there too in the future). --Rezalon (talk) 20:46, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

: As I stated in the linked discussion, associating ESO's "DLC game packs" with the singleplayer DLC betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how the system functions. ESO's DLC are just another Crown Store item, and are really just content updates locked behind a paywall. The Orsinium DLC can't be equated with something like Dawnguard, when in actuality it resembles Craglorn and the myriad of other 'free' content updates ESO received before going B2P. "DLC" is a misnomer, and they certainly aren't add-ons. If anything, we should be linking to the Crown Store and ESO Plus pages from the sidebar, but there really isn't any reason to. The paywalled content is part of the vanilla game. —Legoless (talk) 00:14, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Possibility of Cataloging Unique Dungeon Drops?

I'm not sure if we have done / are already doing this, so sorry if it's wasted space. A good example of what I'm talking about are the named, constant drops in Banished Cells. The Clanfear Handler has a chance to always drop the same ring, just at different levels. The last boss drops the 'Guilehammer' with great frequency, and has done so every time for me so far. So on and so forth. Since this is an MMO, there will be great demand in the ESO community for a comprehensive documentation of dungeon loot drops. Even if it already exists elsewhere, it'd be nice to have both the normal wiki-type information as well as loot drops on one page.

If we did go about doing this, then the potential drops would have to be in multiple places. Namely, the dungeon page itself, with a list of all the unique drops and the bosses they drop from, and then the page for each boss and their own specific drops. The dungeon page could list a table that is easily sortable to easily track down what a person is looking for, with the main columns being the item that drops, what type of item (i.e. Destruction Staff, (Heavy) Cuirass, (Light) Robe, (Medium) Jerkin, Greatsword, Ring), what boss drops, so on and so forth. The boss page would probably do something similar. We could even go a step further and try to get some statistics, somehow, on how often each item drops. I don't know how possible that is, I'm just covering every possibility.

I'm not sure how random loot other loot is, but we could also try to go to the next level and give a general guide to all possible loot in dungeons and off of bosses. That would probably be a lot harder than the named unique stuff, but it would definitely make our pages a lot more lively and useful if we could pull it off. Just an idea and some rough guesses at details. Raddok (talk) 22:12, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
:I believe there's already at least one addon for this, so it'd be a matter of using info from that as a reference (not copypasting, mind) when the data gets compiled. Actually, I wonder if the database here already has most/all of them, and we'd just have to connect them to their associated boss. (FYI, there are also unique drops for world bosses, so that'd have to happen too if we go through with this.) Myself, I think its a good idea to get this done, but I'd only be able to work on it sporadically, if at all. —          22:34, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

::Yeah, it'd be a bit of an undertaking with how many boss-type monsters there are. Although, compared to other MMOs, it seems like there aren't nearly as many item drops per monster. But it would definitely be a great addition, I feel. I could probably set aside 30 minutes or so each day to build loot tables from any information I can get. Raddok (talk) 22:41, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

:::I just checked the addons and it appears none of the ones I was thinking of are updated anymore, though if someone finds a substitute please recommend it. In the meantime, I'm going to poke around in some dungeons. —          22:54, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

::::Nice idea. I think delve bosses also each have a unique item that they can drop as well. --Enodoc (talk) 23:33, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

:::::I didn't think about that. Probably safe to just say 'any unique drops are fair game'. Especially named items that only appear in one or just a few places. And I'll be poking around, too, and documenting as I go. I frequent Banished Cells, so I could probably have most of its loot and respective bosses documented by the end of the weekend.  Raddok (talk) 00:35, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

:::::: I've been documenting those unique drops I come across since release, so I'm all for this idea. —Legoless (talk) 23:31, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

::::::: Now that the parameter for NPC pickpocketing difficulty is implemented, I've repurposed that sandbox to be used for cataloging drops into a semi-cohesive article before launch. Anyone may edit it to add their findings (or tweak code if I muck something up). —          02:48, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

::::::::I've also been listing unique drops in one of my sandboxes for a while, if anyone wants to add to it or refer to what info I've got go right ahead. (Nice work with the pickpocket btw likelolwhat.) Contraptions (talk) 03:52, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Patrollers

Currently, we seem to have no full-time patrollers, and many of the admins are also unable to commit significant time to patrolling. I recently asked the other admins for suggestions for new patrollers, and sent out a few e-mails to those people, but apparently Hotmail/Live is blocking mail sent via the wiki, so I'm not sure how many of those made it through. Since I haven't heard back from anyone I sent e-mails to, I can only assume that none of them did. Given that, I don't see much choice but to post publicly.

Long story short, we need a few people who can help out with patrolling, as a lot of it is just slipping through the cracks right now. If you're reasonably experienced with wiki formatting, have good spelling and grammar, and of course have a little bit of time, please consider running for patroller. Given the current shortage, chances are it won't all get done, but even if you only have time to patrol a handful of easy edits, or you're only active in a specific area of the wiki, that's still an improvement over the status quo. If you're not entirely sure what patrolling is about, have a look at our Patrollers page. If you have any questions, feel free to contact any current admin or patroller, either on their talk page or via e-mail. Given the current Hotmail block, though, if you choose e-mail, it might be best to send directly to a person's e-mail address if you know it, or confirm on their talk page that they actually got your mail.  &ndash;       19:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
:Hey Robin, just want to say that I did get your mail, so the system is apparently working. With the situation being so bad, I'll probably apply for patrollership soon. I'm best at controlling lore namespace edits, which I've been doing anyway, but as you say, it's better than nothing, isn't it? -- ( ) 19:56, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
::I'm new as a UESP editor, and I recently had a blast from real life, so I haven't been able to write all the guides I'd like. But I could probably help patrol the Online namespace to some extent, since it's not as demanding. I could do both spelling/grammar and fact checking (especially in the Aldmeri Dominion, as that's my main character's faction). What does this entail? Do I basically try to watch 'recent changes' whenever possible and keep track of Online namespace edits? Thanks. Raddok (talk) 23:06, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
:::Patrollers have to be nominated and approved by the community, so newer users almost never get the position unless they've shown a remarkable aptitude for making a large number of high-quality edits in a short amount of time. Watching the recent changes page helps, but more than anything, you need to convince the community that you understand our editing policies by making quality edits and contributing to community discussions. By extension, this means that you have to build up a reputation as a good editor by sticking around for a while. If you're really interested in patrolling, watching the recent changes page and participating in discussions is a good start. The rest just comes with experience.      01:11, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Search box has mysteriously lost most of its Oblivion and Skyrim Entries.

 

Recent Changes page says: "Show new changes starting from $2, $3"?
It might just be something I'm doing wrong, but in the Recent changes options box-thing (just under "hide userspace edits") says: "Show new changes starting from $2, $3". Frankly, I'm confused by it, so I was wondering if someone could shed some light on this for me. --MetaCthulhu (talk) 19:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

:For me too. I think it's related to Daveh's recent update. I'll post it in the Administrator Noticeboard. --        19:20, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Sidebar: Skyrim Expansion Pack listing?

This always bothered me a little, just now I thought to ask...

Why do the Skyrim sub-bullets on the main sidebar not include Dawnguard/Dragonborn links? I would love to see this. I always felt like they were no less Expansion Packs than Shivering Isles, Tribunal, Bloodmoon? They would be very handy links.

What was the reason for this? Curious. It seems very inconsistent to me. 
--Yal (talk) 11:39, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

: All three of the 'major' DLC had their own sidebar links when they were new, with no link to the add-ons hub page. However, multiple discussions took place and it was decided to link to the hub page in order to condense the sidebar and so that the other two official add-ons had easy-access links. Also, Dawnguard and Dragonborn are not "expansion packs" and weren't marketed the same way Shivering Isles or Bloodmoon were. It would also be inconsistent to omit Hearthfire simply because it was a smaller DLC. —Legoless (talk) 12:01, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

::There was a giant discussion about it a while back if you're interested. --Jimeee (talk) 12:05, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

::: Awe, that is too bad... I wish it weren't so... Whether it was marketed the same or not, they are both still about the same amount of hours as Trib/Bloodmoon/ShIsles. They also include considerable amounts of immersivity, guides, mobs, item info, etc in a separate place from the base game -- things I love about the other expansion pages. I understand that side, but on the other hand I hope one day secretly they will decide to change it ;D --Yal (talk)  

 Is there any reason Dawnguard and Dragonborn have been removed from the collapsible menu? That normally shows all of the add-ons since...well, it's collapsible --Dorsal Axe (talk) 12:42, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

: No, they should be there I think, unless I missed a discussion. The whole point of the collapsible gadget was to allow older users to opt out of the more condensed sidebar. —Legoless (talk) 11:47, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

:: Some parts of the javascript code were out of date. I think I've gotten everything now, though add-ons are currently scripted to work a bit differently for each one. Not sure if this is desirable or not, but I can see the argument, since the add-ons actually are a bit different in concept between each one. In any event, those of you that use it, have a look at it and see if it works the way you'd expect. If not, let me know and I can make changes (I hope...javascript isn't my strong suit).  &ndash;       21:06, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

:::Personally, I think they should all be consistent. Morrowind's drop down menu is ideal; Morrowind > Tribunal and Bloodmoon > Morrowind Add-Ons > [list of all the add-ons]. Oblivion should be similar, instead of just having a link to the add-ons page. As for Skyrim... well yes, it's definitely a bit different. I'm of the opinion that at least Dragonborn should be listed separately, since it has its own namespace on the wiki. --Dorsal Axe (talk) 18:04, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

::::The sidebar is pretty inconsistent right now. There are basically three different versions; the Default, the Collapsed, and the Collapsed Condensed.
::::
|
::::
|}
::::There are three primary inconsistencies with the current set, shown on the left:
::::*Collapsed and Collapsed Condensed are missing the top link to All Content, and the sublists of all Oblivion Add-Ons and Skyrim Add-Ons
::::*Default is missing a content namespace, Dragonborn (to be consistent with including TR, BM and SI), and is missing Morrowind Add-Ons (to be consistent with OB and SR)
::::**Yes, I remember the long-winded discussion about how the DLCs were marketed, which ones should get their own namespace, and which ones should be on the sidebar. But right now I think consistency by "which one has a separate namespace" is the way to go for the default sidebar. If that won't hold with anyone, at least add the link to Morrowind Add-Ons; admittedly, a lot of it is fluff (just like Spell Tomes and Horse Armor), but there's three good bits of content in there as well, namely Master Index, Helm of Tohan, and Siege at Firemoth.
::::*Collapsed Condensed is missing the individual entries for Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn, and is missing a link on Morrowind Add-Ons.
::::So a fully consistent sidebar set would look like the set on the right. --Enodoc (talk) 11:05, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

ESO: Daily quests in Wrothgar

Hi! I've been working to add the quests from the Orsinium expansion to the wiki, and ran into a philosophical question when I got to the daily quests. Likelolwhat suggested I start a discussion on this topic here.

My inclination is that the quests should be added to the wiki, but as they are numerous and a bit unique it seemed like it didn't make sense to just mix them in with the rest of the side quests.

Should these quests be put into their own category - and if so, would there be one category for all of them, or separate categories for the solo delve quests vs. the large group world boss quests? Or use some kind of unique naming convention to identify them? 

I don't know if Zenimax will keep using this model to keep people farming away in future expansions, but it's certainly possible we may see more of this kind of quest in the future. Or they may abandon it! :)

Thanks!
Anghara (talk) 14:41, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

:We can certainly list them separately on the Wrothgar page under Daily Quests. I haven't done a Delve one yet, so I'm not sure if they are the same, but the World Boss quests are given by someone who is called a "Daily Quest Broker" (or something like that). On the pages for the quests themselves, they would still be considered side quests, but they would include the extra parameter   which will add them to the repeatable quests category. For an example of a daily quest using these parameters, see Dousing the Fires of Industry. --Enodoc (talk) 19:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

:: The delve dailies are very similar to the bosses - I think they even share the same reward box. Listing them separately on the Wrothgar page would be wise, but actually identifying the names of the daily quests will probably be a pain. —Legoless (talk) 17:12, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Introducing ESO Character Builds

For those not playing ESO or who may of missed it, I've added the  page (or  for listing character builds saved from our uespLog add-on. This feature has just been released and is open for testing and feedback. See the  for more information. -- Daveh   15:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Steam Users: Keep An Eye On Your Account

It seems that Steam has hit a bit of a snag today and randomly given people access to other people's accounts. It's unclear if people were able to buy things or change account info, but those of you on Steam should keep an eye on your accounts, just to be sure. (Source) Looking at my own account, everything seems fine at the moment, but I can confirm that going to "Account Details" by clicking on my name took a very long time and only brought up a blank page.  &ndash;       21:57, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

: Valve turned off the Account Details page, since that's where the caching issue was occurring. Haven't heard of any password leaks yet, but emails, partial bank numbers, and transaction histories have been affected. I'd recommend making sure your Steam email is as secure as possible. —Legoless (talk) 22:11, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

:: Valve says this has now been fixed: "Account information incorrect".  &ndash;       02:55, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Quest Hub Objectives

Since ESO place objectives are being moved out of the summary table, it might be worth including the 'completed' text as well now that we have more room to work with. Here are two possible layouts for illustration:
Place X Objective:  
Place X Objective: Do the thing. / You did the thing.
The completed text ("you did the thing") is often quite different from the initial objective text and would be worth documenting in my opinion. Hovertext would be nice since the text will usually contain a major spoiler, but that isn't a major concern on the wiki and hovertext doesn't work properly on mobile. Thoughts? —Legoless (talk) 19:36, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

:I agree. As I was going through the pages I was thinking it would be nice to have the "completed" text there somewhere. One of the reasons I was moving the Objectives out of the infobox is exactly because hovertext doesn't work very well on mobile, so something which doesn't use hovertext would be my preference. I agree that sometimes the text is quite a major spoiler, so I was thiking we could try using  , but I couldn't think of a way to make it work well. The other idea I had was to put the completion text underneath the appropriate quests, followed by an empty line to "separate" from the rest of the quest list:
:* Place X Objective: Do the thing.
:** Quest Link
:** Quest Link
:* Place X Complete: You did the thing.
:
:* Quest Links⋱
:* ⋱continue after⋱
:* ⋱an empty line
:--Enodoc (talk) 19:53, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

::As I don't use my mobile phone for browsing the web and haven't completed all of ESOs locations yet, I personally prefer the hover version Legoless suggested, though Enodoc's version sounds good as well. --        19:58, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

:::   That'd work well on quest-heavy pages, but having so many lines might end up looking silly on locations with only a single Objective quest and a single side quest. I'd also like to come up with a system for places like Group Bosses, which have similar objective/completed map markers but aren't related to quests at all. Could just bite the bullet and display the full text in the summary box for those pages I suppose, maybe with a showhide. —Legoless (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

::::Do Group Bosses have Objective text? I don't remember that       :P     . Or is it just the Achievement text? Per the section above, point 3.1, my idea for Group Bosses is again to take out all the hover text, and replace it with "Dungeon Clear" [XP Amount] (Group Bosses are technically dungeons; I still need to add them to the Dungeons page), which would link to a new section on the page (perhaps also called "Dungeon Clear", otherwise "Clearing the Dungeon" or just "Clearing") where the enemies to be killed are listed along with the achievement text. --Enodoc (talk) 20:09, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

::::: I think they do... The original objective text seems to be from the achievement (e.g. "Defeat the clannfear champion, Snapjaw, and end the murder of innocents at Heretic's Summons."), but I think the completion text is different ("You've slain the Winterborn abomination, ending the ritual."). A whole new Clearing section for it would look good. —Legoless (talk) 20:31, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

  Maybe it's just the Wrothgar ones? I'm panning over the Group Boss icons in Glenumbra and am not getting any Completion text.

With a bit of faffing, I managed to get   to do pretty much what I wanted:
 
Quests

I also have a version where   is not used, and the collapsible formatting is applied directly (this puts the "[show]" box in an easier-to-see place):

Quests

In either case, it would probably be worth creating a wrapper template if we want to go down this show/hide route for ease of use. --Enodoc (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

:Does anyone know if Group Dungeon Completion is dependent specifically on the one-time quest, or only on defeating the bosses? --Enodoc (talk) 23:01, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

:: I've never done a Normal mode dungeon without completing the quest, but it shouldn't be impossible to check. —Legoless (talk) 23:06, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Magicka and Dead NPC's

So, after seeing this edit I learned that for dead NPC's in Skyrim we have been leaving the magicka parameter empty in the NPC summary. Similarly, many Oblivion pages for dead NPC's list "N/A" as the magicka for the character (e.g. ). However, there are a fair amount of pages in the Oblivion namespace for dead characters that do list a numerical value for the character's magicka, such as  and . Also, Morrowind pages for dead NPC's seem to list magicka values as well, such as . As far as I know for all 3 of these games the magicka values for dead characters are provided in the game data. 

With all this in mind, why are we only documenting this information on Morrowind and some Oblivion pages but not Skyrim pages? The case can be made that the value is meaningless since the character is dead and won't be casting spells, but both Oblivion and Skyrim have items or spells that allow you to reanimate dead NPC's. Once brought back to life, these characters' magicka values are no longer insignificant. While no such ability exists in Morrowind, it still seems less desirable to leave a value blank or put "N/A" when an actual value for this stat does exist in the game data even if it is trivial. I think it would be best to include this information on all NPC pages since it is available and can possibly be useful to readers. Forfeit (talk) 05:06, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

:We should have the true value of deceased NPCs' magicka. You can't brush that aside...   ( )  12:41, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
:: I agree. The information is there, and it could be useful to know if the corpse is reanimated. Besides, we list the classes of NPCs even when those don't have any immediately apparent effect on gameplay, so I see no reason we shouldn't include the other relevant template information if we can get it.      12:44, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

:::Ok, we have double standards here... go ahead and post the magicka values on all NPCs. That's not going to harm the site as the magicka values aren't useless info. Until and unless every deceased NPC page incorporates magicka values in the summary box, the site will never be 'complete'.   ( )  13:02, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

:::: Can't see any reason not to include it. —Legoless (talk) 15:07, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

::::: I say include it. -- MetaCthulhu (talk) 19:39, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Crown Link Template

Since the contents of the main  page is constantly changing, it's been a bit of a pain to link to any entries on that page. Luckily there isn't much cause to do so since a lot of the items have entries on other pages like , but for certain entries like the Black Fredas Special! I've ended up creating redirects to avoid using   to the 'all' subpage. With the new   template, the linking is done automatically and cuts down on any future dependence on redirects. It'll also help to keep track of links in case we ever decide to split up the subpage due to length.

If people don't have a problem with it, I'd like to make the template the standard way of linking to all entries on the Crown Store page. In the past, shortcut templates like   have been unfavoured due to the unnecessary calls they make to the server, but we've been using   copiously in recent times, and it seems like Daveh fixed the slow page loads caused by excessive template usage by upgrading to v1.23 so I can't imagine it'd be much of an issue. —Legoless (talk) 22:44, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Presenting NPC information
I've been adding quite a bit of info to the online NPC pages recently including ability info and drops, and I would like to suggest the following format for presenting information especially regarding infoboxes:

For generic NPCs,
If the name/gender/race/type varies and it doesn't really affect gameplay/combat we should just put one infobox at the top, put "varies" under gender/race and list the variants separately under the gallery. (eg. most generic NPCs)

If the name/gender/race/type varies and it does affect gameplay/combat we should include separate infoboxes or even separate pages. (eg. transforming NPCs)

For named NPCs,
If the level/health/location/gender/race/type varies and it doesn't really affect gameplay/combat we should just put one infobox at the top, put "varies" under the relevant field and place the variants under the gallery. (eg. quest NPCs like Razum-dar who appear in most zones)

If the level/health/location/gender/race/type varies and it does affect gameplay/combat we should include separate infoboxes or even separate pages. (transforming NPCs eg. Allene Pellingare, Prince Naemon, or perhaps even NPCs that are initially friendly but turn hostile eg. Vila Theran, Keeper Imiril etc.)
If the name changes, it needs its own page.


Few more questions to consider: 
What about generic NPCs that have the same name and gameplay but different level/health/location? eg.  that appears in Silent Mire and Sunscale Strand?

Should we report the stats of the same NPC in Gold and Silver vet zones as well? Or just the normal version? With the vet level removal coming later this year I fear a lot of our info could become obsolete.

With Thieves Guild coming, are there any plans to add a parameter to indicate NPC disposition wrt the Justice system for example, (unofficial names of dispositions below):

Essential - green healthbar, cannot be attacked/pickpocketed, can spot crimes, will not fight
Innocents - yellow healthbar with white glow, can be attacked/pickpocketed with consequences, can spot crimes, may fight or flee
Neutral - yellow healthbar with yellow glow, can be attacked without consequences, cannot spot crimes, will fight if provoked
Hostile - red healthbar with red glow, can be attacked without consequences, cannot spot crimes, will attack on sight

Any suggestions or comments? Sorry for the long post. Contraptions (talk) 12:09, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

: Creating separate pages for transformation NPCs probably isn't necessary in most cases like Naemon. For enemies like the deckhand, it would be good to add hovertext to the 'Varies' infobox rather than adding multiple boxes just to list all the data. This could also be done for race if there are only a few variants. Justice system data has been planned for ages, but the infobox template will need to be updated first. I think Jeancey was adding a 'pickpocket' param to some pages though, to document the difficulty level in future. —Legoless (talk) 15:39, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

:: In general, the suggestions look good to me. Something that I suggested in a different discussion, regarding huge pages with little information for generic NPCs, was to look at how Oblivion did Bandits/Conjurers/Necromancers. In this case, they are very variable but never use the word "varies". They don't have a summary box, and instead use a table. If we want to stick with using the summary box, then the proposed suggestions work in general.
::For specifics:
::*Quest NPCs, like Raz, brought forward from this discussion: I expect Raz's level is dependent on the level of the Zone where you find him; meaning that it is hard-coded and not randomly generated (and therefore not Variable). Just saying that it "Varies" is meaningless without clarification, so each alternative ideally should be listed on the page. What I think we really need to do is to look into how it varies, and come up with a way of representing that information in the summary box. For Raz, this could be   or something, where POI is the level of the location in which he is found.
::*Generic NPCs in different locations: my suggestion would be one infobox per location (as it's usually the location that determines the level, and then the level that determines the health). As with Raz, this isn't something being variable, this is something being specifically different.
::*Veteran Variants: This discussion suggested the Kareem Winvale approach, in which each variant is listed. However, I think it would be better now to wait until the VR removal occurs, to see what that will do to everything. We are already not detailing quest rewards in Veteran variants, outside of the gp values.
::*Justice Disposition: Yes, this is definitely something I think we want to do. It was first suggested here, and again as part 2.1 of the Various and Varied ESO Suggestions, but never seemed to get anywhere. The official names are "Friendly", "Justice Neutral", "Neutral", and "Hostile". There's also "Ally" for any NPC that follows you around during certain quests; "Ally" may include Cyrodiil guards as well (will need to check). We'll need to decide what terminology to use, but I think keeping the use of "Essential" for Friendly NPCs would fit well with the rest of the wiki. We could potentially have "Essential: Yes/No" for civilian NPCs (non-essentials would be the Justice Neutral/Innocent category), and "Aggression: Neutral/Hostile" for enemy NPCs. There was a suggestion alongside this one to include the base "pickpocket difficulty" (Easy/Medium/Hard) for each NPC as well, if that difficulty is fixed for each NPC.
::Enodoc (talk) 15:49, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

:::*Using several infoboxes per appearance may work for Renrijra Deckhands, but I suspect the Worm Cult Necromancer wouldn't like that approach. Instead, I assume that all (or at least most) NPCs can be assigned to a class, and that each class has a certain ammount of health at a certain level. If I'm correct in that, I'd say that we would get rid of the level/health parameter altogether (for generic NPCs), and instead put a list with health values for each level on the respective class pages.
:::*On transforming NPCs like Aelif, I think we could put them at one page, but the same time I think that if the NPC partakes in combat in both forms and uses a set of different abilities, a separate page could be advantagous.
:::*I always thought (at least until now) that an NPC's level matches the level of the zone/subzone he is found in. If this is the case, the level parameter would be obsolete anyway, as the level is always dependand on the location, and not the NPC. A health parameter for the "essential" NPCs might be a nice-to-have feature, but it has no real gameplay value, as it never could be depleted.
:::*On the justice/disposition thingy, I'd say a "disposition" field with one of the four cases (however named), as well as a "pickpocket difficutly" field, if applicable (the NPC can be pickpocketed).
:::--        17:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

:::: Disposition and pockpocket fields sound ideal to me. If we're going to be changing the summary template, I'd also like to bring up the issue of gender/soul exclusivity again. NPCs in ESO have differing souls, and some creatures have implied genders. —Legoless (talk) 17:24, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::I likewise agree with the disposition and pickpocket fields (obviously, since I have already started adding pickpocket fields to pages :P). For disposition, given how long the official names are, possibly doing a disp=1/2/3/4 could be a nice, short method. The other option would be Essential=yes/no, aggression=Neutral/Hostile (as suggested by Enodoc). Btw, the pickpocket difficulty is definitely fixed. Jeancey (talk) 22:24, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

  Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have been poking around a bit gathering more info as well, and taking into account all your suggestions, I have modified the proposed format. First, the NPC info presentation:

For neutral/hostile NPC pages:

I propose that we include one infobox per page. "Health/level" field will be, if not a single value, listed as "varies" (specific level values can be added to the hovertext). "Location" should be the field where we try to be more specific, as SarthesArai has pointed out that its the location of the NPC determines its level/other stats. Rest of fields will be filled in accordingly. For variable race/gender NPCs, we can try to get one picture of each combination and add it to the gallery. For transforming NPCs, a second infobox can be added for its new form, pictures optional.

A separate page can be created to house generic NPC health/level information, since I have found that there is a definite relation between a NPC's "class" and its health/level/location (I can provide details if needed). I'm for the creation of individual NPC class pages, since it can help us organise information better, but we need official class names to do that. The sandbox I created could help in that regard.

For named NPCs, fields will be filled in as per normal. For NPCs that transform, assuming there is no name change, a new infobox should be included on the same page in a different section with relevant information. NPCs that change name will have a separate page. Any spoilers will be marked and concealed accordingly, at the editor's discretion. (I think this allows us to include all relevant information in as few pages as possible, in a logical and understandable manner.)

For both generic and named NPCs, we will report information regarding the normal zone version only. (since the vet level change could upend everything) As for exclusively veteran enemies like vet dungeon bosses, I'm not exactly sure what to do at this point.

(This format could extend to creatures as well if you guys agree.) 

For essential/friendly NPC pages:

I propose we omit the level and health for both generic and named ones, since in-game essential NPCs do not display their level. And given that they can't die, I propose we omit the health value as well. Other fields can be filled in as per normal.

For friendly NPCs that transform or become hostile, a new infobox should be included on the same page in a different section with relevant information. NPCs that change name will have a separate page. Any spoilers will be marked and concealed accordingly, at the editor's discretion.

For essential NPCs that become combat "allies" for a particular quest section, we could include the health value since they can be "knocked down" if they take enough damage. Nevertheless, they cannot die, so this is up for debate.

For justice neutral/innocents:

These are more tricky since there are no real patterns to their health/level.

Named ones can just follow the format above for named hostile NPCs, the only difference being the value in the "disposition" parameter.

Generic ones can just follow the format for generic hostile NPCs, except that health and level may need to be listed individually, since there is no real pattern.


As for the disposition and pickpocket param, I am of course for it. I'm not sure what terms or format we'll use and that is probably something for a separate discussion. I only feel that whatever system we come up with should be usable on both NPC and creature pages equally well (which is why I feel the use of "Essential" is a bit strange when applied to creatures. I could be wrong though.)

Pickpocket difficulty is fixed though, so that can be added easily. Contraptions (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
:I don't have time for a full response, so I'll just say this. All NPCs have health and level. We are including it. I don't think there will be any situation where any game in the series will include health and level and we wouldn't include it. Just because you have your settings set so that you can't see their level and/or health doesn't mean others can't. I just cannot stress enough how much I would oppose any attempt to remove health and level from any NPC pages. In fact, I don't think this discussion should result in removing any information, but rather to add it. Jeancey (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

:: I'd be opposed to marking or concealing spoilers. Trying to avoid them in the opening paragraph is one thing, but actively hiding information on an article isn't what should be done. I sympathise with the uselessness of health and level values on friendly NPCs and creatures, since it's correct that those values don't show up in the vanilla game and play no significance, but if it's in the data then we might as well include it for consistency. Separate class pages would be great, but if anything they should be used to calculate/transclude the health values on the individual NPC pages rather than requiring the reader to click off to find that data. If it's for generic NPCs with many levels, then maybe a 'leveled thundermaul' link would be more appropriate than hovertext, but for NPCs with a single level having the actual number would be preferable in my opinion. —Legoless (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

:::@Legoless, after giving it a bit of thought I also agree that spoilers should not be concealed. This is a wiki site and thus anyone looking for info should expect spoilers. I believe wikipedia also has a similar policy. I'm not too familiar about the concept of "transclusion" but from what I read it seems to suggest that health/level info on the class page will be included on the main NPC page, and if we update the health/ level values on the separate class page the main NPC pages will automatically be updated as well. If that's the case, I'm all for it. I'm not too sure what you mean by "leveled link" though.

:::@Jeancey, like Legoless said we can include level and health for essential NPCs if just for the sake of completion/consistency. The info is acessible with addons, and the page would look strange with all the (?) fields anyway. So after rethinking it I'm for including it as well.

:::Any other comments or suggestions? Contraptions (talk) 02:31, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

::::One of the reasons I suggested one infobox per location for generic NPCs was to avoid using hovertext. Hovertext doesn't work on mobile devices (it either doesn't work at all, or doesn't work very well), and the more info we put in hovertext, the less info we are giving to mobile device visitors. Dave can probably get some statistics on that, but I would imagine that mobile device users make up a large proportion of our browsing audience. As I said above, just saying that health/level "Varies" is meaningless without clarification, and those mobile users would not get that clarification if it was in hovertext. I agree with Sarthes though that there would be too many Worm Cult Necromancers for that to be practical, and I think a table setup would be much easier to manage. On that note, where has this need for infoboxes come from? It's not an established practice to use infoboxes on all generic NPCs: , , , , ,  all use the table setup, and look no worse off for it.

::::Also, something that I've been ignoring, mainly because it's something that we are already doing (but then I thought, why are we doing it?), is why do NPCs which change name need a separate page? (Examples: Angof the Gravesinger/Undying; Faolchu the Changeling/Reborn.) The whole point is they're supposed to be the same person, so why don't we detail everything about one person on one page? Is it just to avoid spoilering the fact that they show up again later?

::::Enodoc (talk) 14:11, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::I'm like 90% sure that started when robinhood used HnB to create NPC pages when ESO first came out. Since they have different names, they were recorded in the data as separate NPCs, and obviously a bot doesn't know any better and created separate pages. I have no issue supporting their combining them now. Jeancey (talk) 14:44, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::: Table layouts seem like a good solution to me;  in particular is a great example. As for NPCs with multiple names, I kind of like the separate pages. The two examples given, Faolchu and Angof, both have a different appearance and play a different role under those two names. If we choose to unify them, it would also mean uniting people like Varen, the Exalted Viper, and the Thief. —Legoless (talk) 15:13, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::::Perhaps tables like Enodoc linked will indeed work best for generic NPCs, with the column headers being location/level/race/gender/health. If we're not putting an infobox for generic NPCs, their aggression and justice info will have to be noted separately, which seems fine. If we can set up the tables such that information regarding level/health could be transcluded into them, that's even better. Named NPCs will continue to use infoboxes. I support different pages for differently named NPCs though, seems neater that way.

:::::::On another side note, Thieves Guild and the removal of Cadwell's Silver/Gold was just officially announced and is coming very soon. (though vet ranks are still a thing). Most quest/NPC related pages could need some format changes soon. Just a small heads up. Contraptions (talk) 17:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::::  Hmm, maybe changes in name should be treated case-by-case. Those three, for example, present themselves as entirely different people to their alternative selves, so separate pages make sense, whereas Angof and Faolchu are essentially the same people as they were before, just undead. And now for some pedantic examples of NPCs changing names: Countess Eselde Tamrith → Queen Eselde; Baron Alard Dorell → King Alard; Skald Svari → Sage Svari. I see Angof and Faolchu like those three; the name change doesn't change who they are as people, just how they appear on the outside.

:::::::: Yeah I saw the new info. "Removal of Cadwell's Silver/Gold" is a bit of an extrapolation though; they only said "access to content from other alliances in any order you choose", and we don't know how that's going to work yet. They've said before that the quests aren't going anywhere, and there are numerous ways to implement this and keep Silver/Gold and all of Cadwell's dialogue intact. --Enodoc (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::::::True. Perhaps we should wait till the patch is released on PTS before we reach any conclusions. Ditto for the NPC/justice info, if you think some things still need to be changed. Contraptions (talk) 14:00, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

  I think we can safely add pickpocket and essential/aggression without waiting for the PTS, since I seriously doubt they are going to fundentally change the basic systems of the game. Jeancey (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

: Well, they might, considering TG will apparently be expanding on the Justice system. There's no point paralysing the wiki over potential future updates though, so I say we add whatever's needed. ZOS confirmed that Gold and Silver won't be getting battle leveled in the next update, so we're safe for at least 4 months. —Legoless (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

::Sure. Apparently they are going to add new crimes like vandalism, forgery and trespassing, but of course we don't have details on that yet. But I suppose we could add the existing justice and disposition info for the moment. Have we decided on what names/terms we are going to use? Contraptions (talk) 17:39, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Edit Break 1

  Here's yet another revised suggestion based on the recent feedback, hope it's acceptable.

For neutral/hostile NPC pages:

For generic NPCs, we will not use infoboxes, but instead use a table. The columns will be location/level/race/gender/health. "Location" should be the place where we try to be more specific. For variable race/gender NPCs, we can try to get one picture of each combination and add it to the gallery. For generic transforming NPCs, describing the transformation and any related gameplay changes should be sufficient. 

NPC class pages can be created to house level/health information, which can be transcluded into the table on the NPC page.

For named NPCs, fields will be filled in as per normal. For named NPCs that transform, assuming there is no name change, a new infobox should be included on the same page in a different section with relevant information. 

Both generic and named NPCs that change name will have a separate page if gameplay difference is significant.

For both generic and named NPCs, we will report information regarding the normal zone version only. 

For friendly NPC pages:

For named NPCs, all relevant infobox fields will be filled in as per normal. For generic ones, tables with location/level/race/gender/health will be preferred.

For named NPCs that transform or become hostile, a new infobox should be included on the same page in a different section with relevant information. If the NPC is generic, a description of the transformation and related gameplay changes should be sufficient.

For both generic and named NPCs that change name, there will be a separate page if the gameplay difference is significant.

For friendly NPCs that become combat "allies" for a particular quest section, we could include a note that mentions that they can fight and take damage, but cannot die.

For both generic and named NPCs, we will report information regarding the normal zone version only.  

: Seems acceptable to me. —Legoless (talk) 22:06, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

::If there are no further objections, I'm going to start tabulating the level/health values soon, as well as creating the class pages. (Adapting the new format for all NPC pages is going to be terribly tedious though.) Thanks for the feedback all. Contraptions (talk) 16:25, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Edit Break 2

As Contraptions has already applied a new NPC page layout, I have come to produce a   different one  . I'm still using the standard infobox, as it makes it easyer to spot the basic data, as well as including the right categories, which would needed to be done all by hand if we didn't use it. For characters with few locations, we should list them in the location-field (maybe add the place's level at the end?), but omit it if they appear at many different places. The Health values per level I have hidden behind a ShowHide to condense that list a bit. I also think the abilities are not needed at each NPC's page, as they are already described at the respective class page (that of course should be accessible from the NPCs page). Any opinions are welcome! --        14:00, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

:That actually looks quite good for characters that have few varying parameters. You mention on that page difficulty in using a table inside showhide; in this instance, I think a hardcoded collapsible table would work:

  

:--Enodoc (talk) 15:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 
::Hey! I've poached some code from both suggestions and modified the Vereansu Warrior page with a new format. Any comments on the new layout? Contraptions (talk) 16:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

:::It looks great, but regarding the table with level and health values, I hope that the future battle-levelled values will be included at some point. Or the formula for how this is calculated... Using default base values is probably fine right now, but when the veteran level change is going live, that's something to think about. The base values per se are useless for people who belong to a different faction. Tib (talk) 16:58, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

  The above table was causing some weird spacing on this page so I've turned it into code. —Legoless (talk) 17:15, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

::All relevant health values per level should be transcluded on the table (if it is impossible to transclude tables partially, even the values for all levels). Tansclusion would minimize duplicate informantion, and if ZOS changes anything, we wouldn't have three milion pages to edit. I'm still against the inclusion of locations in this table. This may work for the Vereansu Warrior, who has only one, but the really generic ones, like my favorite Worm Cult Necromancer, would have too many places to list.
::Regarding the class pages Contraptions has been setting up (like this one), they look fine to me, but I think that a health/level table suffices here, too. For a complete list of all NPCs belonging to that class, we should have a  . 
::Oh, and Contraptions, could you do your future suggestions in a sandbox, please? --        18:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

:::Regarding the current version of Vereansu Warrior; if the level/health table is separate from the infobox, I don't think it needs to be hidden. --Enodoc (talk) 19:27, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

::::I've undid the layout test and moved the change to a sandbox. I think for NPCs with 5 or fewer locations we can still list them in the infobox, but any more we should move it to the lower table. This is a purely arbitrary number of course. example here. For the level/health table, is it possible to create a template that auto generates a table based on level or location parameters? So for example when we type 
 
::::we get something like
::::

:::: where the health values are already pre-entered (similar to the crafting material template where the tier locations are already pre-entered.) I wish I could write a new test template but i'm terrible at coding lol. P.S @Tib, we're reporting only normal versions of NPCs for now, since the vet change could render a lot of information obsolete. Contraptions (talk) 06:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

::::: The best starting point for a template for the table would be to template up this info (good job on that!) in a similar way to  . I think criss-crossing info between an infobox and a table may end up being confusing, so if we take 5 locations as the cut-off for a generic NPC with a single race, like Vereansu Warrior (who are all Dunmer), then we could have a setup like   for less than 5 locations, with all details in the infobox, or an infobox-less tabled page for more than one race or more than 5 locations. --Enodoc (talk) 10:18, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

 I've finished gathering all the level and health values and they can be found here. Not sure how to proceed lol. Contraptions (talk) 12:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:Are the equations 100% accurate? Does it involve any floors/ceilings/rounds? With that info, plus the answers to those questions, I can create a calculation template. As an example, one of the equations used in ESO XP is Easy = floor(0.75*standard). --Enodoc (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

::The values in the table that are not in bold are the exact values in game. The equations I stated only relate values within a particular level. I tried finding an equation that links level and health, but none of the ones I got fit the data exactly. The bolded numbers are calculated from the exact numbers, so for example, since I couldn't find a weak level 6 monster, I predict that its health would be 0.42309 * 1529 = 647 (with rounding to nearest whole number) Hope that helps. Contraptions (talk) 15:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:::OK I'll run with that and see what I can do     :)     --Enodoc (talk) 15:53, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

::::Done. You may want to check it over to ensure the numbers all match up correctly. --Enodoc (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:::::Should we get the bot to update the existing values with the template, if they match an entry on this list for their level? --        18:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

::::::@Enodoc Did some comparison, and the values match up well for almost all entries, except some that are off by 1 or 2, but it should be ok. Thanks! Contraptions (talk) 20:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

NPC disposition/justice info

Based on the previous discussion, I think we should add three new fields to the online NPC template. (Starting this so as not to derail the discussion above.)

Essential: Yes/No (can the NPC be killed)
Aggression: Friendly/Neutral/Hostile
Pickpocket: Easy/Medium/Hard (pickpocket difficulty)

Are the terms/fields ok? Need comments and suggestions. Contraptions (talk) 21:01, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

: I think Ally/Friendly/Justice Neutral/Neutral/Hostile works a lot better than Essential and Aggression. "Essential" is not a term used in ESO and there's no reason to shoehorn it in to Online-space just because it was in the other games. An Aggression field fails to distinguish between Neutral mobs (yellow glow, no bounty) and Justice Neutral mobs (grey glow, bounty for attacking), and is also totally redundant in the case of Friendly(/"Essential") mobs. There shouldn't be any space concerns, since having a single field is a lot better than having two. If we don't like the official terms, we could just categorise mobs by their glow colour, but personally I don't think 'Justice Neutral' is that much of a mouthful. To illustrate:



: —Legoless (talk) 21:19, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

::So just two fields - "Disposition: Ally/Friendly/Justice Neutral/Neutral/Hostile" and Pickpocket: "Easy/Medium/Hard" ? That could work. We'd probably need a section on the NPC or Justice page to explain the nuances of each term though. Contraptions (talk) 22:08, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

::: Yep, it would be good to link to an explanation like we do with  etc. —Legoless (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

::::I'm not good with english language, but I think Attitude fits better that Disposition. Additionally, I would scratch the Ally-Attitude/Disposition, since many NPCs are allies only for a short time, the rest being friendly. --        13:09, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::The reason I suggested Essential and Aggression over using the disposition names was that, to me, they require less explanation. "Justice Neutral" means nothing if you're looking at it for the first time, and explaining the difference between "Neutral" and "Justice Neutral" seems like a faff. The four alternatives (not counting Ally) would look something like this:
:::::
:::::The theory here being that enemies only get the Aggression field, friendlies only get the Essential field, and innocents only get the Pickpocket field. Also, whatever way it goes, I don't think there's any need to include the Pickpocket field for anyone other than the Justice Neutral NPCs. And if you're looking for wording, the in-game name for attitude/disposition is "Unit Reaction". --Enodoc (talk) 13:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::: I would prefer to have one field only, both for the sake of consistency between the articles and to prevent inexperienced users from wanting to add the other, unneeded, fields. That would result in a need for an additional pickpocket field for justice neutral NPCs. And, of course, an explaination page of the terms. --        14:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::::Maybe we could set it up such that the pickpocket field isn't shown when the infobox is rendered unless the field is filled in, similar to the "Faction" field. That would look neater. "Unit Reaction" sounds so... robotic though. Still prefer the term "disposition". Contraptions (talk) 13:20, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

  If Unit Reaction is the official term, I'm fine with using that. —Legoless (talk) 17:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

:I'm fine with any term, as long as it's understandable. SarthesArai also created a nice mockup for the new infobox found  . Perhaps we could use it? Contraptions (talk) 13:39, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

::Since "Unit Reaction" sounds a bit weird, we could always just use "Reaction". I assume we won't be using "Class" for friendlies; what about innocents? --Enodoc (talk) 19:27, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

::: If one can be identified, then sure. Many justice neutral NPCs seem to just attack with their fists though. —Legoless (talk) 19:57, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

::::I think "Reaction" might be an acceptable term for the infobox, but the page that explains these terms should be called "Unit Reaction" if that's the official term. As for JN NPC classes, I really don't think including "classes" or "skills" for them is useful as these NPCs have varied reactions in combat. From some testing, when provoked, the same NPC either fought back or fled at random. Like Legoless said most NPCs use "Quick Strike" as their base melee attack with no other skills, although some magey types can shoot flames "Fiery Wind" and conjure bound weapons as well. But as I mentioned above I don't think it's significant enough to include. Contraptions (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

  I've included reaction and pickpocket to the  , and put up a   of an article for  (or ). If we need no classes for justice neutral NPCs, and no pickpocket for neutral and hostile NPCs, should we post them interchangably? That would also solve the question of Creatures, as their class is always based on their race. --        18:28, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

:So you mean if we fill in "class" we shouldn't fill in "pickpocket" and vice versa? Sounds alright to me. Contraptions (talk) 16:44, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Unwanted Shifts To Mobile View

Certain pages within the wiki are redirecting me to the mobile version of the site for no apparent reason. For example, if I select the "book" link from this disambiguation page (in desktop view), I'll always be taken to a mobile view.

Can anyone else confirm? - Bomb Bloke (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

:And now having saved the above edit to the site, that particular link's fixed for me. Haven't reloaded the source tab. Dunno whether other links will continue to give me problems. Still, am I the only one to've run into this? - Bomb Bloke (talk) 00:26, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

::It may have been a temporary glitch—the site owner was working on something earlier. If you do see that happen again, you can try purging the page, if you know how to do that (or if you don't, just editing the page without changing anything will also work).  &ndash;       01:53, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

:::How long might he've been performing this work? The issue started for me a few days ago, and has appeared on both of my systems. - Bomb Bloke (talk) 05:16, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

::::He was only working on it earlier today, so that wouldn't be it, then. I'll point him to this discussion, though, as it might mean that our cache needs to be cleared or something similar.  &ndash;       06:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::I would like to mention that I've been seeing this too, but only when viewing on mobile devices. The wiki never used to have a mobile version for me and now it does (and it is frustratingly trimmed down). I haven't said anything cause, you know, it's a mobile version so it appearing on a mobile device is intended. I would like to mention, however, that the button to go to the desktop view only appears on user pages, which makes it extremely frustrating when I can't go to the view I prefer. Jeancey (talk) 06:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::I was wondering if the recent change in settings would cause problems and was waiting to see if anyone noticed anything (I haven't seen this issue myself in any testing). There are lots of ways to run/setup the mobile skin and I've made some considerable tweaks today. I've switched to fixed domains for the desktop (XX.uesp.net) and mobile (XX.m.uesp.net) instead of having it dynamic/cookie based. This "should" fix this switch issue but may well introduce other problems so let me know how it works for everyone.
::::::One result of this change is that the main site URL will automatically change from www.uesp.net to en.uesp.net. The "www" subdomain will continue to work normally so there's no need to change or update site links that may use it. -- Daveh   17:43, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::: Oh, I was wondering why that kept happening. Will the move have any impact on indexing or site ranking? —Legoless (talk) 17:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::::: It shouldn't but I don't know for sure. The www content still exists so existing indexes for it are still valid. The en content is technically new but identical to the www content. I don't know if Google (and other search engines) are smart enough to figure that out. I can check on it in a few weeks and see how it has affected things if any and add tweaks to "robots.txt" if needed. -- Daveh   18:14, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::::: The whole mobile-version thing is still occurring as of 2/13; we've had a couple people ask about it. ~     07:10, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

::::::::::Can I get someone that has this issue to [mailto:dave@uesp.net e-mail] me their HTTP headers that they get on the page that incorrectly shows them the mobile version? In Chrome you can view the headers by hitting F12, reloading the page, going into the Network tab, choose the top item in the list of resources and copy/paste the headers in an e-mail (not here as the headers probably contain their secure session ID). They can see if a hard-reload of the page works or try purging the wiki page. -- Daveh   14:18, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

  I reset the Squid cache completely this morning in an attempt to fix this issue. Can people who had the issue try the site out and see if they see the same issue or not and let me know? Thanks! -- Daveh   15:55, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

ESO vs previous game images

Here and there I've seen images from ESO replacing images for characters and locations that have appeared in both ESO and a previous game (such as  ), yet I've been thinking that it might not be such a good idea.

The point of this wiki is to have the most up-to-date information based on the Elder Scrolls, I get that, but concerning the TES timeline, ESO isn't exactly up-to-date, it's set around 1,000 years before Skyrim. So wouldn't the most updated versions of these characters and locations be from games released before ESO/set after ESO? So, for example, instead of having the ESO image for Mannimarco be set as his Lore People Summary image, shouldn't it be his Oblivion image, seeing as that is the most recent image of him in the TES timeline?

--Rezalon (talk) 11:40, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

:I think the general goal with an image is that it doesn't have to be newest or up-to-date, but instead be the best representative image of that character/location. The problem arises when you try to define what is most representative: 1) the up-to-date information for us, readers 2) the chronological order in the TES universe 3) using an image from a game where the character/place was most significant... 
:Personally I don't care, because the galleries include various images from different games. In a perfect world I would go for number three, if only it didn't create lots of subjective opinions :) Tib (talk) 12:18, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

::I like the idea of your #3. Failing that, I think the best representation of a thing would be drawn from the game with the "best graphics", as good graphics will produce a good picture. --Enodoc (talk) 12:47, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

:::I would support a mix of #1 and #3: If it is a lore-wise unchanging thing (like already ruined places, immortal characters, and so on), I'd use the screenshot in the last released game, unless it played a MUCH more relevant role in another game. If it is lore-wise subject to change, I would use the image that it is the closest to the time that thing had the most impact (to lore). If no such impact exists, then use the last released game. All DOS-based games should be excluded from this rule, as their graphics are not anywhere close to today's standards. But all in all, I think we don't need to bicker too much about this as long as all relevant images are present in the article (like in a gallery at the bottom of the page) --        14:00, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

:::: I've actually been giving precedent to Oblivion images on place pages for ruins due to concerns of chronology. See : even though a huge, strategically and historically important fort is more 'relevant' than a farmhouse, it makes the most sense to now treat Drakelowe as a farmhouse in lore, and the image should match. People are different, and I agree that we should choose the image that best represents that person rather than the 'latest' (else we'd end up with a lot of corpse pictures). —Legoless (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Skills Are Out

Morrowind NPCs have their skills omitted. Well, I don't see why they can't have their place on those pages; some more content wouldn't hurt. WDYT?   ( )  22:13, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

: That information is not notable in the slightest. We exclude NPC skills for all three main games, for the same reason we exclude other useless data like facial options. —Legoless (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

::So it's omitted for the greater good, then? Virtually all editors standing in defiance for having skills on pages. I thought the wiki was an open repository detailing the franchise?   ( )  22:37, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

::: It's an encyclopaedia, not a data repository. If you really need those numbers and don't have access to the CS, you can find them here. —Legoless (talk) 23:10, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

::::Though this leads to a bigger question: if every edit is going to be dictated by whether it's encyclopaedic content, what about the numbers for health and magicka, and all the hard work editors have been putting into including them? For instance, let's look at Savos Aren. Are the values for his health data? And his magicka? In all cases, skills, magicka, and health, they all have numbered values, therefore its data. And because its data, it has no place on the wiki (or as you call it, an encyclopaedia). I guess you'd find that controversial. As we are on the subject, let's look at all pages, none are an exception. Here is a list of some you'll find controversial:

::::NPC pages. Where do I start? Levels? Check. IDs? Check. Stamina? Check. Not to mention, the health and magicka. Check. Those deal with data, so while they're gone, let's look at other things.

::::Places. It's bad enough they contain respawn time and zone values. But do you know another controversy in them? The console location codes. Youmll only be able to utilise them if on PC. Because that's bad, let's remove all of it from the wiki.

::::Dialogue. When created, it seemed like the ideal idea to have NPC pages incorporate dialogue. It made them less of a stub. Today, it's a lengthly process to have dialogue on pages as it can be a long-winded job, working out the conditions required for NPCs to say things from the code. So let's ban all dialogue from the site.

::::So, now that horrendous data has been outlawed on the wiki, what else do we have? I wager we won't have much. Not to mention there is still strenuous patrolling and cleaning up to be carried out.

:::: But, all jokes and sarcasm aside, no stat values and that stuff will be deleted without a consensus. There are no plans for me to remove any of that content, now or in the future. Now, Legoless, what were you saying before about finding the numbers there? Yes, speaking of which, I really, really agree with what you have said there. It's just as well we have the CSList for accessing to skill values. I appreciate the concern that you don't find the information notable. Well, it's funny how editors can think that about data, skills values, and that. It seems they won't see their place on the site. But, that's the opinion that I must live with. Ahh, well.   ( )  00:16, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::The purpose of an encyclopedia is to present an overview of a specific topic. The point isn't to include all data everywhere, but neither can you say you've presented an overview if you don't include at least some data. Where that line lies is up to each encyclopedia (or wiki) to decide. The line may even change over time, as it did recently with adding magicka values to dead NPCs. In general, the question we ask on UESP is: is it useful information. Health, magicka, and stamina are all useful, since they directly affect how hard opponents are or how resilient allies are. Skills, on the other hand, are much less useful, at least in Oblivion and Skyrim. It's therefore only notable what they're especially good at (and not always even then), rather than listing all skills individually. I can't comment on how notable skills are in Morrowind, but certainly at the time, people didn't seem to think they were notable, or they would've been added.

:::::Then there's the question of who's going to update all the Morrowind NPCs. It's easy to say "have a bot do it", but bots don't just magically add data to the wiki. That takes time and effort on my part, and quite a lot of it, since I don't have direct access to Morrowind data, and getting data out of the CSList database isn't particularly easy. Add to that the fact that I'm chronically ill and have other projects I want to work on when I'm feeling up to it, and I'd have to say no to this one. So, then you're left with the possibility of users adding the data. It's up to individual users to decide if they want to do that as part of a project, and if they do, that's fine, but again, it has to be figured out what would be useful to add given the specific game, and we don't want it to be a haphazard collection of data that only a few NPCs have while most others don't, so you'd want to be sure you have a lot of support for that from people with access to the relevant data. So far, that doesn't seem promising.  &ndash;       01:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
::::::It is not necessary to update  all the Morrowind NPCs. Only some interesting  NPCs. In Morrowind of not more than 100.--Ukraine007 (talk) 02:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::::What constitutes as "interesting"? Better to have the pages be uniform on what is or is not presented (and skills are a big change that will be noticed if one NPC has them and another does not) than bits of (frankly trivial) data strewn about the place. They're niche tidbits of information that don't have much relevance outside of CSList. People who want to know how adept random NPC #1 is at Block for whatever reason can check CSList. That's the place for that sort of thing. If RH were up to getting the bot to input the data for everyone - and it would have to be everyone with a page - even then I'd be against it. Oh, and DG: straw man fallacies and slippery slope arguments are really not my cuppa. —          03:16, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

::::::::   What exactly is interesting about Abelle Chriditte's skill set? The three important skills are already noted on the page under 'Training'. —Legoless (talk) 03:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

 I'm sorry if I'm wasting any more of our valuable time, but to put it bluntly, virtually everyone wants to omit skills and attributes from pages. If you didn't, we would have significantly less non-relevant Morrowind NPCs. This is just silly, as I'm sure you understand. "That information is not notable in the slightest. We exclude NPC skills for all three main games, for the same reason we exclude other useless data like facial options." I'd say that's a very obvious sign no-one wants it. Hope springs eternal!   ( )  12:27, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:If we're not including NPC's skill details because it's not useful, why are we including other useless information like dead NPC's magicka? --Enodoc (talk) 13:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

::There was a consensus apparently.   ( )  14:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:::What would you call a 4-1 then? A mutiny? If you truly care about this issue, and want to suggest something, then endless layers of sarcasm might not be the most effective way to go about this. They are fun to read, but that's pretty much that. Tib (talk) 15:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:::: See the discussion above for our reasoning on magicka. It's more an issue of consistency than anything else since we already had Magicka fields on all those pages, and for Skyrim knowing the magicka of a reanimated follower could be theoretically useful. Listing all NPC skills, on the other hand, is listing a whole lot of numbers for no tangible benefit. —Legoless (talk) 15:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:::::I don't know what to call it, but as for your 'mutiny' comment, I have no plans the boot anybody from the wiki. Skills can be useful, as you can equip NPCs with weapons they are skilled in, and knowing the values can help with choosing weapons for them. So it is not really useless.   ( )  16:15, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

 The information about the skills the NPCs are profficient in can also be found at the respective class page. A quick look there will give you enough info about how this NPC will fight, should it come to combat. --        16:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:Look at it this way; adding skills and atrributes isn't going to make them worse, is it? It's factual content. If, however, we added them at its inception, we would probably have retained them.   ( )  16:42, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

::The actual problem is not that it makes the article worse; the problem is that there are a total of 1,227 NPCs in Morrowind. The ammount of work we had to put into the task of getting every NPC's stats on their page is far greater that the use that is to be gained thereby. --        17:04, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:::I agree that it's useless to try and add the skills of NPCs on their pages. If anything, a compromise could be to just link each NPC to their CS page for further stats, but even that is probably unreasonable to try and do.        19:04, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

::::The task involving putting MWOP templates at the top of the page tales more effort. Not to mention updating the parameters when editing if appropriate.   ( )  19:35, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
:::::I agree that listing the precise values of every skill for every NPC is probably overkill, not to mention of limited interest to most users. WoahBro brings up a good point in saying that the CS list is there for anyone who is interested, but the gamespace articles don't need to be cluttered with information that's a niche interest at best.      20:43, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

 I suggest a compromise of adding a link to the CS list on the  page. That way we don't have to add the skills to all the NPC pages, but the info is more easily accessible to anyone who's looking for it. Would that be okay with everyone? --MetaCthulhu (talk) 21:02, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

:^We could do that. I wouldn't go as far as to ban mentioning an NPC's skills and attributes outright.   ( )  21:15, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

::I think linking the CS on the NPCs page like MetalCthulu said is suitable.        00:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

:::I suppose so.   ( )  18:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
::::That sounds like a fair compromise.      20:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

:::::I don't see the point if you can click their class to see major and minor skills, that seems sufficient to me ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 07:09, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
: I started this thread. What for? Because I did not know that there is such a nice place - Morrowind Game Data. You just have to specify the number of links in convenient places, and the problem is solved.--Ukraine007 (talk) 14:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

::I think if a separate page stores all the info a quick link should suffice. No need for excessive repetition on individual pages and makes access easier. Contraptions (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Online Soul Gems

I've noticed that we have two different categories for soul gems in ESO that may overlap, but I'm not sure. Specifically, I'm looking at   and  . Can anyone shed some light on whether they're supposed to be two different things or if they're the same thing and a few were just missed? Thanks!  &ndash;       20:24, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

: I think we're using Varies now, for consistency with the Gender and Race field. Leveled seems to be a carry-over from the other namespaces; ESO really has no "leveled" content outside dungeon scaling for Group Dungeons and Solo Instances. —Legoless (talk) 21:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

::Okay, I've changed the four that were in the Leveled category to "Varies" and deleted the now-empty category.  &ndash;       03:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

ESO Advanced Item Searching

I've finally gotten around to working on an Advanced Item Search for ESO. I'm still working on it but its usable so feedback and bug reports are welcome. -- Daveh   15:59, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

A Question on Fulstrom Homestead

Fulstrom Homestead is a location visited in the intro quest for the Thieves Guild DLC. In almost all aspects it appears to match other Unzoned guild locations: it's only accessible during the quest, it's identical regardless of alliance, and I imagine it's probably a solo instance. The problem, however, is that the in-game map considers it to be part of Eastmarch.

What should we do about page categorization? I'm thinking we should treat it as Unzoned, but list it on the Eastmarch page similar to how we list strongholds on the Coldharbour zone article. In all practicality, the homestead is entirely separate from the Eastmarch zone. I haven't played too far into the DLC yet, but I imagine we might have similar issues with the heist locations, so it would be good to sort this out and create those place pages asap. —Legoless (talk) 16:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

:I would call it Unzoned and leave it at that; we could mention it in the text on Eastmarch but I don't really think it's worth listing by itself in another section on the Places list. The Heist locations don't have the same issue (there's no marker on the world map anywhere when you're in one). --Enodoc (talk) 20:11, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

:: Something like this? —Legoless (talk) 20:24, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

::: Yeah, that looks fine to me! --Enodoc (talk) 20:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Credible Sources

I have expressed my revelations over the credibility of sources on the Skyrim:Voice Actors talk page. I don't think unverified accounts are credible enough to be a source for the wiki's content. WDYT?   ( )  14:14, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

:It's a good question because UESP wants to provide accurate and credible information. Let me rephrase your question - what degree of credibility should a computer game wiki accept for its sources? UESP presents facts related to a computer game, which is a quite simple concept.
:If you look at the wiki it is already clear that we do not go into extremes to make sure the information is in fact, authentic. A proof of it is the fact that we use references like "Events in ESO", which is rather vague =)
:Anyways, I can't see how a verified Twitter account in any way affects the chance of information being authentic or false. I also find it unlikely that voice actors' accounts are fake, because there is no obvious motivation behind frauds like this. Thus, I obviously agree with Legoless, who wrote on the  page: "Personal Twitter accounts can be used as reliable references if they concern the person themselves", "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves [...] so long as [...] There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity" and ''"Come on, let's not be ridiculous here."'' Tib (talk) 16:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

:: This issue is specific to  rather than a community-wide discussion, so I've added it to the list of Active Discussions at the top of the page. I'd encourage everyone to contribute to the discussion there so we can keep this centralised, rather than continuing here on the CP. —Legoless (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

The "poem" tag or equivalent?

I recently tried to use the " " tag and found out it is not working. So I'm wondering if there is either an equivalent to this, or if it would be worth/possible to implement it? :) 
It's just a minor thing really, but I think it's quite useful for formatting (not only poems). 
According to the Wikipedia, this is what a poem tag does:
    All newlines are preserved by converting them into     tags
    The block of text is enclosed in      tags (as well as a div of class "poem")
    Colons at the beginning of a line are converted into 1 em indentation
    Spaces at the beginning of a line are preserved and no longer invoke the     tag
Tib (talk) 10:24, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

:We don't currently have the Poem extension installed, but if there's a good case for it, we can look into it. I know we have a few books on the wiki that include poems, but so far, there have been few enough of them that we've just formatted them by hand. What is it you're trying to format, exactly?  &ndash;       21:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

::Well, it was only one recently added lorebook that was a poem, so nothing more really. If it looks like there are too few of those poem-type texts then maybe there is no point adding this tag :) But I thought I should ask here just in case. Tib (talk) 22:29, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

:::Would this be useful for things like the 10 etchings on the 7000 steps to High Hrothgar? I seem to remember several pages where I had formatting issues with short multi-line text. I agree that there probably aren't loads of pages it would be used on though. Biffa (talk) 05:25, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

White pages

Hi there, I am using Firefox and occasionally pages of the wiki are white and badly formatted for me. The issue is sometimes fixed by reloading the page, but often persists. Is anyone else experiencing this? I did not experience such problems previously. ~ Bla  

: Sounds like you're switching into the mobile layout. See the above discussion. —Legoless (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2016 (UTC)