User talk:Nocturnal

No, how many times to I have to tell you? I am not the famous Deadric Prince. You've got the wrong guy.

Besides, people keep stealing from her!

Recent Comments

I think it's time somebody had a word about the tone of your edits. You obviously want to improve the site, and that's good, but there's a certain etiquette that is usually observed and calling one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable editors a vandal is definitely not in the book.

First, let me tell you about your... antagonist. If you take a look at the site's list of Active Users you'll find Nephele in second place. If you look around the site you'll find that she spends a lot of time helping other people with their questions about the game and adding information to the site as well as coordinating large-scale improvements. There really are not very many people that could legitimately claim to have made more significant contributions. On the other hand, even if Nephele turned out to be a one-post newbie, your responses to her posts would still not fit in with the way we like the site to work.

Next, let's look at the issue at hand. To quote your post on Oblivion Talk:Alchemy, "Maybe I'm wrong and this is really the best way the wiki should be run". The main goal of this site is to be accurate. That means there's not much room for opinion or speculation and that the pages that indulge in such things are marked. In the original case here, as Nephele explained, a vague but accurate statement is better than a specific but inaccurate one. She made an entirely correct change to revert information which violated that principle, explaining the change by pointing out that the "original was more accurate" [1]. It was then that you made your outburst. We have several simple rules about running the site, one of which is that we always try to Assume Good Faith. Your edits to the Oblivion talk:Alchemy page didn't do that. Rather, in one message you accused a fellow editor of stalking and vandalism ([2]) which is clearly unacceptable.

Finally, it's usual to sign one's messages with one's real name so calling yourself "Potion Addict" when your username is "Nocturnal" is, whilst not wrong, a little unusual. Previous occasions when users have done this have not turned out for the best. Signing yourself with four tildes (~~~~) is the best way to sign one's messages.

Please keep editing because - as I've noted - you obviously want to help. But please bear in mind the simple thought that other people might also want to help! --Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 19:39, 17 November 2007 (EST)

The "vandalism" reference was to my understanding that reversions are typically reserved for vandals. Two thirds of my most recent article edits have been completely negated in this fashion. In simple words, I was implying that Nephele does not appear to assume good faith and treats me as though I were a vandal. I was attempting to illustrate a difference in approach, which generated an ironic response. If I had behaved the same way (as I would towards a vandal,) I would have simply reverted her reversion, with the summary "no it isn't."

I am aware of Nephele's position and, seeing she lists herself as a Mentor, had fully intended to ask her to mentor me so I could be a better contributor. However I'm no longer convinced the style of mentorship she'd likely use would suit me. By the way, I have been for several years an administrator of the official forums of a very successful (multi-million pound) game franchise, well-respected precisely because I put in the extra effort to sympathetically explain why I censor whatever I do. In the long run this saves me work because people learn to police themselves.

I have contributed to Wikipedia and am well aware of the ways in which wikis operate.

Interestingly, the template you mentioned was present on one such page that I edited, and, having clearly marked my edit as needing confirmation, it was reverted by Nephele. The removal turned out to be merited, but not for the reasons she did it.

This username was made quite a while ago when the site required logins, to make a single correction. I have edited anonymously with a more suitable name and wanted to maintain accountability. If you have a problem with that, I can stop linking and anyone can see from my IP or name who has edited. Is your real given name Rpeh? I don't see what the problem is. Perhaps the site should still require logins, or perhaps even better, it should require a certain minimum number of edits before you may edit anything. (I just love irony and Catch-22 is my favorite book.)

In the future I will limit myself to edits of my own page or possibly talk pages, and those can be moved to the articles if anyone ever sees them and gets around to it. There is no reason for me to contribute in the expectation that most of what I do will be dismissively removed rather than improved. --80.179.12.87 08:00, 2 December 2007 (EST)

The first thing to remember about UESP is that it's not Wikipedia. I'm not tying to be patronising by saying that, merely trying to point out that what is true on WP isn't necessarily true on here. In particular, as you have noted, we tend to do full reverts more often - and not just for reasons of vandalism. For instance, I just reverted an edit on Oblivion:Illegal Cargo: it wasn't vandalism, it wasn't incorrect - but it was irrelevant to that page. Nephele undid your first edit and clearly stated that the "original was more accurate", something you proved for yourself. I'm sorry if you find the way the site works restrictive, but out of 12,870 registered users you're one of a very small number that has had these kinds of problems. I would respectfully suggest that it is not with the site that the problem lies. --Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 08:42, 2 December 2007 (EST)

Funny, even from a cursory look in the past few days I've seen I'm far from the only one who feels this way. For example, in a pretty similar circumstance to this you answered a user's sentiment that "My attempts to contribute both content and ideas just seem to meet with unexpected disapproval from senior users. What an unfortunate waste of time and effort." I have seen suggestions that preserving content is "overwhelmingly" more important to most editors than, and I quote, "cleaning stupid edits" ("cleaning" here used in the sense of "wiping out") but the behavior followed by some longtime contributers is exactly the opposite. If you "veterans" care about keeping "your" wiki the way you made it at the expense of new input, that's fine, but in a way it kind of defeats the normal purpose of a wiki. In any case, I refuse to care enough to make it my problem. --Nocturnal 04:49, 3 December 2007 (EST)

These things happen. Edits are watched by patrollers. An unpatrolled edit will just stay in the list of ones to edit. Thus all of your posts will be monitored, just like everyone else. Most new content isn't vandalism and is good. Sometimes new users have edits of varying quality, which might be deleted, or were already in the page. Admins try to do what is best for the wiki. I doubt Nephele is "stalking you", she just happened to be patrolling whenever you had posted that. If you disagree with policy, then try to change it by posting on their talk pages. Veteran users will try to do what is best, but sometimes what is best steps on peoples toes. The best thing you might want to remember is that Perfection isn't Required (Unless if you are the only Daggerfall editor ). Try to see the best, patrollers are just trying the keep the wiki both user friendly and factual. If you have any questions/comments/complaints please contact me on my User Page. --Timmeh ^Talk 19:22, 6 December 2007 (EST)

If we examine the Policies for this wiki we can clearly see that most of them are not being followed by the patrollers. For example the policy on Consensus suggests "editors should not feel paralyzed by an expectation that they need approval of the community before making any edits." Just read the bit there about "Reaching Consensus" to see how little it is followed: "In particular, administrators do not have inherently greater authority than other editors." but by reverting changes before anyone sees them, they preemptively eliminate the possibility of discussion. The policy on Assume Good Faith wisely suggests "If you can reasonably assume that something is an error, then you should simply correct it without completely reverting it..." If indeed Perfection isn't Required then recent-changes Patrollers should not revert every imperfect (by their own subjective definition) change by default. When I spotted a change that had been reverted a few times in a fairly unimportant article, I made another change deliberately to see how long it would take for it to be reverted. It took a few hours and at least the editor gave some explanation (note Nephele's consistent lack of patience for any sort of explanation beyond "I'm always right.") I wonder if you people truly read the policies you link me to; it's almost laughable. Why should I believe them if actions consistently belie them? It seems like such a waste of time those patrollers could spend doing something productive, though far be it from me to comment on anyone else's lack of life. The behavior here is not similar to any wiki (including game wikis) I've ever seen and as I've said before defeats the purpose of the publicly-editable format.

What I would propose is to formally change the format of the wiki to an "approval-only" system where no edit appears on any page until it is approved. This would require an Admin's "opt-in" approval of every single change made to the wiki, and someone could gain this right after making for example 1000 approved edits, or by Admin nomination. It's a fairly simple change to the existing recent-changes patroller system. This is a better reflection of the status quo, more naturally promotes elitism, makes the job much easier for recent changes patrollers, and preserves the stasis of the wiki without demanding constant vigilance. Of course, I will not propose it anywhere official because if I did, it would doubtless be reverted before being considered or discussed... Even though I adore irony. But thank you for your input.

I have played Daggerfall extensively for a long time; I am somewhat knowledgeable about it and even bought the strategy guide. That game seems impossible to win without it. --Nocturnal 08:25, 6 January 2008 (EST)

It seems unfortunate, Nocturnal, that you have interpreted everything that has happened with such a persistently negative bias. You are clearly an intelligent person who is very knowledgeable about Elder Scrolls. This wiki would not exist without the contributions of editors such as yourself, so I regret the loss of a potentially valuable community member. But despite many hours spent reading over your comments and considering your points, I have a hard time finding the evidence to support your claims. Rather it seems to me that your comments are rooted in some critical misunderstandings of the wiki editing process.

So to start, let me try to clarify a few points about editing and in particular the "undo" mechanism:

• Having an edit undone is not a black mark against an editor's reputation. It is not spitting on an editor; it is not a punishment. Undoing edits is nothing more than a non-judgmental mechanism for maintaining the site's standards of quality and accuracy. See also the comments at Editing Pages.
  The only person imagining these negative consequences is you. Nobody else in the community is going to think worse of you just because some edits were undone. All of us have had edits we made undone (including myself). I can think of one or two regular editors who have probably had hundreds of their edits undone; even so, those editors are still active members of the community whose contributions to the site are welcome. Nobody else would even remember that some of your edits had been undone, except that you have focussed so much attention on those edits.
• Undo is not an administrative tool. Any editor on the site can choose to undo any edit; many editors regularly use the undo function. For example, this undo was made today by a brand new editor. If administrators and patrollers tend to use undo more often than other editors, it's merely because they are some of the most active members of the site and in particular the most regular monitors of the recent changes page. Therefore, adminstrators are not exerting greater authority than other editors, if they are merely using a tool that is equally available to everyone.
• Undo is not the same as revert. To you, it may seem like a subtle distinction. However, I can't help but think that you are reacting as if your edits were undone using the "revert" tool, which is only available to administrators. The "revert" tool is used exclusively for instances of vandalism, for example this or this. Another key difference with revert is that no explanation is given for why the edit was reverted, because it is assumed to be self-evident. By contrast, an explanation is given when undoing an edit because it is assumed that the original editor made the edit in good faith and therefore may want to know why the edit was undone.
• Assume good faith does not mean assume perfection. There is no inconsistency between assuming that an editor acted in good faith (i.e., that the editor's intent was to improve the article), but at the same recognizing that the edit added mistaken or out-of-place information. All of us do make mistakes, even when well-intentioned. Assume good faith means that scolding or in any way denigrating an editor for a well-intentioned mistake is wrong. However, it does not mean that the incorrect information should be left on UESP articles, where it is likely to mislead or confuse readers.
• Patrollers do not undo every imperfect edit, despite your implication otherwise. I don't really see how you can reach such a conclusion if you have actually spent any time looking over the work that patrollers routinely do. New additions are routinely revised to fix typos and grammatical errors, including minor, moderate and substantial revisions. Edits are marked as needing verification; we also have tags for cleanup, stub, etc. all of which are regularly added to new content, as appropriate. Note that the edits I chose as examples were all made shortly before your latest post and therefore can safely be taken to represent "business as usual" at UESP (which is also why rpeh got the spotlight!) We have even recently come up with new tags such as good question to provide patrollers with even more alternatives.
• The purpose of UESPWiki is to provide a site with accurate and legible information. The whole reason for the patrolling system is to maintain the accuracy of the site's information. The edits that get undone are those that add inaccurate, duplicate, or incomprehensible information. Those edits get undone quickly because leaving such information in place will not help any readers.

Overall, I have to assume that your interest the site means that you have found UESP to be a useful resource for finding information. Therefore, it seems that our patrollers' diligence in maintaining standards for the site must have (at least in small part) contributed to the site's usefulness. You have benefitted, whether or not you realize it, from the fact that mistaken information is rapidly removed from pages, that uncertain information is flagged as needing verification, etc. I don't know the other anonymous wikis to which you are comparing UESP, but I can't believe that any site would benefit from leaving additions like this or this in place.

As for your specific comments:

• Were you ever told that you should have asked for approval before making your edits? No. You have routinely been invited to continue contributing to the site. We have been more than willing to discuss your revisions with you afterwards to reach a consensus on what was appropriate for the article. The result of those discussions has been further changes to the article that met with everyone's approval. A consensus was reached based on everybody's contribution.
• I cannot see any examples in discussions with you (or even other discussions for that matter) where administrators have acted as if they have greater authority; no administrative actions have been taken against you, nor have there been any official warnings or other type of official action. The actions that you complain about, namely undoing edits, are (as previously detailed) actions available to any editor on the site.
• Undoing edits is not done to "eliminate the possibility of discussion". The very fact that we are currently having a discussion about a minor edit made more than a month ago would seem to me to be ample proof of that fact. The primary motivation behind rapidly undoing inaccurate or misleading edits is to maintain the site's quality and prevent readers from accidentally finding false information. But nothing about the "undo" process eliminates discussion. The edit is still visible in recent changes, where other editors are free to still reconsider the edit (which frequently does happen); the edit is still part of the article history.
• Editors do not revert all imperfect edits, as previously discussed.
• From my point of view, your example of an editor replacing "en route" with "on the route" is a perfect example of an edit that, despite being made in good faith, nevertheless did not improve the article.
  • "On the route" does not have the same meaning or connotations as "en route". In the context of the sentence, "en route" was the more appropriate phrase, suggesting any enemies that appear anywhere while you are in transit from one place to another. "On the route" has connotations of only enemies that appear directly upon your designated path, whereas the whole point of the paragraph is to emphasize that you do not need to follow a designated path, or even any type of road at all. If LostChapterz had asked for more details, I would have happily provided them. However, my edit summary, "original was more appropriate," still seems like a perfectly adequate synopsis of my reasoning.
  • I definitely was not motivated by a desire to "always being right". I didn't write the original text; I didn't write the replacement text. I simply made a choice between which of the two versions of the text was more useful to the site's readership. Either way, there was absolutely no implication for whether or not I was right.
  • My actions were also not motivated by a "lack of patience". I just happened to be in the process of patrolling the recent changes to the site. I don't see how there is any advantage to the site (to its readers, to other editors, or to other patrollers) that is gained by leaving an inaccurate change in place any longer than necessary.
• Other new editors do not appear to have had your same negative reaction to everything that has happened to them. Other editors seem to have had no problem adapting to the wiki's "publicly-editable" format. For example, Brandol or TheNicestGuy stand out as two brand new editors who have jumped in and hit the ground running; looking at recent changes I always see new editors (at this very moment, for example: Alphax, Gez, Spinality, Ong elvin) contributing, each of whom proves that the publicly-editable format does work. Without any need to ask for approval ahead of time, each of these editors has helped to improve the site. From everything I can tell, the statistics overwhelmly show that your cases are by far the minority, not the majority, reaction.
• I really don't see how your proposal of approving every edit before it appears on an article would help the site. It's not even a question of what's technically feasible; such an option can be enabled in the mediawiki software. Rather it's that it's not the way that the community wants the site to work. It would scare away many editors who are simply interested in quickly fixing a typo that they happen to notice. And I don't see that having your edit rejected before you even add it to the article would in any way be better having it undone after it is added to the article.
• I'm quite dumbfounded at your suggestion that "... it would doubtless be reverted before being considered or discussed." I'm quite sure it's not based upon any actual example of what is done on the site, and it's definitely not based upon any example of how editors have treated you. All of your questions have been left in place, and other editors have taken time to carefully consider your questions and respond to them. Your feedback has even been the basis of changes made to articles such as UESPWiki:Getting Started and Help:Editing Pages. So to claim that your comments have somehow been deleted or ignored is, as far as I can tell, preposterous.

We all make mistakes. Therefore, I have no doubt that if you examine any individual editor's contribution history you will find mistakes. But I think further examination will also show that the system works, no matter who makes the mistake. Personally, I feel that one set of edits that started this whole dialogue, namely those you made to Oblivion:Alchemy are great examples of the system working: the discussions resulted in definite improvements to the article, improvements that everybody involved agreed were accurate and useful. I will readily admit to having made many mistakes while editing the site, for example, in this edit I added incorrect information. Volanaro pointed out the mistake; Timenn fixed it. I'm grateful to Volanaro and Timenn for checking up on my facts and improving the site. In my opinion, the most important factor is whether the site ends up being improved at the end of the process; I could care less who made mistakes along the way.

The bottom line is that if you would actually like to contribute productively to the site, please do so. However, if you are more interested in just repeatedly nitpicking over details of edits from months ago, especially edits where a consensus has already been reached, I fail to see how that is a productive contribution. From here on, I'd rather spend my time trying to help new editors who actually want to learn about how to edit. My apologies in advance if I fail to respond to any further unsubstantiated allegations. --Nephele^Talk 18:05, 7 January 2008 (EST)

Ok. Nephele covered it. But you know about Daggerfall. Gimme Gimme! I want to see edits from you. Anyway you can help will be appreciated. If you need advice on where to start, msg me on my talkpage (link in signature). --Timmeh ^Talk 18:12, 7 January 2008 (EST)

Apologies, I actually got Oblivion running so I was off playing it instead of messing around here, and then I migrated to the Alps for the winter, so my absence was not entirely due to spite. Just mostly. Still, a long and well-considered dissertation like that merits a serious reply! Please forgive me for addressing it so late.

First off I should thank you (collectively and individually) for taking the time and effort to explain yourselves so clearly and politely. I find no fault with you as people. (Even as I realize you might have reason to think differently about me.)

The difference between "undo" and "revert" did seem trivial to me, since the result is basically the same. However I would not have problem if a more complete explanation were given at the time of undoing than what fits in a blurb. "That was not accurate" leaves too much unsaid, in my opinion: "what about it was inaccurate, why was it worse than nothing?" and most importantly "what would be needed to make it accurate enough to be acceptable?" Undoing an entire edit leaves little space for questions such as these, unless an editor wants to make a fuss about it and be accused of blowing things out of proportion as I have. I did take a good criticism that such unacceptable edits should be temporarily moved to the talk pages for discussion and improvement before being placed in the main pages. That practice, I should think, satisfies both the need for accuracy in articles and the desire to encourage collaborative improvement.

To your points: I have indeed found UESP useful in bug resolution and in locating alchemy ingredients, and would have liked to contribute. The wikis to which I compared include the Urban Dead wiki, Wookieepedia, and Wikipedia. The "straw man" examples you brought up of stuff that I shouldn't want to stay on this wiki have no relation at all to the kind of inaccuracies I was talking about. I will assume you didn't mean to be insulting, but I sincerely hope you didn't mean them as a serious comparison! I can't see what else you could have meant by such a claim. It's as if those edits (one of which is simply removing an entire page and cannot be called anything but vandalism) in your mind are equivalent to partially flawed information.

Your mistakes are treated differently from others'. I have seen someone on your talk page apologize in mortification for accidentally undoing one of your changes without seeing it was you. You bring examples of mistakes which were not undone, and improve the site through collaboration, basically making my point. If those mistakes had been removed with the "undo" feature, they never would have been improved on, and would have ultimately contributed nothing. Volanaro could have hit "undo" and said "that is not accurate." He could have changed your edit directly. He chose to comment in the talk page, which is what should normally be done.

I don't care about an edit from months ago; I want you to compare your behavior to the ideal we both acknowledge. I won't change your mind, but with all due respect I think the problem is with you, and not with the site. On the other hand, have you ever considered a job in politics? You might be suited to one.

Timmeh: I am very sorry to disappoint, but I have not played Daggerfall in many years and would not be confident that I can provide accurate information until I fished the CD and the strategy guide out from wherever I've stored them.

--Nocturnal 08:31, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

How reassuring to see that some things never change!</sarcasm> Such as the fact that you continue to base all your actions on a single minor edit that happened five months ago. Given that, for you, nothing else that happens on the wiki has any significance, I suppose it would be impossible to expect you to have any awareness of other activities on the site. Which it makes it somewhat hopeless when you you claim, "I will stop trying new methods of demonstration when I feel that my concerns have been understood". How it is ever going to be possible to show you whether or not your concerns have been understood if your entire wiki experience consists of nothing but this single edit. Everything that can possibly be done as followup to that edit has been done (including revising the article's text to make it acceptable to everyone involved), so why do you keep bringing it up? We can't change the historical fact that the edit happened. If you're going to assume that one, single edit represents everything that has ever been done or ever will be done on the site and judge us based solely on that edit, it is impossible for us to change your judgment.

And how can I be so sure that you haven't paid any attention to what's been happening lately? Becase your latest tirade emphatically criticized my patrolling actions, despite the fact that there is not a single patrolling action in my recent history. Recently, I've been completely and actively avoiding any and all admin/patrolling activities on the site. Going back even further than that, I have been significantly less active as a patroller for some time. So it's obviously impossible for me to win: when you can't find any recent uses of "undo" to complain about, you instead choose to criticize my inaction. Somehow I'm still to blame for everything that happens here. How wonderfully logical!

Not to mention that you obviously have no awareness of any of the changes made to various guidelines and help pages. Nor is it possible for you to have any awareness of various off-wiki discussions that the site's admins and patrollers have had, so you have no way of actually knowing what we do or do not understand. Between your insistence on assuming the worst of everyone here and your disinterest in checking on recent events on the wiki, it seems pretty impossible to ever change your mind. But I suppose I can't expect any better from you, given that you choose to describe yourself as an ego-driven Rebel without a Clue.

If you nevertheless want to stubbornly continue down this path, you could possibly succeed and get everything you want: you ultimately could turn this site into a place where nobody's edits are ever undone or altered in anyway. Because if you keep this up for long enough, you will eventually completely drain the motivation and energy of everyone who wants to help the site. I've already been driven away by similar examples of endless, petty, counterproductive squabbles. And it looks like you're close to driving away Rpeh, too. Believe it or not, we are all normal people with busy lives who take the time to contribute here purely because we enjoy helping the site. But it shouldn't be too surprising that being an admin here is turned into an insufferably painful ordeal, when you consider the number of editors who insist on finding ways to criticize admins for having the unbearable audacity of daring to try to improve the site, or all the editors who want to fill ten pages trading insults over ten words in an article. And, to top it all off, now admins are apparently at fault even for the actions of others. Contributing here can only be enjoyable when everyone in the commnunity is willing to be friendly and supportive towards others, instead of quickly jumping on possible opportunities to start harassing and belittling others.

If multiple editors here want to keep tearing apart the community with negativity, then you should all be prepared for the consequences. Those who want to help others will either get driven away or they will have all of their available time siphoned off into enforcing rudimentary civility. Nobody will be left who has any interest in patrolling recent changes, so there will be no one trying to maintain any type of standards on the site. Those of you who want to edit articles any way you want without anyone daring to subsequently touch the articles will be completely free to do so. And those who want to add obscenities, nonsense, false facts, misleading statements, irrelevant points, unintelligible ramblings, and other junk to articles will also be free to do so. Have fun using the site when you can't open an article without facing offensive nonsense, and when you can't trust the accuracy of any article on the site. But hey, as long as you're free to do whatever you want, who cares about the rest of the site, or about the feelings of other members of the community.

Now, as my penance for the generally uncivil and rude tone of this post, I will go back to my ivory tower to slave over the next set of incomprehensible maps and obscure details. --Nephele^Talk 13:46, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Actually, I based my actions on several separate events, which I will grant all happened some months ago. Assuming that only one edit has any meaning to me only shows that you aren't getting what I'm saying. Your continued "mind reading" of my intentions is not helpful to anyone, and is rather unfriendly and maybe even belittling to boot.

I haven't been keeping up with the happenings on this wiki regularly, so it's likely that you're right and I'm totally out of date. That's good enough for me: I have no problem at all with you doing nothing. I never criticized your inaction and that's just putting words in my mouth again; I don't know why you would think or say that. Oh wait, yes I can think of something but I figured you should have recognized the sarcasm.

I've read the guidelines carefully, but I'll read them again soon since they change, and I'd like to respect the guidelines. Since few or none of my complaints seem to be relevant anymore, I can resume carefully contributing in a minimally-invasive way. It will be up to consensus, patrollers, or readers of talk pages if they want to incorporate anything I have to say into main articles.

If people are tired of administrative duties, nothing stops them from taking a break from those duties or from the site altogether. I do both often on the forum I have administrated for the last several years. One thing I disagree with is the "doom and gloom" suggestion that the site is so fragile that without constant patrolling it will quickly become a useless mess of obscenity. An evolutionary system is more robust than that, and so is a peer-review system. So far the wiki seems to have survived, even though you haven't patrolled for a while.

If your venting has motivated you to contribute new material to the wiki, then some good has come out of it. As for me I am not hurt by your unfavorable interpretation of my "evil plot to destroy the wiki" because I know it is not true. There is no need for the hating. Let me assure you it is not returned.

In other good news! I found the Daggerfall Chronicles (strategy guide) and I can if not test some stuff out then at least reread it for the information.

--Nocturnal 10:44, 24 April 2008 (EDT)