UESPWiki talk:Lore

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Archives Archive 1: Aug 2008 - Jun 2012

Overview Pages

I've made drafts of overview pages for the current categories which don't already have them. I want to put them in place (and, of course, link to them here and at Lore:Main Page). A couple of them duplicate some info already found here. Here they are: Lore:Library, Lore:People, and Lore:Factions (this page already exists, but it's empty). It's all pretty boilerplate stuff; a lot of the info on them is stuff that's already found on this page, and I don't think there's anything of substance that's controversial in there. Two notable things, though, are that the Lore:Factions page makes it explicit that prominent families can be considered factions, and that authors, generally, should not have entries in Lore:People unless they have some significance independent of their writings (that's being discussed here; long story short, deciding who to include and then actually doing so would be a big hassle with very little gain). I'd appreciate any thoughts, objections, tweaks, etc.

Once we have overview pages for each category, we could consider removing the entire "Understanding Lore Categories" here, and move any remaining relevant info to the overview pages or elsewhere on this page. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 16:48, 19 October 2012 (GMT)

I like your drafts, Minor Edits. They look excellent as always, and it would definitely help who ever is interested in the lore to see what's applicable for the Lore space. Well done! Eric Snowmane^{(talk•email)} 17:15, 19 October 2012 (GMT)

I generally like them. Is there a deeper reason behind only mentioning the main games in the see also sections? At least for books we have Battlespire:Books and Redguard:Books too. Perhaps condensing those page lists into a single line somehow would be a good idea. --Alfwyn (talk) 13:32, 22 October 2012 (GMT)

No deeper reason; I just forgot. Not sure exactly what you meant about condensing page lists, but feel free to revise them as you see fit. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 14:27, 22 October 2012 (GMT)

Now that I see what you mean, I love it; it reduces the dead space on the page. I added another factor to consider when adding books to the lore: redundancy. It hasn't been articulated before, but I imagine it's been implicit thus far. I just wanted to say that I'm not necessarily advocating the deletion of some pages which this would seemingly go against this factor, such as Lore:Thirsk, a History. What's done is done; I'm just offering it as a prospective guideline. I also added an image; I couldn't think of a more symbolic representation of the Library than the Oghma Infinium. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 15:46, 22 October 2012 (GMT)

Another thing to consider may be cut content status (is there a discussion somewhere how to treat it Lore-wise in general?). For example Skyrim:The Secrets of Ragnvald doesn't actually appear in the game. This may be due to oversight, or a deliberate decision of the developers, we don't know. --Alfwyn (talk) 11:44, 24 October 2012 (GMT)

Dang, you just blew my mind. I hadn't considered that. My gut reaction is that cut content found in the game files is no different than OOG content and thus is categorically banned. Like you said, we don't know why some content is cut, so we can't presume that cutting it was an arbitrary decision. Another way to look at it is that, by being cut, it is not "officially approved" material, and thus not suited for lore. I'm hesitant to make that conclusion at the moment because I'm not certain how far-reaching the effects would be. At the very least, it would seem to dictate the deletion of that lore page. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 17:12, 24 October 2012 (GMT)

I just set up Lore:Factions. Before I set up the other two overview pages, does anyone object to these positions?

1. Cut content = OOG content: If so, the lore book page for The Secrets of Ragnvald would likely be deleted.

1. Authors should not be mentioned in Lore:People unless they have some significance independent of their writings: If so, many snippets on the People multi-topic pages would be deleted. For example, the entries at Lore:People S for Salarth, Sigillah Parate, Scribe Stem Gamboge, and Stronach would be deleted. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 18:55, 14 November 2012 (GMT)

(←) I'll agree with those tweaks, ME. ES^{(talk•email)} 19:07, 14 November 2012 (GMT)

Layout

I propose that the Official Guidelines be changed so that the See Also section goes ABOVE the References section. That is how it is done on wikipedia, and it was decided to do this because reference sections, especially on major topics, can become extremely long, pushing the see also section way down the page. If people want to find a reference, they click the link in the text, and it takes them automatically to the reference they wanted. There is no way to do this with the see also section. Most people would want links to related topics, rather that the references used in the actual article. I think that we should change the policy to reflect this. I can't really think of a good reason for see also to be after references, but if there is one, please inform me and I would be open to reconsidering this change. Jeancey (talk) 17:48, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

Makes sense. I see no issues with doing this. Snowmane➚^{(talk•email)} 18:00, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

This also makes sense to me. The "See Also" is a part of the article, and it's standard format to list the references after the article. This has been more or less unofficially followed, so I'd support making it official. • JA^T 18:07, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

Considering I thought this was the standard until several minutes ago, I'm all for it. ⇠eshe^talk 18:09, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

Just to clarify, the layout in these guidelines is not mandatory. Legoless and I have had a disagreement on layouts for a long time (I think References should be at the bottom, he prefers See Also). I wanted to avoid problems when promulgating the guidelines, so I used his preferred arrangement while expressly stating that "there's room for variation". Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 18:53, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

I usually view the "See Also" section as an informal footer, or something similar to "External Links" on Wikipedia. It also looks rather repetitive when stuck beside the notes on most pages. Reference sections are rarely so long as to hide the section from plain sight. If certain pages look better with a different order, exceptions can obviously be made (such as Eshe's example of Lore:Dragons), but I think most small lore articles look stylistically good the way they are currently. —Legoless (talk) 19:40, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

Does anyone else besides Legoless feel this way? It seems to me that most people commenting thought that the see also already was supposed to go above the reference section, and that you might be the only one to think otherwise... Votes aren't really what is used, but 5-1 seems a pretty strong indicator that this change would be supported. Jeancey (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

(←) Let's give it a few days so less active people can have a chance to chime in. It wouldn't be that huge of a change, but more input never hurts :). ⇠eshe^talk 19:45, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

As a reply to the redundancy comment, we don't need the note section at all, because lore places summary has an |appears= param which you can use to add the link to the in-game pages. The notes section is already redundant. Jeancey (talk) 21:23, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

It has been several weeks, with no other comments. I'll leave it until the end of the week, and if there isn't any other opposition (since most people seem to support this change), I'll make the change to the guidelines. Jeancey (talk) 21:46, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

There has been no other objection. I am making the change. I do propose that the pages not be changed all at once (unless someone wants to do that), but rather, as people come across them. Any new See Also's should be above the references. Jeancey (talk) 06:44, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

Citing a single source multiple times

I think that our rules governing references is lore are causing articles to become cluttered and in some cased detrimental to the usability of the wiki. Because of the rule that every sentence needs a source, we get cases where a single source is used on multiple sentences in a row with no other source used. Wikipedia has a guideline for this, which I think we should add:

"If one source alone supports consecutive sentences in the same paragraph, one citation of it at the end of the final sentence is sufficient. It is not necessary to include a citation for each individual consecutive sentence, as this is overkill."

The would allow for the article to be less cluttered and more readable. Another change would be to how many sources should be used for a single sentence. ME has pointed out that we should cite every source that supports it in order to help people who are doing research on a single topic. This would mean that a single sentence could have 15 sources on it, if 15 sources support that statement. How is that useful? We want the wiki to be readable by the masses, not helpful for the very, very few who need links to every source of a statement at the detriment of everyone else. If someone is doing research on a topic, they likely are going to search for themselves, not rely on the inline citations of an article. I'm not saying they all should be removed, but that we should follow wikipedia's rule on citation overkill:

"While adding footnotes is helpful, adding too many can cause citation clutter, which can make articles look untidy in read mode, and unreadable in edit mode. If a page has extra citations that are either mirror pages or just parrot the other sources, they contribute nothing to its reliability while acting as a detriment to its readability."

"A good rule of thumb is that one footnote after a sentence is almost always sufficient. Two or three may be a good way of preventing linkrot for online sources or providing a range of sources that support the fact, but more than three should be avoided as clutter."

ME also pointed out that there might be a difference between citing outside sources and inside sources. I don't think this is the case. The problem here is HOW they are cited, not WHAT is cited. A sentence on wikipedia that has 5 citations to outside sources looks no different than a sentence on UESP that has 5 citations to other UESP articles. There is no difference at all. This readability also applies to the |name= parameter in the ref template. The goal of the parameter is to allow you to cite the same source multiple times. If a source is only used once, the parameter isn't useful and just clutters the text when you are editing it. This means it is actually detrimental to the overall usability of the wiki without providing any sort of benefit. Anyone who knows enough about citing on a wiki to realize that a source is already used in the article is smart enough to add the |name= parameter themselves if they are using the source more than once. Thanks for reading all this, I'm not trying to single ME out at all, I just had a long conversation before this, so I know ME's points pretty well :P I'll abide by whatever the consensus is. Jeancey (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

If people want to more rigidly follow the first rule Jeancey quoted (one cite for consecutive sentences relying upon a single source) in the lore, I don't have a problem with that. I think that could improve the aesthetics of our pages without substantially harming reader comprehension or satisfaction. However, I'm a very strong advocate for "string cites" when appropriate. I'll be back on later to articulate that more fully, but I have to leave at the moment. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 21:25, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

I'd also like to poke a stick in here, as I'm currently trying to bring some consistency in the the end notes of pages by applying style guides to reference formatting (see my sandbox). My concern with the proposal above is what doing away with the |name= parameter for single-use references may do for people who edit a section of a page, rather than the whole page. For example, before you hit that edit link, you may notice a citation on the page for, say, Saint Jiub's Opus, and you can see it quoted in the page, in a section above the section you're planning to edit. Now, as you know that people who cite that particular book normally give it the name |name=Jiub, if you're planing to cite that book again, you should be able to just use {{ref|name=Jiub}} when you edit the section, without having to edit the whole page. Otherwise, why would we have edit links on every section? I recommend that the first person to add a citation for a particular reference to a page should name it. Then, if a subsequent edit makes use of it above the previous citation, it is the responsibility of the subsequent editor to make the necessary changes to the page. But if the subsequent edit is below the original use, you should be able to reasonably assume that the first citation is named appropriately. This is just my point of view, and I know my views have been marginalized a lot lately, but here it is anyway, for what its worth. — Daric✐ 21:56, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

If that is the case then we would need a consistent way of naming references, as there is no way to determine the name of a reference without seeing it in the edit box. Otherwise people would name it incorrectly and have to edit the page again anyway. Jeancey (talk) 22:02, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

You're right, Jeancey, and I have been thinking along those lines too. Each in-game book should have a standard abbreviation, IMHO, which could be stored in a comment line in the book itself. If you then cite the same book many times in different articles, you will get to learn the standard abbreviation for it. I'm already seeing what seems to be some standard abbreviations in use around here, but they should be codified, IMHO. — Daric✐ 22:08, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

Books are already pretty consistent, its the first letter of each word in the title in caps. So, The Black Arrow would be TBA, The Black Arrow volume 2 would be TBA2. The only iffy bit is one word titles, like Withershins. The real problem comes from other sources, ones that aren't books. Jeancey (talk) 22:11, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

(←) True. We do have tools such as {{TIL}} for some of them, and other completely external sites should be given a |name= automatically when first used. If we start to see the same external sites being referenced over and over again (such as with judicious use of LinkSearch), then we can add a new template like TIL for it. Is there a tool like LinkSearch that would show us a list of all (or the top 10? top 100?) outbound links from a namesapce, sorted by frequency of use? That would be handy for resolving this particular issue. — Daric✐ 22:42, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

I don't think there is, but I can check. Jeancey (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

I lied. [1], [2]. You can use it to find the rest :P Jeancey (talk) 22:48, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

(←) (edit conflict) To give background, this started because Jeancey had some issues with this version of Lore:Dragons. She He had some valid concerns, though other than an assertion which had one irrelevant cite, there's nothing I would've wasted an edit on. I disagreed on some other points, and we've effectively reached a ceasefire at the moment on the page as it stands (though I can't rule out further revisions to correct any possible deficiencies which pre-date our discussions). If you don't mind, Jeancey, I'd ask that people disregard the sections of your post where you seek to make my argument for me. Show me a statement with 15 citations, and I'll show you where in the existing guidelines such a string cite is unnecessary. The longest string cite I've seen is roughly half that. And as for researchers who may want every available source highlighted for certain statements, that is a fringe part of my argument. I was merely pointing out that there are certain users who would greatly appreciate us compromising slightly on aesthetics for the sake of fully backing up our declarations. And keep in mind, the detriment of string cites to aesthetics is very slight. And there are most certainly differences between citing on wikipedia and citing here, as I'll elaborate upon below.

Okay: on the name parameter. I make it a habit to put the name parameter in the first, full cite of any source. This was something I think I noticed some other editors doing and went along with. I think it's helpful to future users who might find something else that's significant to an article from that source. I extend it as a courtesy, to "lock in" the source for future use by others, no different than putting the toilet seat down. And, if history is the judge, that "future user" will likely be me (maybe even in the near future, while I'm still working on an article) or some other experienced user of the wiki. I.e., someone who will know how to take advantage of the name parameter. While "very few" user might know how to do so, it's the regular contributors who end up doing most of the editing (especially the citing). I believe the name parameter's contribution to "clutter" in cases where a cite is not (yet) used again on a page is minimal. In fact, this is not clutter at all because it is a serving a purpose, albeit prospectively. A perfect example is the Arngeir dialogue cite in Lore:Dragons. Angeir has quite a bit of dialogue in Skyrim, and it can be rather difficult to reliably track down all of an NPCs dialogue on CSList (you can never really be sure you got it all). Even in the dialogue I can track down or hear in-game, I might overlook something relevant. Further, something he said could take on a greater significance and become noteworthy as more information is gathered from obscure or future content. The presence of name params on the pages for the time where is doesn't seem strictly necessary (yet) seems to me like a very small burden on the site.

On multiple citations to support a sentence (string cites): The amount of data about our world is immense, so immense it is literally impossible for a person's brain to retain all of it. Yet, that is essentially the scope of wikipedia's coverage. The scope our lore section is obviously miniscule by comparison. Our focuses necessarily demand different treatment in some cases, and one of them is that we must have greater leniency when it comes to the frequency and length of string cites.

For the vast majority of the information in the lore section, there is only one source available. Further, the vast majority of that information is very, very questionable. Think of how many little nuggets of information can be traced back to only Varieties of Faith in the Empire, and how much of that text has been found to be inaccurate or dubious. I believe there are an abundant amount of assertions in the lore section where, if a reader sees only one cite, he or she will intuitively conclude it's likely the only available cite. For a lot of statements which may convey relatively obscure, controverted, or otherwise questionable information, my approach is that one corroborating source is good, two is better, and more than that can and should be used as appropriate.

There are a ton of statements in the lore section which are amalgamations of information from a variety of sources. They're not synthesis or original research, mind you, but only one source may provide a date, another may not all name all the subjects involved, yet one more may ignore all that but delve into greater detail on where an event took place, and so forth. Then, you have very broad statements, such as sentences starting with something like "Many legends say that...". Supporting that "Many legends" said something likely cannot be done by one source, or even two or three. And once you've cited two or three, what if there are more relevant stories detailing legends supporting the assertion? By what criteria do you cite to some and not others? If you pick and choose, you're only partially supporting the veracity of the statement in this context.

At the same time, we expressly provide that very basic in-game information doesn't even need a cite, let alone two or three. There's a threshold whereby a piece of information is so well-supported that it doesn't even need one cite to begin with. But you can't articulate that threshold in terms of regulating the number of cites per sentence; that needless infringes upon an editor's discretion to apply his/her own common sense, which (surprisingly) is usually still the best guide to editors. This provision implicitly acknowledges that there are occasions where a plethora of mutually corroborating sources may confirm a fact that some people may not consider "very basic" in-game information. In this situation, in my opinion, citing to one or two of the available sources which most fully address the fact is satisfactory. If I wanted to support "The Third Era lasted 433 years", for example, I might just simply cite The Third Era Timeline. It would be clearly and patently unreasonable to reference every bit of character dialogue or every text which may reference the date in passing. We don't need any guideline change to know that.

Given the unique circumstances in the lore section compared to wikipedia, different treatment is necessitated. We have to let common sense dictate whether particular assertions in a statement calls for no cite, 1-2 cites, or every citation available. We have to be tolerant of each other, as the fact is that this is a collaboration. Reasonable users may in good faith differ on some propositions' obscurity or arguable nature, and we must make accommodations for this on a case-by-case basis. Besides possibly taking into account the "only one cite needed for consecutive sentences relying upon a single source" rule, I don't believe the guidelines require any further revisions to address the concerns here. Well, I've run out of time at the moment; I haven't read the intervening posts since my last message, but I'll address them later as needed. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 00:24, 3 April 2013 (GMT)

I'll let others give input first since we have discussed this before, but for the record, I'm a he. :P Jeancey (talk) 01:35, 3 April 2013 (GMT)

Dang it, sorry, Jeancey. I knew that, too; I was reminding myself that when I started. And that first paragraph generally had a negative tone I didn't intend, so sorry for that, as well. Anyways, in regard to how to properly abbreviate the name parameter, it would be great to standardize that. Like Jeancey said, all caps of the first letter of each word seems to work well, though there are many special cases to consider where a briefer, more logical abbreviation would be better. Vivec's sermons comes to mind. For an NPCs dialogue reference, I put down the character's first name, possibly with game initials beforehand if needed to cite to a character's dialogue in two or more games. Clearly, there are a few ins-and-outs to consider to do it right, but I'd be more than happy to help get any kind of set practice in place.

To drive home my point from earlier about our difference from wikipedia: at wikipedia, their goal is often to weed through mountains of irrelevant info to get the best citations they can get their hands on. They can pick and choose a relatively small amount of references out of what is often a large pool. We, on the other hand, are dealing in a microcosm: our sources our very limited, and our audience knows this. While wikipedia has the luxury of choosing a select amount of credible sources, we have to scrape by with the few sources we're dealt, riddled as they are with concerns of credibility, bias, and incomplete coverage. For much of their information, they have greater quantity and quality of sources to choose from; we have neither for most bits of information on the TES lore universe.

On the plus side, we can also give our subject matter much more comprehensive treatment than wikipedia. Our goals couldn't be more different in this respect, and our policies must reflect that. So being more lenient with string citing is a natural, perfectly proper result of both the greater scrutiny we can afford to give to the smaller pool of information we have access to, and to the relative deficiencies in virtually any given source we may rely upon. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 01:57, 3 April 2013 (GMT)

List of relevant books

I'd like to propose a change in the format guidelines for the Lore namespace: Instead of saying "This section may or may not include a list of relevant books in alphabetical order, even if they are cited and appear in the reference section", the guidelines should encourage the creation and expansion of such bibliographies where appropriate. They are a very helpful complement to the list of inline citations, and many Lore articles already benefit greatly from a combination of alphabetical book list and inline citations: Dwemer, Skyrim, Nord, Vivec (god), Dunmer etc.

Articles like Daedra, Daggerfall, Dark Brotherhood or Morrowind could all benefit from additional inline citations. However, I think that adding a list of "relevant books" to these articles is a much more urgent issue. To provide some more specific examples: 1.) Potema, so far only a "snippet" on an overview page, is an article without any inline citation – but at the end, it at least mentions important books about its subject. 2.) The article Mages Guild has a few inline citations, but the references only list Origin of the Mages Guild. The other book with "Mages Guild" in its title, the Mages Guild Charter, is mentioned in the second sentence of the article with a link. A least these two books could be listed in a "See Also/Books" section. 3.) Then there are articles like Nerevarine Cult, which are still waiting for their first reference. Before even adding an inline citation, this article could easily be improved by listing at least the books that are mentioned in Morrowind:Nerevarine. --Holomay (talk) 12:36, 3 April 2013 (GMT)

That seems fine to me. I like book lists. I've heard some grumbling before, however, that book lists are often redundant considering the references section. Also, a lot of topics just don't have the books. I wanted to make sure that no one was compelled to include book lists if they disagreed with them or didn't think an article needed them. But I was suppose we could encourage people to include them without actually compelling them. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 19:02, 3 April 2013 (GMT)

I agree, not only will it help people understand the subject more, but it will encourage people to add the relevant info from those books to the article, should it be absent. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:28, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

• If three or more in-game texts are focused upon the topic of an article, a "Books" subsection should include a bulleted list of them in alphabetical order using the {{Book Link}} template.

How's that? Should it be four texts? Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 03:52, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

Why not all? Anyway, I just did this to the Sithis page, and not all cited books are "focused" on the article, they are relevant to the subject, but are "irrelevant" to someone wishing to expand their knowledge on the subject, as they only briefly mention the subject (e.g. Varieties of Faith only mentions Sithis in relation to a myth about Sheogorath). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 16:30, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

My concerns are that a list of one or two isn't really worthwhile, and for bigger topics, including books based on that easier-to-satisfy standard will make some book lists gargantuan. Lore:Nord, for example; that book list could easily be two or three times as long, if we were to include every book that says something relevant about being a Nord. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 19:32, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

I agree with ME’s concerns on including all books in the list. I think the relevant books list should serve a different purpose than the references list. Instead of just paraphrasing the list of cited books in alphabetical order, it should list books that focus on the topic. To be a helpful complement to the references list, the books list should be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. On Lore:Dwemer, for example, there is a list of “Books about the Dwemer” as well as a list of “Books in Dwemeris”. On the other hand, I don’t think that we need to set a minimum for the number of books in the list. If there’s a Lore-worthy subject with just one or two books focusing on it, the list should just consist of one or two books. --Holomay (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2013 (GMT)

• A "Books" subsection may include an alphabetical, bulleted list of all in-game texts which are focused upon the topic of the article.

How's that? Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 19:50, 8 April 2013 (GMT)

Sounds good to me! :) --Holomay (talk) 08:11, 9 April 2013 (GMT)

Abbreviations for the |name= parameter

Quotes don't seem to be necessary at all. A lot of older references feature quotes around the abbreviated name, but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

For books, I find it easiest to put the first letter of each word, including introductory "The"s and what-not, all in caps. Users can determine the abbreviation phonetically, and they never have to guess whether certain words are capitalized or not. And, obviously, include any applicable volume number. E.g., The Argonian Account, Book 2, becomes "TAA2". There is the possibility that two sources to have the same abbreviation under this method, but it hasn't been a problem yet and we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Some special cases include:

2920, The Last Year of the First Era. 2920v1, 2920v2, etc.

The 36 Lessons of Vivec. 36L1, 36L2, 36L3, etc.

The Pocket Guides. PGE1S, PGE1C, PGE1High, PGE1Ham, PGE3Arena, PGE3All, PGE3M, PGE3Sky, PGE3Sug, PGE3Sum, PGE3Ors, PGE3Other, you get the idea.

There may be others I'm forgetting at the moment which need special treatment.

For a cite to in-game dialogue, I've always put down the NPC's first name. We do run the risk that a NPC will appear in more than one game For instance, Neloth's Morrowind dialogue may have to be distinguished from his Dragonborn dialogue. Here, I think it should be "MWNeloth" and "DBNeloth". Should we do that all the time, for every character? Enodoc did so at Lore:House Redoran, and I think it works pretty good. The added descriptiveness will prevent any problems in this regard and won't really be any harder for editors to figure out or use.

For generic cites to the events of a game or expansion, I just use the name. "Events of Skyrim" = "Skyrim".

As discussed above, how we treat non-TIL external links might be changing soon.

Is there any category of citations I'm forgetting about here? Does anyone have any objections to these abbreviation methods? Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 22:31, 5 April 2013 (GMT)

What about quests? Many of them use the format "Events of (game)" where the word 'events' links to the quest in question. However, this means you have to click the link to figure out *which* quest actually is being sourced, and the format provides a conflict with the general "Events of (Game)", as well as when there are multiple quests on the page. Jeancey (talk) 06:47, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

Three things to address. First, books with single-word titles should be abbreviated with the name (Withershins, Wabbajack, etc.). Second, loading screens: OBLoading, SRLoading, etc. Third, quests. I can't guarantee this will be foolproof, but the game abbreviation plus the first word in the quest title should suffice. Example: Oblivion:Cure for Vampirism would be OBCure. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 06:59, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

First full, non-article I would say. So we don't get OBThe or OBA. Or could we do the abbreviation of the quest name? So OBCFV? Or simply CFV. Jeancey (talk) 07:01, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

Sounds good. The full, undercase non-article word approach is probably better because it shouldn't have any potential to conflict with abbreviated multi-word book titles. It might pose a small problem with a quest title begins with "Loading" and both it and a loading screen from the same game are cited, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 07:07, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

No problem there. There aren't any. Jeancey (talk) 07:18, 6 April 2013 (GMT)

Proposed change to the guidelines

Since the template includes links to the gamespace pages of place articles, (and our plans for the people page templates include the same), I propose that we change the guidelines under the notes section to specifically state that if there is a template on the page, a note specifically stating that it appears in that game should not be added. Furthermore, since the see also section likely has a link to the game page anyway, I propose that we remove the featured in notes entirely, since they are doubly redundant. The link is stated in both the template, and specifically stated in the see also section. Thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Jeancey (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

Lore People summary

We decided a little while ago that we should have a Lore People Summary template. I wrote one up today, and I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts were? It can be found here. Are there any things I missed that should be in the template? Thoughts on how it is displayed? Thanks in advance for your comments!!! Jeancey (talk) 19:30, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

Ok, I have fixed it up based on a few comments I have recieved on IRC. I'll be back in a few hours, so I'll get to any thoughts people may have then. Jeancey (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

I'm a template noob, but I love its appearance and arrangement. I'm not 100% sure that any given image will look good when embedded in the summary box, but the example looks excellent. It will improve Lore:People immensely. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 20:18, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

Currently, it seems like the Bosmer image is "hard-wired" into the template; I can't get it to use anything else. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 22:51, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

Really? That's strange, since the image is done via the doc, rather than the template itself.... Let me look into it. Jeancey (talk) 22:55, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

Try it now. It was my fault for copy pasting things. Jeancey (talk) 22:58, 29 April 2013 (GMT)

I think a few more details could be included in the template. Some example possibilities include birth sign, where they lived, when they lived as a range if death date is known, possibly allow for a list of titles, since some characters have quite a few titles to list. In the case of sovereigns, I would say the beginning and ending of their reign belongs in the box. Of course, doing all of that could make it look cluttered - those are just ideas. LordXenophon (talk) 00:30, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Death date and location are already in the template, I just haven't died yet so they aren't in the example. Currently title only supports titles which are prior to the name, but I don't really know of any people who have titles AFTER the name. Their reign is something that I will add eventually. I feel that the location of birth, death and last known residence are enough for where they lived. The birthsign is next to unknown, I think only a small handful would ever use it, so I don't think that is needed in the template. Jeancey (talk) 00:34, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Currently, images must be accompanied by a description, otherwise the caption reads "[name of person here] {{{imgdesc}}}". It doesn't necessarily need fixing (every image should probably always be accompanied by a description anyways), but I thought I should point it out. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 03:05, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Also, I was toying around with it, and it seems like there's an alignment issue when I try to implement it. Also, if there's no image at all, it gets all jumbly. Example. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 03:12, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

ME, if you add the parameter imgdesc= but leave it empty, it'll take away the {{{imgdesc}}}, but it seems the name is left as part of the description and I have no clue if there's any current workaround that. Same issue with the images, I can't seem to rid of the [[File:|frameless|center]] if there was no image for the specific lore person available. -helenaanne  ^{talk ♥} 05:29, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

(←) meh, all that is my fault for writing it up so fast. I don't have time right now, but I'll try to fix it later. About the image descriptions though, the name will always be in there, to insure that the image (if there is one) will always have an image description, even if one is not specified. The frameless center thing though, i should be able to fix that easy peasy once I get back and have time to sit down at my computer to do it. I'll also align the entire infobox to the right-hand side, like all the others. Totally forgot about that part earlier. Jeancey (talk) 05:38, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

(edit conflict) So the image descriptions will always be there with the name if an image or not is specified, okay. Is there any way that if the image= parameter is unchecked that it could null-in-void the parameter so that the name doesn't even come up as part of the image description, seeing as some (if not most) may not have images included in the summary and their titles are already stated along the top of the template itself? -helenaanne  ^{talk ♥} 05:44, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Oh, what I meant was it'll be there if there is an image. The image description won't be there at all without an image. Possibly though. I modeled the template after how wikipedia does it, and they have a header with the name and the name in the image caption, which is in the same position as I have placed it. I can work with it though and see what works and what doesn't. Jeancey (talk) 06:03, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

I like the general idea, but so many lore people have such minimal background info that I fear only the Race, Gender and maybe Born fields will apply - the question is: Is that enough information to warrant its own infobox? It means the template will only display a little two column box in the minor lore people pages - might look odd and not very substantial. What does it add to the article? Another problem I foresee is infoboxes can become rife with speculation and assumptions. People will begin to assume birthplaces based on race etc just to fill up the template. For example, while it's very likely High King Gellir was born in Skyrim, but it should never find it's way into a lore infobox as it's unsourced - while I'm confident such statements would be removed by a patroller, it's something to consider. Just my thoughts on the matter :) --Jimeee (talk) 09:20, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Actually, even the race and gender may not always apply. Many characters in books are never given an explicit race. And gender might be an issue if we use this on pages for certain deities - the Daedric Princes often have indeterminate or varying gender, for example. I think these fields need to be optional - and it should be possible to have either one without the other. — TheRealLurlock (talk) 12:14, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

In general I think it looks good. I don't personally think a 'small' infobox is a big problem, as there are quite a few instances of that with the Place Summary as well. It may be better if Gender and Race are on separate lines, as then if one is not filled in, such as for a Daedric prince, it does not need to appear. This would make it a bit bigger in the 'small' instances as well. Would the aim to be to add a summary to every person's page? If that is the case, and I assume it will be, there may be a few special cases that crop up as it goes along, as we found with the Place Summary. In which case, they can be addressed as they are found.

I noticed that the loc= parameter currently calls a row called Resides in, which suggests to me that the person is still alive, whereas the template doc calls it the Last known location of the person, which would still be valid even if they were dead. You could add a switch there to change it to Resided in, dependent on whether a death date has been added or a dead=true logical is called (this could be set automatically by including a death date, otherwise manually).

In relation to the points above (you probably know these already), you may need to enclose your image row in an existence loop {{#if:{{{image|}}}| so you don't end up with [[File:|frameless|center]] appearing if no image is defined. {{{imgdesc}}} will not appear on the page when undefined if you pipe out the end {{{imgdesc|}}} of the parameter call. --Enodoc (talk) 14:54, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Damn, I wrote out a whole big thing about this last night and my browser crashed. Probably a blessing, since this was originally longer.

Jimeee's right that it's very important we stick to the source material and not make assumptions when filling out these summaries. For instance, is Alisanne Dupre a Breton? She had a Breton's name, but it's never spelled out in source material. Why is Potema called a queen and not a jarl? It's actually quite possible that she was "High Queen" of all Skyrim, not just the leader of Solitude, but this is not corroborated by in-game sources. She's only ever called a queen, so that's what we should call her, and leave the speculation to the forums. Only the most concrete of inferences should be utilized.

Regardless of whether we adapt the template for Lore:Gods, the race parameter will pose a dilemma just for some people since, throughout history, we have Chimer changing into Dunmer, Akaviri turning into dragons, all races turning into werewolves or vampires, as well situations where we have conflicting accounts (Night Mother) and where a character is assigned two different races interchangeably (Ysgramor). There may be more I'm forgetting about. Point is, I think the simplest, most reliable approach will be to put a character's first race in the race parameter, and leave any trans-racial events to be explained in the text. So Alandro Sul was a Chimer, and Ysgramor was an Atmoran. Also, I don't know if it's been spelled out yet in the template Doc, but Jeancey did add the option to put "Unknown" for the race param.

Also, when it comes to beast races, I think we should get specific if we can. If we only know that a character is a Khajiit, that's great, but if we know for certain that he or she is, say, a Cathay-Raht, then we should put that in instead.

By the way, as long as we're cleaning up the lore people pages, some pages need to be moved because they start with a title: Lord Darkworth, Lord Lovidicus, Jarl Hanse, and possibly others. And as a general rule of thumb, authors should be deleted unless we have more to say about them than one sentence. Notable exceptions include Marobar Sul and Enric Milnes.

I also have a question about the technical stuff: instead of filling out a name parameter, can this be automatically filled in as the PAGENAME like the place summary does? Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 16:18, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

(←) Ok, this is going to be long, since I am replying to many many people.

On unknown race: Currently, setting the race to Unknown will not link to anything. Also, given it is autolinked, anything with a page on the wiki can be added, which includes subraces of Khajiit and other beast races.

On short infobox pages: Honestly, if we really don't know this much about them, they shouldn't have their own page. These infoboxes won't be for the people who just have a blurb on the main people page and a redirect. We know enough about the others that we shouldn't have any problem with those. Also, we don't have to include birth and death location if it is unknown. It'll just display the date of birth in that case. If the date of birth is not specified, it appears as "unknown".

On Gender: Gender isn't linked, so we can just put Neutral, or Genderless or something in the field for those who have to gender, and unknown for those who do have a gender. In fact, I can make it so that a blank gender field will display as unknown, if that's what we want.

Endoc: Yeah, I know how to do the image thing, I just didn't get around to it last night (and I completely blanked on doing it the first time around. Totally forgot about it lol). Also, I'm pretty sure I can do the resided in thing, but, given that this is lore space, I actually think simply having at Resided In from the get-go would be better, since this all of this should be in past tense anyway.

On multiple races: You can put multiple races in the infobox, as long as you link them yourself. Something like [[Lore:Chimer|]], later [[Lore:Dunmer|]] should work fine, since autolink *should* stop when it hits a link. I'll look into it after I do this. Wearwolves and vampires probably don't need to be in the infobox? Since they are vampiric Bretons or Nords who are also werewolves, that part can probably just be in the text, with the base race in the infobox? Not 100% on that though.

On titles in page names: Honestly, we should remove them regardless. THEY are their name, not their title. There is a slight wrinkle with some Nords who have their titles after their names, such as Jorunn the Skald-King, but I suppose that could stay in their name.

ME: I can do that with page name, I'm not 100% sure on how to have the name parameter override the pagename though... I used the name parameter because that's how we did it with the Lore Place Summary.

Ok.... I think I got all the points in that... but if I missed one or two, just ask them again :) Jeancey (talk) 16:39, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

Alright, I made the image changes, name and gender are now optional, where name displays as the page name and gender displays as unknown if they are not specified. Jeancey (talk) 17:06, 30 April 2013 (GMT)

As far as beast races go, it actually might be better to add a "sub-race" field. Sure it's great to be specific and state that a given Khajiit is actually Cathay-Raht. But the average reader is much less likely to know what that word means, whereas everyone who's played any ES game should know what a Khajiit is. Plus, I think there are very few named members of any of the other Khajiit sub-races seen even in books.) Likewise for the Argonian sub-races. (I personally think these sub-races may have been invented solely to explain why both Argonians and Khajiits looked basically human in Arena.) This may be another case of "Let's hope we get more answers about this in ESO." Since Elsweyr and Black Marsh will be open to the public for the first time in almost two decades, one would assume we'd get to see a bit more variety on this point... — TheRealLurlock (talk) 02:23, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

I'm stockpiling page revisions which have summary right now for when the template is ready. I've got A-D covered, then I decided for no particular reason to work back from Z. I'm currently on S. Just thought I should mention it in case anyone else was doing the same; don't want a prospective edit conflict. I'm only working off the multi-topic articles, though, so I might be missing a few if they're not listed there. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 02:46, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

I mean.... if we are all happy with the idea of it, and the current things in it, I could launch it now. I can always add more things (like sub-races or reign for monarchs) later if need be. Jeancey (talk) 04:20, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

I'm good. Got about 50 summaries ready. By the way, about the birth/date years: it will accept and to link to "Merethic Era", but not any of the numbered eras. Which isn't really a problem, but just so you know. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 04:31, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

Now we also need to replace the example with a real one - I nominate Barenziah. Appears in 2 games, referenced in a 3rd, plus several books. She's royalty, so you can get those "reign" dates in there, and she served as the Queen Mother after being Queen. Probably one of the best examples for showing off all the most-likely-to-be-used features of the template. (Very few people have appeared in multiple games, so that narrows down the list considerably. Only other ones I can think of are Neloth and M'aiq the Liar, neither of whom is royalty, and the latter may not even be the same person in each case.) Also deities, but it's hard to put "reign" dates on them too. — TheRealLurlock (talk) 04:47, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

Dervenin appeared in SI and SR. There's also Ulfgar the Unending. But this reminds me: Uriel Septim VII technically "appeared" in Arena and Daggerfall. Should it say so in the summary, or is it better left to a note? I'm not sure if the lengths of Barenziah's various reigns have been established, but Uriel VII's has, so that might make him a slightly better example for showing off a reign parameter. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 05:16, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

Also, we might want to create a "Reachman" redirect to Lore:Forsworn to cover Red Eagle, Madanach, other possible Reachmen out there. Madanach is labeled as a "Breton" in Skyrim, but some lore indicates the Reachmen are a distinct "mongrel" race, so I don't think it'd be accurate to label them as such in the summaries. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 05:21, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

(←) I updated the template with reignStart and reignEnd params, also updated the doc to reflect that and used Uriel VII as the example, rather than myself :) Jeancey (talk) 23:01, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

I'm new to this conversation so I don't know how it goes but I would suggest adding a few things that I can see normally in other wikis(a good ex:[3]) So i'm gonna suggest that that template should have:

• Affiliation - Which government/group they belong
• Occupation - What they do for a living
• Relatives - Family members

Like i said i'm new to this discussion(and the above is too big to read :P).--Ashendant (talk) 23:32, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

The more, the merrier. The biggest issue I can think of with those is that a "Relatives" list could get very, very long for certain people in the TES-verse. There are certain risks of editorializing and pigeon-holing with "Occupation" and "Affiliation" that we'll have to mindful of, but I don't see any deal-breakers. edit- I don't disagree with Jeancey below that there's an inherent question of usefulness for each, but I'll leave you all to flesh that out. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 23:41, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

(edit conflict) Some of them, like Occupation and Affiliation, aren't all THAT useful, since the majority of people in lore space are nobles (and thus occupation is implied by their title) and so is their affiliation. We don't have enough opposing sides to warrant inclusion in the infobox. Sure, one or two people from skyrim might find it useful, but 95% of people in lore would probably just have "Empire" as their affiliation. Not sure about family either, since that might only be useful for a select few people as well. Jeancey (talk) 23:42, 1 May 2013 (GMT)

Family is generally useful for readers, of course there is potential for abuse if someone's family is rather large, and while limits can be added, they won't probably be needed.

Occupation is important in that it gives a general sense of what the character is in a few words, and the occupation would be more than just Noble, well in case of some nobles it would be Jarl of Whiterun or Ruler of Whiterun(if you don't want to include cultural titles) or in a lesser case(using Arcadia as an example) Apothecary of Arcadia's Cauldron... Or you could just go with Noble and Apothecary in these cases.

There was more than one empire, I think Affiliation should include names like Ayled empire, Medes Empire and Septim Empire, but I was thinking of it including lesser groups like the Thieve's guild and the Dark Brotherhood. What do you think?

Also remember that you are making a template for every article not just one.;)--Ashendant (talk) 00:14, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Also keep in mind, these occupations are game specific info, and thus kept on game pages, most often. Arcadia doesn't have a lore page, and doesn't need one. This is a summary for LORE people, not every person ever. The basic info, that a person is a Jarl, is covered by the Title parameter. What other occupation does a Jarl have, other than Jarl? Affiliation, possibly, but then again, that's what the text is for. Some people switch affiliation. I'm not sure we have a single people lore page for anyone in the Ayleid empire, and Medes' and Septims are just different dynasties of the same empire. There is no Medes Empire or Septim Empire at all. Family, I'm not really all that convinced on that one either. Jeancey (talk) 00:26, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Arcadia was really just an example of a non-noble. Nothing more meant than that.

Like said in that case Jarl would have the place associated to, of course we can remove the title and just have Ruler of <place> which is the information I wanted to convey in the Occupation (or Kamal of the Akaviri army or Listener of the Black Hand, to give a few examples).

Although you're right about dynasties, accordying to Lore:Empire There have been in total 3 empires, and that's what I meant, sorry for my bad examples.

Family: I think it's important and most wikis have it. Unless you have a alternative way to show this information in lore articles.--Ashendant (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

For family.... an alternate way aside from... just having it written in the text? On some of these pages, that information is ALL we really know about them, including it in the template would make the entire article useless. There are so many variations of the occupation, i.e. location, and title, etc, that accounting for it in terms of size and formatting in the template it would be a nightmare. Pretty much all of this information would be in the first sentence of the article anyway. My fear is making the template massively complicated, like the NPC Summary is, and thus contain essentially useless info, or info that is stated much better in the article. Jeancey (talk) 00:52, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Ok I understand why you want Occupation and Affiliation separate, and while I disagree I will concede to your arguments.

On Family just having it on text doesn't really work if the character has more than one family member. Either a simple template for extended families or a link to family article would work, these are two possible ways of doing it.--Ashendant (talk) 00:58, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

(←) Jeancey's given the green light on the template as is, and I have a stockpile of edits ready to add summaries. In many cases, they include other minor page improvements (hopefully), so in the interests of efficiency, I'd prefer to start adding them. We can continue to make appropriate upgrades to the template as we go, but it's more than serviceable at the moment. I'd appreciate as much peer review as possible. If anyone wants to tackle the people articles starting with "E" (which should all be listed at Lore:People E), they're the only ones I haven't gotten to yet. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 01:02, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

I'm slightly confused.... why wouldn't it work in the text if they have more than one family member? Jeancey (talk) 01:21, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Because then you would have parts of the text saying "<name> is his cousin, <name> is his mother, <name> is his grand-daugther" which could essentially go forever into a huge block of text.

However I was talking in the Lore Articles itself and only a few minutes ago I realized this was for Lore:People pages. So... :S.--Ashendant (talk) 01:26, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Yeah, People pages have this kind of this all the time. Like "Three children, blank, blank and blank, by his wife, blank." Jeancey (talk) 01:33, 2 May 2013 (GMT)

Yet another proposed change

I know I do this a lot. :P I believe that the section on Pre-release content should be modified, due to ESO. For single player games, information provided prior to release is iffy at best and is usually leaked illegally, so the guideline made perfect sense. ESO, however, changes things in that there will be an Open Beta at some point prior to the release of the game where we can, and will, add info to the site. Under the current Pre-release guidelines, this is not allowed. I believe that it should be changed to reflect the fact that this would be completely accurate info and allowed on the site, even though it is technically prior to the release of the game. This would also allow us to moderate how much info we have to add, so we don't have to add it all at once like we did with Skyrim. Jeancey (talk) 20:31, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

Open Beta still isn't the official game, so I'd be opposed to using it in Lore. It can still be placed in the Online section as it would come under the Pre-release template. There are many general things that can be taken from betas but many minor details couldn't be used as they might not be in the final release (e.g. new cities are unlikely to be left out, but a book may be left out due to not being needed). Lore needs protection from any kind of misinformation, and as it can go in the Online section there is no need to add anything that isn't fully official. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:49, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

At the very least it should be changed to allow for information officially released on the website, which is, according to Legoless, pre-release info that shouldn't be included in the lore section. Jeancey (talk) 20:53, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

I don't see that the guidelines disallow this. My reading of "Officially approved materials" already includes any released info, including interviews, official videos, and the books released for Online. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:58, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

I guess. That begs the question though, during beta, wouldn't that be officially approved material and thus lore worthy? I'm thinking about the new books added, not really the storyline/plot which could change. I think it would be unlikely for them to change a book enough between beta and release to change information that could be gathered from it. Names in the books might change, but those are easily fixed. Jeancey (talk) 21:12, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

Not exactly. Betas are but they aren't, in the sense that they haven't been finalized. It's still in testing, albeit a public test, and not what we can take as officially approved. It's not so much the content of said books, its the inclusion of it, a book is something that could easily be removed (or going further, something that was supposed to have already been removed but forgotten about). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:20, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

I wouldn't mind a head start on adding ESO info to the lore, as its contributions are purportedly substantial. Some information, such as from Jorunn the Skald-King, has already been added, and I don't see much point in deleting it and then re-adding it in a few months. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 21:33, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

The books and info about the leaders is already covered under officially released information. All the information about them is confirmed official by the ESO website. Jorunn is officially in the game, in lore and deleting him is basically the same as deleting any other lore page now. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:39, 6 May 2013 (GMT)