The Elder Scrolls Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 2

 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Categories
Since categories are now working, there should be some category guidlines. Wikipedias Category text. i.e. Spellslinger 05:40, 7 May 2006 (CDT)
 * There seems to be a lot of articles in both a category and a sub category. i.e 'Raminus Polus' is both a Category:Merchants and a Category:Spell Merchants, when spell mechants is already a sub category of Merchants.
 * if some all inclusive sub categories can be choosen for a category then it makes the task of category sorting easier.
 * Quests
 * Main Quests
 * Faction Quests
 * Side Quests
 * Daedric Shrine Quests


 * Agreed. So something like the Dark Brotherhood quest A Watery Grave would simply be under [:Category:Dark Brotherhood quests]] and Category:Quests that start in Cheydinhal, right? -- TheSpectator 18:50, 7 May 2006 (CDT)

URL
http://obliviowiki.org/ now works. Elliott Cable  ‹talk›   ‹contribs›  18:53, 29 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks, I appeciate the archiving. I don't know how you did the website address thing (I know very little about technical Internet stuff), but thanks for doing that. -- TheSpectator 19:14, 29 April 2006 (CDT)


 * ... I did it by changing my DNS to your website instead of mine. I officially consider TESwiki dead, as of now. There's a ton of URLs I can point to you if you care to check, obliviowiki/oblivionwiki/teswiki(DOT)com/net/org/ws, costing me something like 120$ a year... oh well. I'll probably just let them expire at the end of this payment cycle. Whatever. Archiving, I used to create an archive page, and that may still be necessary; but for simply archiving EVERYTHING on the page, just delete it and link to the oldid that is relevant to the old discussions. Elliott Cable   ‹talk›   ‹contribs›  21:26, 6 May 2006 (CDT)

Spoiler Warnings
(Moved from Project Page) It's most likely that almost every page on this wiki contains spoilers, so it would be smart to just put a general warning on the main page instead of every single branching page on the site. --Nizerifin 14:55, 26 March 2006 (CST)
 * I would suggest it is put in the namespace. As such, it is always viewable. Job 20:42, 31 March 2006 (CST)
 * I don't know I agree. I think alot of articles to not give away plot, just details of characters and areas. All the quest info could have spoilers but I don't think a blanket spoiler warning is of any use. Richardmilgate 21:15, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Quest-line navigation
To streamline ease of navigating through quest lines, I've created the,   and  templates. Next-quest takes two arguments: 1) The next quest in the line, and 2) The previous quest in the line. First-quest and last-quest take one argument: First-quest takes the next quest and prints "None" for the previous quest, and last-quest takes the previous quest and prints "None" the next quest. It looks something like this:

I have some formatting notes on its talk page. You can also view the latter Dark Brotherhood quests for examples, where I started using it myself.

Note that it automatically links the arguments. You can also use, and  for the same effect. Each one is based off of its respective x-quest template and will change if the base template changes. You can use whichever terminology makes sense to you when editing. 00:29, 3 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I've converted these templates to all derive their formatting style from . This template has four arguments: two to define the "next quest" field name and field value and two to define the "previous quest" field name and field value. This way, editors have the option of putting in other names besides 'Next Quest' or 'Previous Quest,' as used in Honor Thy Mother. Note that does not automatically link arguments, so you'll need to do this in the article itself.

Quests that start in X
I'm considering making some Category:Quests that start in X articles, assuming that eventually Categories will list all their members below the article. A question, though, since that currently doesn't happen: Should these quests be placed under that category and linked to an article that lists them? OR, should I expand the Quests that start in X header that already exists under a lot of town articles. Note that the latter option will make the articles extremely long. The easiest solution would be just to place Categories under the relevent quests and let the Category page list them, but this would not happen until the Category function gets fixed on the site.

Edit: I'm not even entirely sure if you can create new Categories until the site gets fixed. 09:01, 3 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm not sure I understand. Are you asking if you should make actual "Category:Quests that start in X" articles since the auto-list category pages are not functioning right now?
 * As for the headers that are already in town articles, initially I was only putting non-faction quests, but we can actually split those headers into subdivisions of Miscellaneous quests, X faction quests, etc. -- TheSpectator 18:09, 3 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I think it would b e appropriate to put faction quests -- ideally all quests -- in those lists, with some organization indicating their origin (faction/non-faction/main quest, etc.)
 * My initial idea was to start filling up those subheaders with quests, but I realized that Cheydinhal's would get horridly large just from the Dark Brotherhood quest line alone. So, I figured it might be smarter to give those subheaders in each town its own article. Ideally, if the categories were working correctly, we could just give each quest its appropriate tag and the category page itself would list all those quests, but currently that isn't happening.


 * So, we can do one of two things: 1) Continue to update the subheader, risking making them inappropriately large for the page, or 2) Make a Quests that start in X article for each town, make a corrosponding Category, and link each respective article in its Category. The latter would allow editors to add the Category to appropriate pages, and when the Category function starts working again, we have the list already there. 08:56, 4 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Edit: I made a possible example for a page here. 09:07, 4 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't think we need to make a separate article for Quests that start in X. The only special case would be the Dark Brotherhood quests, in which case we could just link to the whole Dark Brotherhood faction article with a note that 90% of the quests are from Cheydinhal. -- TheSpectator 01:30, 5 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Now that categories are up and working, do you think we should make a quest category for each town, or continue to add to the subheaders? 09:35, 5 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmmm, yes for the quest category, and possibly yes for the subheaders.
 * I think a few of the miscellaneous quests have already been categorized as "Category:Quests that start in X". Oh, and the other special case (in addition to the Dark Brotherhood) would be the Mages Guild quests that all come from Raminus Polus and Traven in Imperial City.
 * For the subheaders, using Anvil as an example, we could do something like:
 * ==Quests that start in Anvil==
 * * The Siren's Deception
 * * The Ghost Ship of Anvil
 * * Where Spirits Have Lease (Housing)
 * ===Mages Guild===
 * * Anvil Recommendation
 * ===Fighters Guild===
 * * A Rat Problem
 * * The Unfortunate Shopkeeper
 * ===Thieves Guild===
 * * Taking Care of Lex
 * However, we could actually leave Anvil quest section the way it is because there aren't really that many quests for each guild anyway. -- TheSpectator

Another question about Categories: If you make a Category a sub-category (that is, place its parent Category tag on the sub's page) and you add that category to an article, will the parent's tag also be added to the article? Example: Category:Flowers is a sub-category of Category:Plants. I add Category:Flowers to article Daisy. Will Daisy also automatically have the Category:Plants tag? 00:04, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Nope. Although NCL will list the page, and it will appear in the magic cat box, neither of those are enabeled on this wiki, so no. No effect appears for sub-categorization. Elliott Cable   ‹talk›   ‹contribs›  00:08, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Awesome. Thanks for the info. 00:10, 7 May 2006 (CDT)

I have grouped all the 'Quests that start in X' categories into Category:Quests by starting location sub-category of quests. Spellslinger 05:53, 7 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Got a note from TheSpectator saying this was not needed. It is reversed now.
 * Yeah, sorry I didn't see you had made a note here, otherwise I wouldn've mentioned it here. "Category:Quests that start in X city" is already a subcat of quests, and making it a subcat of a subcat would've been excessive. -- TheSpectator 13:54, 7 May 2006 (CDT)

One last consideration. Should we make a category for quests that end in a certain place? I believe there might be a couple category tags like this on quests here and there. I personally don't think they're necessary, since it's much more helpful to find out where quests start -- for easy reference of what quests to get when you're visiting a town -- than where quests end, but it's a possibility. 11:03, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Mmm, I don't think it's really necessary, as you stated, it's more important to know where quests start. Most quests end where they started anyway, minus a few others. -- TheSpectator 13:54, 7 May 2006 (CDT)

Forums?
Does OblivioWiki or GuildWiki (or both) have any forums by chance? 09:23, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * OblivioWiki doesn't have (yet), and Guildwiki has a separate forums as part of GuildWars Guru. -- TheSpectator 12:18, 6 May 2006 (CDT)


 * If we wanted forums here, we could just make some, couldn't we? Friday 21:17, 7 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Nope, don't really want any either. Just splits stuff relavent to the wiki away from where it should be SkuldPOW! 07:28, 8 June 2006 (CDT)

Suggestion: Slightly new Quest format
I posted a suggestion for a couple updates to the Quest format standard on its talk page. You can find the example here. Wouldn't mind a couple opinions, if you have a moment. 17:36, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks great to me. Now for implementation... -- TheSpectator 17:53, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * An easy place to copy/paste Journal Entry info: IGN Oblivion Walkthrough. I primarily used this while editing Dark Brotherhood quests, and it's much faster than trying to type it out from the game itself.


 * I don't see the harm in copying and pasting, as the journal entries are exactly the same as in the game. Saves a lot of time and alt-tabbing. ;-D -- TheSpectator 18:28, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Oo.. One concern about that. Very technical though. Would publishing the journal text on a free site be considered copyright infringement? 08:11, 8 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't think so, considering how everything else is verbatim from the game. Take The Imperial Library for example; they hold all the in-game texts dating before Morrowind. -- TheSpectator 18:40, 8 May 2006 (CDT)

Enchanted Weapon Formatting
Okay, this is also on the OblivioWiki talk:Style and formatting/Weapons page, but I put it here because it'll get more coverage ;).

Format for plain weapons is fairly straightforward. However, we need a consistent format for enchanted weapons. Browsing through the weapons that have been put up, there are these examples in no particular order:
 * 1) Ebony Blade – Basic weapon stats on one row, magical properties on the second row
 * 2) Chillrend – Abbreviated basic weapon stats table. Magical properties listed underneath table.
 * 3) Staff of Indarys – All-in-one row information
 * 4) User:TheSpectator/ItemArticle – Something I created a while ago that has all-in-one row, but with magical properties (effects, charges, uses) combined
 * 5) User:Glued2thePC/Item Template – Basic listing of item info, no tables

Thoughts? Suggestions? New ideas? An example item I missed? -- TheSpectator 18:32, 7 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I'd combine the Ebony Blade style for the weapon and the Chillrend style for the enchantments. Blade looks very slick, but the enchantments are limited by the number of columns above it. Chillrend's enchantments, on the other hand, allow for all info needed to be displayed without the table getting very wide or very tall in a funky way. It also has a look similar to the game itself. I could see in future additions placing the appropriate spell symbol in front of each effect as well. 08:42, 8 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Okay, combined both elements. How does this look: User:TheSpectator/ItemArticle? -- TheSpectator 13:47, 13 May 2006 (CDT)

Faction Quest Boxes
I liked the main quest info box, here is one for the Mages Guild Quests. I was unsure how to handle the non sequential quests like The Bloodworm Helm and the Necromancer's Amulet and Alchemy Acquisitions. comments welcome. Any comments on colours/layout also Welcome. I have not added this to any quests yet.

Spellslinger 11:51, 9 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmm, it's nice, though it defeats the purpose of the "next-quest, previous quest" template that's in use right now. If it does get used, we sure can go for other colors (red for Fighters Guild, blue/green for Mages Guild, maybe dark blue/gray/black for Dark Brotherhood, etc etc). There is a problem with nonsequential quests; I think the Fighters Guild has a few nonsequential quests (correct me if I'm wrong), so info box could still have them listed, but with a small note that "the following X quests can be done in any order" or something. -- TheSpectator  12:57, 9 May 2006 (CDT)
 * I agree that it duplicates some of the next/previous quest stuff but I think it could be complementary. It is ment to be a kind of summary of the whole set of quests. I dont think it would be a problem having both. I have addded an alternative design here Template talk:Mages guild quests, changing the colour and grouping slightly. What would be really nice is if I could get a mages guild icon into it. All mage's guilds seem to have the same symbol on the signs I will try to get a flat screen shot unless someone has a good one already.


 * I think if you're going to use the quest boxes, you'd want to nix the Next/Previous links. Both are just metadata, and in the interest of clarity it would be best to keep them to a minimum. As long as each table indicates where you are in the quest line currently, it works as a navigation tool. If ported to other quest lines (thinking of Dark Brotherhood, as always), it might make some pages unnecessarily large. It'll end up being an aesthetic compromise. Next/Previous has less information but is sleeker and compact, while the quest box has more information but tends to take up a lot of room.

Verification E-mail
The server dosen't seem to be sending out the verification e-mail needed for me to verify my e-mail address on the preferences page. I have done all the usual stuff like double checking my e-mail address etc, but it appears to be a problem at the OblivioWiki end.


 * I do believe it is a problem on the OblivioWiki end. I'll let Gravewit know. -- TheSpectator 03:05, 31 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Should be fixed now. -- TheSpectator 11:36, 9 June 2006 (CDT)

E-Mail password feature
It doesn't seem to be working. Tried it a number of times over the past week and nothing. Checked all my mail accounts, every folder something could fall into, nada. Since I used the save password option and can't for the life of me remember my pass, I can't login anymore. The account name is Jadame_Tamuli, and I'd like to be able to get back into it...


 * Yeah, I've tried doing the e-mail stuff too, but it never worked for me, so I think it's broken. I think it's better off creating a new account. -- TheSpectator 03:05, 31 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Should be fixed now. -- TheSpectator 11:36, 9 June 2006 (CDT)

Names of races
I propose that names of the elven races be changed appropriately to "Altmer" instead of "High Elf," "Bosmer" instead of "Wood Elf," etc. etc, and have the pages redirect the other way around. I think it's more appropriate for naming. -- TheSpectator 03:05, 31 May 2006 (CDT)
 * What is Bethesda's official stance on this? Personally, I would rather use Altmer and Bosmer as well. -- Patito 16:49, 14 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Okay, I'll change the names and move the content around. -- TheSpectator 13:59, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

Admins
Could use some more admins around here. Any nominations? Gravewit 11:39, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * posting Halfang 13:23, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * sorry guys, but I won't be able to be an admin. Due to personal reasons and lack of time I don't know how much attention would I be able to pay to the wiki or either oblivoin itself. Sorry. (well, it was Halfang 18:41, 8 June 2006 (CDT))


 * I would nominate User:Halfang, as he/she has been the most active recently. I nominate Chirikov because he's/she's been contributing periodically. Though I admit that I haven't been updating much recently ;) 'cause I've had stuff to take care of. More updates coming soon! -- TheSpectator 22:20, 6 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I can admin, since exams are pretty much over now and things are winding down. I'll be out of the country for a month sometime in July, but despite not being able to contribute much then I'll still be able to keep an eye on the Wiki (which is one of the nice things about the Internet). Chirikov 17:52, 14 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Hopefully we can get more opinions on policies, style and formatting, and the like, so it doesn't feel like I'm running the show ;). -- TheSpectator 22:31, 6 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Oh, and User:Montag as well, as he knows some wiki-related stuff pretty well, though hasn't been around for a few weeks. I thought about this and he hasn't been around much lately. -- TheSpectator 22:34, 6 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm willing to help out, and would eventually like admin privs. I have been active on other wikis (including as an admin) so I'm familiar with the software.  However, I realize I'm new here and have hardly edited, so I understand if it takes time for people to trust me.  In the meantime, I'm going to start editing and I'm happy to engage in discussion on policies or any other issues.  So far I'm just getting pages onto my watch list and trying to help fill in obvious gaps, putting stubs in place of redlinks and whatnot.  Friday 21:13, 7 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Continue to contribute and we'll consider it down the road. :) -- TheSpectator 11:36, 9 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I think I've earned superpowers, or a telekinesis spell, or something. Now I can move pages =)

Individual pages for standard weapons and armor
Do we even need individual pages for standard weapons and armor (as in having separate articles for standard Iron Dagger, Glass Dagger, and Glass Helmet, etc.)? I figure that at most there'd be stats, which is already on the Dagger page, for example, and maybe a picture, which would be easy to incorporate into that page. -- TheSpectator 02:19, 9 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Individual pages should probably redirect to the main articles (such as Glass Armor or Glass Weapon depending). Individual item types might need their own page as well, since you can compare different materials for the same item type. We should avoid fragmenting the Wiki too much with individual articles, since one long page is better than a dozen single paragraph ones. Chirikov 08:41, 9 June 2006 (CDT)