User talk:Darklocq/Archive 1

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This is an archive page. My current talk page is here.

Redirections[edit]

Creating redirections for every possible iteration is not something we do, and our search engine and the way the wiki software works, redirections for different capitalisations are unnecessary. Thus I have marked 4 of the redirections for deletion, leaving 2 intact. "Game of the Year Edition" will appear for anyone searching for the same with capitals or without Edition, and as we try to stick to the official wording as close as possible, it had to be one with "Edition" kept. I've left GotY as that is the abbreviation on the page redirected to, rather than GOTY, and again it will appear even for those who start to type all-caps. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 02:03, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

The Silencer: Noted! I was used to Wikipedia's capitalization handling. — Darklocq  ¢ 02:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
We use the same code which ignores capitals when typed and brings up both lowercase and uppercase in the search box. The only difference in regards caps, and it is a fairly major one, is that our articles should "always" be capped (eg "Making Money" would be "Making money" on wikipedia). Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 02:23, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
The Silencer: I see what you mean. What's the preference for headings and subheadings? The style is all over the place. I prefer to do ==This Is a Heading== over Pickyweedia's ==This is a heading== style, but will follow whatever style guide you have. If you don't have one, I can help make one (I'm one of the principal authors of English WIkipedia's Manual of Style, and know how to write one well). Also, what do you want to do with plurals? I note that Morrowind Mod:Leveled Lists exists but Tes3Mod:Leveled List does not, and this may confuse people into thinking the site has no article on it. I would have created the redir on the spot, but I don't want to "pollute" if you don't want redirs like this. (I take the "redirects are cheap" view, myself).

Anyway, I'm about to finish an article that's a basic overview of OpenMW, at Morrowind Mod:OpenMW in a couple of minutes. (It's not a promo piece, just basic facts about what it is and how it differs from Bethesda's engine, without getting into any specifics, since details may change with the next release.) — Darklocq  ¢ 02:32, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Headings and Subheadings should generally be in the style of "This is a Heading", though each type of page has its own style (Style Guide). The one overriding exception is that anything directly from the games or official material must be presented exactly as it is in the source material. Most of the technical information on the game is presented as is, leaving little room for consistency. This is more down to the time-consuming nature of consolidating it and presenting it in a consistent way, as most of our time is taken with the user-side of the game, quests, places, NPCs, and all that related malarkey, and there isn't the time to put into changing something that someone wanting the information will usually know how to find/read/use anyway. So back on point plurals are not something that has been discussed, but I would say that a definable thing in the game (a Breton, a Blacksmith) usually is singular, while plurals are used on the groupings (races, merchants). Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 03:08, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Morrowind Namespace[edit]

Hey! I appreciate your enthusiasm for the Morrowind namespace! A couple things to keep in mind regarding additions to the namespace involving OpenMW. We generally don't include any mods or changes to the base game in the game namespaces, with the small exception of the Unofficial bug patches exclusively within bugs to mark which ones the Unofficial patch fixes. While the information about mods links to the main namespace when that information is included in the TES3Mod namespace, the reverse is not true. You should be extra careful not to include anything in the main namespace that is that way because of a mod or change to the game you are running. I'm not trying to dissuade you from helping, but rather just the opposite. I know it can be hard to see any changes you make reverted, so I'm trying to head off any such changes right away! :) Thanks again for your interest and help! Jeancey (talk) 04:47, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Jeancey: No worries, and thanks for the tip. I'm an old hand at "you will be mercillessly edited", and I realize there's a learning curve when one is used to this wiki and that one but comes into a new one with its own expectations. — Darklocq  ¢ 06:53, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Cross-namespace redirects[edit]

Jeancey, Silence is Golden: I note some cross-namespace redirects, e.g. from "Morrowind:" to something more specific like "Bloodmoon:". What about Bloodmoon:Werewolf? Shouldn't we have a redir from Morrowind:Werewolf to that article? I'm skeptical that everyone know that this creature only appears in Bloodmoon, and various articles here make reference to them without linking directly to Bloodmoon:Werewolf. I did see the paragraph about cross-namespace redirs on one of the style guide subpages, but it doesn't really cover a situation like this, where the distinction is between the main game and one of its official BethSoft addons. — Darklocq  ¢ 18:05, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Cross-namespace redirects are undesirable, even with unavoidable necessities for templates. We trust our userbase to understand that if they search for werewolves when playing Morrowind, that the Bloodmoon article would be relevant to them when it appears in the search box. Pages that mention being a werewolf in the Morrowind namespace should be making it clear that it requires Bloodmoon via the {{BM}} template or explicit wording, in the same way that pages in Skyrim mark Vampire Lord mentions with {{DG}}. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 19:04, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
ping: OK, but I think this project is overestimating the use of the Search box. Wiki-experienced readers (and who isn't one, today?) very frequently "stab" at articles by entering their educated guesses at likely titles, directly into the URL bar or (when editing) into links they hope will be blue in the rendered page. This is the principal reason redirects are a feature of MediaWIki. Searches often produce too many results to be expediently useful, the more so the more content there is. On a site like this, this is especially true, since it's effectively many wikis for many games (and other things like add-ons, modding, and lore) all on the same server and distinguished only by namespaces that make more sense to the admins than to visiting readers.

My desire to create some additional redirects is actually coming from three sources simultaneously: my experience with wiki information architecture and usability, my frustration as an editor that links I expect to work show up red when I preview, and my befuddlement as a reader at this site in not being able to easily find what I'm looking for, often including really basic game concepts like Morrowind's Taunt, etc. I just created Morrowind:Taunt, etc., redirects, and even Morrowind:Persuasion didn't exist yet! I would suggest that surely every interface element and gameplay thing with a name should be addressable by its name here, even if that just sends the reader to a section at another article where the thing in question is covered (though I suppose that's orthogonal to the cross-namespace matter).

If the namespaces are going to retain very high walls even between a game and its own official add-ons, then a comprehensive alphabetical index is going to be needed, like a paper guide book would have. It's just much easier to create redirects that help readers get to where they need to be. On a project of this scope, such redirs add very little administrative overhead. I'm one of the principal wikiproject organizers and categorizers of a topic of approximately this scope at Wikipedia (several thousand articles), and have learned that it can save rather than cost maintenance effort, by preventing content forks, redundant sections, "Where is...?" questions, and other stuff to deal with. I'll do what the project wants, of course, but I'm apt to propose adoption of a looser approach to redirs, especially within a particular game milieu, like the Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon one.
— Darklocq  ¢ 19:42, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

In my experience the less redirects we have the better, that way the proper article will be more likely to appear when searching. It also used to be that when searching from within one namespace that namespace's article would be first on the list. That no longer happens, and the increase in namespaces compounds the difficulty, but if it worked once it should work again, if someone with time can make it work with the latest MediaWiki (which seems to break everything everytime it's updated).
In my opinion everything before Oblivion is badly in need of updating. Oblivion and Skyrim got redirects and pages for things like creatures, spells, skills, classes, and factions. These types of pages do not all have a page (redirect or otherwise) at all for Arena Daggerfall, Morrowind, Battlespire, or Redguard. This is probably largely down to having bots do the basic function of taking all the game data and dumping it on the wiki, though a lot of base Oblivion is retroactive.
I lack the experience of playing Morrowind to know the source material, but anyone who has that should be able to make these sorts of pages based on their knowledge that these pages are required. Also, don't be afraid to make a redlink, which you probably aren't, if you feel that a page is required (or {{Future Link}} if you want the link to appear only when the page is made). Redlinks can be more effective in producing action than a talk page post.
Also, some of your coding doesn't work here. That "ping" thing or mentioning our names doesn't do anything, its only because I float on the Recent Changes that I'm here. The / with the break is also defunct. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 20:25, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
"MediaWiki ... seems to break everything everytime it's updated" – Yeah, there is that issue!  :-/

Re: "everything before Oblivion is badly in need of updating". Yar. That's why I immediately signed up for the Morrowind Overhaul Project, and why I think welcoming OpenMW users is important. Odds are that the significant amount of the eventual expansion work for MW, TR, and BW will be done by them. The game is new and exciting to them, for most of whom it will be their first play-through, while it is all ancient history from 2002 to most Windows TES fans. In another version or two of Windows, you probably won't be able to run the original Bethesda MW engine except in a virtual machine, too. OpenMW's is MWs future.

Didn't realize MediaWiki's pinging feature was turned off here. The slash in <br /> works fine. The slash isn't required by MediaWiki, but anyone who's an old hand at HTML will just include it automatically out of habit without even thinking about it. [Geekery: MedaWiki actually inserts the slash in the parsed HTML it sends to the browser even if it's missing in the wikisource (same for other elements without a closing </foo> sub-element, like <hr />). The slash is required by the HTML specs since XHTML 1.0, though a space before it is not required any longer by HTML5.]

I do get what you mean about minimizing the number of redirects, and I get the above (earlier thread) point about redirs that aren't necessary for capitalized versus lower-case reasons. However, I still think there's some room for redirs that help people quickly find key information (like deets on a recurrently encountered type of creature), instead of wading through piles of search results. If someone gets a top search result for an obvious-to-reader name and it's a redir that takes them to the correct place (which they usually don't even notice was a redir), that is a superior result for the user than a hit that would go directly there without a redirect but isn't obviously what they're looking for and which they might not click. If you're playing GotY, you probably have no idea whether any particular game element is Bloodmoon-specific, and may not even realize you have any such thing called Bloodmoon installed. You just mounted the CD and ran the installer and started playing, with all the GotY add-ons enabled by default. Only hardcore players and modders know which resource is part of which .esm/.esp.

But, anyway, there's lots of other stuff to work on! I'll minimize my redir creation to just things that are obvious necessities like Morrowind:Persuasion.
— Darklocq  ¢ 21:30, 22 February 2017 (UTC)


Style Guide Edits[edit]

Hey Darklocq! I understand that you are trying to update the Style Guide, but most of the changes you are making would require some kind of consensus first. Please start a discussion on the style guide's talk page with your proposed changes so we can all reach an agreement. Seems there's already a discussion here, so please add to that. Also, it would be very helpful if you would try to consolidate any future changes all into one or two edits, for the sake of RC stalkers like myself. —likelolwhat talk lulzy to me 10:27, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Noted the discussion and am participating in it. I'm already trying to consolidate article cleanup edits, at least, though there's a tension in wiki editing that cannot really be resolved: If you change 20 sentences, someone is likely to have a minor quibble about one of them (or object that too many unrelated changes were made at once without clear rationales) and revert the lot, while doing one tiny change at a time with extensive edit-summary rationales for each can be annoying to watchlisters. I try my best to strike a balance. — Darklocq  ¢ 14:57, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, but that balance does not work here. I keep getting mass-reverted, and, well, F that. I'm not going to waste my time, and if I continue editing here at all, it's going to be very small incremental changes, even if that annoys some change-watchers. It seems to be the only way to get anything to "stick" here. — Darklocq  ¢ 00:11, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

"Going against the site's editing policies"[edit]

Original subject heading: "Show Preview DOES Exist!"

Hello and welcome to UESPWiki! Thanks for your interest in the wiki; however, you seem to have been making multiple edits to a page by not using the show preview button, clogging up the Recent Changes in the process. We appreciate your enthusiasm, but keep in mind that each edit needs to be patrolled, so multiple consecutive edits create an unnecessary hassle on those who patrol. So please utilize this feature! You may also want to look over our style guide and Getting Started guide. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. AKB Talk Cont Mail 01:58, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I know what Show Preview is and does, and I do use it. I also edit as I go, section by section, paragraph by paragraph, because (see immediately previous thread on this page) this place is chock-full of mass-reverters who'll undo hours of unrelated work if they object to a single thing in a major edit, rather than take a moment to change back the specific thing they object to and leave the rest alone. But never mind. I'm leaving anyway, after editing in a clarification or two. I can't take the "you're not part of our clique and didn't get out permission first" good-ol'-boy's-club attitude here. — Darklocq  ¢ 00:35, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
As I was explaining, you're going against the site's editing policies, guidelines, and common practices. For example, please see UESPWiki:Consensus. The reason why your having trouble getting your edits to stay, although perfection isn't required, is because you're editing directly against those policies and guidelines. The reason why I'm reminding you about Show Preview, is because, even though you say you know what it does, you don't really seem to be acting like you do. When an editor makes multiple edits, section by section, paragraph by paragraph, it becomes much harder to verify the content matches our style. And when everyone else plays by the same rules, but one person doesn't, it may make it seem like there is a "good-ol'-boy's-club", but in actuality it's just everyone else having agreed to play by the same rules through, again, consensus. I would again request that you read through policies and guidelines, style guide, getting started guide, or just asking for help on editing. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 01:26, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

() I just re-read all of them, on the off chance I missed something the first time. Name a policy I'm violating. [Actually, that's just a rhetorical device. No response to this is required, and I'm logging off for other pastures after I save this; I completed the reader-faciing material I already had lined up for the article namespaces. But reading through this and understanding my thoroughly and consistently negative experience here, the most negative I've had on any wiki since I started wiki-ing around 2005, may help avoid driving off others.]

Let's just go down the list.

  • UESPWiki:Policies_and_Guidelines#Writing High-Quality Articles. Following all four points assiduously, and in fact the bulk of my work here is getting articles to actually comply with these points at all. The work I did on the style guide – hours of it, totally nuked by one lazy editor who couldn't be bothered to actually be specific about the few things he objected to – would have ensured closer following of these points, and a great deal more article-by-article consistency. But it's more important to ask permission from the gakekeepers here, despite the rules saying there aren't any, than for improvements to actually be made. Playing the political game is the priority here, and I have no patience for that chest-beating territorial display, here or on any other wiki.
  • UESPWiki:Policies_and_Guidelines#Desired Etiquette – Following all points assiduously. The only conflict point has been the discussion-related item, because every attempt at discussion I start or enter turns into a wall of a purely reflexive "NO!" that doesn't have clear rationales for almost anything, refuses to respond substantively to any rationale I offer, and is clearly just resistance to all change just because it's change at all. See above point about hominid territorial antics.
  • UESPWiki:Policies_and_Guidelines#General Guidelines. Also following these, to the extent they're applicable (many are not, and are about deletion, protection, etc.).

Next, let's look at the side pages:

  • UESPWiki:Style Guide – Not violating this at all as far as I can determine, aside from early mistakes. The only point of unresolved contention I recall was someone who doesn't understand the HTML specs objecting to <em>...</em> and demanding ''...'', and ignoring my offer to port over the Wikipedia templates for using the correct markup. This is a good example of the irrational groupthink I'm encountering. The so-called reasoning goes like this: "NO. We only want to use wikimarkup or templates." "I'll make the templates then." A mixture of dead silence and "NO, we only want to use wikimarkup", contradicting previous demand. I point out that that's abusing the purely typographic italics element for emphasis (it's intended for things like italicizing book titles, scientific binomials of organisms, and foreign words and phrases), and I offer again to port over the template. Dead silence. "We can't hear you, you are not one of Us" is the message I'm receiving. See above about my attempts to improve the style guide to a) resolve conflicts between it and what is actually done, b) make it make sense, in many places where it is ambiguous or unclear, c) avoid conflict with real-world reader and editor expectations, and d) summarizing important expectations of UESP style that are not actually stated in the style guide but buried on pages virtually no one will read, plus e) arrange it more sensibly ("don't bury the lede", etc). These were not discussed with any eye to consensus formation, just rejected en masse with a revert-all-at-once kneejerk reaction, as "outsider" meddling. I tried at great length to get people to examine things point-by-point, and this met with more "I can't hear you, and you are not one of Us" stonewalling.

    An important point in that policy is UESPWiki:Style Guide#Redundancy, but again the answer is always "NO!". When I point out that article material is redundant, resisters of change cite the namespaces policy; when I then suggest following that more consistently and forking material that doesn't actually pertain to Morrowind but to Tribunal and Bloodmoon, like the rest of the pages are namespaced, I'm again told "NO!", but this time they rely on the redundancy policy (you can see both at work simultaneously in threads I recently started at the Morrowind Overhaul talk page. Note also that everything substantive I suggested doing there has been sidelined, to instead focus on this redundancy-versus-namespacing avoidance of change. I've run out of patience with it. PS: I stopped using <em>...</em> here, even though it's not actually against the style guide, any more than <br />is, yet I remain accused of ignoring the style guide to this day, without evidence.

  • UESPWiki:Etiquette – Already covered the gist of this in the second point above. But let's be specific. From my perspective, it's the clique of old-timers who are not following this, and failing to do so point-by-point. (That's as to both of the formulations, at the Etiquette page and the Etiquette section of the Policy page, which are inconsistent. I'm sure I'd be pilloried in an instant if I tried to make them consistent.) They are castigating and blockading me for being bold, appear to be questioning my good faith, are not being patient, are being only pseudo-courteous, appear to be completely ignoring "not everyone knows the site as well as you do ... After all, the site exists to help Elder Scrolls players", and treating this a private clubhouse not a public project, do not seem to believe it's okay to make mistakes (except their own willful ones – any retrogression of progress is justified as long as it's resisting change by someone they don't already have a long-established relationship with), they avoid "Stay on task" as much as possible, and will not substantively address any point I raise, and appear not interested in resolution, only in chasing me off (a goal at which they have succeeded) or forcing compliance with their own personal perception of how things should be. Consensus formation is not possible with those who will not substantively engage but just dig their trench deeper. The Etiquette page's maxim that any consensus, even between a couple of editors, is progress only holds true (at any project) if that consensus is formed to better the project for its userbase; it does not apply when it's a "consensus" to resist everything done by newer arrivals even if what they're doing makes sense. That requires no assumption of poor faith, just of typical human politicking instincts not being suppressed enough in an environment that requires it. As for "If a debate gets personal, don't be afraid to ask someone for help", the entire thing feels personal in the vague sense of "beat up the newcomer", and there is no one to ask for help. This site could do with a good dose of that other wiki's WP:BITE rule.
  • UESPWiki:Getting Started – Show me where I'm going wrong here [again, that's just rhetorical; you have better things to do]. I'll just quote a key passage from it: "If you have something to contribute, you should add it. Don't worry too much about making mistakes. Mistakes on the wiki are pretty easy to fix, and we would rather have editors who contribute plenty of information and make a few mistakes than have editors who never add their information because they are too worried about not being able to do it perfectly. Remember that perfection isn't required. As you get more comfortable with the wiki, you'll probably want to familiarize yourself with the Style Guide and maybe even a few other policies and guidelines (nobody wants to be n00b forever!), but you're likely to learn as much from the experience of actually editing as from reading about it." None of that turns out to be true here. If you make any kind of mistake in the eyes of the old hands, you'll get dog-piled, and no amount of reasoning with them makes a dent. "You didn't do it my way, so you do not belong" is the consistent message. It is not true at all that one may just dive right in and start editing and familiarize oneself with policies as one goes along. Your very message to me here demonstrates that, never mind that I actually did read this stuff to begin with. "You're violating lots of our policies" without actually identifying which ones they are and backing up your interpretation is meaningless and unreasonably hostile from my point of view. It's says "my way or the highway", and I'm electing the latter.
  • UESPWiki:Common Mistakes – I'm not making any of them.

I have a simple social rule, one that I think most people figure out for themselves, too: When I show up to a publicly advertised event and it turns out to be a private party for all intents and purposes, of people who do not welcome new voices, I leave and go do something else. More specifically, I have another rule about open, collaborative projects: If they respect getting the work done as the top priority, then stick around; if they want to treat it as a social networking game, run away quickly, for it is a stress dynamo and a time sink. "Coders write code" is the open software maxim; by extension, wiki editors write content, and if I can't do that here without being hounded about trivia and, especially, about other people's egoes and various nit-picky demands they cannot justify with logical reasons or specific policy citations, well, "bye". PS: I'm not even angry with anyone in particular; you all just have a tight little subculture here, too tight even for other players of the same games that are the subject of the site. It's unhealthy for a project of this sort, because editor attrition will eventually grind it to a halt, with no one left but who ever is paying the server hosting bill. When they tire of that, the site dies. Note how few MW sites are still left. Virtually all of them died this exact way.
— Darklocq  ¢ 03:22, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually, in regards to creating the templates, you seem to have read my reply with rose-coloured glasses. I specifically said that there are good reasons to avoid using templates in addition to there being good reasons to create them. The problem here isn't that you're "not one of us"...it's that nobody agrees with your proposed changes on the use of semantic HTML, though there seem to be varying opinions as to why not, and they're scattered all over the place at this point. I remember suggesting in the Style Guide discussion that you bring up each of your proposals in a separate section so that the merits of each could be debated. That has yet to happen. The onus is on you to do so, since you're the one proposing change. I think discussion would flow much better if that were done, and you might find that there's some willingness to engage on some of your points, rather than having the appearance of resistance to everything. People tend to shut down when they see walls of text like the one you posted there and the one you posted above. A couple of sentences on one side of an argument almost never merits a full page of text in response, and people will tend to gloss over the good points you make there for the simple reason that it's so large. Break things into manageable chunks and keep your replies on point, and I think you'll find people far more willing to listen to your proposals.
I would also like to point out that assuming people's motives, and assuming that there actually is an old boys' club based solely on our disagreement with your suggestions is exactly the opposite of assuming good faith. Robin Hood  (talk) 06:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Still addressed nearly nothing that I raised. Two quick responses, then I'm just going to leave this all alone, and return to improving content anonymously where I see the need, since I have better things to do that try to make an echo chamber like the one at UESP stop echoing.

  • I've tried making specific one-item proposals, and they all get ignored, usually for reasons that do not stand up to even momentary scrutiny, when reasons are even given at all. With regard to the Style Guide and related pages, I have zero doubt that if I were to break out my quite long list of stuff, that was all mass-reverted, into a separate thread for each item, I'll just get verbally abused and block-threatened again, for "text-walling" the relevant talk pages in a different way, for "gaming the system", for ignoring previous "consensus" and being "tendentious", and whatever other excuses people want to throw up to continue to refuse to respond substantively in any way to any proposals for any changes.
  • "I disagree" without a defensible rationale is just reactionary noise. Very few rationales have been offered by anyone for any disagreement with anything I proposed, and those few reasons have largely been refuted by me without a counter-rebuttal (repeating the original objection is not a rebuttal to a refutation of that objection, it's just the Fallacy of Proof by Assertion). It's almost all indistinguishable from resistance to change for the sake of resistance to change. The rationales I presented in favor of the changes remain about 95% unaddressed. When Party A says they disagree with Proposal N because Reason X and Party B says they disagree because Reason Y, yet X and Y are mutually incompatible, this is not evidence of consensus against the proposal, it's just evidence that one or more of these parties don't have a good argument or have misunderstood the nature or details of the proposal or of the status quo. When Party C says they oppose for reason Z, and Z is demonstrated to be false, this also does not add any credence to the idea of consensus against Proposal N. This is all just Reasoning 101 stuff, and I'm sure no one here is unaware of any of this. The fact that the pattern is happening anyway demonstrates that this is a collective, not individual, response to someone new. I have better things to do that try to convince an insular tribe to change their ways after they've already decided I'm invading their tribal lands and are shooting poison darts at me. That has nothing to do with good faith or poor faith, only collective level of resistance versus openness to new input, a group dynamic that shifts over time (unfortunately toward resistance the smaller the editorial pool gets). I have no further interest in any involvement in policy, guidelines, procedures, or processes here, only the content, and I don't need to a login account to work on that 99% of the time. — Darklocq  ¢ 23:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry if you've gotten the impression that we're cliquish or resistant to change. Admittedly, there have been errors on both sides of this discussion, and even if I don't think we're as bad as you seem to believe, I wouldn't consider it to be one of the bright and shining moments in our history, either. Robin Hood  (talk) 00:41, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
[Original comment continued in separate thread. — Darklocq  ¢ 11:30, 15 April 2017 (UTC)]

Followup[edit]

I did eventually come back, and did a tremendous amount of cleanup work, correcting factual errors, merging redundant material, and adding the new article Tribunal:Dark Brotherhood Assassins (first as a section, Tribunal:Dark Brotherhood#Dark Brotherhood Assassins) with lots of then-missing info, and an overhaul of all the related pages. This only happened because I'm patient and don't hold grudges. The average new editor would have left this place permanently to go work on UESP's competitor, ElderScrolls.wikia.com. — Darklocq  ¢ 03:22, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Please Assume Good Faith![edit]

Hey, I would like to remind you of our etiquette and Assume Good Faith policies. Particularly:

"In conflicts or heated debates, keep your cool and slow down. Your input will be considered even if you don't reply right away, and taking a time out is a good way to avoid saying something you might regret later."

And:

  • The person was trying to do their best.
  • The person was interested in benefiting the community.
  • The person had no intention for malice.

I've always loved these policies, as generally good practices for real life, as well as online life :) --AKB Talk Cont Mail 02:14, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not assuming any malice or poor faith on anyone's part, just an over-focus on politicking, and resistance to change by any means, including citing policy A against policy B, and vice versa, as long as it will seem to win the argument, and regardless of the cost to productivity or content quality. That doesn't require any lack of good faith, just insufficient suppression of territorial behavior in the environment in question. — Darklocq  ¢ 02:50, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Warning[edit]

Stop hand.svg Please do not make personal attacks on other editors of the UESPWiki, as you did so here, as it is considered to be vandalism, a violation of etiquette and is grounds for an immediate block. If you continue to abuse your editing privileges, this account will be blocked from editing. Please consider improving the work of others, not harming it. AKB Talk Cont Mail 03:30, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
It's not a "personal attack" to be constructively critical of what I subjectively (but with clearly presented evidence) perceive as cliqueish "community" behavior. This is a collective behavior pattern, which I'm not pinning on anyone personally, but describing very clearly as an aggregate one. The territoriality is actually sharply antithetical to continued community-building. But whatever. I didn't come here to argue with people. I was happily editing productively as an anon until needing to create a page, which I can't do without being logged in; that's the only reason I've returned as a named user. Until I get some sense that anyone here understands the concerns I raised, and is making even the slightest effort to see things from my perspective as I have been with yours, I'll continue quietly doing useful content improvement work when I see the need, but will just write off the "inner circle" tribal antics as a waste of attention and time. People can continue to pat each other on the back forever for chasing someone new out of their echo chamber clubhouse, and it's just not my problem. It's UESP's problem, and will continue to be one as it drives away other people trying to volunteer here. This is not a "so-and-so is an asshole" attack (I have no opinion about anyone here at a personal level, other that a few individuals seem more polite or more helpful, a few more negative or reactionary – any of which may be situational and temporary, or not even accurate perceptions). Rather, it's an honest observation about the excessively insular and unwelcoming group vibe here. You've perhaps been alone with each other for too long. — Darklocq  ¢ 23:03, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi Darklocq. It seems you've gotten the wrong impression here; it's always good to be bold when editing. That said, it obviously takes a while to figure out how to constructively contribute to any wiki; the reversion of your work isn't "clique" behaviour, but a (sometimes zealous) strive for excellency. In particular, a new user getting involved with editing policy articles is bound to result in some controversy, especially if older editors feel like said user might not have as strong a grip on our style preferences or whatever. Stuff like the Show preview button or your suggestion for "Bed/Beds" redirects aren't a big deal, it's just part of that learning curve. I'm sure no one here intended to purposefully stonewall your every contribution, but equally I'm sure you can imagine that continued accusations of insular behaviour are gonna chafe with people. If you do decide to stick around and you're looking for editing advice, your best bet would be to talk with one of our mentors. —Legoless (talk) 00:14, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Too bad I can't just cast Fortify Speechcraft and Fortify Personality to raise everyone's Disposition. :-)   Wrong impressions work both ways, and I'm sorry I've given the wrong one myself.

I understand "some controversy" in policy editing, of course; I'm one of the main stewards of the Manual of Style at en.Wikipedia, and regularly need to deal with well-meaning changes that don't work, from recent arrivals. As for the UESP Style Guide: Potentially productive discussion was already under way about the aspects of my changes and proposed change that people had specific concerns about or objections to. But someone mass-reverted all of my work there, short-circuiting the discussion, and explicitly said they were doing so because they couldn't be bothered to sort through it and identify what they actually had an issue with, and that changes could not be made until a consensus was established to make them, contrary to this site's own policies. That has nothing at all to do with "excellence", and is an un-wiki approach that comes off as territorial. It burned many hours of my work, over more than a week. I'm not singling that party out, though; at least two others made blanket "I oppose all of these changes" statements without any rationales other than vague hand-waving that amounts to "didn't ask first" and "change is bad". Of the few specific issues raised, they could have been worked through if the discussion had not been paved over with filibustering by the editors who would not formulate any clear rationales, just resisting change as such. Discussion processes do not exist as ends in themselves, either; an e-meeting does not need to happen other than to settle specific issues, otherwise "be bold" has no meaning and the site would never get developed much in any way.

On other pages (not related to the Style Guide), I proposed article development and redevelopment to comply with Policy A, and met resistance on the basis of Policy B; then when I suggested better compliance with B, I got A cited at me. Similarly, I see that we're supposed to ensure that in-game terminology is used (exactly as given in the game, typos and all) on this site consistently, yet was directly told that we don't need to do this by someone, who instead insists that readers will just figure it out by searching or something. These talking-out-both-side-of-one's-mouth contortions are indistinguishable from yet more reflexive avoidance of anything new being added, any change being made, anyone doing anything differently from how the extant regulars are already habitually doing it. It's no wonder the original Morrowind Redesign Project here died off, and the newer Morrowind Overhaul Project doesn't seem to be overhauling much. Such goals seem to be anathema to old-timers. I know smaller wikis are more resistant to alteration than big ones, and tend to have more explicit "gatekeeper" behavior, but this level of inertia is excessive, and counter to the interests of the project.

I have no further interest in trying to affect anything but reader-facing content here, since it does not appear feasible to go deeper without playing a lot of tedious political games with people (I would rather be playing an actual game like Morrowind!). I care about producing good material for the readership. The one and only area here where I'm not meeting constant but poorly justified resistance is in article text improvement, though I'm not watchlisting so maybe I'm being mass-reverted on all that, too. I'm honestly too dispirited to go look. In the articles, the reverts I'm actually aware of were very early and due to me doing stuff that isn't quite right here (namespace separation things, etc.), which I've already learned past. Note that this is me admitting having made mistakes with regard to UESP. Note that I'm also not being "tendentious"; I could have started re-inserting my changes one at a time, and raising stand-alone talk page threads about each and every one of them (as seemingly demanded yet which would very obviously be resented), choosing to just walk away from it all instead. I trust that others later will see my rationales and reintroduce much of what I did in some form, since the problems I was addressing will continue otherwise.

Anyway, I'll take any "mentoring" anyone thinks is needed when it comes to UESP content specifics, but I don't need any with regard to "how to wiki"; I've been at this for a very long time.
— Darklocq  ¢ 02:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

() I've restored this discussion to your talk page per our policy on official warnings. It can be archived after a 6-month period. —Legoless (talk) 14:11, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Some months-later followup. After a long cooling-off period (several months) I've dared to peek my head back into the style guide's talk page. We'll see how it goes. I'm prepared to rapidly exit that area again if more unreasonable hostilities ensue. — Darklocq  ¢ 16:38, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
And I'm archiving this territorial DRAMA crap again, since more than 6 mo. have passed. The individual conflicts have resolved themselves back into collaboration, and I don't go anywhere near the style pages other than to rarely comment on their talk pages. So there's nothing to see here. Move along, move along. — Darklocq  ¢ 03:22, 2 March 2018 (UTC)