User talk:Nephele/Archive-2008-03

((top))?

Hi,

I was looking through my contributions page, and I've been trying to work out what ((top)) means. As I have a negative concentration span, I thought it would be easier to ask someone, so I am: What does it mean?

Thanks,

Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 07:03, 1 March 2008 (EST)

I believe I could answer this. According to my inspection, it means that it's the most recent edit of the article. When somebody else edits the same article, the "(top)" will go away from the earlier contributor, onto the contributor who edited the article most recently. --Bippo Ernesti 07:12, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Ah, ok, thanks Bippo,

Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 07:14, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Yep, Bippo's right :) It lets you know whether there have been any subsequent edits to the article (i.e., whether it's possible that someone else has modified or followed up on your contribution). --Nephele^Talk 12:39, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Shivering:NPC's

I just recently did some of the Shivering:NPCs page, I wanted to know If I had the right idea by generic Npc's, If I was wrong Please tell me on my talk page. Thank you.--Puddle 14:57, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Yes, that's a good start :) I added some tags to the page so that other editors take a look at it, too. But at least now that page isn't a redlink on every generic NPC page ;) Thanks! --Nephele^Talk 16:54, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Nirnroot Discussion

I remember a long time ago having a discussion about the Giant Nirnroots in the game, and I'm about 99.99% sure that you were the one I had it with. Yet when someone asked about them for the Interesting Places page, I was damned if I could find that discussion and the conclusions anywhere. Does this ring a bell for you? I even tried a Google search on uesp.net to make sure I was covering all my bases...still nothing! Confusedly, Robin Hood 17:14, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Nevermind, you've answered it elsewhere. In case anybody finds this discussion and is looking, the Giant Nirnroot discussion is at Oblivion:Nirnroot#Outdoor. Why did I not see that when I went looking? --Robin Hood 17:18, 1 March 2008 (EST)

How did I Do?

Hey Neph,

Tonight, I had a half hour deal thing with a new editor. I taught him a lot of stuff. How did I do? Oh, and the other half hour is on my talk page haha! --Playjex 23:41, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Thanks for helping out the new editor and pointing out things like how to respond on talk pages and how to sign posts :) --Nephele^Talk 23:50, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Sandbox

I think someone like you should put a whole bunch of formatting shortcuts and stuff on the Sandbox, so that people can see it and learn by example, its how i made a box on my stupid little page(off of your example), and i learned all that stuff from looking at other pages on the UESP... - The Sneakiest Kajiit 15:47, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Great idea :) Something like this perhaps? --Nephele^Talk 19:16, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Pretty cool stuff, glad you took my suggestion - The Sneakiest Kajiit 19:43, 5 March 2008 (EST)

Magic Class

I wanted to let you know that your recent changes to the magic school color templates have broken the coloring in Morrowind:Scrolls tables, and probably in other pages too. Are the templates supposed to be used in a different way now? If so, one of the bots should fix all pages using these templates. --DrPhoton 03:32, 3 March 2008 (EST)

It looks fine to me... what's different now? –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 04:10, 3 March 2008 (EST)

My bad - I just spotted the problem with the contents. I fixed it, but I'm not sure exactly what was causing it to go wrong... –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 04:38, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Well no, this is not what I meant. Using IE7, the colors don't appear any more in that page. The backgrounds are now the default table background. This doesn't happen in Firefox though. Does anybody know whay this happens and how to fix it? --DrPhoton 08:26, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Ah - I don't have IE7 here but my first guess is that you'll need to force a reload of the style sheet. I think Ctrl+Refresh or Ctrl+F5 does that in IE. It should definitely work though. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 08:39, 3 March 2008 (EST)

I'm using Firefox, and I'm seeing something strange. In the Contents, 'Alteration' has a yellow background, and 'Conjuration' has the default background, while in the scroll list, Alteration scrolls have a purple background and Conjuration scrolls have a yellow background. Both sets of tables are using the ALT and CON templates, and all they do is assign the correct class to the TR, so why the colours should be mixed up, I don't know. --Gaebrial 08:59, 3 March 2008 (EST)

That was what I saw this morning and fixed, but DrPhoton reverted it... –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:34, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Fixed! There was one tiny error in the CSS that was having a very odd effect on that page. You'll need to force-reload the CSS again though.

Thanks for catching that mistake rpeh :) DrPhoton: I'm not sure why your IE didn't automatically retrieve the new style sheet. I waited for more than 24 hours before making the more widespread changes that relied on the new style sheet, which should have been long enough for everyone's previous versions to be marked as out-of-date.

And although the change to using the style sheet may seem like unnecessary fiddling right now, I think long-term its for the best. One thing is that with using the style sheet, you can change colors on table header rows (so there's no more need to do silly shenanigans like |<center>'''title'''</center>... you can just use !title). But the reason that really triggered the change is that on some of these pages, the templates have a significant and completely unnecessary processing overhead. The changes so far are really just quick tweaks to get everything consistent; only a couple pages (e.g., Oblivion:Generic Magic Apparel) have been changed to take full advantage of the new styles. --Nephele^Talk 13:22, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Thanks for the replies and fix. I refreshed the page and now all the colors are fine (why didn't I think of this earlier?!). I think these are good changes that will make things easier and pages a bit smaller. Good work! --DrPhoton 03:56, 4 March 2008 (EST)

Spam Warning

Sorry for the misunderstanding with that spam warning, i assumed that since there was a warning message, it should be used before an actual block, also i wasn't sure if it was spam or just someone trying to be of some use to the wiki, apparently not! Volanaro 13:39, 3 March 2008 (EST)

As it says right above the warning message, "Warnings for spam are generally not needed, unless the links appear to be UESP-related, but have just been added indiscriminately". That note is there to point out that although the warning exists it shouldn't generally be used. In this particular case, not only was the page unrelated to UESP, but the spam also created a completely unnecessary page in an out-of-the-way location (using a name with "index.php" in it), which is a sure sign that a spambot was responsible. Since bots don't read warning messages, it's not really worth the time trying to warn them. Also, the warning is saying "don't do this again or else you'll be blocked"... in which case it seems unfair and hypocritical to then block the account even though they haven't repeated the action. The main reason why I deleted the warning is that implication that they were given a second chance and then immediately had it taken away for no reason. --Nephele^Talk 14:08, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Like i said, i wasn't sure if it was a spam bot or not, since the message actually seemed to advise against going to the site, i'll double chek in future. Volanaro 14:55, 3 March 2008 (EST)

It's not possible for the bots to post true spam any more, because we've got checks in place to prevent bots from posting any links. So it seems like they're resorting to just posting junk messages. Nevertheless, that page still had nothing to do with Elder Scrolls: it was supposedly about real estate agents, which has no place on UESP, no matter what they're saying about the agents. --Nephele^Talk 16:43, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Sowwy :P

Umm hi there, sorry for deleting the tags from the places pages, but there were (a few weeks ago) tags named 'needs walktrough information' I didn't assume that changed... But umm.. What else then getting trough the dungeon, not leaving a corner of it and write down all the neccecery details does in-game experience involve? :| Or do I just need my walktroughs less-detailed with only the necseccery info? Please tell me so I can do a better job next time!

Edit: I found this, on the page of all the places that need in game verification...

"This is a listing of articles that need to be cleaned up as part of the Oblivion Places Redesign Project. In particular, many of the articles need to have WALKTROUGH information added."

And I want to go do the sewers of the imperial city, the old way, the tutorial place, the sewer exits, the sewers itself, the sewers underneath the market district, elven gardens, beneath the bloodworks, etc. Can I go do that pleash? :) I'll map what isn't mapped, ill write walktroughs, ill add information, quest related things and so on.

I have tried to explain multiple times. I have left messages with specific examples on your talk page. I have written up an entire section with specific recommendations and given you links to that section multiple times. So I don't know what else I can do to explain the information. In any case, all that I'm asking is that you not delete the tags if the requested work hasn't been done. I don't have time this week to do the followup necessary on those articles, so all I'm asking is that you leave the tags in place so that it's clear to everyone that followup work is still needed: that's what the tags mean. --Nephele^Talk 15:50, 5 March 2008 (EST)

Got a new job for ya

I recently made a few changes to the Oblivion:Generic_Magic_Weapons page and, alas, since I only have a 360 and have only found the questionable items in random loot, I cannot check other weapons for their weapon class, I would love to see this done, the only problem is that I cannot do it myself... - The Sneakiest Kajiit 19:04, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Good catch! :) At first glance, it's not a common problem. But to see if there are any other exceptions, I'll set something up to scan through all the weapons.... --Nephele^Talk 19:48, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Woohoo, I feel appreciated, sorry I couldnt do it myself though - The Sneakiest Kajiit 20:15, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Final count: seven axes that are mislabeled as blades instead of blunts. There were two more Damage Attribute ones, and two Absorb Attribute ones, in addition to the three that you found. A scan of every other weapon (including mods and SI) only showed two other oddball cases: the Mace of Doom (that we already knew about), and an "Amber Maul" that's a test weapon only (doesn't appear in game). I think I've fixed everything that needed to be fixed... --Nephele^Talk 20:47, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Well back at Mentor's

Well I want to reclaim the title of Mentor. I would start editing from today. Well if you don't think that this title is for me just remove it. So from today I'm back to Mentors. Lord Geogorath 03:37, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

As rpeh has already explained on your your talk page, you still do not meet any of the requirements to be in the mentor program. And blatantly disregarding the site's guidelines and practices is about the worst possible way to show that you should ever be on the mentor list. --Nephele^Talk 12:01, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Can I borrow your item finder for a minute or two?

Hi Nephele,

If you've got the time, I could really use a hand with a Mod I'm working on. The point of the Mod is to locate ALL fixed and random Oblivion Gates within the world. Finding the ObGateRand cells was easy...now I need to find the other 30 or so that don't follow that pattern. I believe the same script/program you used to find all the oversized Nirnroots could probably easily find most or all of the Oblivion Gates as well. Could I trouble you to do so, if it's not too much effort? You'd be looking for "OblivionGatetoOblivion", Form ID: 00091C9C, and I just need to know what Cell (by name, not location) they're in.

If that's not doable, I'll do things the "hard" way and just take the list here and cross-reference it to the appropriate cell name, but if you CAN do it, it would be much easier to do so programatically, I'm sure!

Umm... can't it just as easily be done in the construction set by looking at "Use Info" for OblivionGatetoOblivion? Which shows that there are a few OBRandNB cells, some capitalization variations on OBGateRand (ObGateRand, OBgateRand, OBgaterand), and a few that are in unnamed Wilderness Cells. --Nephele^Talk 12:49, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Oh, hey, that's convenient. I hadn't discovered that yet. User-friendliness isn't exactly a hallmark of the Construction Set. ;) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 13:59, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

For your next trick, you can teach me how to select those two Wilderness cells in any of the standard Cell drop-down boxes. As near as I can tell, it might actually require a certain amount of hex editing my mod to achieve that. Please tell me there's a better way! --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 14:28, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, since those cells don't have EditorIDs they're a bit more awkward to work with. You could try instead just using an adjacent cell (CursedMineExterior is at -21,1, next to -22,1; ObGateRandWW013 is at -22,-3, even though the gate is at -22,-2). The other option, depending upon what you're actually trying to do, is to use the gate map markers instead of the cells. Or if you're just trying to trigger all of the random gates, skip those two gates, which still leaves you with more than enough locations to trigger all the random ones ;) --Nephele^Talk 15:03, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Got another way: drag & drop from the Cell View; when you drop it onto the Cell/Ref drop-downs, it'll select them correctly, even though they don't appear in the drop-down. --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 15:13, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

Drain vs Damage vs Absorb

Hey, thanks for leaving the comments after you removed my changes, I appreciated knowing why.

I edited the section because I feel that it's lacking in fully and clearly marking out the differences. I also feel that the information is poorly organised.

There are four separate things, I can think of, that distinguish these spell affects.

1. Whether or not the damage is transferred from the target to the caster
2. Whether or not the damage is permanent
3. Whether or not the affect is available as a spell.
4. Cost (I admit I don't know all the cost information, but I don't feel that it needs to be in this section)

I know that all of these things can be found in other parts of the site, but then so could all the information listed in the section before my change, so what is the point of having a Drain vs Damage vs Absorb section at all? As someone who is new to Elder Scrolls I have read this section a few different times in the learning process and found it first to be usefull for bringing everything together and comparing the three effects, and then lacking as my understanding grew. I feel like this section should first clearly point out the differences between the three effects and then include some notes as to how those differences affect the game.

One of the reasons you listed for removing my contribution according to you was that it was incorrect of me to say that the "Drain Attribute is not normally available as a spell ... and so is not available at the Spellmaking Alter." I qualified the statement with "normally" and placed a link to the Oblivion:Drain_Attribute page, where it says that Drain Attribute is only available with certain plugins (ie. Knights of Nine or Repairing the Orrery), using the Orc save exploit, as an orc although, since I've never played as an Orc, it was unclear to me if having the Orc Berserk power gives access to all Drain Attribute spells at the Spellmaking Alter.


Here is how I would like the section to look:

Drain vs Damage vs Absorb

Each of these spells reduces the points of a target's statistic. Most commonly, the statistic is Health—but Fatigue, Magicka, Attributes and Skills can also be targeted. These spells differ in four important ways:

1. Whether or not the damage is transferred from the target to the caster
2. Whether or not the damage is permanent
3. Whether or not the affect is available as a spell.
4. Cost

Drain

• Drain affects only the target.
• Drain effects only last for the duration of the spell; they are then automatically reversed. (To reverse the Drain effect more quickly, Dispel can be used.)
• Drain Attribute is not available as a spell except in certain cases, see Drain Attribute.
• Drain is the cheapest spell for the amount of power delivered.

Damage

• Damage affects affect only the target.
• The points lost to Damage remain lost indefinitely, until reversed with a Restore spell or by prayer at a Temple or Shrine, except in the case of derived Attributes.
• There is currently no way to acquire Damage Attribute as a spell.
• Damage is more expensive than Drain for derived Attributes (Health, Magicka, Fatigue). It is the most expensive of the three when targeting main Attributes.

Absorb

• Absorb spells transfer points of the given statistic from the target to yourself, simultaniously damaging or draining the target's statistics and either restoring or fortifying the caster's.
• For Absorb Fatigue, Absorb Health, and Absorb Magicka spells the effect on the target is the same as a Damage spell. For Absorb Attribute and Absorb Skill spells, the effect on the target is the same as a Drain spell.
• Absorb spells are available in the game as built-in spells and therefor absorb is the most easily available of the three affects at the Spellmaking Alter.
• Absorb is slightly more expensive than drain for main Attributes. It is the most expensive of the three for derived attributes.

Additional Information

Drain X pts for Y secs and Damage X pts for Y secs have different magnitudes.

• The Drain spell will have a constant effect of X pts reduction for the duration of the spell.
• A Damage spell will cause a repeating X points of reduction each second for Y seconds. So after Y seconds, the total damage will be X*Y points, which then lasts indefinitely.

— Unsigned comment by StriderRising (talk • contribs)

Nephele: I vote for this one. It's very clear and takes a lot of the confusion out of the concepts involved. I took a very long time to figure out the differences after I started playing, and this makes it very easy. (It does need to fix "Alter" to "Altar" and consistently put periods after each bullet, though. <g>) --Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 16:24, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I agree that the revised version is better. My problem with the first edit was that most of the information was duplicated right there in the same section (i.e., under "Details"), not just on the individual effect pages. In other words, the edit didn't try to incorporate the existing text, so the overall organization of the section to me seemed worse rather than better. With the new revision, the entire section is reorganized and all of the information is incorporated into the new layout, therefore fixing the previous problems with redundancy.

As for the "Drain Attribute" comment, yes, the sentence said "not normally available as a spell". But the final part of the sentence said, without any caveats, "not available at the Spellmaking Altar". Therefore, most readers are likely to misinterpret that to mean that Drain Attribute is never available at the Spellmaking Altar. There were also other problems, such as neglecting to mention that Damage Skill is never available, overlooking availability in other non-spell forms (e.g., potions), etc. With the new layout, where the organization is more obvious, it was possible to see how to fix those problems. With the previous layout, there was no good place to add the information.

I suppose the moral of the story is that if you'd like to reorganize some of the information on the site, it's probably best to really reorganize the information. Don't be afraid to rewrite what's already there ;) The wiki allows you to modify the existing content of the page, not just add to it. And generally the final product looks better if you integrate your changes with what's already there, instead of just pasting it in to the middle of an existing section. --Nephele^Talk 13:16, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Houses Houses everywhere...

Hello Nephele. We seem to be conversing back and forth about black soul gems at the reference desk, so I thought I'd drop a talk on this page. I was reading your character profiles (very good, I tried to make my own, don't know if it worked), and I saw that you prefer the Cheydinal house over the others you've bought. First, how much does it cost? Second, would you recommend it over the mansion that you get in Where Spirits have lease? --InternetNinja 15:09, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Information on how much the Cheydinhal House costs can be found here. It's definitely not the cheapest house, and everyone's preferences for houses are likely to be different. My real reason for preferring the Cheydinhal house is the storage (I'm a pack rat with tons of stored items), and the fact that the storage is in the main section of the house (I hate waiting for load screens); also, that character has more than enough money (she's actually bought every house), so cost is not an issue. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to other people, however, because other people are likely to have different priorities. --Nephele^Talk 15:18, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

I suppose what I'm looking for in a house is this- a place to store my impressive collection of skulls (42), and all those keys and books I find everywhere. Some more questions about houses: If I left items in a chest, would they stay there forever? And the thing at worries me most, if it possible for my things to get stolen from my house? Can you pick up objects in the 360 version? Not right into your bags but carrying it around. For example if I wanted to put a weight on a scale or a book on a shelf, can I use some sort of fine manipulation? I'd like to be able to make cool arrangements in my house if possible. Arrangements of the silverware stolen from my neighbors. --InternetNinja 15:28, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Items left in a chest in a house you've bought are safe (for the Anvil house, you have to wait until the quest is complete); they will stay there forever. Most chests (e.g., the chests you find in other people's houses or in dungeons), however, are not safe for storage. Items left in those chests will disappear after three days. And, yes, you can grab and move items on the Xbox 360: see Oblivion:Controls#Grab. --Nephele^Talk 15:38, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

NPC descriptions

Hi Nephele,

good thing I have you to check on my flurry of edits :D So NPC pages are more general then, less hinting at quests? Trying to pick up the style needed. --Benould 15:40, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Actually, Rpeh is the one who's been doing more followup on your edits ;) But in general, the NPC pages should focus on the NPC, and shouldn't try to duplicate information that's on the quest page. There should always be links to any related quests, and often some basic information on how the NPC is related to the quest, but not details about what you need to do to complete the quest. One reason for not providing too much quest information on the NPC page is that some readers are likely to view the NPC page without having started the related quest. So those readers probably don't want to learn everything about the quest. Also, trying to document the same information in two different places generally doesn't work too well.

Also, the NPC pages tend to follow a standard layout. So the first sentence should generally provide the NPC's gender, race, and class, and then provide information on where the NPC lives.

Hopefully that helps! And keep up the good work :) --Nephele^Talk 15:55, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, exactly the guidance I was looking for, thanks for the clarification. I'd hate to double the work for everyone :) --Benould 16:06, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Support

General Question: How does uesp.net support itself? There does not seem to be enough ads to support the huge page numbers and page views. I am just curious about this wonderful thing called uesp.net/Olivion. Hello Nephele, a special shout out to you from Zack (Yeah, I know, not too original) in the Santa Cruz mountains. I love this game. I play it on a PS3 piped into a 40" 1080p Samsung LCD with sound thru a 7.1 system. One day I did not move from my chair for 10+ hours while playing this. It grabs hold of you and will not let go. This is by far the best Oblivion site and the best game site I have ever seen. Thanks for all the great work.--Zack 17 Mar 2008

The site is supported by ad revenue; details are at Site Support. Daveh has tried to keep ads to the minimum necessary to cover costs.

Good to hear from another Santa Cruzan :) And glad to hear you like the site! --Nephele^Talk 01:35, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Character Help

Hey im looking for help on a character. I want to make a character who is a melee type, while still decent with magic(support) . I would also like birthsign/class/character template plz. thanks

See the article on Character Creation. Past that, however, the wiki's purpose is not providing individual advice based on personal preferences. If you'd like to discuss favorite characters with other oblivion players, there are more appropriate places for such discussion, for example, the forums. --Nephele^Talk 01:45, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Reply

Hello,

I just thought that as you were online I might as well tell you that I replied to your email. - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 12:11, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

And now I've replied to your reply :P --Nephele^Talk 01:47, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

About Blades

I have a Bosmer with relatively low strength and moderate Blade skill. But his blade strikes are weak, so would it help more to use a Grand Soul Gem to fortify strength or to fortify blade? -- Thanks, Glass

Fortify blade will almost always have more effect than fortify strength (unless your blade skill is approaching 100). Mathwise, the strength multiplier to damage varies from 0.75 to 1.25, whereas the skill multiplier varies from 0.2 to 1.7. In other words, varying strength from 0 to 100 doesn't even double the damage you do; varying blade from 0 to 100 increases damage nearly tenfold. Of course, fortify strength has additional benefits (encumbrance, fatigue, blunt damage) whereas fortify blade will only have an effect on your blade damage. --Nephele^Talk 01:58, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

So would the ten point fortify Blade enchantment be significant enough to make a large difference or are there other more useful effects that i should use? -- Glass

It all depends upon your character and your preferences. You can use the equations at The Complete Damage Formula to figure out exactly how much of a difference it will make for your character and weapons. But I can't tell you whether or not you'll consider that to be a significant difference, or whether for you it will be the most useful effect. --Nephele^Talk 00:44, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Ok thanks-- Glass

Edits

True there are no indications of other patches but the paintbrush will still hit the floor. I've just tested it again and it actually appears to go through the floor :S. And the grab thing counts as stealing if the item has the Red icon when you look at it. -- Durradan^IV 10:43, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

The problem with the paintbrush fix is that 99.99% of gameplay on the PS3 is identical to gameplay on the Xbox 360 and PC (assuming all official patches are installed on the latter two platforms). Out of the thousands of Oblivion-related pages on this site, there is only one confirmed difference between the PS3 and other platforms, namely a PS3-specific glitch on the Vampire Cure quest. Every other post that a PS3 player has made claiming that there was a difference in PS3 gameplay has subsequently been disproven (for example, Oblivion:Oghma Infinium#PS3 Glitch). Any changes on the PS3 imply that the developers made changes to game's .esp files (the files that govern gameplay, and are identical on the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game), but yet did not choose to release those same changes as patches for the other platforms. Going to that effort, especially for something as minor as floating paintbrushes, seems pretty counter-intuitive to me. Therefore, I think some substantial verification is needed before starting to introduce claims that the PS3 version is substantially different from the other platforms, with the associated implication that nearly every fact on this site may be wrong for PS3 players. --Nephele^Talk 12:12, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Good point. Either way, I've made a video (lost a lot of quality through uploading) of the paintbrush dropping to the floor twice. The link is somewhere...here it is. -- Durradan^IV 12:15, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

Signature

Thanks, I've changed my signature. There isn't a image there anymore, and it uses less characters; however, the <span style="color:green;"> tag has to be used a few times since links to other pages automatically defaults to blue. --Michaeldsuarez ^{(Talk)/(Contribs)} 18:34, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

User Page Protection

I notice your page has been vandalised several times, just out of interest, why don't you protect it, it would save you and other users a lot of hassle trying to clean up afterwards! Volanaro 05:56, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Basically because I don't really think it qualifies as a page that needs protection under the Blocking Policy. I see protection as a last resort measure used only when necessary. When my user page is vandalized there is no negative impact on the integrity of the site and it's unlikely to be noticed by any of the site's readers. Furthermore, if someone is angry enough to randomly target someone they've never met, the chances are they're going to find a page somewhere to vandalize; protecting my user page is just going deflect the person to another page. I'd rather the person just vandalized my page instead of messing up any useful pages on the site. --Nephele^Talk 10:32, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Typos.

I'm sorry Nephele, but I have to take some ofence when you label typos that I have created as misspellings. Of course "frequently" is spelt with an "r!" Isn't that obvious? I know I am in need of a new keyboard, and I am not a perfect typer, but please, they are typos, not spelling errors. --HMSVictory 13:50, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

I'm not exactly seeing the distinction you're trying to make here. The fact is that the word was not spelled correctly, therefore the adjective "misspelled" is an appropriate adjective to use to describe why I changed the word. And the only implication of the adjective "misspelled" is that the word was not spelled properly. It does not make any statement, implicit or otherwise, about why the word was misspelled in the first place. It is a completely neutral adjective. And the whole reason why I made mention of it in the edit summary is because it was what drew my attention to the fact that a followup edit was needed, therefore it seemed to be relevant information for the edit summary. All in all, I'm not sure what cause you have to be taking offense. --Nephele^Talk 14:05, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

If I see the word "misspelled," I assume that whoever wrote/typed the error is considered incapable of correctly spelling the word in question. "Typo," however, clearly implies that it was a mistake on the writer's part, and does not imply that the writer does not know how to spell the particular word. I find it offensive that my mistakes in typing are considered to be a sign of incompetence and possession of the English skills of a seven-year-old. --HMSVictory 14:16, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Nephele has already said that she was not calling you incompetent or anything like that, your personal opinios about the word 'misspelled may not match that of the wiki policies which she was most likely following. Volanaro 14:21, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm exactly responsible if you choose to read all of that into a simple non-judgmental adjective such as "misspelled." I definitely did not make any statement saying anything of the kind. --Nephele^Talk 14:23, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

No, a statement of that conent was not made. However, an implication was, and that is what troubles me. My English skills are considered by my peers to be excellent, though my skills with a keyboard are somewhat less renowned. It is not your fault if I misinterpret an adjective, but it is not my fault if I am not an absolutely flawless typer either. --HMSVictory 14:31, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Quick question

Hi Nephele,

Just a quick question (As the title might possibly suggest). To force all text to the center of a cell in a table I type: <center>TEXT</center>. However this only forces the text to the horizontal center. Is there a tag for the vertical center? Thanks in advance. - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 13:52, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

If you're in a table, the <center> tag actually isn't the best way to center the text. The preferred way is to set the style of the table box, using CSS style commands instead of HTML tags. On UESP, you can do both types of centering using the Al template. For example:

• |{{Al|C}}|TEXT - horizontally centered box
• |{{Al|MC}}|TEXT - vertically and horizontally centered box

If you want to specify vertical centering for the entire table, use the vmid table class, e.g.

• {| class="wikitable vmid"

In non-UESP situations, you'll need to directly use the underlying style commands:

• |style="text-align:center;"|TEXT - horizontally centered box
• |style="text-align:center; vertical-align:middle;"|TEXT - vertically and horizontally centered box

Hope that helps :) --Nephele^Talk 14:21, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Nephele, while we're on the subject of Wiki syntax, could I ask how to change the colour of my Userbox "holder" on my page? Which parameter do I add and where? --HMSVictory 14:25, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

As you can see for example by looking at rpeh's table (you can always click edit on another user's page to see the underlying code, even if you don't plan to actually edit the page), you can specify the colour of each section in a table using:

|-bgcolor=#FF0000

Replacing #FF0000, of course, with your preferred colour. CSS purists would use the CSS command instead of the HTML command, in which case it would look like:

|-style="background-color:#FF0000"

Hope that helps, too :) --Nephele^Talk 14:34, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Thankyou! Sorry about that mess earlier - I went way too far. --HMSVictory 14:40, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Hang on, When I insert the parameter at the very start, nothing changes. And when I place it next to a particular Userbox, only the area in which that one is situated is affected. Where should I put it? --HMSVictory 14:50, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Thanks. You may have noticed that I recently redid my userpage to a massive table. I've written it using HTML format, because I find that a lot easier, so to align the text to the middle I'm assuming I have to type: <td vertical-align=middle> Is that right? - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 15:01, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Not quite. The correct code would be <td style="vertical-align=middle;"> --Nephele^Talk 15:48, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

HMSVictory: yes, that command will only work for an individual row in the table. To change the entire table, you need to change the style at the top of the table. So the first line of your table will look like:

{| style="float:left; margin-right:1.5em; background-color: #FF0000;" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=2 rules=none

--Nephele^Talk 15:53, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Strangely they both work... I suppose that <td vertical-align=middle> is for when there are fewer style commands, like with tables, you can enter <{| class=wikitable style="width:100%;" or {| class=wikitable width=100% - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 16:46, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Umm... I don't think so. Just to be sure, I just did a test, using HTML table commands on UESPWiki, and <td vertical-align=middle> had no effect. Because the HTML santizier knows that "vertical-align" is not a valid HTML attribute and therefore strips the attribute out completely. Although HTML sanitizers on other wikis might act differently and allow vertical-align to go through, it still should not have any effect, because again, it's not a valid HTML attribute. Even if one browser took the unusual step of choosing to recognize an attribute that is not in the HTML standard, it would still be very bad HTML practice to use the attribute, because no other browsers would recognize it.

What's going on is that there are two ways to specify formatting: one set of (out-of-date) HTML commands, and a second set of newer, more powerful CSS commands. In the case of "width," the HTML and CSS commands happen to coincidentally be the same. So the HTML command is <table width="100%">; the CSS command is <table style="width:100%;">. Both do essentially the same thing, although there are differences in the details. However, in the case of vertical alignment, the HTML command is "valign," whereas the CSS command is "vertical-align". So the two options are the HTML version, <td valign="middle">, or the CSS version, <td style="vertical-align:middle">. HTML standards are pretty specific about what attributes are recognized. "vertical-align" is not in any HTML standard, and therefore it will be completely ignored by standards-compliant browsers. --Nephele^Talk 17:15, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

I've found the problem. I also was testing some of it out, although I did it by using editor to make a .htm file. After saving it, then opening it in IE, is opened up the "quelltext" in german (My pc is in german), and IE had seen <td vertical-align=middle> and automatically replaced it with <td valign=middle>. - Game Lord^{Talk|Contribs} 17:30, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

That explains it :) --Nephele^Talk 18:03, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Have you seen this?

I think User_Talk:80.4.7.84 is you know who again, what do you reckon? Volanaro 14:56, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I've seen it. But I suspect that the situation is not completely straightforward, so it's definitely not appropriate to do anything more proactive than warning the IP address at this time. --Nephele^Talk 15:38, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Oh, look here... and here. No visible page spoiling, but... I've just had too much to see on OblivionModWiki. ~ Arilita 13:09, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

Sorry, but I seem to have missed the point of that comment. Yes, I am quite well aware of what has been done on OblivionModWiki. But I see no relationship between OblivionModWiki and an IP address that has only made one contribution to UESP, and zero contributions to OblivionModWiki. Even using admin privileges to run CheckUser on that IP address confirms that there is no connection between the IP address and the user(s) hinted at in these posts. Other than suspicion and innuendo, I do not see anything in this IP address' contribution history that justifies anything more, at this time, than the warning already placed on the talk page.

Furthermore, I do not have the power to take administrative action against a user on another site; if you feel that something needs to be done on another wiki, perhaps you should be complaining on the talk page of that wiki's admins? --Nephele^Talk 15:51, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

Well, it would be logical to suspect that it's the same person who did that, and that, and that (because of 'trains' topic). As well as that and that.

And your comment here made me think you know that 'nice' company... Well, I may be wrong and assuming too much. I'll drop this until I see any real damage. ~ Arilita 01:35, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

Well, thanks for all your support. Because I'm sure I didn't have anything better to deal with today than another problem dumped on my plate without any apparent fix or solution, and without any apparent reason. It's just these types of things that make me so wonderfully happy to be an admin on this site (and just in case it wasn't obvious, yes, that comment was very sarcastic). Thanks for making my day. --Nephele^Talk 01:59, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm going to look into the whole situation tomorrow, so please redirect any comments on these things to me, alright Arilita (and whoever else may have them)? --Ratwar 02:17, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

Character help

Can you help me.. I have a high elf with a atronach sign but i need to know...Whats the highest magicka possible? --Umbacano 4:59 , 28 March 2008 (EDT)

It all depends upon how much you want to do. At 100 intelligence, without any enchantments or effects, you'll have 450 Magicka. But there are ways to push your base intelligence past 100, to 112 if not even higher. Then on top of that you can add fortify magicka or fortify intelligence enchantments, multiple fortify magicka+fortify intelligence potions and scrolls, etc. Adding everything up, constant-effect magicka in excess of 1000 is possible; temporary magicka boosts over 1700 are possible. See also Oblivion_talk:Magicka. --Nephele^Talk 18:19, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Im very very confused...

For recored i dont know if im doing this right if not just delete it. Ok i just got oblivion and ive been on google lookin stuff up and i fond this site. So fare ive been searching lots under this sight but i keep getting messages saying My edit has been deleted or something? But i never edited anything? Ive been lookin up how u edit thing just make sure and im pretty positve i never clicked on edit. Do you know if there someway ive been editing and not knowing about it? Ps.Sorry it so long. — Unsigned comment by 64.12.116.78 (talk)

I'm not exactly sure what message you're getting, so it's hard to know what specifically has happened. However, since you're connecting to the internet through AOL you're probably experiencing a common problem among AOL users: you are getting mistaken for some of the millions of other AOL users out there. When you connect to our site, you are identified only by your IP address, which probably changes every time you connect to the internet. And some of those AOL IP addresses have been used previously by other AOL users who have vandalized our site or otherwise acted in ways that required us to post messages for them. If you happen to be the next person to use that IP address, you'll get a message that was intended for the previous user.

It's likely that you have never edited any UESP pages (at least before posting this message ;) )... although it's hard for me to answer conclusively, because I don't know exactly what IP addresses you've previously used. If you'd like to find out for sure what's happening, it would help me to have more details about the messages. In particular, if there's anything that says your "IP address is ___" or if there are any IP addresses (numbers that look like 64.12.116.78) visible anywhere in the message. Or if you want to avoid the messages completely, you could create an account: if you're logged in, then our computers will no longer see you as an anonymous AOL user, and therefore you won't get sent any messages that are actually intended for other anonymous AOL users. --Nephele^Talk 12:49, 29 March 2008 (EDT)

Race Redirects

Im not here to yell at you about deleting the suggestion on UESPwiki:Task list on Race Redirects, but I checked, Tamriel:Dark Elves Tamriel:Wood Elves and Tamriel:Dwarves DO NOT exist. Please don't delete them. (I already added them.)

But Tamriel:Dark Elf, Tamriel:Wood Elf, Tamriel:High Elf (and for that matter Oblivion:Dark Elf, Oblivion:Wood Elf, and Oblivion:High Elf) do exist. The singular versions of names are preferred for redirects. And I've already proposed deletion for the redirects you created. --Nephele^Talk 21:34, 30 March 2008 (EDT)