UESPWiki talk:Lore/Archive 1

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

Source critique

This is a proposal to add a template with a source critique to each and every source; book, fragment, obscure, ingame or out-of-game. If we're treating them like historical sources, as Apophis2412 was getting at, they have to be critiqued. This is necessary and what rpeh was asking for, Proweler was hinting at and incorporates some of all proposals. The TIL has some of it with its categorization into Historical/Fiction/Lore etc, here for example, our book description/author and bylines have some of it, but neither are really extensive to the level of detail that is needed. That way, every single page where the texts are used doesn't have to make that judgment call.

An example of why Source critique is needed:

The Skeleton's Man Interview for example is sourced only to a now defunct Hall of Adventurers at m0use.net, no date, no further details. From what I could gather, it is a Teaser, in-character by MK and others at the time of the release of "Redguard", while working on MW. Somewhere, somehow it should be mentioned that its quoting here ended the discussion about the disappearance of the Dwarves in the forums.

Source critique would describe how this text came about, identify the writer and as in-character if applicable, category - as mentioned, and viewpoint/skew/bias. It would also allow a brief judgment, with clarifications. Just a quick write-up, things can be added, although the entry should be brief.

Example: "2920" - A fictional but well-researched retelling of the events of the last year of the First Era,

• by Carlovac Townway Writer:Ted ? - in-game: OB, MW (however we called it OGG, IG)
• Main characters are the Tribunal, Reman III. Potentate
• Spans from the war of the Reman Empire with Morrowind to the assassination of Reman by the Morag Tong.
• Keywords: First Era, Night Mother (anything not mentioned previously)

All relevant words are hyperlinked and indexed, so if I were to look up information in search about the Morag Tong, it'll pop up under Sources. Any discussions would be on the talk page of the source, so things are transparent for future researchers.

If deemed useful, creating this source critique would depend heavily on both communities, and can be applied here as well as the TIL (if they want that, of course). Such a joint effort could build *gasp* bridges, educate, create interest in the Lore sources and help every single Lore article. It would also let us discuss the texts, which is the Hobby part of it ;) --Benould^•T•C 15:07, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

I think I understand what you're saying, and what I get out if it is this: Rather than a project to add critiques to every solitary source, make a once-size-fits-all template so that any issue regarding the source may be addressed with ease, and perhaps a source with a critical template could be flagged in its reference text. Consensus in the talk pages would be very important, however.

And I like the thinking behind Ratwar's proposal, as it seems to benefit from being a fresh perspective in terms of identifying the true issues and pitfalls of using all sources. I'm reasonably certain the obscure texts do not require licenses. MK exerts unofficial control over his writing and its being hosted on TIL, and anything put on a forum generally isn't restricted by anythinge except courtesy. But I am not asking for the obscure texts to be hosted anyway, especially as the external link is all the disclaimer you will need in many cases.Temple-Zero 15:31, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, I'd be fine just external links, but what I was trying to say is that for us to host them, we'd need some kind of 'okay' from MK (or the other author in question). --Ratwar 17:31, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

It might be wise to recognise the need to distinguish clearly between the official/demi-official writings of Devs and Fans when considering this matter. In the Obscure Texts at TIL there is no actual note to tell the newcomer that a work is that of a fan or a Dev. Although I like this approach as a matter of cannon it does not hold up. Had TIL done this - properly giving provenance in the first place - a lot of problems would have been avoided both at TIL and elsewhere. As it is, although they are in other respects highly organised and well connected, they have caused a lot of trouble for themselves and others with their unscholarly approach.

To turn this on it's head: you cannot expect people to take it seriously if you do not properly present it. That does not mean pretty graphics and background colours. That means stating who wrote it. When they wrote it. If they were formally Bethsoft Devs at the time. If it was part of another document that is ingame and so forth. This cannot be done by a non-specific 'rating' system - each document has to have a 'history' attached - given by the author himself.

An example would be: "Story text .... end" "This story is part of a series that I wrote in June July 3056 for Bethsoft when I was working for them as Assistant Vice President of Loo Cleaning and Part Time Dev. The Director of Lit Dev (and Part time Canteen Assistant) at Bethsoft (Fred Bloggs)and I had a businesslike chat and decided that the whole thing was good Lore, but that it would be fun to remove sections so as to give that feeling that there was more to things than the player could see. That sense of essential mystery. Onswold Kirkbridde III - great granddaughter/son of the ancient and much to be revered and infamous MK."

For permission to be obtained there has to be discussion and agreement. Inevitable someone at the Wiki has to form a working relationship with the Devs personally. Also there would have to be an undertaking to ensure that neither textual content nor provenance could be interfered with without the Dev's consent. And that means a change in the Wiki structure.

I would recommend giving each dev access to their own entries and leaving it to them to decide what they want to say about their works - but no one else. raggidman 6th, October 2008

Once More Unto the Breach...

It's a new year and we're all a little older and, perhaps, wiser, so let's try this again. I'm going to keep this suggestion as brief as possible because I think all the arguments were done to death in the last discussion on this page.

The reason for my starting this again is that there have been dozens of edits on Lore pages that have caused argument and discussion since the last events here. Some have been edited, reverted, discussed; others have been accepted. Most haven't got any proof. So here's my proposal:

• From Temple-Zero et al's suggestion: All sources are valid
• From Nephele et al's suggestion: Every statement must have a source
• From my et al's suggestion: Every source not found in-game must be marked as such.
• Additional proposal: Stick to the facts, not interpretation. If in doubt, list all views.

This is going to have a few consequences. First, we're going to have to add some kind of verification template to every extant Lore page until it can be checked by Lore Khans. Second, the tendency to allow statements like "Bretons are based on the French" has to go, or be moved into some kind of extra section for RL references. Third, patrollers are going to have to kill non-referenced statements on sight.

Basically, I'm saying that every statement of "fact" needs a reference, and that reference must be made through the "cite" mechanism. In cases of out-of-game sources, the citation must include a clear statement that the source is NOT an in-game source and may not be accurate (I realise that will be a controversial wording - we can discuss that separately). When patrolling changes, any change that adds information without a source should be moved to the talk page; any edit that changes or deletes sourced material without providing a source of its own should be reverted.

There is one caveat to this, which is that Lore articles transcluded into multiple gamespaces must have a section that is unquestionably true and unconfusing in all cases. This ranges from obvious cases such as not mentioning MW's Fighters Guild connection to the Camonna Tong in text that will appear on the OB article to more controversial cases such as not mentioning the Nu-Mantia Intercept in Oblivion's White Gold Tower article: WGT never appears during the OB main quest and it's just going to be confusing. In such cases, a standard"For more, see Lore" link should come close to satisfying both camps. The overwhelming majority of UESP's users are gamers, who couldn't care less that the lunar lattice may have been weakened by each installment of TES.

My "additional proposal" comes from a point I made in the original debate: there isn't one interpretation of some of the events in Lore. We seem to have a group of people from TIL who promote their view, but there are others - and I'm not going to try to judge that kind of contest when I already have 1,000 edit-related discussions going on. If there are two views in a debate and both have citations to support those views, then both should be shown on UESP. Deleting another person's opinion would be grounds for a warning. A "seems to imply" statement might be okay, but it would be equally okay for somebody to delete it.

Just to make one thing clear: I'm still not 100% we should mention OOG material at all. UESP started as a kind of mod site, developed into a walkthrough site and ended up as a wiki. In other words, it's always been gamer-oriented rather than lore-oriented. From that POV, anything that confuses gamers is a bad idea. Having said that, I would love UESP to have an accurate and verifiable lore section, because I think it could improve the gaming experience if some sense of historical relevance was present.

Okay, so it turned out not to be as brief as I meant. Still, there are my thoughts. Now I shall don my shielded armor and await the replies. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 15:14, 11 January 2009 (EST)

My picture of what you are proposing is this-

Articles written in normal cited form but with a partitioned list of references at the bottom of the page if OOG lore is included. The two sections would have proper headings and a disclaimer or hyperlink to a disclaimer page for the sake of organization and space. Out of curiosity, does the site's code allow for different kinds of footnotes for OOG lore? Roman Numerals, letters, or symbols rather than listed numbers? These could denote an OOG-supported reference. The sources would be partitioned, but the article would not be. However, the transcluded material would be restricted to OOG-sourced statements, thus unofficial material would be found further down in the article, sometimes in separate sections unless the editor was just pulling in stray facts for completeness.

Btw, I also don't think much of RL references, which you may have noticed. It's the lore equivalent of the so-called easter eggs floating around those articles.

And yes, this is going to put a lot of strain on editors as we try to reboot an entire namespace. Things have been (imo) pretty docile around lore, but if we are going to start reviewing whole articles for footnotes, who are the Lorekhans? I was on the verge of suggesting a Project back when the great debate seemed near a conclusion, but didn't who to plan with except Benould.

As to the interpretation issue, as a general rule your additional proposal is necessary for consensus. Interpretation is the work of players, and can't be resolved by looking at sources. If you will trust me, on occasion, to judge when it is interpretation, or disputed, or a natural conclusion from reading source text (TIL is building an archive of dev quotes. We were there and sometimes know what the writer meant when he said X), I will do my utmost to be judicious. Forum knowledge is not a source for uesp, but it can be useful on the talk pages. I am writing this while thinking of a sourced statement interpreting an Oblivion book as proving that Tiber Septim is Alessia and Akatosh' son. By the way, I have been planning to rewrite the Lore:Nede article so it reads as a more natural discussion of sources and possibilities. I hope to make the theories look less antagonistic. I believe many apparent disputes can be integrated and appear more professional.

Mostly, just confirm that my image of a page under this proposal is accurate, and we'll see how graceful we can make the footnotes.Temple-Zero 23:27, 11 January 2009 (EST)

Alas, there's no way to do partitioned footnotes so the note for OOG sources would simply have to contain a note explaining their provenance. "This is an out-of-game source and may not be supported by events found in-game"? Something like that? I think we'll need a Lore:Sources page to explain what's what too.

I think interpretation should be avoided wherever possible. If it is absolutely necessary then the phrasing should make it clear that the information is an extension to what is definite: "Scholars of lore believe X is the case" rather than "X is the case", for instance. Where there is more than one interpretation, the article should steer clear of stating a preference. No "it is more likely, however, that X" unless there is clear evidence that one view is more likely. It's the interpretation issue that most worries me. I'd prefer to stick to sourced statements so we don't get into "my theory is better than yours" contests. In other words, I'm prepared to give it a try to see what happens, but reserve the right to change my mind.

The only other point to remember that takes articles away from "Articles written in normal cited form" is the opening paragraphs. Expanding on my point about transclusion, I think every article should have an introduction that sticks to in-game facts. The current WGT article may not "pass muster in Reader's Digest" but it's unarguably true and based on facts found in the games. In cases where pages are transcluded, this provides the basis for the transclusion, and in other cases, offers an easy introduction for those readers not versed in deep lore. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 03:57, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Could you create some sort of example OOG footnote to show what it looks like? (A parenthetical note, a link inside the note itself, a flag of some sort... I don't know). As to the disclaimer, I think we should paraphrase Todd Howard's statement on the issue "only stuff in the game is official." OOG lore isn't doing it's job if it conflicts with the games, it usually just goes beyond them or describes them in other ways. If you want to define "unofficial," we could point out that 'OOG lore may not represent the creative consensus of all developers and was not subjected to the same editorial processes as Bethesda-published material.'

As to the transclusion issue, I am under the impression that this will not be very constricting. Can't we simply arrange articles so that transclusion tags open and close before any OOG material is discussed? The only thing that stands out is unanswered questions. In-game explanations are almost alway incomplete in some way, it's the nature of lore. If, as is quite often the case, unofficial material provides a simple, factual explanation (or even a suggested answer), we can't really have the Gamer-Lite part of the article claiming that it is a big mystery. (Unless you can really get creative with what you transclude?) The less dissembling, the more creative the articles will be.Temple-Zero 15:55, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Try this - I'll move that page to a Lore page should it be necessary. I'm flexible on the wording, but I really think it must be clear that an OOG-reference is OOG.

The other point isn't just about transclusion, although that's one of the reasons I believe an introductory para is necessary. I keep coming back to the example of WGT, but for good reason since it's already come up on the talk page. Quite simply, if a user clicks a link to a Lore page they expect to find some point of reference. Going from an Oblivion article that is basically "WGT is a big pointy thing. That's it" to a detailed discourse on the Nu-Mantia Intercept is only going to cause confusion. All I'm asking here is that for items that appear in-game, a reasonable attempt is made to have an introduction that makes sense to people who aren't lore experts. We can use <noinclude> and <includeonly> tags to control what appears where, but I still believe we could use a non-expert-level intro.

This obviously doesn't apply in cases where an article has no real in-game relevance. One example would be an article on the Lunar Lattice. There would be no point in trying to include an in-game introductory paragraph in that case.

In all situations, I think there's plenty of room for flexibility. All I'm asking is that people editing Lore articles spare a thought for the people who play the games - the reason this site is here.

Let's do this. You say you have an article planned? Post it in a sandbox and invite edits. That should let us explain our points of view more than any abstract discussion whilst avoiding edit wars on the main site. I might even try one of my own, if time allows. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 16:38, 12 January 2009 (EST)

That's doable. I generally try to keep things simple in the first paragraph as well- I simply don't edit articles in-depth because of my limited expertise. Many articles consist of little more than an introductory paragraph and I tack in-depth details on the end of them. Uesp articles are down the list of things I have to write at the moment, but I will see to it sometime soon. ...funny how you cited Nu-Mantia there. It has some fake Latin too.Temple-Zero 19:11, 12 January 2009 (EST)

In brief: fine by me. And, thanks, Rpeh, for making the proposal. The rest of my post amounts to secondary details.

Actually, the only detail that seemed to still need followup was the real-life references. I think some of that information needs to stay in the Lore articles, even though it's obviously not possible for it to fit an "in-game" perspective. From a practical point of view, any attempt to delete such information will just lead to an editor trying to add it back in, probably sooner rather than later. Which is another way of saying that I think a significant number of readers expect to find such information in the articles. Putting such information into a "Notes" section seems like the best approach (perhaps along with game-centric information that nevertheless belongs in the Lore articles -- for example, that the player in Morrowind was the Nerevarine). Although, as with nearly everything else here, it's likely to need refinement as more-difficult-to-treat examples emerge.

Also, I thought I'd mention for the sake of historical curiosity, that my impression is that including out-of-game sources is consistent with UESP's history, in particular the pre-wiki version of UESP. It's hard to be certain, given that most of the OOG sources we've been discussing appeared after the UESP was wikified (or late enough in the life of pre-wiki UESP that updates were unlikely -- remember the old site was mostly written pre-Morrowind). Nevertheless, the old site's credits explicitly mention Michael Kirkbride as a source who provided information separate from the in-game sources. In addition, the old site hosted out-of-game content such as Interview with a Dunmer.

--Nephele^Talk 23:55, 26 January 2009 (EST)

The Notes section is just the place for those comparisons. Good idea.Temple-Zero 16:57, 9 February 2009 (EST)

I've created the {{OOG}} template to standardize the note on OOG sources. I'm not 100% happy with the wording but it'll do until somebody can come up with a better version. The reason for using a template is to ensure we get consistency on all OOG sources. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:04, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Proposed Guidelines

After some positive initial reception on the Community Portal, I believe it's time to promulgate the lore guidelines, which are now on this page (assuming I haven't been reverted, in which case, sorry for not waiting longer for a response on the CP). If you read or took part in that discussion, they appear almost exactly as they did in my sandbox, with some very minor tweaks that no one could possibly pretend to care about.

Substantial controversy which used to revolve around some of these proposals seems to have dissipated in the face of long-term practice. The guidelines have accumulated over several years as conflicts emerged which needed resolving and decisions, ultimately, had to be made on some issues. They represent the combined wisdom of the giants of this wiki who have substantially contributed to the lore namespace, and restate how the lore namespace operates for the benefit of newer users.

Most of the guidelines merely explain how the community generally does things or give direction on recurring concerns, without actually dictating what must be done in many situations. They've been kept loose, but not so loose that they misrepresent how the lorespace functions. They embody the beliefs that case-by-case exceptions may be made in the best judgment of the community and that "perfection" is not required for the namespace to fulfill its purpose. Some minor changes may be required in the near future to reflect decisions which are currently being deliberated on, notably the LetterPic template.

There could be some typos, omissions, or other matters begging correction; use your best judgment on whether a revision you wish to make is uncontroversial or whether it should be discussed here first.

Note: Preliminary voters may wish to keep an eye on this page in case substantial changes which could influence their position are made to any of the proposals. Minor Edits 12:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Votes

• Support: As the guy who more or less copied and pasted it all together. Minor Edits 12:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support: I've been meaning to start working on revisions in the Lore space for a while now; these guidelines will be very useful and seem reasonable and well-stated. -- Hargrimm | ^Θ 15:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Sorry for not having voted before, but I didn't realise a vote was taking place - my fault for not paying attention. These guidelines basically confirm what we've been doing for sometime. I suppose it's time "accepted practice" became "policy". rpeh •T•C•E• 22:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Looks pretty solid to me. ES^{Question?•Email•Contribs} 23:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Great work! It'll really be helpful when contributing to/patrolling Lore space. – Robin Hood↝talk 23:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Having the guidelines actually written down is really useful for newer editors. --Alfwyn 15:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Writing down the practices of lorespace will hopefully help attract some new editors, and it's good to make them official policies. I was skeptical at first about confining the namespace, but Minor Edit's draft looks spot on so far. --Legoless 20:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Looks good! ?• JA^Talk 00:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Very useful to new lorespace editors (like me). Coronus 24:57 6 February 2012
• Support: I must say I'm rather impressed with this feat; though we've established unofficial guidelines in the past, we've never managed to make a real policy out of it. It'll be very helpful for new lorespace editors, as stated above, and, on a less significant note, may actually help bring the LPRP as a site project to fruition (though I suppose I've said that untruthfully so many times that the words have lost most of their weight).--Kalis Agea^{Yes? Contrib E-mail} 03:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Consensus: Support. elliot (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Citation Style: Why roman style — italics for title — author?!

I wonder why on Help:References, the book title is set in roman type and the author’s name in italics. This conflicts not only with UESPWiki:Style_Guide#Italics, but with all common citation styles where titles are italicized. And there’s confusion a-plenty. In most Lore articles, you can find a mixture of italics – italics and roman – italics in the footnotes. I see that the footnotes are created using the {{Cite Book}} template which loads info from the Book Summary template. So probably the entries in the individual Lore:Books articles have to be standardized anyway, but maybe we can agree on a consistent italics – roman style before? --Holomay 10:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I hope it does not sound as if I am diminishing the value of the template or of anybody’s work. That’s not my intention at all! Please let me know if I dig up an old debate or if I am just plain wrong. I want to specify some of the inconsistencies that I observe. When I look at Lore:Books or Skyrim:Books, I can see that all the titles in the list are written in italics. For example:

Children of the Sky
The Real Barenziah, v3
Walking the World, Vol XI

However, on the individual book pages, the titles are usually written in roman style. This is reasonable as it is obvious that we’re dealing with book titles. The italics formatting which helps identifying a book title in an article is not necessary on a page dedicated to a book. Just the lore versions of multi-part books are written in italics (and the part/volume section of the title in roman style). So on the lore book pages, there are different styles:

Children of the Sky
The Real Barenziah, Part 3
Walking the Word, Volume XI: Solitude

When I quote these books using the {{Cite Book}} template, it will result in an incoherent mix of italics and roman style:

Walking the World, Volume XI is a multi-part title, but we only know Volume XI. So it doesn’t have a title which is linked to a multi-volume page. My suggestion is to get rid of the italics/roman style mix for multi-part books. The link tells us that there is a page where all parts of the book are listed: The Real Barenziah, Part 3 -> The Real Barenziah.

Regardless of the italics/roman style used for some book titles, I wonder about the italics formatting for author names. On Lore:Black_Marsh, the footnote apparatus looks much more familiar - almost like MLA Style - because the authors are listed in roman style and the titles in italics. Many footnotes on this page are not generated by the {{Cite Book}} template and I guess this will be edited sooner or later. I wonder if the template could be changed so the footnotes will appear in a style that is much more common, such as MLA? --Holomay 13:01, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The template works fine as it is, and that probably shouldn't be a consideration anyway in a case like this, so don't worry about that. The problem is simply how we're displaying the titles on the different pages; the template just grabs that text verbatim. So that's what we'd have to change. I'm not entirely sure why we're formatting some of them but not others, so my initial reaction is to say that we should remove the formatting from all of them, but perhaps I'm missing some good reason that they're formatted. – Robin Hood↝talk 03:04, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The cite book template automatically italicizes the author's name, so I agree that "roman style before" should be the standard. It's possible some other derivations are there to try and copy the text's appearance in-game, but that's not really necessary. Italicizing the titles of books in a series or any other books seems to be a relic which is unnecessarily interfering with aesthetics. The easiest way to standardize is to remove all extraneous formatting from the Book Summary entries on offending book pages.

I don't think think changing the cite book template to generate something closer to MLA format (i.e., author appearing first, putting the title in italics instead, and/or fiddling with other formatting) would be really productive. but if you can do it without breaking the thing, more power to you.Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 00:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I like the basic Book — Author format the most. Also, the italicizing of "The Real Barenziah" in the above example is done on the book page, NOT by {{Cite book}}. • JA^Talk 00:38, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay, at the risk of jumping the gun, I'm going to start removing the italics on titles that have them until someone tells me to stop. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 06:39, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I should have been more specific: The inconsistencies are in the Book Summary entries. Removing the double apostrophes from there will resolve it, and I hope it’s ok if I start removing them as well. The Cite book template does its job well and it is consistent. It loads the book titles, adds a dash and then loads the author and displays it in italics. The inconsistency I see here is not an internal one, but one in comparison with common citation styles (see above). Well, considering that in UESP articles names are usually written in roman style and book titles are written in italics … But anyway, as long as no one else wants to change the appearance of the footnote apparatus, I won’t touch the template. :-) Holomay 13:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

(←) I'm just having my bot go through and verify the titles now. If there are a lot with formatting, it should be very quick to program something that'd remove it, but I figured I'd check first before doing possibly-unnecessary programming. – Robin Hood↝talk 22:43, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Awesome; should I ignore discrepancies in the meantime? I'm currently reviewing the Library anyways. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 23:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

It looks like there are a total of 334 italicized titles, so I'll put the bot on it later tonight. Feel free to correct any that're bugging you if you want; the bot won't mind. – Robin Hood↝talk 01:15, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay, the bot's on it. Barring any problems, it should be done in a little over an hour. – Robin Hood↝talk 02:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

So I'm logging in to edit some Book Summary entries, but all the italics are gone. Time to bake some cookies! --Holomay 07:38, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

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