Board Thread:Consensus Track/@comment-26893431-20180203204530/@comment-25356303-20180217062629

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 analyze sources for reliability on talk pages and apply them to content articles appropriately based on those decisions, our opinions on canonicity/officialness do 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 suspect that it will also 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 very strange and perhaps not 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.