UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 23

This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Community Portal discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Important news! The site is...

Ranked in position 15,328 at Alexa's list of top 1,000,000 websites, which is updated daily. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 20:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not that important. 1) Alexa relies on people using their toolbar to gather the data, and it only works in IE. 2) Even if you're interested in the data, we've been around that mark for as long as I can remember - sometimes as high as 7,500. UESP is a popular site: this is not news. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Today's ranking says 15,010. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 12:24, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Today's ranking is 14,845. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 15:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

As rpeh already said, it is not that important. You are serving no purpose by reporting it here each day. --Brf 16:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I put it at my userpage. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 16:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Shadowmere Speed Damaged God Help Me!

(moved to UESPWiki:Reference Desk#Shadowmere Speed Damaged God Help Me!)

Over-re-directing?

So, I was on the wiki while playing Bloodmoon--I've never done the Main Quest, and never really explored Solstheim before, to be honest. And I came across Castle Karstaag for the first time, and decided to search the wiki to see if I was ready for whatever lay within. So, I typed in "castle" in the search box.

And was, of course, directed to the Castles in Oblivion. This isn't the first time I've found myself stymied by the search defaulting to an Oblivion article when I'm looking for something in Morrowind. But this time irked me enough to ask, why? Do we really need to assume that every player is here for Oblivion info? When Skyrim comes out, will we switch to a default setting of "everyone plays Skyrim"? --Somercy 17:29, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah that's quite annoying... I think the wiki sorts stuff first by just searching the word you put in (and considering plurals). Since there aren't any "Morrowind:Castles" or "Tribunal:Castles" it goes to the OB page... In other cases I assume you get redirected to the page with the most hits, and since OB is our most popular namespace you get redirected there. --SerCenKing ^Talk 17:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

To my experience, this happened because your last visited page was in Oblivion namespace. Non-content namespaces (like MediaWiki) are excluded. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 17:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

That's something different: it's because the wiki can't find the page title in the namespace you're in and redirects you to a full search. --SerCenKing ^Talk 17:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

If you're viewing a page in a namespace when you search, it will use that namespace first (ignoring plurals). If it doesn't find a match, you'll get a search results screen instead. If you're on a Special page (like a search result screen), it does a search and will take you to a page if (and only if) there is one result that matches your query, otherwise you'll get another search result screen. So for instance, the only namespace where we have a "Castles" page is Oblivion, so that's where you ended up. If you searched for "Places" on a search screen, you get a result page listing the Places pages in OB, SI, TR, BM, MW etc. It's true that this will probably mean people getting sent to other places at first when we start on Skyrim, because not all the pages will have been created, but that shouldn't last too long. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Side note: You only get redirected if you hit enter after typing it in, or you click "go". The "search" button shows you a search screen.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 00:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Gameinformer

I've noticed nothing's up on the main page yet, but the Elder Scrolls V cover issue of game informer got released today, apparently with screenshots, though I haven't had a chance to pick it up, but the website has some interesting things at these locations: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/06/february-cover-revealedesv-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.aspx http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/06/translating-the-cover.aspx http://www.gameinformer.com/p/skyrimpuzzle.aspx

The translation isn't too hard to figure out. I've no idea how this stuff ends up on the front page, and I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post it, but I figured this was my best bet  :S I already have a translation here so if anyone wants I'll post it up. --Pyramid Lad 12:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It is up on the main page now. --Krusty 00:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Book Locations

I have a feeling this has been discussed before, but I can't find anything, and certainly don't know of any definite conclusion so let's go again. It will become relevant again in 10 months, 3 days anyway so it's worth having the discussion again.

How should we list book locations?

I'm bringing it up now because we just had this edit, and this one, both of which add accurate information, and both of which I patrolled because there were only a couple of locations listed before. But these edits raise a wider question.

In general, Oblivion (and SI) books seem to have between two and five locations. For Morrowind, many books list all the fixed locations. For Tamriel Rebuilt I got RoBoT to produce a list of the first ten locations it found and say "x more" (which led to some irritating cases where there were 11 locations).

All of these options have obvious drawbacks. The first and third options lead to an arbitrary choice of books in the list, while the second can lead to a list larger than the length of the book.

Anyway: I'm throwing the topic open. How should we do this? It's worth saying that it's fairly easy for a bot to go through and re-do all the existing locations should that be desired. rpeh •T•C•E• 00:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I saw those edits and was wondering why it hadn't been noted...But anyway, I think that it may be a good idea to list the major or prominent places. This could prioritize Stores and Merchants, and then perhaps quest related or otherwise notable dungeons, before listing other minor locations if there are not any of those. And then a mention of how many static copies there are in total. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 03:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that was the idea of the "between two and five locations" for OB and SI... but what is "major"? rpeh •T•C•E• 03:40, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I have thought about this as well and have the following idea - I suggest making the Book Summary a bit longer, delete the "locations" and add three new categories: "Availability", "Found in" and "Purchase".

• Availability: Lists the total amount of non-random copies in Cyrodiil - would be great to find out exactly HOW rare or common a book is.
• Found in: Lists up to 5 places where the book can be picked up for free (no stealing). Additionally, after the list, we could add something along the lines of: (+76 other locations)
• Purchase: List of bookstores where the book is available. If not, an N/A.

I think that method would be really great - and, due to the mentioning of available copies, interesting as well. Of course, it doesn't solve the "what 5 locations are major"-issue, so the suggestion can be tweaked in all directions. I have to think about that for a while. --Krusty 08:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

King or Queen?

The Skyrim:Skyrim page, states that "The king of Skyrim has been killed" the talks about "her people". Is it a king or a queen? I'd ask on the relevant talk page but anything with the word Skyrim in the name is blacklisted.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 18:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I presume the "her people" Refers to the people of Skyrim itself, not the kings subjects. Skyrim being refered to as "female" the same way boats and cars are. - Emoboy64 19:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "her" refers to the nation itself, not the ruler. If this is confusing, though, feel free to reword it. --GK^talk2me 18:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Community Template

What do people think about the idea of a template that lists the ways in which a user may be contacted? The reason for asking is that there seems to be a big of a surge in UESP-related social media, and some of it is spilling onto the site. Instead of dozens of "Are you on XXXX" messages, I'd rather see a standard way of presenting contact information so that people can choose whether or not to be involved.

I'm proposing a template called "Social" with params for the most common social networks such as MSN, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and so on. Adding the template would add categories such as "Users active on Facebook" to a user's page so that anybody could easily find other UESP users. Use of the template would, obviously, be entirely optional and voluntary.

I've said before that I don't think UESP should try to be a social networking site, but this strikes a good balance - if you want to meet other UESPers, there's a way to do it. If you don't, you don't have to link in. What do other people think? rpeh •T•C•E• 00:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

A reasonable proposal. Obviously this would help keep UESP 'clean' of such irrelevance in a tidy way. SINISTER ⇔ DEXTER 02:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

No objections here. --GK^talk2me 18:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've created a {{Social}} template. It's deliberately very simple to allow people to add their own formatting. See the template documentation for instructions. Let's hope it's useful. rpeh •T•C•E• 15:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Just a note: I've made it easier to link most profiles in the {{Social}} template. For anything except MSN and Steam, where auto-linking by name is impossible as far as I know, you can now just specify your username and it will auto-link (e.g., {{Social|facebook=RobinHood70}}). Manual links are still supported, both for backwards compatibility and in case you want to customize it. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:38, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Two new Namespaces

I see that we now have a couple of Oblivion Mobile pages courtesy of RaidensTechSupp. The trouble is that the namespace hasn't been created yet, so the pages are technically in mainspace. I'm not 100% sure about calling it "Oblivion Mobile" either. We called the SI namespace just "Shivering", but obviously we can't call this one "Oblivion", and calling it "Mobile" doesn't sound right either. How about "OBMobile", with prefix "OM"?

While we're at it, we can get Daveh to create a namespace for Stormhold too. That's an easy one to name, with prefix "SH". rpeh •T•C•E• 17:56, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me on both counts. --GK^talk2me 18:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Good idea! "OBMobile" is a tiny bit odd, but all things considered, it's the best solution; RaidensTechSupp's pages looks good too! :) --Krusty 19:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Etymologies (again)

Sorry to bring this up again but in the light of the Etmology page's impending demise, we need to revisit our policy about etymologies on NPC / place pages. I'm bringing it up because of this edit. In the past few months I'd simply undo the edit and add the word to Lore:Etymology, but as that page is going to be deleted in the next couple of days, that isn't really an option.

How do we want to handle these now? rpeh •T•C•E• 17:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

My vote would be to outright delete it. There needs to be something more to tie the two terms together than just the word itself. --GK^talk2me 21:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I forgot about that Deletion Review, but I agree with GK - I just looked through the page (all the danish ones are more or less wrong, btw), and while it is true that many of the words have some kind of scandinavian tone to it, it is simply not necessary to list them, not on any page. I suggest that we simply revert all Etymology additions in the future - or move them to the talk page. I recently did that with two uneven notes on Skjorta's page (Skjorte=shirt in danish), and nobody cared. --Krusty 21:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind the etymologies when they're clear-cut, but in the interests of not having debates about what's clear-cut, I'd support the idea of moving them to the talk page. I wouldn't complain about outright deletion either, but talk page would be my preference so the contributors don't feel like their suggestions are being rejected out of hand. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Redundant suggestions

I already brought this matter to the Chameleon page, but it might help to put this matter up here as well. Basicly i was wondering if those suggestion's along the line's of 'With 100% chameleon you can....' or 'use the gray cowl to avoid bounty' are really needed. They seem obvious to me, and you could use 100% chameleon to basicly complete the whole game without problems, so to speak, but do we really need to tell people that on every single quest where it could have some use? My obvious point is to remove these note's and yes there are alot of those, but i don't think there is much pressure on it, we can remove them whenever we happen to coincidently come across one, so to speak. That was my opinion, any thoughts? Razor 21:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Generally, we don't add those types of tips to individual pages. They're certainly appropriate on the Chameleon page or the Gray Cowl page, but on any other pages, there would have to be a good reason to include them (e.g., a General Hints page would be appropriate, but a quest page would almost certainly not). Normally, when we see them added, we've been removing them, but things have been missed over the years, so they've ended up being added. At least as far as I'm concerned, they can normally be removed whenever they're found. If in doubt, you can always bring specific examples up either here or on the relevant page(s). – Robin Hood↝talk 22:56, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This reminds me of this discussion from last year. I don't want to see these tips on every page, but I think it would be useful to have them somewhere. Do we want to revisit that suggestion? rpeh •T•C•E• 04:52, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I already expressed my opinions on the matter on the Chameleon talk, but rpeh's suggestion sounds reasonable, if not for anything else, then to put all of these weird tips (Skull of Corruption, Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, Chameleon, 200+ skill level in Acrobatics ect ect) under one roof. What we need to figure out is what kind of tips we should include. The four examples I just provided are the ones that came to mind immediately, but there's probably more? Lets hear some opinions and suggestions. --Krusty 11:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I definately agree we should keep the tips somewhere, altough my first thought would be on the individual page's (as in on the chameleon page we state you can do this and that wiht 100% chameleon, for example). About putting them under one roof, i don't know if we have a page like 'general quest tips' or something... but if we have something similar to that we could add them there. Obviously you have all been much longer on this site then me so..yea... these are just my opinions. Oh and to add to the four you listed, Krusty, frenzy comes to my mind as well (use frenzy to avoid bounty etc. etc.). Razor 11:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the tip should go on the relevant page (Cowl tip on the Cowl page; 100% chameleon on chameleon, etc), but only on that page and the general tips page.

At the moment, Oblivion:Tips redirects to Oblivion:FAQs but there's no reason we can't expand it into a full page with a link to the other one. rpeh •T•C•E• 12:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Old Log Page

There's a really old page, UESPWiki:Log, which is linked to by a couple of archives and at the top of UESPWiki:News#Older News, then there are two other pages that are only linked to from that page: UESPWiki:Feedback and Template:Newsitem. Does anybody see any particular need to keep these? I can't just do a normal Proposed Deletion, as the Log page is fully-protected. – Robin Hood↝talk 21:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

That page has annoyed me in the past, mainly because it's full of outdated links and templates. On the other hand, it gives a great history of the site's early days. Reformatting it to use a half-decent template is probably a good idea; deleting the whole thing would erase a chunk of interesting info. rpeh •T•C•E• 03:03, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Roleplaying Idea

I would Appreciate if someone could post my role paying Idea for Oblivion!

Dragon Warriors; Background: A group of Warriors who draw their strength from the Dragon heart, the Dragon's indomitable will to survive, and tap into the Intelligence and Raw strength of Dragons. only a select few can rink the Dragon blood and join the ranks

Create a custom class; Specialization: Combat Attributes: Strength, Intelligence Major Skills: Blade, Athletics, Destruction, Restoration, Light Armor,you can choose the other 2.

Recruit your Followers into the Warriors, Use Rosethorn Hall or Arborwatch as your lodgings and The basement of Benirus Manor as your base of operations, Keep a Silver Goblet on the altar to let new members Drink the dragon blood, Create Fire Spells and act as if it is fire breath, Enchant a Sword and Name it Dragon Fang, Worship Akatosh because of his avatar.

How you're character acts is fluid, the Dragon Warriors' morals are not set in stone.

Ranks: 1. 1 high Dragon, Leader. 2. 5 Drakes, Sub-leaders, 1 can be your Successor. 3. Seeker 4. Wyrm 5. Dragonling

Rules: 1. The Dragonheart is our lifeblood, never forget that. 2. Never Betray the Warriors. 3. The High Dragon and Drakes are Absolute authority. To Break any Rule Results in Death. (the Adoring Fan is perfect for this

If you're playing the PC, download the Akatosh Mount Mod.

If it can be Improved or is to much, please let me know. — Unsigned comment by 77.102.200.23 (talk) at 22:10 on 5 March 2011 (UTC)

If I remember correctly we deleted our role-playing pages, or moved them to userspace. Feel free to make an account and create a page for this then. --AKB ^Talk 22:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Task List Cleanup?

Is it just me or could the task list use a thorough cleanup? It is filled with oddities, completed and semi-completed tasks and tasks that seems to break the rules in that they are hardly community tasks at all.
A few examples starting from the top of the list:

• I remember asking about the Daedric Quests over a year ago on the IRC and was told that the task was finished. However, this discussion says otherwise. Guidelines are needed here, so people can understand what needs to be done.
• Expand the Dremora page is crossed out and could be removed?
• Both “A page for Mankar Cameron’s Paradise” and “Create a new page for the Night Mothers Crypt” does not even belong on the list as they are already being worked on and is hardly community work.

The list goes on and on and I think it is about time we removed some of the entries, simply to avoid confusion and to get our facts straight. If no one else objects, I’ll remove the above examples and update the OPRP entry according to the new guidelines. I encourage every experienced editor to read through the list and cross-check if any tasks have been completed/lives up to the guidelines for the task list. When removing a task, it may be a good idea to list it on the talk page, just to keep track if anything goes wrong. Thanks in advance. --Krusty 12:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Interview of Todd Howard

I'm not sure where this necessarily belongs, so if this belongs elsewhere please move it. Official Xbox Magazine did an [interview of Todd Howard], which is partially available online. If nothing else a somewhat interesting peak at the thoughts of the Executive Director of the last few Elder Scrolls games. Most notably he claims that the fans documenting the games better than they do,

"We actually use the fan wiki online a lot," he told us. "It's pretty amazing. They did a better job cataloguing it than we did!"

(as seen [here] in a separate article). Unfortunately neither Todd or OXM specify what fan wiki that is so we can't take bragging rights for it. He could be referring to us, possibly the Imperial Library, or heaven forbid a Wikia site. — Unsigned comment by Alpha Kenny Buddy (talk • contribs) on 8 March 2011

I think I can say for sure it's not Wikia! He's talking about Lore, which almost certainly means he meant The Imperial Library and confused it with us, because it's not a wiki. On the other hand, if they're looking for information about a character or location from a previous game, they'll probably use us. rpeh •T•C•E• 05:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Funnily enough they are asking the same question at the library. I think it is safe to say neither site will end up taking credit for this. --AKB ^{Talk Contribs Email} 21:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

And therefore we should take it as he meant them both! Both sites have amazing information, so I think both sites did a better job than Bethesda at cataloging the lore. Zaldir 15:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Articles in Namespace

I was wondering if there was anywhere that detailed the number of articles in a particular namespace; I couldn't find anything, and thought it may be interesting to add the information to each namespace's main page. I looked at MediaWiki and discovered a Parser Function that would do this; just like {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} shows the number of all articles in the wiki (106,862), there is a Parser called {{PAGESINNS:<index>}} that would give the number of articles in the namespace identified by <index> (eg. I think the Oblivion namespace has index 116). The only thing I found is that to use it, the extension $wgAllowSlowParserFunctions must be enabled.

So I just thought I'd mention it as a suggestion, and see what happens from there. --91.84.70.165 11:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason you want this information? Since it looks like a config change is necessary, the best place to ask is on Daveh's talk page, but there doesn't seem to be a clear reason to enable an (apparently) expensive parser function. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:55, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Not particularly, I just thought it would add extra depth to the "number of articles" stat by saying what they were about and where they were concentrated, since this wiki divides them up distinctly into different namespaces, more so than any other wiki I know of. By 'expensive', do you mean expensive in resources or expensive in money? If it's money, I didn't realise you had to pay for extensions, and it wouldn't be worth it. I don't know much about independent wikis and how their administration works; I spend most of my time on Wikia. Anyway, as I said, it was just a suggestion to see what others thought. --Enodoc 16:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

It's expensive in terms of server resource (hence the "Slow" in the variable you have to allow). It's true that knowing the figures would be somewhat interesting, but the danger in enabling something like this is that it allows an easy way to disrupt the site. That's probably not a major issues (I can't believe it's REALLY expensive) but even so, if there's no pressing need for the information it's probably best to leave it off. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Firewall

My firewall doesen't seem to like Uesp Wiki as it trys to stop me using links and the IRC client can this site be trusted? Its a very good site but I just don't want to get any viruses--Pat8u 11:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There aren't any viruses on here, and the IRC client is perfectly clean. I'd be interested to know what firewall is saying there's a problem though. rpeh •T•C•E• 11:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My antivirus is Avast and my firewall is the Standard Windows Xp one and my email link blocker is Smartscreen--Pat8u 12:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I use Avast and the Windows firewall too, and there's no problem. Is it just the IRC client that's causing the problem or the whole site? rpeh •T•C•E• 12:10, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Suggested new content for Oblivion:(Element Name) Shield pages.

Aside from unifying the three elemental shield effects (Fire, Frost, and Shock) into a single page, I'd like to suggest that a new line, preferably in bold text, be added for the more literal-minded player. The meat of my argument can be found here, in Talk:FireShield[[1]], but the gist of it is that veterans of other RPGs like D&D and Dungeon Siege, or even RPG-lite games like Diablo, may take (Element Name) Shield to mean "Shield of (Element) that strikes back at enemies with said element's damage-type", and not "Purely defensive shield that splits protection between Physical and specific Element type" as the case is in Oblivion. References or comparisons need not be made to other games, just the distinction between what these shields are and what they are not. Predcon 15:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The pages already adequately explain what the effects do. If anybody is coming to UESP from a different game, reading the Fire Shield page, and still thinking that it fires something at an enemy, it's not UESP's problem. Combining the three pages into one is also a bad idea. There are many differences between the pages, and combining them would cause unnecessary confusion. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Please do not comment on this topic here: debate continues at Oblivion talk:Fire Shield. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Blog - Reminder

It seems to have been forgotten, but the UESP Blog is open to pretty much anyone who wants to become an author. Just read Daveh's guidelines on that link. If you want to post about what you want from TESV: Skyrim, this is the place to do it. Ask Daveh for an account and then tell the world what you think. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

That looks interesting. I read the blog on occasion, but didn't know it was open to everyone. Maybe if I ever have something interesting to write about I'll give it a shot. Legoless 00:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Three things: 1. thanks for letting me know that it's open to everyone. Two. I probably still won't post anything on it, as I've got one of my own, but it's a thought. Three: I don't know if you watched the OB_talk:Fire Shield page or not, so I'll fold in that I responded to you there, here.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 01:43, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Lore - Ingredients on the Flora Page

A recent discussion about removing oranges from the lore article revealed that there are many such ingredients all over the flora section of the wiki. As these don't involve actual plants, I don't feel they deserve a section. For comparison, look at the Daggerfall ingredients. Many of these are plant materials, yet we don't list those. What is the general opinion on this? Do we remove all ingredients without a plant to back them up? Or do we go all-out and start listing things like "Green berries"? Legoless 23:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I see no need to list non-floral (There is no in-game plant, meaning things like bloat will be removed) ingredients there. Instead I think we should create a lore ingredients page (or at least I don't think we have one, I didn't see it when I did my searches for it) that lists all ingredients that can be used for alchemical purposes. This would allow us to keep a flora page intended for plant life, while also making sure ingredients like oranges get mentioned. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 02:27, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree that the entries with no flowers should go. That would mean losing entries for Apple, Garlic, Onion and Pear, and arguably Ironwood although I can see that one staying. I'm not sure about a Lore:Ingredients page though. rpeh •T•C•E• 08:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I already started working on it, but if anyone thinks it is a bad idea say so here. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 13:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it's difficult to see what would go on it that's not already covered in great detail on the game pages. The Flora pages at least cover information not readily available elsewhere. I'm quite sure you can prove me wrong though :) rpeh •T•C•E• 13:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

On topic though can we get a bit more feedback since this would mean deleting at least one page, and removing content from several others though? --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 13:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The main problem I have if that there is no general Flora page. Lore:Flora simply redirects to Lore:Flora A. There isn't a clear description of the section, otehr than the short description on Lore:Main Page#Flora: Information about the plants that can be found growing in Tamriel, especially those that can be used for alchemy. This is a bit counter intuitive with this discussion, as it implicitly states alchemy. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 15:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought this discussion was about removing the Ingredients which have no plants which spawn them from the Flora page. Where did someone say we should remove the entire Flora page? --Brf 15:20, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

(←) I'm not sure what you are referring to, if you mean my comment I said that as the O flora page will be deleted as onions have no floral counter part. To reply to DKong, it also explicitly states that it is for plants, not alchemical ingredients. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 15:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

{EditConflict}The point I was making there was that nowhere does it specifically say that Flora is only items that have in-game plants. I think that there should be a general Flora page in Lore space, as well an Ingredients page with its subsections. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 15:27, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd support that, it would give us the ability to better define flora. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 15:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I see. Yes, there should be a general Flora page. As for its definition, Flora generally refers to plants, not to their products. Therefore, an Orange Tree, if it existed in the game, would belong on the page, while the orange itself would not. --Brf 15:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

My problem with this is that biota (mushrooms) would have to be removed if we went with a strict definition of flora. We will have to define it as all plants and plant like creatures or something like that. But then you could argue that plant products like oranges could be included under our looser definition. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 15:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Mushrooms grow and regenerate though, like other plants, while an orange does not. --Brf 16:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

On the subject of ingredients like ginkgo leaves, ironwood nuts and bloat: I think they should remain on the flora page. While the plants may not be identified as the source of said ingredients in-game (or, in bloat's case, just doesn't appear), sufficient information is provided in the CS to warrant their inclusion. If the aforementioned ingredients page is created, I think it should be similar to the bestiary - a table with a short description and the games it features in (e.g. Vicar Herbs are in both OBMobile and Shadowkey). Legoless 17:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Expanding Lore:Flora into a proper page is a good idea. Something similar needs to happen with the rest of the pages that currently have a _A structure. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

(←) Since we haven't really reached a real consensus here I'll nominate pages I, O, and Y for a deletion review. The decisions there can be used to apply to the rest of the pages. I only has Ironwood nuts, the decision there will allow us to decide whether ingredients without an in-game, but CS confirmed floral equivalent should remain. [[Lore:Flora O|O]] is for ones with no Flora backing it. [[Lore:Flora Y|Y]] only has Daggerfall ingredients which if I understand correctly none have a floral equivalent. I'll start them in a second. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:15, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit: Actually I'll hold back on that until we have a main Lore:Flora page. Unless someone else thinks this is a good idea? --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:19, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should hold off removing things until most of the other work is done. Legoless 20:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Is somebody prepared to take this on? A big task like this is a feather in the cap for any editor. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

All it takes is for somebody to start a sandbox. This is a perfect opportunity to start a reputation for quality editing. Yes, your work will be criticised, but then that's true of any work you do on the wiki. Start the sandbox, spend a little time on it, then ask for comments. Involve other editors at an earlier stage if you think they'll be interested and that their involvement will help..

Seriously, gang. This is about as non-controversial as it's ever going to get. I'd do it myself but this is a great chance for somebody to show they can manage a change. This is the kind of change that's looked for when people are being considered for admin status, not just patroller status. rpeh •T•C•E• 22:11, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay since this is a large, but simple task that we should get off our plate here are some of the suggested guidelines gathered from this conversation. I might be able to turn this into something given a little time. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 22:29, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• It must either be plant-life or fungi. The inclusion of both is for simplicity so we don't have nearly two identical groups of pages. Fauna do not qualify.

• It produces an ingredient (exception Nirnroot, Nirnroot is the ingredient and plant)

• It regenerates (Exception Nirnroot)

• It is backed by a plant, as in something like an apple does not qualify. We are listing plants, not there products. (still disputed)

I've managed to create a somewhat decent rough draft (see here). I think the guidelines I create reflect what was discussed here, please voice any concerns about them on the talk page. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 23:25, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't fully agree with the part about needing an ingredient. Pitcher plants, for example, clearly belong in flora. Yet they produce nothing. I also think the 'respawn' rule is a bit unnecessary, and I still personally want bloat to be included, but it's not a big deal. Legoless 16:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of things like that, where do we put the Mushroom Towers? They're obviously a plant, but produce nothing, and act like a structure.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 17:12, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, Re: Bloat, I'd agree that it should be in there, as there are models for the plants and such - it was obviously a time issue or something, and they exist, though they can't be found.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 17:14, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

To answer to TAO we don't include those, not currently (I think) or under the proposed guidelines. This is precisely why I added the guideline "It must be named". If we included non-named flora we would have to add a bunch of flora that is hardly explained or even mentioned, like the mushroom towers. To reply to Legoless I can see the it must regenerate guideline going, but I honestly don't think we should include things like bloat. If we do this will only cause more arguments over what is included. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 17:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

(←) After reading this discussion, I've decided to chime in on the issue of bloat. Looking at the guidelines for what qualifies as flora, it seems bloat meets most of these, and although not found in game it is therefore hitched at the "plants mentioned in other sources" guideline. Later in the same guideline it says, that things mentioned in books, must meet other guidelines, which bloat does. It looks like a fungi to me, and it certainly does produce an ingredient. It is from another source - the games files, so by the guidelines currently written, technically counts as flora worth noting. For those reason, i think that bloat should be included, because i see no reason why it should not. On a further note, I'll be willing to help on this revamp. - Emoboy64 00:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Since the consensus is against the removal of bloat, I'll drop the issue. Feel free to help out however you see fit to, I've been somewhat busy with other things so I've not been dedicating as much time as I should to it. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 00:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I've made a start, and will continue until I cannot describe any more plants! Hopefully we dont edit conflict at some point! - Emoboy64 00:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems that all non-flora has been removed, and I have added many descriptions to the flora already there. What is left I will check over after school, and re-word if necessary as I suspect it will be done by that point. Glad to have been able to help out - Emoboy64 01:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Back onto the subject of the overview page... It is mostly done as far as I am concerned, it could still use a few more tweaks to make the text a little less awkard, but besides that does anyone else have anything to say about the guidelines I have proposed? I think they are decent now. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 02:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. What will happen to pitcher plants? I think that the "Must produce ingredient" rule should go, as the intent is covered by the others, and this way we don't have odd cases like that here something is obviously a plant, and named, and in game, etc., but it isn't there because it doesn't produce something.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 08:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops. Addendum: Since bloat is being kept (which is good), Ironwood should probably stay.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 08:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

(←) Ironwood is staying, due to both the CS and Special Flora of Tamriel. I removed that guideline though. Anymore problems with the sandbox? --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 11:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Done! All the pages are harmonised the best I could make them. They may require some more tweaking, but I have made my best effort at getting them up to a generally similar description. All we need is this Flora homepage from AKB and we should be good with it! - Emoboy64 16:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

My Sandbox is pretty much done. In the sense that as of now I believe the original concerns have been met. It lays down specific enough guidelines to make it clear what belongs in Lore:Flora, but vague enough to allow for future additions to either already meet these guidelines, or it could be easily altered to make them meet them. I'm still tweaking it but I am now somewhat comfortable with the notion of moving it out of my sandbox. So if anyone has any reservations about the overview page please voice them now, or correct it yourself (All users can edit it, as it clearly says at the top). I also wish to say that I believe all current content on the Lore:Flora pages meet the standards proposed in the sandbox after the earlier edits to the articles. So, it may be a bit early, but good job everyone.--AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit:I'm taking the silence that there are no objections? I am launching the page at Lore:Flora which is as I write this only a redirect to Lore:Flora#A. If nothing else it is a somewhat decent overview, and now that it is out of userspace feel free to edit it as you see fit. We should also alter the Flora template to now include the overview page. Sorry I couldn't work on this more as I've been quite busy. I also wish to say that though I am unsatisfied with the end result, it is better than having the overview page just be a redirect. So if nothing else it is a decent replacement for what used to be there. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 00:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It looks good to me! Certainly much better than a redirect. rpeh •T•C•E• 07:39, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Please post further comments on Lore talk:Flora

OB quest page images

I just stumbled upon two quest pages (this and this) with square images in the upper right corner; as far as I know, 4:3 is the preferred AR for quest pages, but have we ever reached an agreement - I put a NeedsImage tag on the Alchemy Training quest page, for obvious reasons. Fact is, we should be consistent about this. Anyone else stumbled upon square images on quest pages? And any opinions? --Krusty 23:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Quest images have always been problematic. There are many quests that give obvious photo-ops, but loads that have no easy photo (the OB:Master Training quests for instance). Personally, I hate to see place/NPC images being used as quest images, but it's often difficult to avoid it. Maybe it needs somebody with an outside eye to spot the opportunity for a good picture, or maybe there just isn't one. If only we had somebody active on UESP who had experience editing films who could provide outside expertise! ;-) rpeh •T•C•E• 21:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, thinking that it was only a couple of pages that didn’t have 4:3 images, I started going through them – and gave up when I saw the quest image for Accidents Happen, which is really good. And you are right, it is almost impossible to come up with image ideas for the master training quests – and that great image of Sinderion fits the quest page perfectly. I’ll let my “consistency-fever” rest for a while. :) --Krusty 21:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The idea is still valid. Now we've pretty much sorted NPC and place images, I can probably get RoBoT to flag odd quest images. Not as "Images Needing Cleanup", but as a new category for images lacking a certain inspiration. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:58, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow! A lot more than I ever expected. Where to go from here? --Krusty 16:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

From a very quick glance through, some of them just need re-shooting to be properly 4:3. For some, I can think of better alternatives fairly easily. Others are a lot trickier - we've had {{NeedsImage}} tags on four MW quest images for ages because there's no obvious alternative.

In case anybody wants to help, please note that the "extra" categories reported should NOT be removed - it's just a way of highlighting that the image is used on an NPC/Place/Whatever page. This isn't guaranteed to be 100% accurate because not all images have categories beyond the copyright one. In general, if you're replacing an image, please make sure it's not used elsewhere. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay; I'll go through the OB ones, just to check if any of them can be "cured" by a simple reformat to 4:3. Too bad this image is so small... :( --Krusty 16:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

City residents added by plug-ins

Looking through the Anvil page, I noticed that the Anvil People table does not include the NPCs added by the different plug-in’s (in Anvil’s case, The Prophet, Selene Duronia, Amragor and Dahlia Rackham). However, I noticed that several plug-in specific NPCs are present on the list for Chorrol. I think we should get these tables up to date (AND, in the process remove visitors from the Imperial City, like Oblivion:Mandil). It is a minor clean-up project and I will get started soon, unless somebody thinks it’s a really bad idea? --Krusty 09:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me - I must confess I've never checked those as I just assumed they were correct. :/ rpeh •T•C•E• 09:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I have a feeling that these tables were created a long time ago, probably using the Anvil Citizen Faction as reference. At least that was my theory back when Corevette and I cleaned up the residents for the Waterfront District. Anyway, as this is obviously a mistake, I'll just get to work and, next to the name, add some good old †'s and ‡'s with the appropriate note underneath the table. --Krusty 09:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

"Fixed by UOP" tag needed in article.

The following needs to be added right after the paragraph "The same bug can occur on the Bands of the Chosen from Paradise if you cast a Bound Gauntlets spell. You will be stuck with the 50% Weakness to Fire and cannot open the sealed door." in the Oblivion:Glitches#Permanent Effects from Quest Items article.

:* {{UOP}}

...as the UOP fixes this bug. I would appreciate it if someone who has editing access to this article adds it in. I would usually do so myself but the article seems to be semi-protected for some reason. -XJDHDR 08:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Who is Linus lulu?

just south of mount kand, on the xbox morrowind goty i found a plain skeletal corpse on top of a mountain ridge holding a silver staff of shaming (which shows up under generic magic items) and Linus lulus' Maran Amulet and Linus lulus' Stendarran Belt, which i can't find anywhere on this site. Not sure how appropriate putting the item stats on this post is but here it goes :) Linus lulus' Maran Amulet charges: 150 weight: 1.0 value: 300 cast when used: fortify speechcraft, restoration, mysticism, conjuration 5 pt's for 30 sec. on self. and Linus lulus' Stendarran Belt is exactly the same except the skills are attack, unarmored, blunt weapon, and enchant. I'm just wondering who this dude is, I don't remember ever hearing mention of his name before. Thank you. --67.160.152.136 13:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Linus Iulus' Maran Amulet and Linus Iulus' Stendarran Belt are both on the site. I think the problem is you misread the "I" for a "l" in your search. They're both related to the Imperial Cult quest The Silver Staff of Shaming. rpeh •T•C•E• 13:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Lore:Ingredients?

You may be aware that I've been working on a sandbox to document the ingredients in the games for the lore section. It was recently put on the back burner to harmonize and improve Lore:Flora, which by the way I believe went well. Now that I am working on it again, my question is, do we want this? Or am I just wasting my time from other tasks? I am just about done on the ground work but I don't want to proceed unless I know that this will leave my sandbox eventually.

If you do wish to see it stay, I'd also appreciate any advice or suggestions for this project. It would be wise to learn what is wanted from this before it would require me to do any major re-writes. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 17:52, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure this serves a useful purpose. Ingredients are only relevant on a per-game basis, and this sort of list doesn't really help with anything. Lore space shouldn't be seen as a repository for lists: it's about building up the sort of view a typical resident of Nirn might have about the world. In practical terms, that means that while they will probably know that blackberry plants produce blackberries, they wouldn't know about the alchemical effects of blackberries. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:14, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

True, but they might know that Mandrake is often used to help with the treatment of diseases. Rather than (or in addition to) actually listing the effects, we might want to write it from the perspective of a typical resident of Tamriel.--Ghurhak gro-Demril _{or TAO}^Yes? 23:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

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