UESPWiki:Deletion Review/Oblivion:NightStykes Console Commands

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

Oblivion:NightStykes Console Commands

We already have a console commands page that can be found at Oblivion:Console. I believe that this page should be deleted in some fashion because UESP is not a site for hosting personalized walkthroughs. What we could do is merge and redirect (possible move the redirect afterwards) to the Oblivion:Console page, or we could simply delete the page and let Posiden5665 know that further contributions should be integrated into what we already have. (amended vote, see below) --Aristeo 15:52, 18 October 2006 (EDT)

The nomination of this article has been withdrawn from the deletion review by an administrator because there was not likely to be a fair consensus. This article will be renominated for deletion under it's new name in one week. (October 30, 2006) --Aristeo 02:30, 23 October 2006 (EDT)

• Keep I find that my guide is much more comprehensive then the current guide, and contains more commands. Merging it with the current guide would only destroy it in its current form, which works quite well for it. Most people seem to agree that it's a great guide and deserves recognition - it's in the Pinned FAQ of the Cheats, Hints, and Spoilers Forum of the official TES forums. As such, I think it also deserves its own page so it can keep that detail and integrity. I realize that the guide is messy and disorganized as it is on the wiki, but a member of our forums (colas) is working on straightening that up. Perhaps if you would give us a chance to finish it and looked at the final product you would change your mind? --NightStryke 20:46, 18 October 2006 (EDT)
• Keep This page might need work but it is better than the current console page. We're working on it feverishly to get it up to scratch. Just because there is a current page does not constitute that this one is rejected completely. Aristeo, did you actually read through the entire page? It's the most comprehensive guide I've seen. --Colas 20:49, 18 October 2006 (EDT)
• Delete: Problems with this page:

1. Its name violates the wiki rules about attribution. There is no way this article can remain with this name, and no amount of work on the contents will fix that
2. The style repeatedly violates other wiki rules: No First Person, more attributions, etc.
3. 90% of the article is redundant. In addition to the information already at Oblivion:Console, the Creature codes for example are all provided already at Oblivion:Creatures and pages linked to from there.
4. The format of this page is not better than the existing page. I find it much easier to find a command in the table on Oblivion:Console than by scanning through this mess of a page.
5. The page makes no attempt to cross-reference any of the existing pages on the wiki. Wiki pages are not supposed to be standalone pages that by themselves provide every piece of information on a subject. They should instead be integrated with the rest of the wiki, and provide links to pages where information already exists instead of repeating it.

Finally, the purpose of a wiki is to collaboratively work on pages. That means if you see an existing page that is missing information, you add to that page and work on improving it instead of setting up your own replacement page. Which to some extent means that, yes, the fact that there is an existing page is a viable reason to delete this page. If you want to write your own personalized FAQ go to gamefaqs and post it there. If you want to actually contribute to the wiki, learn to help improve existing pages and read the style guide to learn how things are done here. --Nephele 21:05, 18 October 2006 (EDT)

I'll probably get shut down for this, but I'll say it anyway. Why leave a page when you can simply scroll down? Honestly, linking to other pages is annoying, because when you are trying to find what you want quickly, you don't want to wade through page after page. This guide needs lots of work before it is wiki worthy, yes, but it's got everything needed, right here in one place. Honestly, one console page with everything is MUCH better than 4-5 different pages.--Colas 10:21, 19 October 2006 (EDT)

• Delete - Colas, no one is suggesting that you break down your submitted article down, necessarily. Nephele is simply suggesting that you make the page site friendly. I have watched the comments about this article unfold recently, and feel compelled to chime in with my two cents at this time:

1. The article has quite a bit of text that runs off the right-hand side of the screen, which makes the page very hard to read. Who wants to constantly scroll over to the right to read a page that is supposed to be helping the reader.
   
2. First person dialogue is discouraged from the wiki for collaboration's sake. Keep in mind that this is not your personal space; this is one of the rules of engagement for ANYONE contributing content to UESP. For example:
   "Console commands are not case-sensitive - I only capitalize in this guide for clarity." -- this is written in first person and is simply unacceptable under UESP wiki guidelines.
   "Console commands are not case-sensitive -- instructions in capital letters are shown here strictly for clarification" -- this is written in third person and meets UESP wiki guidelines. (also, I play on XBox, but I think console commands ARE case sensitive; I'm not positive)
3. The lack of links to other information already on the site lacks collaboration and user-friendliness. For example: instead of telling the reader the Construction Set is available here (I assume you mean here on the site) and leaving it to them to go FIND the Construction Set, provide a link to the page where it can be found. In addition, include links to the page where "Daedra" and "Mortar and Pestle", etc. are defined for those that may be unfamiliar with what these are.
4. There are numerous spelling and grammar errors on this page, making it difficult to take the information provided seriously. If you want to add credibility to the article it can't be filled with spelling and grammar errors. In addition, such content adversely impacts the credibility of the UESP site. I'll be the first to admit that errors sneak by everyone, but when you are posting this much information, do everyone a favor -- compile it in another medium and run it through a spellchecker first. Elder Scrolls terminology can always be set up in a separate spellchecker dictionary to prevent every ES specific term from getting flagged as misspelled.
5. The long list of creature IDs, Daedra IDs, etc. on this article makes for an incredible waste of space; besides this information is available elsewhere on the site. Link to it, or use an inclusion wiki command to insert the previously compiled information into this article instead of recreating it. This way, any changes due to errors or game mods that add new things only have to be made once and they will flow through. If you don't know how to do this, ask -- the gurus on the UESP site are always happy to help, provided you are civil about your request.
6. Civility in posting comments and rebuttals is to be maintained or your comments are subject so censorship and/or removal, and you will ultimately be blocked from the site. When remarks are posted that degrade to "mud-slinging" and direct attacks on others, those remarks are in clear violation of wiki policy and are subject to censorship by the site administrators. If our readers wanted to witness mud-slinging they'd turn on the television and watch the election candidates' political ads instead of logging onto UESP.
7. Profanity that is not directly quoted from an Elder Scrolls game is strictly prohibited. Continued unwarranted use will result in posts and articles being censored and/or removed, and the poster will be banned from using the site.
8. The title of the page is strictly against wiki policy. This site has been in existence in some form for many, many years. It has NEVER been a forum for self gratification. Take your name/alias (or your friend's name or alias as the case may be) off the article or it will be removed from the site, period. This is not negotiable. If you don't like this rule (which by the way, all other contributors have no problem abiding), or any of the other rules mentioned above, go post your console guide somewhere else or invest the funds to host your own site where you can plaster your name all over it and make up your own rules.

If this guide is a work in progress, then it needs to be flagged as such at the top of the page using one of the many wiki flags established by the administrators of this site for just such a purpose. If you don't flag it, it is assumed by other users and contributors to be a completed work and subject to constructive criticism and revision by others. Another suggestion would be to move the information to your personal user page while you work on it. No one will remove it from there (unless you use profanity or personal attacks on others) and you and your friends can work on it to your heart's content. When you have it completed, you can move it to an article on the UESP wiki where it will be subjected to constructive criticism and revision by others, just like any other content submitted by the thousands of contributors here. If you want content that can't be revised by others, then the UESP wiki is definitely NOT the appropriate forum for your article. If you want to curse and attack other people, go post on another website. --Hoggwild5 13:54, 19 October 2006 (EDT)

Yes, it does need work on this wiki. In truth, I didn't intend for it to come onto here looking so amateurish. Trust me, though, this is actually a well-written guide that contains good information and instructions, it just got onto here so muddled that it looks like utter rubbish. This is what it was intended to look like. It would be a simple matter to remove any first-person perspective views and my name, and the creature list can go as well; I didn't put any of that in there for self-gratification, I originally wrote this in the official TES forums where I didn't have to follow any rules like that. There are supposed to be links to other pages in the UESP Wiki - there are in the original guide, they just didn't get into the wiki guide. And I really don't think there are any grammatical errors, I'm quite good with my grammar and catch any mistakes I make. Also, I do know my stuff about console commands, I'm pretty much the leading authority on them in the official TES forums, so you can trust that what is said in the guide is correct. Finally, half of these commands can't be found in the current list of commands, plus this gives explanations as to what each command does and how it can be used - much more helpful than the current list, which leaves the readers to figure out the commands' usage themselves, so I certainly don't think it should be merged with the current list. --NightStryke 20:40, 19 October 2006 (EDT)

• Keep and relist in two weeks, per conversation above. I could see this working, and the information in this guide is definitely useful. It would take some major copy editing and definitely a name change, but it wouldn't be too hard. I could help with the wiki syntax side of things, and perhaps I could learn a thing or two about console commands along the way. Two weeks after this conversation concludes, we could relist the page for the deletion review and see what everyone's opinion is at that time. How does that sound? --Aristeo 21:20, 19 October 2006 (EDT)

I think that is a good compromise, especially since I think that a bit more time will give the article time to comply with wiki standards. --Ratwar 21:41, 19 October 2006 (EDT)

I would add, however, that certain things should be removed. The list of creature IDs is completely unnecessary, as that information exists already on the site, so listing it here is completely redundant. If you think it's worth putting here, then one could also argue that you could also list the IDs of every item in the game, but that's already on the site too, so why have it in two places? Also IDs for every NPC, every spell, etc. Where do you draw the line? I say no IDs at all, or this page could end up being way too large. --TheRealLurlock 22:16, 19 October 2006 (EDT)

• Comment - Sorry to spoil the party, but I'm still not on board with this. I appreciate NightStryke's new willingness to show some respect for the wiki's guidelines, but I have a hard time ignoring all the previous boorish behaviour just on the basis of one make-nice message. What I still dislike about keeping this page:

• Why does everyone immediately want to throw away an existing page with good, valid content, with nearly 100 edits and 170,000+ views? Why isn't the first priority here to improve the existing page? I don't see why existing wiki precedents of trying to work collaboratively to write a single good page should suddenly be thrown out the window because someone comes along with a replacement page.
• Every month this group of friends comes along with another personalized game guide that they want to install on the wiki in place of an existing page.
• First there was Vethrian's Swordplay. Even now, two months after its creation, the page contains a grand total of TWO links to other pages on the site, one of which isn't even a valid link. It's linked to on only two other pages on the wiki, one of which is a talk page. It might as well be a standalone game guide on some other site, for all the value that it's adding to the wiki as a whole.
• Then Colas created a new Marksmanship page to replace Marksman. After much wrangling, that page was deleted.
• Finally, Posiden5665 came along and just pasted all the content at the end of Marksman [1], without the least attempt to wikify, format, or otherwise integrate the content. I had to spend all evening yesterday cleaning up that page so it finally resembles a proper wiki page.

It seems to me like each of these pages has been more poorly formatted/wikified than the previous one. Why should it fall to the admins and editors of this site to do all the work to fix up the pages that these guys keep writing? Why can't they spend a tiny bit of time and effort to learn even a few basic ideas about how the wiki works? --Nephele 00:53, 20 October 2006 (EDT) This is now an out-of-date opinion; see where I have changed my vote from delete to keep. Although I now regret some of the rash things I said in this comment, I'm leaving it in place because I think to do otherwise would be needlessly censoring/sanitizing the page. --Nephele 14:15, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

And I was just about to pull out some party hats... Anyways, in a lot of ways, I agree with you, Nephele, but I still think we need to keep the article. I don't think we need to throw out the current console command page. I realize that the current page and this page do contain a lot of the same information, but the article up for deletion presents the information in a different way. These two different ways of expressing information about the console are both useful to UESP users. The current page is more of a quick reference page, mainly for people that are looking up a code they already know (for example, the toggle grass command or the add item command). These people already know what the command does, they're just making sure they remember it correctly. This page is better for people just getting their feet wet in the world of the console. They're looking for what commands do stuff, not specific commands. The reason I don't think merging the pages would be a good idea is that I feel it would needlessly clutter the current page. In any case, if this page is kept, I will help to bring it up to wiki-standard. I've always seen the UESP as a place where the information comes first, not the process of how the information got to the site. --Ratwar 10:43, 20 October 2006 (EDT)

• Comment - Ok, I think about everything's been done, except for a title change which I believe we've agreed will be Console Command Tutorial, but which can't be done until this deletion review has ended. Anyway, there is no longer any first-person dialogue, many links have been added, the few grammatical errors I came across have been fixed, and everything is neatly organized. Can we all come to a consensus now? --NightStryke 22:54, 21 October 2006 (EDT)

I believe the fair thing to do for now is to keep and re-list in two weeks, as explained above. From what people have said on IRC, I doubt this page will be deleted, but I still feel that it's fair to keep and re-list. --Aristeo 00:30, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

• Keep: OK, everyone's work on this one has changed my mind. I apologize for jumping to conclusions and assuming that no more work was going to be done to wikify, format, or otherwise improve the page. Most of the issues I listed above have been addressed; Night Stryke has shown himself to be truly concerned about improving the page and participating in the wiki process. The main exception at this point is the page name, which is being frozen right now by the review process.

At this point, I would actually be in favour of taking a final vote on this review and closing the review process (even though the suggested two weeks waiting period has not expired), just so that the page could be renamed. If for some unexpected reason things took a dramatic turn for the worse, the page could always be renominated under the new name.

I think there are still a few things that can be done to better integrate this page with the Console page. For example, I'd like to see all the commands included in the table on Console, and I think several of the shorter commands on the new page could just be fully integrated into the table. The new page could then be dedicated to detailed descriptions of commands that need longer explanations (and the table on Oblivion:Console could provide links specifically for each of those commands). But at this point, I see these mainly as long term ideas for how to continue to work to improve the pages, rather than as critical issues that need to be addressed before taking the page off the deletion review process.

--Nephele 14:15, 22 October 2006 (EDT)