General talk:Unofficial Lore

Todd Howard's Order of Priority

This is being posted here for future reference:

• 1. In-game events viewed through the eyes of the player
• 2. A book published in-universe that can be read inside the game
• 3. An official work published outside of the game (examples given include the game manual and the official cookbook)

Todd also said anything stated by a fan (an example given was fan theories) would not go on the list. This would imply fanfiction and other unofficial works are non-canon and not to be considered a part of The Elder Scrolls lore or canon.--Rezalon (talk) 07:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Didn't we already know that? Anything that wasn't released officially is not part of ES Lore. There is no "imply" at all, it just is. I don't feel like this is new information. Jeancey (talk) 15:20, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

There's nothing new here, it seems more like trying to blow something out of proportion. In the interview Todd said that fan theories and debates are to be encouraged. In a related but different answer he gives his "priority" list, which fits everything we already know about how lore is formed and treated by Bethesda. This doesn't diminish fan-fiction in any way, it's just basically confirming everything we already know but has never been officially stated, and this isn't an official statement either to be clear. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 15:46, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Did Todd specify exactly what priority is that? Priority in what? His knowledge of universe? His personal way in knowing the universe? Why should this bother us? Phoenix Neko (talk) 16:04, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

It is the priority of what is more important in Canon for the Elder Scrolls. So seeing something in a game takes precedence over descriptions of that thing in a book, if there are conflicts. Basically describes what we already do. Jeancey (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

He doesn't use the word 'canon' though. And he wasn't asked about canonicity at all. The header "Game Development, Canon, and Fan Theories" is deceiving. Phoenix Neko (talk) 16:45, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

(←) He mentions a panel at a London event. I'm fairly certain that panel involved canonicity. It's definitely what he was talking about. Jeancey (talk) 16:51, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

It's really hard to make conclusions without taking all context into account. Phoenix Neko (talk) 16:57, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

It's a moot point anyway, since even being about canonicity, we already do all this, and nothing he said changes how we approach things being canon or not. Jeancey (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

UOL vs CC?

I was looking at the activity on Lore:Bestiary G and noticed that CC (Cut Content - not Creation Club!) is apparently treated differently from typical Unofficial Lore. I was surprised by this, as I have always used them as the same, especially considering that they use the same tag in references: (UOL). The detail in question on the Bestiary page was a single word, 'hardy', cited with some cut content songs from Daggerfall. I'm left with many questions from this: is this sitewide, or relegated to entry pages like the Bestiary? - if so, why?, is CC not supposed to be cited anywhere? If that's the case, I've seen it in a ton of places, there'd be a lot of work to do. Mindtrait0r (talk) 18:17, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Cut Content is cited on a case-by-case basis. It can be used if something in the final product of the game gets more elaboration from cut content, such as what certain Daggerfall deities are the lords of, or noting that Divad had a daughter named Cinsel. It can't be cited for something that contradicts the games entirely, such as cut content of an early quest where King Ranser was murdered in 2E 582 and you had to investigate King Sebastien (a Duke in the final game) for it. However, even then, you can cite stuff like this in the notes as being an early idea in development; you can see Lore:Naryu Virian#Notes or Lore:Uriel V#Notes for good examples. A site-wide purge is not a good idea. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 18:25, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh yeah. Sorry if I gave off the wrong impression, I'm certainly not advocating for a purge. What of entry pages, though, such as the aforementioned pages? Do they play by other rules? They don't have notes sections to fall back on. Mindtrait0r (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

All good! The general rule of thumb is that if something works better within the body it should be written there, and if not, it can be moved to the notes. Entries are less strict because they don't have much content in the first place, so you can put it in as long as its relevant. When it comes to the Gnome thing, the cut content only talks about how they're mentioned in songs, and not about what gnomes are (ie how they look), so its not particularly relevant. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Developer Mods

I've recently seen a lot of Dev Mod pages being added to this page. I disagree with this, we haven't counted Dev Mod lore as as UOL in the past, its viewed as unusable for citations. This contrasts with the page's clarification statement to sitewide usage. UESP tentatively allows Unofficial Lore to be used as footnote citations in lore articles, with caveats. If mod lore isn't considered suitable for citations, then by this line, it isn't unofficial lore and shouldn't be listed here. Mindtrait0r (talk) 07:29, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

A lot of the new stuff seems to be Goodall lore books from his mods. If we are at the point of citing off-hand reddit posts by MK and Schick, by extension a proper lorebook from a past dev falls into the same category. Goodall's lorebooks align more into the category of MK texts.

But as always - every single new UOL that is added to a page in lorespace needs to be talkpage'd before its added (there was a discussion about this a while back) because like all UOL, its case-by-case if it should be added. hose new refs that that aren't talkpaged can be freely removed. Side note, this page is getting messy so i'm gonna move all the big lists to their own dev-related page. --Jimeee (talk) 08:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Jimeee's reasoning. There's no reason to exclude developer lore texts just because they come from mods, and each one can be included on this page (or not) on a case-by-case basis. Citation of UOL texts elsewhere on the site is a separate discussion and not directly relevant to this page. —⁠Legoless (talk) 12:13, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, developer mods are perfectly fine to cite if they're from lore-friendly mods, which pretty much all mods the mods are aside from Loading Screens. By your Mom already are. I agree what Legoless said. The Rim of the Sky (talk) 16:08, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Restoring to Previous Version

Bringing this to the talk page first since I saw edits from multiple editors without any reversion of this before. I wish to propose this page be reverted back to its state in this edit. The recent edits moved the majority of the content behind other pages. I think the previous version of this page was better, as it was not very long (11,133 bytes vs just 4,860 bytes now), but still managed to keep all of the relevant content on this page. The recent changes does have the advantage of making this content easier to find if you know the author of it, but I think that is going to be unlikely in most cases. Instead, I would prefer these pages be turned into redirects to the author's sections on this page. A position in the middle would be to make it so these pages transclude their content to this page instead, although it's not my personally preferred solution for this particular situation. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 05:50, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking of making these pages have includetags and just transcluding text to the dev and uol pages maybe--ErfXploded (talk) 10:53, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the best way to keep it tight and easily finadable is name the section on this page "Texts and Posts". Put the links to the Dev posts back as I had it. Then move the "Council of Wisdom Posts" below it so everything is here. You can then delete the General:Developer Posts as its redundant. Right now the Posts can only be discovered if readers happens to look way at the bottom in the See Also section.--Jimeee (talk) 11:16, 5 August 2023 (UTC)