Difference between revisions of "Community Portal"

Revision as of 16:04, 3 February 2008

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Navigation Suggestion about Functions

I have used this wiki heavily and I frequently view the functions section but the way it arranged now is in all honesty...confusing. You have functions partitioned of for each version of CS when they should all be grouped together like they used to be. And all you have to do is place the appropriate CS version BESIDE the function name or WITHIN it's description. The way it is now I have to navigate between the CS 1,1.2, etc.. pages just to see specific ones. Not only that the reference functions have been unbundled. I see isActionRef under inventory while others like GetSelf are under witht the rest. If I didn't already know what I'm looking for I would never find the functions I needed, if I were a beginner because they are to fragmented in their organization. Action there probably shouldn't be a CS 1.0 category only CS and CS 1.2. Sorry if I sound aggressive, I just don't understand the changes.

Some of the function type categories should be reviewed, that is true. However, all of the functions are together already, including OBSE. If you mean you want the CS v1.0 and v1.2 functions grouped together without OBSE functions, then unless there is more demand that will probably never be done. It would require adding a category link to the nearly 400 v1.0 functions to combine it with the 6 v1.2 functions.--Haama 18:39, 12 January 2008 (EST)

I don't see a point in having the v1.0 and v1.2 functions separated, but I also use OBSE so I'm happy with the current system.

One question though, why is IsActionRef an Inventory function and not a Reference Variable Function? According to the history page DragoonWraith categorized it as an Inventory Function, do you think it's a mistake?

--Qazaaq 18:51, 12 January 2008 (EST)

I believe so. Reference Variable function is a better category, so I'm moving it there.

Looking at ClearOwnership would it help to combine CS v1.0 and v1.2 functions in the Type categories (Inventory Functions)? I'm still not sure how to change the category name (from CS v1.0 to CS) without needing to change all 400 original v1.0 functions, though.--Haama 19:20, 12 January 2008 (EST)

IsActionRef was originally categorized as an "object function", a category that has since been deleted. I went through all of the old "object functions" and made them "Inventory Functions", the name agreed upon by whoever was around at the time (this was probably around the time of Terminology Discussion), without really paying much attention to the functions themselves. I don't know if "object function" applied to IsActionRef very well, but I didn't notice this when I changed it.

In short, yes, it was an oversight.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 22:03, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Navigation Suggestion

I've spent the last couple weeks basically devouring the information on this wiki. As a contributor, I am both new and not very decorated, but in all the reading I've done, I have discovered at least one minor change that would make the navigation much more user-friendly. Could someone include a link to the Categories page, right in the ToC on the Main Page? I know you can find the Categories page via the Special Pages link, but that's not very intuitive, and searching for material by category is a pretty general-purpose function. I think it should be linked right underneath the Tutorials link, as the last entry.
RedFault 10:14, 8 January 2008 (EST)

That would be a request for the DragoonWraith, the sherrif, he's the only one (except BethSoft employees) who can edit locked pages. It doesn't really matter to me, the search function has always been my favorite. There's still room in the index so if nobody objects it should be done. It's probably best to ask this on DragoonWraith's talk page.

--Qazaaq 10:59, 8 January 2008 (EST)

Category Overhaul

If there are categories that aren't useful, maybe we should look into a category overhaul, as well. That's something I can do myself, of course. I'll see if it's feasible. I think navigation is more intuitive from the point of view that you identify a broad subject, and then slowly zero in on the specific information you're looking for. This wiki contains a lot of great info, but it's a living nightmare to find some of it. Ideally, I think you should be able to start at the Main Page, and make your way to any significant article from that launching point. Interlinking articles are important too, of course.

For my own personal use, I have already discovered that the Categories page is easy to find in the Special Pages area, but for other newcomers, it would be handy to access from the Main Page. Just a thought.

RedFault 17:24, 9 January 2008 (EST)

I think it would be a good idea to make portals like Wikipedia has (example). There's a lot of information on this Wiki and it's not easy to find if you don't know exactly what you're looking for or where to look. Portals will not only function as a central place for articles about an aspect of modding they'll also help index the information on the Wiki for the editors and authors.

I have a general idea of what's on the Wiki and where to find certain information. Yesterday I stumbled upon this article. I hadn't seen it before, but it's quite old and very interesting information. I'm convinced that navigation on the Wiki can be improved tremendously. And discussing this is necessary, but as it has always been, there are only a few people contributing and even fewer discussing what's going on. I'm considering starting a thread in the Construction Set forum about this, as that's where most Wiki readers will see it. But before I start doing crazy things, I'll await your reactions (yes, I'm hoping for more than 1).

--Qazaaq 18:17, 9 January 2008 (EST)

Well then, you'll get the one (of two) other opinion :) The wiki has been especially dead for the past 6 months (except the questionable/slightly obnoxious Questions category). The wiki has, what, 2000 articles so it would be ridiculous to do by yourself or even a handful of people. Also, they not only need to be reorganized, but also checked for accuracy.

Less generally, though, how exactly is the portal different from the Main Page/Side Bar Categories?
--Haama 19:28, 9 January 2008 (EST)

I was (thankfully) too hasty in my previous statement, and I have removed it.--Haama 21:33, 16 January 2008 (EST)

(Responding to both of the above) I was not familiar with Wikipedia's portals but that is essentially the kind of setup that I think works. I do also agree with Haama that the side bar on the Main Page is close enough - the only difference is semantics. But after following the link to the forums, I found a lot of my own concerns listed there. Not only do you spend a lot of time here just trying to find the useful information you need, but then when you find it, it's not always accurate, and more often than not it's badly written. I especially hate seeing people mention that "they're not sure" of something they have just written (it shouldn't be there if it isn't a tested fact), or that "we need to get more info on this". That's the reason I have been concentrating on the Beginner's Guide as a starting point. It contains (mostly) accurate information, and covers pretty much every aspect of mod-making from a beginner's standpoint. From there, if you need more specific info, you should be able to follow internal links to whatever you need.

As an aside here, I contacted Tom Dawson at the BSF, and he is still planning to write guides for the Texture/Mesh aspects of modding - that will be a great asset for the guide.

I have watched a lot of solid projects die when they simply expand too far beyond their core principles, uncontrolled. I am a newcomer here, but I hope you will consider my words for what they're worth, and not how old they are. This wiki needs a simple facelift. The skeleton is already here. We should just go back and pretend we're noobs again, start with the first page, and navigate our way from general, FACTUAL info, to more specifics, and then organize the Main Page in such a way that you can follow the same trail. I also highly recommend that we weed out duplicated information (consolidate facts from multiple sources into a single article), and eliminate untrue, untested, or dubious material.

I don't think that's all that much work. A lot, yes. Too much, no. And the end result ought to be a resource that newcomers to modding can use to get up to speed, at the same time that experienced modders are coming back to check on things like the functions list, the specific mechanics of some particular game feature, etc. - confident that the information they're reading is true and will work as stated.

I'm not just blowing smoke here. I try to work as big as I talk. I would be happy to get the entire project underway - I just don't want to start tearing up the existing structure without a decent discussion first. This kind of guide should exist for every modding community on the net. It just needs to be done right.

RedFault 10:10, 10 January 2008 (EST)

On more info/untested facts - Don't be as quick as some others to discard information labeled as "untested" or "we need more information". There are still many things in Oblivion that are untestable, but would be good to have a theory of what happens. For instance, there is no proof that scripts run once a frame, and the best you could do is prove that a quest of delay .001 and a loaded activator will run the same number of times. However, it's an incredibly useful theory, and as far as I've ever been able to tell it's correct.

I think it comes down to what standard do you want to hold this wiki to, and more importantly what standard will attract others to the wiki to start working on it again. If you aim too high no one will be able to post anything. For instance, both DragoonWraith and I recently posted some formulas that were not tested 100%. However, their default values had been tested quite a bit at UESP, the numbers fit very well with the game settings' defaults, and so we plugged in the game settings and wrote them up here, marking how much they'd been tested in the Discussion page. Should they be taken down?

I'm not saying aim too low, though - completely false information should be discarded (and the other idea about combining duplicate information is excellent). I think the best position would be to stop treating this like any other wiki, and to start treating it like science. We don't have secondary/tritary sources to cite as proof of what we post - we have to test it ourselves. That takes time and will always have some missing information because there are simply too many possibilities. If it's properly labeled - how it was tested, what can and can't be told from the test, etc. than that's fine by me. Hopefully someone will come along and fill in the information later, and if not then it wasn't important.

Most importantly, though, I think we need to continue this on the forums. I'm going to start up a simple thread entitled "Revitalizing the wiki" and ask for opinions.--Haama 11:32, 10 January 2008 (EST)

RedFault, I completely agree with everything you've said save one - that this isn't too much work. At least, for me, it is. There is a ton of information here, and yeah, not all of it is easy to find, nor is all of it accurate (though I don't know where you guys claim to be finding so much of it, I've seen nearly every page in this Wiki and quite nearly all of them are accurate as far as I know - and that is pretty far, if I do say so myself. Obviously, there are some things I have undoubtedly missed, and there are some topics with which I am not at all familiar, but I generally find information on the Wiki reliable, when it can be found.

The issue of navigation, redundancy, and making sure that everything is clean, professional, and certainly, improving accuracy, are definitely things that have come up several times - I've tried to generate discussions on these topics, both here and on the forums, several times. But there really are not that many people very interested in helping out. And frankly, it is a ton of work. I'm all for it, and will definitely help where I can, but I know I don't have nearly enough time to do what you suggest.

I'm going to check out Haama's thread now.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:56, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I was writing a response, but I'll leave that for the forums. Be sure to quote or summarize what's already been said.

--Qazaaq 11:48, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Bah... After the last forum thread, I swore we wouldn't move this to the forum again. These discussions should take place here - it's important that there be an archive of discussions like these. And, of course, it's important that the community checks here and discusses things here, but of course that hasn't happened. Moving it to the forum is the right thing, because you can't get people to respond here, but bah. Very frustrating.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:56, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Sorry for the delay, was having some internet difficulties and wording/tone difficulties :) It's up now. I'll let everyone post their own quotes over there; I feel a bit weird about truncating the statements and quoting Redfault (who hasn't asked for it yet).
--Haama 12:29, 10 January 2008 (EST)

You're right, it's probably better like this. Thanks Haama.

--Qazaaq 12:37, 10 January 2008 (EST)

(Responding to all of above) I will be happy to continue the discussion wherever we post it. I just hope that we are working while we're talking (as much as our schedules allow, of course). XD
RedFault 13:13, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Questions on (advanced?) wiki syntax

I have a couple of questions on wiki syntax, if anyone knows the answers:

I would like to work on the OBSE v14 functions as soon as the Beta comes out. If I do so I'll need to mark them as beta, and once the beta is over I will have to mass edit and remove the Beta tag. I would also like to be able to put them into a v14 Beta category and then move them to a v14 category. Does anyone know an easy way to do that?

Some of the formulas on Category:Potion Strength are incredibly long, but I'm not sure how to condense them, especially because some require powers of fractions. If at all possible, I would prefer to place the fraction on two separate lines with a paranthesis big enough to cover both lines, and maybe even superscript the power. However, I don't know if that is even possible. Any suggestions?--Haama 21:02, 6 January 2008 (EST)

For the beta thing, you might try a template? I dunno, you could create a template {{OBSE v0014}} and at first have it warn that it's a beta, and then later blank it or give a simple mention that it was first added in v0014 (or use it to add the category tag).

As for the math stuffs, see here.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:34, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Thanks DW. I've already started adding the v14 functions with a beta tag (I'll just have to remember to take them all off with the final release). That formula page looks great - starting to comb through it!--Haama 17:36, 16 January 2008 (EST)

I tried out some of the stuff from that page. I don't think the MediaWiki or TeX that the page talks about are available here.--Haama 17:54, 16 January 2008 (EST)

I'll e-mail Gstaff, but in the meantime (or if nothing can be done), since the TeX stuff on Wikipedia creates an image, you could always create the formula on Wikipedia (in a preview page), save the image, and upload it here - which is similar to what I did for the Trigonometry page (I didn't bother to create the formula since Wikipedia already had one, but I did grab theirs and upload it here). This has the advantage of giving you the ability to remove the white background from the image if you would like - not a bad idea considering the background here. It is, of course, more work and more time-consuming.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 15:04, 20 January 2008 (EST)

Vandalism after Recaptcha

I noticed significantly more vandalism today than I've seen since Recaptcha was implemented. It was reverted by Qazaaq (thanks), and isn't a problem in and of itself.

I just wanted to create this area for discussion of possible issues or problems or holes in security that this Wiki may have.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 22:44, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

The last time was almost three weeks ago, it was done by the same bots (mostly), on the same pages and similar to this time it involved deleted + and - signs and partial pages. If it stays this infrequent I'm not concerned. Eventually all bot accounts will be deleted. These attacks are nothing compared to what we've seen earlier.

Qazaaq 11:22, 20 September 2007 (EDT)

FYI, that's what we call the "plus sign vandal" at UESP. Apparently the changes are a side effect of the spam bot. For more infos, see UESP:Proxy Vandalism. However, should be less of a problem here due to generally tighter access control. --Wrye 21:11, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Vandal:JOLLYRODGER

this vandal has hit many pages recently, including, My First Dungeon, Basic NPC Creation Tutorial, StrSetName,, and five hits on this page: Community Portal --Tiddlydum 00:43, 15 December 2007 (EDT)

Unfortunately we can't do much else than tag him. It's a single person looking for attention and he'll probably get bored after a few days. Making a special header for him at the community portal will only encourage him. Oh and don't forget to sign your posts, I did this one for you.

--Qazaaq 06:41, 16 December 2007 (EST)

Questions on the Wiki

There are a lot of questions on the Wiki that should be on the forums instead. The Wiki isn't designed for this and I've seen a lot of questions of people who just don't use the search function, this annoyance should be relocated to the CS forums. I'd like to avoid this, but I'm not sure if banning questions entirely is a good plan, any thoughts?

--Qazaaq 13:44, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

I feel exactly the same way, including the bit about not being sure what to do about it. I almost posted exactly the same thing a couple of days ago.

The biggest problem is that stuff is sometimes hard to find on the Wiki. Before we ban questions, I feel like we should do an audit and determine exactly what information is and is not on the Wiki, and where it is. That would take an insane amount of time, though, and I know that none of us has the time to do it...

Maybe somewhat less ambitious: determine which questions were legit (asking for information that should be on the Wiki [not something extremely specific], but either is not or is in a very random and difficult to find place. From that we could build up the articles so that the information is easier to find.

But I think that as things currently stand, we can't just refuse to answer questions. We need to do some work to make sure that people can find the information they need.

A start would be to reformat the Questions category text to encourage the use of the CS forum. I'll do that now.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 14:28, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

Convince Bethesda to include an Oblivion version checker with CS v1.2... well, at least, that seems to be the most common repeated question here (on the forums, etc.).

More on topic - I somewhat like the questions, as it's a bulletin board of what info still needs to be placed onto the wiki. However, it's too big, and too hard to search through, leading to people asking questions that have already been answered, causing it to get even bigger...

Until it gets organized, maybe we could ask people to submit their name to the questions section instead, leading to their talk page where we can answer it, rather than the giant list it is now.

--Haama 16:24, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

Of course, if it they end up on the forums, the same things are going to happen that we see now...information links that go to "Thread not found". Some of them are legitimate, since there are ways of doing things that others don't know or can't think of (mine about collision objects in Nifskope, for example). Some, like the ones that turn into "write my script for me", aren't so legitimate. In my opinion, some of the functions and such could use some example scripts to better define how they work. I recall having to experiment with a number of functions while trying to write scripts in order to figure out how to use them. And I have learned things by going through the questions and either seeing how it was solved or solving it myself and writing an answer. If the questions were completely broken up to peoples talk pages, then they would be hard to track down after the fact unless there is a list going to all the talk pages (which would probably become a bigger mess).

--ShadowDancer 17:28, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

I think Questions in general may be necessary, especially for the reason Haama suggests - it provides feedback, letting us know what we're missing. And it does help to keep information available, avoiding thread pruning. However, both those functions are useless if it's too much information to go through, and it is. Anyway, as a start, what do you guys think of my rewrite of the Questions category page?

Dragoon Wraith TALK 18:43, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

It looks good. I got sidetracked reading through questions though. LOL! Truthfully, there are a bunch of questions that are, quite frankly, next to impossible to do without major scripting work or are just outright impossible. Some of them I could think of ways to do them, but I sure wouldn't want to try to implement them as I think the time spent scripting would be more than the outcome would be worth. Perhaps we need a "Not Currently Known to be Possible" or "Not Possible" category? You are right in that there are way too many questions to take in at one time. The only thing that I think can be done is to chip away at it piece by piece. There are also some that have been answered when someone else asked a similar or the same question.

--ShadowDancer 21:40, 21 August 2007 (EDT)

The explanation looks good, thanks DragoonWraith. How should we handle duplicate questions? I'm thinking leave a link to the original question on the User's Talk page, and deleting the new question.

--Haama 09:36, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

That sounds perfect.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:12, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

Here's one - Ingame Water Height Increase. Is there a way to delete it, or do we just notify you?

--Haama 13:09, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

I can't actually delete, but Gstaff comes by periodically and will delete anything in the "Articles for Deletion" category.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 14:19, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

So, we're not going to redirect the questions to the forums because it's useful as feedback. As long as we make clear that the write me a script kind of questions don't belong here.

I like what you did to the questions page, that will keep out a few people who actually read that stuff. Looks good!

--Qazaaq 06:19, 23 August 2007 (EDT)

I've created a tag for questions that we want to add to the rest of the Wiki. This should help the Questions category give us feedback about what we need.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:45, 24 August 2007 (EDT)

This will centralize all the missing content on one page if categorized properly. Good thinking DragoonWraith!

--Qazaaq 17:28, 24 August 2007 (EDT)

It also seems to me that we need either a full-blown tutorial for scripting or a revamp of the current ones since we seem to get so many questions about scripting. Maybe a Better Scripting Practices sort of thing? Explainations of why certain things work or are better and others don't with light examples (not full blown scripts). There is a lot of information that is scattered across the wiki pertaining to scripting that is hard to find unless you know where it is.

--ShadowDancer 23:37, 24 August 2007 (EDT)

Wiki Updates, August 7, 2007

Community Portal link added to Navigation toolbar
Search function now includes Category and User namespaces by default
- My Preferences -> Search can be used to toggle which namespaces to search*
IE7 compatibility is being worked on

Many thanks to Gstaff and TS7 (and a third Bethesda employee whose username I do not know) for implementing these for us.

* I had to do this for myself... it may be that our user preferences are set to the old default.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 15:15, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

New toys, awesome! I also had to change the preferences, it's probably not changing already saved settings. --Qazaaq 17:45, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

In case anyone missed it, I updated the Main Page with these updates. I've also shuffled things around a bit and such. Commentary on that would be nice. By the way, the News section is a template which is not locked - you can find that here.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 14:56, 11 August 2007 (EDT)

I saw that, looks great, but with that welcome at full width I always think someone applied one of your templates to the main page. Makes me wonder what's wrong for a split second, before I remember it's supposed to be like this. A little annoying but I'll probably get used to it.

Anyway, I like the news section you made, it's a good way to inform people that don't visit the community portal page. Maybe it's a good idea to put a "Go to the Community Portal for the latest news and discussion!" line at the bottom. Although I doubt you'll get ever anyone but a few regular authors and editors at this page.

--Qazaaq 17:29, 11 August 2007 (EDT)

I had to make the welcome full width, the News would have been off the bottom of the screen otherwise, and I doubt people would see it if they had to scroll for it. Plus, the big change will make them look and try to figure out what's going on.

Anyway, I like the idea about the Check out the Community Portal thing at the bottom, I'm going to include that.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 02:01, 12 August 2007 (EDT)

Article Tags

I've created a series of Templates to be used as tags on articles. You can find those here.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:14, 6 August 2007 (EDT)

They are very useful, thanks. --Qazaaq 17:46, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

Debate on Discussions

When Wrye made the original page, he decided to include debates within this page. I prefer to keep them on a separate page, and simply have blurbs here about the decisions that have been made, to keep things concise. So I'm putting this debate here (since this was the style currently in use before we lost the Community Portal), please post your comments. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

The approach at UESP is that discussions start on the Community Portal and then move to a subpage if they get very long. The advantage of starting them on the CP is that people who watch it may ignore a first post, but will notice if a discussion becomes contentious and then pay attention. Whereas if you only have the subpage, there will just be one notice when the subpage is started -- and thus your regulars may fail to notice a discussion that they would like to contribute too if they knew it were contentious.

The downside of this approach is that the CP page tends to grow in length and thus require more active pruning to archives and subpages. And countering argument in preceding paragraph, if it's the norm for longer discussions to start on subpages, regulars can adjust to that.

Either way, links to subpages should be in an easy to find place. I've recreated the Contents section that got lost earlier to facilitate that. --Wrye 19:07, 28 June 2007 (EDT)

Hmm... That sounds reasonable. And it seems to be working pretty well with us here. Alright then, unless we have any objections, I'm amenable to that. --Dragoon Wraith TALK 19:30, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Article vs Discussion Distinctions

While this Wiki, by its nature, has a lot more discussion than most, including in the Article space, there is a general problem here that far too many things are signed, as if someone's personal writing that cannot be edited. This is not acceptable on a Wiki - everything is open for editing unless specifically a discussion or in someone's user space. We need some discussion on exactly what we want this Wiki to be like, and how we can fix things as they are. --Dragoon Wraith TALK 00:12, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I'm against signing anything but talk pages and discussion pages like this. Discussion should take place at the forums or the articles talk page. For questions about an article counts the same, talk page or the forums. If an article is in need of discussion put a link to a forum thread or the talk page at the bottom. Leaving your name will discourage others to edit the article and encourage discussion with only author instead of everyone on the Wiki. Signatures on existing pages should be removed. --Qazaaq 10:03, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I'm not saying I won't comply with any rules set, but I don't fully agree. I just don't see any evidence that any of my tutorials have been edited by anyone other than me after the first week they were posted, whether signed or unsigned -and that was only to correct the capitalization of the NIF scripts. I now sign most of my tutorials so that people know whom to contact for questions, clarification, or help with their learning process. I really like to be able to assist people in a personal way with modeling and texturing, and how I can I do that if they can't find the original author of a tutorial no one else has touched in eight months? --SickleYield 11:09, 3 July 2007 (PST)

I agree with you completely, but to play devil's advocate and to repeat some ideas lost to the server crash: If people have questions they should leave them in the tutorial's discussion page, and if they really want to contact the original author then they can look at the page's history.

--Haama 04:38, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

The History page should be sufficient. By including your signature, you may be preventing others from editing the article. Further, it also breaks, I think, the cohesion of the Wiki - when one gets to your tutorial, one seems to leave the general, public, Wiki, and enter the private world of your tutorial. This kind of seam is something that web designers actively avoid in general, and it's especially important for something like this. The biggest flaws in the Wiki are that it's difficult to navigate and that too many articles ignore the rest of the Wiki.

Out of curiousity, how many people have contacted you by way of your tutorials? I realize this is a concern, especially with a tutorial entirely written by yourself. I think there may be situations where a signature could be appropriate, but it can't be seen as declaring ownership or rights to the article. Anytime there is something that says "This is mine", it detracts from the Wiki, in my opinion. On the other hand, if we could find a way to show that you are the primary contributor to a given article and that you are receptive to answering questions, that would be excellent. As I said earlier, the History page should be sufficient, but it's often not. Very few people actually look there.

Anyway, I often feel like these discussions are preaching to the choir a bit, so I'm glad to see another viewpoint. Please, Sickle, I'd love to hear what you have to say on the topic.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:22, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm glad to see that this effort is continuing. As I posted earlier (before the Great Loss), no attributions on article page is absolutely the norm for this type of wiki. And it's an important norm for the reasons already mentioned (encouraging people to edit articles) -- that's absolutely core to wiki approach. Credit and contacts are not problems -- again the history and discussion pages serve those purposes quite well.

And this is not based just on theory -- this is my experience from writing quite a few articles on UESP and editing many, many others. When you write an article on a wiki, you're only the first person to write that article. As the text at the bottom of each editing page says: "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then don't submit it here."

Along those lines... Something that should be done at some point is removal of attributions from article pages -- if it's a clear article (not a discussion), then chop out the attributions. This was one of the things that the we had to do at UESP a couple of years ago (and still have to do a little bit with some newbie edits).

--Wrye 16:36, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

I do have people contact me via PM at forums on a regular basis saying something like, "I read your tuturial but I don't understand this part," or "How do I do this over here," etc. Otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up to start with. That's okay, though. If I'm honest with myself, the bottom line is that if I'm going to spend six to eight hours writing, taking screens, editing and formatting a tutorial, I want my name on it. That's not a wiki-oriented goal, so I will take it elsewhere. I'll leave what I've done here, but I'm not going to give you ten more hours of work updating these tutorials for free for no credit at all. No one looks at History pages.

--SickleYield 11:09, 3 July 2007 (PST)

Sure they do. The history page is a normal aspect of the site, and so long as the attribution style is maintained, people quickly learn where to find such information. So let me show you a few history pages...

UESP:Better Bodies. Took me about 4 hours to research, arrange, write the first version of the page. Several other people (esp. NioLiv) almost immediately grabbed the baton and quickly dumped a bunch of additional material on there. By two days after I posted it, I was already getting much more out of it than I originally put in.
Tes3Mod:Leveled Lists a basic theory paper on leveled lists in Morrowind. It's fairly technical info, some of it known to other people, a lot of it knowledge that I figured out entirely by myself.
Formids This is my original paper on formids. It covered a major point early in the lifetime of the game and provided modders a framework for understanding a crucial aspect of modding. Again, mostly my work with a few contributions by others.
SI Reference Bug. This page was a crucial part of making the SI reference bug known. I wrote the first versions, summarizing Dateranoth's analysis, doing additional research, adding in a lot of my own knowledge, etc. A number of other people subsequently updated it (esp. Dateranoth and Nephele, who both put in a lot of work doing analysis). This page is a substantial part of why Bethesda actually fixed this bug. We documented it thoroughly and linked to it from front page of UESP. And with over 100k views, I think you can assume that it's part of the reason your copy of Oblivion is not hosed by this bug today.

These are just a few samples of my contributions at UESP (where I'm at #11 contributor with 1844 edits). And what do you notice about all this? I don't sign on the article pages. Now, I have no problem with ego and wanting credit for your contributions (my ego is certainly not small), but 1) credit is perfectly clear for those who have the wit to look for it, 2) you can see exactly what someone contributed by using the diff functions, 3) you'll often benefit from other people adding material to articles that you originally wrote, 4) you're already benefitting from the contributions of other people who have already seen the benefits of the wiki approach.

You can of course post your tutorials elsewhere. Other people who couldn't cool their ego down a little have done the same. What happens? They get lost, forgotten. They're there for a while, but then they quit updating, then they disappear. Or worse, they stay around, but get out of date and can't be updated by anybody. (Example: Felic became active late last Fall. He knew about the wikis, but decided to post his material on the forums anyway (ModFood). Great effort, but he's gone now so his posts can't be edited, updated or reorganized, and one day that topic is going to get wiped out by one of the periodic forum purges.)Wikis solve all these problems -- the information persists and gets updated as needed. The advantages to everyone are huge.

So, keep all that in mind before deciding that you can't handle having your authorial credit shifted restricted to the history tab. Frankly, if my justifiably huge ego can withstand it, so can yours. :lol:

--Wrye 22:57, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Well, I work pretty hard on a few articles here. I keep them updated. I do minor cleanup on some others. When I fix problems in other folks stuff here, I don't remove their byline. I think it's extremely rude. If I haven't been around in a long while, I'm not active anymore, and my articles are way out of date, then I would expect other people to take over and do whatever they want. That's why I post stuff here. If you barge in and completely rewrite things that other folks have worked hard on while they are still active, remove their bylines, etc, then I consider that vandalism, no matter how well-intended you claim it is. Maybe it is better in the grand scheme, but you can count me out. If it becomes general policy here then I'll definitely be moving all of my articles to my private website.--Dev akm 00:22, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

One more point to consider. If there's an active "editorial staff" here cleaning up stuff, building cohesion among articles, etc., then that's a good thing, as long as they are active and organized. Historically that has not been the case, but perhaps it's time for a change. But that's not the context under which I started contributing, and I don't find it attractive. I think some other authors will feel the same way. So, while you'll perhaps be gaining some good organizational structure, cohesion, etc., you'll also be losing some fairly prolific and experienced contributors. If you guys want to make this sort of power-play, then I will wish you the best of luck with your efforts. --Dev akm 00:53, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Outsetting because of depth. I'm responding to dev_akm immediately above...

First, a clarification, so that DragoonWraith is not "blamed" for this. I suggested it originally, then there was a bit of discussion, and general consensus to do it -- and then the server dropped dead and we lost the entire community page. At which point DW reconstituted topics as recalled. So there was an earlier discussion with general consensus which is now lost.

Second, the suggestion of a "power play" is ridiculous. All that's happening here is that the rules of the wiki are being followed more closely -- like they should have been from day one.

Third, there should be zero surprise that articles are completely editable by anyone -- that's been in the blurb at the bottom of every editing page since day one. Nor should there be any surprise about the "No attribution on article page." 1) it's a natural consequence of "anyone can edit", 2) original articles by developers were not attributed, nor are most pages on the site, and 3) attribution is covered precisely on the history page -- not only do you see who contributed, but you can check and see exactly what each person contributed (cur, last links for each contribution).

Fourth, will we lose a few contributors? Sure. But that's more than made up by the general health and integrity of the data. I've been active over at UESP for over two years and based on that experience, I know full well that these policies produce greater amounts of more accurate material than a bunch of people working in isolation would create. Check the UESP Recent Changes page. Pick almost any article on it and track back through changes to see how articles rapidly evolved and improved from different people making their edits and changes. Check the specific examples I gave in my 7/4/2007 comment. I think that any/all show off the advantages of wikis very well.

Cooling off a little... (Okay the "power play" ticked me off.) However, you do have a good point about the "no attributed articles" not being enforced early on. It should have been -- but it wasn't. So, here's what I suggest... Give it a few days. Poke around at UESP like I suggested above.

If, after a few days, you still don't like the "anyone can edit" or "no attributions on article page" rules -- then pull your articles. That's contrary to ordinary wiki policy, and should not be the norm, but you're right -- they were introduced during a period when the rules weren't being made clear.

Regards, --Wrye 03:53, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Response. I'm not blaming anyone, least of all DW. And I agree with you that it's probably a good idea in general. For example, I'm very happy to see the growth in direct contributions to the Troubleshooting category I started. It makes sense there and probably in lots of other places as well. I'm not so sure it makes sense in the Tutorials section.

How many original tutorial submissions do you get at UESP? How many from people other than the editorial staff? Seems like there's a distinct lack of such material there, perhaps as a direct result of the "no bylines" policy.

I'm definitely not complaining that "wikis are wikis". I'm objecting to the change in policy related to bylines at such a late stage of the wiki's evolution. If there had always been a policy about not allowing bylined articles, that would be fine. We'd take it for granted and there would probably be a lot fewer original works there. That's not the case. It's a longstanding tradition here to allow bylines, even if it's not generally true for other wikis.

Many people have contributed tutorials and other large works here with the implicit understanding that -- within reason -- their wishes for the presentation of such original works would be respected by the community. Now that this "consensus" has changed, you're basically telling people who've contributed stuff:

"Thanks for that great tutorial you wrote a while back. BTW, we've decided to erase your byline so other people will feel free to contribute to it."

How does my disagreement about this heavy-handed policy change equate to my failing to understand the nature of wikis? You can claim "it's the wiki way" all day long, but that doesn't suddenly make plagiarism acceptable.

We don't accept this sort of behavior with mods. Why should we accept it on the wiki?

Would we think it okay for a mod-hosting site to suddenly make a policy change encouraging other people to alter your mods and upload such changes back into the original mod listing you created? I don't think so.

I wonder how many people who've written articles here are even aware of this new "consensus". I also wonder how many of them were invited to the discussion. I know I wasn't invited, despite the fact that I am active here and I am directly impacted by the decision. Are you familiar with the concept of a quorum?--Dev akm 12:50, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

As was made clear by the existence of this debate, the discussion held here clearly was not seen by very many members of the community. To that end, I have created a discussion for it on the ESF, here.

Dev, I understand your points. However, it may be worth pointing out that the Wiki very prominently states that "all contributions to The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then don't submit it here." This appears above the Save Page button on every edit page. That pages are publicly editable has been the rule the entire time. That has not changed. What has changed was the use of "bylines" for the purpose of assigning credit. Bylines were never, in my mind, acceptable as a tool to "lock" a page to be edited by yourself only. I am well aware of the work you have put into your articles, as I assume you are aware of the work I have put into maintaining and improving the Wiki as a whole. The Wiki would be empty without the contributions of authors like you, but I know for a fact that my efforts have dramatically increased both user participation in this site and in the navigability and ease of use for this site.

As for the community's awareness of this page, that is something we have been trying to work on. However, this was not a matter of being "invited" - this page was created quite publicly. The link in my signature on the ESF directs here. I have added links to it in several locations throughout the Wiki. Everyone who is here found it on their own. It was not any attempt to hide it from you so that we could steal your rights, or any such thing. I apologize that it was not found by you and presumably many others, which is why I started the thread on the ESF. In the future, however, I do not plan on taking that step. This will be considered the place for such discussions, and members of the this community ought to be aware of it. I will take further steps to make sure that they are.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 16:39, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Glad you started a thread about it. Thanks, man. It will be interesting to see what people think (other than the few around here). Why is it that everyone seems compelled to repeatedly point out the submissions disclaimer? It's got nothing to do with my point. I'm talking about decent behavior among peers. Anyway, I'll continue the discussion in the ESF thread.--Dev akm 17:39, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

I really need to transcript the thread onto the Wiki. Meh, not tonight. Tonight I've gone through all of the Tutorials and marked the ones with bylines that are not in accordance with the policy that was generally agreed upon in the thread. We should start by contacting Razorwing, Blade9722, and Darknel. They have like 75% of the bylined tutorials.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 23:56, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

General Cohesion Initiative

Something I personally I feel is lacking here is cohesion amongst the articles. Too many articles are stand-alones, with few links to them and few links in them. Everything should be interlinked - you've all, I'm sure, had the experience of looking up something on Wikipedia and suddenly realizing that you've spent over an hour reading a dozen or more different articles which have increasingly little to do with whatever you looked up. That's how a Wiki should be - links everywhere, where you can move through the pages just by clicking and learn about everything. Navigation needs improvement here, as does the amount of linking we use.

I also recommend breaking up tutorials somewhat. Avoid large, scratch-to-finish tutorials, favoring shorter pages which focus on one specific thing, with links to the next step's page. This makes specific information much easier to find.

So in general, we need ideas about what this Wiki needs. Please post your ideas. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:12, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

Before everything was lost, Wrye mentioned something about a breadcrumb trail like the UESP. I like it, but I'm not sure if it's that's going to solve the problem with the tutorials. --Qazaaq 10:06, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I completely agree with your first point (about interlinking). This definitely needs to be corrected wherever possible. I've tried to fix some obvious ones in the past, like adding links between related GMSTs, but a lot more work along these lines is needed.

I'm not so sure about your suggestion on tutorials. Perhaps in some cases it would make sense, but in most cases all that's really needed is a good TOC.--Dev akm 12:57, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Community "Sheriff"

I have been appointed the community's first "Sheriff". What this means is that I have access to a special "rollback" tool for reverting pages (useful for fighting spam/vandalization), and that I can lock and unlock pages (and edit locked pages). I have been chosen, as far as I can tell, because I was the one who bugged Bethesda about making one, though I also have some seniority around here. I'm told this is a "trial run" and that others may be promoted as well in the future. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

As of yesterday Haama and I have been promoted to Sheriff, the three of us will be busy with the reorganization for now and as part of that we'll see if any protected pages need attention. Congratulations Haama!

--Qazaaq 12:37, 12 January 2008 (EST)

Sheriff Action Requests

This really should go in my Talk page or something, but since there was a section about this before, I'm putting it back. After things get settled, I expect to remove it.

First of all, a number of requests had been made, regarding the site design, the search engine, and the Toolbox. I cannot do any of these things, but I have passed these requests on to Bethesda directly (as I do not expect that they check here regularly).

Further, I'd asked for suggestions for changes to the Main Page, most notably the blurb in the top right, and the Featured Article that hasn't changed since the Wiki began. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I think 'the blurb' is looking quite good like this, there isn't much you can change. For the featured article I'd suggest A beginner's guide by dtom, it's an excellent guide and I'd be nice to see something different. --Qazaaq 10:15, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

It's probably best to leave this section here. The equivalent page at UESP would be the Administrator Noticeboard. Ideally there will be more than one Sheriff, and people filling such positions come and go -- and for both these reasons, the relevant discussion should be in a common area, not on a particular Sheriff's page. Granted some small nuts and bolts stuff is likely to end up on DW's page, but larger issues should be here. (Or, if the discussion gets too large, on a separate common page.) --Wrye 16:46, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Good call on the common area for multiple "sheriffs" (I think the title's a little silly sounding), I hadn't thought that far ahead. Here this will stay.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 00:05, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

Couldn't find a better place for this request. It would need to go to Bethesda. I would like to request the addition of the Parser Functions. This would allow a number of flow control functions (conditionals) to be used in the creation of templates. It is a very standard extension for MW sites since 1.6/1.7, and would be very handy to have here.

--Niaht 02:17, 31 December 2007 (EST)

GStaff is pretty approachable, and you can ask him yourself. PM on Bethesda forums would probably be the best way.

--Haama 18:24, 31 December 2007 (EST)

Thanks for the information Haama. I've made the request to GStaff via PM.

--Niaht 20:37, 31 December 2007 (EST)

Terminology Discussion

Wrye's lengthy article explaining the confusion of modding terminology has been lost. While I am sure that it will return, I just wanted to point out that this discussion is ongoing - see the thread on the ESF. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

Discussion has been almost entirely recovered, but is now at UESP:Modding Terminology. --Wrye 18:51, 28 June 2007 (EDT)

Trivial / Homeless / Uncertain Facts Page

There had been some talk about creating a page for random, but useful information, or information that needed investigation. The idea would be that things could be put there, to be integrated into a relevant article at a later date. It would function as something of a "to-do list" for the Wiki, though with a relatively narrow scope. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

It's a good idea to have a page for these things, it's better to have them here than only in someone's head. A link from the main page or the talk page is a good idea, those facts should be read by as much people as possible. --Qazaaq 10:19, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I made an Unfinished Articles category, that should be useful for these kind of things. It's better than having no category at all. --Qazaaq 18:18, 28 June 2007 (EDT)

Category:Tidbits page created. Includes a link to Category: Unfinished Articles, but should it be incorporated? Honestly, I started the page due to Strategy Master's handling of FlyFightFlea's Supreme Magicka's crashes. Half a post and a signature are a horrible way to start a discussion. See Category:Tidbits for a link (external links seem to require authentication for every change afterwards, as well as the initial link added).

--Haama 17:04, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Scripting Section Hierarchy

Suggestions for improving the way the scripting section was laid out and put together should go here. I know there was some discussion of this, but I forget exactly what suggestions had been made or what was being discussed. I feel that improvements can certainly be made, so I want to encourage that discussion to restart. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

Like I mentioned at the Discussion vs. Article section, I think the breadcrumbs sound like a good idea. To organize the scripting section is should work very well. --Qazaaq 10:20, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

At the very least I would like to see all of the subcategories found in Category: Scripting to be placed on the Main Page. However, I think the scripting heirarchy needs an overhaul. I would mainly like to see the scripting tutorials mixed in with the scripting category. I suggested something along the lines of: Basics (variable types, blocktypes, commands), Functions, Basic scripts (stuff like the MessageBox Tutorial to further show how to exploit a single command), Advanced script (a working Dynamic/Linked Lists tutorial), etc. There was more, but I'll need some time again to look over the subcategories.--Haama 13:05, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I disagree with including all of the subcategories of scripting in the Main Page. I think it would look cluttered and I don't think it's necessary. Other than that, though, it seems like your ideas are good. --DragoonWraith TALK 20:07, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

My brain's more of a phantom limb right now, but I'm going to try to look through the scripting stuff now. The first thing that strikes me - should Conditions really be under scripting? There are some condition only functions, etc. that might find a better home under a AI subcategory of Actor Behavior. More to come, or I'm asleep, one of those.

Didn't get too far, but here's what I'm thinking so far - set things up more as a heirarchy, particuarly a tutorial-aimed heirarchy, then as the current shotgun blast of information. For instance, the variables page talks a little about shorts, longs, and floats when it should have notes of all of the types of variables, including the special variables. The script type page is a better example of how things should look, but it still needs to mention Magic, Object, and Quest scripts somewhere and the incredibly basic and necessary info on how to attach those scripts.

Another side point, the links to "See Also", etc. articles should mention whether they're taking a step back in the heirarchy (i.e., from Category: Functions to Category: Commmands). Having categories listed as subcategories of each other is simply maddening.

So here's the heirarchy I've got so far:

Background Info
1. Using/Attaching Scripts
2. Script Types
3. Block Types
4. Variables
Functions
1. Splash page describing the parts of most functions, what OBSE is, different CSes, etc., with a link at the bottom to the different filters/categories of functions
2. Functions themselves, of course (hey DW, is the brief discussion of the OBSE filtering, etc. still here?)
Basics
1. Debugging (Troubleshooting doc, etc.)
2. Useful Code and Tutorials - not necessarily easy, but necessary information to correctly use a function (i.e., the MessageBox Tutorial), do the most common tasks (i.e., how to use an activator), or building blocks that most other tutorials will use (i.e., [[Unplayable Items|tokens).
3. Console Commands - more debugging goodness, really
4. I think I might put random information in this category. By random, I mean useful information like (I think this is true) when using an activator you'll want to put the MoveTo player on the activator rather than the calling script, to make it move that very frame, and will want it to be disabled, etc.
Advanced - the rest of the tutorials
Misc. (haven't figured out where to put this stuff)
1. Random info
2. Lists of commands/functions as they appear in scripts
3. Lists of globals/game settings
4. Questions and answers that might prove useful
5. Script processing - probably in the first sections with script types? The category might have to be reworked to be more than Script Types.

--Haama 22:19, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

Sounds good. I hope to at least get started on the filtering thing today, in answer to your question. What remains of that discussion can be found at Category Talk: Functions. --DragoonWraith TALK 08:57, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

I don't think we should split up the tutorials in two sections. The goal of the whole thing is making information easier to find, so why make it more difficult? You already have to look in two categories; tutorials and useful code. The rest sounds like a good idea.

--Qazaaq 20:23, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Function Filtering and Overhaul

Original Discussion

from Category Talk: Functions

Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:24, 8 June 2007 (EDT): When OBSE first came out, I went and made it its own section, complete with function categories and the like. I fell away from Oblivion modding, and those pages have not been updated in my absence.

Noticing the lack of those functions, mmmpld went and accomplished the impressive feat of cataloging all functions, OBSE and Vanilla, here.

Given that this is considered useful, should OBSE functions be included on this main Functions page? We would, of course, still have Vanilla functions categories, and it would be easy to filter out OBSE functions for users who do not use OBSE.

It would mean a few things. First, this page would be quite a bit larger than it is. Second, this page is linked to directly from the first page, and OBSE is not officially supported by Bethesda (which may lead to some issues, or may not). Third, we would need to create additional OBSE and Vanilla versions of each function category, so we would have, for example, Actor Functions, Actor Functions: Vanilla, and Actor Functions: OBSE - this is the only way to maintain the ability to filter out only the kinds of functions we want to see. It would also mean more categories listed at the bottom of each functions' page - for example, you might see "Functions | Functions: Vanilla | Actor Functions | Actor Functions: Vanilla" - I don't mind this, but it could be an issue.

The advantages is that it's much easier for scripters who are actually using OBSE, without making things more difficult for scripters who don't. The functions wouldn't be segregated, and it would be easier to see what functions are available.

I am quite willing to do the work to set this up, but I'm not into unilateral decisions like this, so I would like some feedback.

Personally I wanted all the functions on one page, which as far as I know can't be done with the categories (at least from our side), so I'd still use the List of Functions. May also be a bit more confusing for those new to scripting. I'm indifferent really. —mmmpld 00:22, 9 June 2007 (EDT)

I think most scripters using OBSE will have read the OBSE documentation, so when they come to the wiki it's probably to look up more info on a specific function(s). New scripters on the other hand could easily become confused. Those are just my thoughts, though, and I am all for making OBSE more visible on the wiki as long as things are clear to new users. (And thanks for getting on top of the updates, DW - I've tried to keep up in your absence, but all of v0011 and most of v0010 are undocumented here). Scruggs 01:57, 9 June 2007 (EDT)

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:27, 9 June 2007 (EDT): Thanks Scruggs. I've been meaning to get back into it, but at this point I haven't even gone through to see what we do have, other than noticing that we were missing functions.

Anyway, that's a good point, mmmpld. I hadn't considered that problem. Your list will certainly remain valuable should we do this, so that there is a way to get them all in one place.

My thoughts are this - first, move all OBSE functions from their current page to one that has (OBSE) on the end of it, so that when they're all together, you can easily see which ones require OBSE. The top of the Functions page would explain, briefly, what OBSE is, and link to the corresponding page.

Then the break-down categories I described above would be made, and functions would be assigned categories. That means we would have a category for all functions, a category for all Vanilla functions, and a category for all OBSE functions. I'm not sure how warranted it is, but perhaps an Expansion functions or SI functions category (I'm only aware of PushActorAway, are there any others?). Then we would have the various "Type" categories - Actor Functions, Magic Functions, etc, plus a Vanilla-only and OBSE-only versions of each. This should make it very easy to continue scripting without OBSE functions if one so desires, while also enabling someone to see all the functions of a particular type that he could have access to. Checking one page is always nicer than checking several.

Oh, and another consideration. Is "Vanilla" an appropriate name for non-OBSE functions? It sounds a little informal to me. Seems like it should be "Native" functions or "Oblivion" functions or something.

I think there are a few other functions for SI, such as IsPlayerInSI. There's a list on the forums - http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=666465&hl=. To be exact, these functions are added by the new CS, and not the Shivering Isles expansion pack. The reason I draw this distinction, is that there were alot of problems with the new CS and, whether warranted or not, I won't use the new CS. For this reason, personally, I would like the original CS functions and the new CS functions to remain separate.

A brief explanation of OBSE and a link to mmmpld's list would work. The benefit of that organization - once you're using OBSE the source of the functions doesn't matter much, and if you want to make a non-OBSE mod, you can use the vanilla lists.

"Oh, and another consideration. Is "Vanilla" an appropriate name for non-OBSE functions? It sounds a little informal to me. Seems like it should be "Native" functions or "Oblivion" functions or something." Either term adds information where there should be none (Gricean logic, so take it as far as you want). Making the distinctions for OBSE and CSv1.0 functions should be enough.Haama 12:18, 10 June 2007 (EDT)

Dragoon Wraith TALK 12:27, 10 June 2007 (EDT): So we should divide things by v0.8 (the version of the CS originally released to us - I'm fairly certain that we never got v1.0), v1.2, and OBSE then? Sounds good to me. Do you like the idea of having the different categories, each with an "all" section, a "0.8" section, a "1.2" section (if warranted), and an "OBSE" section?

Sounds good. I suppose it should default to the "all" version of the category (if it's set up to have a default) with clear OBSE markings? Don't know, most of the contributors seem to use OBSE, but don't know about the readers, and there's a substantial dislike of OBSE on the forums, so maybe the default should be of the vanilla functions.Haama 17:20, 10 June 2007 (EDT)

Progress

Alright, I've set up almost all of the categories, and I've started adding functions to them. So far I've gotten through the vanilla functions that start with A and C, as well as all of the "Record Variable Functions".

I have not created new versions of vanilla's "Object Functions" and OBSE's "Reference Functions" - both of these labels are now confusing, thanks to the Terminology Discussion. Thoughts on what to call these?

Also, originally I had planned on moving every function page to one that had (OBSE vXXXX) or (CS 1.Y) after it, so you could see where each comes from in the category lists. I'm now starting to think this would just look cluttered. Thoughts?

Anyway, anyone who wants to help, feel free! But to keep things clean, please start with getting the CS functions into the CS categories, and then move the OBSE functions into the general categories as well as the new OBSE categories. That way we don't have things that are only in the General section and we don't know where they should go (easy enough to check, but this is enough work without adding more).
Dragoon Wraith TALK 16:20, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

All right, a little more than a quarter of the way through the original functions, and done with the version 1.2 functions. I've done all of the "small" blocks of letters - that is, everything but G, I, M, P, R, and S. Obviously still a lot to go (137 1.0 functions, to be exact), but it's a nice start. I'm done for now, as this is mind-numbing. I may tackle some more later.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:15, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

I did GetActionRef, until I realized that all of the condition functions have been setup for the general category, but not the CS 1.0 category, so I'll do those now.

--Haama 18:41, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

Went through the condition functions that should have already been done? Going through the G's now.

--Haama 23:36, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

Oh, oops. Condition functions, I didn't know what to do with, because they can also be used in Dialogue. To my knowledge, OBSE can't do anything like that, at least at this point. So I kinda feel like that isn't really a "scripting" category, but a dialogue category. I had meant to ask what people thought about that, but I forgot.

Anyway, thanks for your hard work. You've done a ton of the functions today. You've done a ton of stuff in general, actually. Thanks for that.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 23:42, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

Glad to. I see what you mean about the condition functions, but most are genuine scripting functions as well. I suggest leaving the links to the category from the individual functions, but placing the link to the category itself somewhere in AI or Actor land. Another question, should we separate the CS 1.2 functions into categories (Player Category for GetPlayerIsInSEWorld, for instance)?

--Haama 01:04, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Ugh... G's are done. That's enough of that for a bit...

--Haama 01:45, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

I think the G's were about half the functions, if not more... I just looked at that massive block and was like "no..." Thanks for doing it, I didn't want to. I'm gonna be out for a while today, but when I get back, I'll take a crack at the I's.

As for Condition Functions, what I meant was that those functions should all be categorized elsewhere (along with OBSE's Is_______ functions and simimlar things), and that the "Condition Functions" category would be in Dialogue and/or AI and therefore not divided into 1.0, 1.2, and OBSE...

And yes, I had been putting 1.2 functions in into the categories, as well as 1.2 specific categories - so, for example, GetPlayerIsInSEWorld would be in Functions, Functions (1.2), Player Functions, and Player Functions (1.2).

Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:35, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Well, did all of the I's on the first page today. I need to get back to my actual job now, though, before someone notices... Maybe I'll get a chance to do more later.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:31, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Finished up the I's a couple of days ago, and today I did the M's... only P, R, and S remain!

Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:51, 14 July 2007 (EDT)

Did P and R... Only S left. And boy, it's a doozy. Not tonight.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:47, 20 July 2007 (EDT)

Well, getting there. I did all of the non-Set 'S' functions, only the ones that start with Set remain... which is a lot of them. Hopefully soon.

Anyway, what are we going to do with the Object Functions and Reference Functions categories? Neither of those really make sense any longer...

Dragoon Wraith TALK 14:07, 30 July 2007 (EDT)

They would be more confusing than helpful, so I won't feel sorry to see them go. Upto SetGhost have been added to the v1.0 lists.

Ok, so what was the deal with OBSE and categorization? Just add them in like a normal category? Thinking about it, we should have added the vanilla functions to the OBSE list all along - at least to have them all in one place (my thinking is that there should be two lists, ignoring CSv1.2 for simplicity's sake: 1. vanilla functions, 2. OBSE and vanilla functions), or is there a way to automatically include them in a massive list, such as the one mmmpld started?

--Haama 17:14, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Alright, the Set stuff is done. That's all of the vanilla functions, right?

--Haama 19:01, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Thanks again! Great work, as always. I've had a crappy day (the New York City Subway System being completely flooded is a recipe for disaster, in case anyone was wondering), that was definitely a very nice thing to come home to.

I'm thinking we call "Object Functions" "Item Functions" instead. As for "Reference Functions", I think that category was confusing in the first place - the idea was that those functions worked on the Reference rather than the Base item. Important information, but difficult to easily categorize thanks to the weirdness with References/Bases in the first place. Speaking of which, we need to get the Terminology stuff over here in some form or another. Can't copy Wrye's work, but we can have something. I've been meaning to do it, but haven't yet. Among other things *sigh*. Anyway, back to functions...

The OBSE functions should be included in the normal Function Type categories (so Functions, Player Functions, etc), as well as the OBSE versions of all of the above. Further, the OBSE _____ Functions category should be removed so we can just delete those (redundant)... Hmm, while this is going on there are going to be problems. Ideas on handling that?

Anyway, once we're done with that, we can finally update the OBSE functions with the new ones. That is very important.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 23:00, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

(back to the left)
Hmm, I've been thinking about the "Reference Functions" and was thinking perhaps "Reference Data Functions" and "Base Data Functions" - specifying that we are refering to something about the data held on each of those types of records, rather than the records themselves. Should be less confusing, since it helps clarify what meaning of "Reference" we're going for. Reference Data Functions would be anything that is applied locally to this single instance of an object, and a Base Data Function would be any function that changes every instance of the given base.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 00:07, 14 August 2007 (EDT)

Since there are so many OBSE functions that can be used on either, it's pretty clear from the syntax which the function works on, and because I just can't see anyone saying "oh, what I need might be an Actor function... no... Magic function... no... a Reference function!" I think keeping them will do more harm than good.

"The OBSE functions should be included in the normal Function Type categories (so Functions, Player Functions, etc), as well as the OBSE versions of all of the above. Further, the OBSE _____ Functions category should be removed" DragoonWraith

I don't follow this. What are the "OBSE versions", if not the "OBSE ___ Functions"?

--Haama 01:24, 14 August 2007 (EDT)

Hmm... Alright, then we should mention how each works in the articles themselves.

As for your question, I was refering to these.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 09:07, 14 August 2007 (EDT)

OK, I think it's time to work on the OBSE functions! Excellent, methinks. We should be up-to-date soon!

Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:16, 15 August 2007 (EDT)

The Magic functions (as defined in the OBSE command documentation) are being added. One thing that's come up - how should we handle aliases? Just one article, one for each? What about the code versions of the magic effect functions (i.e., AddEffectItem and AddEffectItemC)?

--Haama 02:08, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

Alright, the Magic effects are done (and 300 is still a cool movie).

--Haama 03:10, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

Aliases should go in the main article (under the full name), much like GetActorValue / GetAV is handled. Also, set up a redirect from the alias to the full name.

The code versions of functions are different functions, methinks. They should get there own page and have a See Also section pointing to the non-code version (and vice versa).

And yes, 300 was an awesome movie... what brings that up, though?

Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:49, 26 August 2007 (EDT)

I'm happy to announce that I've finished with the update of the OBSE v0012 functions.

All the new OBSE functions have been created (I hope correctly) and they are under their new categories.
The only function that is causing problems is GetType: This function is listed in the OBSE documentation here and in the List of Functions of Wiki, however I can't find any more details about it.
Also I've updated the categories of the old functions. Now the old OBSE categories (OBSE_<category>) are empty. I think it's time to clean all these empty categories.

--WereWolf 09:37, 15 September 2007 (EDT)

- Much thanks WereWolf, that's a major step forward. Not sure about the last bit, but I did notice some 'Under Construction' notices - I believe it's time to get rid of them?
- --Haama 20:07, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

I'd like to say I like the new format. Its nice that the OBSE funtions are included on that page as well.
--Thedragonreborn 14:32, 14 October 2007 (EDT)

Bot for scripts

Seesh, I just found a script from a link in the OBSE Wishlist section. Is there a way to make a bot that will look through the wiki for <pre> tags?
--Haama 16:53, 3 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm confused, what do you mean you found a script from a link in the OBSE Wishlist?

Dragoon Wraith TALK 23:23, 3 July 2007 (EDT)

lol, that's my point exactly. It's a DropAllItems script, explaining how to do it for a request (at the bottom of the OBSE Wish List page). This is the type of information that should be readily available, but is nearly lost in the middle of nowhere.

--Haama 04:43, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Aha, yes, that kind of thing is rampant on the Wiki, unfortunately. Worse still, it's not just scripts (and not all scripts use the <pre> tag), so I'm not sure how much this can be automated. I suspect that we will have to actually go through the Wiki to find stuff.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:13, 4 July 2007 (EDT)

Backups?

Did anyone have backups of the stuff lost to the crash? I would post on ESF, but it's really wonky for me right now (can't post, can't search, etc.). I'm looking for the Optimizing Code page (or was it Code Optimization). Thanks. --Haama 11:58, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

General Organization

(Sorry if this is a bit redundant, it almost fit into a couple of topics above, but not quite -- so I put it here.)

Writing a Book: First, to a fair degree here, we're writing a book. That's no small undertaking. Most contributions tend to be in the form of Q&A or at best, articles and tutorials. Ideally those would be redrafted/reorganized into a more booklike structure.

Physical Organization: The wiki software is geared to be a series of loosely interlinked articles, but the material here is much more structured an ordered (or should be). Because of this difference, the use of categories to organize material probably ought to be auxiliary rather than central. By that, I mean that structured hierarchical links ought to be created manually rather than automatically. E.g. Wikibooks:Python Programming or UESP:Morrowind Modding. So, specifically, I would suggest that the current joint article/category pages be split into separate articles and categories.

Crumbtrails: If it's desired to do crumbtrails, there are a couple of ways of doing it. E.g., the python example above uses subpages -- but that's kind of a pain and isn't turned on here (it's a pain because you have to re-enter the full path in every page title. e.g. "Scripting/References" instead of "References" -- this isn't just a problem with creating the pages, but also with linking and listing them (esp. on category pages). The other approach is crumbtrails (e.g., top right of article UESP MW Runtime -- except the crumbtrail really ought to be on left instead of right. Note that this crumbtrail is actually split (Modding or Management). Also it's put in place through a template {{Morrowind Modding Management Trail}}.

Types of Use: There are three main types of use: 1) Reference -- someone comes in looking for information on a specific function or dialog box. 2) Tutorial -- reader comes in not really knowing much at all about a topic and needs a tutorial to get started. 3) How to -- reader comes in with a fairly specific question, but really know what sections are relevent.

The original wiki was mostly reference with some getting started tutorials. I would say that it has become contaminated with too many Q&A type discussions. A better organization (IMO) is reference pages plus tutorials and articles. Instead of Q&A articles, we should have an FAQ list which points to specific reference, tutorial and article pages. It might be useful for such pages to include at the bottom mini-FAQs to answer common questions.

Aside from the potential work involved in splitting Q&A pages into specific articles, there's also basic organizational work. E.g. for describing variables, do you have one page which covers all types? Or a different page for each? If you're filling in details about can be done with references, do you put that information on specific function reference pages? Or do you put it in a single article on references? Probably there should be a general policy answer to this. (Though it should be expected that the general rule won't work in all cases.)

Discussion/Potential Work:

If this is to be done, someone needs to figure out desired organization and then get consensus to agree to his/her re-organization.
If it's desired to split up combined category/article pages, then that's a bit of work in itself -- but probably not too bad. Creating manual index pages is a bit more work, but also not too bad. Need to get people into habit of adding new articles to it though.
If crumbtrails are desired, they would require a little work to implement, and then a moderate amount of grunt work to add them to all pages. (Just paste in the appropriate template at the top of the page. Note that template can include category page text.) For an example, see Morrowind Modding Management. (Note the style used to be handled differently (check further back in history -- I personally preferred the old style, but the newer style has the advantage of being more compact.)
Substantive reorganization would be the most work. There would be a lot of work at the beginning, splitting up and combining articles as desired. Later on, an effort has to be made to make sure that new additions fit in existing order. Probably this would require one person's ongoing attention.

Which is more work than I want to take on (even at UESP). But I thought that I'd do an idea-dump if you all want to go forward with any of it. :D

--Wrye 21:59, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

I certainly have been wanting to do things like this, but I did not have nearly as concrete ideas as you - I have never really worked on a project like this before, so I don't really know how these kinds of problems are usually handled. I think that ideally, there would be a main page for things like variables and references, but short pages for each - presumably the main page would be a category with the sub-pages contained therein. I like using categories as pages themselves, that makes sense to me. Of course, if we can't get the Search function changed, it doesn't work well at all (I've been bugging Gstaff about it and he keeps avoiding responding, so I'm thinking it's not going to happen). Alternatively, we could just use Redirects for the subpages, pointing to the main page, and more importantly, to the appropriate section of the main page (e.g. Internal Links). Discussion here would be good.

As for actually doing the work... I want to, but I have limited time. I try to work on things, but big projects are difficult because it has to be chopped up so much. I had a very long weekend which allowed me to get started on the function categorization overhaul, but that doesn't happen often and there is competition for what free time I have. But if we get some discussion going, and I can get some direction, I can work on implementing these changes over time, hopefully.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 14:31, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Time's always a problem, eh? :lol: My suggestion is: come up with the plan, post it, and then if no one screams too loudly, start implementing it. Pick some area which would particularly benefit and which constitutes a moderate sized "chapter" of info and do it. If that goes over well, it sets the standard for others to do similar work, time permitting. Work on smaller sized wikis tends to be sporadic, with slow evolution punctuated by sudden changes (because people are busy for a while, then someone pops in with a week or two of time on their hands and does a bunch of work). Anyway, generally speaking, knowing where you want to go in the end will clarify the goals for smaller chunks of work, and will help people writing new articles to write towards that goal in the first place.

--Wrye 19:39, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Hello Guys, I have been trying to help out a little bit here and there since I was personally invited to help out with parts of the Wiki Mainly OBSE by DragoonWraith. I have been slowly chopping the main Article up a bit trying to better reorganize it and I also written a small add-on for Notepad++ that gives support for OBSE commands using a 5th slot unlike the normal ones which only have 4 slots. I was able to do a small hack and able to make the list use 5 or more slots in case someone makes a plugin for obse that also improves more scripting functions. I may not be able to do very much because of limited time I do have to do thing. I have made quite a few goof ups but also have DragoonWraith come back and fix my goof up. If there is anything that I can also help out with you can contact me through the Official Elderscrolls Forum I use the same user name there. I am also still learning the Wiki Formatting and heavily rely on the Help pages.

--Raziel23x 22:05, 6 August 2007 (EDT)

I recently written three Articles explaining how to do a few things with examples they are listed as followed

I think I placed them where they belong in the proper sections and I am not sure about a few things in the information about Oblivion Shader Editor (OSE) one. Since I created that one based off of bits and pieces of information that I found off random Forum pages in the official forums but it was from outdated topics back in September of 06 which were archived and saved for some reason. I also found some information from google which has given some good information on the topic and that was added to the page as well. But the other two I am not sure of. I have them flagged them properly with the correct categories. I also flagged all three as unfinished and would like someone to look them over to see if they are in need of additional information and additions on to it. I also would like someone to proof read them and if you think the Articles are completed enough, feel free to remove the needing updates and unfinished flags if you wish. I am new to editing with the Wiki and it seems a bit of a step back from normal HTML coding so I am still learning what the proper writing scripts are for here so bear this in mind when looking over the information.

--Raziel23x 22:05, 11 August 2007 (EDT)

One thing I notice about your articles is a lot of headers with only a few words under them. Using headers is a good thing, but I think you overused them a little. Try starting another paragraph,use bold text with a colon, or a bulleted point instead of a header. And I don't think you need both the unfinished and the update template, it's obvious unfinished articles need to be updated.

I know nothing about shaders, but I'll take a look at your other two articles and comment on the talk page. Just so you know; it's good to put the information on the Wiki even if it's incomplete. There's a bigger chance someone will update an article than make a new one. However if you're the information is correct, don't forget to mark the articles erroneous to warn the readers.

--Qazaaq 06:39, 12 August 2007 (EDT)

That would be great. I mainly set up that way for information to be placed in there as the main reason for the headers. Some of the blocks I have yet to write the documentation on the section as of yet. Feel free to change the layout if you feel it will be more suited. I just created them because I thought they would be informative and would help others who wish to do such or tried and failed and could see how I was able to succeed where they failed. When I find ways of doing things I like to share how it was done in case someone wants to do it with their mod and since this place is a wiki and the information is give freely and it is public properties meaning once it is on the pages you can't label the stuff as you need my permission to use this even though I write a wiki article which I have seen in a few places which didn't make sense. I am just trying to do my part and help improve the wiki. I have taken over 2 years off from moding for both Morrowind and Oblivion. And now I am back and I seem to be here on the wiki and working on a mod more than actually playing the game. I think I get more enjoyment out of creating something for the game then actually playing it.

--Raziel23x 09:49, 12 August 2007 (EDT)

I forgot to add that my tool for Notepad++ Script Definitions is out for those who do scripting which would greatly help you out with scripting. It is found under the tool section of this wiki. If there is anything else you would wish to be added that you think I should add support for feel free to communicate that on my talk page or the talk page of the Notepad++ Script Definitions

--Raziel23x 10:17, 12 August 2007 (EDT)

Where to put something ?

Actually, I came here today to find a place for my forum article on the BedRent quest - since I get a question on that occasionally. But my haplessness to even find a place to ask for a place suggests that there is a need for a place that peripheral people like me can go to and ask such stuff. Any ideas on either question ? Clavis0 20:53, 23 July 2007 (EDT)

not to offend anyone - but I consider no reaction an invitation to do this whatever way I deem reasonable :-) Clavis0 17:48, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

A perfectly reasonable reaction. In general, that's exactly what you should do. There is the Tutorials Category. There's also Useful Code, if you think it fits there. Wherever works for the tutorial is really where it should be.

As for questions, you should probably put policy questions like this on top of this page, so we can find it. Just below the intro/heading thing, and above older discussions.

Thanks for your contribution to the Wiki! Sorry I didn't notice this before!

Dragoon Wraith TALK 18:10, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

I was just going to post a similar reply...Here is it anyway:

The wiki has a Questions Category for questions, you can also place them on a talk page if they're about a specific article or to a specific user. Your forum article on the BedRent quest sounds like a tutorial, if that's what it is, put it in the tutorials section.

If you put something in the wrong place it will be moved by others eventually, so use your common sense and compare your article with others in that category but if you're not 100% sure it should go there, say so on the talk page and post it anyway.

One last thing, if there are a lot of changes on one day there's change your question gets missed, this is most likely what happened here. --Qazaaq 18:16, 1 August 2007 (EDT)

@@ Line 114: / Line 114: @@
 ::#[[:Category:File|File]]
 ::#[[Edit]]
-::#[[:Category:View|View]]
+::#[[View]]
 ::#[[:Category:World|World]]
 ::#[[:Category:Character|Character]]