Board Thread:Consensus Track/@comment-26893431-20180203204530/@comment-26893431-20180217102523

Atvelonis wrote: You make a convincing argument here. I agree that the term "out-of-game" is somewhat antiquated, perhaps, and it would probably not be a terrible idea to use a more applicable phrase to describe the texts it covers. This is something we have to be very careful about, though, because using misleading terminology to distinguish between sources can and will give readers an inherent bias about those materials.

The term "Unofficial" (UO) is not an acceptable replacement. The thing to remember about TES is that there is no clear line between unofficial/official texts, because Bethesda/ZeniMax very rarely comments on it; categorizing sources in this manner is an almost entirely subjective decision on our part. While we do evaluate sources for reliability on talk pages and apply them to content articles appropriately based on those decisions, our analysis on canonicity/officialness does not extend to the mainspace proper. This counts as original research, which is expressly prohibited by our guidelines. We absolutely don't want to bias readers' own source analysis!

"Unlicensed" (UL) is a somewhat more objective term than "Unofficial" as it distinguishes between texts that have been "licensed" by Bethesda/ZeniMax from those that were produced independent of legal copyright (?). My primary concern is that the term "unlicensed" is rather stigmatized in English; it implies illegal activities/productions in particular (which do not apply to developer texts), so it's not exactly the most neutral/objective term. I also suspect that it will be a little difficult to determine whether many texts are, in fact, "licensed" or not. Just look here for some material whose licensed/non-licensed status is basically impossible to verify.

"Published Unofficially" (PUO) has the same problems as described above. "Not Published by Bethesda" (NPB) would be a poor choice for the reason Nekyn gave, and is sort of clunky anyway. "Word of God" (WOG) has clear religious connotations, which I feel is deeply inappropriate for an encyclopedia to endorse on its actual articles. I am not very keen on "Supplementary" (SUP) or "Peripheral" (PRL?) because they imply that developer texts are insignificant, which is not accurate in the slightest.

I feel that "Developer Texts" (DEV) would have less potential to be misleading than "Unlicensed." It's easier to define, and probably more widely understood. It works very similarly to "Unlicensed" but avoids the stigma which that word carries. The games, novels, and strategy guides would be exempt from this categorization, obviously, whereas things like the Loveletter and similar works, developer interviews, and the Loremaster's Archives would all be given this distinction. Plus, you also don't have to worry about finding verifiable proof that something is "licensed" this way, which, as mentioned above, is nigh impossible for many texts.

I suppose "Obscure Texts" would cover all of the "weirder" OOG stuff like everything you see on the Out-of-Game Texts article right now. However, this is not an objective distinction as far as I can tell. It implies that texts are classified under it depending on how well-known they are, which is unusual and not really that informative. For example, I'm sure C0DA is more well-known than Oblivion Mobile, but that's not necessarily a useful distinction. We should certainly be making an effort to keep things relevant to readers.

I'm very interested to hear some additional thoughts on this. Whatever decision we make will influence quite a few articles, so I hope we can agree on the most reasonable solution. Coming back on UL, in the OOG template of now we have, a notice stating:

"Notice: The following are out-of-game references. They are not found in any in-game books, but can still be considered part of The Elder Scrolls lore and are included for completeness."

With UL, we could change the text around a bit, I don't know in what way, but to make it similar to what we have right now, so that people know it doesn't refer to illegal activities or something along those lines, but rather, that it's not the same thing as the things we read ingame or read in the Novels. Perhaps something like:

"Notice: The following are unlicensed references. They are not found in any in-game books, but can still be considered part of The Elder Scrolls lore and are included for completeness."

I know that that's only a one-word edit, but still. I'm sure something similar can be found.

The idea of DEV also seems like a potential replacement, imo. I do, however, think that the Loremaster's Archive are different from your other OO.... DEV, works. Mainly because they are written while ESO is still getting updated, and because they are written by ESO's loremaster and appear on ESO's site. Imo, this makes it look like official material to me, especially considering that they did not put up a disclaimer stating it isn't official like they did here. Though I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world if the Archives were included as DEV.

I agree that the other templates would become a bit messy, because, as said, they would make it look like it's worth nothing at all, and if it's worth nothing at all, we'd have no reason to cover them in the first place. But we do, and that's because they do have value. Curious to see what we'll come out with here.