Difference between revisions of "Community Portal"

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This is the primar discussion forum for the CS Wiki. Decisions made by the editors here on the Wiki will be posted here, as well as links to on-going discussions. Please be sure to use Signatures and Indentation appropriately in discussions - if you are unsure of proper style, please see our [[Welcome to Wiki Syntax]] guide.
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
This is the primary discussion forum for the CS Wiki. Decisions made by the editors here on the Wiki will be posted here, as well as links to on-going discussions. Please be sure to use Signatures and Indentation appropriately in discussions - if you are unsure of proper style, please see our [[Help: Welcome to Wiki Syntax|Welcome to Wiki Syntax]] guide. '''This is not the place to ask general mod related questions, those belong on the {{forums}}.'''


<div style="float: right;">
<div style="float: right; margin-left: 1em;">
'''Discussion Subpages'''<br />
'''Discussion Subpages'''<br />
Active Discussions
Active Discussions
* ''None''
* [[Community Portal/General Cohesion Initiative|General Cohesion Initiative]]
* [[Community Portal/User Defined Functions|User Defined Functions]]
Old Discussions
Old Discussions
* ''None''
{| style="border:0;"
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Signatures|Signatures]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Vandalism after Recaptcha|Vandalism after Recaptcha]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Where to put something|Where to put something?]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Navigation Suggestion about Functions|Navigation Suggestion about Functions]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Wiki Updates, August 7, 2007|Wiki Updates, August 7, 2007]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Questions on the Wiki|Questions on the Wiki]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Debate on Discussions|Debate on Discussions]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Article vs Discussion_Distinctions|Article vs Discussion Distinctions]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Terminology Discussion|Terminology Discussion]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Trivial, Homeless, Uncertain Facts Page|Trivial, Homeless, Uncertain Facts Page]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Bot for Scripts|Bot for Scripts]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/General Organization|General Organization]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Move|Move?]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Community Sheriff|Community Sheriff]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/OBSE Plugin Functions|OBSE Plugin Functions]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Article Tags|Article Tags]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Scripting Section Hierarchy|Scripting Section Hierarchy]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Navigation Suggestion|Navigation Suggestion]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/AFD and Redirects|AFD and Redirects]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Second Revitalization|Second Revitalization]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Magic Function Subcategorization|Magic Function Subcategorization]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/User CSS Enabled|User CSS Enabled]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Questions on (advanced?) wiki syntax|Questions on (advanced?) wiki syntax]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Function Info Template category|Function Info Template category]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Search Changes?|Search Changes?]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/Redirects & Nominated Articles|Redirects & Nominated Articles]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/New Utility Mod - Should I put the docs here?|New Utility Mod - Should I put the docs here?]]</ul>
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/script editor wiki links|Script editor wiki links]]</ul>
|-
|<ul><li>[[Community Portal/That Spam Bot|That Spam Bot]]</ul>
|}
</div>
</div>
__TOC__
__TOC__


== Questions on the Wiki ==
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
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?


--[[User:Qazaaq|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.
== Finally Fixed the Project:Copyrights Link ==


: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...
The [[Project:Copyrights]] link on the Edit page is '''finally''' fixed, as a side-effect of fixing the project namespace. Very happy to see that. I went through and moved all the old project pages that I could find over to the new namespace, and I added a few more links. Very good stuff.<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 01:51, 10 June 2008 (EDT)


: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.
== Architecture Changes ==


:A start would be to reformat the Questions category text to encourage the use of the CS forum. I'll do that now.
The name of the Wiki (e.g. <nowiki>{{SITENAME}}</nowiki>) has mercifully been changed to omit the trailing space that confused everyone: "{{SITENAME}}". Further, the "Project" namespace alias has been changed from "The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki " (ugh) to "CSwiki" (much nicer).
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.).
Further, subpaging has been enabled on the (Main) namespace, and presumably on the Help, Category, and Project/CSwiki namespaces. I've only tested Main, but I see no reason why those would be enabled on Main and not on the other namespaces that I requested.
::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.
::--[[User:Haama|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).
Portals and Features have been added to the Navigation box. Looking at it now, seems a ''little'' large, but I also like having access to them anywhere. Opinions on this are welcome.<br />
:::--[[User:ShadowDancer|ShadowDancer]] 17:28, 21 August 2007 (EDT)
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 15:37, 3 June 2008 (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?
:Pretty nice, will have to play with the subpaging a bit. That reminds me, did TS7 ever have luck installing LaTeX? The Parser stuff is working nicely, but last I tried (month or two ago) the Latex stuff wasn't.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 15:57, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.
::I know he tried and had difficulty on it. I believe he asked (and I mentioned here) us to test it, so presumably he assumes that it does work. If it does not, we should let him know that.
:::::--[[User:ShadowDancer|ShadowDancer]] 21:40, 21 August 2007 (EDT)
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 12:10, 3 June 2008 (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.
:::Umm... not in so many words? Ok, I'll look at what I tried, maybe now that I understand it a bit more I can give it a better shot, and report back here.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 19:05, 3 June 2008 (EDT)


--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 09:36, 22 August 2007 (EDT)
::::Huh? Not following you.
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 19:17, 3 June 2008 (EDT)


:That sounds perfect.
"Parser extension should be added, TS7 says we should test it to make sure it works. The LaTeX stuff is giving him trouble, but he's still working on it."
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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?
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 16:36, 27 March 2008 (EDT)
::--[[User:Haama|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.
:::::My impression was that it wasn't supposed to be working (yet). Anyway, took this code directly from the help site
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 14:19, 22 August 2007 (EDT)
<nowiki><math>\left ( \frac{1}{2} \right )</math></nowiki>
<nowiki><math>\sqrt{2}</math></nowiki>
:::::gives
<math>\left ( \frac{1}{2} \right )</math>
<math>\sqrt{2}</math>


::::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.
:::::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 19:26, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
::::I like what you did to the questions page, that will keep out a few people who actually read that stuff. Looks good!
::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 06:19, 23 August 2007 (EDT)


I've created a [[:Category: Questions about Missing Content|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.<br />
::::::Will ask.
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 13:45, 24 August 2007 (EDT)
::::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 09:40, 4 June 2008 (EDT)


:This will centralize all the missing content on one page if categorized properly. Good thinking DragoonWraith!
:--[[User:Qazaaq|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.
== Cleaned up Hosted Images ==
::--[[User:ShadowDancer|ShadowDancer]] 23:37, 24 August 2007 (EDT)


== Wiki Updates, August 7, 2007 ==
Just went through the image log, added <nowiki>{{afd}}</nowiki> to the ones that have no business on the Wiki. Leaving a note here so that if anyone decides to do so again at a future date, they know they only have to go through the ones after this date.<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 08:19, 6 April 2008 (EDT)


* [[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.
== Toolbox for Tutorials ==


<nowiki>*</nowiki> I had to do this for myself... it may be that our user preferences are set to the old default.
I think it would be a good idea to add a toolbox on tutorial pages with the tools used in that tutorial. That way we can standardize all the "Tools Needed" and "Requirements" sections in each tutorial. On the Wiki pages of the tools we can add some installation instructions, trial programs and alternatives. Next to the TOC would be a good spot, it's only a list with links so there's not a lot of space required. Here's an example of what I mean:
<!-- a lot of wiki markup doesn't seem to work inside a div with toc class -->
<div class="toc" style="float:left;">
{|style="border:none;"
|<span style="font-color: #5a3e16;font-weight: bold;border-bottom: 1px solid #6e5229;">Tools used in this tutorial</span>
'''Required'''
<ul style="list-style:square;">
:<li>[[NifSkope]]</li>
:<li>[[Blender]]</li>
:<li>[[NIF_Importers_and_Exporters#NifTools_Blender_NIF_Scripts|Blender import/export plugin]]</li></ul>


[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 15:15, 7 August 2007 (EDT)
'''Optional'''
<ul style="list-style:square;">
:<li>[[DDS Tools]]</li>
:<li>[[BSA Unpackers]]</li></ul>
|}</div>


:New toys, awesome! I also had to change the preferences, it's probably not changing already saved settings. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 17:45, 7 August 2007 (EDT)
<div class="visualClear"></div>


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 [[:Template: Wiki News|here]].<br />
I didn't want to go ahead and start adding this to the tutorials right away (first want to finish the help section anyway), but I thought I'd put it up here and see what you think.
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 14:56, 11 August 2007 (EDT)
<br />--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 09:50, 14 March 2008 (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.
:Looks good to me, I say go for it when you get the chance.
: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.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 06:51, 14 March 2008 (EDT)
:--[[User:Qazaaq|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.
:Very good idea - I wonder if we should do a similar bit for the scripting tutorials and list all of the "See Also", functions used, [[:Category:Standardized_Snippets|Standardized Snippets]], and articles up top?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 11:41, 15 March 2008 (EDT)


::Anyway, I like the idea about the Check out the Community Portal thing at the bottom, I'm going to include that.
:Brilliant idea, as I hate when tutorials suddenly say: now open this program, A program I don't have, it's too far into the tutorial for me to stop!
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 02:01, 12 August 2007 (EDT)
anyway I'd love to help you add them!
--[[User:Oblivious12123|Oblivious12123]] 07:36, 29 December 2009 (EST)


== Article Tags ==
== New Administration Noticeboard ==


I've created a series of Templates to be used as tags on articles. You can find those [[:Category: Article Tags|here]].<br />
Sheriff action requests and requests of Bethesda should now go [[Help:Administration Noticeboard|here]].<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 13:14, 6 August 2007 (EDT)
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 11:56, 7 March 2008 (EST)


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


== Debate on Discussions ==
== Pseudo-Code Examples on Function Pages? ==


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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
A user on the ESF suggested having pseudo-code examples for functions, for the sake of novices who have difficulty understanding the more technical syntax section or are still new at reading code. On the one hand, I think pseudo-code is ''great'' for explaining things, especially to novices, but on the other hand I will worry that it will lead to clutter. So, do people think that adding pseudo-code examples to the function pages is a good idea? Should it be for all of them, or just ones that are particularly confusing? Thoughts on this would be appreciated.<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 07:44, 7 March 2008 (EST)


: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.  
:There are some functions that need a tutorial/overhead explanation (i.e., Messagebox Tutorial). From the ESF thread, the GetNthActive... functions need one. Looping apparently needs a better one? And from another thread the Input functions need one (though, apparently, it will be moot by v15 :) ).--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 11:01, 7 March 2008 (EST)
: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. --[[User:Wrye|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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 19:30, 2 July 2007 (EDT)


== Signatures ==
== Functions in scripts category/pages ==


Before the Community Portal was lost, we had been having a debate about where signatures go in discussions. While the discussion had not been closed, no input had been made for a while. The voting, as I remember it, was 4-3 in favor of putting signatures at the end.
There's a category (set of pages?) that lists the vanilla scripts with certain functions. I imagine that all of these were determined with v1.0 and there have been some changes since then. [http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=809919 This thread], for instance, points out one such instance where the function doesn't seem to be there (whether it ever was there).


The primary argument for putting signatures at the front of posts was so that we know who is talking before we start reading.
It looks like these functions are easy enough to find (Find Text), and I imagine there are differences between the versions. So, should we delete the category/pages?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 14:00, 15 February 2008 (EST)


The primary arugments for putting signatures at the end of posts was because this is how things are generally done in letters and the like, and because it definitively ends our post (so someone after us with sloppy signing won't be confused for part of our post).


Feel free to make any comments you like, as to whether we should consider this poll closed (in which case I will move my signatures), if you have anything more to add, or if you feel that either side was misrepresented. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
==Deleting Questions==


:I think we should close this discussion next monday. I don't think we'll see any more votes. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 09:50, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
I started the process - it doesn't seem to be as daunting as I thought it would be (hooray for [[:Category:Request an Article]]). Anyway, should we make the decisions on where to put the question (delete, request, etc.) on our own or wait for a second vote?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 18:17, 19 February 2008 (EST)


::Sounds fine to me. By the way, please include a space between your post and the previous post. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 20:03, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
:You can also use the [[:Template:Missing|<nowiki>{{Missing}}</nowiki>]] tag. Might be useful for questions that aren't formatted like proper requests (as described in the Request an Article page).
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 18:52, 19 February 2008 (EST)


::It's Monday. :) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 17:36, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
::Good point, but not the main question :P I was thinking that the first person could make the suggested move (tag or category) and the second could remove the Questions category.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 20:06, 19 February 2008 (EST)


:::Yes it is, I think moving the signatures on this page is a good idea and all old signatures you come along. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:31, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
===Progress===
Through the H's. Didn't mess with these questions:
*Articles for Troubleshooting
*#[[Can_I_remove_NPCs_pickpocketing_others_messagebox]]
*#[[Cs_saved_as_tes_file]]
*#[[Help_none_of_my_changes_in_the_construction_set_show_up_in_game]]
*#[[How_can_I_fix_an_aquired_Crash]]
*Interesting info
*#[[Effect_Shaders_on_Mounted_Actors]]
*#[[How_would_I_create_a_statue%3F]]
*Tutorial comments
*#[[How_to_avoid_Bed-Furnituremarker-Warp]]
*Should be on the wiki - quick answer?
*#[[How_do_I_Use_One_AI_Package_On_Multiple_NPC%27s]]
*#[[How_do_I_change_the_PC%27s_starting_location]]
*#[[How_do_I_script_a_spell_to_summon_a_creature]]
*#[[How_do_I_stop_faction_members_from_attacking_eachother]] (maybe troubleshooting)


::::Alright. For the sake of clarity, I will change all of my signatures on this page, and I'll use the end from now on. I'm not going to change every instance of my signature however, as it is probably the most common non-word string on the Wiki at the moment (I know it's the most common link...)--[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 19:22, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
===Further Progress===
I've done the rest, now we only have to do the answered questions?
*Troubleshooting
*#[[I cant save my mod]] (not answered yet)
*#[[Invalid cell coordinate]] (not answered yet)
*Interesting info
*#[[Rotate Entire Area]]
*#[[Shaders on weapons or armor]]
*#[[Talking Creatures?]]
*#<s>[[Variables In Companion Script Reset After Closing Oblivion Gate]]</s>
*#*Info already in [[Common_Bugs#Oblivion_Realm_Resets|Troubleshooting]] and added to [[Cell Reset]]
*Should be on the Wiki
*#[[Mods Without Master File]]
*#[[Levels of AI Processing]]
*#[[NPC Find Player]]
*#[[Stop NPCs from attacking aggressor]]
*#[[Sound preview not working]]
*#[[Shaders Leaking?]]
*#[[Weapon reach]]


:::::Just moved all of my signatures... perhaps we ought to put a return before our signatures if they're at the end? I see a lot of signatures wrapping, making it somewhat difficult to read. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 19:28, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
==="Answered" Section===
Everything in the Answered section, in theory, "isn't of real importance to the public" - I vote for whole-sale deletion of everything in the category. I recommend that people go through, give things a cursory glance to make sure that it actually isn't anything useful, and if not, yeah, we can just ditch all of it.<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 15:58, 24 February 2008 (EST)


::::::Sounds like a good idea, will do that in the future. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 20:17, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
:2nd vote. Treat it like we did the questions and list which ones might be useful and why?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 16:35, 24 February 2008 (EST)


:::::::I'm strongly in favor of preceding posts with your signature, on a separate line, with the date.  These are <b>not</b> personal letters written by a single person.  When I receive a letter in postal mail, I first look at the end of the letter to see who wrote it.  No big deal, only one place to look, always.
::Yes, but I expect that most will not be.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:27, 24 February 2008 (EST)


:::::::But these are not single posts written by a single author. Most other kinds of postings in the e-World are <b>preceded</b> by the author's name--email, bulleting boards, newgroups, etc, and they have decades of precedence. I always see the poster in the corner of my eye whenever going down posts in discussions so I can easily skip the ones from people I want to ignore and pay attention to the ones I respect. Having to search for the bottom of each post to see who wrote it, then search for the beginning of that post if I want to read that person's post, is cumbersome to say the least.  And it's even worse when the sigs aren't on a separate line!  You have to look all over the page for sigs now.
:::We should go through the category briefly, look at the titles and open anything that could be interesting. There are 269 answered questions and most can be skipped by looking at the title, this shouldn't take very long.
:::Before deleting the category and the pages within we have to make sure none of them are also in the solutions category. Shall we call this decided then?
:::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 19:05, 24 February 2008 (EST)


:::::::There is a possible exception to this rule though, and that is when an article is expected to have been written by a single person, like a tutorial or help page.  It makes it more formal looking and exclusive to sign at the bottom.  My preference is to still sign it at the top so I don't have to scroll to the bottom to see if it is by a person I would want to read, but I can compromise in this case if I have to.
::::There's only like three of us here, anyway. If we've all commented, I'm going for it.
:::::::--[[User:Tom Supergan|Tom Supergan]] 10:05, 19 July 2007 (EDT)


== Article vs Discussion Distinctions ==
::::Gstaff probably won't be around to delete them for a while yet, anyway, so we don't have to worry about losing anything if I make a mistake.
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:58, 25 February 2008 (EST)


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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:12, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
====Progress====
Well, I've done the Answers starting with A, B, and C. There are 216 answers left to go through. I'll continue working my way through those. There were a few that I didn't delete, which I placed in appropriate request places (either request an article or interesting discussion tags).<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:28, 29 February 2008 (EST)


: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.  --[[User:Qazaaq|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? --[[User:SickleYield|SickleYield]] 11:09, 3 July 2007 (PST)
== Uploading test mods ==


:::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.
I'd like to upload a test mod for the [[:Category:Variables|Variables category]]. I'm hoping that this will make it easier for others to run duplicate and counter tests, as well as lend a bit more legitimacy to the wiki. It will require OBSE and Pluggy to make testing easier and to have a text file with the results. Format will be along the lines of
:::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 04:38, 4 July 2007 (EDT)
<pre>Global Float tests
Test 1a: aaaFValue = 8388606 (exp: 8388606)
Test 1b: aaaFValue = 8388607 (exp: 8388607)
Test 1c: aaaFValue = 8388608 (exp: 8388608)
Test 2a: aaaFValue = 16777215 (exp: 16777215)
Test 2b: aaaFValue = 16777216 (exp: 16777216)
Test 2c: aaaFValue = 16777216 (exp: 16777217)
Test 3a: aaaFValue = 33554432 (exp: 33554431)
Test 3b: aaaFValue = 33554432 (exp: 33554432)
Test 3c: aaaFValue = 33554432 (exp: 33554433)
Test 4a: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 2147483646)
Test 4b: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 2147483647)
Test 4c: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 2147483648)
Test 5a: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 440359962751356)
Test 5b: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 440359962751357)
Test 6a: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 44035996275135651)
Test 6b: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 44035996275135652)</pre>--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 23:43, 5 April 2008 (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.
:Last I checked, the Upload thing only accepts images. Otherwise, I'd be all for it. Perhaps e-mail Gstaff about it?
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 03:08, 21 April 2008 (EDT)


:::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.
::Finally got a chance/reason to test this - we can't upload .esp files... Not sure if it's worth bugging GStaff and <sp?>TS37<sp?>, though. Almost a roll of the dice whether it'd be a better way to get people to upload their test mods.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:18, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


:::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.
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.  
::There is a way of putting .rar files into the .jpg image and then upload it to be downloaded and extracted. ill get back to you on this one.--[[User:blindobi|blindobi]]
:::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).  
:::--[[User:Wrye|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.
== Wrye Changes ==
::::--[[User:SickleYield|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...
Okay, I'm sure that this stuff has been talked about before. For sure there was a major effort at putting together portals. But I'm not sure that was a good idea. To some degree it seems that we're now lost in a plethora of index pages (portals + categories + sub-categories). Kind of a lot.  
:::::*[http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Tes3Mod:Better_Bodies&action=history 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.
:::::*[http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Tes3Mod:Leveled_Lists&action=history 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.
:::::*[http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Tes4Mod:FormId&action=history 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.
:::::*[http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Shivering:Reference_Bug&action=history 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 [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Special:Contributions/Wrye 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 ([http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=632323 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:
:::::--[[User:Wrye|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.--[[User:Dev akm|Dev akm]] 00:22, 18 July 2007 (EDT)
And I've never been very happy with the combination of articles and categories -- you just end up with a mess (IMO). (In contrast, I think that something like this is better: [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Modding Modding@UESP] -- a nice long list with short descriptions which I can easily scan up and down. In other words, it's better to have less index pages with more links on them.) But not to spend too much time arguing.
:::::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. --[[User:Dev akm|Dev akm]] 00:53, 18 July 2007 (EDT)


''Outsetting because of depth. I'm responding to dev_akm immediately above...''
Sorry if that sounded like a rant, I know you all have worked hard on this, but it's still fairly hard to find your way around and figure out where to add new material.


'''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.
So, I've done a couple of things. If these go over well, then I'll do some more if I have time (what I ''actually'' wanted to do was write an article on standardizing menu behavior -- but I couldn't find a good place to put it -- where it was likely to be found). Anyway, the two things that I've done are essentially both article/category splitting efforts (see first two sections below):


'''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.
Cheers! --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 04:16, 31 May 2008 (EDT)


'''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).
=== Glossary ===
This is a conversion of the [[:Category:Glossary]] page to single page article. I copied most definitions to it, while expanding some. I have intentionally left some articles out which didn't really seem to belong on a category page. If this page is well received, then the old article pages that have been completely included should be deleted as should the [[:Category:Glossary]] category itself. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 04:16, 31 May 2008 (EDT)


'''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.
:I haven't seen any objections, so I'm preceding with Prodding old category entries. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 20:17, 5 June 2008 (EDT)


'''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.  
:'''Here's what I'm doing:'''
:* I'm prodding all small pages that have been fully incorporated into the new [[Glossary]]. And I'm changing other pages that formerly pointed to these pages to point to [[Glossary]] instead.
:* If an article is too long to fully incorporate into the Glossary, then:
:* If glossary has a short entry, then the the short glossary entry will have a "See" link to the main article. Links to the full article will be left pointing to the full article.
:* I'm removing the full pages from the glosssary category. If they're full, then they're not "Glossary" entries. After all, many pages on the wiki define stuff. If one started including "all pages that define stuff" in the Glossary, then the glossary category would contain 1/3 of the pages on the site. Which would be redundant -- after all defining stuff is a lot of what a wiki does.
:--[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 21:31, 5 June 2008 (EDT)


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.
::It looks good, very good. I wasn't too sure at first, but I think you're right, this does look better.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 11:14, 6 June 2008 (EDT)


Regards, --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 03:53, 18 July 2007 (EDT)
=== Data Files ===
[[:Category:Data Files]] - I've removed the article type text off this page into several articles [[TES Files]] (actually a major rewrite) and [[Windows Vista]]. I've also added a new article: [[Esp vs. Esm]]. I've then gone back and changed [[:Category:Data Files]] to be just an manual index page. At which point I hit the  "too many index pages" and "category pages should not be treated like articles" problem. So I figured I had done enough damage and stopped. :evil:


: '''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 [[:Category:Troubleshooting| 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.  
One point here is that the [[TES Files]] page is a good introduction to very basic issues in modding. Moderately thorough and not ''too'' technical (unlike e.g. the [[Modding Terminology]] page, which is a bit thick.) IMO, [[TES Files]] probably should be linked to directly from Getting Started or something like that. But I looked at the HTML code and went "eep". So I left it alone. (And again, enough damage already.) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 04:16, 31 May 2008 (EDT)


: 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 haven't had a chance to read everything here, but I agree that the TES Files page ought to be on Getting Started, and will put it there. But where did you run into ugly HTML? The only pages with that are the Portals and the Main Page... (I used tables for formatting, a major no-no in this Web 2.0 world of ours)
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 11:33, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


: 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.
::Complicated Html -- just the portal pages. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:00, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


: 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:
=== New Templates ===
I've added link templates: [[Template:PES]] and [[Template:Tesnexus]]. Idea is to make adding such download links easier. These turned out to be useful at UESP after a while. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:18, 31 May 2008 (EDT)


: ''"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."''
I've added a Prod (Proposed for Deletion) templage: [[Template:Prod]]. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 20:06, 31 May 2008 (EDT)


: 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.
:<s>So, Prod or our current method - mark it as deleted and if it needs an explanation put it in the talk page?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 12:44, 2 June 2008 (EDT)</s> Discussion is below in the [[Community Portal#Deleting Articles|"Deleting Articles" section]].--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 14:21, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


: We don't accept this sort of behavior with mods. Why should we accept it on the wiki?
:[[Template:Mod Link|I've combined the link templates into one modular (hopefully for other sites as well) template.]]--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:03, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


: 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.
::Okay, but <nowiki>{{PES|1234|Some Mod}} is shorter (and thus easier to create and edit) than {{Mod Link|PES|1234|Some Mod}}.</nowiki> --17:21, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


: 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?--[[User:Dev akm|Dev akm]] 12:50, 18 July 2007 (EDT)
:::I'm with Wrye on that one.
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:53, 2 June 2008 (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, [http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=730702 here].
::::True, but this is easier for us to keep track of - one page instead of several. Either way.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:55, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
::::Oh, right, back to the original reason - do we really need a "Link Templates" category?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:58, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::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.
:::::The individual link templates could all use the general link template, that way it's short to use in an article and easy to maintain/change because it's all on one page. Everybody happy, except Elric and Monica maybe, because we don't have a link template for ElricM.com yet.
:::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:09, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::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.
Not sure I follow - it's possible to have multiple templates on one template page?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 18:42, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.--[[User:Dev akm|Dev akm]] 17:39, 18 July 2007 (EDT)
:No, what I meant was having a PES link template like Wrye made: <nowiki>{{PES|3508|Cobl}}</nowiki>, with this on the template page: <nowiki>{{Mod Link|PES|{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}}}</nowiki>, using the multiple link template you made. And a TESNexus template like this: <nowiki>{{TESNexus|id|name}}</nowiki>, with this on it's template page: <nowiki>{{Mod Link|TESNexus|{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}}}</nowiki>, also using your multiple link template. I assume that works.
:--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:52, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::::I really need to transcript the thread onto the Wiki. Meh, not tonight. Tonight I've gone through all of the [[:Category: Tutorials|Tutorials]] and [[:Category: Bylined Articles|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.
::Keep in the mind that the server has to dynamically process all templates each time the page is generated. More complicated templates means more cpu consumption. There are some compensations (e.g. for non-logged in users the wiki ''may'' be using page caching, which cuts down on processing requirements).
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 23:56, 7 August 2007 (EDT)


== General Cohesion Initiative ==
::At this time this is probably not an huge problem, but consider: Fallout is coming. If that has a construction set, then it will be docced on same server as this one. And will be heavily hit when fallout comes out. Best to establish good policies now rather than have to reverse them later when/if the server gets crushed. (Don't want bethsoft turning off the CS Wiki server because it's eating too much cpu. :)) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 19:07, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


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.
::So, that would still require creating each template - the only real difference is whether the link is on one page or copy/pasted between each page. The latter is easier for new people to add - ehh... don't really feel strongly one way or the other.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 21:33, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


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.
=== Message Spam Consolidation ===
I've cleaned up [[Message Spam]] (formerly Avoiding Message Spam) and integrated [[Preventing messages]] (which I've now Prod'ed). I've also gone through to individual pages and removed redundant "how to avoid message spam" from them (instead, linking to updated page). Observation on this is that some info is common and should not be repeated on multiple pages. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 20:10, 31 May 2008 (EDT)


So in general, we need ideas about what this Wiki needs. Please post your ideas. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:12, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
:Appreciate the clean-up and agreed on the links - how did you find the places to replace the links? Something like that has long been on my "wish I had the time" list, but you seem to have done it rather quickly.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 11:35, 1 June 2008 (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. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 10:06, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
::Finding usage... I think that I just replaced the on five or so relevant command pages (equipItem, unequipItem, etc.). I may have also searched on "message spam" and looked at the pages that linked to those pages. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:03, 1 June 2008 (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.
=== No Fluff Scripting Portal ===
''Moved to [[Talk:Portal:Scripting]]. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 21:31, 29 June 2008 (EDT)''


: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.--[[User:Dev akm|Dev akm]] 12:57, 18 July 2007 (EDT)
==== How do we like it? ====
Would comments be more appropriate here or on the scripting portal talk page?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 13:56, 8 July 2008 (EDT)


== Community "Sheriff" ==
:Comments on scripting portal talk page would probably be better. You might want to PM me too if you want my attention. 96% retirement means I start ignoring stuff (like my my watchlist on the CS wiki :D). --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:17, 13 July 2008 (EDT)


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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
=== Deleting Articles ===
I'm using the Prod (Propose for Deletion) template a lot.
* '''Tutorials''' - There seem to be way too many tutorials. Especially tutorials which are: incomplete, erroneous, bylined, chatty, poorly written, not useful. (The chatty tutorials are really getting on my nerves.) I'm prodding those that don't look useful.
* '''Usage Pages''' - At some point someone went through and documented where functions were used in various scripts. Which is completely pointless since the same info is more readily available through use of the Text Search command. I've prod'ed one of these pages ([[AddSpell Reference]]), but really all such pages ought to be summarily deleted.
--[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 21:50, 31 May 2008 (EDT)
::Excuse me - where is this Text Search command located ?? Answer : Edit>Find Text - see [http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Find_Text here][[User:UDUN|UDUN]] 10:05, 11 October 2008 (EDT)
:Agreed on both counts. The reason such has not already been done is because while many tutorials are poorly written or incomplete, most ''would'' be valuable written correctly. So we mark them with the delusion that we'll get back to them, fix them and/or finish them. Of course, that hasn't happened.


=== Sheriff Action Requests ===
:As for the function references, yeah, I don't know who did that or why. Seemed like an awfully large amount of work to just throw out; someone might have found it useful, was my feeling on it. But if no one finds it useful, it could be deleted.


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.  
:By the way, first off, we had [[:Template: afd|<nowiki>{{afd}}</nowiki>]], which you could have co-opted for this had you wanted, further, while it is probably not a large concern, GStaff does delete everything in the Articles for Deletion category without checking what is on them. So if these are only ''proposed'' for deletion, that may not be the right place for them, as they could be deleted without input from anyone else.


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).
:On the other hand, GStaff doesn't come by all that often, so the risk is pretty low.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 11:44, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
::Afd? Oops. Missed that. Hmm... Could two stage it. Afd for "this really should be deleted" and "prod" for "think this should be deleted, but maybe wait for some vetos." --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:12, 1 June 2008 (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. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 10:15, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
:::Agreed. I'm making a [[:Category: Proposed for Deletion|pfd]] category.
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 18:43, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


:It's probably best to leave this section here. The equivalent page at UESP would be the [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/UESPWiki:Administrator_Noticeboard 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.) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 16:46, 4 July 2007 (EDT)
::::I've added a timer to [[Template:Prod|Prod]] so the article will automatically be added to the [[Template:afd|Articles for Deletion]] after 14 days. I still need to make the template page itself display the correct info <s>(instead of afd...)</s> (fixed--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 15:09, 2 June 2008 (EDT)), but it works. I also placed a countdown at the bottom of the template. Is 14 days long enough, too long?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 14:25, 2 June 2008 (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.
:::::Two weeks sounds quite perfect, actually. Could you add a variable that can be set, with a default of 14 days, though? That might be useful.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:05, 5 July 2007 (EDT)
:::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:01, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


== Terminology Discussion ==
:::::Cool. Sounds perfect. 14 days seems like a good default to me. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 17:25, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


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 [http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=715079 thread on the ESF]. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
I can add a variable, not sure how to make a default - let me check.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:19, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
:Done - I added some extra stuff so it'll say "tomorrow", "later today" when appropriate.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:56, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


:Discussion has been almost entirely recovered, but is now at [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Modding_Terminology UESP:Modding Terminology]. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:51, 28 June 2007 (EDT)
Oops, the tag didn't quite work as expected before. It would "reset" itself on the 1st of each month, didn't notice because I made the template on the first of June... Should be fixed now.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 14:43, 19 July 2008 (EDT)


== Trivial / Homeless / Uncertain Facts Page ==
===Deprecated Articles===
I've also established a category and a template for [[:Category:Deprecated Articles]] (and <nowiki>{{Deprecated Article}}</nowiki>). This is for articles that are deprecated for some reason (erroneous, undesirable, outdated, etc.), but which we don't want to delete for some reason (historical, contains some useful info, etc.) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 18:12, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 10:19, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
== Colons and Namespaces ==


:I made an [[:Category: Unfinished Articles|Unfinished Articles category]], that should be useful for these kind of things. It's better than having no category at all. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:18, 28 June 2007 (EDT)
When definining new pages under a namespace (e.g. Category or Template), you should ''not'' include a space after the colon. E.g. a name should be Category:Something, not "Category: Something". The main reason for this is that "Category: Something" doesn't define a category named "Something", it defines a category named " Something" - i.e. the name starts with a space instead of "S". This will cause problems when the page is alphabetically sorted. It's also likely to cause various other minor problems with current or future versions of wiki software. (If you'll poke around Wikipedia or UESP, you'll see that colons are not followed by spaces.)


::[[: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).
Some background. MediaWiki divides articles into different namespaces, e.g. Category, Template, MediaWiki, etc. Each primary namespace has a second talk namespace associated with it. With one exception, these second namespaces are always the base namespace + " Talk" e.g. "Category Talk", "Template Talk", etc. The exception is the main namespace which has no name, and the corresponding main talk space, which is simply "Talk" instead of " Talk".
::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:04, 26 July 2007 (EDT)


== Scripting Section Hierarchy ==
Namespaces are defined at a low configuration level of the wiki. I.e. you can't just create a new one by including a colon in the name. E.g. if you create a page named "Foo:Bar", then:
* ''if'' there's a namespace named "Foo", then this will become an page named "Bar" in the "Foo" namespace, but...
* but if there're not a "Foo" namespace", then this will become an page with the name "Foo:Bar" in the main namespace.
Again, if you created a page name "Foo: Bar", then this would become a page with the name " Bar" (leading space) in the "Foo" namespace.


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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
There's another feature of MediaWiki which is (partially) active here: Subpaging. If you define a page with a '/' in the title, e.g. "Foo/Bar" and if the page "Foo" exists, then Foo/Bar is considered to be a subpage of "Foo". A practical result of this is that a backlink will appear on the subpage (e.g. [[User:Wrye/Demo]]). Well, ''should'' appear. For some reason the backlink is appearing user space pages, but not in main namespace pages (I imagine that backpage linking needs to be activated for the main namespace).


: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. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 10:20, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
Hence:
* Don't use colons in the names of articles. Colons should only be used to designate namespaces.
* When creating pages in namespaces, don't put a space between the colon and the next word.
* When desiring to create page hierarchy, use '/' to define subpages.
* Ask GStaff to turn subpaging on for main namespace.


::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.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 13:05, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
--[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 19:17, 1 June 2008 (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. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 20:07, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
:Will e-mail GStaff about sub-paging.


::::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.
:Also, stylistically, it is favorable (at least in my opinion) to include the space in links. You can do this with actual namespaces (Category:, Talk:, Help:), but not with 'pseudo' namespaces (Portal:, most notably). So <nowiki>[[:Category: Getting Started]]</nowiki> will work perfectly, and not cause the problems Wrye has mentioned above, while <nowiki>[[Portal: Scripting]]</nowiki> will not. Obviously the exception is when you are using a link to create a new page.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 21:09, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


::::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 [[:Category:Variables|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 [[:Category:Scripting|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.
::Testing: 1) [[:Category:Proposed for Deletion]] and 2) [[:Category: Proposed for Deletion]] (second one has leading space). If you mouse over these, you'll see that auto-generated link has no space after the colon. Similarly if you try to create a page where the name (after the namespace) starts with a space, the space will be removed.


::::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.
::Apparently the wiki software automatically corrects the page name, both while creating and while linking to remove the space. Which is convenient, but I would regard that as the wiki software fixing a user error. If you'll check Wikipedia (e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization Wikipedia:Categorization]), it never uses "Foo: Bar", but rather always uses "Foo:Bar" in the text of the link. So for MediaWiki based wikis, the stylistic standard is that links that display the namespace should not include a space after the colon. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 00:32, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::::So here's the heirarchy I've got so far:
:::Subpaging has been enabled on the Main namespace. I also requested the Category, Help, and Project namespaces, but I have not tested these as of yet.
::::#Background Info
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 15:32, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
::::##Using/Attaching Scripts
::::##Script Types
::::##Block Types
::::##Variables
::::#Functions
::::##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
::::##Functions themselves, of course (hey DW, is the brief discussion of the OBSE filtering, etc. still here?)
::::#Basics
::::##Debugging (Troubleshooting doc, etc.)
::::##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).
::::##Console Commands - more debugging goodness, really
::::##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)
::::##Random info
::::##Lists of commands/functions as they appear in scripts
::::##Lists of globals/game settings
::::##Questions and answers that might prove useful
::::##Script processing - probably in the first sections with script types? The category might have to be reworked to be more than Script Types.
::::--[[User:Haama|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]]. --[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 08:57, 2 July 2007 (EDT)
::::Cool. Yep, works now. E.g. [[MessageBox_Tutorial/Centralized_Decision_Catching]]. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 17:30, 3 June 2008 (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.
:::::Yes, very cool - that was the original intent. I'm removing the bits and pieces from the Scripting Tutorial category. I guess the same needs to be done with the Kits tutorial.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 19:03, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
::::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 20:23, 2 July 2007 (EDT)


=== Function Filtering and Overhaul ===


==== Original Discussion ====
== Function Listing ==


* from [[:Category Talk: Functions|Category Talk: Functions]]
;Reorganized the function listing.
* All functions are now listed in a new raw format at [[Raw Function List]]. This listing has fields for: function name; source (e.g. CS, CS 1.2, OBSE 10, OBSE 14, Pluggy 42, etc.); type (Math, AI, etc.); Description.
* To add new functions, edit the raw format page to new functions, etc. Then extract that list to a txt file on your machine, run a Wrye Bash command line command, and voila, it generates several processed files which can be pasted onto various pages.
* Auto-Generated Text:
** [[List of Functions|All Functions]]
** [[CS Functions]]
** [[OBSE Functions]]
** [[Pluggy Functions]]
** [[TSFC Functions]]


[[User:DragoonWraith|<font face="Oblivion,Daedric Runes" size=2>D</font>ragoon <font face="Oblivion,Daedric Runes" size=2>W</font>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<font face="Oblivion,Daedric" size=2>TALK</font>]] 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.
;What's Not Done
* I have not yet created an "Organized by type" page, but that would be easy - once the type info is entered into the raw data - right now, it's (mostly) not. If someone can take on that chore, I'll add some more code to the bash function and generate the page.
* Currently the auto-gen function is now dumping type info. That could be changed easily though. (I'm a little concerned about cluttering the page, but putting it in a column between function name and description would probably work well.
* <s>Still need to release the Wrye Bash update.</s>


Noticing the lack of those functions, mmmpld went and accomplished the impressive feat of cataloging all functions, OBSE and Vanilla, [[List of Functions|here]].
;Advantages:
* All function information is entered in place ([[Raw Function List]]).
* Function data can include source version number, function type and brief description.
* Auto-generated pages are easier to read and search. In particular, a given set of info (e.g. All function, or all OBSE functions) is not spread across several pages.
* No need to have separate categories for separate version releases. Version info is shown for each function (so long as the data is entered). As I think we're seeing the separate categories approach is not scaling well for continued releases of OBSE. (And it's so unworkable for Pluggy that it hasn't even been attempted.)


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.
;Disadvantages:
* A little more work than just assigning a category.
* Need to use Wrye Bash to do auto-generation.


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.
;Suggested:
If this is well received, then I would suggest discarding at least some of the current function categorization. Maybe discard a lot of it. E.g. an OBSE function might be categorized under "Function" and "OBSE" and that's it (NOT OBSE 12, OBSE 13, etc.)


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.
;Style Sheet
By the way, I've updated the [[Wiki_User_Style/Liquid_Design.css]] page. If you've imported that, you should see the functions appear in a graphically attractive table.  


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.
PS: We really ought to get commonly shared style stuff copied to [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]].  


: 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. —[[User:Mmmpld|mmmpld]] 00:22, 9 June 2007 (EDT)
--[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 05:40, 2 June 2008 (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). [[User:Scruggs|Scruggs]] 01:57, 9 June 2007 (EDT)
:Looks great, Wrye. Agreed that version categories for OBSE are unnecessary - the Function Types categories are still useful, IMO (in that I actually use them constantly for my own work, so I am very strongly opposed to deleting them).


:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<font face="Oblivion,Daedric Runes" size=2>D</font>ragoon <font face="Oblivion,Daedric Runes" size=2>W</font>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<font face="Oblivion,Daedric" size=2>TALK</font>]] 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.
:As for style changes, changing things in Monobook.css wouldn't help, the Wiki uses ESstyle.css. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.


:::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.
:As for changing the default CSS files, yes, but first... There is something of an issue with the Liquid Design in that you cannot use a Scroll Wheel if the mouse is positioned over the 'fixed' elements on the left. Without these elements, however, the black borders do not work.


:::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.
:Changes to the HTML would be necessary to fix that, and I'm not sure that Bethesda would be willing to do that. Which makes it difficult to propose changes to them.


:::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.
:Things like tab-highlighting, my code-box stretching fix, and your Table changes might be possible to have added to the default style. I'll look into breaking those out of the unified code and proposing that to Bethesda.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 10:19, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


:::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.
::Haven't had a chance to look at this, but as a quick vote - I prefer the version categories as it makes it easier to determine at a "glance" which version is necessary for a script. The OBSE team tends to add in groups, so you can get a gross idea of what group they added by looking at them all (which wouldn't be easy in list format).--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:15, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::::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.  
:::I'm not sure exactly which info you're looking for. If say, you're looking at the function page and you want to know which version of OBSE introduced it, then you don't need a category for that. I'm thinking that an OBSE Function template with appropriate fields would allow entry of this info in an easy standard way. Something like <nowiki>{{OBSE|14|AI}}</nowiki> could be used to generate the categories, and a standard header with OBSE version and function type info. (Of course, such a template can also sidestep the category issue since it can be used to autogenerate categories.) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 20:12, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::::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.
::Regarding the scrolling that's broken on the liquid user style, I've had the chance to look at that and it turns out it can be solved by using monobook as base instead of esstyle. I've been a bit short on time lately, but I'll see about finishing that this week. You'll have to change your style to monobook in preferences to work, but that shouldn't be much of a challenge if you've imported the user style on your css page already.
::I don't think it's a good idea to add something to the liquid user style, we should either change the name or make new pages to import for changes like this. Maybe we should make a general user style page where we can define new CSS classes and id's for pages like this and inform users to import that separately with liquid user style to import that separately.
::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:24, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::::"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.[[User:Haama|Haama]] 12:18, 10 June 2007 (EDT)
:::Problem is that most users will likely miss it. (I didn't even know about Liquid Design until a few days ago.) I think that best thing to do is make changes in liquid design and then push (appropriate elements) down into ESStyles.css if they're well received. (Hmm... Why do you think it's a bad idea to push stuff into Liquid Design?) --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 20:12, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


:::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<font face="Oblivion,Daedric Runes" size=2>D</font>ragoon <font face="Oblivion,Daedric Runes" size=2>W</font>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<font face="Oblivion,Daedric" size=2>TALK</font>]] 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?
=== How do we like it? ===
It's been up for a while now - thoughts? Personally, I prefer the old functions list - you could see more on the page, the names 99% of the time give the description.


::::::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.[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:20, 10 June 2007 (EDT)
Also, now that I've tried to not use the OBSE version categories I know why I liked them - When a new version of OBSE I tend to play with the functions, all around the same time. When I need a function, I remember that I played with it recently, or which version it was, before I remember what type of functions it was. So, yes, I still like the version categories.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 13:38, 8 July 2008 (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 [[:Category: Record Variable Functions|"Record Variable Functions"]].


I have not created new versions of vanilla's [[:Category: Object Functions|"Object Functions"]] and OBSE's [[:Category: OBSE Reference Functions|"Reference Functions"]] - both of these labels are now confusing, thanks to the Terminology Discussion. Thoughts on what to call these?
== COBL (and other mod mentions) ==


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?
COBL, especially recently, has been geared more towards modders - complete with "functions" (activators), containers, systems, etc. for modder use. I've noticed Wrye has placed COBL tidbits on pages where it helps, but is that what we want to do? They usually take a line or two, so they haven't been too bad. However, there are other ways to handle it - don't put it there, have only a "See Also", etc. I lean towards a "See Also" link, mainly because the modder will need to go through other decisions then simply "Oh, here's an easier way to do it" (erm... and to centralize the COBL info so upgrades won't require 2 different wikis to update?), and if it would be better for links to multiple mods.--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 13:00, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


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).<br />
:Inline mentions with links are acceptable as long as they are mostly pointing it out, not, say, suggesting it, I suppose. To make it clear that this is a significant choice a modder must make (sadly, adoption of COBL has not been nearly as high as one might hope), I think it is important to have things on a separate page.
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.
:I have not checked the individual mentions themselves, so I can't comment on those.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.
:The only mention I am currently aware of is in the [[Kill]] function page, which mentions the mod that lets the player ignore the Dark Brotherhood. Actually, with SetPlayerProjectile, the Kill page perhaps should be updated with information on it... I'll look into that when I get home from work.
::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 18:41, 6 July 2007 (EDT)
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:00, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::Went through the condition functions that should have already been done? Going through the G's now.
:'''Searching...''' There are five mentions so far. (BTW, there's also the [[ESM Math Library]]. Although Cobl is eyeing it hungrily. Might be useful to include in Cobl for modders who don't want to use OBSE math functions.) :))  
::--[[User:Haama|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, I would argue that Cobl, much like OBSE, is a utility that enables modders to do things. Hence it's appropriate to document here. The main reason ''not'' to document it here is that its documentation home is on [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Cobl UESP]. However, I think that there a number of places where it's going to crop up almost unavoidably, especially for [[ScriptingNF#Advanced_How_Tos|Advanced How Tos]]. E.g. [[Combine your SI and non-SI mods into one (OBSE, Patch v1.1, Other mods too)|Adaptive Mods]], [[Walking Through Inventory Items]], etc. An expansion to modding etiquette would also likely mention it, since Cobl provides mechanisms for solving several compatibility problems. --[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 20:28, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
:::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.
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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)?
::COBL is somewhat odd in that it is simultaneously a mod and a utility. Many users do use COBL just for COBL, as I understand things, but then it's also useful for modders for a great variety of reasons.
::::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 01:04, 7 July 2007 (EDT)


::::Ugh... G's are done. That's enough of that for a bit...
::The point is that we do not need the full documentation of COBL here - just the general purpose utility functions of COBL.
::::--[[User:Haama|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.
::But I agree with the comparison to OBSE. COBL is a very similar utility and there is no reason not to treat it the same way. Ideally, COBL would be part of a default installation, something everyone uses. Considering that it is a relatively simple install (compared to OBSE, even, which is in itself quite simple), this should be possible, but we need to kind of get it out there, I think.
:::::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).
:::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.<br />
:::(side note: Something like COBL should be started ''immediately'' upon the release of TES V)
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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!
::Wrye, I think it kind of goes without saying that you're kinda on point here. I know that you are quite busy, and I certainly don't want to intrude on that, but if it is to be done, it may have to be by you. I certainly don't know enough about COBL to write it up.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:51, 14 July 2007 (EDT)
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 21:26, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


::Did P and R... Only S left. And boy, it's a doozy. Not tonight.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.
== 'See Also' Sections ==


:::Anyway, what are we going to do with the Object Functions and Reference Functions categories? Neither of those really make sense any longer...
I find these links incredibly useful but many pages are lacking them, or lacking the obvious ones that would go with those pages.  I have been adding them haphazardly to pages that I often view, but it would be good if it were general practice when adding new pages to add the appropriate See Also links to those pages.<br>
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 14:07, 30 July 2007 (EDT)
--[[User:Quetzilla|Quetzilla]] 13:28, 14 July 2008 (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.
:I agree, but new pages are often added by people that are unfamiliar with the Wiki. It's hard to add see also links if you don't know what's available. This also counts for internal links, see the active discussion: [[Community Portal/General Cohesion Initiative]].
::::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?
:--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 07:47, 18 July 2008 (EDT)
::::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:14, 8 August 2007 (EDT)
::::Alright, the Set stuff is done. That's all of the vanilla functions, right?
::::--[[User:Haama|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...
== Revamp of the 'Categories' links ==


:::::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?
I was looking at Haama's new Category for the Projectile functions in 0015 and it struck me that in some cases we're going about categories the wrong way.  Currently you have to click a link at the bottom to get directed to a category page, but in many cases where the number of functions in a category is small it would be better if the category list was included inline via a template -- similar to the thing at the bottom of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KXVT-LP this page] (not the best example but hard to find one not on a long page). That way the user can see related functions visually, and we could do away with a lot of the See Also sections (which are a pain to create individually anyway). Thoughts?<br>
--[[User:Quetzilla|quetzilla]] 11:50, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
:I've made an [[Template:Projectile Spells|example template]] for the Projectile Functions to show what I mean. Can something like that be auto generated from the categories pages? Either way I think it looks good, but I'm still a wiki noob :P.
:--[[User:Quetzilla|quetzilla]] 12:46, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


:::::Anyway, once we're done with that, we can '''finally''' update the OBSE functions with the new ones. That is very important.
::Absolutely agreed. This doesn't make the categories redundant, but we should also include these things on the bottom of various pages. Good idea quetzilla!
:::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 23:00, 8 August 2007 (EDT)
::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 13:16, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


(back to the left)<br />
::I think it would be too many links - you almost always want a part of the category, not the whole category. Also, the See Also section isn't so bad and, like the rest of it, just requires a bit of cut and paste.
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.<br />
::One similar issue, though - would it be helpful to write a "category" template that would automatically include each level of function categories (i.e., Functions, Magic Functions, Magic Functions (OBSE))?--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 13:21, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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.
:::I suppose listing an entire category is too much, but listing related functions makes the Wiki easier to navigate. This is different from the See Also section as this will only list pages in the same (unexisting smaller) category. I'm not talking about listing the categories we have now, but listing all Model/Icon/Biped path functions under those functions, that kind of thing. That way we can display this information in an organized way without making splitting up the categories too much.
:"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
:::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 13:43, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
:I don't follow this. What are the "OBSE versions", if not the "OBSE ___ Functions"?
: Yes, I don't mean the whole category when there are like 20-40 functions, but for groups like the projectile functions it makes it so much easier to see what's related to the function you are looking at, giving you an idea of what you can DO with the functions rather than just what the functions are.  I don't know if we have the ability to show/hide stuff like the example on wikipedia, but I think templates like the sample one would be much easier to maintain than see also links, when the function is in a group. You could still use the See Also links when a function has something to do with a function/article outside of it's category.
:--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 01:24, 14 August 2007 (EDT)
: One good example here is the [[GetArrowProjectilePoison|GetArrowProjectileXXX]] functions.  Just from looking at those pages it would not be immediately clear that there are 5 other similar and related functions, and without the template the only way to illustrate that is to go in and place See Also links on all 8 pages.
:--[[User:Quetzilla|quetzilla]] 14:22, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


::Hmm... Alright, then we should mention how each works in the articles themselves.
::Create templates as you find convenient, but I don't think it should be a general rule or would be a good idea for most functions.


::As for your question, I was refering to [[:Category: Function Types (OBSE)|these]].
::For example, DW linked [[GetArrowProjectilePoison]] with [[GetArrowProjectileEnchantment]] and [[GetArrowProjectileBowEnchantment]] because they all relate to the extra effects that an arrow can have. These 2 are important to know, and should have large, flashing neon signs pointing at them. There are still 6 other projectile functions, some are usually useful ([[GetProjectileType]], [[GetProjectileSource]]) and some not at all or only in specific situations (i.e., [[SetPlayerProjectile]]). These other 6 would only dilute the importance of the first 2, as you would have 8 functions to look through instead of 2. It can quickly spiral out of control, as well - should we include some/most/all magic functions on the [[GetMagicProjectileSpell]] article?
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 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!
::Ok, that was enough of a warning - go for it. Place the templates in a common category (maybe "Function Groups") so we can find them, others can use them, etc. I'll look up some more on the templates - it would be cool if we could hide/show them (and maybe even auto-populate the template onto the necessary functions).
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 21:16, 15 August 2007 (EDT)
::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 15:22, 23 August 2008 (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]])?
:::I see that point. So how about this, See Also links for the functions specifically important to the function in question, and below that a template table of generally similar functions.  That way we can easily slap the template on to similar functions (the more links per page the better, imho), and then individuals can add specifically important stuff for each function.
::::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 02:08, 26 August 2007 (EDT)
:::I'll have a hand at it and see how it turns out -- will be easy to undo since it will basically be 1-2 lines per page max.
:::--[[User:Quetzilla|quetzilla]] 16:23, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


::::Alright, the Magic effects are done (and 300 is still a cool movie).
::::I'd prefer not to make any rules about what should go into See Also and what can be in a table at the bottom of the page. Let's just see how it goes.
::::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 03:10, 26 August 2007 (EDT)
::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 17:06, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


:::::Aliases should go in the main article (under the full name), much like [[GetActorValue|GetActorValue / GetAV]] is handled. Also, set up a redirect from the alias to the full name.
:::::Meant it more as a suggestion...
:::::--[[User:Quetzilla|quetzilla]] 17:55, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


:::::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).
::::::Then I misunderstood. I don't think we should remove the functions from the See Also list if they're also included in the template table. I guess that's what you're suggesting, so I agree.
::::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:02, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


:::::And yes, 300 was an awesome movie... what brings that up, though?
Found two different templates that claim to show/hide
:::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 13:49, 26 August 2007 (EDT)
#[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Hide Template:Hide]
#[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Show_hide_box Template:Show hide box]
Brain's a bit tired and fried at the moment, so I'll check them out after dinner. If anyone else wants to look, I suggest Google to wiki trees...
<br>--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 19:13, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
:The TOC box already show/hides... do we not have the code for that?
:--[[User:Quetzilla|quetzilla]] 21:26, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


==Bot for scripts==
::Looking through the links, they suggest a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Navbox Navbox]... these are freakin' awesome. Qzilla, if you follow the templates to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Victoria_TX_TV] and edit that page you'll see the bottom box of your link is a Navbox, so this is what we're looking for. Now if we can just get it to [[Sandbox#Navbox_Tests|work]].
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 <nowiki><pre></nowiki> tags?
::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 23:24, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
<br>--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 16:53, 3 July 2007 (EDT)
::Tried  the three different templates in the [[Sandbox]] - None of them worked. I just stumbled onto [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Collapsing Collapsable Tables] - might work but that's it for me for tonight.
::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 23:58, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


:I'm confused, what do you mean you found a script from a link in the OBSE Wishlist?<br />
:::The show/hide thing won't work because it depends on JavaScript from this page: [[MediaWiki:Common.js]], which is empty as you can see. We can't edit it. Of course we can request it, but is that necessary? I mean, the templates will work without show/hide if we copy them and I don't consider showing and hiding very important.
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 23:23, 3 July 2007 (EDT)
:::Something to look into is user specific JavaScript, like user styles: [[Special:MyPage/esstyle.js]]. If it works we can test things there and eventually ask GStaff for the changes to MediaWiki:Common.js.
:::The NavBox looks good, that's what we need here, but there are a lot of other Wikipedia templates embedded in that template. I think it's easier to recreate a similar template locally.
:::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 08:55, 24 August 2008 (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.
::::Already asked about UserJS when I asked for UserCSS. That would be a definite 'no, absolutely not.' Much more likely for them to incorporate things into Common.js. Though I suppose if you want to research the potential risks/rewards of UserJS and present it to them, you might have a chance - I just kind of asked, without making much argument for it. You're welcome to try if you like.
::--[[User:Haama|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 <nowiki><pre></nowiki> 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.
::::Qazaaq and Haama, do you guys have Gstaff's e-mail address?
:::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 13:13, 4 July 2007 (EDT)
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 11:36, 24 August 2008 (EDT)


==Backups?==
:::::Navbox is looking good, Qazaaq. DW - yep, I still have the addresss, but no - I can't see the template code on the Diablo wiki.
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.
:::::--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 17:07, 25 August 2008 (EDT)
--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 11:58, 7 July 2007 (EDT)


==General Organization==
:::::Oh, I missed this. Yes I have his address, I think he sent both of us an e-mail before making us sheriff. But anyone can e-mail him through his profile at the forums.
(Sorry if this is a bit redundant, it almost fit into a couple of topics above, but not quite -- so I put it here.)
:::::As I said, I don't consider JavaScript very important. Why do you need a hide button on something that's on the bottom of the page? I could imagine you'd want to hide a very long ToC at the beginning of the page, but something at the bottom?
:::::I'm quite pleased with how the Navbox looks now and I don't think it needs any additional functions. At least not for how it's used now.
:::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 17:24, 25 August 2008 (EDT)


'''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.
::::::On "Hide" - sounds good.


'''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. [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Python_Programming Wikibooks:Python Programming] or [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Modding UESP:Morrowind Modding]. So, specifically, I would suggest that the current joint article/category pages be split into separate articles and categories.  
::::::On Gstaff's e-mail: also good.


'''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 [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Runtime 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 <nowiki>{{Morrowind Modding Management Trail}}</nowiki>.
::::::On permissions at the BB - drr. They're kind of control freaks. Some of it makes sense, other things I wish they'd change. Aaannnyyway, I put a copy of it at [[User:DragoonWraith/Template:Categorize]].
::::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:33, 25 August 2008 (EDT)


'''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.
Hide - ideally it would be nice, and I would love to see people connect any set of functions they wish, give it a good title, and add it to the appropriate function pages/templates. Realistically, there isn't enough input to expect this. Might be nice for big categories, but not really necessary.
<br>--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 00:04, 26 August 2008 (EDT)


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.)
===Categories, smategories===


'''Discussion/Potential Work:'''
Categories on this Wiki have been screwed up ever since Bethesda released it to the public. This has ''always'' been the case. Wrye's been crusading against it for a long time, and from some experiences I've had working on a brand-new Wiki, he's absolutely right. Categories are poorly used on this Wiki and it makes things very confusing for new users. Unfortunately, it will be exceedingly difficult to change anything at this point. Maybe if we had started from the get-go, but even then I'm not sure it would help.
* 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 [http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Template:Morrowind_Modding_Management_Trail&action=history 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  
By the way, at some point I intend to bring over some of the things I learned from that Wiki, including two Templates I made that I think make categorization and navigation ''much'' easier. If anyone would like to look at that Wiki, check [http://baronsbazaar.invisionzone.com/wiki/Main_Page here].<br />
[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 15:09, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


--[[User:Wrye|Wrye]] 21:59, 7 July 2007 (EDT)
:You mean [http://baronsbazaar.invisionzone.com/wiki/Template:Categorize this] - I was wondering how to do that :)
:--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 15:25, 23 August 2008 (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. [[Welcome to Wiki Syntax#Internal|Internal Links]]). Discussion here would be good.
::That and [http://baronsbazaar.invisionzone.com/wiki/Template:Bc this], really. Mostly, it's just a matter of using template arguments. The source code should be visible even for non-members, I think... If not, I can move anything from there over to here.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 16:44, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


: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.
:::Very nice, but I have to ask: Where can we use this? You're not suggesting we categorize the functions again, are you?
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 14:31, 8 July 2007 (EDT)
:::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 17:06, 23 August 2008 (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.  
::::No, but the Categorize tag could be used to make doing something like that much easier. In case at any point we want to recategorize.
::--[[User:Wrye|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.  
::::The Bc template would probably be more useful. In reality for most of this Wiki, the categories perform the same operation - you can click the categories that an article is part of to "go back" and you click on categories contained within an article to "go forward". This is kind of a bastardization of the Wiki software, though, and is not intuitive for new users.
::--[[User:Raziel23x|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
::::What I'm really suggesting is that I wish we, or Bethesda, really, had organized things differently in the beginning. But all of us, Bethesda included, were complete Wiki newbs when this started (and in reality, we still are, from what I've seen on Wikipedia - they have an extremely fluid system, even if it is abused by their own form of bureaucracy), and that didn't happen. Now, changing everything is a massively difficult proposition...
* [[Oblivion Shader Editor]]
* [[Health Regeneration over Time]]
* [[Soulgem Scripting]]


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.
::::I wonder how flexible Wiki bots are, and whether or not we can use them here. That's something I've been meaning to look into, but haven't gotten around to. There are a number of reasons I'd like to do that...
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 18:05, 23 August 2008 (EDT)


--[[User:Raziel23x|Raziel23x]] 22:05, 11 August 2007 (EDT)
:::::I think that's what we all wish. The template thing you made there is perfect, if we had something like that here two years ago, when we first started with the OBSE functions, things would look very different.
:::::Wikibots is something to look into, that's the only thing we can do here really. Manually changing things is not a realistic option.
:::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:35, 23 August 2008 (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.
:::::Did some testing with [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_the_python_wikipediabot the Python bot] today and it seems to be working. You can set the minimum time the bot waits between saving pages, but if we're going to replace a lot we should probably notify GStaff.
:::::I'm surprised by how easy it is to set it up, and that it works without safety. You can easily do ''a lot'' of damage with this thing...
:::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 07:37, 26 August 2008 (EDT)


: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.
:--[[User:Qazaaq|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.
== Bethesda thread upload? ==


::--[[User:Raziel23x|Raziel23x]] 09:49, 12 August 2007 (EDT)
#Do we want to place threads on the wiki, in case they become old and destroyed?
#If so, how? The short and simple download the x version (word or html) and upload doesn't really work.
<br>--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 10:07, 22 November 2008 (EST)


:My concern initially would be permissions, but...
:Why doesn't the "Download HTML version" work? I mean, sure, it won't be as simple as straight-up copy'n'paste from the file to a Wiki page, but it probably shouldn't be that hard.


I forgot to add that my tool for [[Notepad%2B%2B 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%2B%2B Script Definitions]]
:I'll try tinkering with it. Gotcha thread, yeah?
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 16:05, 22 November 2008 (EST)


--[[User:Raziel23x|Raziel23x]] 10:17, 12 August 2007 (EDT)
::How is [[User:DragoonWraith/ThreadArchiveTest|this]]? (be sure to add the import to your style sheet and clear your cache)
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 17:12, 22 November 2008 (EST)


==Where to put something ?==
:::Looks good, did you change any of the HTML?
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 ? [[User:Clavis0|Clavis0]] 20:53, 23 July 2007 (EDT)
:::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 11:00, 23 November 2008 (EST)


:not to offend anyone - but I consider no reaction an invitation to do this whatever way I deem reasonable :-) [[User:Clavis0|Clavis0]] 17:48, 1 August 2007 (EDT)
::::Generally, no, just copied and pasted the entire <nowiki>'<div id="print">'</nowiki> block. I did change the coding for the top of it, for the link to the original thread, but that's minor. The code of every post remains the same.
::::Unfortunately, there is no (easy) way to support the emoticons or "snapback" tags. Other than that, though, it looks pretty good to me.
::::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 12:30, 23 November 2008 (EST)


::A perfectly reasonable reaction. In general, that's exactly what you should do. There is the [[:Category: Tutorials|Tutorials Category]]. There's also [[:Category: Useful Code|Useful Code]], if you think it fits there. Wherever works for the tutorial is really where it should be.
:::::It doesn't bother me much. Its an just an archive, if it's readable and easy to update it's good enough. Good job!
:::::Maybe a template could handle the text at the top. That would be something to think about before copying more threads.
:::::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 17:36, 23 November 2008 (EST)


::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.
Or even an explanation of what to change, if it's pretty easy. Still haven't had a chance to look at it (had to handle some COBL stuff) - should be able to check tomorrow. Nights
<br>--[[User:Haama|Haama]] 03:00, 24 November 2008 (EST)


::Thanks for your contribution to the Wiki! Sorry I didn't notice this before!
:OK, process:
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 18:10, 1 August 2007 (EDT)


:::I was just going to post a similar reply...Here is it anyway:
:* Go to any thread, click Options, click Print This Topic
:::The wiki has a [[:Category: Questions|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.
:* The printer-friendly version of the thread will load. In your browser, use the View Source command (View -> Page Source in Firefox; something similar in other browsers)
:::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.  
:* In the print-friendly page's source, you'll see some code, a comment about how it was generated by IPB, and then an ungodly amount of style changes. Scroll down a '''lot''' to the end of the style changes (marked by <nowiki></style></nowiki>), then after some JavaScript (<nowiki><script>...</script></nowiki>), the header section ends (<nowiki></head></nowiki>) and the body section begins (<nowiki><body></nowiki>).
:::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. --[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 18:16, 1 August 2007 (EDT)
:* Just inside the <body> tag, there is a tag that reads <nowiki><div id="print"></nowiki>. This div does not get closed until the very end of this thread (with a corresponding <nowiki></div></nowiki>), just before the <nowiki></body></nowiki> tag. Copy the ''entire'' <nowiki><div id="print"></nowiki> block (or, in other words, the entire contents of the body section), and paste it into a Wiki page.
:* The top of the thread has a single <nowiki><h1>, <h2>, and <h3></nowiki> each, used for "Printable version of the Topic", "Click here to see the original topic", and the thread title, respectively. These three should probably be changed to something more appropriate.
:* <nowiki>__NOEDITSECTION__</nowiki> is recommended.
 
:There should be a template to throw on the top warning people not to edit the page; as an archive it should not be touched. It shouldn't be locked, though, so new posts can be added to the archive relatively easily (maybe lock the page after the thread itself has been locked, or pruned? At any rate, I think that should satisfy permission concerns. I don't really have time to work on that at the moment, though. For now, the template should also have the information that I tossed in the box on my test page, about the CSS. I will speak to Gstaff about possibly getting it added to the global esstyle.css once I get some feedback from you guys (don't want to bug him about adding it if we're going to want to change it).
:[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 13:02, 24 November 2008 (EST)
 
::Oh, by the way, apparently when you use the Print Friendly version, it replaces all hyperlinks with just the URL (I suppose this makes some sense when you want to print the thread, but the fact that it also does the same when you download the HTML version of the thread is silly), which is kind of a bummer. Fixing that would only be possible manually, I think, which is unfortunate.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 13:11, 24 November 2008 (EST)
 
 
== Need working examples: ==
 
wish you all would make scripts people actually use every day while modding, instead of these useless scripts that One person in TwoComeCarry Eygpt need's , and he probablly has not played the game in over a year.
 
sample example scripts like:
 
#Player is in combat, (need to script to get creature info, and number attacking. )
#How to stop combat, and script creature dispositions to level where can have dialog.
#identify creatures and script mod there animations.
#Tell people where the script need to be attached, Object, Quest, Spell, what ever.
#3 lines of a script with out any understanding of where the variables came from is a joke..
if( Dogbugger.GetWithTheProgram && FroggyPoot.LostHisWay) != I'mLost
  dosomethingstupid
endif
does not really help Oblivion starting Code Monkeys much.
 
I try to scearch this Wiki for good examples, and mostly all I get are Partial script pieces that don't work, or crash My Game, and leave me more confused than I was.
 
why has sO much time been spent on sOo little real help.
 
we need examples that work, and have enough code to know that you actually tested them, and that we can use to get them working.
 
I have found some things in here that were very useful, but for the most part it is like a 5 year old receipt from Wally world.
--[[User:Taglag|Taglag]] 19:43, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
 
:I understand your frustration; most examples explain syntax, not semantics. Adding semantic examples would greatly increase the usefulness of the function pages, but someone will have to come up with those. There's shortage of editors and an extraordinarily large number of functions. Unless you are willing to sacrifice a large amount of your time I don't see this happening. To learn how to script I'd recommend following the [[:Category:Scripting Tutorials|tutorials]], looking through the [[:Category:Useful Code|useful code section]] and asking for help on the {{forums}} instead.
:Last, but not least, please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> or the signature button in the edit bar. I've done this for the comment you posted already. (It's also custom to indent once more than the person you're responding to, as I've done here.)
:--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 17:00, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
 
::Please, please, please, don't start paragraphs with spaces. That initiates code boxes and makes your comments nigh-impossible to read. I've removed them.
 
::Secondly, ''please'', use proper English grammar and spelling. We're volunteers here, and decyphering what you've written is ''not'' in our job descriptions. If you want help, make it easy for the people you are asking to understand what you are saying.
 
::Thirdly, the ''game itself'' comes with hundreds of scripts. These should provide all the examples that you need. If you're looking for something that does a basic task, look up a script from a quest that you know does that. If you are looking for how a particular function is used, check Edit->Find Text to search for scripts where that function gets used.
 
::Fourth, I just want to echo everything Qazaaq said, and recommend that you follow his advice.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 21:57, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
 
== [[Template: Wiki Contributor]] added ==
 
I added a new template to the list of [[:Category:Templates|Templates]]:[[Template: Wiki Contributor|Wiki Contributor]]. Wiki Contributors are users who contribute to this Wiki and help other users by fulfilling request about page updates if they need updating, new articles if necessary, etc. (if those users lack the skill to do so themselves).
<br>--[[User:Darkness X|Darkness X]] 12:22, 4 May 2010 (EDT)
 
== Template layout ==
 
I suggest changing the layout of the [[:Category:Article Tag Templates|Article Tag Templates]] by adding an appropriate image to those templates and changing the layout into [[Template:Featured|this template's layout]]. All templates should have an identical layout so they could be recognized quickly. I changed the [[Template:Errors|Errors Template]] to let you know what I mean:
 
<div id="catlinks" style="width: 90%; margin: 0.5em auto; border-style: dashed;"><div style="text-align: left; font-size: 1.2em;font-weight: bolder; letter-spacing: 0.25em; word-spacing: 0.5em;">Warning: Article May Contain Errors</div>
----
<div style="float: left; margin: 5px 1em 5px 0.5em;">[[Image:FeaturedIcon.png|Featured Article]]</div>
 
This article is believed to contain incorrect or misleading information. Please see the Talk page for details. If you can correct the article, please do so...
 
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
 
</div>
 
<br>--[[User:Darkness X|Darkness X]] 16:35, 6 May 2010 (EDT)
 
:That's a good idea, but I'd suggest moving the title next to the icon.
 
<div id="catlinks" style="width: 90%; margin: 0.5em auto; border-style: dashed;">
 
<div style="float: left; margin: 5px 1em 5px 0.5em;">[[Image:FeaturedIcon.png|Featured Article]]</div>
<div style="text-align: left; font-size: 1.2em;font-weight: bolder; letter-spacing: 0.25em; word-spacing: 0.5em;">Warning: Article May Contain Errors</div>
----
This article is believed to contain incorrect or misleading information. Please see the Talk page for details. If you can correct the article, please do so...
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
 
</div>
 
:or centering the title, like the featured template.
 
<div id="catlinks" style="width: 90%; margin: 0.5em auto; border-style: dashed;"><div style="text-align: center; font-size: 1.2em;font-weight: bolder; letter-spacing: 0.25em; word-spacing: 0.5em;">Warning: Article May Contain Errors</div>
----
<div style="float: left; margin: 5px 1em 5px 0.5em;">[[Image:FeaturedIcon.png|Featured Article]]</div>
 
This article is believed to contain incorrect or misleading information. Please see the Talk page for details. If you can correct the article, please do so...
 
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
 
</div>
 
:I moved this to the CP as other editors (by this I mean DragoonWraith, but others are welcome to join in!) may have an opinion about this.
:--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 04:47, 7 May 2010 (EDT)
 
::Your first idea looks good! I'm going to change the layout of all the [[:Category:Article Tag Templates|Article Tag Templates]] for now (until a final conclusion has been made), I'll update the templates later if changes have been made ...
 
::I also have some experience with GIMP so I could create icons maching the CS Wiki style if you want me to do so (like I did with the [[Template:Bot|bot template]])?
::--[[User:Darkness X|Darkness X]] 11:16, 7 May 2010 (EDT)
 
:::That would be great! You're doing an amazing job organizing bits of the wiki, thanks!
:::--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 05:33, 8 May 2010 (EDT)
 
== More Templates? ==
 
I found some interesting templates on the [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page UESP Wiki] recently. [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Category:User_Box_Templates User Box Templates]: templates that show personal information about a user: [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Template:User_current_age age], [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Template:User_Birthday birthday], [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Template:User_American country], [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Template:User_Male gender], etc...
 
Could this be used on this Wiki? The actual question is: do users really want to use those templates? Do they want to reveal that kind of personal information? Is this a good idea?<br>
--[[User:Darkness X|<span style="color:black;">Darkness</span> <span style="font-size:1.1em;color:black;">X</span>]] [[User talk:Darkness X|<sup><span style="color:black;">Talk</span>]]</sup> 15:45, 14 May 2010 (EDT)
 
== New tutorial? ==
 
I've just created a scripting tutorial, possible to see [http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/2669-tutorial-script-that-updates-your-leveled-items/ here]. Since I can't even find an option to create new page on this Wiki (usually I only need to type something in Search and then choose Create New Page...), I'm leaving this to be checked by more experienced users. It's useful, not useful, needs some improvement? I'll be happy for information. - [[User:ZuTheSkunk|ZuTheSkunk]] 10:41, 1 June 2010 (EDT)
 
:To create a new page you can search for the title. If you search for help for example, the first line reads: <small>You searched for [[help]]</small>
:Just click the red word help and you'll be directed to the help page, which doesn't contain any content yet. You can also fill in the title in the addressbar of your browser. To create a page with the title help you'd type this: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/help. Note that you won't be editing the page immediately with this method, you need to click the edit button first.
:I don't have time to read the entire tutorial, but what I've seen looks ok. We'd be happy to have it on the Wiki.
:--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 14:28, 1 June 2010 (EDT)
 
== Objects with tilde in their names ==
 
I don't know where to ask about it, so I'll ask it here.
 
I've been recently wondering about vanilla objects that has tilde ("~") in their names. This character is not shown in-game, and from what I've been able to guess, he's some sort of forced carriage return or splitting of the name field. The example of item with tilde in his name is "Cursed Viper~Bane Cuirass" with ID "SEEnchEbonyCuirassResistPoison" (it is from SI, but there are also ones from stock OB). Is it mentioned somewhere on the site? If not, then maybe someone should check it further and add such mention? - [[User:ZuTheSkunk|ZuTheSkunk]] 03:40, 6 June 2010 (EDT)
 
== About removing bylines on mainspace articles ==
 
I don't think waiting any longer than we already have would make removing bylines any more appropriate. In two months we have given the original authors 5 years to respond; that should be plenty of time for anyone to formulate a response. I can't recall any author who has responded to this message.
 
However, [[:Template:Byline|the byline notice]] does not specifically warn against removal. It merely says: ''"Current rules do not allow bylines in mainspace articles"'' and calls for the original author to ''"comment on this in the Talk page."''.
 
Despite this I'm '''not opposed''' to the removal of bylines from all mainspace articles. Even though we did not specifically warn against removing them at some point none of the authors have responded. That signifies nothing but disinterest, in their articles, or the byline policy.
<br/>--[[User:Qazaaq|Qazaaq]] 16:57, 20 June 2012 (EDT)
 
:On occasion, I was inclined to edit a bylined article, but was inhibited by the "courtesy is expected" text, which, in my dictionary, reads "don't touch it".
:I am in favor of removing the byline and the byline notice. We could add a note to the respective talk page mentioning the original author and thank him/her for the contribution. 
:We must consider, also, that, being that old, many are pretty much deprecated (e.g. [[Linked List Tutorial]] and [[Activation Functions]]) while others are full of broken links (e.g. [[3ds Max: Tileset]])
:[[User:QQuix|QQuix]] 19:08, 20 June 2012 (EDT)
 
::OK, a few points to consider, mostly historical in nature.
 
::# "Courtesy is expected" does not mean and was not intended to mean "don't touch it" &ndash; it means literally that you should respect the original author if he or she can be found. I wrote that tag originally, so I would know. In fact, we were ''hoping'' that the line would, itself, ''encourage'' authors to edit the article, since it explicitly said that they could even though it was bylined. Bylines, prior to the warning being added to the page, struck many as claiming ownership, which is not (and never has been) allowed on this Wiki.
::# While I agree that authors have had a very long time to respond, the fact of the matter is that there was never a systematic attempt to contact them, and as a result, there may be authors who have not been ignoring the notice for five years &ndash; they have been ''unaware'' of it for five years. Which is not the same thing, and moreover copyright definitely does not expire in five years even if you ignore it.
::# While the authors ''do not'' have copyright on their contributions here, they may have contributed ''believing that they did'' due to a lack of clarity here at the time. The original decision with respect to bylines was that we would give those contributors the benefit of a "courtesy copyright" insofar as they could choose to remove the page in its entirety if they did not agree with the new enforcement of the rules. Note that contributors do not generally have the right to remove their work once submitted to the Wiki.
::# We have long had a policy (sadly undocumented, most likely) of removing bylines when they are no longer accurate, i.e. that one author is not the only significant contributor to a page because later editors have (courteously) updated and improved upon it. Since this is ''exactly'' what we want people to do, it makes sense in that case to remove the byline.
::# Deprecated or simply poor articles should be deleted or rewritten, no matter who wrote them originally or what name they may have appended to them. In such cases, a rewrite would certainly qualify for byline removal under the fourth point (such a rewrite is sufficient but definitely not necessary for byline removal).
::# Dev_akm's FAQ was originally made an exception to all of the rules regarding article ownership. As a mirror of the forum thread, it actually ''was'' "his" as opposed to being a publicly-editable page. There was a brief attempt to mirror more threads in a similar fashion, which would have had similar rules, but that (as far as I am aware) never went beyond my playing with some stylesheets and templates.
 
::OK, all that done with, I'd generally say that I'm not sure that the original decision was the right one (even though I agreed with it at the time). The fact of the matter is, authors never had any rights to what they submitted to this Wiki. While the Wiki tolerated the ''appearance'' of people taking ownership of articles (i.e. bylines), no attempt to actually exercise that ownership would have been permitted (though, to my knowledge, no such attempt was ever made, though I recall at least one contributor who stated he would have attempted it if someone had tried to edit "his" articles).
 
::The submission page has always said
:::<div style="background-color: #eee4cc; border: black 1px dashed; padding: 1em; margin-left: -1em;">Please note that all contributions to The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.<br/>You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see [[Project:Red_link|CSwiki:Copyrights]] for details). '''Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!'''</div><small>(Note the red link on CSwiki:Copyrights for the source of the original problem. This was rectified at the same time these decisions were made, which is why I faked the red link in the quote &ndash; the project namespace wasn't "CSwiki" either it was some ungodly long string.)</small>
 
::In all honesty, there was never a good reason to expect that bylines were OK or that articles could be owned &ndash; it simply happened that some people did it and no one stopped them, and it became something that some contributors took for granted and never read the warning in the submission window.
 
::But it's been five years, and that's an awful lot of courtesy to extend to people who were effectively breaking the rules, for all they were most likely unaware and also were contributing to the Wiki.
 
::So, in short, I am '''in favor''' of removing the bylines and the warnings and being done with this whole fiasco.
::[[User:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion; size=2;">D</span>ragoon <span style="font-family: Oblivion; size=2;">W</span>raith]] [[User_talk:DragoonWraith|<span style="font-family: Oblivion; size=2;">TALK</span>]] 21:13, 20 June 2012 (EDT)
 
:::Just throwing in my hat with the rest you guys' - '''In favor''' of removing the bylines.<br/>[[User:Shademe|shadeMe]] <b><sup>[[User_talk:Shademe|<span style="font-family: Oblivion, Daedric Runes; size=2;">TALK</span>]]</sup></b> 07:22, 21 June 2012 (EDT)
::::OK. I will do it.  How about a note in the Talk page mentioning the original author? Is it necessary?
::::The deprecated articles I noticed are not exactly deprecated, as they may still be helpful to someone not willing to use OBSE. As for the ones with broken links, being  3dMax tutorials , it is hard to tell if they are still useful without the missing images.
::::Anyway, I will keep a eye for those and tag them accordingly. [[User:QQuix|QQuix]] 06:53, 23 June 2012 (EDT)
::::P.S. Did a few. Feel free to change/revert/whatever, as you seem fit. 16:34, 23 June 2012 (EDT)
 
==Getting Started vs. Basic Concepts==
I've been looking into some of the 'fundamentals' articles and I think they should be packed together in a Category, making them easier to find and to refer to (articles like Reference, FormID, Esp vs. Esm and such). I am considering calling it "Basic Concepts", unless you suggest a better name.
 
Then there is the [[:Category:Getting Started|Getting Started]] category, which also applies to this kind of articles. Poll: should these articles be on both categories or should "Basic Concepts" be a subcategory of Getting Started? Any thoughts? [[User:QQuix|QQuix]] ([[User talk:QQuix|talk]]) 07:26, 29 July 2012 (EDT)

Latest revision as of 05:03, 4 October 2012

This is the primary discussion forum for the CS Wiki. Decisions made by the editors here on the Wiki will be posted here, as well as links to on-going discussions. Please be sure to use Signatures and Indentation appropriately in discussions - if you are unsure of proper style, please see our Welcome to Wiki Syntax guide. This is not the place to ask general mod related questions, those belong on the Forums.

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Old Discussions


Finally Fixed the Project:Copyrights Link[edit | edit source]

The Project:Copyrights link on the Edit page is finally fixed, as a side-effect of fixing the project namespace. Very happy to see that. I went through and moved all the old project pages that I could find over to the new namespace, and I added a few more links. Very good stuff.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 01:51, 10 June 2008 (EDT)


Architecture Changes[edit | edit source]

The name of the Wiki (e.g. {{SITENAME}}) has mercifully been changed to omit the trailing space that confused everyone: "the Oblivion ConstructionSet Wiki". Further, the "Project" namespace alias has been changed from "The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki " (ugh) to "CSwiki" (much nicer).

Further, subpaging has been enabled on the (Main) namespace, and presumably on the Help, Category, and Project/CSwiki namespaces. I've only tested Main, but I see no reason why those would be enabled on Main and not on the other namespaces that I requested.

Portals and Features have been added to the Navigation box. Looking at it now, seems a little large, but I also like having access to them anywhere. Opinions on this are welcome.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 15:37, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Pretty nice, will have to play with the subpaging a bit. That reminds me, did TS7 ever have luck installing LaTeX? The Parser stuff is working nicely, but last I tried (month or two ago) the Latex stuff wasn't.--Haama 15:57, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
I know he tried and had difficulty on it. I believe he asked (and I mentioned here) us to test it, so presumably he assumes that it does work. If it does not, we should let him know that.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 12:10, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
Umm... not in so many words? Ok, I'll look at what I tried, maybe now that I understand it a bit more I can give it a better shot, and report back here.--Haama 19:05, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
Huh? Not following you.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 19:17, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

"Parser extension should be added, TS7 says we should test it to make sure it works. The LaTeX stuff is giving him trouble, but he's still working on it."

Dragoon Wraith TALK 16:36, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

My impression was that it wasn't supposed to be working (yet). Anyway, took this code directly from the help site
<math>\left ( \frac{1}{2} \right )</math>
<math>\sqrt{2}</math>
gives
--Haama 19:26, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
Will ask.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 09:40, 4 June 2008 (EDT)


Cleaned up Hosted Images[edit | edit source]

Just went through the image log, added {{afd}} to the ones that have no business on the Wiki. Leaving a note here so that if anyone decides to do so again at a future date, they know they only have to go through the ones after this date.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 08:19, 6 April 2008 (EDT)


Toolbox for Tutorials[edit | edit source]

I think it would be a good idea to add a toolbox on tutorial pages with the tools used in that tutorial. That way we can standardize all the "Tools Needed" and "Requirements" sections in each tutorial. On the Wiki pages of the tools we can add some installation instructions, trial programs and alternatives. Next to the TOC would be a good spot, it's only a list with links so there's not a lot of space required. Here's an example of what I mean:

Tools used in this tutorial

Required

Optional

I didn't want to go ahead and start adding this to the tutorials right away (first want to finish the help section anyway), but I thought I'd put it up here and see what you think.
--Qazaaq 09:50, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

Looks good to me, I say go for it when you get the chance.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 06:51, 14 March 2008 (EDT)
Very good idea - I wonder if we should do a similar bit for the scripting tutorials and list all of the "See Also", functions used, Standardized Snippets, and articles up top?--Haama 11:41, 15 March 2008 (EDT)
Brilliant idea, as I hate when tutorials suddenly say: now open this program, A program I don't have, it's too far into the tutorial for me to stop!

anyway I'd love to help you add them! --Oblivious12123 07:36, 29 December 2009 (EST)

New Administration Noticeboard[edit | edit source]

Sheriff action requests and requests of Bethesda should now go here.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:56, 7 March 2008 (EST)


Pseudo-Code Examples on Function Pages?[edit | edit source]

A user on the ESF suggested having pseudo-code examples for functions, for the sake of novices who have difficulty understanding the more technical syntax section or are still new at reading code. On the one hand, I think pseudo-code is great for explaining things, especially to novices, but on the other hand I will worry that it will lead to clutter. So, do people think that adding pseudo-code examples to the function pages is a good idea? Should it be for all of them, or just ones that are particularly confusing? Thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 07:44, 7 March 2008 (EST)

There are some functions that need a tutorial/overhead explanation (i.e., Messagebox Tutorial). From the ESF thread, the GetNthActive... functions need one. Looping apparently needs a better one? And from another thread the Input functions need one (though, apparently, it will be moot by v15 :) ).--Haama 11:01, 7 March 2008 (EST)


Functions in scripts category/pages[edit | edit source]

There's a category (set of pages?) that lists the vanilla scripts with certain functions. I imagine that all of these were determined with v1.0 and there have been some changes since then. This thread, for instance, points out one such instance where the function doesn't seem to be there (whether it ever was there).

It looks like these functions are easy enough to find (Find Text), and I imagine there are differences between the versions. So, should we delete the category/pages?--Haama 14:00, 15 February 2008 (EST)


Deleting Questions[edit | edit source]

I started the process - it doesn't seem to be as daunting as I thought it would be (hooray for Category:Request an Article). Anyway, should we make the decisions on where to put the question (delete, request, etc.) on our own or wait for a second vote?--Haama 18:17, 19 February 2008 (EST)

You can also use the {{Missing}} tag. Might be useful for questions that aren't formatted like proper requests (as described in the Request an Article page).
Dragoon Wraith TALK 18:52, 19 February 2008 (EST)
Good point, but not the main question :P I was thinking that the first person could make the suggested move (tag or category) and the second could remove the Questions category.--Haama 20:06, 19 February 2008 (EST)

Progress[edit | edit source]

Through the H's. Didn't mess with these questions:

Further Progress[edit | edit source]

I've done the rest, now we only have to do the answered questions?

"Answered" Section[edit | edit source]

Everything in the Answered section, in theory, "isn't of real importance to the public" - I vote for whole-sale deletion of everything in the category. I recommend that people go through, give things a cursory glance to make sure that it actually isn't anything useful, and if not, yeah, we can just ditch all of it.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 15:58, 24 February 2008 (EST)

2nd vote. Treat it like we did the questions and list which ones might be useful and why?--Haama 16:35, 24 February 2008 (EST)
Yes, but I expect that most will not be.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:27, 24 February 2008 (EST)
We should go through the category briefly, look at the titles and open anything that could be interesting. There are 269 answered questions and most can be skipped by looking at the title, this shouldn't take very long.
Before deleting the category and the pages within we have to make sure none of them are also in the solutions category. Shall we call this decided then?
--Qazaaq 19:05, 24 February 2008 (EST)
There's only like three of us here, anyway. If we've all commented, I'm going for it.
Gstaff probably won't be around to delete them for a while yet, anyway, so we don't have to worry about losing anything if I make a mistake.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 00:58, 25 February 2008 (EST)

Progress[edit | edit source]

Well, I've done the Answers starting with A, B, and C. There are 216 answers left to go through. I'll continue working my way through those. There were a few that I didn't delete, which I placed in appropriate request places (either request an article or interesting discussion tags).
Dragoon Wraith TALK 00:28, 29 February 2008 (EST)


Uploading test mods[edit | edit source]

I'd like to upload a test mod for the Variables category. I'm hoping that this will make it easier for others to run duplicate and counter tests, as well as lend a bit more legitimacy to the wiki. It will require OBSE and Pluggy to make testing easier and to have a text file with the results. Format will be along the lines of 

Global Float tests
Test 1a: aaaFValue = 8388606 (exp: 8388606)
Test 1b: aaaFValue = 8388607 (exp: 8388607)
Test 1c: aaaFValue = 8388608 (exp: 8388608)
Test 2a: aaaFValue = 16777215 (exp: 16777215)
Test 2b: aaaFValue = 16777216 (exp: 16777216)
Test 2c: aaaFValue = 16777216 (exp: 16777217)
Test 3a: aaaFValue = 33554432 (exp: 33554431)
Test 3b: aaaFValue = 33554432 (exp: 33554432)
Test 3c: aaaFValue = 33554432 (exp: 33554433)
Test 4a: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 2147483646)
Test 4b: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 2147483647)
Test 4c: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 2147483648)
Test 5a: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 440359962751356)
Test 5b: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 440359962751357)
Test 6a: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 44035996275135651)
Test 6b: aaaFValue = -2147483648 (exp: 44035996275135652)

--Haama 23:43, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

Last I checked, the Upload thing only accepts images. Otherwise, I'd be all for it. Perhaps e-mail Gstaff about it?
Dragoon Wraith TALK 03:08, 21 April 2008 (EDT)
Finally got a chance/reason to test this - we can't upload .esp files... Not sure if it's worth bugging GStaff and <sp?>TS37<sp?>, though. Almost a roll of the dice whether it'd be a better way to get people to upload their test mods.--Haama 17:18, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


There is a way of putting .rar files into the .jpg image and then upload it to be downloaded and extracted. ill get back to you on this one.--blindobi

Wrye Changes[edit | edit source]

Okay, I'm sure that this stuff has been talked about before. For sure there was a major effort at putting together portals. But I'm not sure that was a good idea. To some degree it seems that we're now lost in a plethora of index pages (portals + categories + sub-categories). Kind of a lot.

And I've never been very happy with the combination of articles and categories -- you just end up with a mess (IMO). (In contrast, I think that something like this is better: Modding@UESP -- a nice long list with short descriptions which I can easily scan up and down. In other words, it's better to have less index pages with more links on them.) But not to spend too much time arguing.

Sorry if that sounded like a rant, I know you all have worked hard on this, but it's still fairly hard to find your way around and figure out where to add new material.

So, I've done a couple of things. If these go over well, then I'll do some more if I have time (what I actually wanted to do was write an article on standardizing menu behavior -- but I couldn't find a good place to put it -- where it was likely to be found). Anyway, the two things that I've done are essentially both article/category splitting efforts (see first two sections below):

Cheers! --Wrye 04:16, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

Glossary[edit | edit source]

This is a conversion of the Category:Glossary page to single page article. I copied most definitions to it, while expanding some. I have intentionally left some articles out which didn't really seem to belong on a category page. If this page is well received, then the old article pages that have been completely included should be deleted as should the Category:Glossary category itself. --Wrye 04:16, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

I haven't seen any objections, so I'm preceding with Prodding old category entries. --Wrye 20:17, 5 June 2008 (EDT)
Here's what I'm doing:
  • I'm prodding all small pages that have been fully incorporated into the new Glossary. And I'm changing other pages that formerly pointed to these pages to point to Glossary instead.
  • If an article is too long to fully incorporate into the Glossary, then:
  • If glossary has a short entry, then the the short glossary entry will have a "See" link to the main article. Links to the full article will be left pointing to the full article.
  • I'm removing the full pages from the glosssary category. If they're full, then they're not "Glossary" entries. After all, many pages on the wiki define stuff. If one started including "all pages that define stuff" in the Glossary, then the glossary category would contain 1/3 of the pages on the site. Which would be redundant -- after all defining stuff is a lot of what a wiki does.
--Wrye 21:31, 5 June 2008 (EDT)
It looks good, very good. I wasn't too sure at first, but I think you're right, this does look better.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:14, 6 June 2008 (EDT)

Data Files[edit | edit source]

Category:Data Files - I've removed the article type text off this page into several articles TES Files (actually a major rewrite) and Windows Vista. I've also added a new article: Esp vs. Esm. I've then gone back and changed Category:Data Files to be just an manual index page. At which point I hit the "too many index pages" and "category pages should not be treated like articles" problem. So I figured I had done enough damage and stopped. :evil:

One point here is that the TES Files page is a good introduction to very basic issues in modding. Moderately thorough and not too technical (unlike e.g. the Modding Terminology page, which is a bit thick.) IMO, TES Files probably should be linked to directly from Getting Started or something like that. But I looked at the HTML code and went "eep". So I left it alone. (And again, enough damage already.) --Wrye 04:16, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

I haven't had a chance to read everything here, but I agree that the TES Files page ought to be on Getting Started, and will put it there. But where did you run into ugly HTML? The only pages with that are the Portals and the Main Page... (I used tables for formatting, a major no-no in this Web 2.0 world of ours)
Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:33, 1 June 2008 (EDT)
Complicated Html -- just the portal pages. --Wrye 18:00, 1 June 2008 (EDT)

New Templates[edit | edit source]

I've added link templates: Template:PES and Template:Tesnexus. Idea is to make adding such download links easier. These turned out to be useful at UESP after a while. --Wrye 18:18, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

I've added a Prod (Proposed for Deletion) templage: Template:Prod. --Wrye 20:06, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

So, Prod or our current method - mark it as deleted and if it needs an explanation put it in the talk page?--Haama 12:44, 2 June 2008 (EDT) Discussion is below in the "Deleting Articles" section.--Haama 14:21, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
I've combined the link templates into one modular (hopefully for other sites as well) template.--Haama 17:03, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Okay, but {{PES|1234|Some Mod}} is shorter (and thus easier to create and edit) than {{Mod Link|PES|1234|Some Mod}}. --17:21, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
I'm with Wrye on that one.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:53, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
True, but this is easier for us to keep track of - one page instead of several. Either way.--Haama 17:55, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Oh, right, back to the original reason - do we really need a "Link Templates" category?--Haama 17:58, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
The individual link templates could all use the general link template, that way it's short to use in an article and easy to maintain/change because it's all on one page. Everybody happy, except Elric and Monica maybe, because we don't have a link template for ElricM.com yet.
--Qazaaq 18:09, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Not sure I follow - it's possible to have multiple templates on one template page?--Haama 18:42, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

No, what I meant was having a PES link template like Wrye made: {{PES|3508|Cobl}}, with this on the template page: {{Mod Link|PES|{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}}}, using the multiple link template you made. And a TESNexus template like this: {{TESNexus|id|name}}, with this on it's template page: {{Mod Link|TESNexus|{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}}}, also using your multiple link template. I assume that works.
--Qazaaq 18:52, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Keep in the mind that the server has to dynamically process all templates each time the page is generated. More complicated templates means more cpu consumption. There are some compensations (e.g. for non-logged in users the wiki may be using page caching, which cuts down on processing requirements).
At this time this is probably not an huge problem, but consider: Fallout is coming. If that has a construction set, then it will be docced on same server as this one. And will be heavily hit when fallout comes out. Best to establish good policies now rather than have to reverse them later when/if the server gets crushed. (Don't want bethsoft turning off the CS Wiki server because it's eating too much cpu. :)) --Wrye 19:07, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
So, that would still require creating each template - the only real difference is whether the link is on one page or copy/pasted between each page. The latter is easier for new people to add - ehh... don't really feel strongly one way or the other.--Haama 21:33, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Message Spam Consolidation[edit | edit source]

I've cleaned up Message Spam (formerly Avoiding Message Spam) and integrated Preventing messages (which I've now Prod'ed). I've also gone through to individual pages and removed redundant "how to avoid message spam" from them (instead, linking to updated page). Observation on this is that some info is common and should not be repeated on multiple pages. --Wrye 20:10, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

Appreciate the clean-up and agreed on the links - how did you find the places to replace the links? Something like that has long been on my "wish I had the time" list, but you seem to have done it rather quickly.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:35, 1 June 2008 (EDT)
Finding usage... I think that I just replaced the on five or so relevant command pages (equipItem, unequipItem, etc.). I may have also searched on "message spam" and looked at the pages that linked to those pages. --Wrye 18:03, 1 June 2008 (EDT)

No Fluff Scripting Portal[edit | edit source]

Moved to Talk:Portal:Scripting. --Wrye 21:31, 29 June 2008 (EDT)

How do we like it?[edit | edit source]

Would comments be more appropriate here or on the scripting portal talk page?--Haama 13:56, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Comments on scripting portal talk page would probably be better. You might want to PM me too if you want my attention. 96% retirement means I start ignoring stuff (like my my watchlist on the CS wiki :D). --Wrye 18:17, 13 July 2008 (EDT)

Deleting Articles[edit | edit source]

I'm using the Prod (Propose for Deletion) template a lot.

  • Tutorials - There seem to be way too many tutorials. Especially tutorials which are: incomplete, erroneous, bylined, chatty, poorly written, not useful. (The chatty tutorials are really getting on my nerves.) I'm prodding those that don't look useful.
  • Usage Pages - At some point someone went through and documented where functions were used in various scripts. Which is completely pointless since the same info is more readily available through use of the Text Search command. I've prod'ed one of these pages (AddSpell Reference), but really all such pages ought to be summarily deleted.

--Wrye 21:50, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

Excuse me - where is this Text Search command located ?? Answer : Edit>Find Text - see hereUDUN 10:05, 11 October 2008 (EDT)
Agreed on both counts. The reason such has not already been done is because while many tutorials are poorly written or incomplete, most would be valuable written correctly. So we mark them with the delusion that we'll get back to them, fix them and/or finish them. Of course, that hasn't happened.
As for the function references, yeah, I don't know who did that or why. Seemed like an awfully large amount of work to just throw out; someone might have found it useful, was my feeling on it. But if no one finds it useful, it could be deleted.
By the way, first off, we had {{afd}}, which you could have co-opted for this had you wanted, further, while it is probably not a large concern, GStaff does delete everything in the Articles for Deletion category without checking what is on them. So if these are only proposed for deletion, that may not be the right place for them, as they could be deleted without input from anyone else.
On the other hand, GStaff doesn't come by all that often, so the risk is pretty low.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:44, 1 June 2008 (EDT)
Afd? Oops. Missed that. Hmm... Could two stage it. Afd for "this really should be deleted" and "prod" for "think this should be deleted, but maybe wait for some vetos." --Wrye 18:12, 1 June 2008 (EDT)
Agreed. I'm making a pfd category.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 18:43, 1 June 2008 (EDT)
I've added a timer to Prod so the article will automatically be added to the Articles for Deletion after 14 days. I still need to make the template page itself display the correct info (instead of afd...) (fixed--Haama 15:09, 2 June 2008 (EDT)), but it works. I also placed a countdown at the bottom of the template. Is 14 days long enough, too long?--Haama 14:25, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Two weeks sounds quite perfect, actually. Could you add a variable that can be set, with a default of 14 days, though? That might be useful.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:01, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Cool. Sounds perfect. 14 days seems like a good default to me. --Wrye 17:25, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

I can add a variable, not sure how to make a default - let me check.--Haama 17:19, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Done - I added some extra stuff so it'll say "tomorrow", "later today" when appropriate.--Haama 17:56, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Oops, the tag didn't quite work as expected before. It would "reset" itself on the 1st of each month, didn't notice because I made the template on the first of June... Should be fixed now.--Haama 14:43, 19 July 2008 (EDT)

Deprecated Articles[edit | edit source]

I've also established a category and a template for Category:Deprecated Articles (and {{Deprecated Article}}). This is for articles that are deprecated for some reason (erroneous, undesirable, outdated, etc.), but which we don't want to delete for some reason (historical, contains some useful info, etc.) --Wrye 18:12, 1 June 2008 (EDT)


Colons and Namespaces[edit | edit source]

When definining new pages under a namespace (e.g. Category or Template), you should not include a space after the colon. E.g. a name should be Category:Something, not "Category: Something". The main reason for this is that "Category: Something" doesn't define a category named "Something", it defines a category named " Something" - i.e. the name starts with a space instead of "S". This will cause problems when the page is alphabetically sorted. It's also likely to cause various other minor problems with current or future versions of wiki software. (If you'll poke around Wikipedia or UESP, you'll see that colons are not followed by spaces.)

Some background. MediaWiki divides articles into different namespaces, e.g. Category, Template, MediaWiki, etc. Each primary namespace has a second talk namespace associated with it. With one exception, these second namespaces are always the base namespace + " Talk" e.g. "Category Talk", "Template Talk", etc. The exception is the main namespace which has no name, and the corresponding main talk space, which is simply "Talk" instead of " Talk".

Namespaces are defined at a low configuration level of the wiki. I.e. you can't just create a new one by including a colon in the name. E.g. if you create a page named "Foo:Bar", then:

  • if there's a namespace named "Foo", then this will become an page named "Bar" in the "Foo" namespace, but...
  • but if there're not a "Foo" namespace", then this will become an page with the name "Foo:Bar" in the main namespace.

Again, if you created a page name "Foo: Bar", then this would become a page with the name " Bar" (leading space) in the "Foo" namespace.

There's another feature of MediaWiki which is (partially) active here: Subpaging. If you define a page with a '/' in the title, e.g. "Foo/Bar" and if the page "Foo" exists, then Foo/Bar is considered to be a subpage of "Foo". A practical result of this is that a backlink will appear on the subpage (e.g. User:Wrye/Demo). Well, should appear. For some reason the backlink is appearing user space pages, but not in main namespace pages (I imagine that backpage linking needs to be activated for the main namespace).

Hence:

  • Don't use colons in the names of articles. Colons should only be used to designate namespaces.
  • When creating pages in namespaces, don't put a space between the colon and the next word.
  • When desiring to create page hierarchy, use '/' to define subpages.
  • Ask GStaff to turn subpaging on for main namespace.

--Wrye 19:17, 1 June 2008 (EDT)

Will e-mail GStaff about sub-paging.
Also, stylistically, it is favorable (at least in my opinion) to include the space in links. You can do this with actual namespaces (Category:, Talk:, Help:), but not with 'pseudo' namespaces (Portal:, most notably). So [[:Category: Getting Started]] will work perfectly, and not cause the problems Wrye has mentioned above, while [[Portal: Scripting]] will not. Obviously the exception is when you are using a link to create a new page.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:09, 1 June 2008 (EDT)
Testing: 1) Category:Proposed for Deletion and 2) Category: Proposed for Deletion (second one has leading space). If you mouse over these, you'll see that auto-generated link has no space after the colon. Similarly if you try to create a page where the name (after the namespace) starts with a space, the space will be removed.
Apparently the wiki software automatically corrects the page name, both while creating and while linking to remove the space. Which is convenient, but I would regard that as the wiki software fixing a user error. If you'll check Wikipedia (e.g. Wikipedia:Categorization), it never uses "Foo: Bar", but rather always uses "Foo:Bar" in the text of the link. So for MediaWiki based wikis, the stylistic standard is that links that display the namespace should not include a space after the colon. --Wrye 00:32, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Subpaging has been enabled on the Main namespace. I also requested the Category, Help, and Project namespaces, but I have not tested these as of yet.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 15:32, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
Cool. Yep, works now. E.g. MessageBox_Tutorial/Centralized_Decision_Catching. --Wrye 17:30, 3 June 2008 (EDT)
Yes, very cool - that was the original intent. I'm removing the bits and pieces from the Scripting Tutorial category. I guess the same needs to be done with the Kits tutorial.--Haama 19:03, 3 June 2008 (EDT)


Function Listing[edit | edit source]

Reorganized the function listing.
  • All functions are now listed in a new raw format at Raw Function List. This listing has fields for: function name; source (e.g. CS, CS 1.2, OBSE 10, OBSE 14, Pluggy 42, etc.); type (Math, AI, etc.); Description.
  • To add new functions, edit the raw format page to new functions, etc. Then extract that list to a txt file on your machine, run a Wrye Bash command line command, and voila, it generates several processed files which can be pasted onto various pages.
  • Auto-Generated Text:
What's Not Done
  • I have not yet created an "Organized by type" page, but that would be easy - once the type info is entered into the raw data - right now, it's (mostly) not. If someone can take on that chore, I'll add some more code to the bash function and generate the page.
  • Currently the auto-gen function is now dumping type info. That could be changed easily though. (I'm a little concerned about cluttering the page, but putting it in a column between function name and description would probably work well.
  • Still need to release the Wrye Bash update.
Advantages
  • All function information is entered in place (Raw Function List).
  • Function data can include source version number, function type and brief description.
  • Auto-generated pages are easier to read and search. In particular, a given set of info (e.g. All function, or all OBSE functions) is not spread across several pages.
  • No need to have separate categories for separate version releases. Version info is shown for each function (so long as the data is entered). As I think we're seeing the separate categories approach is not scaling well for continued releases of OBSE. (And it's so unworkable for Pluggy that it hasn't even been attempted.)
Disadvantages
  • A little more work than just assigning a category.
  • Need to use Wrye Bash to do auto-generation.
Suggested

If this is well received, then I would suggest discarding at least some of the current function categorization. Maybe discard a lot of it. E.g. an OBSE function might be categorized under "Function" and "OBSE" and that's it (NOT OBSE 12, OBSE 13, etc.)

Style Sheet

By the way, I've updated the Wiki_User_Style/Liquid_Design.css page. If you've imported that, you should see the functions appear in a graphically attractive table.

PS: We really ought to get commonly shared style stuff copied to MediaWiki:Monobook.css.

--Wrye 05:40, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Looks great, Wrye. Agreed that version categories for OBSE are unnecessary - the Function Types categories are still useful, IMO (in that I actually use them constantly for my own work, so I am very strongly opposed to deleting them).
As for style changes, changing things in Monobook.css wouldn't help, the Wiki uses ESstyle.css. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.
As for changing the default CSS files, yes, but first... There is something of an issue with the Liquid Design in that you cannot use a Scroll Wheel if the mouse is positioned over the 'fixed' elements on the left. Without these elements, however, the black borders do not work.
Changes to the HTML would be necessary to fix that, and I'm not sure that Bethesda would be willing to do that. Which makes it difficult to propose changes to them.
Things like tab-highlighting, my code-box stretching fix, and your Table changes might be possible to have added to the default style. I'll look into breaking those out of the unified code and proposing that to Bethesda.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 10:19, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Haven't had a chance to look at this, but as a quick vote - I prefer the version categories as it makes it easier to determine at a "glance" which version is necessary for a script. The OBSE team tends to add in groups, so you can get a gross idea of what group they added by looking at them all (which wouldn't be easy in list format).--Haama 17:15, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
I'm not sure exactly which info you're looking for. If say, you're looking at the function page and you want to know which version of OBSE introduced it, then you don't need a category for that. I'm thinking that an OBSE Function template with appropriate fields would allow entry of this info in an easy standard way. Something like {{OBSE|14|AI}} could be used to generate the categories, and a standard header with OBSE version and function type info. (Of course, such a template can also sidestep the category issue since it can be used to autogenerate categories.) --Wrye 20:12, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Regarding the scrolling that's broken on the liquid user style, I've had the chance to look at that and it turns out it can be solved by using monobook as base instead of esstyle. I've been a bit short on time lately, but I'll see about finishing that this week. You'll have to change your style to monobook in preferences to work, but that shouldn't be much of a challenge if you've imported the user style on your css page already.
I don't think it's a good idea to add something to the liquid user style, we should either change the name or make new pages to import for changes like this. Maybe we should make a general user style page where we can define new CSS classes and id's for pages like this and inform users to import that separately with liquid user style to import that separately.
--Qazaaq 18:24, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Problem is that most users will likely miss it. (I didn't even know about Liquid Design until a few days ago.) I think that best thing to do is make changes in liquid design and then push (appropriate elements) down into ESStyles.css if they're well received. (Hmm... Why do you think it's a bad idea to push stuff into Liquid Design?) --Wrye 20:12, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

How do we like it?[edit | edit source]

It's been up for a while now - thoughts? Personally, I prefer the old functions list - you could see more on the page, the names 99% of the time give the description.

Also, now that I've tried to not use the OBSE version categories I know why I liked them - When a new version of OBSE I tend to play with the functions, all around the same time. When I need a function, I remember that I played with it recently, or which version it was, before I remember what type of functions it was. So, yes, I still like the version categories.--Haama 13:38, 8 July 2008 (EDT)


COBL (and other mod mentions)[edit | edit source]

COBL, especially recently, has been geared more towards modders - complete with "functions" (activators), containers, systems, etc. for modder use. I've noticed Wrye has placed COBL tidbits on pages where it helps, but is that what we want to do? They usually take a line or two, so they haven't been too bad. However, there are other ways to handle it - don't put it there, have only a "See Also", etc. I lean towards a "See Also" link, mainly because the modder will need to go through other decisions then simply "Oh, here's an easier way to do it" (erm... and to centralize the COBL info so upgrades won't require 2 different wikis to update?), and if it would be better for links to multiple mods.--Haama 13:00, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Inline mentions with links are acceptable as long as they are mostly pointing it out, not, say, suggesting it, I suppose. To make it clear that this is a significant choice a modder must make (sadly, adoption of COBL has not been nearly as high as one might hope), I think it is important to have things on a separate page.
I have not checked the individual mentions themselves, so I can't comment on those.
The only mention I am currently aware of is in the Kill function page, which mentions the mod that lets the player ignore the Dark Brotherhood. Actually, with SetPlayerProjectile, the Kill page perhaps should be updated with information on it... I'll look into that when I get home from work.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:00, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
Searching... There are five mentions so far. (BTW, there's also the ESM Math Library. Although Cobl is eyeing it hungrily. Might be useful to include in Cobl for modders who don't want to use OBSE math functions.) :))
Anyway, I would argue that Cobl, much like OBSE, is a utility that enables modders to do things. Hence it's appropriate to document here. The main reason not to document it here is that its documentation home is on UESP. However, I think that there a number of places where it's going to crop up almost unavoidably, especially for Advanced How Tos. E.g. Adaptive Mods, Walking Through Inventory Items, etc. An expansion to modding etiquette would also likely mention it, since Cobl provides mechanisms for solving several compatibility problems. --Wrye 20:28, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
COBL is somewhat odd in that it is simultaneously a mod and a utility. Many users do use COBL just for COBL, as I understand things, but then it's also useful for modders for a great variety of reasons.
The point is that we do not need the full documentation of COBL here - just the general purpose utility functions of COBL.
But I agree with the comparison to OBSE. COBL is a very similar utility and there is no reason not to treat it the same way. Ideally, COBL would be part of a default installation, something everyone uses. Considering that it is a relatively simple install (compared to OBSE, even, which is in itself quite simple), this should be possible, but we need to kind of get it out there, I think.
(side note: Something like COBL should be started immediately upon the release of TES V)
Wrye, I think it kind of goes without saying that you're kinda on point here. I know that you are quite busy, and I certainly don't want to intrude on that, but if it is to be done, it may have to be by you. I certainly don't know enough about COBL to write it up.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:26, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


'See Also' Sections[edit | edit source]

I find these links incredibly useful but many pages are lacking them, or lacking the obvious ones that would go with those pages. I have been adding them haphazardly to pages that I often view, but it would be good if it were general practice when adding new pages to add the appropriate See Also links to those pages.
--Quetzilla 13:28, 14 July 2008 (EDT)

I agree, but new pages are often added by people that are unfamiliar with the Wiki. It's hard to add see also links if you don't know what's available. This also counts for internal links, see the active discussion: Community Portal/General Cohesion Initiative.
--Qazaaq 07:47, 18 July 2008 (EDT)


Revamp of the 'Categories' links[edit | edit source]

I was looking at Haama's new Category for the Projectile functions in 0015 and it struck me that in some cases we're going about categories the wrong way. Currently you have to click a link at the bottom to get directed to a category page, but in many cases where the number of functions in a category is small it would be better if the category list was included inline via a template -- similar to the thing at the bottom of this page (not the best example but hard to find one not on a long page). That way the user can see related functions visually, and we could do away with a lot of the See Also sections (which are a pain to create individually anyway). Thoughts?
--quetzilla 11:50, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I've made an example template for the Projectile Functions to show what I mean. Can something like that be auto generated from the categories pages? Either way I think it looks good, but I'm still a wiki noob :P.
--quetzilla 12:46, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Absolutely agreed. This doesn't make the categories redundant, but we should also include these things on the bottom of various pages. Good idea quetzilla!
--Qazaaq 13:16, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
I think it would be too many links - you almost always want a part of the category, not the whole category. Also, the See Also section isn't so bad and, like the rest of it, just requires a bit of cut and paste.
One similar issue, though - would it be helpful to write a "category" template that would automatically include each level of function categories (i.e., Functions, Magic Functions, Magic Functions (OBSE))?--Haama 13:21, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
I suppose listing an entire category is too much, but listing related functions makes the Wiki easier to navigate. This is different from the See Also section as this will only list pages in the same (unexisting smaller) category. I'm not talking about listing the categories we have now, but listing all Model/Icon/Biped path functions under those functions, that kind of thing. That way we can display this information in an organized way without making splitting up the categories too much.
--Qazaaq 13:43, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Yes, I don't mean the whole category when there are like 20-40 functions, but for groups like the projectile functions it makes it so much easier to see what's related to the function you are looking at, giving you an idea of what you can DO with the functions rather than just what the functions are. I don't know if we have the ability to show/hide stuff like the example on wikipedia, but I think templates like the sample one would be much easier to maintain than see also links, when the function is in a group. You could still use the See Also links when a function has something to do with a function/article outside of it's category.
One good example here is the GetArrowProjectileXXX functions. Just from looking at those pages it would not be immediately clear that there are 5 other similar and related functions, and without the template the only way to illustrate that is to go in and place See Also links on all 8 pages.
--quetzilla 14:22, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Create templates as you find convenient, but I don't think it should be a general rule or would be a good idea for most functions.
For example, DW linked GetArrowProjectilePoison with GetArrowProjectileEnchantment and GetArrowProjectileBowEnchantment because they all relate to the extra effects that an arrow can have. These 2 are important to know, and should have large, flashing neon signs pointing at them. There are still 6 other projectile functions, some are usually useful (GetProjectileType, GetProjectileSource) and some not at all or only in specific situations (i.e., SetPlayerProjectile). These other 6 would only dilute the importance of the first 2, as you would have 8 functions to look through instead of 2. It can quickly spiral out of control, as well - should we include some/most/all magic functions on the GetMagicProjectileSpell article?
Ok, that was enough of a warning - go for it. Place the templates in a common category (maybe "Function Groups") so we can find them, others can use them, etc. I'll look up some more on the templates - it would be cool if we could hide/show them (and maybe even auto-populate the template onto the necessary functions).
--Haama 15:22, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
I see that point. So how about this, See Also links for the functions specifically important to the function in question, and below that a template table of generally similar functions. That way we can easily slap the template on to similar functions (the more links per page the better, imho), and then individuals can add specifically important stuff for each function.
I'll have a hand at it and see how it turns out -- will be easy to undo since it will basically be 1-2 lines per page max.
--quetzilla 16:23, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
I'd prefer not to make any rules about what should go into See Also and what can be in a table at the bottom of the page. Let's just see how it goes.
--Qazaaq 17:06, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Meant it more as a suggestion...
--quetzilla 17:55, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Then I misunderstood. I don't think we should remove the functions from the See Also list if they're also included in the template table. I guess that's what you're suggesting, so I agree.
--Qazaaq 18:02, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Found two different templates that claim to show/hide

  1. Template:Hide
  2. Template:Show hide box

Brain's a bit tired and fried at the moment, so I'll check them out after dinner. If anyone else wants to look, I suggest Google to wiki trees...
--Haama 19:13, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

The TOC box already show/hides... do we not have the code for that?
--quetzilla 21:26, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Looking through the links, they suggest a Navbox... these are freakin' awesome. Qzilla, if you follow the templates to [1] and edit that page you'll see the bottom box of your link is a Navbox, so this is what we're looking for. Now if we can just get it to work.
--Haama 23:24, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Tried the three different templates in the Sandbox - None of them worked. I just stumbled onto Collapsable Tables - might work but that's it for me for tonight.
--Haama 23:58, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
The show/hide thing won't work because it depends on JavaScript from this page: MediaWiki:Common.js, which is empty as you can see. We can't edit it. Of course we can request it, but is that necessary? I mean, the templates will work without show/hide if we copy them and I don't consider showing and hiding very important.
Something to look into is user specific JavaScript, like user styles: Special:MyPage/esstyle.js. If it works we can test things there and eventually ask GStaff for the changes to MediaWiki:Common.js.
The NavBox looks good, that's what we need here, but there are a lot of other Wikipedia templates embedded in that template. I think it's easier to recreate a similar template locally.
--Qazaaq 08:55, 24 August 2008 (EDT)
Already asked about UserJS when I asked for UserCSS. That would be a definite 'no, absolutely not.' Much more likely for them to incorporate things into Common.js. Though I suppose if you want to research the potential risks/rewards of UserJS and present it to them, you might have a chance - I just kind of asked, without making much argument for it. You're welcome to try if you like.
Qazaaq and Haama, do you guys have Gstaff's e-mail address?
Dragoon Wraith TALK 11:36, 24 August 2008 (EDT)
Navbox is looking good, Qazaaq. DW - yep, I still have the addresss, but no - I can't see the template code on the Diablo wiki.
--Haama 17:07, 25 August 2008 (EDT)
Oh, I missed this. Yes I have his address, I think he sent both of us an e-mail before making us sheriff. But anyone can e-mail him through his profile at the forums.
As I said, I don't consider JavaScript very important. Why do you need a hide button on something that's on the bottom of the page? I could imagine you'd want to hide a very long ToC at the beginning of the page, but something at the bottom?
I'm quite pleased with how the Navbox looks now and I don't think it needs any additional functions. At least not for how it's used now.
--Qazaaq 17:24, 25 August 2008 (EDT)
On "Hide" - sounds good.
On Gstaff's e-mail: also good.
On permissions at the BB - drr. They're kind of control freaks. Some of it makes sense, other things I wish they'd change. Aaannnyyway, I put a copy of it at User:DragoonWraith/Template:Categorize.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:33, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Hide - ideally it would be nice, and I would love to see people connect any set of functions they wish, give it a good title, and add it to the appropriate function pages/templates. Realistically, there isn't enough input to expect this. Might be nice for big categories, but not really necessary.
--Haama 00:04, 26 August 2008 (EDT)


Categories, smategories[edit | edit source]

Categories on this Wiki have been screwed up ever since Bethesda released it to the public. This has always been the case. Wrye's been crusading against it for a long time, and from some experiences I've had working on a brand-new Wiki, he's absolutely right. Categories are poorly used on this Wiki and it makes things very confusing for new users. Unfortunately, it will be exceedingly difficult to change anything at this point. Maybe if we had started from the get-go, but even then I'm not sure it would help.

By the way, at some point I intend to bring over some of the things I learned from that Wiki, including two Templates I made that I think make categorization and navigation much easier. If anyone would like to look at that Wiki, check here.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 15:09, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

You mean this - I was wondering how to do that :)
--Haama 15:25, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
That and this, really. Mostly, it's just a matter of using template arguments. The source code should be visible even for non-members, I think... If not, I can move anything from there over to here.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 16:44, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Very nice, but I have to ask: Where can we use this? You're not suggesting we categorize the functions again, are you?
--Qazaaq 17:06, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
No, but the Categorize tag could be used to make doing something like that much easier. In case at any point we want to recategorize.
The Bc template would probably be more useful. In reality for most of this Wiki, the categories perform the same operation - you can click the categories that an article is part of to "go back" and you click on categories contained within an article to "go forward". This is kind of a bastardization of the Wiki software, though, and is not intuitive for new users.
What I'm really suggesting is that I wish we, or Bethesda, really, had organized things differently in the beginning. But all of us, Bethesda included, were complete Wiki newbs when this started (and in reality, we still are, from what I've seen on Wikipedia - they have an extremely fluid system, even if it is abused by their own form of bureaucracy), and that didn't happen. Now, changing everything is a massively difficult proposition...
I wonder how flexible Wiki bots are, and whether or not we can use them here. That's something I've been meaning to look into, but haven't gotten around to. There are a number of reasons I'd like to do that...
Dragoon Wraith TALK 18:05, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
I think that's what we all wish. The template thing you made there is perfect, if we had something like that here two years ago, when we first started with the OBSE functions, things would look very different.
Wikibots is something to look into, that's the only thing we can do here really. Manually changing things is not a realistic option.
--Qazaaq 18:35, 23 August 2008 (EDT)
Did some testing with the Python bot today and it seems to be working. You can set the minimum time the bot waits between saving pages, but if we're going to replace a lot we should probably notify GStaff.
I'm surprised by how easy it is to set it up, and that it works without safety. You can easily do a lot of damage with this thing...
--Qazaaq 07:37, 26 August 2008 (EDT)


Bethesda thread upload?[edit | edit source]

  1. Do we want to place threads on the wiki, in case they become old and destroyed?
  2. If so, how? The short and simple download the x version (word or html) and upload doesn't really work.


--Haama 10:07, 22 November 2008 (EST)

My concern initially would be permissions, but...
Why doesn't the "Download HTML version" work? I mean, sure, it won't be as simple as straight-up copy'n'paste from the file to a Wiki page, but it probably shouldn't be that hard.
I'll try tinkering with it. Gotcha thread, yeah?
Dragoon Wraith TALK 16:05, 22 November 2008 (EST)
How is this? (be sure to add the import to your style sheet and clear your cache)
Dragoon Wraith TALK 17:12, 22 November 2008 (EST)
Looks good, did you change any of the HTML?
--Qazaaq 11:00, 23 November 2008 (EST)
Generally, no, just copied and pasted the entire '<div id="print">' block. I did change the coding for the top of it, for the link to the original thread, but that's minor. The code of every post remains the same.
Unfortunately, there is no (easy) way to support the emoticons or "snapback" tags. Other than that, though, it looks pretty good to me.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 12:30, 23 November 2008 (EST)
It doesn't bother me much. Its an just an archive, if it's readable and easy to update it's good enough. Good job!
Maybe a template could handle the text at the top. That would be something to think about before copying more threads.
--Qazaaq 17:36, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Or even an explanation of what to change, if it's pretty easy. Still haven't had a chance to look at it (had to handle some COBL stuff) - should be able to check tomorrow. Nights
--Haama 03:00, 24 November 2008 (EST)

OK, process:
  • Go to any thread, click Options, click Print This Topic
  • The printer-friendly version of the thread will load. In your browser, use the View Source command (View -> Page Source in Firefox; something similar in other browsers)
  • In the print-friendly page's source, you'll see some code, a comment about how it was generated by IPB, and then an ungodly amount of style changes. Scroll down a lot to the end of the style changes (marked by </style>), then after some JavaScript (<script>...</script>), the header section ends (</head>) and the body section begins (<body>).
  • Just inside the <body> tag, there is a tag that reads <div id="print">. This div does not get closed until the very end of this thread (with a corresponding </div>), just before the </body> tag. Copy the entire <div id="print"> block (or, in other words, the entire contents of the body section), and paste it into a Wiki page.
  • The top of the thread has a single <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> each, used for "Printable version of the Topic", "Click here to see the original topic", and the thread title, respectively. These three should probably be changed to something more appropriate.
  • __NOEDITSECTION__ is recommended.
There should be a template to throw on the top warning people not to edit the page; as an archive it should not be touched. It shouldn't be locked, though, so new posts can be added to the archive relatively easily (maybe lock the page after the thread itself has been locked, or pruned? At any rate, I think that should satisfy permission concerns. I don't really have time to work on that at the moment, though. For now, the template should also have the information that I tossed in the box on my test page, about the CSS. I will speak to Gstaff about possibly getting it added to the global esstyle.css once I get some feedback from you guys (don't want to bug him about adding it if we're going to want to change it).
Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:02, 24 November 2008 (EST)
Oh, by the way, apparently when you use the Print Friendly version, it replaces all hyperlinks with just the URL (I suppose this makes some sense when you want to print the thread, but the fact that it also does the same when you download the HTML version of the thread is silly), which is kind of a bummer. Fixing that would only be possible manually, I think, which is unfortunate.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:11, 24 November 2008 (EST)


Need working examples:[edit | edit source]

wish you all would make scripts people actually use every day while modding, instead of these useless scripts that One person in TwoComeCarry Eygpt need's , and he probablly has not played the game in over a year.

sample example scripts like:

  1. Player is in combat, (need to script to get creature info, and number attacking. )
  2. How to stop combat, and script creature dispositions to level where can have dialog.
  3. identify creatures and script mod there animations.
  4. Tell people where the script need to be attached, Object, Quest, Spell, what ever.
  5. 3 lines of a script with out any understanding of where the variables came from is a joke..
if( Dogbugger.GetWithTheProgram && FroggyPoot.LostHisWay) != I'mLost 
  dosomethingstupid
endif

does not really help Oblivion starting Code Monkeys much.

I try to scearch this Wiki for good examples, and mostly all I get are Partial script pieces that don't work, or crash My Game, and leave me more confused than I was.

why has sO much time been spent on sOo little real help.

we need examples that work, and have enough code to know that you actually tested them, and that we can use to get them working.

I have found some things in here that were very useful, but for the most part it is like a 5 year old receipt from Wally world. --Taglag 19:43, 25 April 2009 (EDT)

I understand your frustration; most examples explain syntax, not semantics. Adding semantic examples would greatly increase the usefulness of the function pages, but someone will have to come up with those. There's shortage of editors and an extraordinarily large number of functions. Unless you are willing to sacrifice a large amount of your time I don't see this happening. To learn how to script I'd recommend following the tutorials, looking through the useful code section and asking for help on the Forums instead.
Last, but not least, please sign your comments with ~~~~ or the signature button in the edit bar. I've done this for the comment you posted already. (It's also custom to indent once more than the person you're responding to, as I've done here.)
--Qazaaq 17:00, 25 April 2009 (EDT)
Please, please, please, don't start paragraphs with spaces. That initiates code boxes and makes your comments nigh-impossible to read. I've removed them.
Secondly, please, use proper English grammar and spelling. We're volunteers here, and decyphering what you've written is not in our job descriptions. If you want help, make it easy for the people you are asking to understand what you are saying.
Thirdly, the game itself comes with hundreds of scripts. These should provide all the examples that you need. If you're looking for something that does a basic task, look up a script from a quest that you know does that. If you are looking for how a particular function is used, check Edit->Find Text to search for scripts where that function gets used.
Fourth, I just want to echo everything Qazaaq said, and recommend that you follow his advice.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:57, 25 April 2009 (EDT)

Template: Wiki Contributor added[edit | edit source]

I added a new template to the list of Templates:Wiki Contributor. Wiki Contributors are users who contribute to this Wiki and help other users by fulfilling request about page updates if they need updating, new articles if necessary, etc. (if those users lack the skill to do so themselves).
--Darkness X 12:22, 4 May 2010 (EDT)

Template layout[edit | edit source]

I suggest changing the layout of the Article Tag Templates by adding an appropriate image to those templates and changing the layout into this template's layout. All templates should have an identical layout so they could be recognized quickly. I changed the Errors Template to let you know what I mean:


--Darkness X 16:35, 6 May 2010 (EDT)

That's a good idea, but I'd suggest moving the title next to the icon.
or centering the title, like the featured template.
I moved this to the CP as other editors (by this I mean DragoonWraith, but others are welcome to join in!) may have an opinion about this.
--Qazaaq 04:47, 7 May 2010 (EDT)
Your first idea looks good! I'm going to change the layout of all the Article Tag Templates for now (until a final conclusion has been made), I'll update the templates later if changes have been made ...
I also have some experience with GIMP so I could create icons maching the CS Wiki style if you want me to do so (like I did with the bot template)?
--Darkness X 11:16, 7 May 2010 (EDT)
That would be great! You're doing an amazing job organizing bits of the wiki, thanks!
--Qazaaq 05:33, 8 May 2010 (EDT)

More Templates?[edit | edit source]

I found some interesting templates on the UESP Wiki recently. User Box Templates: templates that show personal information about a user: age, birthday, country, gender, etc...

Could this be used on this Wiki? The actual question is: do users really want to use those templates? Do they want to reveal that kind of personal information? Is this a good idea?
--Darkness X Talk 15:45, 14 May 2010 (EDT)

New tutorial?[edit | edit source]

I've just created a scripting tutorial, possible to see here. Since I can't even find an option to create new page on this Wiki (usually I only need to type something in Search and then choose Create New Page...), I'm leaving this to be checked by more experienced users. It's useful, not useful, needs some improvement? I'll be happy for information. - ZuTheSkunk 10:41, 1 June 2010 (EDT)

To create a new page you can search for the title. If you search for help for example, the first line reads: You searched for help
Just click the red word help and you'll be directed to the help page, which doesn't contain any content yet. You can also fill in the title in the addressbar of your browser. To create a page with the title help you'd type this: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/help. Note that you won't be editing the page immediately with this method, you need to click the edit button first.
I don't have time to read the entire tutorial, but what I've seen looks ok. We'd be happy to have it on the Wiki.
--Qazaaq 14:28, 1 June 2010 (EDT)

Objects with tilde in their names[edit | edit source]

I don't know where to ask about it, so I'll ask it here.

I've been recently wondering about vanilla objects that has tilde ("~") in their names. This character is not shown in-game, and from what I've been able to guess, he's some sort of forced carriage return or splitting of the name field. The example of item with tilde in his name is "Cursed Viper~Bane Cuirass" with ID "SEEnchEbonyCuirassResistPoison" (it is from SI, but there are also ones from stock OB). Is it mentioned somewhere on the site? If not, then maybe someone should check it further and add such mention? - ZuTheSkunk 03:40, 6 June 2010 (EDT)

About removing bylines on mainspace articles[edit | edit source]

I don't think waiting any longer than we already have would make removing bylines any more appropriate. In two months we have given the original authors 5 years to respond; that should be plenty of time for anyone to formulate a response. I can't recall any author who has responded to this message.

However, the byline notice does not specifically warn against removal. It merely says: "Current rules do not allow bylines in mainspace articles" and calls for the original author to "comment on this in the Talk page.".

Despite this I'm not opposed to the removal of bylines from all mainspace articles. Even though we did not specifically warn against removing them at some point none of the authors have responded. That signifies nothing but disinterest, in their articles, or the byline policy.
--Qazaaq 16:57, 20 June 2012 (EDT)

On occasion, I was inclined to edit a bylined article, but was inhibited by the "courtesy is expected" text, which, in my dictionary, reads "don't touch it".
I am in favor of removing the byline and the byline notice. We could add a note to the respective talk page mentioning the original author and thank him/her for the contribution.
We must consider, also, that, being that old, many are pretty much deprecated (e.g. Linked List Tutorial and Activation Functions) while others are full of broken links (e.g. 3ds Max: Tileset)
QQuix 19:08, 20 June 2012 (EDT)
OK, a few points to consider, mostly historical in nature.
  1. "Courtesy is expected" does not mean and was not intended to mean "don't touch it" – it means literally that you should respect the original author if he or she can be found. I wrote that tag originally, so I would know. In fact, we were hoping that the line would, itself, encourage authors to edit the article, since it explicitly said that they could even though it was bylined. Bylines, prior to the warning being added to the page, struck many as claiming ownership, which is not (and never has been) allowed on this Wiki.
  2. While I agree that authors have had a very long time to respond, the fact of the matter is that there was never a systematic attempt to contact them, and as a result, there may be authors who have not been ignoring the notice for five years – they have been unaware of it for five years. Which is not the same thing, and moreover copyright definitely does not expire in five years even if you ignore it.
  3. While the authors do not have copyright on their contributions here, they may have contributed believing that they did due to a lack of clarity here at the time. The original decision with respect to bylines was that we would give those contributors the benefit of a "courtesy copyright" insofar as they could choose to remove the page in its entirety if they did not agree with the new enforcement of the rules. Note that contributors do not generally have the right to remove their work once submitted to the Wiki.
  4. We have long had a policy (sadly undocumented, most likely) of removing bylines when they are no longer accurate, i.e. that one author is not the only significant contributor to a page because later editors have (courteously) updated and improved upon it. Since this is exactly what we want people to do, it makes sense in that case to remove the byline.
  5. Deprecated or simply poor articles should be deleted or rewritten, no matter who wrote them originally or what name they may have appended to them. In such cases, a rewrite would certainly qualify for byline removal under the fourth point (such a rewrite is sufficient but definitely not necessary for byline removal).
  6. Dev_akm's FAQ was originally made an exception to all of the rules regarding article ownership. As a mirror of the forum thread, it actually was "his" as opposed to being a publicly-editable page. There was a brief attempt to mirror more threads in a similar fashion, which would have had similar rules, but that (as far as I am aware) never went beyond my playing with some stylesheets and templates.
OK, all that done with, I'd generally say that I'm not sure that the original decision was the right one (even though I agreed with it at the time). The fact of the matter is, authors never had any rights to what they submitted to this Wiki. While the Wiki tolerated the appearance of people taking ownership of articles (i.e. bylines), no attempt to actually exercise that ownership would have been permitted (though, to my knowledge, no such attempt was ever made, though I recall at least one contributor who stated he would have attempted it if someone had tried to edit "his" articles).
The submission page has always said
Please note that all contributions to The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see CSwiki:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
(Note the red link on CSwiki:Copyrights for the source of the original problem. This was rectified at the same time these decisions were made, which is why I faked the red link in the quote – the project namespace wasn't "CSwiki" either it was some ungodly long string.)
In all honesty, there was never a good reason to expect that bylines were OK or that articles could be owned – it simply happened that some people did it and no one stopped them, and it became something that some contributors took for granted and never read the warning in the submission window.
But it's been five years, and that's an awful lot of courtesy to extend to people who were effectively breaking the rules, for all they were most likely unaware and also were contributing to the Wiki.
So, in short, I am in favor of removing the bylines and the warnings and being done with this whole fiasco.
Dragoon Wraith TALK 21:13, 20 June 2012 (EDT)
Just throwing in my hat with the rest you guys' - In favor of removing the bylines.
shadeMe TALK 07:22, 21 June 2012 (EDT)
OK. I will do it. How about a note in the Talk page mentioning the original author? Is it necessary?
The deprecated articles I noticed are not exactly deprecated, as they may still be helpful to someone not willing to use OBSE. As for the ones with broken links, being 3dMax tutorials , it is hard to tell if they are still useful without the missing images.
Anyway, I will keep a eye for those and tag them accordingly. QQuix 06:53, 23 June 2012 (EDT)
P.S. Did a few. Feel free to change/revert/whatever, as you seem fit. 16:34, 23 June 2012 (EDT)

Getting Started vs. Basic Concepts[edit | edit source]

I've been looking into some of the 'fundamentals' articles and I think they should be packed together in a Category, making them easier to find and to refer to (articles like Reference, FormID, Esp vs. Esm and such). I am considering calling it "Basic Concepts", unless you suggest a better name.

Then there is the Getting Started category, which also applies to this kind of articles. Poll: should these articles be on both categories or should "Basic Concepts" be a subcategory of Getting Started? Any thoughts? QQuix (talk) 07:26, 29 July 2012 (EDT)

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