User talk:Rpeh/Arc 200912

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Block Extensions

I have just returned from a week away to find that I'm still blocked on UESP.

I had already sent Ratwar an email asking why my block was extended for three days on the 24th November, an email to which he didn't have the courtesy to reply. I looked in the Block Log to find that he has extended the block again, although at least this time the word "resetting" was spelled correctly. In neither case did Ratwar post any explanation on my talk page, send me any email, or in any way offer any reason why this was done.

This evening I happened to be chatting to an admin on IM and he kindly provided a couple of links so I could find out what had happened. The first extension seems to have been due to this edit, and the second due to this series of edits. In neither case is there any evidence whatsoever that they either edit is anything to do with me.

The first one had an edit summary of "this is rpeh, but I can't log in at the moment". Ratwar has decided that an anonymous editor claiming to be me is prima facie evidence that it is me. Contrast this with his attitude to my alleged sockpuppetry where he refuses to accept the word of an experienced and dedicated editor. In other words, this is a double standard of massive proportions and a blatant violation of "assume good faith". The second IP launched a spirited attempt to prove that it was nothing to do with me before giving up in disgust. Ratwar basically ignored all the statements made by that editor and used it as another opportunity to insult me on the Administrator Noticeboard. It's good to see that Krusty, Eshe and Timenn are more rational on this matter.

The suggestion that an IP coming from Tiscali automatically means it's me is absurd. 79.72.61.216 was wrong about one thing - it's not two million users on Tiscali, it's over four million - Tiscali being the UK's second largest ISP (see this).

It seems that if somebody makes an eloquent post here (or on blogs we're not allowed to link to), it's me because I have the ability to write in complete sentences. Alternatively, if somebody posts badly-spelled and ungrammatical messages, it's me because I'm faking it. That's paranoia.

Robin Hood's suggestion that I should create a new nick isn't really workable. If I tell people that I've done it, nothing will change. If I don't, somebody will spot the connection sooner or later and accuse me of sockpuppetry.

Lastly, I would point out that I'm trying to have a discussion with SerCenKing about images. I don't want to do it through email because discussions like that should take place on site and on the correct page. Ratwar's continued block extensions mean he is obstructing the work of two editors. My block should be lifted immediately. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

While I was writing that, I see Ratwar has finally said what is really on his mind and called me a "disruptive vandal". I have never vandalised a page on this site and I object in the strongest possible terms to the suggestion that I have. Ratwar should apologise for this slanderous suggestion. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If you tell someone, I would tell a relatively neutral admin (you do mention a couple above) and leave it at that. Not everyone has to know. Also, as I would've thought you knew, it's not sockpuppetry to start a new account as long as you completely abandon the original account. If you did that, and became a productive user once again, even if I had hard evidence that it was you by another name, I wouldn't care. But if you do decide to do that, then this account must be abandoned completely. The administrator whom you give your new name to can monitor compliance.

That said, given your continued disputes with Ratwar, myself, and others, I don't think it would be possible for you to actually make a fresh start at this point, simply from the viewpoint that there's probably too many negative feelings on your part right now, even if nobody else ever figured out your new account. My strong suggestion to you would be to simply take a break from everything UESP-related for several months, then consider whether you want to return or if you're better off spending your time on something else. Otherwise, I suspect unproductive debates and bans will probably continue, since there are clearly negative feelings all around. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 18:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I still don't think it would work - if another admin found out and blocked it, the neutral one would have to unblock and the cat would be out of the bag.

I'm not sure what you mean about disputes with you, either. I thought we'd cleared that up in recent emails? I don't think this suggestion would work, but I appreciate you making it. Up until recently I had no problem with Ratwar either. The problem has developed due to the spiteful things he has been saying about me. If he stops doing that, there's no problem. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

(indent) If it's fine with you I have no problems about discussing images on this page, where you can edit freely. Once we finish I could (or you if you're able to) move the discussion to the proper page, whichever that may be. --SerCenKing ^Talk 19:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Using a user talk page to discuss changes on the site wouldn't really be appropriate. We'll just have to wait until the block is lifted. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 19:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we did clear our disputes up by e-mail, but that doesn't negate the fact that we had them. I didn't mean to encourage any particular course of action on your part, just indicating that a fresh start is a well-established procedure and if you decided to do so at some point, whether it's today or a year from now, I wouldn't consider it amiss. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 20:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

More of a misunderstanding than a dispute, I feel. I've just had a two+ month wiki-break and all that's happened is that the opinions of one or two editors here have hardened against me for personal reasons as opposed to any good reason. I'm not interested in using a different username. Whether a couple of people want to deny it or not, the nick rpeh is a byword on this wiki for accurate, factual editing. I don't think I'll see many people disagreeing when I state that only one editor has a better reputation in that regard.

As I say: there are only one or two users that have a problem with me out of a total of over 23,000 users. It's their problem and it is they that must deal with it. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 20:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

True enough, to a point. Right or wrong, some people feel that you and Tiber Septim are one and the same. The fact that someone is also vandalizing the site, hitting locations that cause maximum disruption, from a Tiscali address (where I believe we had only you until recently), is not making that suspicion decrease in any way. If it is you, of course, any editing you do here will be seen as an attempt to cause further disruption. If it's not you, then someone who has access to our server in some way is going out of their way to frame you and turn opinion against you. Again, probably not a good time for you to be editing, unless you can convince people that neither the vandal nor Tiber Septim are really you.

Long story short long ;), no matter how you look at it, until such time as the blog and vandalism stop, chances are there are going to be a lot of people watching your every move and generally assuming bad faith, whether or not they should. Having been an admin yourself, and having dealt with the likes of Daedryon and Dagoth Ur ("D" seems to be a bad letter for us), I'm sure you can understand that there comes a point where the evidence threshold lowers and people just assume that the person they're dealing with is the same vandal they've had these types of problems with in the past. Right now, for better or for worse, one of those people who is assumed to be "the same vandal" is you. Given that, I don't think a two-month wiki-break on its own will do the trick. I've suggested one possibility, which I'll be the first to admit has its flaws, as you pointed out. There are, of course, several others. One way or another, you should think about what the best course of action is, both for you and the wiki. As I said above, I'm not recommending anything in particular...I have no magic answers. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 21:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

No... you're wrong there. The evidence threshold never decreases. That's why I initiated a proper block appeal for DUMG even though I knew damn well it was never going to pass: there are policies and they get followed no matter what the opinion of the user involved. There are current patrollers (inactive ones, admittedly) who were initially regarded with great suspicion because of their first edits.

One question to which I have never received a decent answer is: Why would I want to hurt this site? Forget the edit counts - a lot of my early ones were bot-style stuff - but look at other factors. I have spent a shed-load of money on this wiki: I have two copies of Morrowind (I bought a non-GOTY version because there were three or four VNs that related only to that edition); two copies of Redguard; I actually bought a copy of Arena and Daggerfall; then there's Shadowkey and the NGage I bought solely so I could play it. Add to that the fact that I took days off work if we'd been experiencing vandalism (think back to the Benny220 / HMS WARSPITE stuff, and others), or when I wanted to get bit swathes of work out of the way (all the exterior OB maps got done pretty quickly if you remember). I spent days on the Oblivion and Morrowind maps and days on RoBoT. So WHY?

There's no answer to that. None. Anybody responding with "well you were kicked out" should recall that I resigned and should also bear in mind that I was told by three admins that I could easily have stayed.

The reason I decided to come back is largely down to The Blog That Shall Not Be Linked. I was pointed to it by an admin of this site and I've followed it since. When you strip out the childish insults and bad language it's actually not bad and makes several salient points - which is probably why the people targeted don't like it. In my opinion, the site is suffering and - as I have said - I've put too much time, money and effort into it to see that happen. That's why I came back. None of the edits I made in my initial edit flurry has been reverted, which would tend to suggest that I wasn't entirely wrong.

If people want to assume that I'm a vandal, that's their prerogative, but I have 78,000 edits that say different. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 21:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, first off, I'm not making any accusations in what I'm about to say, I'm simply responding to the above questions with possible answers to be considered. As I said in my private e-mail a couple of weeks ago...it's in my nature. :) I think it's good that we're having a productive conversation, and I don't want to spoil that with any misperceptions of my responses.

Now, for the first bit, the evidence threshold, an example of what I'm referring to can be found in your post here. (Amusingly, that's not even the one I was thinking of, but it serves just as well.) There's the implicit assumption that, in your own words, "any suspicious activity from home.cgocable.net is probably down to this individual". In the same way, some people are currently of the belief that "any suspicious activity from 79.72.*.* or 89.168.*.* is probably down to this individual". As you say, though, in terms of official actions, our personal opinions have no place in official decisions (in fact, I just reminded someone of this off-wiki earlier today), and I agree that we need to keep in mind that "probably" is not "proven". On the flip side, anybody with long-term wiki or even TCP/IP experience will know that you can almost never prove issues of this nature due to dynamic IPs, etc. You simply have to draw a line somewhere and say "Okay, there's enough evidence that we have to assume that such-and-such is true."

On to the second question: if indeed it is you, why would you do this? At the risk of sounding cliché (not to mention miscasting you as the opposite gender), "Hell hath no fury...". For the sake of the remainder of the paragraph, let's assume that everybody whom anybody has ever suspected is you really is you...only to save on a boatload of typing. Of course, I'm also not presenting this as "clearly this is the case", just as one possible perception of things, to respond to your question. Anyway, on to my answer:

• As mentioned in my e-mail to you, there's little question that you've had issues with a few people over the years (Nephele most notably, though to an extent that's to be expected given that you were the two most active contributors) and, right or wrong, you've driven a few people away, TheRealLurlock being the most prominent.
• This was no big deal until you ran across Elliot. It's no secret that you had issues with Elliot, and I think you let them get personal. When nobody else seemed to take things as seriously as you did, you decided to make his shortcomings more plain by creating a second account and antagonizing him in a classic good-hand, bad-hand scenario.
• This backfired and you were caught. In a curious reversal of your intention, it drew everyone's focus to you and away from any perceived wrong-doing by Elliot. That's when things really started to degenerate.
• You were summarily blocked (albeit uselessly, since you had the power to reinstate yourself), which didn't come across too well, since you felt that you should have been approached more respectfully.
• After the evidence was presented, there were calls for your de-sysopping from those you thought were your friends and who would be willing to overlook the incident. This in turn led to you feeling jilted. After all, as you point out, you have some 78,000 edits and have been a good admin for a couple of years now. (And on that, I think few, if any, would disagree!) Not to mention the fact that you've put a lot of time, effort, and indirectly, even money into the site.
• Feeling betrayed, you then reacted poorly in any number of minor scuffles (which I won't bother to look up, since they're not terribly relevant in their own right), sometimes as you, sometimes as Calliope, and also as a third sockpuppet account, which you thought nobody would believe you'd create after having just been caught as Calliope.
• With the continuing betrayal and negative feelings, you become malicious and create UESP Watch, posting primarily about those who, at least initially, acted most against you: myself, Elliot, and Ratwar (though there are certainly others mentioned there as well). Noticeably, there are few or no posts about GK, Krusty, or Timenn, who did not come out against you in the initial Calliope incident.
• You get some good jibes in there and in fact, catch us with our pants down a few times, but you're also caught making mistakes of your own at times, and still feel a need to vent. What's more, people notice that even though you dismiss or speak against some of what's in the blog, you and Tiber Septim agree on a number of the more important points, which leads to them assuming that Tiber Septim is you acting out of spite, which they ignore, dismiss, or make fun of.
• This, in turn, leads to you attacking the site. Since you've been here for many years and seen attacks yourself, you know exactly where to hit, in particular the major Templates, though you're not above a little petty vandalism to user and article pages as well.
• Nevertheless, you still feel an attachment to this site after your long years here, and can't help but occasionally come back to edit...sometimes helpfully, sometimes only to tweak someone's nose, since you were right and they were wrong. This, in turn, leads to more arguments, assumptions of bad faith, and negative feelings overall, becoming a downards spiral.

Okay, so, that was one possible scenario. Yes, it was pretty blunt and makes a boatload of assumptions, but you asked how people could possibly see you this way, so I answered. As I said in my e-mail, if you ask, I'll pretty much always give you an answer, even if it's one that you might not like. I can make a similar case that paints you as the (relatively) innocent victim in all this as well, if you feel the need to convince yourself that I really am keeping my mind open to multiple possibilities. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

That's less of a scenario and more a mini-series!

First with the Daedryon vandalism. It was more serious than most cases because he wasn't just annoying us, he was annoying users unconnected with UESP. His activities on IRC came close to getting UESP kicked off Chatspike because he usually used the Java client to log on. I contacted Nephele and she put an htaccess ban on people from cgocable loading the client. That's how serious the situation was. This page shows just how many individuals blocked Daedryon from IRC (and indeed, I created that whole page purely because of Daedryon). My assumption (which was later demonstrated to be accurate, by the way) wasn't out of spite as some people's opinions of me are. When a user who has previous used IRC to disrupt UESP posts "The return is imminent" it kind of implies a connection with a previous user.

Furthermore, Daedryon was always open about it. For a while he even ran the "DaedryonWiki" on Wikia and openly discussed his trolling of UESP. The various actions of Tiscali IPs has been totally different. There's been blatant vandalism (the Get a life thing); minor annoyances (the anon that led to my latest block extension) and the odd helpful edit. I seem to recall somebody commenting that if I was the same person as Calliope then I was great at roleplay. I'd have to be a crowned world roleplay champion to be able to keep up with everything I've been accused of! To save you the bother, I'm simply not that good. I play the role of a 30-something computer programmer pretty well but that's about it.

I'm not going to go into detail on the individual plot points you brought up except to comment on the me=Dr Jones thing. This one has only come to my attention in the last few days. You need to look at his contributions more carefully - the account was created some time in early November 2008, which means I'd need quite astonishing prescience to have created it as a sock to use against Elliot, since he didn't join until five months later.

As for the innocent victim scenario, I'd love to read it - it might help stop me getting too paranoid that everybody is out to get me! –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 10:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

\=> Back to the question how rpeh could return to editing the site if he wanted to. I don't think it's healthy to dwell on the theories around what is happening. I think the best way for rpeh to prove his good intentions is to continue editing the way we have known him for the past years. Having him create a second account won't really work. The older people will be able to spot his mannerisms (testing strategies, expertise, discussion style, etc.) in a short while anyway. We should accept that rpeh will not have the luxury that he can prove his innocence, and rpeh has to accept that various editors are reluctant to judge, and don't want to take a side in this. --Timenn-<talk> 13:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I must say, I totally agree with Timenn on this one. Rpeh, instead of trying to justify your actions with huge discussion with only end up in more tension, let your edits speak for themselves. I'm sure that no-one would have even the faintest idea of saying you want to hurt this site in that case; although I can't see how people have done this in the past. --SerCenKing ^Talk 19:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing, indeed eager, to begin editing. If someone will remove Ratwar's latest block I'll start. My first task will be to discuss the issues you raised about images. After that I'm going to look at fixing the problems there are with templates. At the moment, this is the only page I can edit. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 19:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I am against someone else stepping on Ratwar's toes, so it should be him who unblocks you. But I am for the unblocking. –Elliot ^talk 19:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Any administrator should be "willing, indeed eager" to remove a scurrilous, mendacious block made in bad faith. They should be proud for having done so. 87.118.104.203 21:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. What I really need right now is somebody making that kind of comment via a proxy. Thank you again. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 21:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I just want to say that Elliot beat me to the revert by about 5s. For the record, my edit summary was "in general, I am against removing talk page posts. I make exceptions though". –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 21:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Okay, since it was asked for, I'll post it, but I intend for this to be my last post on the subject of rpeh being or not being a vandal and what the possible scenarios might be (which is not to promise that it will be...we all know how that goes). Frankly, I'm as tired of this whole thing as anybody else, and believe we should move back to our usual duties. Oh and rpeh: nobody I know of has ever accused me of being excessively terse. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the average length of my talk page posts is second only to Nephele. :) Also, as for Dr Jones, I only brought that up as I know some people were thinking that and the base assumption was that you were everybody that anybody had ever accused you of being. Under that scenario, you might have initially created the account for testing purposes in order to have an account with "regular user" permissions, much as GuildKnight had GK, and only later used it as a troll account. I don't consider it a strong likelihood, but the point was to explore the possibilities under the assumption that you would want to disrupt the site, since you asked for a reason why you might be perceived as wanting to. In any event, moving on....

Paralleling the previous post, this post makes the assumption that none of the people ever accused of being rpeh actually are, and rpeh is completely innocent on all counts. Also, for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to only one person, "the vandal", though there is of course the possibility that it's more than one and they're simply feeding off each other's skills. The vandal will also be portrayed as male, since that's more common as far as I know, but again, could be either gender. So here we go:

• Over the course of time, rpeh, as one of the most active administrators, has undoubtedly attracted a lot of attention. At some point in time, he offends the vandal, who may have been a legitimate contributor or have always been a vandal, and the vandal vows revenge (though perhaps not quite that prosaically).
• Clearly, from various contributions, our vandal has been around for a very long time or has gone through copious amounts of site history to make it look that way. Either way, he's very patient and watches rpeh's contributions over time, looking for his chance. Ultimately, after rpeh's multiple "suicide notes" and messages of general discontentment throughout 2009 ([1][2][3][4]), he decides to strike.
• He already has a Dr Jones account that he's not using much, and also decides to create a Calliope account, just to add to the fun. The method is unclear but somehow—be it hacking Daveh or Nephele's password, SQL injection, some vulnerability in MediaWiki 1.14, or whatever else—he manages to alter data to make it appear as though Calliope and rpeh are one and the same, antagonizes various situations around the site, and waits for someone to notice the similarity. It's not long before someone does (we all know the history, so I won't link it here). After that, things become remarkably easy.
• Damned near everyone turns against rpeh, convinced that he's done "a very bad thing". This produces an inevitable s**tstorm.
• Once things die down a bit, he starts UESP Watch to further antagonize the situation. Either being from the UK himself, or knowing that we'd be looking for linguistic clues amongst many other things, he emulates UK spelling and speech, including "-ise" endings, and UK insults like "twat". Furthermore, he alters the time zone for the blog (available by hovering over any post's time) from the default of Pacific Time to GMT, again, either because that's his native time zone or he wants it to appear that way.
  • As a side note for those who were reading UESP Watch in the beginning, it was the Pacific Time, amongst other things, that made me suspect Daedryon initially (a frequent vandal/troll who clearly had issues with rpeh: [5], amongst others), since he was going to school in and contributing from that time zone at last "sighting". I later discovered that this is simply the default setting for all blogs until the creator changes it.
• Not content with that, he contributes to the site, initially via Tor, once again kicking various anthills and being a general nuisance.
• Later on, as Tor nodes were progressively blocked, making it harder and harder to find an unblocked one since they change randomly every 10 minutes, he moved on to vandalizing sensitive areas via some form of proxy into Tiscali (or, again, actually being in the UK and using Tiscali). His choice of templates to vandalize, combined with his apparent ISP, make it appear almost certain that he's actually rpeh. Just what every troll wants...to incite disruption among the leadership of a large site that they've targetted.

So that's how that scenario (or mini-series, if you prefer) goes. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I realize that this is probably not my place to say this but like it or not Rpeh is one of the most beneficial contributers to the site. I had actually thought Rpeh had gone, but some of his edits have really helped me understand some things on Oblivion I would have still been confused about today. In short, we need our best editors to work together or atleast not be constantly at eachothers throats; so can't you guys just edit like you obviously want to do and, not get to wound up in this "blocking" and "accusing" thing. You have the same goals and as long as people go at of their way to hurt the site, I think the problems are derived from egos.Nordickie 01:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello again Rpeh. This is HMSVictory, who you might remember from a while back (read my new page if you wanna know the story). Anyway I was going to come here and say why I've come back and all that malarky, but I've just come across this. I'm not exactly sure what's happened, but it seems there are no grounds to say you are or ever have been a vandal. All the time I was here previously you were one of the most helpful editors and never made an edit that was anything less than beneficial. I really can't see why Ratwar is attributing these disruptions to you, and besides, can't he just block the IP address? Since the edits are not coming from your account, and from what I've read there's no evidence of sockpuppetry, why can any kind of block be justified? -Itachi 18:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, how come you are no longer an admin? When did this happen? -Itachi 18:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I quit a few months ago because I couldn't be bothered to argue with the people who were making unwarranted attacks against me. I came back because I felt it was necessary.

The block was never anything more than part of a personal vendetta, and there's no evidence whatsoever linking me to my alleged actions. Jealousy can be such a horrible thing.

Good to see you back though. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Not meaning to target anyone, but there's a lot of really "childish behaviour" going on here, if you want to call it that. I know because that used to be me, as I'm sure you will remember. I'm nothing like I used to be now, so hopefully I shouldn't fill all you guys with the dread and annoyance I used to. I really can't bear to look at my old posts anymore. By the way, do you think anyone will attack me for creating this account, rather than coming back to my old one? -Itachi 18:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Nah. You'll be fine. Many other people have created new accounts or renamed themselves. Don't worry about it. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks man. If I have any problems editting, which I don't think I will, I'll come to you. -Itachi 18:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Is Nephele still around, by the way? -Itachi 19:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

She hasn't edited at the wiki for a while. She might be active at the IRC channel, but I don't use the IRC, so I can't be sure. --Michaeldsuarez ^{(Talk) (Deeds)} 18:22, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

EditorIDs

Hi rpeh. I know you and Elliot have been discussing it, and I'd appreciate if you could hold off on having RoBoT add the EditorIDs to NPCs until such time as we've reached a better consensus as to whether we want them or not. Thanks! —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 06:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry - Timenn had already referred me to the discussion, and in any case I wasn't planning to run it until the block on my main account expires. The code is written though. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 08:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 09:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Good to have you back!

Yay!! Rpeh's back!! Good to see you back and active! --SerCenKing ^Talk 21:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! It's good to be back. I won't be around for long tonight - I'll start on our image discussion tomorrow. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 21:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

So all that drama's sorted now? Volthawk 21:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No. But I'm not blocked any more. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 21:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back. --Michaeldsuarez ^{(Talk) (Deeds)} 22:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Although what with bunfights elsewhere (not related to UESP) and phone calls I'm not getting all that much done here :/ –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 22:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

<grumbles about people who speak English instead of speaking English :Þ >

Okay, so I googled "bunfight" and got the following from thefreedictionary.com (and similar defs elsewhere):

Noun 1. bunfight - (Briticism) a grand formal party on an important occasion

Not quite understanding how this fits into the above. Is there a more colloquial definition that I just didn't find? —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hope this resolves your question RobinHood, I googled it in spanish and the only definition that could fit here is:

Bun fight: (British Slang) big or official tea party; formal party, dinner party; noisy or disordered gathering of people; small fight between a group of people. Oh and by the way, welcome back Rpeh :) --^MC• S'drassa ^•T2M 00:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, S'drassa, hadn't found that definition. That makes more sense in context. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

S'drassa hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. I'm not having a giraffe so I'll make sure to avoid Briticisms from now on to my chinas can understand me :) –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Indeed, it's good to see you back around! I noticed you've added some Infernal City stuff... do you have any particular ideas as far as how this is going to be organized? --GK^Talk2me 04:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you too! I have a feeling we may end up with the one-page-per-novel design that was mentioned when the novels were first announced. Or at least, one page plus sub-pages. There's simply not enough background information on even the central characters like Annaïg, Glim, Sul and Attrebus. Having said that, the sort of detailed character story you've put together in your sandboxes are great, but I'd be wary of adding too many spoilers for people who want a brief idea of the novel but still want to enjoy it. I know UESP doesn't normally point out spoilers, but there's a huge difference in that regard between a book and a game.

At the moment I think we need to see what happens in the second novel. For the moment I'd keep the structure similar to the current one with a bit of a broom run over it to clean it up. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and welcome back, you old brit! :) --Krusty 11:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I had to come back so I can tease you, SerCenKing and Timenn about football! You and Timenn should be having fun together next summer especially :) –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 11:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I find it somewhat pitiful that despite having "resigned", you can't go twenty four hours without returning to a site full of people who despise and mistrust you. Is your life really that empty? — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

24 hours? Bit longer than that, my dear BoN. If I were you I'd also read the comments in this thread from other people who clearly don't despise and mistrust me. You should also consider if posting anonymous insults on talk pages is the best way to convince people that you have a rich, full life. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 16:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I pretend no such thing. Notice how it took you a few seconds to respond, despite your claim that you wouldn't be around much because you have so much to do. 86.170.198.150 16:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC) — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

I said "I won't be around for long tonight", which was last night. This is a different day and my availability is different too. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 16:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Whatever. I still don't think you should be part of this site. 86.170.198.150 16:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC) — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

Absolutely. What UESP is more people trolling talk pages anonymously. I see that now. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 16:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

My intentions are not to troll. I'm simply registering my disgust that you are back here after what you did. — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

I didn't do anything, but duly noted. Let's add your name to the list. What would it be? Or would you prefer to take a strong, principled stand... anonymously? –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You know who I am Rpeh. I'm not logged in because I'm not an idiot. Rest assured, I am watching you. 86.170.198.150 17:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC) — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

I have no idea who you are, not with that IP. Given this morning's post on the blog that shall not be linked, you're going a long way towards proving that I'm not Tiber Septim, so thanks for that. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:06, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what your talking about, but whatever. If you don't know who I am, I'm not going to fill you in. I value my patroller status too much. 86.170.198.150 17:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC) — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

Nah. You're not a patroller. Our patrollers know how to make properly-indented talk page comments. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am glad rpeh has returned, so rpeh: Glad to see you're back! See you around the site. ^Talk Wolok gro-Barok _{Contributions} 17:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Wolok! I'm enjoying getting back into the swing of it. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

As this is a casual mud slinging match, indentation hardly seems important. Whatever these naive fools say, you will never be trusted here again. — Unsigned comment by 86.170.198.150 (talk) on 8 December 2009

I find it amusing and deeply ironic that you are attacking me for allegedly using a sockpuppet conceal my identity while trolling, and you are using an anonymous address to conceal your identity while trolling. That's true irony. Anyway, bored now. Please direct your comments to /dev/null where they will be more appreciated. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) To our anonymous editor: Regardless of who you are, you've made your position clear. Drop the matter and watch from the shadows if you must, but this needs to end before it escalates. And welcome back rpeh, while I'm here. Dlarsh^{(Talk,Contribs,E-mail)} 17:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Dlarsh! –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Great to have you back! :P - Goblin lair 18:55, 8 December 2009

Hi Goblin lair! Good to see you're still on the ol' fanfics. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Why can't we change edit summaries?

Sorry for stealing your thunder in my AN edit summary. I credited the Vandal Brake link to Timenn, but just realized it was yours. Trying to do too many things at once. ;) —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

As has been said before, stuff happens. It's RationalWik's Nx that deserves the doffed caps - he's RW's Nephele, full of strange words and modern instances as the bard put it. Check out RW's Version page and then around the site - there's some really good stuff that he's done.

I still love all Neph's stuff in case anyone accuses me of being unfaithful! –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 00:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

LOL! I can deal with the idea that you're doffing your cap to more than one person at a time. :) —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 01:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Lucy, you got some s'plainin' to do!

Well, your trick fixed the wanted pages, but it kind of messed up the {{PageLetterMenu}} template. Take a look at this. It also created the category Pages where template include size is exceeded mediawiki. It is caused by too much being transcluded onto one page (similar to the parser function mess up). I did a temporary fix, but I am leaving the grunt work to the man that caused it. :) –Elliot ^talk 06:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Templates

I assume you are, but just in case you're not monitoring the Admin Noticeboard, please see this post, since I know you've been doing some Template work recently. Thanks! —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 06:44, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Cookie moved to jar

A few bugs...

Hey! Hope this won't take too much time to look into, but I've come across a few bugs (and 1 question) and I was wondering if you could check them out. They are:

• S'fara (dialogue question)
• Lazy Kaslowyn (eating AI bug)
• Nanette Don (a whole load of bugs!)

Thanks! --SerCenKing ^Talk 22:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look - probably tomorrow though. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 22:08, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I answered the Lazy Kaslowyn one (same applies to Nermus the Mooch) but the other two are way too complex for me right now. I'll get back to them when I'm less tired. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 20:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

SI Images

On File:SI-item-Amber Weapons.jpg, you Weapons.jpg&diff=447541&oldid=181385 stated that we could do better than gray backgrounds. I went ahead and did it, but reverted it because of the poor quality image. I loaded it up in Photoshop, but the image was just too poor to get any clear cut edges (fine as a thumbnail, but bad when loaded fully). I can go ahead and clean all of the up, but I am not sure it will be fine. My other concern is images such as File:Shivering_Armors.jpg and File:Clothing02.jpg, where the gray actually provides a better contrast. Thoughts? –Elliot ^talk 07:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Gray is plain ugly, which is why, back in the day, Benould spent some time adding background to the artifact pictures here (for example). If the images are too poor then they can be re-taken, but feathering and careful composition can usually make up for even the poorest image. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 10:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I will retouch them then. And... undoing my edit was hardly necessary. –Elliot ^talk 10:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Well... neither was removing the cleanup tag. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 10:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah it was, but regardless. I uploaded some, although I think it might be best to just replace the images. It was pretty hard to do some of them, and they came out a little nicked. –Elliot ^talk 11:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help!

Cookie moved to the jar

Thanks for the images

Hello, and thank you for suppling images to the NPC pages I created. I was unsure how to do it properly myself (plus it didn´t really help that one of them is dead on my save). Thanks a bunch, mate! Kalrot 00:27, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely no problem! Thank you for spotting that we didn't have pages for those NPCs - that's much more important. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:03, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Cookie moved to the jar

Help creating a character

Hi Rpeh, do you think you could help me with something? — Unsigned comment by 86.171.138.4 (talk) on 24 December 2009

I'm not going to be online for long, and I don't have access to the games at the moment, but if I'm still around then I'll try. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I wish to create an "awesome character" designed for stealth. I've read the guide here, but don't really understand it. 86.171.138.4 18:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

All characters can end up as awesome with their stealth skill. My current main OB character has 100 sneak and usually wears a 100% chameleon suit so he doesn't get bothered by creatures when he's off exploring.

If you want to be decent at sneaking when you start out, pick a Bosmer, as they get a 10 point bonus to sneak, and make him or her an Acrobat, Agent, Archer, Assassin, Monk, or Thief because you get another 15 point bonus. Next, avoid heavy armor and wear light armor instead or, better still, clothes; your footwear makes a big difference. Even with all that, you won't be great at sneaking from the start, but you shouldn't be too bad. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Great TR work

Cookie moved to the jar

Template:Description

You seem to be working with it right now, so just FYI, I changed Template:Description to avoid the {{#if:#load|#save}} construct described at UESPWiki:MetaTemplate#Conditional Expressions. Joram 13:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Help

You've been working with MetaTemplate longer than I have. Can you help with User:Joram/Vav|this problem?

The {{Bullet Link}} template is used on Morrowind Mod:Main Page or was before I reverted it, and the Mods link works fine. Transcluded to Morrowind:Morrowind, it wants to link to the same page in Morrowind space. The only ways I found to fix it are to hard-code the game= parameter or use cryptic coding with MetaTemplate ({{NAMESPACEx:{{#expr:-{{NESTLEVEL}}+1}}}}) to get the original transclusion location. I haven't worked with transcluded content often, so there might be a simple way around this that I don't know.

I've recreated the problem with User:Joram/Aleph filling in for {{Bullet Link}}, Tes3Mod:Test filling in for Morrowind Mod:Main Page, and User:Joram/Vav filling in for Morrowind:Morrowind. Modify any or all as much as you want. Thx. Joram 20:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: I misread the MetaTemplate documentation. Seems {{NAMESPACEx:-1}} is what I need to use, see User:Joram/Zain. Would still appreciate any input you have if there's a better way. Joram 21:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure the Bullet Link template is the way to go. It's one of those nice simple ideas that grows and grows until it becomes a monster that will engulf us all. I'd trim most of it out and just leave a template that links to the page you supply - no guessing about namespaces or anything like that. Anything more is going to lead to the kind of mess we got into with Place Link, Quest Link etc before Neph wrote MetaTemplate. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 09:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Forget what I wrote, I just took your idea for a test drive and it works really well, so I implemented it. It still allows for the simple form I'd designed originally or your idea of a link. Much simpler and cleaner. Thanks for the second set of eyes. Joram 14:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to the intermittent wifi signal on the internet connection I'm... borrowing... those last few comments made for a fun and interesting story :-) Glad it's all sorted out now. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Bot problem

It looks like there's a small problem with recent bot changes. Have a peek at this. Notice that the |{{BASEPAGENAME}} at the end gets changed to just <cr>}}. That one showed up at Special:UncategorizedTemplates so I fixed it, I'll check RoBoT's contribs and see if there others. Joram 21:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah well spotted - thanks. Usually I don't allow RoBoT to edit Template space and had accidentally left that restriction off after doing another set of edits that needed it. Odd that it manifested itself like that though... –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 22:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I checked the others with the same description and all are fine. Joram 22:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)