UESPWiki:Community Portal

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This is the main discussion forum used 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 inquiry, please place it at the bottom of the page with a two-tier (==) heading.

Before starting a discussion here, please review the list of 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:

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
UESPWiki talk:Style Guide 15 April 2023 Italicizing game names (again) Will-B
Lore talk:Hero 11 May 2023 Promotional Images Mindtrait0r

Category Images[edit]

Hey everyone. I had a request to change the category galleries from "packed" mode to "nolines" mode. Even though the rest of the site uses "packed" mode, I think it makes more sense for categories to use "nolines", as it's significantly more organized for large numbers of images and easier on the eyes. I've already made the switch on content3, so here are a couple of places where you can see the differences:

Alternatively, there's also the "traditional" mode, which is the default for categories. This has the advantage that all the image names are aligned. Here's an example from Commons: Wikimedia barnstars

Does anyone have any thoughts? I think either "nolines" or "traditional" are best. Robin Hood(talk) 23:24, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Category galleries serve to list files, not to display images. packed mode serves to display images, which works very well in most user-defined contexts, but not this one. Beyond just the aesthetics, it creates significant x overflow in some categories, creating an undesirable user experience straight out of a web-design 101 "what not to do" example. I would suggest, however, that instead of nolines, we use traditional, the default gallery mode, as it ensures the file name hyperlinks are y-aligned. -Dcsg (talk) 23:30, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I made a suggestion when we were considering switching to packed that we should keep nolines ready as a backup, due to how packed functions on the back end. I would be happy to switch sitewide default to nolines at this point, considering the mess that packed leaves some galleries in. (Some users have even specifically defined a different style for some galleries in direct opposition to packed being the site standard.) Until such a time where a gallery actually has functionality of defining size by height, rather than packed's approximation of height by dynamically defining widths, nolines would be cleaner. --Enodoc (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Okay, I've switched everything over to "nolines" mode. Even if we wanted to, it's not possible to change the default category mode independently, but in the process of trying to find an option to do so, I discovered that category galleries allow for a &gallerymode=whatever parameter in the URL (or use a ? instead of an & if there isn't already a ?). Robin Hood(talk) 01:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Images in galleries seem really small after these changes. Imperialbattlespire (talk) 04:54, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
Image captions seem to be centred in galleries by default now. —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:35, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
The default size is configurable, and the alignment of the captions can be adjusted through CSS, if we want. Everything's global, though, so whatever the default is for galleries is what it'll be for categories as well. It's easy enough to change, as long as we have some general consensus about what we want to do. Robin Hood(talk) 00:47, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Update on Future Link/Lore Link[edit]

Some nine months after our original discussion about {{Future Link}} and {{Lore Link}}, I've finally managed to get rid of Future Link altogether. As for Lore Link, however, the problems with errors being hidden are still problems, as demonstrated by my recent edit to Lore:Ghost. Out of seven Lore Links on the page, four of them were mistakes that were readily resolved.

As a result of that edit, I changed Lore Link to start displaying red links that don't resolve to anything as red links. At first I intended that to be a temporary change, but in the process of doing that, I accidentally stumbled onto what I hope will be a good long-term solution that allows Lore Link to work as intended, but also helps to ensure that Lore Links aren't just arbitrarily being added with no verification. The short of it is that Lore Links, by default, will be considered unverified, and if they don't resolve to something, they'll show up as a red link. One option is, of course, to just leave them that way in the hopes that someone will create the page. But if that's not realistic, I've added two possible options. The first is to add a |v=1 or |verified=1 to the Lore Link template. (In retrospect, I could've made it confirmed like {{Bug}}, but we can change that later if we want.) Thus, {{Lore Link|This should be a Lore page soon|v=1}} will produce: "This should be a Lore page soon" instead of "This should be a Lore page soon". The other option is to use the new {{Lore Links Verified}} template that I just created, which will turn all red Lore Links after it into plain text. This would have to be used fairly conservatively, if at all, since it could effectively be used to prevent a page (or section of one) from any future red-link checks.

The one drawback is that this will have to be policed by other editors, much as we do the {{Bug}} template, since getting HoodBot to do it would be very labour-intensive and involve a lot of back-and-forth with the wiki as well. If we ever develop a wiki-side bot, that might be something we could automate at that point. Robin Hood(talk) 04:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I neglected to mention, but this is very much intended as a trial, to see if it helps eliminate errors. Since the system is something newly thought up, I expect there may improvements to how it works or problems we need to figure out, or we may simply decide to scrap it altogether. It was easy enough to put into place, though, and I hope that it'll help improve some of our erroneous Lore Links without being too much of a hassle. Robin Hood(talk) 05:50, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Spelling: White-Gold vs. White Gold[edit]

Greetings fellow UESPians. It has recently come to my attention that the spelling of a major Tamrielic landmark appears to be rather inconsistent. This was impressed on me by a recent bot edit to Oblivion:Green Emperor Way, which left the article with both a red-link (in the text description) and a valid link (in an image caption) to what should be exactly the same article. The page name of the article in question is spelled without a hyphen, yet the very first line of the article spells the name with a hyphen (resulting in another red-link). The lore article uses the hyphenated form exclusively, yet the relevant section in "The Towers" article uses both forms of the spelling apparently indiscriminately. A search in the TES IV Construction Set reveals that both spellings are present in Oblivion (the non-hyphenated version perhaps more so than the hyphenated version), and I'm not sufficiently conversant with lore to make any judgment regarding general usage. So my question to the community is three-fold:

1. Is there a single canonical in-universe spelling for this landmark that we should be using? or,
2. Is there a canonical in-universe reason why both spellings are valid and rules for when one should be used instead of the other? or,
3. Is there no canonical in-universe spelling, in which case should/can we as a community standardize on one spelling to maintain consistency and be able to create appropriate redirects for the alternate spelling?

Thanks for any and all clarification you can provide on the subject. — Wolfborn(Howl) 11:52, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

There isn't a single canonical in-universe spelling, both are used in canon. There seems to be no clear differentiation between the usages, and we should not standardize to use one spelling or the other. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 12:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
This was discussed years ago {Lore_talk:White-Gold_Tower#Hyphenated) and generally the older games didn't have the hyphen (which is why the OB page is named as such). Today with new books (and thus from a lore perspective) the hyphen has become the standard and is used at all times in ESO, so that is the preferred option in lore articles.--Jimeee (talk) 10:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Jimeee is correct. It's "White Gold" in OBspace, but "White-Gold" is the modern spelling. —⁠Legoless (talk) 11:30, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification! And thanks to Legoless to fixing the Oblivion article links; I was planning to do that myself once I got clarification but ended up busy with other projects and haven't had time to pop in here since my OP. — Wolfborn(Howl) 00:27, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Map Beta Test[edit]

We've been very busy rewriting the front end system and UI for all our online maps and its ready for beta testing at:

https://gamemap.uesp.net/

For all the details on what's changed lately you can see the public post on Patreon.

So give it a try and let us know what you think, if you find any bugs, or can think of additional features you'd like to see. -- Daveh (talk) 16:26, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

quick summary of what's changed since last beta:
  • all wiki maps added (morrowind, skyrim, oblivion)
  • overflow menu now works (reported by robinhood)
  • ability to pin the search window added (suggested by xyzzy, daveh)
  • is now at feature parity with existing uesp maps (besides editing, more on that in a bit)
  • performance is 50-60% better than current existing wiki maps
feedback wanted:
the current gamemap build does not have map editing yet, but I wanted to make sure that when it does, it is something that all map editors are happy with. so I would to draw attention to and gather map editor's feedback on:
  • the existing map editing experience (what are the current pain points, how do you think it can be improved?)
  • thoughts on the upcoming gamemap RC changes interface (last pic in the patron post above)
with the new RC changes interface I tried to address some of the pain points I heard from other editors, being that:
  • there is no way to know who did what edit
  • no way to know what kind of edit it was
  • no easy to see how long ago an edit was
so in addition to the new looks I am including these features which I hope map editors will appreciate:
  • action type (add, delete, edit)
  • what an edit did (hovering over the action type will tell you *what* was edited)
  • edit author (username) shown
  • relative timestamps (hovering over gives full timestamp)
please let me know any feedback you have (general wiki user's thoughts on the maps as a whole are also welcome) --Thal-J (talk) 17:12, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

new vector look[edit]

so, Wikipedia has just changed their site's look. it is called vector (the 2022 version). here is the look: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=vector-2022 why don't you make this look the same on unofficial elder scrolls page website? — Unsigned comment by Jetcold0 (talkcontribs) at 03:30 on 11 March 2023‎

We're roughly ten versions behind Wikipedia, so it's unlikely we'll be able to switch to the new Vector any time soon. Even when the time comes, re-colouring the design to fit our standards takes a surprising amount of effort. I expect we'll convert once we get there, but that'll depend on the skill sets of those who are here at the time, specifically requiring someone who's familiar with skins and someone else who's familiar with image re-colouring. Robin Hood(talk) 04:58, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
Vector and Vector-2022 appear to share the same code base, as in - they're functionally the same "skin" under the hood, but some parts of Vector-2022 don't work properly until 1.38, and use of it before 1.38 apparently causes issues during the upgrade process. For 1.36 and 1.37 Vector-2022 support is "unofficial" - although exactly what the issue is is unclear on a brief look through it. I think given that Vector works with the UESP Theme, the conversion should probably be relatively painless. As a good portion of the actual interface seems to use the same overall tone and layout styles, with just the actual layout itself appear to have changed considerably.
As an addendum, I believe we still use Monobook as our default skin - moving to Vector as the default is definitely possible currently for us, which is certainly more modern than Monobook. Perhaps that could be worth looking at, given Vector-2022 is still probably 5 years off being even possible at all? Kiz (email - talk) 23:50, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
It doesn't matter to me personally as I've been using Vector here for years, but I agree that Vector should be more accessible than Monobook for our anonymous readers, as it was developed much more recently with modern screen sizes and readability in mind. (Anyone with an account who prefers Monobook can still set that in their preferences.) Therefore I would support making Vector the default. --Enodoc (talk) 15:39, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
I prefer Vector to Monobook, but I dislike Vector 2022 as it shrewds down width and makes everything more annoying to read/ruins existing formatting. Wikia/Fandom did the same years ago to increase ad display space and it was universally hated. I would be 100% down with updating to Vector 2021 though, or whichever version of Vector wikipedia was using before they changed up the width. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
@Rim - regarding the Vector-2022 width, I can't see why we'd have to keep the settings universally the same as Wikipedia when we did/could set it up, though that's a discussion for much in the future at this point in time. I think Eno's point regarding Anon's is a good one potentially, since it would make UESP's layout more consistent with nearly every other wiki out there Kiz (email - talk) 02:16, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
I think the best idea would be to let the editors at English Wikipedia beta test Vector 2022 for us. At present, the layout changes it makes would be highly disruptive to this site. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:48, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

() It's less a fact of them testing it, and more just a fact that we can't physically change to it. Some of the functions it uses we won't have present for the next several years... Vector (old) is stable and has been in use for over a decade. Kiz (email - talk) 18:03, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Voice types in infoboxes?[edit]

Ten years ago, Robin Hood undertook a good project to categorize every Skyrim NPC by voice type, by adding a parameter to the NPC infobox. However, all that parameter does is add NPCs to voice type categories, which are buried at the bottoms of articles, and which don't appear at all on mobile—I'm sure most readers are unaware of them. I realize we want to avoid clutter in infoboxes, but voice types are a pretty fundamental aspect of a Skyrim NPC, and I think a quick link to a list of other NPCs of the same voice type would be of more interest to the average reader than the lists of often-incomprehensible faction names such as "Favor256QuestGiverFaction" or "friends to both sides in MQ101". But I'm pretty new here, so curious of your thoughts. (By the way, I put this proposal here because it seemed too big a change for a template talk page, but feel free to move it.) —⁠Will ⁠• ⁠B[talk] 20:36, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I would be happy to see the VoiceTypes added to the infobox, it means that when I'm looking for them, I'll find them quicker that having to read through however many categories! --Enodoc (talk) 00:07, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Sounds like a good change to me. —⁠Legoless (talk) 15:57, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Done. Added just above the Factions. Robin Hood(talk) 16:28, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
That was quick! Thanks, looks good. —⁠Will ⁠• ⁠B[talk] 00:19, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Multiple unnecessary articles[edit]

Discussion moved from UESPWiki:New Page Requests

I think there should be pages for everything of a certain thing instead of making multiple pages for multiple aspects of one thing. I think we should combine all articles on one thing and put it all in one article. An example is maybe daedra, there are multiple articles for different aspects when we could just have it all in one article. — Unsigned comment by 35.185.67.223 (talk) at 18:29 on 21 March 2023

Which namespace were you looking at? Skyrim certainly seems to take the approach you're advocating for. ESO sort of does. The splitting of each different type of daedra seems justified there due to the sheer volume of information. Even today, some people have data caps or slow connections, so the more you compartmentalize information so that people only get what they want, the better. That said, there's often a good middle ground. It would be helpful if you could clarify which namespace you're referring to and give some specific examples of what you'd do. Robin Hood(talk) 04:08, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Constitution of Unofficial Lore - Four Cases[edit]

Myself, Achernar, and Tarponpet were discussing this on the Discord, transcribing the main points here. Do note that in my final steps, I will be using my own judgement, so my suggestions there may differ from those of Achernar or Tarponpet's; I am in no way claiming that these are their points, just that we reached a consensus upon the inconsistent application I will soon describe.

We feel that the UOL tag is inconsistently applied throughout certain pages. The main point, discussed by all three of us, is that Interview with a Dark Elf (IDE) is marked as official lore (OL), while Skeleton Man's Interview with Denizens of Tamriel (SM) and Interview With Three Booksellers (IBS) are marked as unofficial lore (UOL). This distinction is odd; IDE, as specified on its page, was conducted by Daveh as an email interview with Bethesda employees. No other attempts are made to verify its prescribed canonicity, but it is labeled as OL. In contrast, IBS and SM are both marked as UOL, despite their respective pages including specific references, directly from Bethesda workers, specifying that the pages' contents are copyrighted by Bethesda. They both also make direct mention of the sharability of the content, both specifying restrictions. We view this as indisputable proof that these interviews are OL material. Per UESP's own copyright policy and the rationalization of intellectual property on C0DA's page, works licensed, copyrighted, registered, trademarked, or otherwise owned by Bethesda or Zenimax are automatically official, and therefore OL.

To add another wrinkle, and to get back to the primary topic of the distinction between OL and UOL - though, to specify, this point is entirely my own and unrelated to Tarponpet and Achernar - is the inconsistent canonicity of Xanathar's Library Archive. On some pages, including the specification on its own page, Xanathar's Archive is treated as OL (ex. [1] [2]). However, vastly more pages cite it under UOL (ex. [3] [4] [5]). Certain instances, most notably Ami-El, dedicate an entire section of a listing page to information exclusive to this archive, which is against the UOL policy per consensus among the administration in the past (ex. [6]) and in UESP's Content Guidelines, insisting that while UOL-provided names may be used as redirects to brief mentions in OL articles, but not as independent pages.

Xanathar's Archive is unique, though, as it seems to be comprised of official, albeit internal, Bethesda timeline information. This can be corroborated by its similarities to Before the Ages of Man, as well as its duplicated statement on Ami-El in posts by Matt Grandstaff. However, as specified by administrators, cut content is UOL, and no mentions of Ami-El, for instance, made it into the games. For an example of the contrary being the case, From The Many-Headed Talos, by Michael Kirkbride, is a short speech written out-of-game. This speech was later tweaked by Bethesda, cutting out notable details revolving around Cyrodiil's jungle, and put into Skyrim as part of Heimskr's speech. From The Many-Headed Talos is not considered canon, and neither should Xanathar's Archive, by this standard.

The inconsistent application of the UOL tag in Xanathar's citational case may be attributed to simple miscommunication among those who use it in references. However, the blatant contradiction in the vastly more accepted opinion, a UOL tag, to the presence of a lorepage surrounding its contents, is just that — a contradiction. Steps should be taken to avoid this, and, harkening back to the consensus that myself, Achernar, and Tarponpet reached, the inconsistent definition of UOL in regards to Bethesda's ownership/copyright. I propose the following:

1. "Interview With Three Booksellers" and "Skeleton Man's Interview with Denizens of Tamriel" should be marked OL in all facets of the site, as per their copyrighted status.

2. "Interview with a Dark Elf" should be decanonized, unless confirmation from the interview itself or the interviewee of its alleged canonicity can be provided.

3. "Xanathar's Library Archive" should be decanonized, in the few instances it is cited as OL and in its page's introductory statement, as it functions as cut content.

4. An overview of other similar cases to those I have mentioned should be done, to further tighten the parameters of OL and UOL in the future.

Thank you for reading. Mindtrait0r (talk) 01:27, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I believe IDE should stay official, as we we have a pretty reliable source (Daveh himself) to confirm it. The site hosting it isn't a requirement, and IIRC uesp was hosted by Bethesda themselves at one point, possibly when the interview came out in 1999. For SMI, similar case so it should be official. When it comes to these kinds of interviews, there's two major factors I always consider:
  1. If the interview has been edited by Bethesda/Zenimax
  2. The answers are given from an "in-lore" perspective, from a character/standpoint in The Elder Scrolls universe
From what I know based off what Benefactor of TIL told me a while back, TIL sends in the questions, then Zenimax tells them which questions they will and won't answer, then TIL sends in their questions again with the recommended changes, Zenimax answers them, TIL edits it and sends it in for ZeniMax editing + approval, and then finally TIL gets to publish it. This is a weeks-long process, of course what I've listed is my very rough understanding of it and we could ask TIL to confirm the exact specific steps of the process, but either way ZeniMax is heavily involved in the process of publishing these interviews. Even IceFireWarden said Zenimax edited his questions before he published the interview with them, despite it being published on a site not owned by Bethesda. These cases are part of why ESO Live, which is hosted entirely by ZeniMax, is considered unofficial: the interviews are in-universe and edited, while ESO Live happens live and is presented from a developer viewpoint. Those two factors are a big reason why ESO Live is used mainly as a supplementary resource, the devs aren't being "edited" by others and it all happens in the moment, so they themselves admit everything they say should be taken with a grain of salt as there's no one to correct them. These interviews on the other hand go through a ton of checks and approvals (many by ZeniMax) before they are published so as to make sure they're accurate and factual.
There's some interviews with former employees, like Lawrence Schick and Phrastus on Altmer Culture, that I won't consider "official lore" as Lawrence left Zenimax a while before doing the interview. But for interviews done with employees while supervised and approved by ZeniMax, they should be considered official. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 04:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
These texts are classic use cases for the UOL tag and should be cited as such. Copyright status is irrelevant; all TES content is properly copyright Bethesda. —⁠Legoless (talk) 09:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Mindtrait0r's points (as I was the one to bring them up on Discord in the first place); however, I agree with The Rim of the Sky's points on the matter of Interview with a Dark Elf keeping its "official lore" status mentioned in the head of the article.
As for what Legoless is saying, it's true that these texts are "classic use cases for the UOL tag", but this is exactly what we're proposing should be changed. This is because it seems disingenuous or even unfair to treat these interview-type sources (Interview with a Dark Elf, Interview with Three Booksellers, Skeleton Man's Interview), published by Bethesda with the clear intention of them being canon lore, as the same degree of canonicity as, say, Michael Kirkbride's Posts or Ted Peterson's Posts, even ignoring the matter of copyright. More specifically, this proposal exists due to things mentioned only in these sources, such as Sand Kwoom, Velk, Malahk-Orcs, which are unambiguously intended by Bethesda to be canonical elements of the series' lore, but cannot have articles due to the current UOL guidelines limiting the use of UOL to rounding out or providing additional background information for existing Lore topics, not introducing new ones. (I believe that that aspect of the UOL policy should not change, only that certain sources mentioned in this discussion obtain OL status instead of UOL.)
Additionally, General:Unofficial Lore defines UOL as "content providing information on the world of Tamriel published not by Bethesda Softworks but by individual developers and writers, on forums or fan sites." If what Legoless says about "all TES content is properly copyright Bethesda." is true, this statement should be removed from General:Unofficial Lore, because it becomes completely meaningless.
I believe that turning the sources mentioned in this discussion to OL is an easier and more convenient solution to the "things clearly intended by Bethesda to be canon are held to the same standard of officialness as random developer forum posts" problem than modifying the UOL guidelines to introduce "tiers" of UOL; as that would require significant amounts of Original Research on things that UESP really should not have a say in.
As for the Xanathar's Library Archive, I agree with Mindtrait0r's assessment. This source should be treated as cut content and therefore UOL.
Achernar1 (talk) 18:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Achernar on this. As for Xan's Library, it is already classified as uol on most articles already barring a few outliers. While it is official writing from Bethesda its more of a "design document" like the earlier draft of Divad the Singer, and for cases like that they're usually considered "valid unless contradicted later on". The Rim of the Sky (talk) 19:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Agree with changing them to OL, it's logical for things published/conducted by bethesda/affiliates to be classed as such, standards change and with things like board game, books, etc being released with new lore is an example of this. With how at one point Bethesda basically only classed the games as canon but don't adhere to that anymore. Imperialbattlespire (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

() UESP is not and will never be an authority on what is official or unofficial. We allow both what we consider to be official and unofficial in lorespace as it stands. That begs the question: What purpose does the delineation serve? I believe the answer to this question should be what informs how we delineate. From my perspective, the answer is simple: it is there to help the user make their own judgements. No matter where we draw the line, there will be someone left feeling unhappy, as their line is different from ours. The fact that certain citations have UOL prepended signals to the user: take this with a grain of salt, you may choose to exempt this from your personal canon, etc. With this purpose in mind, the conclusion which I come to is that anything with an element of ambiguity ought to be marked as UOL. Nothing to do with its validity, as that is the attribute which determines if it is referenced at all via our current UOL make-a-discussion-for-each policy. I admit that I do not know the complexities of the mentioned sources, but I believe that if there is a reasonable argument for why something could not be canon, regardless of what kind of argument it would be or what the consensus is (again, not disputing that consensus should be the determining factor for inclusion) then it should be marked as UOL, to signify to the reader to engage their critical thinking. I would wager that that condition would mark most of the particular sources mentioned here as UOL, as their very controversy is likely enough to satisfy my suggested principle. -Dcsg (talk) 20:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Not to discredit your argument, but I feel as though your idea of shadow-of-a-doubt ambiguity is too vague to be practical. When I first came upon TES, I thought that only the main-series 5 games were canon. Then, I thought that any of the games were canon. After that, I discovered stuff like the Prima Guides and the First Pocket Guide to the Empire, all of which I deemed canon. Then, a friend showed me C0DA, and I thought it was canon, as it was made by a developer. After that, I discredited C0DA but raised in its place other developer works like the Origin of Cyrus, which is treated as canon here. My point is that what is viewed a shadow of a doubt ambiguity is itself subjective as a ranking. Some people really do believe that ESO isn't canon, and only the stuff that has since been referenced can be taken as fact. Mindtrait0r (talk) 21:18, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
I said it's not up to UESP or its editors to make decisions on what is or isn't "official". It's impossible to satisfy everyone. However, the current state of the policies surrounding UOL citations is also not satisfactory to everyone.
I must admit that Dcsg's line of reasoning is sound, and is likely the basis for UOL being a delineation used by UESP in the first place. However, if the main purpose of UOL citations is to signal to the user to take something with a grain of salt, there should not be rules preventing the creation of articles with exclusively or primarily UOL sources. After all, if a user reads this article, they can see that the citations are UOL and simply make their own choice to not believe the things said in the article.
It should be an uncontroversial truth that "out-of-game source that was edited and published by Bethesda with clear intent to further the series' lore, generally through an in-character interview" and "a forum post or Reddit post that a current or former TES developer made on a whim" should not be given the same amount of credibility. Even if this isn't what the UOL tag means, it certainly might seem that way to the average reader. The former category has certain information that isn't (yet) found in the main games, such as Lore:Malahk-Orcs. The existence of this Lore article is beneficial to the UESP, but the rules regarding UOL in the Lorespace Content Guidelines contain wording that prevent it from existing. Well, in theory this wording should prevent the article from existing, but it exists anyway, because the rule is already unenforced. I wish to codify this sentiment that is already evidently shared by editors. One way to accomplish this is by "officiating" the three sources mentioned previously in this discussion. However, if that is deemed above UESP's paygrade, the alternative is modifying the UOL guidelines. The reason I didn't want to modify the UOL guidelines is the fact that it gives more weight to those "developer posts on a whim" that I mentioned.
Achernar1 (talk) 21:24, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Dcsg accurately describes the reasoning used to create the UOL system in the first place, in that it isn't about canonicity but officiality (which to be honest is effectively the same thing for people saying the UOL stuff isn't canon, what they are saying is that it isn't official, really just semantics at that point). The main issue here is that UOL stuff cannot and should not ever be used as the basis of an article, or even the majority of said article, it should only be used to expand on stuff mentioned in OL. The exact rules are "UOL should only be used when it helps to explain in-game content. The UESP need not start documenting every fact mentioned in UOL. Using solely UOL to support definitive statements of fact should be avoided. Any UOL should appear low on a single-topic page for which it is substantially relevant" (emphasis mine). I feel like many people have been using the above referenced interviews way too much on pages given their UOL status. Either the status of these interviews needs to change, or their usage as references needs to be removed on those pages where they are the sole or primary source for much of the information (this happens a lot in the bestiary when single-mentioned creatures get entries and the only source is UOL). There's really no uncertainty in our current UOL usage guidelines around here, so the above suggestion could have large implications for what is allowed in lore and what is not. Jeancey (talk) 18:30, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Dave's interview was conducted long before the current definition of UOL was written, back when the delineation was made literally based on whether it was directly from the games or not. Thus the statement that it is "official" would have been added to counter the argument that it would otherwise be considered OOG lore. Most OOG lore was moved over to UOL with the new definition, but we wouldn't really have thought about looking for things to move the other way. I have no doubt however that if that interview was conducted with today's definition in place, it would be classified as UOL without much second thought. Therefore consistency with the current definitions would imply that Dave's interview should be reclassified as UOL.
I would however be open to further consideration of relaxing lorespace guidelines to actually allow UOL to be the sole basis of an article, as long as we ensure a significantly prominent {{Notice}} is also created for that purpose. --Enodoc (talk) 21:42, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
I see no justification for Interview with a Dark Elf being treated as OL whilst Interview with Three Booksellers and Skeleton Man's Interview with Denizens of Tamriel, exempting a direct statement akin to "This interview is canon lore" that was made during the original posts that is not included in its current version. There was a deliberate action taken to include the copyright in both TB and SM. Like Achernar said, the statement on the Unofficial Lore guidelines: published not by Bethesda Softworks but by individual developers and writers is useless if the copyright claim made by Legoless is true, which would also mean that there would be no reason for the interviews to mention the copyright in the first place. As a final note, 'fanfiction', which is what most Unofficial Lore classifies as (and these examples most certainly aren't), is protected by Fair Use and functions outside of Bethesda's copyright as long as it isn't for-profit... at least from what I can understand [7]. Legal stuff is hard and I am not a lawyer haha
In the interest of summarizing what has been agreed upon and the ramifications of it, the Bestiary entries of Sand Kwoom and Velk must be removed if SM is staying unofficial. Interview with a Dark Elf, if it is deemed UOL, makes Malahk-Orcs deletion-worthy, and Ami-El's entry on People (and probably his name on Tamrielic Emperors should be removed if Xanathar's Archive is staying UOL. Mindtrait0r (talk) 23:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Ami-El should absolutely not be removed from Lore:Tamrielic Emperors. Any use of UOL sources should be decided on a case-by-case basis per our current guidelines, not via sweeping assessments made on the Community Portal. —⁠Legoless (talk) 14:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't think we should remove Ami-El from Lore:Tamrielic Emperors, I think that's exactly where they belong. I think they should be removed from Lore:People A, with the redirect going to Tamrielic Emperors. Jeancey (talk) 18:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
I must agree with some comments above endorsing moving sources like Skeleton Man’s interview to OL. As a licensed interview by BGS that involved active devs at the time of the interview this source very much should be changed to official and thus the decision to delete things solely found in that interview need to be reversed. Dcking20 (talk) 19:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

() The contents of these interviews are in virtually the same format as Loremaster's Archive. LA is generally a good resource and parts can be contradicted by the game itself later on, such as the situation around Murkmire's location, but the rest of the archive still remains valid. We should follow these interviews the same way, where we consider the answers official lore and the questions unofficial lore. The process behind these interviews and LA is virtually the exact same, the only difference being that LA is hosted on eso.com. But why you ask? Is it because Bethesda only wants "legitimate" interviews on their own website? Not at all, otherwise they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of making the interviews and editing them in the first place. These interviews are done as part of press and marketing, just like interviews and articles on game journalism sites are. The concept of an Exclusive is very common in media and is nothing new, and has been done before with The Guardian's concept art gallery marked as "exclusive"; its not hosted by Bethesda not because they don't want it, but because its part of the third party website's deal. Bethesda still edits it because they partner with them officially and retain copyright, and they fully intend for it to be official, the website hosting it is irrelevant as Zenimax ultimately approves it. In the same manner, the Prima Guide contains a lot of lore info from development that has been written by Kurt Kuhlmann, and is published by Prima with Bethesda's supervision. Greg Keyes novels' are in the same boat as the interviews, written and edited under Bethesda but published by Del Ray Books.

With all that said, I propose this:

  • A text presented in-universe, edited by Zenimax. (Examples include the Prima Guides, Manka Naram Interview, Loremaster Archive's) These would all be considered official, as they were made with the intent of being part of the lore and were pre-approved by Bethesda. They are all considered official in some regard and are intended to be far more intrinsic for lore than any of the sources listed below, and as such this should be reflected with official status.
  • Presented in-universe, but not edited by Zenimax. (ie Source of Chaos) An example would be the Lawrence Schick and Phrastus on Altmer Culture interview, where the answers are presented by a former developer with an in-universe context. These would be considered unofficial, as ZeniMax did not edit it.
  • Presented out-of-universe/from a real world pespective, and edited by Zenimax (Examples include TIL Michael Zenke interview, Vvardenfell Then and Now, Ask Us Anything) These are always heavily edited by Zenimax and sometimes even hosted on their website, but they are presented in the real-world context of viewing it as a game (what Schick refers to as "devspeak"). Due to their context as being "outside" the lore and not meant to be authoritative on what the lore is, they are considered unofficial when cited in lorespace.
  • Presented out-of-universe, and not edited by Zenimax (Post-ZOS interview with Lawrence Schick, Interview with Ted Peterson (2019), ESO Live) These are all made using devspeak and viewing the world of TES from an outside perspective, and are unofficial. A lot of this is already the agreed way to do it, but this will help differentiate it from the other sources listed. ESO Live, for example, talks about the lore from devspeak answers by developers and happens live on-air, so Zenimax doesn't have a chance to edit it and filter out answers the way they usually do. Its still a valuable resource, but due to its nature is secondary at best.

These factors are the only ones that matter. With this new clarification it will help us identify what out-of-game content is classified as and avoid this issue in the future. I hope that everyone can find this to be a satisfying outcome. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 21:31, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Just a tiny correction, Source of Chaos (an example from the last point in your list) is actually a post from the Redguard Forum Madness collection of threads, and it'd actually be classified as in-universe, not edited, as I imagine, most forum RP from the time.--ErfXploded (talk) 21:44, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Ah yes you're correct, just a typo on my part, I moved it back up to that section. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 21:49, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
I support Rim of the Sky's proposition, it makes sense and draws a line that isn't very arbitrary. I would like to add to this that Skeleton Man's Interview with the Denizens of Tamriel, Interview With Two Denizens of the Shivering Isles, and Interview with Three Booksellers contain the following respective licensing details:
Skeleton Man: All answers © 1999 by Bethesda Softworks. Keep in mind that these answers are copyrighted by Bethesda. It is exclusive to this website, do not place it on any others. You may provide a link to it, however.
Booksellers: All answers © 2001 by Bethesda Softworks. The text was archived by The Imperial Library and has been reproduced here with permission from Qwerty.
Shivering: All answers © 2007 by Bethesda Softworks. (only included on original TIL copy)
Now, comparing these to the two instances of licensing information in The Infernal City, treated as 100% official lore on the wiki:
Dedication Page: © 2009 ZeniMax Media Inc. The Elder Scrolls, Bethesda Softworks, Oblivion, ZeniMax, and their respective logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. All rights reserved.
Back Cover: Copyright © 2009 ZeniMax Media Inc. ZeniMax, Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, The Elder Scrolls, Oblivion and Morrowind are trademarks or registered trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the Us and/or other countries. Used under license. All Rights Reserved.
Now, while the books do have a little bit more substance in their licensing information, you can see that they are pretty much the same. A mention of copyright holding belonging to BethSoft (others, too, in the case of the book), and a mention of permission of usage (not present in Shivering). If the books are canon, then, why aren't these interviews? These quotes from the book come from my own recent copy and are the only two found in the book. There is nothing here that isn't covered by at least one (and probably two, but being conservative here for the argument's sake) of the interviews' respective information segments. The argument that the Keyes books are only canon because they are referenced in Skyrim is also invalid, because The Many-Headed Talos is also used partially in that game, despite being UOL itself. Lastly, no logos appear on this book, so that cannot be the reason for its inclusion.
I'd also like to bring notice to the Skyrim Legendary Prima Guide. While my copy of the book has quite a few licensing statements (including logos), I'd like to bring one up to note its remarkable comparability to Skeleton Man's. Notice the explicit call to not making any other copy of the work, as well as featuring the same formatted copyright. Aside from the 'All rights reserved', which surely is not the basis of OL status, these are practically identical.
© 2013 by Bethesda Softworks LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from Bethesda Softworks LLC. Mindtrait0r (talk) 00:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I also support Rim's proposal. It is going to help with the classification of the OL and UOL in the future. Tyrvarion (talk) 00:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure why copyright or licencing is being brought up in this discussion. The copyright of all TES content belongs to Bethesda, whether it's fan-made, fan-published, or otherwise. Rim's proposal above is in line with current consensus as I understand it and is a suitable clarification. —⁠Legoless (talk) 14:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
It is being brought up because of the lack of clarity in what makes things like the Keyes books and Prima Guide official. The statement given always seems to be that they are 'official, licensed Bethesda works' but what that means is never explained. My examples show that the Keyes books' "licensing" segments are the exact same in structure as my proposed UOL --> OL interviews, and that one of the Prima Guide's segments follows the EXACT same formula. The argument is not that Bethesda doesn't own all TES copyright, but that what comprises licensed Bethesda, canon, official work is in-line with what is displayed in my currently UOL examples. Mindtrait0r (talk) 15:24, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Why officially published books are treated as official sources shouldn't need explaining. Copyright notices placed on fan-published interviews don't make those texts the equal of an official novel. Are you suggesting the contrary? —⁠Legoless (talk) 15:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

() All I am asking for is a definition of 'officially published'. The indications on the Keyes books provide no obvious answer to the contrary that its licensing is equal in officiating at the very least Skeleton Man and Three Booksellers. Mindtrait0r (talk) 15:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

You are looking in the wrong place. A copyright disclaimer tells you nothing outside of copyright law and is irrelevant to this discussion. Trying to draw any further meaning from random copyright disclaimers is not productive; we do not define UOL based on licencing. The novels are official because they are official novels, published as physical media by Bethesda and their partners. To contrast that with what you're suggesting: I could add a legally sound copyright notice to a random piece of fanfic and it would not grant it the weight of officialdom for the purposes of citation.
Ultimately the UOL tag is a wiki-invented term and you will not find a one-size-fits-all definition. It's useful to discuss what texts should be marked as UOL, but you are giving undue weight to copyright disclaimers by misinterpreting their meaning and provenance in this context. —⁠Legoless (talk) 15:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I would also like to point out that the copyright notices were most likely added arbitrarily by the interviewers. They were probably (rightfully) excited to take part in an interview with the writers, and added those notices to make it stand out compared to the rest of their sites' content. You can clearly see the difference between the wording between the certainly officially added under direction from a legal department ones, and the ones that were almost certainly added without particular reason. As far as my memory recalls, these copyright notices were "trendy" on early fan sites, game faqs, early Internet videos. They probably actually have no meaning whatsoever. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 16:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


() To clarify with Rim's proposal, we need to clarify that when speaking of the Loremaster's Archive, we are talking about the ANSWERS that are fully official and should be treated as official lore. Jeancey (talk) 18:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Very well, good points all around. While I am in support of Rim of the Sky's classification, I do not know how the process of ZeniMax's editing would be confirmed, though that is not to say it doesn't exist. To my best understanding of in-universe and editing, I think that Skeleton Man and Booksellers would be included. Mindtrait0r (talk) 19:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
To Jeancey's point, Loremaster's Archive is indeed a special case and is already called out in detail on UESPWiki:Lore. While an official publication from an official website, our guidelines specify that only the answers can be cited as such. This discussion is specifically around other, older fringe cases we haven't really considered in detail before. —⁠Legoless (talk) 19:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah I just want to make sure we don't accidentally open a massive loophole because we aren't considering it when rewriting rules. :) Jeancey (talk) 19:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
While I would like to support Rim's proposal, I can't in good conscience do so, as we have no evidence which specifies when something has been edited by Bethesda, unless it has been published by them (or someone happens to mention it in the published version, which none of our three case studies actually do). And when that ambiguity of "edited by Bethesda" is removed, we're back to the current state of "published by Bethesda" anyway. --Enodoc (talk) 18:56, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era namespace request[edit]

I believe the upcoming card game is big enough to warrant a new namespace for it as well, in similar fashion to how SkyrimTAG space functions. It would be beneficial for documentation. Of course we probably can't host everything, but similarly to how it is with Skyrim The Adventure Game, there is more than enough content for this purposes. I think giving it a namespace is a probably the right way to handle this content. BOTSE can work as an acronym, it's even used by Chip Theory Games. Tyrvarion (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that at this rate we should make a Boardgame namespace for all these cross-promotional games The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:53, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Doesn't make much sense to me to have a single namespace for different boardgames. I think the suggestion to have a separate BOTSE namespace is the best approach. —⁠Legoless (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Legoless. A good precedent is the TES Travels games, all of which have their own namespace, despite each having less content than the board games. And of course you've got Pinball. Mindtrait0r (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
It will be needed. They also just announced an upcoming lorebook which can be found here so it will also be relevant for lorespace.Zebendal (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I'd completely forgotten about this. Okay, so BOTSE is the acronym. What about the actual namespace name? BOTSE as well? Betrayal? Something else? And then once I've created the namespace itself, we'll have to figure out what all the various fields in MediaWiki:Uespnamespacelist should be. Robin Hood(talk) 01:46, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Printed UESP Morrowind Lore Book[edit]

We're happy to announce that any Wiki editor is entitled to a printed copy of the UESP Morrowind Lore Book we create for our Patreon campaign last year (while supplies last). Just enter your mailing address on our Google Form and mention "Lore Book" in the notes.

A PDF version of the book is also available. -- Daveh (talk) 15:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

MetaTemplate Update[edit]

It's months later than I thought it would be, but at long last, MetaTemplate v2 is live on our servers.

What's New[edit]

Most of the changes are for template programmers, since that's basically who MetaTemplate was made for in the first place. I'll cover those in the updated documentation as I get to it over the next couple of days. A couple of things will be noticeable to most users, however, though only the first is really that big of a deal:

  • Template calls are usable in saved data. This is not automatic, however, for reasons I'll get to in a moment. There are two ways that this can be done. One is on the user's side; the other is on the template's side. Both allow you to use <includeonly>/<noinclude>, if needed, to alter what's saved on the current page vs. what's sent to the loading page.
    • User-side: If you surround any template call with <savemarkup>, then when it's loaded, the template will be re-evaluated on the loading page. Thus, you could have <noinclude>map of Riften</noinclude><includeonly><savemarkup>{{Map Link|place=Riften}}</savemarkup></includeonly> and if it were saved in Lore space, it would say only "map of Riften", while in Skyrim and Online spaces, it would show a map link to the appropriate map for each space.
    • Template-side: When programming a template, saved variables can be set to automatically save templates, whether or not <savemarkup> tags are used. This will most likely be useful for book authors and descriptions and such, but the drawback is that there may be times when a template shouldn't be saved in the output, in which case the user would need to use subst to get the right value to save. This is why I didn't make it automatic for all saved data everywhere, as I imagine it would produce a lot of unexpected results.
  • Data saved on a page can be reloaded on the same page without needing to purge the page after saving. This is probably most noticeable on quest pages. Previously, when you first saved the page after an edit, the Quest ID for the journal entries would disappear. It should no longer do that.
  • Purging pages to get the right data to load should largely be a thing of the past. Previously, under certain circumstances, if you updated the data on a page and then you were looking at a page whose own saved values depended on the first page's values and similarly indirect scenarios, the updates would stop once the direct data had been updated. This should be fixed now and changes should propagate through no matter how indirect the relationship. Note, however, that this relies on the job queue just like it always has, so if the job queue is swamped, you'll probably be waiting a while for everything to update.

Breaking Changes[edit]

A few things will break as a result of the new update, but mostly fairly trivial things. The two things that I can think of are:

  • <catpagetemplate> has been revamped and will break badly on categories that load data for multiple sets. I think that's only the Oblivion Roleplaying pages, which I'll try to rewrite ASAP. Most other things should be okay, although page names may be missing their namespaces for some catpagetemplates, depending how they were written. There's no real way of finding those easily, but I'll see if I can figure something out. For the template programmers, is should be a simple matter of updating {{{pagename}}} to {{{fullpagename}}}.
  • A few templates might break. Specifically, templates that use saved variables of 20 characters or longer. The new limit is 50 characters, so templates that relied on the 20-character limit in some fashion may need to be updated. One example of this is the ESO armor dyes, but those should be fixed by the time you read this. For any template programmers, you'll have to figure out the specifics of the template, but mostly, it should just be a matter of changing {{#sub:...|20|...}} to {{#sub:...|50|...}} in the template code.

As always, if you see anything broken, please let me know, either by replying here or pinging me on Discord. Robin Hood(talk) 03:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Just adding onto this, please purge any pages that appear to be problematic and see if they're still problematic. If they're not, then the issue has almost certainly been fixed; if they remain problematic, please feel free to get in touch. If you're not sure how to purge a page, you can go into your preferences and then click on the Gadgets page. Search for "purge" there and you'll find two different tools that can help you with that. In each case, just click to check the tool, then click on the new thing that appears (purge button or clock) and that'll cause the page to be purged. Robin Hood(talk) 20:45, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm getting an internal error when trying to edit any user talk page. —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Reviving Proposal: Redirect from Plural[edit]

Originally proposed here without any feedback.

I'd like for us to adopt Wikipedia's practice of creating redirects from plural and redirects from singular. There's been a few cases where we haven't stuck with singular form over the year, a recent example is Lore:Druids, to the point that I think this makes sense for that reason alone. Some of these pages are incredibly old that it would be bad to not maintain redirects due to potential external links, even if we were to standardize to singular form preferred only. Additionally, right now if you type in a search for a plural or singular form of something, you just get sent to search results. Clearly if you typed in Lore:Wolves you wanted Lore:Wolf, so we should make that a bit simpler and just allow Lore:Wolves to automatically redirect there. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 16:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I've been caught out trying to link to Lore:Wolves before. To date we've just created such redirects as needed, but I have no issue with the above proposal. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:50, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I second Legoless, seems as though normalizing redirects for plural is already fairly regular and adding them where they could be useful is sufficient. Perhaps a dedicated category could be added for redirects from plural, but it seems unnecessary. Mindtrait0r (talk) 21:59, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't be opposed, given our current redirect categories are fairly bloated. —⁠Legoless (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, the creation of a category for redirects from plural for sorting and similar internal-facing purposes would be part of the fulfillment of this proposal. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 23:20, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and created Category:Redirects from Plural for this purpose. Not sure if we need an identical category for 'Redirects from Singular' - I think they should be fine grouped into the one. —⁠Legoless (talk) 14:27, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

() Yeah, I don't think we need both. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 14:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Ambiguity in Heroes for Lorespace Articles[edit]

Currently, across the lorespace, there are two approaches taken to addressing in-game quest events involving the actions of each games' respective heroes. The first is to refer to them by their given hero-title, seen here referring to the Last Dragonborn. Alternatively, some articles use vague descriptors (usually 'an adventurer' with adventurer linking to their entry on Lore:Hero), which can be seen here. There's a discrepancy here, one that should be fixed not only for sitewide consistency, but for respect to the general stance that I've seen across the site preferring discretion and ambiguity regarding all actions taken by the Heroes (recent changed on Lore:Hero notwithstanding). I propose that all direct mention to the heroes in the lorespace involving quest actions in-game be replaced with vaguer descriptions unless that quest is a main quest.

An exception to this, as pointed as by Achernar, is TES: Blades, where pretty much everything hinges upon the player BEING the Warrior. Additionally, I'm iffy on ESO, as I would generally classify DLCs' main quests in the same vein as base-game main quests, but ESO's many DLCs and relative lack of connection to the base plot at times makes that murky for me. But yeah, community portal and all, so I'm looking for alternative perspectives. Cheers. Mindtrait0r (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

All in game quests and actionable occurrences are designed with one individual in mind, the player character piloted by the player. To draw this arbitrary line between the main quest and every other in game quest as events the player character absolutely did take place in and "may or may not have taken place in" makes no sense. Regardless if it aligns with personal player role plays or not, the player taking place in a thieving guild is just as designed around the player character as the main story quest itself, and this is the case for any and all quests. We should continue to make note of when quests have diverging paths and endings but outside of that nothing has ever explicitly exonerated the player characters of each respective game from having done essentially everything. In fact, we even have sources like this one that make it quite apparent that the player character is absolutely the one completing various quests in the games, with no accounting for this arbitrary main quest/side quest distinction. Dcking20 (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Mindtrait0r on this. That's something I've done during my time contributing to the wiki. I think calling the hero by a specific title is only relevant in the context of the main story or in another quest where it applies. The player has the option to not partake in any of the story, or even leave it unfinished. They can play Skyrim for however long and not be acknowledged as Dragonborn or Arch-Mage, and so on. The Vestige is the best example of this. They have that title because they initially lacked a soul and had that taken away by Mannimarco. But now you can play ESO for as much as you want and not set those chain of events. That's not to say they wouldn't happen at all, it's just taking into consideration that not everyone is gonna do everything and people are gonna play/interpret the games however way they can. Generally, I think it's best to describe events how the Elder Scrolls world sees it and not how it looks through the fourth wall. --Vincentius1 (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
I disagree, the way we've been doing it now is more consistent, and doing anything else would just be dancing around what we already know happens. An exception to make is when you do things as a group in ESO, like group dungeons, as that's referred to as "a group of Undaunted" rather than the Vestige alone. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it is more consistent if the exception favors ambiguity. Neither using the Hero name or vague descriptions are wrong, but using the descriptors has two positive effects. It keeps that player interpretation in mind like Vincentius said. Secondly, it builds consistency with the artifact pages, which already play by this sort of rule by not including Heros in their 'Known Wielders' sections unless explicitly stated that they did. Quest events are not enough, main quests withheld (I think... I'm not an expert on the criteria there). Mindtrait0r (talk) 18:38, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the ambiguity currently is, but I believe the existing consensus, which is the one I continue to support, is essentially what Mindtrait0r already said. References to main quest activities refer to the player character by the title they have in the main quest. References to faction quest activities refer to the player by their rank or status within the faction. Any other references, where required, refer to the player as "an adventurer" or similar. A good example of this is how the Third Era and Fourth Era timelines reference the player in each item. --Enodoc (talk) 19:22, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

() (edit conflict) As I outlined on Mindtrait0r's talk page, referring to an ambiguous protagonist originally came about as a result of compromises that were made when we first began documenting gameplay events in lorespace as part of the Shivering Isles Redesign Project. Some people were opposed to stating as fact that the player character completed all possible quests, so ambiguity was introduced as appropriate. However, as Rim says, we have moved away from this over the years for the sake of clarity. You will find that most lore articles now name the protagonist outright. For quests with complex or contradictory outcomes, we usually highlight the discrepancy out-of-universe in the Notes section instead (e.g. see Lore:Gildergreen).

This is a far better approach, and has been the unwritten consensus in lorespace for many years. That's not to say the ambiguous style of writing is incorrect; it's simply an outdated style of writing based on an older consensus from when it was controversial to include any gameplay events as in-universe fact.

There is nothing to stop Vincentius1 or others from continuing to make contributions to lorespace where the player's identity is kept ambiguous. What Mindtrait0r is insisting upon is that we standardise our approach for the sake of consistency. No matter how you cut it, applying a site-wide standard in this manner would involve a serious namespace-wide rewrite of complicated prose, which is usually very delicately worded. I want to kill this proposal in its tracks: there is no such standard in how lore articles are written. We do not need to codify one into existence if it leads to non-constructive rewordings as was attempted earlier today.

I would suggest we clarify the current position instead, i.e., that both styles are allowed depending on the context and consensus. If we were to pick one over the other, it would have to be the non-ambiguous style, which is common across most articles. The argument that not all game events happened or were completed by a single individual was lost sometime over the last decade of our lore project. —⁠Legoless (talk) 19:29, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

The only benefit that has been given to Hero names over ambiguity is 'clarity'. While I think that clarity alone isn't enough to counter the two benefits that I attributed to ambiguity that have so far gone uncontested, I still wish to dispute the clarity argument in significance. The connection to the Hero is not lost with ambiguity; a link remains on the description that leads to the Hero in question (ex. an adventurer). With this in mind, this proposal should not be killed in its tracks. While there may be no such standard right now, what I am proposing is exactly that. The switch from Hero name to vague description is not complicated. The vast majority of the time, it is as simple as changing one or two mentions of a Hero name to a chosen generic alternative and usually changing 'the' to 'an' or 'a'. In any event, 'an adventurer' works for every Hero of the mainline games, which comprise almost all of the instances where this would be relevant, as in a good amount of spinoffs there is only one questline.
Edit: Just realized that I forgot another point. Yes, there would be some work put in to make the changes I have suggested, but as I showed earlier today, they can be done extremely quickly and could probably be fully knocked out in a single day if some cooperation can be coordinated. Mindtrait0r (talk) 21:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
"An adventurer" or the equivalent dances around the issue and often involves more speculation than simply attributing something to the player character. It's also difficult to write a cohesive narrative about the actions of an unnamed individual. You may claim that there are benefits to edits of this nature, but I do not see any advantage to removing clarity from existing prose. This is not something that needs to be changed en masse. —⁠Legoless (talk) 21:57, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
Let me again emphasize this source as it dispels this distinction that is being suggested. This source so eloquently demonstrates that the heroes take part in the events of the games (I’m shocked that could ever be in doubt) To make any of these hero titles vague for vagueness sake is arbitrary and isn’t conducive to the scholarly accuracy lorespace is aiming for. The wiki should never be concerned with "keeping the player interpretation in mind" but rather documenting the facts as they are in a scholarly manner. Dcking20 (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
My proposal benefits from the shield. 'An adventurer' is never wrong unless a quest is retconned to have ever happened (which has happened before), but in this case, both solutions would be removed anyhow. But like I said, the vague option is never wrong, even if specification is later provided. In the case of the shield, the solution can be instantly added at no cost, since the link was always there to begin with. It is in this balance of a generic description whilst having a link to the Hero in question that the best of both worlds truly shines.
"'An adventurer' or the equivalent dances around the issue" - what issue? "It's also difficult to write a cohesive narrative about the actions of an unnamed individual" These deeds would not be included on any wiki material regarding the Heroes anyhow, as can be seen in the artifact pages where you intentionally left my edit removing the Hero from the Known Wielders heading, Legoless. Mindtrait0r (talk) 22:20, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
The issue of which game events happened and by whom. If I'm trying to describe, for example, the events of a long side quest from ESO, it is a lot more fluid and natural to speak of "the Vestige" than to do the mental gymnastics involved in trying to keep it ambiguous. In contrast, any page that cites multiplayer Undaunted quests usually keeps it pretty generic, describing "a group of Undaunted". This one-size-fits-all proposal is not fit for purpose. —⁠Legoless (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
Edit: Also, the list of Known Wielders excluding Heroes is a layout change I suggested back in March 2011 when all artifacts were listed on a single page with outdated Arena/Daggerfall descriptions and no other info. Including the Heroes in every section would have been extremely repetitive at the time, but soon afterwards I began to overhaul Lore:Artifacts by creating individual artifact pages. Their exclusion from those lists is a holdover and is totally taken out of context in this discussion. At this stage it's an arbitrary exclusion. —⁠Legoless (talk) 22:54, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

() The very presence of ambiguity in the ESO coverage goes to show that it doesn't require mental gymnastics to do. It only requires changing the Hero name to a generic name that applies to the situation (adventurer always works regardless) and replace any of the 'the's which go before Hero titles to 'an' or 'a'. That's it.

In the interest of further tacking on the benefits of my proposal as far as sitewide consistency goes, imagine that the Last Dragonborn was to be given a lorepage of his own. Would the accomplishments of every single side quest be included? Of course not. Same goes for the timeline pages, which include all events of substance (there are many sidequests that follow this). None of these pages (except for one exception on the Fourth Era page which I would have fixed if this discussion was not ongoing) say hero names. Once again, neither do the artiact pages, which is certainly not an arbitrary point when the subject deals directly with Hero title mentions in lorespace articles. Heroes being mentioned there would be equivalent to the quest mentions to them, meaning the opposite of their absence boosting consistency of my proposal can't just be waived. Mindtrait0r (talk) 23:06, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

That is a strawman example. The Last Dragonborn article would not document every minute detail because it's not relevant to the topic to e.g. list all the artifacts in Skyrim. In contrast and as Dcking pointed out, for an article about Hopesfire, it is eminently notable that the Last Dragonborn once obtained it. —⁠Legoless (talk) 23:12, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
That just goes to the core of the proposal, where I disagree that that is something that should be on the article, and that I think it should regard the events that took place with the weapon in the quest but not specifically that the LDB wielded it. Since that is retreading the thesis of this whole thing, I'm going to summarize my benefits compared with the status quo.
Benefits of my proposal over status quo: Sitewide consistency as far as quest summarization in lore pages go, as well as general information keeping, such as the Known Wielders Section and timeline, respect to player agency, respect to Bethesda's shown willingness to change how quests went down post-game, and the 'never incorrect' benefit in accordance with said agency/retcons.
Arguments against provided: Clarity; which I countered by pointing out that the link attached to the vague description goes back to the hero anyways, achieving a perfect balance, work load; which I countered by pointing out that my edits earlier today came out extremely quickly and required very little work for each edit, and that the edits are non-constructive; which I have yet to counter specifically but will do so now - all of my benefits listed, assuming they are accurate, which I will assume as the one putting them forth, go to disprove the notion that the edits would be non-constructive. Mindtrait0r (talk) 23:30, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
My opinions: I have been known to prefer mention of the heroes by name, though this discussion has made that opinion on the matter less strong. With that out of the way, I have some comments.
First is the matter of neutrality. By the very nature of these games being roleplaying games, each game may be used to attribute the events of the game to the actions of the player character. Whether this supersedes the benefits of ambiguity in the event of no retroactive continuity is what is on trial here. While both sides can be thought of as responses to the question "how can we best empower the reader to have the best understanding of the content," I would like to argue for why one provides a better answer than the other. Imagine that you are the average reader, who probably knows much less about TES than yourself. Consider first that you know all about how the deeds of TES player characters may be recontextualized in future installments. Upon seeing the heroes mentioned explicitly, you might have strong feelings about it, but you know and therefore can omit that detail as you read. Upon seeing the heroes mentioned ambiguously, you may either recognize the verbiage as secretly referring to a hero and catch on, or you might only be aware of if you think to click on the citation and read the segregated information (more on why relegated information is not optimal later). Imagine next that you know very little about this whole TES player character stuff. Upon seeing the heroes mentioned explicitly, no harm is done as you have been presented with the most complete interpretation of events thus far. Upon seeing the heroes mentioned ambiguously, you would have no idea and even the citation might not be so elucidating, should you even think to navigate it. From this thought experiment, it is clear to me that explicit mention of the heroes is the option which better provides the reader with what is necessary for them to best understand the content.
There is also the matter of undue weight. This concept is relevant in many different ways. There is how tip-toeing around certain words gives undue weight to the fringe theory that all player character actions are done by other characters unless otherwise specified. There is also the concern that, when a hero is labeled as "an adventurer," the weight given to the deed is unbefitting of something done by a character so important. Were it so important that the deed be done by an anonymous random person, there would likely be a source by now overriding the player character attribution. When a deed which was very obviously undertaken by a hero is stated to have been performed by only some adventurer, there is weight given to the implication that it actually wasn't them which is undue.
Lastly is accessibility. It has been mentioned in this discussion that, due to hyperlinks, using ambiguous verbiage but specific hyperlinks achieves the best of both worlds. I would like to point out that the associated benefit is lost upon depending on your device setup and to what degree you are abled. It is for those reasons and more that it is generally a bad idea to relegate information to anything not immediately apparent. -Dcsg (talk) 05:28, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Using both formats is appropriate depending on the context. Lore pages are generally written as if they are recounting history and how history remembers certain individuals. It makes sense to use Vestige/Dragonborn when quest givers, npcs, etc refer to you as such. On the other hand when you are seen as a local mercenary or soldier of an alliance, then its appropriate to use a more vague description.
Your solution of a link attached to the vague description that goes back to the hero for every instance site-wide is not good for people who are unfamiliar with the events of the games - its gives readers more work to have to constantly check which "adventurer" we are talking about.
Lastly, there isn't any evidence that the method we use now is causing any confusion among readers. It wouldn't be the only reason to enact a change of course, but it would be a major one. --Jimeee (talk) 08:35, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Dcsg makes a good point regarding accessibility. WP:TRANSPARENCY calls these kind of links "Easter egg links", where readers are required to open/hover over them before understanding where they lead. It's not good syntax. —⁠Legoless (talk) 08:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

() You don't have to click on the link to know what game its from, you can always just look at the game mentioned in the citation. Plus, knowing the Hero name for each game requires a similar amount of understanding. However, I can't lie and say that I haven't been given a good bit to think about here. Still, though, there's an issue of consistency. Although it is against what I personally believe should happen, if it is decided that the usage of Hero names is preferable, I move that the uses of ambiguity be changed accordingly, that way even if there happen to be downsides to Hero names, at least consistency would have been achieved. Mindtrait0r (talk) 13:51, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Hopping back on this to hearken back to a previous argument I made that was dismissed as a strawman. I'd like to rephrase it a little.
So, if Hero names are used, most of these Heros would deserve lore articles for just how much stuff they have done. For instance, the Agent of Daggerfall, the Nerevarine, the Last Dragonborn, and the Warrior would deserve their own articles for wielding Volendrung alone. Now, the Heroes have gained a LOT of artifacts over the games, going by them completing all quests. Add all the great foes defeated, long long places rediscovered, mysteries solved, whatever else is 'important' and these articles would probably be MASSIVE. That's part of my worry with canonizing all of these side quests, miscellaneous quests, and maybe even unmarked world objectives. The boundaries become clear and the pages get more necessary to keep track of it all, and longer for how much they do. Mindtrait0r (talk) 23:36, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Promotional renders in lorespace[edit]

I have noticed a general trend recently of replacing in-game ESO screenshots with promotional renders on lore articles. I'm not outright opposed to inclusion of promotional material in lorespace, but I would like to point out that there are several reasons we have historically discouraged the use of these:

  • For copyright reasons, UESP-licenced imagery is preferable to images from other sources.
  • Many of these promotional images do not meet our image standards, such as centering and aspect ratio requirements. This has been alleviated in some instances recently by cropped re-uploads.
  • These promotional images are out-of-game renders and are not an accurate depiction of the in-game item or creature. This is more relevant in gamespace, but it is still preferable to use a high-quality in-game screenshot.
  • Some articles are using extracted Crown Crate card assets. This is totally unacceptable. These images are for use with the {{ESO Crate Card List}} template which provides the border. Used in isolation, they are low-quality, poorly cropped extracted game assets and should not be used if at all possible.

I don't think it's productive to have an outright ban on these images in lorespace. They often have a better background and higher texture quality than can be achieved with in-game screenshots. Mounts, in particular, can be difficult to screenshot in-game without a player character as the rider. Crown Store artifact styles are another good use case. However, with the above in mind, I will be continuing to remove and revert the use of promo renders when alternate UESP-licenced gameplay screenshots are available. —⁠Legoless (talk) 16:48, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Have to heavily disagree with not using promotional renders, they are 95% of the time, higher quality due to having access to rendering tools we lack. A lot of the user-screenshots of mounts/pets/etc, are low-quality, have half-naked players in them, or have races like Argonians wearing Imperial clothes and then put on a lore article about Imperials Online:City Isle Tunic Dress, Online:Cyrod Gentry's Town Gown, etc. It looks unprofessional, and in my opinion, lore pages should be using the highest quality depictions. I do agree with not using 'card art', as I agree that it is low quality. I have no issue with prioritising user images in gamespace, as it makes sense there as that's what the actual mount/pet looks like in game and is useful to the player, but in the case of lore, I don't see the need for a prioritisation of in-game images if a higher quality version exists. Imperialbattlespire (talk) 17:42, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I mostly parrot Impbat's opinion to the letter. I see it as more or less a hand wrapped gift basket from the devs to us when they give us high quality renders, very often times with lore pertinent background themes, and I believe we absolutely must take advantage of said gift. I also parrot the opinion on the current style of player generated screenshots for many eso things we rely on that they are poor in comparison. Player created characters is a matter of subjective taste and I’m of the mind that very often these player characters look silly and non thematic, doubly so considering the insistence on stripping them down to their underwear for whatever reason. Overall I think developer generated renders are almost always the preferable option and if they lean away from image standards ideally we will crop them when possible but even in the event we don’t crop them and they don’t perfectly align with image standards I still find them more ideal than the underwear clad beefy bearded Nord in the floral dress or the scaly argonian modeling a Dunmer weapon style. Dcking20 (talk) 18:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Also repeating what's been said. IMO, if there's a render, then that's what should be used, not a player screenshot. Also think that having them not obey the image standards is much better than the same 2 argonians showcasing every culture's outfit. (Not to throw shade at whoever took those screenshots, as they're better than nothing and the time spent is appreciated, but renders are better) CoolBlast3 (talk) 19:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Legoless for the most part: I think Crown Crate cards shouldn't be used at all. However, I'm not necessarily opposed to the use of Crown Store Renders on the subject of mounts (as long as the renders being used in lorespace are also being placed on the proper gamespace pages). I take a great deal of mount screenshots, and especially where my older, blurrier images are concerned, it bugs me to see my player character casually slapped in the middle of a lore page.
Many of these Collections screenshots are time-sensitive: we often don't have a lot of time to take them while that timer for the Crown Store is ticking down, and while I make it a point to shoot in the middle of the day, ensuring that the sun is behind the "cameraman" while I'm sitting in the Crown Store preview window for optimal lighting, I wouldn't consider some of the rider shots something I (as a reader, not an editor) would find to be the best image to use on a lore page. I'm usually dressed to impress, but sometimes I'm not, and I don't think the same orange-scaled Argonian being in the shot of 75% of these mount images is a boon to lorespace.
Do not misunderstand: these images are perfectly suited to the gamespace pages: in fact, a mount with a rider is the standard for mounts. I'm of the opinion that it's better for there be a high-res image of a mount with a rider than a poor quality image of a mount in a house, and if we really need a riderless image, I would encourage users to relegate those shots to "03" editions: File:ON-mount-name.filetype being the infobox image, File:ON-mount-name 02.filetype consisting of the mount with upgrades, and File:ON-mount-name 03.filetype being an extra image, such as a riderless mount in a house. Riderless mount images are acceptable as per the UESPWiki:Online Collectible Images Project, but something like 80% of primary mount images contain a rider and are of suitably high resolution ("primary" meaning "the image that appears on alphabetical mount lists and is placed in the img field of the Online Collectibles Template"), and it's not worth it to go out of the way to replace all of them for the sake of lore. If we must take riderless images, I support relegating them to a numbered "gallery image" (03, 04, etc). That way, we can have images that showcase a character riding the mount (shows people what they look like riding it, perfect for gamespace) and a pretty image of the mount standing in a well-lit environment (satisfies us loreheads who might think it jarring to see a player character riding a mount in lorespace).
I think lore-worthy mount images are an acceptable idea, but I don't think we should obsess over taking them because that would require having enough disposable income to procure the mount one would like to pose in a suitable house, and it would cause undue stress to editors if we mandated that every main image for mounts should be riderless because it's better for lore (especially considering Radiant Apex-level mounts). .jpg is the correct file type for Collections images: storage should not be an issue. By all means, as someone who maintains Collections pages, I say feel free to provide an extra image of a mount in a house for lore: the more the merrier. Barring that, I think Crown Store renders (never cards!) are an acceptable alternative for lorespace. That's how I feel about riderless images from a gamespace perspective: go ham with them, but rider-inclusive images are the unwritten "standard" for primary mount images at this point.
Back to the crux of the discussion at hand, I disagree with Imperialbattlespire on most collectible items: pet images should never have players in a highly visible spot and most of them are indeed "good enough" for lore. I think we can rectify the issues Dcking, Impbat, and Coolblast have with player characters with regards to costumes by using screenshots of NPCs wearing those costumes, which there is definitely no shortage of. We do not need to be using Crown Store renders for costumes when we have a wealth of NPCs at our disposal that are simply wearing them.
I do not think we should be using Crown Store renders over in-game images: mounts are my exception. -MolagBallet (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I must disagree around promotional renders being removed from lorespace indiscriminately. Much of the policies around using renders were put in place before ESO, so they were written with the singleplayer main series in mind, where you can use console commands and other tricks to take photos that are even better than the screenshots Bethesda takes themselves. In ESO, we do not have these capabilities, so a majority of the time the promo renders will be better than photos taken in-game.
There are some renders which I don't think should be used, mainly "scenes" like File:ON-render-Domihaus in Falkreath.jpg which are very much staged and don't work in lorespace in a majority of circumstances. There are better static renders such File:ON-crown store-Dragonscale Frost Senche.jpg which don't depict a scene and just show something in an environment, and due to how particle effects work, are better than any photo we can capture in-game. Renders should be used in lore on a case-by-case basis in case they're better than what we can take photos of ourselves with the limitations ESO places.
Promotional renders should be allowed in lorespace if they are useful, high resolution, and centered. They should also be cropped if need be, ie File:ON-statue-Peryite.jpg from this render. I would also propose we add these renders into more galleries on Online: space pages instead of keeping them on just the screenshots page. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 20:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Rim here. Promotional renders should not be removed from lorespace on sight as long as they adhere to the aspect ratio (which only seems to be an issue on list pages). It stands to reason that the best image possible be used, and if a render exists then the chances are that render is superior to the in-game image. I don't see a solid rationale to blindly replace renders with in-game.
I don't think its a valid argument to say that because renders are out-of-game (thus not an "accurate depiction" of in-game items, etc), they are somehow inferior and not appropriate for lorespace. That might have been the case 5 years ago, but not now as media/content from non-game sources are just as "accurate" and appropriate to use in lore articles as in-game sources.
For example we use decade-old paper and pencil sketches from MK, images from the novels, or tons of ESO official concept art on lore pages - These examples are not in-game, are odd aspect ratios and are also grey areas when it comes to copyright, but they are perfectly acceptable to use and we consider them to be "accurate". To reject these renders on an accuracy-basis is inconsistent and cherry-picking.
I think its ok to use the card images in the gallery only, if there isn't a better alternate image. --Jimeee (talk) 10:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
My point is that the in-game screenshot is the better image, by our own rationale. I'm not suggesting replacing all promo renders en masse. Rather, I'm raising an objection to what I have seen happening: perfectly good UESP screenshots being replaced by poorly-cropped 3D renders like those Crown Crate card assets. This pattern of behaviour assumes the renders are superior to our own images in all contexts, whereas the opposite is true in many cases. Absolutely we should be able to use them when appropriate, the same way we use concept art etc. —⁠Legoless (talk) 10:33, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
But I'm just replying to your original position of "I will be continuing to remove and revert the use of promo renders when alternate UESP-licenced gameplay screenshots are available." - To me that implies that even if a render exists and is "better" than an in-game shot, you would still replace or revert it on general principle - which is disagree with.
What is defined as "better" is largely the problem. You personally may consider an in-game shot to be "better" and Imp thinks the render is "better" - so it becomes a subjective argument that goes nowhere. Of course renders are not superior to our own images in all contexts... but most of the time they are in my opinion. Replacing a good UESP image with an even better render is ok and should not be discouraged. --Jimeee (talk) 11:41, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

() I agree with Jimeee. If by better you are refering to aesthetics, I really dislike the stone wall background images that a chunk of these render replacements are. Generally the renders just look more natural and avoid having to use player characters that are 'normal looking' as the renders are all designed to fit their outfit. Mindtrait0r (talk) 13:12, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

My opinion is that in cases where we have have images created by UESP users that are of similar quality and purpose to an official one, and we can only use one, we should have a preference for UESP images. There are definitely many cases where we won't have an image of similar quality however, especially with ESO where image capture can be very complicated/expensive/tedious. That said, it may be worth trying to capture some appropriate and unique images ourselves when we can, instead of just the base images we have, but that will be entirely dependent on editor interest in doing so. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 09:02, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

AI Voice Readings[edit]

As I'm sure a lot of you are aware, AI voices have become a large subject lately. I am wanting to propose that we utilise this technology to voice our articles, similar to how Wikipedia has "Listen to this article" by people reading out the article. AI voices would allow us to have 'standardised' voices for reading out articles, this would be useful to blind / hard of sight users, users who want to simply listen to articles whilst playing a game/browsing the internet/etc, and would put us at the forefront of modern technology.

I am aware of the potential 'moral' implications of this technology, which is why I'd like to suggest that we could either use voices from the games, or use more generic voices that don't 'belong' to anyone. Nexus mods have allowed AI voice mods, but will remove certain mods if the voice actors requests that they do so, so we could potentially follow this same style.

I have an example here of the Imperial Male from TES3 reading Ordo Legionis that I have done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcPwH1TsFOg

An example of a 'generic' AI voice reading can be found here: https://youtu.be/SmhAv42VXqE

Imperialbattlespire (talk) 15:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

The moral implications are what worry me- even voices from games is a bit...frankly put- disgusting. If it's done with normal text-to-speech, such as Microsoft Zira/David or with the explicit consent of voice actors, then I can see it as a good addition for those hard of sight. Otherwise, simply using un-consented in-game voices sounds more like wanting to do the AI gimmick for the sake of it than actually wanting to be helpful. In-game voices can also sound very weird when AI spliced, which makes the less morally ambiguous specifically designed TTS voices more helpful for those hard of sight anyways. CoolBlast3 (talk) 16:03, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
tentative support, but I can foresee legal issues. we'd also probably want to make it clear on any voice reading that it's unofficial and not canon.Thal-J (talk) 16:06, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Sounds like a great option for the users to use, as long as everything legally is cleared up --ErfXploded (talk) 16:08, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
It's definitely an interesting technology and idea. However, there are major concerns about this technology right now, and even major strikes adjacently related to it happening at this moment. I don't think it is viable at this time unless we did something like CoolBlast suggested and got explicit permission to use a voice, or as Daveh and Imperialbattlespire suggested and "invent" a voice altogether. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 16:33, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm going to go soft oppose. I can see some uses for AI voices, but this is not one of them. They would need to be updated every time the page is edited, unless they read the page dynamically, and at that point anyone who needs that will likely already have a functional screen-reader that is specifically designed for this purpose.
I would be more interested in looking into this specifically for lorebooks, which do not change, if we can come up with a good legal position to start from. --Enodoc (talk) 16:38, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Interesting concept but the potential legal issues are a big one. Generic is fine, but I'd honestly need to see hard evidence readers actually need this feature in order to support it fully. Blind users already use existing tech to read webpages (Screen Readers), so they are out of the picture. It seems like a very much "nice to have" feature. --Jimeee (talk) 16:45, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

() I think the proposal to use voice actors from the games is dead in the water legally. If we have a licenced text-to-speech program I can't see the harm in adding voiced articles for accessibility purposes, but there's no need to bring AI tech into it and sample voice files we don't have permission to use. —⁠Legoless (talk) 09:42, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Hex-Editing Files[edit]

I recently undid an edit by an anonymous user who provided instructions for hex-editing a Daggerfall save file in order to circumvent a bug with one of the quests. I did so because, to my understanding, this is not the type of information we normally provide on this site and could (potentially) fall into a legal grey area. The bug in question is also fixed by a third-party mod, the use of which would negate the necessity of editing save files in this manner. The user who posted the information politely questioned my removal of the information and I have outlined my concerns in response; however given the circumstances I decided to put this out to the wider community for additional input. Is this type of information acceptable in the circumstances (bug fix) or is this not a road which we want to go down? Any comments, concerns and clarifications are welcome. Thanks! — Wolfborn(Howl) 02:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the issue here. Hex editors are not illegal, and Daggerfall is a singleplayer game. What's wrong with documenting cheats? You mentioned EULA concerns; where in Daggerfall's EULA is this sort of modification called out? —⁠Legoless (talk) 08:28, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
I think we have a precedent in an Arena page that showcases save-game editors and even hacked save-game files. Compared to those, I'm inclined to think that the original content (ie. hex-editing for a specific bug fix) is safe enough. Can't comment on whether or not it's legal, though. Salamangkero (talk) 11:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Since no one else has expressed any concerns, I have restored the original edit to the article. Apologies for the waste of time and the misunderstanding. — Wolfborn(Howl) 03:36, 28 June 2023 (UTC)