UESPWiki:Community Portal

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This is the Community Portal, the main discussion forum for community-wide discussions about UESP's operations, policies, design, and improvement.

All members of the community are welcome to contribute to this page. Please sign and date your post by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar. If you would like to start a new post, please place it at the bottom of the page with a two-tier (==) heading.

Before starting a discussion here, please review the other community pages below, as your question or suggestion may be more appropriate on another page.

Other pages for community-wide or general questions include:

  • Policies and Guidelines — A list of policies and guidelines, which each have individual pages; their talk pages are the best place to discuss these policies (see Active Discussions for links to active policy discussions).
  • Administrator Noticeboard — If you have a request that requires an administrator, you may want to post your comments there.
  • Deletion Review — An area to discuss controversial page deletions and reach a consensus.
  • Reference Desk — This is the best place for questions about how to play Elder Scrolls games.

Specific requests can be made on these pages:

  • Bot Requests — This page can be used to request that one of the wiki's bots take on a task.
  • Image Requests — You can request specific images for articles here.
  • Creation Kit Information Requests — You can request specific Creation Kit information for articles here.
  • New Page Requests — You can request a new page here if you were prevented from creating the page yourself.
  • Purge Requests — If you are having problems viewing an article on UESP, the page may need to be purged. New purge requests can be made here.

In addition, past discussions from the Community Portal can be found at:

  • CP Archives — Lists all of the past discussions from the Community Portal page, including major discussions and chronlogical archives.
Active Discussions

Many discussions of community-wide interest are held on pages other than the community portal. Discussions about specific policies belong on the policy talk pages, for example. The following table lists other discussions that are currently in progress on other talk pages. If you start a discussion on another talk page, please add it to this list. If a discussion listed here has been inactive (i.e., no comments of any type in at least a week), please remove it from the list.

Location Date started Topic Listed here by

Elder Scrolls Castles Canonicity[edit]

Now that Elder Scrolls Castles has been released, its time to discuss its lore affects it can possibly have. Are we going to consider it canon, partially canon, or what? Are we considering only the opening cutscenes and maybe flavor text canon? How do we handle say Tiber Septim being labeled as a Nord? Say if the game later on includes daedric artifacts, is it ok to say that "at one point in time, the kingdom founded by Odar the Brave bordering Rivercrest obtained X artifact? or say just include photos of them. I have many questions.Analeah Oaksong (talk) 01:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I personally believe partially canon is the right choice, I think the opening story and character and item descriptions should be considered valid sources, aswell as things like appearances in the case of enemies. However most of the actual gameplay shouldn't, atleast attempting to date it. As theres things like the Synod and Mages Guild coexisting. I feel like some of the events and things could be mentioned, but as undated things and not inherently connected to the kingdom in the game. Though I think certain ingame dialogue can be used for things like placing the location of the kingdom. Its a weird case by case thing. -Tarponpet (talk) 1:23 AM, Janurary 18th, 2024 (EST)
I agree with Tarponpet, we'll have to go case-by-case with this one. Given the disregard for the setting's chronology, I would categorise most information from Castles as gameplay rather than lore. The best comparison we have is Legends gameplay, where it isn't unusual to see e.g. Aela the Huntress on the board alongside Abnur Tharn, despite those two characters never interacting in lore. Does that mean we can disregard information in Castles provided outside of gameplay? I don't think so. Similar to how the Hulking Scalon card confirmed that Scalons are Grummites after 12 years of intended ambiguity, I think that the Tiber Septim NPC in Castles is a valid source for clarifying Tiber's "canonical" race. The game has bad lore, but in the absence of other sources we will have to make the best of it. —⁠Legoless (talk) 10:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
I think anytime we get a race for a figure with no confirmed race elsewhere we should definitely go with the source that gives us one, but in the case of Tiber we do have a couple other stated races for him in Atmoran and Breton. Even if we consolidate the idea of being a Nord/Atmoran into one which the lore often does that still leaves us with the Breton conflict. To reveal my biases on the matter, I'm someone who believes the traditional view that Tiber Septim is a figure who came from Atmora and thus would be considered Nord and or Atmoran racially. My biases aside, I honestly don't find this castles race thing to be an incredibly strong source even though it in theory is first hand.
I know this is probably a bit of a different case but I would almost consider this akin to Pelinal Whitestrake being considered an imperial internally in tes 4 or something of that equivalent. My guess is Castles race system wasn't designed to handle complexity or nuance so they just slapped Nord, arguably the least controversial race available on him. I'd be willing to be open minded to discussion on this though, thoughts? Dcking20 (talk) 11:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
We see Tiber Septim appear as an Imperial back in Morrowind, so him appearing in a spin-off game as a completely different race, a Nord, should be mentioned, but not in the Navbox as his actual race. It could be an avatar like Wulf the Imperial from Morrowind. Plus we see in Redguard and in Legends he is a brunette, but in Castles he is depicted as blonde. It should be noted npcs in Castles doubt its Tiber Septim at all. Analeah Oaksong (talk) 20:39, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
I personally think most if not all of Castles should be disregarded. As someone who played it, game has zero regard for lore and is purely a time-waster game. At most, I agree the opening cutscene, initial ruler (since they're the same for everyone iirc) and general location of the kingdom (if we have one, I don't recall) should be written down. But anything beyond that "narrative" is irrelevant and purely gameplay fluff. It somehow ignores time moreso than ESO does which is already quite the feat. CoolBlast3 (talk) 20:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps Tiber Septim was a bad example to go with, but this only exemplifies the initial point around having individual discussions when trying to cite Castles on lore articles. I think a consensus-driven approach is better than disregarding it wholesale. It's not the first mobile spinoff we've had to reconcile, and it won't be the last. —⁠Legoless (talk) 23:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Yeah on the note of Castles lore in general I would say there's definitely some stuff we can use. For one the Odar the Brave lore page that was deleted could stand to be restored if an admin could retrieve it or if the info is gone it should be remade. As for other things, I think as stuff comes forward we can look at it on a case by case basis like Lego said. Dcking20 (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
I restored the Odar page, Dcking. I know nothing about it, but hopefully that can help you start off with updating it. —Dillonn241 (talk) 00:27, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

(←) Just as a note, it was deleted because Castles was in pre-release at the time, and pre-release content is not allowed in lore. Now that castles is out, that isn't an issue. Jeancey (talk) 22:41, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I know why it was deleted, the request to retrieve it from its deleted state was one of convenience since very little info changed. Thanks for doing that Dillon! Dcking20 (talk) 23:04, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
In a sorta similar vein, is there a Hero of Castles? Any title the player tends to be referred to by? And if there is, would it even be canonical? My phone isn't compatible so I can't play the game myself, but from what I've seen I'm skeptical if the player character should represent any kind of canon figure in the lore. Maybe a note on Lore:Hero would be the best option. — Unsigned comment by Mindtrait0r (talk • contribs) at 01:06 on 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Making the UESP THE one stop shop for all things Elder Scrolls[edit]

First of all, I love the insane Detail all of you put into this Website, and I am insanely impressed by the amount of information that has been recorded here.

But the issue is most people (that I have talked to about Elder Scrolls) don't know that this is the best site for Information about the franchise. I was wondering is there any effort to consolidate all the different Elder Scrolls related Wikis into one?

For Skyrim alone, I found 4 different Wikis with a quick search:

  • The Skyrim Fandom Wiki [1]
  • The Skyrim Wiki as part of the Elder Scrolls Fandom Wiki [2]
  • Another Skyrim Wiki [3]
  • And of course the UESP.

Also, is there any goal or project to make this site multilingual? Because that is the one advantage the fandom sites have over the UESP. If someone wants information in another language then English, Fandom is the only option.

Is there some coordination in the greater Elder Scrolls Hivemind, or is it just everyone does their own thing, like it seems from the outside? --Soanfriewack (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm what I can say is that I've pondered this question myself for many years now. The "Skyrim Fandom Wiki" is a layover archive from Gamepedia's merge with Fandom (formerly Wikia) and is abandoned, but TES Wiki on Fandom is still fairly active. As the only person to be staff on both, relations between the two wikis is pretty good and we sometimes help each other if need be. There is a benefit to two big wikis as we do certain things differently, allowing readers alternate routes to information; UESP has some articles that TES Wiki doesn't, and likewise tes wiki has some articles that uesp lacks. The problem is, because of Fandom (the company), even if TES Wiki did decide to unanimously merge with us and provide all their information/files, they still couldn't delete their own wiki and it would still exist as an abandoned site that remains at the top of the search results, getting the same viewers it did before; the only change being that they just don't get updated with new information. I could only see a merge happening if UESP was made an official wiki by Bethesda, but that's a big if and is unlikely to happen due in part to Microsoft's bias towards Fextralife.
As for multilingual projects, uesp does have alt language wikis in French, Arabic, Italian, and Portuguese, but even then they are mostly lacking and Fandom has more alt language TES Wikis (found in General:Links#International_Sites). You could propose to the teams on these alt language wikis that they can move to uesp (their staff are not linked to the primary wiki's english staff) and that way their information would now also be on our site, they would just have to agree to it. Main issues would be the original wiki also remains undeleted (due to Fandom) and there would have to be a lot of coding added for their templates, but in theory it is doable.
Hope this clears things up! If you have more questions I can def help you out :) The Rim of the Sky (talk) 23:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
I just looked at the alt wikis, for one I think discoverability could be better for them. As I looked myself before making the first Post but did not find those other languages.
Also, I discovered how much more fragmented the Wiki situation is for Elder Scrolls then I expected. Most of the Sites are very much abandoned, and there are SO MANY! Most haven't had any updates this decade, some not even in the last 10 years. Even though many are massive and have some information even the UESP doesn't have.
Why is the Elder Scrolls Community in particular so fractured? Because at least the other game Franchises I follow do not have this big issue of being fractured across dozens of Websites per language. Or at least there seems to be a clear one-stop shop for all the information you could need. Like Minecraft has the Minecraft Wiki [4] which has the best info on everything regarding Minecraft and extensive information in other languages as well.--Soanfriewack (talk) 22:29, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Use of Discord Messages as UOL[edit]

Saw this brought up on the Discord, but it never got made into a CP post. I figure it's useful enough to get some consensus on. So, the Sheathed Blades are mentioned across the wiki, but their name is only sourced from a Discord message sent by a developer. There was a general sense that the source wouldn't be allowed as UOL with the current guidelines, citing some instances in the past where similar messages were disavowed.

Personally, I think Discord messages from devs are just as valid as Reddit posts from devs, which are considered UOL per such instances as MK's posts. Thus, I think this source should be valid. Mindtrait0r (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this should be allowed as this is the only instance we have of the heroes' names being referenced. doesnt actually get brought up in the game itself. Other wise we'd be saying "Ex member of the blades" which is a mouthfull, and that ex member also fits the Warrior from TES: Blades.Analeah Oaksong (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Don't we already have a solution for this? A bunch of General:Cartogriffi's Posts are derived from Discord messages. Even the original Imperial Library page for it documents his Discord messages. They should be treated the same as forum posts. For the Sheathed Blades specifically, I think it should be fine to use the name as they appear in the official game and its just the name itself that appears externally. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 21:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Rim is correct, we already allow for this where appropriate. Discord is a terrible place to post information, but that is the direction Bethesda and other companies have gone with their public comms and we will just have to do our best when it comes to archival. —⁠Legoless (talk) 10:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Authored Mod Lists[edit]

I've stumbled upon this "proposed policy" at UESPWiki:Authored Mod Lists that has lain dormant for the last six years and originated in 2008. It seems fine to adopt as is, since it's basically codifying etiquette surrounding user subpages. I think it could actually be expanded to cover all user subpage projects, since I can't find a specific policy page where that's covered.

Let's propose changes, if any, and then either adopt it or reject it, so it can get out of its limbo state. —Dillonn241 (talk) 11:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I've taken the proposed state off of this policy since it's been unopposed for years and still unopposed after this post. —Dillonn241 (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Accounts and Usernames Policy[edit]

Likewise, there's another proposed policy in the category: User:Eshe/Sandbox/10

This apparently would have become UESPWiki:Accounts and Usernames. This seems to be mostly informational, but it does put down in writing blacklisted account names, renaming accounts, and "starting over". This one might require a little more work, since it hasn't been edited since 2013. —Dillonn241 (talk) 11:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Still looking for feedback about this one. There is more work to be done compared to the policy above. —Dillonn241 (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Creation Club Mod Header Icons[edit]

I changed the {{Mod Header}} template to accept both PNG and JPG icons, preferring the PNG. Before this change, there were a lot of broken file links in the CC mod headers. This highlighted an issue we currently have with these headers. See the category here: Category:Skyrim-Icons-Creations

While we have a header for every mod, some of them are PNG cutouts, while others are JPG crops of the official release banners. If we can narrow these down to just PNGs, whether transparent or converted from the JPGs, then I can remove my change to the Mod Header template since all mod header icons will once again be PNG.

There appear to be three options to fix this mess:

  1. Use all custom transparent images
  2. Use square crops of the official banners
  3. Use the full banner images

—Dillonn241 (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The JPEG banners were what was initially implemented when each CC Creation was given its own icon. Prior to that, it was just the CC logo on these pages. Work began on substituting these with more appropriate PNG cutouts that were in line with what was done previously for MW, OB, and SR DLCs, but this hasn't been completed and the broken headers were there to signify this. Please do not replace the custom transparent cutouts with those banners again, they look awful. —⁠Legoless (talk) 17:48, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Merging of Specific ESO character pages[edit]

While playing an Aldmeri Dominion character, I noticed that Sergeant Dagla has a merge page request with Dagla. When I checked both characters in-game, they were essentially the same character in both appearance and voice.

Another character that may require a page merge with Andoriel (Woodhearth) and ON:Andoriel (Seaside Sanctuary). Andoriel in Woodhearth is a Bosmer that is disguised as an Altmer during Veil of Illusion as mentioned by the dialogue. Meanwhile, Andoriel in Seaside Sanctuary made reference of being friends with Asteril (Who plays a role in the Veil of Illusion quest) and never getting a chance to thank the player for allowing them to seek justice against the Veiled Heritance. I would say they are the same character.

Please share your thoughts on this proposal?

Raren (talk) 02:14, 31 January 2024 (EST)

Don't think either is a controversial proposal. Go for it! —⁠Legoless (talk) 10:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Sticky Navigation[edit]

Discord recently had a brief discussion about having site navigation be "sticky" such that it stays on screen as the user scrolls down so they don't have to scroll back up to use any nav bars. This seems like a very solid win for the left side navigation since it seems to always take up the horizontal space anyway; it's just a matter of whether it's blank or still shows the sidebar. The same effect could be applied to the tabs at the top and/or more specific navigation panels within pages. At the time, there was also some confusion about whether Wikipedia uses this principle. Upon further glance, it seems that they do so long as the article actually has a table of contents. See their article on NASA for an example. Eve (talk) 22:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

This is touching on a much larger issue, which is UESP's Monobook interface becoming more and more outdated. If we moved to Vector, a lot of interface modernizations would become simpler, and we could lift more extensions and gadgets from Wikipedia. However, a lot of users still prefer Monobook, and for my own preferences, Vector still has too many stylistic issues for me to switch to it.
In the meantime, I could see us adopting a few Wikipedia-like changes, such as having the language links in a dropdown at the top instead of far down at the end of the sidebar. I'd also like to see the "tools" box moved to a dropdown, since it's now too far down to reach without scrolling. —Dillonn241 (talk) 03:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Outdated "PC Only" Icons[edit]

It seems the bug template was designed, before mods were available on consoles, to add a "PC Only" icon to the notation of a bug fix by the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch, among others. Now (and for quite a while, in fact), at least that one patch is available on consoles as well. As such, the PC Only icon is no longer appropriate for it specifically but remains useful for other bug fix mods such as ones for games that never received the feature of mods for their console versions (everything but Skyrim Special Edition?) or that are not uploaded specifically to Bethesda.net. I don't see an easy way to edit the template to omit the icon specifically for USSEP. Eve (talk) 23:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It actually got updated back in July to not show the PC-only icon, but then I saw your edits earlier and thought the Bug template needed updated as well. I was wrong, but in the process, I started showing the icon despite it not having previously been there. I've reverted that edit, so it's back to not showing, as it should be. Of course, that still leaves all the older versions where something may have originally been fixed by the USKP, which is PC-only, but is also fixed by USSEP, which isn't. Short of inserting two bullets or adding some long-winded explanation, I don't see a good way around that. Probably, it'll just be a matter of console users getting to know that they can just ignore the icon. – Robin Hood (talk) 01:17, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, I imagine the issues themselves are practically universal such that anything the USKP fixes is also fixed by the USSEP. It's more a matter of what the user is actually using. Given the absolute nature of the term "only," though, would it not make sense to go ahead and remove the icon from even USKP fixes since, at least for many, it's really the corresponding USSEP fixes that are relevant to them? Eve (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

UESPWiki:History Expansion[edit]

I wanted to put a small announcement out there that I've begun an expansion of our history page at UESPWiki:History. I dug through the old site and added what seemed relevant, but much of UESP's history during its wiki days is still missing. I won't know everything that's of historical value to add to the page, especially pre-2011, so if you have a list of ideas, please post them here. The History page is fully protected, so only admins can edit it.

My main leads at this point were to look through more archives of News, Community Portal, Administrator Noticeboard, and Upgrade History. I did an initial skim of those so far. I also may add RfAs to the list, since they are so few and far between (same with AKB's hiring as staff; I added a rough date on ThalJ's based on Discord discussion). Anything that had a somewhat lasting effect throughout the site could potentially qualify for inclusion. Of course, we don't want to go any deeper than a page like Lore:Third Era. —Dillonn241 (talk) 11:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work on this Dillon, I added a few entries I thought were relevant. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Vandalism[edit]

Due to the widespread vandalism, IP edits and account creation have been temporarily disabled. We have a long-term solution in mind, but it will likely take until later today or tomorrow before it can be implemented. – Robin Hood (talk) 20:36, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

IP edits and account creation are back to normal now. The solution we've gone with only targets the type of issues we were seeing this morning, not vandalism in general. It's fairly conservative, so there may still be a few edits of the variety we had this morning, but I expect they'll be relatively easy to handle through traditional methods. If things are still problematic, we can get more aggressive as needed. – Robin Hood (talk) 01:39, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
I'd hoped that the blocks I'd put in place would cover the vast majority of the vandalism and that we could deal with the rest by hand, but that's apparently not the case, so I'll be expanding our block list over the next little bit. In the mean time, the wiki is temporarily in lockdown once again. Shouldn't be long. – Robin Hood (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
And back to normal once again. – Robin Hood (talk) 02:56, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Style Guide change: Bolding the page title[edit]

Currently, the title of a page is bolded where it appears in the opening sentence. There are two ways of doing this:

  1. '''Bolding''', which is how this effect is usually achieved on gamespace pages (e.g. Oblivion:Controls).
  2. [[Lore:Linking|Linking to itself]], which is how we ensure the word is bolded on lore articles but converted to a link when the page is transcluded elsewhere (e.g. Lore:Eagle's Brook, Lore:Places E#Eagle's Brook).

My issue is with the latter. As can be seen in the above example of Eagle's Brook, this approach leads to an inconsistent style on Lore:Places E between the linked Eagle's Brook and the alternate name Eagle Brook.

Furthermore, on the mobile version of the site, these sorts of recursive links don't work at all. Compare the mobile Lore:Eagle's Link page, the word displays as a non-functional hyperlink, without the desired bolding.

My proposal is as follows:

  1. '''[[Lore:Bold and link|Bold and link]]'''. This achieves a consistent style by ensuring the word is always bolded, without needing to rely on the recursive link in situations where that trick doesn't work (mobile, transcludes). So, Eagle's Brook and Eagle Brook.

This would require a bot job to change over all lore articles to follow the above style. Not sure if there's any benefit changing how we do things in gamespace since we usually use far fewer transclusions, but I'm open to correction. Going forward, this would be the mandated way of bolding, and I envision adding a line to the Style Guide to explain. —⁠Legoless (talk) 20:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I've fixed the mobile self-links so they work the same as on desktop now. – Robin Hood (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
That's one way of doing it! The same update is needed for the Android as as well, although I imagine that's one for ThalJ. —⁠Legoless (talk) 22:47, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
Personally I am of the opinion that if a page is transcluded, any bolding should be removed when it is viewed as an entry on a broader page. I like transclusions but its incredibly odd to read the Artifacts section for Clavicus Vile and see alt names for the artifacts bolded through the transclusion and Clavicus' name needlessly bolded a bunch too. I get that in the case for the latter, its because of the hyperlink, but isn't there a way to keep the hyperlink on the regular page while removing it from displaying when it is transcluded? It makes reading these sections so messy. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 22:51, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
I'd be fine with that, it just seems technically difficult to strip out bolding as opposed to ensuring it gets consistently displayed. —⁠Legoless (talk) 23:06, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
It's easy enough to do that with a template, it just means we have to remember to use the template for everything we want to bold. – Robin Hood (talk) 23:54, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

TIL content on UESP[edit]

Recently an issue arose where content written by editors at TIL was taken, word for word, and attached to a page here. While this has been dealt with, it does raise an issue of people "archiving" content found at TIL here at UESP. We very much do not need to be doing this, as TIL gets specific permission to host things that doesn't extend to us. While all of the current content on UESP that is also found on TIL is likely fine, stuff that is not yet on UESP should probably stay at TIL. There is a specific template {{TIL}}, made purposefully for us to cite The Imperial Library content on UESP. This should be used going forward to cite anything that is found on TIL, rather than simply taking the content for UESP wholesale (which is both inconsiderate of the work they do, and could open the wiki up to issues, if the content is being used without permission from the original source). I don't see any situation where we would absolutely NEED to host the specific content here, but if any arises, we can approach them at that time.

If TIL were ever in danger of disappearing from the web, we would certainly hear about it before hand, and content can be archived here if that ever happens, but until that point, anything they have archived that we have not should probably remain at TIL. Hopefully that provides a good middle ground where the information can be cited here, but we don't have to worry about anything being copied incorrectly or any copyright infringement. Jeancey (talk) 04:26, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing need for discussion here, the problem has already been dealt with, right? These kind of issues are already covered by our rules (and copyright licences). We shouldn't take content from other community sites without permission, be it the Fandom wiki, ESO fashion, TIL, etc. It might be acceptable in exceptional circumstances when we can't reach the original authors and we'd lose all the content from a site, but otherwise we should add our own content. --Ilaro (talk) 14:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes, this is more of an announcement, but I felt this was the best place, in case there were any weird edge cases that I hadn't thought of. Jeancey (talk) 17:22, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Just to add, the majority of TIL content we host has been mirrored here with permission since 2020. —⁠Legoless (talk) 11:57, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

NSInfo Extension[edit]

I've just installed the new NSInfo extension which will update and replace the various {{NS_whatever}} and {{MOD_NAME}} variables. I'll fill out the documentation tomorrow, but here's a quick list of what's new/changed. Full documentation can be found at Project:NSInfo.

  • Like with many of the other extension updates, we've updated all the variables ({{NS_whatever}} without a colon) to functions ({{NS_whatever:}} with a colon). This is an unfortunate necessity due to changes in upcoming versions of MediaWiki. The current way still works, of course, but will need to be changed before we hit MediaWiki 1.39 at the very latest, and preferably before then to avoid a lot of warnings flooding our logs. Pages that need updating will automatically be tracked in the category Category:Uses Deprecated Namespace Variable. Most of those will be coming from templates used on the named page and not the page itself.
  • {{GAMESPACE:}}: this is a new function that returns 1 if you're in gamespace; blank otherwise. This is mostly for convenience when designing templates. For now, all of our custom namespaces are considered gamespace except those we had to create for use with different extensions or MediaWiki itself (e.g., TimedText or Module space). It's debatable whether something like Books should be considered gamespace, but we can figure that out as we look at what our various templates need.
  • {{NS_CATLINK:whatever}}: this is a shortcut for [[Category:{{NS_CATEGORY}}-whatever]] and, like a category link, takes a sort key as the second parameter if desired. So, for example, {{NS_CATLINK:Quests| }} gets you [[Category:{{NS_CATEGORY}}-Quests| ]].
  • All NSInfo functions now work correctly with NS_BASE, NS_ID, alternate namespace names, namespace number, and full page names. So, {{NS_CATEGORY:Online}}, {{NS_CATEGORY:ON}}, {{NS_CATEGORY:ESO}}, {{NS_CATEGORY:144}}, and {{NS_CATEGORY:Online:Vvardenfell}} will all produce "Online". In the event of a conflict between namespace names and page names (e.g., Morrowind), namespace names win out. You can force it to use main space by putting a : in front of the name.
  • I've created {{NSTest}} for testing. With no parameter, it'll use the current namespace; otherwise, it'll use whatever you specify (e.g., {{NSTest|OB}} will show you all the values for Oblivion).

I've tested all this as much as possible, but there's always the chance something's been missed, so please let me know if you spot anything that doesn't look right. – Robin Hood (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC), edited: 02:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

There's a new version up. It eliminates a false hit that on the category for deprecated calls and temporarily disables the internal cache which might be the source of the wrong-namespace oddness we've been getting. Thanks to the joys of caching, it's possible we'll still see some pages with namespace issues floating around. If you find one, do a purge/null-edit but still report the page here. Hopefully, the reports will fall off as we find and eliminate any old ones, but if the issue keeps happening fairly regularly, I'll know that there's still a problem. Thanks!
Also, apologies for those of you that experienced a momentary blip and got errors on some pages. I goofed the upload slightly but fixed it as soon as I realized there was a problem. – Robin Hood (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Known Issues[edit]

  • Fixed: Trails aren't quite as they should be. This is most noticeable in Online space, where trails appear as "Online" instead of "Elder Scrolls Online". Some elements may also appear unlinked. This is tentatively fixed on dev but needs more testing, which will wait until tomorrow. Now fixed—as usual, a purge may be necessary. (Note for SF wiki: issue is actually due to dependence in UespCustomCode\SiteCustomCode_body.php) – Robin Hood (talk) 07:32, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Fixed: Namespaces with spaces in them aren't being properly identified under some circumstances. While this has been fixed, pages may need to be purged in order to display correctly. – Robin Hood (talk) 08:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Possible: We've had a couple of pages with transclusions appearing to come from a different namespace than they actually were (e.g., a {{Book Link}} to "Oblivion:2920, Frostfall (v10)" had "Morrowind:2920, Frostfall (v10)" listed in "Templates used in this section"). So far, there have only been a few pages, and they've all been Oblivion links falsely trying to use Morrowind links, which is really odd. Please let me know if you notice anything else like this, especially if you know it was working correctly after NSInfo was installed, but then it later started showing odd links. – Robin Hood (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC), edited: 02:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
I found another transclusion trying to use the wrong namespace, this time in a {{Place Link}} on the Skyrim:Places page. The entry for the Abandoned Shack (second entry in this section) was showing a redlink for the shack icon (i.e. 20x20px instead of SR-mapicon-Shack.png). When I moused over the redlink, it was trying to use MW-mapicon-Shack.png rather than SR-mapicon-Shack.png. All the other entries were fine, it was just that one line. I purged both the source page and the Places page and that seems to have fixed it, but I thought I'd bring it up here just for the record. — Wolfborn(Howl) 08:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll have a look into it. I suspect the internal cache is the culprit. I'll review and see if I can figure out how it's coming up with the wrong space sometimes. – Robin Hood (talk) 15:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Fixed: {{NS_FULL:}} was returning : in Mainspace instead of nothing, breaking trails and possibly other links. As usual, affected pages may need purged to display correctly. – Robin Hood (talk) 23:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Verified Creation FormIDs[edit]

The new ESL format for Skyrim's verified creations dynamically generate the entire FormID on load. This seems to warrant a third kind of FormID wildcard tooltip, like the ones we have for ESM indices (xx) and Creation Club indices (FExxx), but instead indicating the entire FormID varies (xxxxxxxx looks a bit silly, so maybe just use the word "Dynamic").—Eve (talk) 04:59, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Does this apply to xEdit as well? If not, I would use the Form ID as recorded in xEdit with some sort of indicator that the ID in-game is variable. --Enodoc (talk) 20:06, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes. xEdit is a giant mess in this regard. It shows different IDs at different times and erroneously reports conflicts that lead people to start unfortunate fights.—Eve (talk) 20:37, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
The cases in point I've noticed thus far are a couple "Dialog Topic" records for Katja.—Eve (talk) 06:33, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
... and the black powder ingredient from Arquebus.—Eve (talk) 06:36, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
... oh, and our much-sought-after aloe in the resource pack.—Eve (talk) 06:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
... and a bunch of activators in Shadetree Lodge ... basically, any of the new records that xEdit shows as using mod index 0.—Eve (talk) 06:40, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
SSEEdit has since been updated to show the correct mod index and no longer show false conflicts. I think the IDs won't change now unless a patch adds new content to the plugin or something, but I'm not sure. The existing FExxx123 template might still be good.—Eve (talk) 14:45, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

FormID Capitalization[edit]

When we do have at least part of a FormID that is static, we are inconsistent about how we capitalize letters. Obviously not a big deal, given they're not even case sensitive. But in the name of looking uniform, is the ideal treatment lowercase x (for the wildcards) and capital A-F (for the static alphabetic portions)? So xx0B83CB for Skyrim's Falmer Armor, for example.—Eve (talk) 05:06, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I personally believe that should be the preference, as hexadecimal is normally written in upper-case, but I seem to recall there being some debate about it at the time we wrote the {{ID}} template, so it wasn't forced one way or the other. I'm pretty sure the template forces the x's to lower-case, though. If you look at the bottom of ID's doc page, it tells you how to use CSS to force one display or the other using CSS (specifically, the idcase entry). That said, a standard is probably the better way to go, if we can come to an agreement. – Robin Hood (talk) 15:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
I tend to do it in the style of 'xx0B83CB' and that's the dominant form I see across pages, I already presumed it was the standard. - Imperialbattlespire (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Sounds like we all agree. Can a bot auto correct any pre-existing and future lowercase hex?—Eve (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Okay, anything using the {{ID}} template or variants will now display as upper-case by default, though users preferring something else can still override it in their personal CSS. For anything not using that template, it should probably be converted to use the template by hand, since there are too many special cases where we wouldn't want to convert them (e.g., in template parameters where the template itself is already calling ID internally). I don't imagine there'll be too many of those left at this point anyway. – Robin Hood (talk) 18:23, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Excellent. Can confirm Skyrim:Weapons looks much better now.—Eve (talk) 19:25, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Main Page Patreon Info[edit]

I noticed that the Patreon info on the main page (desktop) still outlines the 2023 rewards. I'm fairly new to the site and not super comfortable adding something that high-profile, but someone probably should. Zoidsberg (talk) 20:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning this. I DMed the person responsible, so I imagine it'll be updated shortly. – Robin Hood (talk) 22:04, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
On a similar note, on the there linked Patreon page it looks like the 2022 rewards are the newest, as those are listed in Tiers section instead of the 2024 ones. Considering the Patreon page also links to the UESP page's tier entries that may need to be updated too. 2023 is also missing from the list of past years rewards.
On a slightly less related note, are there updated pictures of what you get? The pictures on Patreon have placeholders and actually knowing the vest/plushie would really help making the choice. And you can't watch the posts before paying which gets me stuck in a circle as I wanna know before signing up. Up-to-date pictures might help more people get over the edge for a (higher) subscription. – Cambionn (talk) 14:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Audio Button Extension and Audio Help Page[edit]

I'd like to propose the addition of the Audio Button extension. This extension will serve the purpose of providing an on-page way to play short snippets of audio, such as a spoken pronunciation. We've done a test of incorporating audio onto a page before on Lore:Tsaesci, but having to navigate to the file page to actually here it is not the greatest solution. While it's certainly possible to add an audio player to a page directly, like we did on Lore:Dro-m'Athra or many of the Legends card pages, it's not the most elegant solution for such a small audio file. And that's where this extension comes in, which will allow us to add a small in-line button to play very short snippets of relevant audio, like spoken pronunciations.

Relatedly, we will also need to choose which icon to use for this. With the way it is set up, we will be limited to a single choice. I believe the best option will be 🔈 and 🔊, the first to indicate audio is not playing but can be played, and the second for while the audio is actively playing. Alternatives are possible if these ones are not desirable for any reason, but we do need to make a decision on it.

Relatedly, at the moment we do not have a help page for audio files, like we do for similar topics, such as Help:Images. I also propose that a basic page be created, documenting current audio practices, what is acceptable/recommended upload cases, how to upload audio files, name them, categorize them, and add them to pages. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 00:44, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I concur. Regarding the icon, the contrast works well against a white field but not so much against UESP's brown field. Perhaps something darker. It looks like customizing the colors is easy. It also looks like the ones above are actually emoji. Alternatively, ▶️ and ⏸️ (for play and pause) might be more visible and clear in meaning (the description confirms play/pause is how it works). Regarding the help page, technical details on the desired audio file extensions and formats should also be included (especially whether we just use what's ripped from game files directly or convert it in some way before uploading). We'll likely want a template to standardize and streamline usage. And does this require a MediaWiki version update or work with the current version?—Eve (talk) 06:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
It's part of Unicode. No update will be required to add this extension. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 18:48, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
The play/pause buttons Eve suggested are actually the defaults for the extension, but AKB and I thought they looked a little too...blue...for UESP's beige theme. Images are also an option. – Robin Hood (talk) 19:48, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
⏵⏸?—Eve (talk) 07:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Well, that ended up being a lot more nightmarish to get it installed and running on the real wiki than it was on my test server, but it's now installed. To use it, simply use the <ab> tag with the file name inside. For example, this: <ab>DF-sound-Spider.ogg</ab> produces: ⏵. A missing file produces a prohibition sign, like this: – Robin Hood (talk) 03:47, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Your efforts are always appreciated. Based on the Tsaesci page's prototype, it seems the naming convention should be LO-audio-word-<insert word here>.ogg. Applied to Khajiit pages so far. Dreugh next. Soon™.—Eve (talk) 14:52, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Oh, and as for usage convention, based on the same example, it seems the standard shall be "(listen⏵)".—Eve (talk) 14:55, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Some observations: Spaces don't work in filenames; underscores need to be used. Including it in a text note for a book's lore page works for the lore page. However, the game-specific versions that pull from the lore page show raw HTML code instead of a functional audio link. This was worked around by duplicating the text note for the game-specific versions as well.—Eve (talk) 05:25, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

(←) I'm not suprised about the underscore issue. That's a fairly simple change to the extension that I'll look into tomorrow. For the HTML notes, that's a problem coming from a different extension. It's actually working as intended, but whether or not it's desired depends on the situation. For situations like this, if you use |notes=<savemarkup><ab>Whatever.ogg</ab></savemarkup>, that will probably work. If it doesn't, then we can put the <ab> into a template so the code becomes |notes=<savemarkup>{{Ab|Whatever.ogg}}</savemarkup> and that will almost certainly work. – Robin Hood (talk) 07:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Also, on Android Chrome for me, the play button looks like a tall rectangle with an X (unsupported Unicode character). When tapped, it still plays correctly and shows ⏸️ while playing.—Eve (talk) 07:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Neither savemarkup tags nor a template that merely has the ab tags changes the result.—Eve (talk) 07:12, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
But both combined work! Thanks for that. Still leaves the mobile concerns.—Eve (talk) 07:14, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I understand iOS requires the user to download the audio file rather than being able to play it from the embedding page for Ogg. When trying to upload a WAV instead, I consistently get an "Internal error."—Eve (talk) 20:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Same error with MP3.—Eve (talk) 21:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Re-Assessing Namespace for Verified Creations[edit]

Original archived discussion: [[5]]. The decision to exclude these from the main Skyrim namespace and instead relegate them to the Skyrim Mod namespace is inconsistent with existing UESP content (Space Core) and is based on information now known to be false. We have ample confirmation that Bethesda is directly and extensively involved in the development of Verified Creations; they do not simply approve the work of a third party (Example: [[6]]). I feel Verified Creations are actually MORE eligible than Creation Club content for inclusion in the Skyrim namespace; Creation Club suffers from relatively shallow content because of technical restrictions preventing new voiceover, for example. Without this technical limitation, Verified Creations blend far more seamlessly into the vanilla game. For clarity, this is for inclusion in Skyrim, not Lore. And I happily endorse annotation to indicate it's not base game content; I recommend a new template mirroring the functionality of the one we use for Creation Club superscripts, placing a VC by the relevant content and allowing an argument to be provided to point to the specific Verified Creation page (otherwise defaulting to the list of all Verified Creations). I make this post today in part because today's Verified Creation release is the first to take advantage of new functionality that allows them to be flagged to NOT disable achievements. While this is already easily accomplished by simply using a mod that bypasses achievements being disabled, I recall some felt that being ineligible for achievements made this content less legitimate. Thank you for your consideration.—Eve (talk) 15:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

We already had this disscusion, and we have a very unambigous quote from Cartogriffi "But I can say that Verified Creations by community members are not official, whereas Creation Club content is. ...". Creation Club content and verified creations are completely different in terms of officalness, end of story.—Tarponpet (talk) 12:15 PM, 26 April 2024 (EST)
Context: [[7]]. This is immediately after they say they "can't speak about matters of canon," "can't offer an opinion," and reject "the very nature of 'canon'" (repeatedly). While we're looking at the page, in 2017 they confirmed Bethesda does "consider lore implications when reviewing" such content. Even better, they state "please don't weigh anything I say will [sic] too much authority, because I'm not in a position to even make those proclamations I said I wouldn't." You're unambiguously doing precisely what they're asking you to avoid.—Eve (talk) 16:35, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
The 2017 quote is literally about Creation Club, which as established is different. Theres a quote on Bethesdas wesbite that shows they do not care about the canon adhererence of Veirfief Creations. And while he claims not have authority on canon, he prefaces his statement about officiality with "But I can say". —Tarponpet (talk) 12:49 PM, 26 April 2024 (EST)
That statement specifically refers to content "by community members." Yet we establish above that there exists such content that is made by Bethesda directly for the ostensible authors. Are you arguing that content Bethesda designs, develops, releases, and promotes is not official?—Eve (talk) 16:53, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
Unless Cartogriffi has revised his original statement, the core point remains: "Verified Creations by community members are not official". Therefore they are ineligible for Gamespace. We also established previously that Verified Creations could theoretically be documented in Gamespace if and only if they were produced by Bethesda. If we want to change that approach, we either need to independently redefine what we consider "official", or have a discussion about documenting unofficial content in Gamespace, both of which sound unfavourable to me. --Enodoc (talk) 16:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
They are produced by Bethesda, just in part rather than whole. Again, Space Core is already in official namespace with Bethesda as a PARTIAL author. The reason he cites on the official Bethesda Discord for calling them unofficial is the potential for one Verified Creation to not play nice with another Verified Creation. So ... consider my opinions rephrased to say "eligible for the Skyrim namespace" rather than "official."—Eve (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
Im still of the opinion that the only thing Bethesda techncially contributed was the Resource Pack, just with input from some of the creators. None of the veirfied content is released by Bethesda, it is uploaded by the users personal accounts. Look at the tabs on the creation menu and you'll see none of the Veirfied Creations are under the "Bethesda Game Studio" tab. —Tarponpet (talk) 1:16 PM, 26 April 2024 (EST)
They do much more than just releasing models for verified creators to use. That was just a nice public example. I can't give details due to NDA, but there really is participation in the development process far beyond a final approval (that is, everything in between the dates we can see on those uploads from the verified creator accounts).—Eve (talk) 17:25, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

(←) I don't see any reason to revisit this decision. It's important to segregate mod info, and Verified Creations are paid mods. —⁠Legoless (talk) 17:30, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Again, the previous discussion was based on patently false assumptions. It was archived before I was aware of its existence. At a minimum, we need to make an informed decision with the correct info.—Eve (talk) 17:36, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
You are correct, we have since learned more about Bethesda's involvement and about the future possibility of achivement support. However, they are still defined as mods, and that is the purpose of the mod namespace.
As you say, Verified Creations may not necessarily work together. This goes back to my main point in the original archived discussion: the status and quality of these releases is not that of first party official microtransactions. We should not be guided by marketing speak; just because Bethesda has called these downloads "Creations", they are in fact part of a monetisation system for third party mods. They do not tick any of the boxes that Creation Club did when I argued for its inclusion in gamespace back in 2017. —⁠Legoless (talk) 19:30, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
So far, though, they all do anyway. And Cartogriffi does state that they "can't conflict with any official content, including all Creation Club releases" and that they "review any content they release through the program." He's also called it "an evolution of Creation Club" and stated "past content can't be re-released through this." Also, as a side note, even free mods with no review are now called creations (as opposed to verified creations).—Eve (talk) 21:27, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
If and when Bethesda ever officially declares one or more Verified Creations to be considered official content, those creations will become eligible to be included in gamespace. Unless and until such time, we have a clear statement (as others have already noted) that Verified Creations are not official content, and as such they are and should continue to be documented in modspace, which is where the community has decided unofficial content belongs. — Wolfborn(Howl) 22:05, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
It does give it some more legitimacy that VCs no longer disable achievements. I would like to add info from VCs to Skyrim and Lore pages in some way as they add more expansion to the setting (ie Echoes of the Vale), though likely not in the body, but in the notes instead. It does speak volumes that all VCs so far are lore friendly, or at least try to be. I spoke to a Verified Creator, who said Bethesda does thorough Quality Assurance and lore checks on all Verified Creations before release. Creations marked as "Lore Friendly" go through additional layers of approval by Bethesda to check that it's all lore-friendly; the lore friendly tag itself is actually added directly by Bethesda, not Verified Creators.
I do want to note this new info here, as we did not know as much before. That being said, I can't justify moving them out of modspace, at least not yet anyways. It would be best to wait for more developments. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 00:27, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Based on the reasons above, I'm opposed to moving them out of modspace. The lore-friendly tagged ones should be eligible as UOL, though. They have at least as much authenticity as any post-Bethesda developer work, maybe even more so since they are "verified" by Bethesda directly. —Dillonn241 (talk) 00:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
As another side note, Bethesda has clarified that the indication of the newest verified creation not disabling achievements is actually in error and that the feature is not yet ready to go live. But this does at least clearly show they're actively working on it and intend them to be able to keep achievements enabled. And that was ultimately the "main distinction" between including them in the Skyrim namespace or not for the original version of this discussion.—Eve (talk) 01:01, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Please stop claiming that the previous discussion was based on "false assumptions" and that Achievements were the "main distinction" which resulted in the decision for non-inclusion. Achievements may have been one of the main differences between Verified Creations and Creation Club, but the first time achievements were even mentioned in the previous discussion was after the statement had been made on them not being official, which effectively meant the decision on inclusion had been made for us. The main reason that they are not included in gamespace is exactly that – they are not official – which is a fact stated by a member of BGS, and therefore neither false nor an assumption.
Everything else is essentially irrelevant unless you want to argue for the inclusion of unofficial content in Gamespace, which is a considerably broader topic, but would certainly be an interesting direction to go in; not least the claim that the "lore-friendly" flag is directly vetted by Bethesda. Even then I don't think this matches the current definition of Unofficial Lore though. --Enodoc (talk) 14:38, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
I have even less desire to repeat myself than you do to read the repetition; that doesn't change the truth: "they now only see the content in its finished state, and just slap a 'it works, can be sold' stamp on it" is a false assumption. As for "main distinction," that's a direct quote from the same discussion: "The main distinction between Creation Club Creations and Verified Creations is that the latter disable achievements." And yes, going by the precise diction of Bethesda, they're not "official," so I am absolutely advocating "for the inclusion of unofficial content in Gamespace." Not all of it, mind you. Just Verified Creations.—Eve (talk) 21:11, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
See also: [[8]]—Eve (talk) 22:55, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Of special note there is all the discussion about the Lore Friendly tag. Perhaps we'll all be happy allowing Lore Friendly verified creations to be included in Skyrim namespace pages (such as including the alchemy ingredient on the list of alchemy ingredients), even if they ultimately are just links to the Skyrim Mod namespace.—Eve (talk) 23:28, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

(←) While, at the moment, it doesn't appear that Verified Creations will be moved to Skyrim space just yet, I do think we should link to it in notes where applicable like we do with the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. If there's a vanilla item that gets a use in a VC (ie. a Paragon that gets a display holder in a VC house) we can mention that in the notes. If there's a new asset added to the vanilla set that's used in a VC, we should note that too. As for lore, I wouldn't put info from VCs as unofficial lore as it isn't lore that comes from a developer, but it could be placed into some other category if used. From what we know, Bethesda does make a few suggestions of what to put in CCs (ie a Lyrezi cameo in the upcoming B& Snow VC) so we could make a small note on the lore page if such cases happen. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 21:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

For many of the reasons stated above, I also oppose moving them out of modspace. Notes on skyrim pages when they affect things is acceptable, but I worry that it will end up exploding notes sections if every last thing is mentioned and many many VCs are released over the years. Jeancey (talk) 22:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
I'm glad we all seem to at least agree that notes regarding verified creations are acceptable in the Skyrim namespace. While an improvement, it would be far more helpful to also be able to mention their content inline rather than merely as a footnote. And for the record, we have confirmation that lore in any verified creation taggled Lore Friendly is at least verified by Bethesda if not also actually provided by Bethesda to the author in the first place.—Eve (talk) 03:05, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
I don't think everyone here agrees with adding notes. As Jeancey says, where do we draw the line? The whole reason for segregating mod info in a separate namespace is to avoid incorporating them onto list pages and articles about the unmodified game. Personally I do not want to see items from modspace appearing on Skyrim:Items, or notes under every entry affected by a particular mod. I think notes may be appropriate on a case-by-case basis (e.g. we could mention Legendary Dungeons: Dwarven Delves on Online:Stone Garden), but honestly I'm unconvinced. —⁠Legoless (talk) 15:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
I'll throw my hat in to say I disagree with both moving Verified Creations out of modspace as well as including notes about them. Currently mods are only mentioned if they are a bug-fix mod correcting a listed bug, which I think is the furthest their reach into the Skyrim namespace should ever go. Samantha Says (talk) 16:41, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
Just to add, I also don't think they belong in the Skyrim namespace. Even after just re-reading the whole discussion I see no reason why they should. Just because Bethesda approved them doesn't mean that much, it may as well be a nice way to say we're filtering out complain mods like they got on their 2015 try at paid mods. On the other hand we have multiple statements from Bethesda saying they're unofficial and community-made. The term "verified" does not equal official. In fact, the word "verified" doesn't mean much without a clear statement what it is verified as. A simple malware check like the Nexus does may list "verified to not contain malware" but makes nothing official and I'd argue that that would be the same if Bethesda did that malware check. And afaik Bethesda has never said anything that would imply they are verified as official or canon, at most that they are unofficial (possibly) lore-friendly mods that won't break your game when used with only official content (which already explicitly excluded other Verified Creations).
Being lore-friendly doesn't make a mod official either, even if Bethesda says they are. Because lore-friendly doesn't mean canon. It just means it's not against/breaking the canon lore. Getting some resources from Bethesda is enough neither I would argue. As beside that I think some extra resources alone is not enough to making it official, the line then becomes fine too as Bethesda has paid attention and given extras to mod creators before (like pre-releasing CK to them).
The Verified Creation page also clearly indicates that these mods have some of the same limitations as other mods, like not being able to have voice-acted mods released on consoles. That seems to indicate console makers don't consider them official either, and Bethesda seems to agree as Bethesda as a developer could release such content themselves if they wanted to release it as official after they verified it. Developers changing release systems for different platforms so it works there is normal after all, but community-made stuff doesn't have that luxury as they're bound to community-only ways of releasing which tend to have tighter rules. Whereas Creation Club items where actually commissioned by Bethesda, and while also having some of the limitations are clearly indicating by Bethesda as official and as such are released on platforms that don't allow mods, like the Nintendo Switch.
Honestly, other than Bethesda said ok then let them be uploaded to their store that is specifically for mods, is there any real reason consider listing them as anything more than mods in modspace? Because that's not that much different from appstores, and no one says everything on Apple's appstore is official Apple stuff (taking that example because they always like to claim they verify so well and that's why they have less than for example Google's PlayStore) . I say having them in modspace makes way more sense, I see no reason why they shouldn't stay there or be treated like more than other mods (which includes not putting them in note/bug sections unless they fix bugs or the like, much as the Unofficial Patches). – Cambionn (talk) 17:42, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

(←) I think at this point we can put this issue to rest. There is clearly no consensus to move them out of modspace, and there is plenty of support for keeping them in modspace. There is also a lack of support for notes in Skyrim space. Jeancey (talk) 17:59, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I concur that we lack consensus. I think the thing that has kept this going in circles is that people keep citing misinformation as the justification for their decision of exclusion. For the record, again, we have ample evidence that the "verification" goes well beyond something like a malware check (see especially the linked Discord discussion above). And they ARE on consoles. In fact, every single verified creation is available on Xbox. It's just PlayStation and Switch that don't have some, and I understand that is strictly for technical reasons.—Eve (talk) 19:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
You are either misunderstanding or misreading my points. You might want to be careful with that when you're complaining about others citing misinformation.
I didn´t say Bethesda's validation is just a malware check. I said the word "verified" doesn't mean anything without knowing what is verified. The malware check was just an example of a verification that happens in the TES modding scene (on Nexus Mods) to show how wide verification can be (as "verified" just means is passed verification). Bethesda hasn't made any statement that their verification means it's official or canon content, so that status can not be used to consider it official. And in fact, I even touched upon further things Bethesda did that where mentioned earlier in the discussion, like releasing resources, and statement they made on Discord. And I explained why I don't think any of them are a reason to consider it official, and therefor no reason to change them to Skyrim space.
As for the consoles. I never said they're not on consoles, so that's not a counter argument. I said console platforms treat them like mods. The reasons some are not on PlayStation is because they don't allow voice acting in mods. Something Bethesda can easily release in official content, and puts no effort into correcting, which further indicates that status is correct. While this is an implication, which on itself should not be used, it's in-line with every other quote we've seen from Bethesda, including the ones in the archived discussion from Cartogriffi's Discord statements, and therefor strengtens the argument.
To be very fair and not to be impolite, I do see a general consensus. AKB asked, a consensus was reached after Cartogriffi's statement clearing it up quite clearly. Then you asked again. And I may be reading over it. But I reread the whole discussion a few times and I don't see anyone here agreeing with you, and only one statement that notes would be acceptable ("acceptable" doesn't equal the preferred way). You asked, people said no. Until Bethesda comes out with an explicit statement saying they go back on previous statements and that they are official now (and not implying, as interpretations aren't reliable and implications are, as far as I know, only used by the UESP when they're really strong. The later rather seems to be leaning to implying the opposite), I think it's time to put the issue to rest, as Jeancey said.
A little side note, I wrote a reply but when I pressed save it disappeared. My apologize if something is double somewhere – Cambionn (talk) 20:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I would just like to make a point on how to treat the canon of The Elder Scrolls franchise that can relate to this whole VC debate.

"Unofficial Lore is content providing information on the world of Tamriel published not by Bethesda Softworks but by individual developers and writers, on forums or fan sites. This material is best represented by the list of Obscure Texts found at the Imperial Library.

Unofficial Lore takes the form of an in-character lore document and may be posted with several aims in mind. Some material is intended to be taken as a valid source or explanation of what was hitherto a mystery, and some is merely shared to encourage discussion among the fans (in other words exploring the importance a document would have if it were to be taken as canon). The material may have been cut or overlooked for a spot in the games themselves, or may have been written as an expansion of lore independent of any game. Some documents have served as teasers and previews of games yet to come. Several developers have published Unofficial Lore, primarily Michael Kirkbride, Gary Noonan, Douglas Goodall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Lawrence Schick, and Ken Rolston. All except Noonan have since left Bethesda.

Some fans doubt the validity of Unofficial Lore, while others do not distinguish between it and texts found in-game. It is useful in understanding many lore topics—in some cases it is integral to our knowledge of a particular area. However, it may represent the viewpoint of only one writer, as material published individually has not necessarily passed muster with the group of people who currently have creative control over the series. This results in a more personal understanding of lore that does not necessarily correlate with the series as it continues.

Bethesda has commented in the past that Unofficial Lore is not to be taken as official canon, as spoken by Gavin Carter, Todd Howard and Pete Hines during the Oblivion Third Fan Interview in 2006 when asked about the Hogithium hall roleplay, Fifth Era love letter, and other extra-canonical posts and information, commenting that "only things that have been published in Elder Scrolls games should be considered official lore". Note however that this statement pre-dates the two novels, The Infernal City and Lord of Souls, which have both been confirmed as official canon.

Conversely, when asked a question about unofficial lore possibly being referenced in ESO in a fan Q&A, Creative Director Paul Sage replied, "The way we approach our lore is for it to be true it has to have been something that was actually played in the other games." Lawrence Schick and Matt Firor have often spoken of the "unreliable narrator" and its importance in TES lore."

"The Elder Scrolls is known for its attention to detail, including extensive lore, scenery and back story. There is no omniscient narrator. Instead, the lore is presented in-universe, as written by the fictional scholars who inhabit the world, and it is subject to their biases and speculation. Players are encouraged to form their own interpretations of the lore and have developed extensive fan works. The developers avoid invalidating or overruling fan theories through canon. Internal inconsistencies are explained as errors in scholarship. Some inconsistencies, such as incorporating mutually exclusive endings to earlier games, are intentionally introduced and explained as magical paradoxes. Other elements of the lore are intentionally contradictory or made ambiguous to allow players to decide for themselves what is true. Players can, for example, deny being a prophesied hero or accept the role."[1]

So, long story short everyone has a right to their own interpretation of the TES canon. Its very clear that the Bethesda Devs are strong supporters of headcanon, in which everyone has a right to believe what they want to believe. If you want to believe that VCs are canon or non-canon you have every right to do so. If VCs are going be in the Skyrim Mod namespace on UESP, that is not stopping someone from believing VCs are official content.

That is all I have to say. Have a nice day. -- --KevinM(talk) 19:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

To comment on the matter again, while VCs should not presently be moved into Skyrim mainspace, noting Bethesda's commentaries, suggestions, and contributions to VCs should be noted outside of the modspace where it makes sense and can reasonably fit. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Morrowind: An oral history". March 27, 2019. Retrieved 2024-11-24.

Tables for side-by-side content[edit]

Survivors of the Twelve
Worlds		 Et'Ada
According to the Anuad,
when Anu formed Nirn
following the shattering of
the Twelve Worlds by
Padomay, two surviving
races originating from what
Padomay had sundered
were brought to
the new world alongside
the fragments of their
realms which had been
used to form it, the
...		 According to the Altmeri
creation myth, when
Magnus departed the
Mundus, the et'Ada that
took part in it's creation
broke into groups, most
would follow the flight of
the God of Magic to
become the Magna-Ge,
but some of those
present chose instead to
stay after he departed
...

Original discussion. There's a lot of content in the wiki that use tables for side-by-side display. For example, Lore:Ehlnofey#Origin presents alternative origin stories in a 2-column table. The problem (as I see it) is that, on narrower viewports (eg. mobile browsers, the UESP app or just plain narrow browser windows), the text is squeezed into exceedingly vertical paragraphs, as shown on the left.

For mobile users, other than readability issues, this layout also presents some UX issues: the user has to scroll down (a lot) to read the Survivors of the Twelve Worlds section, scroll back up, then scroll down again to read the Et'Ada version. It quickly gets a lot worse for content that have more than two sections.

Thus far, I've been fixing these in two ways. Either:

  • Just display them as normal sub/sections instead of side-by-side ones, or
  • If a side-by-side display is really needed, an approach similar to the three versions of Lore:War of Betony#The Treaty of Gradkeep, where the sections show up side-by-side on regular browsers but stack on top of each other for mobile users.

In both cases, the UX for mobile users is the same: they read the sections one after another, consistently scrolling down (ie. intuitive behaviour, no need to go back up). The UX for regular browser users is not negatively impacted or, in the case of the latter, remains functionally the same.

One such fix got reverted. The reasoning was that the 2-column table is a valid format, looks fine and is a nice visual. I suggested a compromise with the second approach but it was reiterated that they, personally, did not see any issue with the content being "a little squished". I'm now consulting here for less personal and more impartial feedback.

  • Is a 2-column table really necessary? and/or
  • Are regular subsections really unacceptable?

Thanks! Salamangkero (talk) 01:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. While there may be a few outliers, I see no benefit, functionality or usability to displaying prose article content in a table. Tables are for tabulating, not for articulating. --Enodoc (talk) 22:01, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
While we shouldn't use tables on every article, there are numerous cases where they are beneficial. Looking bad on mobile isn't a good enough reason to get rid of them, as there's a lot of stuff that looks bad on mobile but is still kept on the wiki. There are still articles where the 2-column tables are the most reasonable method of conveyinf info. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes there are numerous cases where they are beneficial, even expected eg. showing tabular data. However, there are other cases where they're less appropriate such as using tables to show text under a column header when the same text under a sub/section header would have sufficed and been equally effective. Or using invisible tables to hack non-tabular content into side-by-side layouts when there are better (ie. more responsive) means to achieve the same thing that can significantly improve the readability of the mobile site (and the app) without negatively impacting the experience for regular browsers too much, if at all.
Also, while there's a lot of stuff that looks bad on mobile but is still kept on the wiki, isn't that only because there's very few contributors who do take mobile into consideration? A less-than-ideal situation being prevalent is not reason enough to push back against efforts to improve it. Otherwise, why bother having a mobile site or launching an app if their usability issues are just dismissed as not a good enough reason? I think it's also fair to ask the same question for tables: what is a good enough reason to retain the 2-column table for Lore:Ehlnofey#Origin instead of either of the two fixes mentioned above? Is it really the most reasonable method of conveying info and are the alternatives really so unreasonable? Salamangkero (talk) 22:16, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Betrayal of the Second Era Namespace - Yes or No?[edit]

We currently have some pages beginning with the namespace prefix "Betrayal:" such as Betrayal:Betrayal of the Second Era. Since we do not have a namespace set up for this, these are actually in the Main namespace.

This brings a few paths forward:

  1. Create the new namespace "Betrayal" and move on. I suggest BT for the 2-letter alias and filename prefix, since BL is already taken by Blades.
  2. Do not create a namespace and merge the content into Merchandise as a pseudo-space.
  3. Merge Betrayal (currently 2 pages) and Call to Arms (8 pages) into Merchandise. I do not believe there is justification to merge Skyrim - The Adventure Game into Merchandise. It has quite extensive coverage on the wiki, and could potentially grow larger.

Option 3 does sound controversial, but with the way these board games keep coming, we may be glad to not have to create a new mini namespace each time, instead taking advantage of our existing Merchandise namespace.

We need to pick one of the options. I'm supportive of Option 3. I'll advise here that the benefits of namespaces are minimal for sections this small on the wiki compared to what you get with pseudo-spaces, and the downsides most likely outweigh the benefits. —Dillonn241 (talk) 20:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Option 1. Very against Option 3.Tarponpet (talk) 20:23, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Option 1 - With the amount of content BoTSE is confirmed to have, in addition to planned expansions, I think it makes the most sense to give it its own namespace. I feel merging with merchandise would also be odd, as it is a large game in its own right with mechanics, storylines, and gameplay to cover just like the video games. Floognoodle (talk) 20:32, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
If Betrayal of the Second Era does in fact compare to Skyrim - The Adventure Game, then I'd be convinced to favor Option 1 as well. I suppose it depends on how much we can legally cover of the game, without providing the means to recreate it. I've heard that Call to Arms is limited by this; as it stands, if the Call to Arms namespace doesn't have the capability to grow, it's not really worth having even if Betrayal and SkyrimTAG have namespaces. —Dillonn241 (talk) 20:48, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
As I understand it, Betrayal is a game of comparable scope to the other two tabletops, so they should all be treated the same. I think its own namespace makes sense (but the existing page will need to be moved first to remove the prefix before the namespace is created, otherwise that page will break). --Enodoc (talk) 22:12, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I support giving Betrayal its own namespace with the promised amount of content in mind, on the contigent that we review it after a while of it being added to. If it ends up having around the same amount of pages that Call to Arms has, I will support them being merged into Merchandise. Mindtrait0r (talk) 20:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
One thing to note, because they are physical games and there are different licenses involved, we might need to be careful in what we host when it comes to like.... direct text from the game.... that's part of the reason why Call to Arms is so small. Jeancey (talk) 23:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Betrayal should have its own namespace as it will have a significant amount of content.Analeah Oaksong (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

(←) Update So Far: It's looking like Betrayal will become a namespace and there isn't much support for merging Call to Arms. I'd like to see a few more replies first before settling on this decision, so I'll wait for those to appear or another admin to call the consensus. —Dillonn241 (talk) 04:51, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Namespace Created: Robin Hood created the namespace, and we've got it on the search page, sidebar, and Random page. —Dillonn241 (talk) 01:10, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Merging Pinball and Skyrim VSE Namespaces - Yes or No?[edit]

Splitting this off from the last post since I feel that to give it a fair shot, it should be a separate decision.

Merge Skyrim Pinball (9 pages) and Skyrim Very Special Edition (6 pages) into General or Skyrim. Pinball is similar to Skyrim Mash-up in that it's a Skyrim-themed part of a bigger game, and VSE is similar to Smolder Scrolls Online as a humorous minigame probably developed in a single weekend, with little replay value. —Dillonn241 (talk) 20:40, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I think Pinball becoming general is fair, as it's more a DLC like the Minecraft one or Smash costume than a game in it's own right. But VSE I argue is infact it's own game despite it's purpose as a humorous joke. It has enemies, items and various stat related things. Aswell as a somehwat substational amount of text to transcribe.Tarponpet (talk) 20:43, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I think Skyrim Mash-up is a good comparison - either way, all three should be treated the same. I'm happy for them all to go to General. --Enodoc (talk) 22:08, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Per Smolder Scrolls comparing to VSE and Pinball comparing to Mashup, I vote for both namespaces being removed, the pages merged into General. Mindtrait0r (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
I'm also on board with merging them into General. Jeancey (talk) 23:52, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
I think I'd prefer to see the two small namespaces continue to exist. Merging into General will just lead to the creation of subpages, which is less neat. —⁠Legoless (talk) 08:24, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
I'm very much behind getting rid of VSE as a namespace and merging it into General, it has very little substance to actually be its own thing and the "game" is mostly just a joke. Pinball I am more neutral on, as its an expansion with actual models, but VSE should very much go. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 16:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

(←) I also support these namespaces going away. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 07:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Update So Far: This proposal has strong viewpoints on both sides. Pinball is a bit of a toss-up. For SkyrimVSE, it looks like most of the support for merging into General is strong, with only Tarponpet strongly opposed. I would like to mention that although VSE has enemies, dungeons, and such, there is never going to be a reason to give any of these individual pages. They are all effectively text flavors of the same gameplay concept. A namespace with 6 pages and no room for growth feels pedantic on the part of categorizing it a "game" when basically every mod pseudo-namespace has more content. Would any of those opposed consider a merge of VSE without merging Pinball right now (or ever)? —Dillonn241 (talk) 04:51, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: Modify MediaWiki:Uploadtext[edit]

I think a small alteration to the text of MediaWiki:Uploadtext to explain that images get cached, and if you want to see a newly uploaded version immediately you'll need to do a hard refresh. Over the years, this has caused confusion for a lot of users, myself included. Having an explanation right on that page may help avoid it. An additional option to help would be to place to add an edit notice for the File namespace also explaining this. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 11:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

This has also caught me out, thinking there was some kind of issue with the upload process itself so I uploaded the same image multiple times trying to get the update to "stick." Something like:
Note: Browsers cache images to improve page loading times. If replacing an existing image, you may need to perform a hard refresh (CTRL + F5) for your change to become visible. | Samantha Says (talk) 11:08, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Agree. -- SarthesArai Talk 12:38, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
A more efficient way to change an image is to use the Upload a new version of this file link that is below the current image, instead of just uploading a file of the same name. THEN, use Ctrl+F5 and the new image replaces the one on the file page. I also use Ctrl+F5 on any pages that have that image, just incase the Wiki has not reloaded it yet.
Erorah (talk) 14:04, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
I think many people unfamiliar with browser caching could benefit from info explaining it and the shortcuts for clearing it in common browsers. I use Firefox and in addition to the Ctlr+F5 holding Shift and pressing refresh will also clear the cache. How effective the message will be is hard to say. Unfortunately in my experience people tend to not read these sorts of things. Thuraya Salaris (talk) 01:21, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Update: I have edited MediaWiki:Uploadtext with Samantha Says' proposed wording. As far as placing an edit notice on the File namespace, I'm not sure how that would look or how to do that. —Dillonn241 (talk) 22:17, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
The change seems to fulfill the spirit of the request to me. As long as an editor takes a few extra moments to read the info box this change should help alleviate most instances of this issue.Thuraya Salaris (talk) 05:36, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
I've found with uploading totally new images via red links that often a forced refresh does not update the red link and that purging the page's cache via the link at the top of the page does. —Eve (talk) 07:13, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

(←) I've added purging to the message and updated our instructions on the options for doing that. – Robin Hood (talk) 13:41, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion: Appropriate images for otherwise blank Lore People Summary templates[edit]

Instead of leaving the image parameter empty, and to add more colour and flavour to an otherwise emptier page, would it be appropriate to add an image that is closely related to the person in question? For example, having a symbol of office for notable people (era-appropriate icons/logos/banners for Emperors, Arch-Mages, etc.). This is already partially implemented on Lore:Symmachus, where his eponymous dagger is used in place of an image of Symmachus himself. --Rezalon (talk) 05:23, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, why not. You can make use of that template's fullimgdesc param to provide a non-standard caption. —⁠Legoless (talk) 08:35, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
I think the general practice for a person without an image is to put related images elsewhere on the article (ie Lore:Pulasia Tharn) but there's been no prior comment on whether one of those images could be put in the infobox itself. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 22:10, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
My take on it is that having a non-depicting image in the infobox is fine as long as a) a depicting image isn't available and b) the included image doesn't depict another person. Mindtrait0r (talk) 22:25, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
I can agree with that. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 22:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

(←) Yeah, I'm fine with using some artifact or location related to them if that's all we have, but using a relative is another matter. That just creates confusion. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 23:04, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

100% my line of thinking. Thanks folks! --Rezalon (talk) 23:50, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Change to Verified Creation Namespace Initials[edit]

Since there is not likely going to be an end to the expansion of Skyrim Mod:Verified Creations, I think it's overdue that the namespace initials for these pseudospaces be reconsidered. Right now, they are all based on the name itself, like SC for Spelltome Craft. This is quickly going to get out of control and limit what we have available for future games. They are also already starting to conflict with each other, as can be seen with Thief Hideouts and The Hidden both being TH (Eve just changed The Hidden to H, which looks odd in my opinion).

Considering that other mods like Tamriel Rebuilt, Morrowind Rebirth, Better Cities, and Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil use 3/4/5 as a suffix (TR3, MR3, BC4, BSC5), this is a good place to start to make sure they never conflict with a full game. I also think we should consistently use 3 uppercase letters like ARQ for Arquebus and BCE for Bards College Expansion. E.g, Legendary Dungeons: Dwarven Delves can just be LDD5, not LDDD, whereas The Hidden should be HID5, not H. 4 letters should only be used if there is a true conflict in a future Creation that cannot be nicely resolved any other way.

Something like this:

Verified Creation Pseudospace Initial
Aldmeri Anti-mage AAM5
Anise's Cabin - Claim a New Home ANI5
Arquebus ARQ5
Bards College Expansion BCE5
Bthar Caverns BTH5
Classic Dialogue Menu CDM5
East Empire Expansion EEE5
Echoes of the Vale EOV5
Forgotten Armory Collection FAC5
The Hidden HID5
Katja The Thief KTT5
Legendary Dungeons: Dwarven Delves LDD5
Legendary Dungeons: Nordic Secrets LDN5
Listener's Initiates LIS5
Little Taverns & Inns LTI5
Messages in Bottles MIB5
Morthal MOR5
Shadetree Lodge SHA5
The Shadowed Hide TSH5
Silent Moons Weapons SMW5
Spelltome Craft SPE5
A Tale of Blood and Snow TBS5
The Taste of Iron TOI5
Thief Hideouts THI5
Truth in Legends TIL5
Winterfrost WIN5
Winterledge Manor, Coastal Player Home WLM5
Xila's Monstrrous Dragons - A Terrifying Retexture XMD5
Yorgrim Hall - PlayStation Edition YOR5

Suggestions welcome. —Dillonn241 (talk) 07:09, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

No objection here, per se, although if we're going to actually be setting a precedent on purpose, I'd prefer it be consistent. Some of these use the first letter of each word. Others use the first three letters of the first word. Others use the first letter of each syllable. Some skip unimportant words like "the." Some do not. Another note is that some of these are already populated with images. A Tale of Blood and Snow has many, for example. So that would be a lot of renaming ... although I don't suppose that matters much in the grand scheme of things. It may also make more sense to simply use the same pseudospace for all Skyrim Verified Creations, such as VC5. This would also necessitate revisiting the naming conventions for other images which currently rely on the psuedospace being unique to uniquely identify the image (such as the prerelease images for A Tale of Blood and Snow). It's also worth considering using pre-existing namespaces like SR and SRMOD. SR makes more sense for Verified Creations than the other mods because some images for them appear on the Creations menu itself, part of the base game, not a mod (although this would then raise questions about other images for the Verified Creation being eligible for the prefix. If we want to use the first three letters overall, we already have a conflict between Winterledge and Winterfrost. If we want to use the first letter of each word, that would make Arquebus simply A5, for example. Long-term, using the same designation for everything is certainly the simplest ... and with SR having eligibility questions and SRMOD still being possibly being shared with mods that are not Verified Creations, just sticking a VC5 on them all ultimately feels like my suggestion at this point. For the record, I do not volunteer to go around renaming all the pre-existing content (and it would probably be more efficient to have someone that can do it without creating unnecessary redirects anyway).—Eve (talk) 07:37, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
I am also liking VC5 for all of them, although I'm not sure how that would work technically, if at all. To explain how I came up with the table above, it was:
  • 3+ word title: Choose the first letter of the first three most important words.
  • 1 or 2 word title: Choose the first three letters of the first important word (e.g., HID from Hidden, WIN from Winterfrost, SPE from Spelltome Craft).
Winterledge Manor is the only weird one because WIN would conflict with Winterfrost, so I went with (W)inter(L)edge (M)anor = WLM. Some flexibility should be allowed, as I mentioned, to accommodate conflicts. And as an aside, I don't think subtitles like "Coastal Player Home" or "Claim a New Home" should be considered when forming these initials. —Dillonn241 (talk) 07:45, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, I had thought unique prefixes were required to make trails work properly when subpages were present but have since been told that's not the case. Probably best to just see if there's any objection to VC5 for all before we try to sort out a Beautiful Mind chart for how to handle uniqueness.—Eve (talk) 07:50, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
So my suggestion on Discord (which I was going to bring here shortly) was VC5 and up to three additional characters. That removes any potential conflict with future releases and gives us over 17500 unique IDs. Essentially very similar to Dillon's suggestion, except we put VC5 at the front instead of a 5 at the end, and potentially aim for two characters by default, which is still 676 options, and only go to three if necessary. --Enodoc (talk) 11:20, 8 September 2024 (UTC)


Why is ESO on the main page listed with the mainline Elder Scrolls games?[edit]

There is a clear left right distincion on the main page, where the mainline games are on the left and the spin offs, are on the right. However ESO breaks that rule and instead appears on the very left, why is that? --Soanfriewack (talk) 17:52, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Probably because the spinoffs are mostly just mobile games now, with the exception of Battlespire & Redguard I guess, whilst ESO is the largest game in the entire series with immense contributions to the setting and more or less deserves a mainline space. But this is just my personal opinion CoolBlast3 (talk) 18:02, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
According to the edit summary of the edit that changed the order, presentation on mobile devices was also a consideration. It's kind of ironic that you have to scroll to get to the mobile apps on a mobile device, but at the same time, I've heard that a lot of people use their phones and tablets to look things up while they play the game on their main machine, so in that context, it makes sense to have the most popular games listed first. – Robin Hood (talk) 18:35, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

CKwiki interwiki[edit]

The URL creationkit.com has been in maintenance mode for months, and the wiki over there is no longer readable as a result. It would probably be a good idea to update the interwiki table so that CKwiki: would lead to https://ck.uesp.net/wiki/$1 instead of https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=$1 Since this wiki does not seem to have the Interwiki extension, that's something only those who have direct access to the wiki files can do. --Gez (talk) 11:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the suggestion. – Robin Hood (talk) 18:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Narrower page width[edit]

Recently the English wikipedia changed over to a narrower paragraph width. This decision was based on research showing that humans read most quickly at about 70 characters per line. (I am not allowed to link to any of the studies for some reason) WP ended up choosing a line width of about 150 characters. It would be nice if UESP tried something similar, either by changing the default or allowing not-logged-in users to change the width. Currently on my screen I can find lines of almost 300 characters, and it's a real journey each time. — Unsigned comment by Wizmut (talk • contribs) at 15:30 on 30 September 2024 (UTC)

We are quite a ways away from English Wikipedia's current version of MediaWiki in terms of upgrades. If we were to implement similar styling, it would have to be custom. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
It's probably a moot point, given Legoless' reply, but as to why you couldn't post links, the wiki disallows most external links from new users to prevent spam. I've overridden the limitation for you, so you should be able to post links now, though you may still have to acknowledge a warning before your edit is allowed through. – Robin Hood (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

One last push for Oblivion NPCs[edit]

Hi folks, the (very) long-running Oblivion NPC Redesign Project is now relatively close to completion. More than 75% of pages are finished and there remains very little writing from scratch to be done. You can see the more detailed stats here. At this point, we just need a final push to write the few remaining pages and to check the 25% that is still left. Remember that each category must be checked both in-game or in the CS (if you don't have access to the Construction Set, you can use the CSList). The only exception is Rumors, which due to their nature are ok to be both written and checked in the CS. You can find more information on how to contribute on the project page, or simply drop me a line. Let's do this! --SerCenKing (talk) 16:01, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Restricting BMP Image Uploads[edit]

Since we do not want users to upload BMP screenshots to the site, is there any case for when we should permit the file type? If not, it would be helpful to restrict them from being uploaded on the Upload page. —⁠FakeSmarts (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not privy to all the technical details, but from what I've experienced so far, everytime I try to view the full image for a .bmp file uploaded to the wiki it instantly downloads it to my computer, instead of opening it in a new tab like a .jpg or .png would, which isn't ideal. I'm not sure if there's other reasons, but someone else might know more. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 01:59, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I suspect that's probably your browser. A lot of browsers wouldn't even display bitmaps historically due to their large size. Less of a concern these days but it's still not a web-friendly format.
I would generally prefer that we support more filetypes on the wiki rather than less, but I genuinely can't think of a use case for ever uploading a bitmap to the wiki. Can anyone else? Do we have any in use currently? —⁠Legoless (talk) 09:13, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Back in the olden days, BMPs had the advantage of supporting transparency with a much wider range of colours than GIFs, so they were useful for that. Nowadays, PNGs and WEBPs can do all that and both are much smaller. So, in that context, I'd agree with removing BMP as an allowed image format. If, for some bizarre reason, someone really needs to upload a BMP in the future, Dave or I can temporarily re-enable the format on a single server just long enough for the upload to go through, then restore the default settings afterwards. We've done that in the past on occasion. – Robin Hood (talk) 16:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I support restricting it. Reviewed the list of .bmps on the site, none really seemed to suggest there is a hidden use case we're missing. In the case there is, as RH said, we can just re-enable them temporarily. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 17:14, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Okay, this has been done, and I took the liberty of doing it for Starfield as well. – Robin Hood (talk) 21:04, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Change Author Links to Default to Author Pages When They Exist[edit]

At the moment book pages with authors have the links go to Lore:Books by Author page. I think this should be changed so that when an author has its own page, it defaults to the actual author's page. So instead of every book Vivec wrote linking to that page, the "By Vivec" link goes to Lore:Vivec. The Books by Author page is still useful as a fallback in case an author doesn't/will never have its own page, but the average person will want the author's page over the Books by Author page. A Bibliography section could be also added to any author's page, if they don't have one already, that also links back to the Lore:Books by Author page. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 20:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I support the idea. Including a bibliography section is also a good addition for more prolific writers among lore characters with their own pages. I am not fully certain about current format of the table used by the bibliography as of now, but the idea is certainly good.Tyrvarion (talk) 11:06, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Bot Future[edit]

Hey everyone! Let me start with the TL;DR version: I need to transition out of being the site's main bot programmer.

As many of you know, I'm chronically ill, and a part of that illness is that I have difficulty doing anything intellectual for a decent amount of time. I basically just get stupider and stupider the longer I focus on intellectual tasks and, as an added bonus, I give myself an intense headache that can last for hours or days, especially if I try to do something else intellectual before the headache is completely gone. As you can probably imagine, those things don't go well together with being the site's main bot programmer. Programming at all can be a challenge some days, and the more complex bot jobs become inordinately difficult and time-consuming compared to how a normal programmer would find them.

At this point, between the amount of jobs people are asking for and the complexity of some of them, the bot work is coming in faster than I can get it done if I give myself the breaks I need. So, the site needs one or more additional bot programmers. We do have Enodoc/Enobot, but as I understand it, his bot (pywikibot) is basically a pre-packaged thing that can only do certain things and many of our jobs require more flexibility than it has (things like reading information from databases or files, complex decision-making, etc.). My hope is that we can get at least one other person as a bot programmer for the site(s), if not more. Ideally, for my health, I need to become either a secondary bot programmer or, at most, part of a team where we all do jobs regularly. Staying as the primary programmer for both UESP and Starfield just isn't viable anymore.

The idea of designing your own bot from the ground up is probably daunting to a lot of people. It certainly was to me when I started working on HoodBot instead of using the framework that drove HotnBOThered. If someone wants to do that, that's certainly an option, and it can be really rewarding to see things coming together over time, but that's not the only option. If you're a C# programmer, or are interested in becoming one, I think it's fairly simple to learn the basics of how HoodBot jobs work without having to design an entire bot yourself. Indeed, there was a job written by someone else about a year ago without a single keystroke by me, and after I'd checked it out, HoodBot ran it. So, that's another option, if anyone's interested. Feel free to get in touch with me on Discord or simply reply to this thread if you're at all interested, or if you have questions before making a decision. Thanks! – Robin Hood (talk) 15:41, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Weird Infobox colors[edit]

Hi, In my edit spree, I noticed some infoboxes have different colors than the usual grey background/black text.

Most of them are actually nice additions, but a few of them are weird and even eye-hurting in my opinion :

-Fabricants have a black background/flashy pink text infobox which is horrendous. See Verminous Fabricant. I propose a brass-like color for background and black text.

-Dogs and Cats both have a black background/flashy green text infobox which is horrendous. See Fancypants. I don't know what to propose here.

-Goblins have a black background/green text infobox which looks off. See Bloody Hand Hunter. I propose a color combination close to Argonians

-Horses have a black background/brown text infobox which looks off. See Horse. I propose the use of a brown color for background with black text

-Dwemers have a black background/orange text infobox which looks off. See Spectral Templar. I propose a dark brass-like color for the background and black text.

-Dark Seducers have a cyan background/white text infobox which looks off considering the dark gray color of them. See Dark Seducer Dreadnaught. I propose a Dark grey color with white text.

-Dwarven Centurions have a black background/orange text infobox which looks off. See The Forgemaster. I propose a brass-like color for the background and black text.

I'd like to know if you find those horrendous or not, because I feel they should be changed.

Thank you. BixenteN7Akantor (talk) 16:31, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe the concept is originally based on "NPCs" having the colour background with black text, and "Creatures" having the black background with coloured text, probably based on there not being enough colour variations to do them all the same way around. I think that logic is reasonable but don't have a good alternative suggestion to address the contrast issues with the current colour sets, which I do agree aren't great.
On a related note though, I think we should also make a decision on whether racecolor2 is actually worthwhile; at the moment, only three races have a different colour for racecolor2, and everything else just reuses racecolor1. --Enodoc (talk) 16:29, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
That brings up the question of whether we want to stick with an NPC vs. creature divide for the colour scheme at all. Abandoning the divide and using whatever colours we feel are appropriate to the race would mirror the internal changes in Skyrim, where they moved to just "actors" for everything and there's no more concept of NPC or creature. I think ESO is the same.
As for racecolor2, I didn't realize we used it that little. I thought all the playable races had different colours for that. Shows how much attention I pay to colour scheme! ;) If it's so few, I think it probably makes sense to abandon that altogether, then. – Robin Hood (talk) 18:15, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I like the different colours for the playable races (plus a few of the unplayable ones), but for creatures, I think you could just get rid of them if you wanted.--Talyyn (talk) 22:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Talyyn actually though my biased love towards Dwarven animonculi would make me a little sad lol --BixenteN7Akantor (talk) 09:27, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
The chosen colours have indeed always struck me as a little ugly. Coloured text on a black background is very Web 1.0. I support any suggested change to improve the aesthetics, but I strongly disagree with removing all styling for creature infoboxes entirely. Like NPC races and ESO zones, a little bit of colour is a good idea in principle, even if the wiki tends to favour function over style. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:12, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Legoless, for some creatures its unneeded and just looks worse, but for others like Dwarven Automatons the orange text is fitting and looks good. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 18:58, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

(←) Same as the above two. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:31, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

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