Semi Protection

UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archive 3

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This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Image Deletion Request

Could I get a sysop to delete the three images archived here. I was unable to have the amended image loaded over the current copy, continually being greeted with that which had a mistaken date. This was resolved by uploading the proper image under a new title (SLC), however, as these images no longer are necessary, I believe a deletion is in order. Thank you. -- Booyah boy 09:25, 27 September 2006 (EDT)

Done --Nephele 11:15, 27 September 2006 (EDT)
My apologies for the late reply, and my thanks for acting so swiftly. -- Booyah boy 07:17, 3 October 2006 (EDT)


Renameuser

As Aristeo was kind enough to point out to me after having lodged an inquiry regarding such on his talk page:

A name change would require Daveh to install an extension to the software of the wiki called Renameuser. Wikipedia has this installed, as shown here, and has a team of bureaucrats [...] handling the renames...

Knowing such, I would like to ask that this extension be installed herein; is this possible? If there is any pressing reason to avoid the installation of said extension, I would similarly appreciate being informed of such. Thank you. -- Booyah boy 07:17, 3 October 2006 (EDT)

I was just browsing Mediawiki's FAQ and came across another solution that does not require installation of any extensions. There is already a maintenance script (as of version 1.5.7) reassignEdits.php that allows edits to be reassigned from one user to another. It still requires Daveh to run the script, but it is probably less time-consuming than installing an extension. The usage is: php reassignEdits.php <from> <to> [--force]. Presumably this could also be used to merge Lurlock and TheRealLurlock's edit histories, for example. --Nephele 19:20, 5 October 2006 (EDT)
Until a decision on this can be reached, I decided the best course would be to simply modify my signature (with the "raw signature" option), and place a minor notation on my user page listing who I am (Graye = booyah_boy). -- Graye 06:34, 6 October 2006 (EDT)

.svg Images Not Working

I'd like for someone with knowledge about the technical part of MediaWiki (the wiki software) to find out why .SVG images do not work on the wiki, but work when called directly.

I have no idea why this is happening, so I'm afraid I don't have any leads. Swift resolution of this matter would be appreciated, because it's interfering with some of the things I've wanted to do. --Aristeo 14:24, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

Sorry, I'm no expert, but a few things I noticed... It doesn't appear in the uploaded files list, although it is there. Also, looking at the wikipedia entry, I noticed the MIME type for SVG should be image/svg+xml, where on ours it is set to image/svg. Could that be the issue? Sstasino 14:58, 27 October 2006 (EDT)

External Image URL Handling

It used to be that pasting a URL (e.g. 2mn3jmc.jpg) would intelligently result in an image if the URL ended with png/gif/jpg. Now it's not working. What went wrong? Other than the main page news article I don't know that there are many pages currently using this, but it is (or, rather, was) a very useful feature. GarrettTalk 04:19, 1 November 2006 (EST)

Generally, I find it's better to avoid externally hosted images. I noticed the day you initially posted that news article that the picture was sometimes there, sometimes not. I was going to download it and rehost it locally on the UESP, but opted not to when it reappeared. (Also thought there might be copyright issues with a magazine cover.) Looks like you've done just that now - probably the best way to do it. I suspect it has something to do with the allowed bandwidth of the hosting site, but I don't know. --TheRealLurlock 09:16, 1 November 2006 (EST)
From the config files, the relevant variable appears to be $wgAllowExternalImages, described as "Whether to allow inline image pointing to other websites". Perhaps that variable got changed from false to true with the latest upgrade? --Nephele 12:04, 1 November 2006 (EST)
I noticed problems with this image long before the upgrade, so I don't think that's it. Might be a contributing factor, but it's certainly not the only problem. I say stick to local-hosting. It just works better in general. (Also easier to position images where you want them with local images.) --TheRealLurlock 13:14, 1 November 2006 (EST)
The setting was changed from defaulting to true to defaulting to false at some point. I've re-enabled it as it can sometimes be useful to quickly link to an external image (usinga local image is preffered as Lurlock mentioned). -- DaveH 18:21, 1 November 2006 (EST)

Irc Discussion

While there was an irc conference a couple of days ago, no summary of the discussion or conclusions has been posted. From that lack I had assumed that nothing of consequence was decided or discussed. But dipping through the history I see some indication that's not true. (Revoking admin privileges??)

If there was something of consequence discussed or concluded, then please summarize the results here and then let the discussion continue on this page. While Irc can be useful for fast discussion, any significant discussion of wiki management should take place on the wiki (i.e., here), where a more prolonged, thought-out discussion, with more participants can take place. --Wrye 14:06, 19 November 2006 (EST)

The IRC room is good for fast and informal discussions, which allows us to filter out the good ideas from the bad ones. We were discussing if administrative inactivity was grounds for de-adminship. That was thrown out as a bad idea. If it would have gained support as a good idea, then whoever proposed the idea would ask the wiki what they think. It's silly and disruptive to knowingly propose bad ideas to the community. --Aristeo | Talk 16:12, 19 November 2006 (EST)

64.150.0.1 - Requesting Unblocking

64.150.0.1 (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log), who has been blocked from editing indefinitely by Daveh, requests unblocking. He was warned after vandalising eight pages on November 29th with profanity, and spamming an apology message on fifty-five pages. His edits were administratively reverted by Daveh and then he was blocked from editing. The editor requested to be unblocked on his talk page, leaving the following messages on his talk page:

Sorry for everything I did, and the comments were harsh. Sorry again. Is there still a chance for redemption?
I am truely sorry. I was trying to appologize, but did not know where to do this. Even now that I know of this page's existance, I still find it hard to find. Thanks

All blocks can be appealed if the blocked user feels that they are unjust, and the users can be paroled if they apologize and promise to edit constructively. (I think.) Of course, the decision to unblock is up to the community, or Daveh if he says that his block is final. Therefore, I'm proposing to the community whether or not we should temporarily unblock and give him the chance to apologize to the community and request parole under the following conditions:

  • The user would be banned from editing anything except his talk page and these proceedings.
  • All edits made by him should only be made to address this case.

If the editor breaches either one of these criteria, even if he only fixes a typo, the user would be blocked again, his edits would bre reverted, and he would possibly be reported to his ISP. "Support", "Support, but", "Oppose", and "Comment" as necessary. I'm neutral until otherwise stated. I will contact Daveh and the anonymous editor after I have posted this message. --Aristeo | Talk 01:08, 7 December 2006 (EST)

  • Oppose, this guy has been blocked nine times on Wikipedia. See User:64.150.0.1/Info for the information I compiled on this guy. --Aristeo | Talk 02:19, 7 December 2006 (EST)
  • Oppose, I think the reasoning is self explanatory. Nice work Aristeo. --Hoggwild5 02:21, 7 December 2006 (EST)
    • Thanks! I was about to upload a close up satellite image of the ISP building from Google Maps (pretty detailic) as well as a hybrid zoomed-out image to show how to drive there from the nearest interstate, but I felt like that would've been too much. --Aristeo | Talk 02:37, 7 December 2006 (EST)
  • Oppose, The Wikipedia thing seals the deal for me. This is a long-term repeat offender (over 6 months on WP), and not likely to provide any constructive edits in the future from what I can see. Shut it down. --TheRealLurlock Talk 09:41, 7 December 2006 (EST)
  • Oppose, After seeing his history, I don't see any reason to unblock him. --Ratwar 09:57, 7 December 2006 (EST)
  • Oppose. For me, too, the wikipedia history says it's not worth giving this person the benefit of the doubt. I would instead propose unprotecting the user talk page. That way, if this user (or anyone else at this IP address) wants to contribute to the wiki, he/she can post suggestions on the talk page. Until there is some concrete evidence that the user has an interest in making constructive contributions to the wiki, I say leave the account blocked. --Nephele 11:50, 7 December 2006 (EST)
  • Oppose For reasons already given on users talk page and elsewhere. --Wrye 17:20, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Page protection

The voting on this matter seems to be fairly clear: there is no support for unblocking this account. However, I do not see any reason to continue to leave the user talk page protected. The talk page is supposed to be available even to blocked IP addresses, so that anybody else using that IP address has a mechanism to communicate with the UESP community. Furthermore, wiki pages are only supposed to be protected under rare circumstances, for example, when not protecting them will leave the wiki as a whole vulnerable to threats. I do not see why this user talk page qualifies for protection. Are there any objections to removing the protection from the page User_talk:64.150.0.1? --Nephele 20:34, 16 December 2006 (EST)

No objection. --Wrye 21:53, 16 December 2006 (EST)
I already unprotected it yesterday afternoon. No need for a petition. --Aristeo | Talk 07:20, 19 December 2006 (EST)
Thanks, Aristeo. --Nephele 11:01, 19 December 2006 (EST)
 :) --Aristeo | Talk 15:25, 19 December 2006 (EST)


Protected Pages

I think we have a few too many fully-protected pages. Main Page, for example, is being hurt by full protection because none of the administrators have time to keep it up to date.

I would like to limit or remove the protection on the following pages:

The last four pages don't need to be protected because they don't have too much exposure on the site, and they should be unprotected in case someone needs to adjust the categories, fix a typo, do grammatical adjustments, et cetera.

UESPWiki:Spam Blacklist should go down to semi-protection so everyone can contribute to blocking spammers. I don't have a good feeling about removing protection completely, but it's a possibility if you all are up to it.

Take a moment to think it over, and let me know what you think. Keep in mind that we can always re-protect a page if we need to. --Aristeo | Talk 09:53, 8 February 2007 (EST)

Overall, I don't see that eight pages and four pictures with full protection on a site with 14000+ pages is too many. And I'm not aware of any changes to the site that warrant revamping an already-established policy. Our policy is very similar to wikipedia's, and I'd prefer not to gamble by exposing our site to more risk than wikipedia does.
In terms of the specific pages being discussed:
  • For the last four pages I would say the decision is solely up to Daveh. They are pages that he created to keep track of information related to the operation of the site. I don't see why anyone else would need to contribute to those pages, but it's Daveh's call as to whether or not he would like to give access to other editors.
  • The Main Page is the most prominent page on the site, and the one that is the most likely to be pulled up a new user. I don't feel that Aristeo's concerns justify increasing the risk that such a prominent page will be vandalized (and vandals have been known to create accounts just to get around the semi-protection). The only sections of the Main Page that have any need to be updated all have ways that any editor can provide input on the page contents (or even directly modify the page), i.e., UESPWiki:News, Main Page/Did You Know, UESPWiki:Featured Articles. And based on editors' interest in contributing at those locations, it does not seem that there is a great demand for more access to the Main Page.
  • The Spam Blacklist is fundamentally an administrative tool. If the power to block editors is reserved for admins, I think the power to completely block edits should also be reserved for admins (and that is fundamentally what the blacklist does: controls a tool that can completely prevent edits from being made; a careless edit could be disastrous). Also, most of the recent spam is not accessible to regular editors (the pages have been deleted), so I'm not sure how editors would determine what sites should be added to the blacklist. If there are editors out there who think that they could help site more if they had access to this page, I'd welcome their input to this discussion. But at the moment, I don't see how lifting that page's protected status will contribute to improving the site.
--Nephele 14:19, 9 February 2007 (EST)
Agree. My thinking exactly. --19:24, 9 February 2007 (EST) — Unsigned comment by Wrye (talkcontribs)
The four last pages
  • As I have said earlier in my opening discussion, if someone finds a typo or needs to adjust a category, it can be a pain for them to have to contact an admin and explain to them all of the changes that need to be made for anything to be changed. As for this being Daveh's sole decision, he's more than welcome to participate with us in this conversation. Until then, we have to assume he has no opinion.
Main page
  • Are you saying that we shouldn't scale down the protection of the main page because there is a risk that it might be vandalised? I would like to point out that the entire site is open to such an attack at any given moment. I also believe that the Main Page isn't broken right now because no one is interested, it's broken because no one knows they can edit parts of it.
If you feel like this should be a gated community instead of a wiki where people are interviewed before they can join, I would back you up if you proposed this idea on the community portal. It would definitely fix a vast majority of the problems with "stupid edits" and vandalism, and everyone could spend more time writing articles instead of having to deal with newcomers.
But getting back on topic, I would feel much more submissive to your views on unprotecting these pages if someone who wasn't an administrator feels the same way you and Wrye do. --Aristeo | Talk 18:17, 11 February 2007 (EST)
I'm a bit confused about what you are trying to accomplish: if you support turning the wiki into a "gated community" why do you want to reduce the protection of pages? I, for one, have never advocated preventing newcomers from being able to contribute to the wiki, and I am not questioning this proposal because I want to set up barriers for editors. Rather, I do not believe that having protections on 0.01% of the pages turns the wiki into a "gated community". I think that limiting access to a very few select pages, using criteria derived from wikipedia's many years of experience in what pages need to have limited access, is just a reasonable precaution.
For Daveh's four pages, I don't feel comfortable making an assumption about what Daveh wants or doesn't want, especially when there is, as far as I know, no urgent need to take any action with those pages. But if you feel otherwise, and you wish to make assumptions on Daveh's behalf, then that's your call.
For the Main Page, I think protection is appropriate, since that is the page that will come up if someone just types "uesp.net" into their browser: it is fundamentally a far more visible page than any other page on the site, especially for first time visitors. Because of that greater visibility, I think it is more likely to be vandalized and I think there are more negative consequences to the site's reputation if it is vandalized, even for 15 minutes. And given that efforts have been made to provide editors with access to several parts of the page, it seems that changing the protection status dramatically increases the site's risks without much in the way of obvious benefits.
Furthermore, I wasn't aware that the Main Page was currently "broken": perhaps it would help this discussion if everyone had a better idea of what it is that you think needs to be urgently fixed right now. If you think that there is a problem with editors not realizing that they can modify the Main Page, why not tackle that issue more directly, for example by making editors' options clear at the very start of Talk:Main Page? If you would like to get input on this issue from editors other than administrators, why did you post the question on the Administrator Noticeboard instead of the Community Portal?
As I said before, if there are editors who feel that these changes would help them in improving the wiki, I would welcome their input. But in the absence of any such input, it seems that changing the protection status is an unnecessary risk. I'd prefer to explore other solutions first (e.g., links on Talk:Main Page) instead of rushing to make a change to an established policy. --Nephele 21:23, 11 February 2007 (EST)
Trying not to step into another political debate here, but I'm with Nephele and Wrye on this one. I see no reason why anyone other than Daveh would want to edit those policy pages. The spam blacklist should definitely stay protected, as it could lead to abuse. (And usually, if a spammer posts ad-links, an Admin will block them, and that same Admin should then add the sites to the blacklist. Thus there's never any need for anyone else to touch this page.) As for the Main Page, I agree that it's just too tempting a target if you allow it to be editted. Wikipedia doesn't allow main-page editting, nor does any other Wiki that I know of. It's just too risky. Anyhow, that's all I have to say on the subject. (Not sure if my view counts as a "non admin", since I'm up for RfA, but thought I'd chime in.) --TheRealLurlock Talk 21:47, 11 February 2007 (EST)
As with any decision here on the wiki, we need to consider what will happen if we change the current system. On the last four pages, I've looked at the history of all of them. There average age before being protected was greater than six months. In that time, there was only one non-admin edit on them. There's just not a huge need for regular users to make changes to these pages. In fact, the only one that really knows most of the stuff is Daveh. If he feels the need to unprotect them, let him. If not, I don't think we're limiting the community in any way.
On the note of the Main Page, it never really bothered me as an editor that I couldn't edit it. You see, once you open the main page to user control, you don't only risk vandalism, you risk small news. I don't think anyone here wants to see the Main Page a billboard for the latest mods to come out. Therefore, I am quite happy with is saying protected. As for the Spam Block list, I don't deal with it, so I don't think I should pass judgment on it one way or another. --Ratwar 21:57, 11 February 2007 (EST)

I've had some more time to study some of the comments that have been made here, so I hope these latest comments of mine will be better and more relevant than my others.

Nephele said in, what I believe, is the thesis of her first statement that we only have twelve articles and images that are fully protected from editing out of more than fourteen thousand. This is about 0.001% of our articles and 0.002% of our "content articles". We all can agree that this number is excellent and that we hold true to the popular wiki adage "anyone can edit".

The problem that I see is not the amazingly high ratio of non-protected to protected articles. The problem is the concept of protecting articles in the first place – we're basically telling every editor and potential editor who is not an administrator that our fear of them messing these pages up is greater than our trust that they won't.

This was the overall premise behind my reasoning to unprotect some of these articles in the first place, and that premise lead me to find some pages that could be unprotected without having a negative effect, but I also found an article (the main page) that could benefit from being unprotected.

I do agree that this idea to unprotect these pages that I mentioned is a bad idea, but not for the reasons that were given. I am an administrator, as a couple of you may know, so page protection does not have the slightest effect on what I can do. Nephele, Ratwar, Wrye, are also administrators, as my research has concluded, so page protection does not have the slightest effect on them either. My proposal was a bad idea because I didn't gauge the people who would be affected by this decision before I proposed it. To be frank, no one cares that they can't edit these twelve pages and I should have taken that into consideration.

To conclude this proposal and to try to lead it into something useful, let me introduce a less-controversial counter-proposal. I ask that we give anonymous and registered editors every reasonable opportunity to nominate a page for unprotection, temporary or otherwise, if they have a reasonable reason as to why it should be unprotected. We could say something on the "view source" page, for example, along the lines of "If you would like to request a temporary or non-temporary unprotection of this page, you can do so by [......]".

This way, we could honestly say that the decision to unprotect or protect a page is not only in the hands of the protecting admin, but also in the hands of the people whom the block affects.

As always, all of your comments are welcomed and appreciated, and I thank you all for putting up with me and my wild proposals. :) I'm going to find one that everyone likes, eventually! ;)

--Aristeo | Talk 01:47, 12 February 2007 (EST)

( P.S. I wouldn't mind if we moved this over to the Community Portal. I was thinking, since protected pages was an admin thing, that this was an admin request. My mistake >.> )

Adding more notifications about how editors can request to edit protected pages is fine by me. But I also just remembered that there is a fully protected page that's not listed at Category:Full Protection: User talk:64.150.0.1. Were you planning to eventually unprotect that page? Or do you think that the proposed policy on blocked user pages (UESPWiki:Blocking Policy#Blocked Accounts) needs to be modified? --Nephele 21:35, 12 February 2007 (EST)
I did want to protect that page temporarily, I just forgot to unprotect it. I also forgot to put that page in the category. I just unprotected and archived that talk page. Thanks for the reminder! :) --Aristeo | Talk 01:03, 13 February 2007 (EST)
Deja vu. Since the user is still blocked and since the talk discussed the blocking and why it was done, I think that it is all still "active" and so should not be archived. And it's not like the space is needed for anything else, so again, no reason to archive. --Wrye 01:44, 13 February 2007 (EST)
That's fine, feel free to undo or revise any of those changes that I made on that talk page as you deem necessary. --Aristeo | Talk 02:40, 13 February 2007 (EST)
Done (de-archived). --Wrye 14:53, 13 February 2007 (EST)

Ad Discussion

Feedback on using Ads on the site would be appreciated. -- Daveh 13:53, 14 February 2007 (EST)

Vandalism of shivering isles page

the users 71.251.71.72 and 72.64.227.72 have been vandalising the shivering isles page. 67.142.130.49 21:02, 2 March 2007 (EST)

ShakenMike

I don't believe ShakenMike (talk · contribs · email) is at the right place. I know a couple people here are getting tired of him, so for the sake of the collective sanity here we might want to start trying to redirect him to a place more geared towards what he's looking for. I would appreciate if someone would inform him of what the mission here is and give him some suggestions on places to go where he can get his questions asked. I also suggest that we all stop answering his questions so we can convince him that going somewhere else would be good for him.

If that doesn't work and the user obviously disregards the request, then come back here and we can talk about taking another step towards this rather unique situation.

--Aristeo | Talk 14:43, 3 March 2007 (EST)

I took the initiative and left a note on his talk page, hopefully addressing some of the concerns brought up about him and redirecting him to somewhere more suited for him in response to an e-mail he sent me and what he left on his talk page. (permalink)

I believe this problem is close to being resolved, but I would prefer that you all keep a close eye on him in the mean time. --Aristeo | Talk 17:02, 3 March 2007 (EST)

--Aristeo | Talk 17:02, 3 March 2007 (EST)

My problem of this site hasn't being solve due not understand the format of rules of deleting own user talk page and others.ShakenMike 11:12, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

I'll respond to this on your talk page. --Aristeo | Talk 12:09, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
I wonder if he even reads what you guys post on his page because when you look at his long history of deleting, someone already told him he wasn't supposed to delete on and on and then ask questions. TO that, he answers something like "but I didn't know I was doing something bad" (I'm sorry for being vague but all of this is in his contribution page). Count me as one VERY irritated person because of his attitude. --Vartan 12:15, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
Deleting your user talk page messages is okay, even if they're warnings. And unless a user is banned, (not blocked,) they have jurisdiction over their user page. I don't know why people are getting so upset, just calm down and try not to take things too seriously. --Aristeo | Talk 13:07, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
Well, I was about to leave a message on your talk page, ShakenMike, but I'm a bit vague on the details. I'd like for someone else to do it if they can leave a message without being hostile. --Aristeo | Talk 13:07, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

He's being annoying (at least) and seems to be skirting the line of what is actionable (i.e., I haven't seen him delete talk page content again). So, what I've done is add a warning to his user page and protect the user page, while adding an inclusion to a subpage which he can continue to edit. While editing/protecting a user page is an unusual and pretty undesirable action, it's the best solution that I can up with, so long as we're not blocking his account. This means that the warning is still there and can be easily seen by other editors and in a way that he can't delete -- and yet he can still add content to the page. (Other admins, if you think it's not the best approach, feel free to unprotect the page.)

So, short of a more permanent block, ignoring seems to be best approach for now. --Wrye 15:07, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

That might be a good idea and go ahead. I wish there's a way to delete my whole account and shouldn't joined at the first place.You have very strict rules that I can't follow properlyShakenMike 15:20, 21 March 2007 (EDT)
Done. (Indefinite block by request of user.) --Wrye 15:33, 21 March 2007 (EDT)


Ready for Shivering Isles?

The first 'real' expansion pack for Oblivion has snuck up me...the site should be seeing a noticeable increase in traffic over the next few weeks as well as lots of new content related to the expansion. I just want to make sure we're probably prepared:

  • Site Load/Stability -- Seems fine and can still handle more traffic without needing any upgrades. Worst case is I can add more RAM and increase the site's bandwidth, neither of which would take effort or time much to implement.
  • Shivering: Structure -- It might be good to setup the basic structure in the Shivering name space in preparation for all the content. This is to help direct people to the new content as well as the to the right place to add new content. I assume a structure similar to the Oblivion name space is what we want but I leave the details to the more experienced editors.
  • New Content Formatting -- Probably doesn't need to be said, but patrols should make sure new content is in the proper format. Better to start using the correct format/templates than having to go back and redo it all in the future (as those redoing Morrowind might attest to).

-- Daveh 17:44, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

File Hosting Feedback

Those who have been around here a while might know of my eventual wish to begin hosting more files on UESP. I'm closer to actually thinking about implementing something but would like to get everyone's feedback on it. My basic thoughts on it are:

  • This is not to compete with all the other ES hosting sites but provide another option. I find most of the existing hosting sites extremely slow and annoying overall (I recently reinstalled Oblivion and was re-downloading mods...ugh). I also want to make sure ES file content is always available in the future.
  • I don't imagine trying to host every single MW/OB mod. I'm mainly interested in making sure all the good quality mods and utilities from all games will be always available.
  • I'd like the download/upload interface to be as simple as possible and fit within the MediaWiki framework. Ideally I'd like something similar to how the Image namespace is used allowing users to upload and manage files themselves.
  • File hosting will mainly affect the site's bandwidth and the site load very much. I'll likely setup a separate light-weight web server (tinyhttpd?) to serve files/images so as to not interfere with the main web page server. The site's monthly bandwidth can be easily increased and we can upgrade from a 10Mbs to a 100Mbs connection relatively cheaply. I'll likely also design the system to allow the file/image server to be a seperate physical machine to allow it to scale easily in the long term.

No rush on this as I haven't even done any planning or designing yet beyond what I've done in years past. -- Daveh 18:13, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Your choice, of course, but I tend to think that it's better to stay focussed. Download sites are already pretty well covered. And running one of them is a lot of work. And I'd be very concerned with major downloads interfering with the wiki operation. OTOH, a concern about always keeping mods available is reasonable -- I remember multiple Morrowind sites going down. But a solution there might to act as a backup site for the other major sites. (If they're interested -- and assuming licensing concerns don't get in the way as they did for MW. Painful long battles just to rehost files that people weren't sure they had the permissions to redistribute. Aaargghh.) --Wrye 21:03, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Gameplay videos for Redguard

Hello UESPWiki,

A week or two ago i started on making some Redguard videos. Since these are extremely rare i thought i might share them with you. The walktrough contains four videos at the moment and are already uploaded on You Tube. Here are the links for the videos.

Part 1 [1]

Part 2 [2]

Part 3 [3]

Part 4 [4]

Part 5 will be online before the end of the week.

I thought this might be something for the wiki so everyone can reach these videos in two clicks. Since im not really handy in using the wiki it might be nice if a admin could add this.

Thanks in advance — Unsigned comment by Grim The Reaper (talkcontribs)

I've created a new page, Redguard:Videos with your links. I tried to fill in a bit of description, and some links to the relevant quest pages, but feel free to expand and/or revise. I'm looking forward to having time to watch these videos, since it's probably as close as I'll ever get to playing Redguard :) --NepheleTalk 22:47, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Install guide for Redguard

Hello again fellow TES fans,

I am learning my way around the wiki and things are going smooth. But i dont know how to create new pages yet and how to link them to existing pages. Here is a guide i made how to get Redguard running on a modern day PC system. Here it is:

Redguard on XP using DGVoodoo and VDM Sound, by Grim The Reaper

This guide has been made for people with XP systems and without a 3DFX card. You must follow the guide step by step or you will miss some things which may make your system very unstable. Also, I don’t take any credit if your Windows installation will completely crash. With all formalities out of the way, lets start!

1. Install the full 3DFX version of Redguard using the first disk on your C harddrive. I highly recommend turning your second Redguard CD into an .iso file using Nero. With it you can mount it into Deamon Tools so you can increase playback. Note that some Safedisk 7.0 games wont work after you installed Deamon Tools so only use it when you have issues with playback! (stuttering videos)

2. Next thing we need is a Glide Wrapper. Glide Wrappers are programs who simulate a 3DFX environment while you still have an Direct 3D video card. You have two options for this to work namely Glidos and DGVoodoo. DGVoodoo is a bit harder to use and requires some careful tweaking. Glidos on the other hand uses a simple interface but costs $10. This guide is written from the DGVoodoo standpoint. You can download DGVoodoo here: http://dege.freeweb.hu/. I used the 1.40+ version.

3. Now download SAPUDEX. Without SAPUDEX you cannot view any FMV videos. After download unzip the file in your Redguard directory. Normally that’s C:\Program Files\Redguard.

4. Next up is installing DGVoodoo. Here it gets a little tricky. You need to unzip: glide2x.dll, glide2x.ovl, dgvoodoo.exe, dgvoodoo.vxd, dgvoodooSetup.exe. DO NOT REMOVE ANY FILES IN YOUR WINDOWS DIRECTORY. Doing this will cause strange behavior.

5. You could create a shortcut of dgvoodooSetup.exe on your desktop for easy acces.

6. Start dgvoodooSetup.exe (by the shortcut or the source) and make the following changes.

7. Global tab: Check Dos under platform

8. You could select windowed mode if you want to keep seeing Windows.

9. Check: “Working in VDD mode” under “Windows XP options for Dos”.

10. Check: “Closer to a real hardware” under “LFB acces” and click OK.

11. The game will now run but without any audio. Therefore we need VDM Sound which is a sound driver for Dos. It will work with most audio cards. Don’t worry, it wont interfere with your current audio driver. You can download VDM Sound here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

12. After installation go to the “Audio” folder of your Redguard directory, right click SETSOUND.exe and choose it to “Run with VDM Sound”

13. Follow the wizard and configure the game to Soundblaster Pro or just Soundblaster. Keep the original IRQ values. After your done, save and exit.

14. Go to your Redguard directory and make a new text file and open it.

15. Copy the following into the text file: CD "C:\Program Files\Redguard"(keep it in quotes) @DOSDRV @SAPUCDEX @RGFX

Now save the file as REDGUARD.BAT(remove the preselected .txt text while saving!)

That’s it! You could create a shortcut to REDGUARD.BAT on your desktop for easy access. If you get any errors ingnore them.

Have fun!

Sorry, my little counsin decided he woudl try and edit "g" of your beastary

Yea, and im not sure on how to fix it. Sorry for the inconvience. — Unsigned comment by 74.113.138.185 (talk)

Already fixed. --NepheleTalk 17:42, 5 June 2007 (EDT)
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