User talk:Mikeprichard

Let me welcome you properly now!

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Cookie

You have been given a cookie! Your dedication and diligence to the wiki has not gone unnoticed. A user has seen the progress you've made, and has given you a cookie because of it. Good work! The user had the following to say: Thanks for all of the maintenance edits you've been doing! It really helps out! --AKB Talk Cont Mail 05:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the cookie (nom nom)! This site is extremely useful and I've enjoyed it for many years, so I'm happy to contribute in any small way I can. Cheers! --Mikeprichard (talk)

There is/There are

Hi Mikeprichard! Thanks for the ongoing grammar cleanups. I've reverted a few instances where you've changed "there is" to "there are" when referring to a series of nouns. The general rule is to use "is" when the first noun in the series is singular; for example, "there is a bandit and a bandit chief" is correct in standard English. I understand there exists some controversy among grammarists regarding this usage in formal English but we tend to go with most common usage on the wiki. —⁠Legoless (talk) 21:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! The Collins interpretation linked above is an example of (in my opinion) a very unfortunate contemporary erosion of standard formal English rules. That said, I'm certainly not going to cause a controversy over something as silly as "is" vs. "are" here on this fine site! I'll just let these go from now on. As always, I really appreciate the site admins' hard work to keep the UESP the definitive resource for all things Elder Scrolls. --Mikeprichard (talk)

Skyrim:Places Icons

I believe the issues on Skyrim:Places should all be fixed now. Hard to say for sure what might've caused it, but it was most likely some kind of temporary template issue or something along those lines. In most cases, it's just a matter of opening up the place page itself (i.e., Morthal, Corpselight Farm, etc.), then purging Skyrim:Places. There are gadgets to add the purge feature, if you're not familiar with it. It's good for fixing things that have invalid data or where the cache needs updating.

If you spot any issues I missed that aren't fixed with the above procedure, let me know and I'll look into them. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 11:19, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the help and information! All of the map icon/link issues do now appear to be fixed on the Places page. I appreciate the response, and will keep the above in mind for future reference. --Mikeprichard (talk)

Great Work

You're doing readers a big favor with all of your recent Skyrim place page edits. Those things are monsters of wordiness and even 1000 bytes shaved off is a much smoother read. In other cases, they totally deprioritize what's actually important. Thanks for trudging through them! —Dillonn241 (talk) 00:20, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to comment - I appreciate it, and fully agree! I'd taken a break from Skyrim and similar UESP location page edits for the past year or so until coming back this month, and intend to continue with more (mostly Dragonborn-related) location page edits over the next few weeks as I finish my ongoing save file. Anyway, have a great day/night! --Mikeprichard (talk) 00:25, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you & one question

Hi Mike, first off big thanks for all your excellent edits on Oblivion place pages! I haven't patrolled all of them yet, but many of them flow a lot better now or are better structured.

I had a quick question for you on this edit however. I don't really follow what you mean with Speechcraft "continuing to provide benefits" after level 100. What exactly would those benefits be? For Athletics and Acrobatics, it's clearly running faster and jumping higher, but unless I'm missing something obvious, I couldn't see what you were referring to here? I thought perhaps you meant Disposition, but that's determined by Personality attribute differentials rather than Speechcraft.

Grateful for any clarifications you could provide and thanks again for your edits! --SerCenKing (talk) 19:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi there - thanks very much! I'm coming back to playing Oblivion (and reading/editing this awesome wiki) after a long break, as you've seen; I think Wolfborn and Legoless have already reviewed my past few weeks' edits until today's, but of course feel free to dig in as well. As to your question, based on further research I made a subsequent edit to the Speechcraft page on November 11 that I think/hope clarifies the issue ("Increasing Speechcraft past 100 continues to increase the maximum disposition at which the speechcraft minigame may be started, up to a maximum base value of 188") - but if that's still not legit, please do reach out again and/or correct as needed. See you around! --Mikeprichard (talk) 19:27, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and for the additional information. Could I just check where you're getting the fact that Speechcraft impacts starting disposition? According to the Disposition page, particularly this section, the main factors include Personality, race and faction, but not your Speechcraft skill level. So if you're right we should also add it there. Thanks! --SerCenKing (talk) 12:42, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I think I see where you're coming from - it's not that Speechcraft has any direct impact on Disposition; it's that Speechcraft allows you to start the persuasion minigame at increasingly higher starting levels of Disposition with the NPC. E.g. (not using real numbers, but just to demonstrate the principle) - at Speechcraft 50, I'm only able to "Start" the minigame with a guard until his Disposition hits 80; the minigame "Start" option/button then disappears. But when I reach Speechcraft 51 with all other factors equal, I may now be able to once again "Start" the minigame until the NPC's Disposition with me reaches, say, 81 at the end of an attempt (at which point the "Start" button once more disappears). I did struggle with explaining this succinctly and clearly before landing on the current page text quoted above, but please do let me know if we need more on this! --Mikeprichard (talk) 13:31, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah yes, you're absolutely spot on - I hadn't understood what you meant with the second note initially. Having tested & confirmed in-game, I also slightly tweaked the explanation so that it's hopefully clearer that what is meant is the ability to physically start the mini-game, rather than the starting disposition of the mini-game. Thanks again for all the excellent edits over the past couple of weeks! --SerCenKing (talk) 19:51, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Looks great to me! Thanks again for your work and patience with my ridiculous (even by my own neurotic standards lol) number of recent edits to the Oblivion pages, especially the location pages which are my main focus as I play through the game. I currently have about 10 more "backlogged" dungeon locations I'd previously revisited/researched in game (and the CK when needed), which I'll likely tweak over the next week or two. After that, I hope to gradually do more comprehensive "one-and-done" reviews of each new location page in turn - especially based on my much greater familiarity with the Oblivion page structures gained over the past few weeks - which should save everyone the headaches of reviewing a barrage of nitpicky serial edits to the same pages. This may be too much info for you, but FYI! Enjoy the rest of your weekend. --Mikeprichard (talk) 20:01, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Settlement People Tables

Hi Mike! I notice that you added Notes to the Knights of the Thorn Headquarters, Gweden Farm, and Odiil Farm People pages. That's great (and thanks for all of your continuing work on the Oblivion pages!), however I did want to point out (in case you're not aware) that this does cause issues on the People page. The notes will have to be added here as well, and since all of the settlement people pages are transcluded into one large table, different symbols will need to be used to distinguish between the different settlements. I don't have time to adjust this myself right now, so I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you get a chance to fix this. Thanks again for all your work! — Wolfborn^(Howl) 19:21, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey! And I was so proud thinking I covered everything the first time, lol... I'd actually seen this general issue on the main "People" page with something else that came up a few weeks ago, then it slipped my mind today - and I just noticed Cropsford will likely need similar edits which I plan to address soon. Anyway, the pages you mentioned should all be good now. As you've probably seen, though I've edited the UESP quite a bit in the past (mostly for Skyrim), I've been learning a lot about the Oblivion pages recently. I hope for your sanity as reviewers I'm finally getting close to a more measured tempo of fully considered and accurate edits (primarily to OB location pages), but again I do greatly appreciate your time and patience. I've always loved the friendliness of this community; please reach out whenever you see things that look odd or for which you want more info! --Mikeprichard (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Looks good; thanks for updating those! By the way, I'm not an official patroller here on the wiki; I just like to check the Recent Edits page out of curiosity to see what's new (figure I might learn something :P). I've been playing a lot of Oblivion for the past 3 years, so I know the game fairly well; that's why I usually check edits to Oblivion pages to see what people are adding. Your edits are quality work, they bring a much-needed consistency to the settlement pages, and I really like the way you word dungeon walkthroughs, clear, concise and to-the-point which tells the reader all they need to know without excessive verbiage (which tends to be one my weaknesses). I'll be starting my first play-through of Skyrim soon (just got the game), so I'm sure your past efforts there will be much appreciated when I'm looking things up! Thanks again for all your work! — Wolfborn^(Howl) 06:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot - I'm glad you find the edits useful! You can tell I'm quite - um, the polite term is "detail-oriented" - but it's good to know the edits are helping other users. See you around, I'm sure! --Mikeprichard (talk) 11:29, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

More Cookies

You have been given a plateful of cookies! You've kept at it non-stop with the Oblivion edits. You're doing a lot of good work to bring the namespace up to standard. Thanks for your diligence! —Dillonn241 (talk) 02:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Deelicious - thanks! I'm sorry the pace has been so hectic - I've had way too much time on my hands recently - but I appreciate it. I should fairly soon be settling into gradually updating individual dungeon pages as I play through and confirm the locations; I have just a bit more work on some other Oblivion location-related pages planned first. Happy New Year! --Mikeprichard (talk) 03:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Came here to deliver a truckload of cookies, but I see Dillonn beat me to it! Just wanted to add my appreciation for your top-notch work on the Oblivion pages in the past month or so - great stuff! --SerCenKing (talk) 17:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

And thank you for both the snacks and the review of my many, many edits - I've been picking up some great pointers to take forward from your and other experienced wikians' work. Slowly getting closer to my planned more measured pace of edits on (mostly Oblivion) place pages - still revisiting a few I'd updated earlier with fresh eyes/insight into the style guides and other wiki standards. Anyway - cheers, and see you around! --Mikeprichard (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Camp Cleanup

I've noticed you've been making systematic edits to the Oblivion:Campsites pages. I've looked through a few and most of the changes seem unobjectionable, but it seems to me like you've stripped out a lot of the "flavour text" which was added to those pages as part of the camp mini-project I undertook thirteen years ago (example 1, 2). Those sentences were added to try to give a sense of location or environmental storytelling to what were otherwise small and featureless place pages. I'm not sure replacing these descriptions with cardinal directions from the nearest map marker is an improvement. Just something to bear in mind when revamping existing prose - sometimes less isn't always more! —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I did see your name pop up in some of the review templates, and appreciate all your hard work (on the shoulders of giants and all that!). I've been trying to follow a concise and consistent format by highlighting upfront each camp's location and contents (bedrolls/furniture/items/containers) for the player's convenience, while still maintaining flavor text as to the nature of the environment and vistas toward the end of the brief descriptions. But I'll keep an eye out for your patrols, and try to pick up on what's acceptable going forward (including more technical issues like the "Roasted Rat" link I intentionally changed to the "Rat Meat" page, since the former page doesn't exist and redirects to the latter regardless; listing all the flora in a game "cell" rather than the immediately visible camp surroundings also seemed a bit inorganic (pun intended I guess) to me, but I see what you were going for there). Thanks again for your time and patience. --Mikeprichard (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Not at all! I had noticed on a few that you managed to shuffle around and maintain some of the environmental text, and that's fair enough. Regarding redirects, it can be beneficial to link to them rather than linking past them. For one, it can be used to easily view where one might encounter a Roasted Rat, which is less common than finding rat meat. Secondly, we may have a full article at Oblivion:Roasted Rat in the future, or indeed we may change the redirect to point elsewhere (such as Oblivion:Containers). Keeping the redirect link in place prevents link rot by ensuring the linked text points to the most relevant article name. —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:43, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Ohhh - I didn't think of that (and really should've researched it first)! Still learning as I go; I've just restored the "Roasted Rat" redirect links on the couple camp pages (gro-Bak and Two Decker) where I'd messed them up. And I appreciate the consideration on the style; I definitely want to respect your very diligent work from earlier (you and other admins are why this site is so useful in the first place), so I'll keep this in mind and not go too overboard with updates to other pages I might make over the next couple weeks. I'd give you a cookie if I could - so just imagine I did, lol. --Mikeprichard (talk) 13:58, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Patches with No Versions

I saw you adding some version numbers to patches. I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of the ones still missing, so I put it in my sandbox. —Dillonn241 (talk) 06:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

That's really useful! I was actually inspired by UnknownG's recent edits of this type to go through the Oblivion pages (mostly place pages, but also a few others) in my watchlist and/or which I'd otherwise reviewed recently; my focus has been to add UOP/UODP version numbers and (where relevant) the "fixdetail=" tag, for consistency. I just did a few more, and will keep an eye out for this issue whenever I review additional Oblivion pages in future. My plan is to review mostly place pages as I play through the dungeons/wilderness locations in my new save. Really appreciate your continued work to improve the wiki. --Mikeprichard (talk) 12:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mike, thanks for adding lots of version numbers to UOP tags so far. Could I just ask you where in the changelog you found the basis for these two edits (1, 2)? I was looking through but couldn't seem to spot them. Thanks! --SerCenKing (talk) 17:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Hey SerC! Yep, I'm still lurking around - I plan to continue some edits in the next few weeks that I was in the middle of checking. For the Fort Teleman amulet, the fix is described in the full UOP version 3.0.0 changelog as "Flying misc. items: gold amulet in 36,-24 (placed)" (that's Teleman's cell). For the Fanacasecul ring, that was the only UOP version edit I made that I couldn't nail down specifically, but I know a) the UOP did make the change at some point, and b) a huge number of largely unpsecified similar item/static placement edits were uniquely made by version 3.0.0. I strongly suspect the change was "hidden" among those edits for that version, and there's no clear evidence to the contrary, but if we want to be very careful about the exact UOP version number for any reason, I at least can't 100% confirm it. Thanks! --Mikeprichard (talk) 17:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! Verified on Fort Teleman, but regarding the Fanacasecul one, it is best not to include the version number unless we are certain. It is technically possible to confirm (downloading older versions & testing or using xEdit) if you're interested. --SerCenKing (talk) 13:11, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking exactly the same after you pointed it out - I even realized at the time of the edit that I was only about 99% sure, lol. I did also consider messing around with older UOP versions to confirm which actually made the change at some point, and if I do, will add the correct version on the page. --Mikeprichard (talk) 13:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Note that unless you already have the older UOP versions, it won't be possible to check them since they are no longer available for download due to Unofficial Patch team policy regarding older versions of patches. Another option in this case might be to search through AFKTrack to see if you can find the bug report which triggered the change. You could also try asking in the Unofficial Oblivion Patch topic on AFKMods. — Wolfborn^(Howl) 18:01, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd forgotten that, but was immediately reminded when I looked at the UOP Nexus page... and that AFKTrack list (while a great idea I hadn't thought of) seems to only show open issues. I might sign up for an AFKMods forum account and ask around at some point, though. Thanks for the helpful tips, and congrats on your selection as a patroller - you do great work, so it's a natural fit! --Mikeprichard (talk) 18:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

(←) AFKTrack does have a Search feature, but when I tried searching for "Fanacasecul" and "Ring of Destruction" I got no results. It is possible to view closed issues if you are registered (note that registering for AFKTrack is separate from AFKMods); you can select the "Unofficial Oblivion Patch" project, open an existing issue, and there will be links near the bottom for the previous/next issue, which will allow you to page back through every issue ever reported (including the closed ones). However, doing it this way would be extremely tedious and probably not worth it just to get a version number. Asking on the forum would probably be the best bet (note that registering for the forums there can be a bit of a pain; the anti-bot check can be rather flaky to say the least). And I haven't been officially confirmed as a patroller yet (the nomination process is still ongoing), but thanks for the vote of confidence! — Wolfborn^(Howl) 19:11, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Turns out I'd already made an AFKMods account years ago - I just posted in the UOP forum and asked for confirmation. (I did separately sign up for AFKTrack right now, but from some quick searching and again reviewing the UOP full changelog, I'm not even sure the older UOP bugs had tracked bug numbers - in any case, that's definitely not a reasonable route for the reasons you mentioned.) If I get a clear response, I'll revert here. --Mikeprichard (talk) 23:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for digging into this and getting a response from Arthmoor. For completeness, are you able to post the link of the discussion on the Fanacasecul talk page please, so we have a permanent record of the source of the info? Thanks! --SerCenKing (talk) 10:22, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Done - and thanks to you and all for the tips! --Mikeprichard (talk) 11:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Gottlesfont Priory

You're right about it being better categorized under faction settlement. I hadn't noticed that the residents were in the same faction. It fits with the other priories, then.

I was looking for a reason to get rid of the "Religious" part of "Religious and Faction Settlements" because it was too long, and I wanted to throw out Cadlew Chapel. —Dillonn241 (talk) 05:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Your changes are absolutely on point IMHO, and yeah, I always thought that "religious" etc. category was wonky - splitting the template into more categories is in any case both convenient and more in line with the corresponding Oblivion and Skyrim templates. Thanks once again for your patience with the mad pace of my edits these days! --Mikeprichard (talk) 05:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Fixdetail

Just a heads up, adding fixdetail to {{Bug}} does nothing if that parameter is already the 4th unnamed parameter. It could be argued that it's clearer to future editors, but if that's the case, it's better to switch them all over from unnamed parameter 4 to the named parameter with a bot job. There are well over 300 cases of that parameter in use without fixdetail. —Dillonn241 (talk) 10:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I thought it might be helpful to somehow more clearly flag these situations - but since it's apparently not useful/necessary, I'll stop spamming that change! I also don't think another bot job to change the "4" parameter to "fixdetail" is necessary (or vice versa). Cheers. --Mikeprichard (talk) 10:58, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, if we decide it's worth the extra clarity, it's about five minutes for me to run the bot and be done with it everywhere throughout the whole wiki. I believe the reasoning is that unnamed parameters imply that the previous ones are required. So in the case of Bug, you have to specify the issue (1), patch (2), version (3)*, and then fix detail (4). By the asterisk*, I mean version is technically optional but as we know, it shouldn't be if done properly.

Still, there is a good argument waiting to happen against 4th unnamed parameters. Once you get that far out without a name to guide you, it can get error prone. That might be worth a talk page post on the template page or perhaps community portal if you can find enough template examples that are unclear. —Dillonn241 (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I've been mostly cherry-picking the pages I'd looked at relatively recently, so I haven't had the chance to collect unclear examples more broadly, but I'll keep this in mind! --Mikeprichard (talk) 11:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Is/Are

Thanks for correcting me on that one--I couldn't remember which way it went; knew I should have looked it up! — Wolfborn^(Howl) 18:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

And thank you for your patience... I tend to agree with your edit, but I've tried to follow the wiki convention since it was pointed out to me by Lego above. Cheers! --Mikeprichard (talk) 18:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

OPRP checking

Hi Mike, I saw that you recently checked a bunch of OB place page walkthroughs - great work! In case you felt like doing a bit more dungeon-delving, you may want to check out Category:Oblivion Places Redesign Pages Requiring Checking, which lists all the place pages with walkthroughs that still need to be checked. Happy editing :) --SerCenKing (talk) 10:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, SerC! Yep, I have a plan (which has been postponed by RL a bit) to eventually work through as many Oblivion dungeon pages as I can together with my playthrough to check all the info against the unmodded game and CS, including those on the OPRP list still needing checking. It will probably be a slow burn, but hopefully I can contribute some more here. Thanks to you as well for all your great edits to Oblivion pages - see you around! --Mikeprichard (talk) 12:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for the bits of cleanup you've done behind me. I was getting sloppy there, so I'll probably call it quits soon. Eventually I want to fix the remaining instances of "plug-in" in the Oblivion namespace, but there's so many that I can't do them all at once. —Dillonn241 (talk) 03:05, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

And as always, thanks for reviewing my edits! I started to think I might be getting in your way by editing the same range of pages you were considering over the past hour or so, but I think things are shaping up OK. I'd actually noticed a couple of these issues months ago, but your edits today spurred me to help do something about it. I'll certainly watch out for these consistency points going forward. --Mikeprichard (talk) 03:12, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for Patroller

Hi Mike. After finding myself going through another batch of your latest OB edits to patrol, I was again struck by how I intuitively trusted they would be accurate and high-quality. This was once again borne out when I checked them and I reflected it's probably a waste of time for me to even check! You've been doing some great work in the OB namespace over the past six months or so, and your edits over the past few 5 years across multiple namespaces have always been of high quality and have helped bring up our standards on content, formatting, flow and presentation.

With all this in mind, I therefore wanted to ask whether you'd accept a nomination for Patrollership. If you do, I'll draft a nomination here, which will then see a vote among users to decide whether to confirm you in that role. I think it'd be a great fit for someone with your attention to detail and cross-site knowledge, and by having your own edits autopatrolled, it would free up time for others. I also noticed that you've been checking Recent Changes more often lately, cleaning up edits and so on, so you've perhaps already gotten a taste for it. And to be clear, there's no expectation you are suddenly on RC 24/7 or must set aside other work to only do patrolling - you'll just be helping the existing team by lightening the burden.

I appreciate that not everyone is interested in the Patroller role, in which case I'd really encourage you to consider accepting an alternative nomination to become an Autopatrolled user. As I said above, I think your edits are of sufficiently high quality it's just not a good use of patrollers' time to be reviewing each one!

Thanks for all the work you've doing lately and let me know what you think about the above. --SerCenKing (talk) 10:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Wow, SerC, I'm honored! I really appreciate the thoughtful consideration. I've been a UESP fan for many years, and have greatly enjoyed working with and learning from the site's many kind and dedicated admins and contributors.

As you've seen, I've recently been in another "active" phase on the site, this time primarily focused on TESIV, and expect to regularly check Recent Changes and gradually continue some planned OB page updates for at least another few months/year. However, as you did recognize, I may not always be so active on the site. That said, I would certainly welcome a nomination as an Autopatrolled User (to ease the review burden for others). However, if you and other admins feel that even a potentially limited amount of traditional Patroller work on my part would add value to the site, I'd also be open to such a nomination.

However this turns out, I'm grateful for your excellent work on the wiki and positive interactions with all users. Thank you! --Mikeprichard (talk) 14:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mike, glad to hear you'd be open to the nominations. As I said, it's totally understandable that Patrollers are not around all of the time (RL matters!) and we certainly do not expect that nor make it a requirement. I certainly think having you on board even with those totally normal caveats is worth it, so I'll go ahead with the Patroller nomination in the first instance. Once it's live, great if you could just pop a quick message there to say you accept the nomination, so other users are aware. Thanks again! --SerCenKing (talk) 08:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good; I just dropped a comment to accept the nomination. Thanks very much! --Mikeprichard (talk) 11:09, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

(←) You've just been promoted. Enjoy the sea of !s. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 22:41, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I just noticed, ha - thank you and all for the votes of confidence and support! Having read the official guidance, I'd like to begin contributing, perhaps starting with my own unpatrolled edits (with which I'm naturally already familiar). However, before I start retroactively marking my own edits as patrolled, while I understand my new changes going forward will in any case be autopatrolled, I just wanted to confirm with any patroller/admin veterans that patrolling my own historical edits wouldn't be inappropriate/in bad taste. Any confirmation would be appreciated! --Mikeprichard (talk) 22:58, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Yup, that's allowed and is actually really common as the first thing a new patroller patrols. :) – Robin Hood ^(talk) 23:22, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

OK! I just started looking at older unpatrolled edits by other users, keeping the subsequent page histories in mind, but going through mine should help clean up quite a bit. Cheers.

EDIT: Looks like I don't have the option to mark my own edits as patrolled after all - so much for an easy job, lol. --Mikeprichard (talk) 23:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Ooooh, that's right. They locked that out a few MW versions ago. You used to be able to do it. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 00:00, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and did the honors - at least for the OB namespace... Welcome to the team Mike! --SerCenKing (talk) 08:51, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, SerC! Again, appreciate the nomination and all your advice and support so far. --Mikeprichard (talk) 13:23, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Two little things

I have my thumbnail size set to the largest (400px), which is how I was able to tell there was a missing NewLeft. I don't think NewLine is standard above Notes sections, but I haven't been poking around on those pages lately, so I'll leave it to your judgement.

Also, now that you're a patroller, I would suggest you create a user page, even if it's blank. I recognize your red name in Recent Changes, but for other users it might look like you're a new user, which certainly isn't the case. I'm just surprised you went this long without one! (By the way, this is simply a suggestion; feel free to keep the red.)

User pages can be fun if you add Userboxes. —Dillonn241 (talk) 02:53, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Dillonn, great tips, as always! After all this time I am still a bit waffly on NewLeft vs. NewLine (and which might be appropriate in different situations), but if you see anything that still looks off, please feel free to adjust, and I'll take note for future reference. And yeah, I've been thinking of creating a user page for quite some time now, and I seem to be the only user among the patroller/admin groups who still doesn't have one... sticking out like a sore thumb. I'll try to finally get to it soon (and spice it up with a few userboxes)! --Mikeprichard (talk) 02:57, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Make that three things: If you're interested in joining the UESP Discord server, you can get the Patroller role which gives access to the #patrolling channel. That channel is not too active, but may be worth a look. Another admin was asking there if you were on the server to give the promoted role to. —Dillonn241 (talk) 03:02, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Ha, I feel like I'm in the club now - thanks for this info. I admit I'm not a big fan of Discord generally, and especially if the channel isn't active - and it isn't seen as weird for me not to join despite being a patroller - I think I'll hold off. But if the admin or anyone else would in fact prefer I join, I can definitely check it out! --Mikeprichard (talk) 03:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

No, not a big deal nor any kind of expectation. I try to avoid Discord myself whenever possible because it tends to not be very productive. By the way, don't forget when adding userboxes to include the {{User Patroller}} box. —Dillonn241 (talk) 03:28, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Cool - bad enough that I don't yet have a user page (though I will fix that, and thanks for that additional tip); I didn't want to be that one guy who's not on Discord too, lol. After all my wiki activity over the past couple days, I'll probably take it easy for the next few, but I'll be around! --Mikeprichard (talk) 03:32, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

(←) As for the difference between NewLeft and NewLine, try going to an NPC page like Skyrim:Balgruuf the Greater and changing the NewLeft at the end of the lead to a NewLine, then preview the page. You'll notice that the Related Quests section jumps way down the page until it's below all the boxes on both sides of the page instead of just on the left. That's the difference. NewLeft only checks the left side of the page, NewRight checks the right side, and NewLine checks both. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 04:01, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Robin - I guess I'd been intuitively picking up on that by using NewLine to "force" sections to start below images that would otherwise dip/break into those sections, especially on pages with many images in the walkthrough (recognizing a "Gallery" section is possible, though not generally intended for polished pages). I also tend to edit/view pages in desktop rather than mobile view, so sometimes I see alignment "issues" I think wouldn't be as relevant in other views. Anyway, I really appreciate all the pointers from the admin/patroller veterans - cheers! --Mikeprichard (talk) 04:14, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Hyphenated Compound Adjectives

I was going off of this rule that is easiest to see with "well-known" vs. "well known". An explanation

For example:

• He is a well-known person.
• He is well known.

And in our case:

• It is an apprentice-locked chest.
• The chest is apprentice locked.

I am not 100% sure the rule applies to this game-specific use, but I'm assuming it does since more than half of existing text was using this rule. —Dillonn241 (talk) 12:08, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey Dillonn! As you can see (despite my ninja-ing your edits sometimes - sorry if stepping on toes), I'm always learning new things from you to apply to the wiki myself, which I really appreciate. As for this point, I was considering that while e.g. "well known" uses "well" as an adverb modifying "known", "novice-locked" seems different, since "novice" is not usually considered an adverb. It also just looks weird to me to have "novice locked" as two different words. That said, I don't think there are too many instances of this specific usage on the wiki (?).

Side note: although I think "bed roll" is used in game, at least in Skyrim (I could be wrong there again), I do agree "bedroll" just looks better, and will enforce that going forward where relevant. --Mikeprichard (talk) 12:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, there is a case to be made against bedroll since it's spelled "Bed Roll" as an object, but the namespace wasn't exactly consistent on that point; only about 2/3 of the time using "bed roll". It was jarring enough for me to notice. The wiki and modern spelling overwhelmingly favor the single-word spelling, so unless we're going to be really nitpicky about it, I'm in favor of standardizing to the one. —Dillonn241 (talk) 12:26, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Yep - as mentioned, makes sense to me! I just pointed it out since for a while I was changing "bedroll" to "bed roll" as I'd seen that label in game and sometimes on the wiki, but I'll now use "bedroll" everywhere going forward. --Mikeprichard (talk) 12:32, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

As far as the novice-locked thing, you can go ahead and make it go either way. It's pretty easy to search up all instances; I just wanted it to be consistent one way or the other. You're right that this is wiki-specific phrasing that we've inherited and doesn't exactly mesh with the existing grammar rule. —Dillonn241 (talk) 12:39, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the guidance; my personal preference for that specific term would be "novice-locked" for the ironclad reason "it kinda looks better to me I guess", lol. I do appreciate both your patience with my obsessive edits and your many contributions that improve the site across all namespaces. Cheers! --Mikeprichard (talk) 12:45, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Dungeon Quests

Hey there! Just wanted to say well done on the tidying up of the Dungeon Quests page, and get your thoughts on a couple of changes that I think may need to be reconsidered. Firstly I don't think Soljund's Sinkhole should be considered a dungeon quest – it's coded as a Freeform quest rather than a Dungeon quest in the game code, and it's not identified as a Dungeon Quest by the Prima guide. All of our other Dungeon quests satisfy both of those core criteria, so this is an odd-one-out if we keep it. (It was removed before for this reason; at face value it is effectively identical to other "clear the mine" quests like Mine or Yours and Kolskeggr Mine, which aren't dungeon quests either; they're Favors. At the moment Soljund's Sinkhole is the only Favor Quest not listed on Miscellaneous Quests.)

The other one I'm not sure about is The Lost Expedition; it fulfils all the conditions of a Dungeon quest – it's coded as a Dungeon quest in the game code, listed as a Dungeon quest in the Prima guide, and it starts when you approach the dungeon. The only oddity is that the dungeon itself is technically situated within Markarth, but I don't really think that's relevant, as the entirety of the quest takes place within the dungeon rather than the city (apart from the final report to Calcelmo, who is literally right outside the entrance).

Something else that's probably not worth consideration now, but we may want to think about later, is the quests we have listed that aren't actually quests at all – Robber's Gorge and Volskygge in this instance. There's probably over a dozen dungeon activities that are technically "quests" but are only detailed on the dungeon place pages rather than separately, so I don't really know why these two were singled out for separate pages in the first place.

--Enodoc (talk) 22:44, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey Enodoc! I've noticed your many very useful edits across the wiki over the years, so it's good to chat a bit. Thanks also for your aligning edits just now to the SR:Side Quests page which I'd neglected.

As for the main issue, I admit I wasn't even aware "dungeon quests" were coded as such in the game data (as well as referenced as such in the Prima guide, which I haven't read in years) - I'd just ignorantly assumed this was a UESP convention we'd been enforcing solely for wiki organization purposes! Given that, it makes perfect sense that Soljund's Sinkhole should indeed again be removed from the Dungeon Quests page (and restored to the Miscellaneous Quests/The Reach page, partially reverting my recent edit there, with its quest page trail also edited accordingly). I'd also agree with adding The Lost Expedition as a dungeon side quest based on your criteria (with corresponding edits to the quest page's trail, the SR:Quests page to amend "nine" dungeon side quests to "ten" - or simply "several" if future-proofing is deemed necessary, and the introduction on the SR:Dungeon Quests page to remove my recent reference to dungeon quests only occurring in the "wilderness").

As for your longer-term point, not only Robber's Gorge and Volskygge (currently on the Dungeon Quests page) but also Rannveig's Fast (not currently on the Dungeon Quests page, and therefore, not really categorized on the wiki) and possibly other activity-type "dungeon quests" might fall in this "non-quest" category (i.e., having empty quest stages/no journal entries). I'm also not sure what the best approach would be for these oddballs, but I'll think on it as well.

I'm happy to make the edits above re: Soljund's Sinkhole and The Lost Expedition if you come back with agreement, or of course please feel free to do them yourself. Either way, thanks for reaching out (and for the education on this topic - very helpful!). --Mikeprichard (talk) 23:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

One more thing I forgot to mention above - I think you saw (based on an active IP address user's recent edits) I also just added the DB quest Unearthed as a dungeon side quest and removed Sleeping Tree Cave as a dungeon miscellaneous quest; you didn't reference them, so I'd assumed you found those changes matched our criteria including the Prima guide categorization, but if not, please consider similar edit reversions as well as further edits to the SR:Dungeon Quests page introduction text to make the criteria clear! --Mikeprichard (talk) 10:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I'm happy with the addition of Unearthed. I'm indifferent on the removal of Sleeping Tree Cave - the data and the guide do consider it a Dungeon quest, but it's quite unique aside from that, so could really go either way. Happy for you to go ahead and make the other changes to Soljund's Sinkhole and The Lost Expedition when you can! --Enodoc (talk) 19:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Great - I just made a batch of edits to the associated quest pages to implement this. However, given your clarifications and my new review of the Prima guide, and in an effort to make the "Dungeon Quest" wiki designation apply objectively only to quests marked as such both in the game data and the Prima guide, in addition to the tweaks related to Soljund's Sinkhole and The Lost Expedition, I did the following:

1) reclassified Coming of Age, Robber's Gorge, and Volksygge as no longer dungeon quests (like Forgotten Names, Liar's Retreat, and Rannveig's Fast, they're now categorized only as non-journal quests, but as you noted above, I wonder if this is enough - should these all also be categorized as miscellaneous quests and added to the main "Miscellaneous Quests" page despite having empty quest stages, as is the case for Drowned Sorrows and Falion's Secret?)

2) reclassified Unearthed as no longer a dungeon quest (though you were OK with the recent edit spurred by the other user, it's not technically a dungeon quest per the game data/Prima guide criteria)

3) restored Sleeping Tree Cave as a dungeon quest

Note that this still leaves Lifting the Shroud as a Prima "dungeon quest" that the wiki instead only categorizes as a favor/standard miscellaneous quest (I left it like this as I interpreted your initial comment to mean that the wiki shouldn't categorize quests as both favors and dungeon quests). I just hope the above - 80% of which is simply untangling the mess I've recently made - isn't off base, so if you have any concerns, please let me know! --Mikeprichard (talk) 23:08, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Forgotten Names is a good example for comparison actually - a "named" quest which has no journal entries. The oddity with Coming of Age (and maybe some others, haven't checked) is that it has a journal stage which sets the Completed flag. We do indeed need to put them somewhere; Miscellaneous might make the most sense, but unlike previous games, they don't meet the Skyrim definition of Miscellaneous. Not sure where else they could go though.

On a related note, if we do include them in Miscellaneous, then it makes just as much sense to consider them Dungeon Miscellaneous like the others. But I would actually question whether Robber's Gorge, Volksygge, Liar's Retreat and Rannveig's Fast need separate quest pages at all - is there anything on them that couldn't be covered by the location page? Alternatively, if we do have separate quest pages for these four, then does that mean we need them for the 30+ other "quests" in dungeons that also don't have names or journal entries?

I think Unearthed is indeed a Dungeon Quest by game data, but the Prima guide doesn't have a separate section for Dungeon Quests in the DLCs at all. I'm happy with where we have Lifting the Shroud at the moment; I don't really understand why the Prima guide puts it with the Dungeon quests when it's not one in the game data, and Prima doesn't do that with any other Favors. --Enodoc (talk) 19:12, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

(←) Maybe we could include all of these named non-journal quests on the Miscellaneous Quests page, with footnotes or similar indicating their unique status? (Drowned Sorrows/Falion's Secret are already listed on Miscellaneous, while Coming of Age/Forgotten Names/Liar's Retreat/Rannveig's Fast/Robber's Gorge/Volksygge aren't - I pulled this list from the "Skyrim-Quests-Non-Journal Quests" category, ignoring all the remaining items in the category comprising generic activities/world interactions.) If we then want to include these six back on the Dungeon Quests page (maybe along with Unearthed, if that's actually your preference?, also noting that all the other Dungeon Miscllenaeous Quests are not currently listed in the main body of the Miscellaneous Quests page as noted in the intro to that page), in addition to all the aligning edits to the Quests/Side Quests/Dungeon Quests/various Miscellaneous and quest pages, the Dungeon Quest page introduction should probably be clarified again to specify the exact criteria for including quests on that page/in that category on the wiki in the first place - it would no longer be strictly due to their CK type and/or Prima categorization, and without that, there may be confusion among users as to why certain other quests aren't included (which is kind of what started my recent barrage of edits when I noticed major changes to the page by a newer user). To be clear, I'm not advocating for one way or another in particular - just trying to think from a few angles. Either way, I defer to your and other veterans' judgment/action if desired on all this - I can tell from page edit histories you're much more experienced working on the quest page side of things than I am! I'll be around, though. :) --Mikeprichard (talk) 22:28, 8 August 2024 (UTC)