User talk:Damon/Archive 3

This is an archive of past User talk:Damon discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

just wondering

I keep finding mistakes on the wiki can I edit something that is like a one letter spelling mistake all the way up to fixing an entire article 173.51.54.117 05:09, 7 January 2013 (GMT)

We would be glad to have you help fix any errors you might find! Jeancey (talk) 05:24, 7 January 2013 (GMT)

If you find anything that needs to be fixed, feel free to fix them. Here's the Quick Editing Guide and Getting Started, where you can read up how to contribute to the wiki if you need help editing. And, of course, we have all the mentors you can speak to, each of which have their own specialties on the wiki who can help with various tasks. If you have a question for me, then leave them here, and I'll reply as fast as I can to each one. Snowmane^{(talk•email)} 05:57, 7 January 2013 (GMT)

Sign up problems

Well I tried to start an account (ERAGON the Dragonborn) but whenever I click send or whatever It keeps saying that I didn't re enter my password but I did so what should I do p.s if ur wondering why I'm using ERAGON the Dragonborn as my username is its the name of my favorite skyrim character (Breton warssassin) so yeah

Did you reenter the password properly? Try again and make sure the passwords match when it asks you to confirm it. I make that mistake a lot. Otherwise, I don't know many ways to fix something with the login stuff. Snowmane^{(talk•email)} 05:41, 8 January 2013 (GMT)

Yeah, you must have messed something up. I created a random account to test it, and I created it without any issues on my end. Like I said, try making sure that you entered everything right and that your passwords match up when you confirm your password. Snowmane^{(talk•email)} 05:50, 8 January 2013 (GMT)

forum problems

well i made an acount and well i want to help people on the forums but when i tried to sign up it said that my email was already in use but some how i dont recall making a forum account before please help p.s on the forum some guy is having problems with the vaemira quest crash bug and once i make my account my first official forum help post will be helping him im so exited The Tamriel Terror (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2013 (GMT)

I am sorry, but I don't use the forums. The only forum member that I can think of is Avron the S'wit. You should take it up with him. His talk page is here. Sorry I wasn't able to help. --Snowmane^{(talk•email)} 23:45, 9 January 2013 (GMT)

Thanks for the chart idea

Hi there, I just wanted to let you know that I have made use of the {{chart}} feature that I saw on your Snowmane Lineage page, which you linked me to earlier. I have used it as part of my Reference Material for The Gaersmith Legacy.

I was also quite interested in your comment, "If I do make a story, I would pick one who was in an interesting era of time, rather than document random Snowmanes who have nothing going for them in the era besides boring common life" Some of what I intend to write in the volumes of The Gaersmith Legacy will be about mundane issues. For instance, the Gaersmith family will have no close connection to Vvardenfell, so the effects of the Red Year would not have immediate significance to them, but I'll still write about things in everyday life in Bruma that may have transpired because of the Red Year in Morrowind. I tend to think that everyday life events are just as important in my fan fiction as are epic battles and other signification historical events. They all "flesh out" the fictional world of Tamriel. Thanks for giving me great ideas, even when I don't agree with you. – Daric↝talk 05:45, 11 January 2013 (GMT)

Haha. As for the chart, you don't need my permission or to let me know you used it, as I didn't make it lol. Not that you'd need it anyway :P Fair warning, though, that it's a little tricky at times to make the cells line up right for those lines. If it's not precise, you'll have lines jutting out in random directions that don't connect anywhere haha. I spent a good hour adding what I have of it, which is just a few generations. Although to be fair, I was multitasking. And, before I get to the bulk of the message if you enter {{tl|Chart}} it would link like this {{Chart}}, which gives it the format while also providing a link to the template page. You can do that with any template, obviously just by replacing "Chart" with the other template's name. Just thought you'd be intereted, since it's shorter and faster to write than nowiki tags.

As for mentioning mundane issues... To each his own. Unless I was writing a diary-like story, like I did with Andre's Journal, I tend to write stories that have some amount of action to them, even just minimally, with little emphasis on slower, lesser issues although I understand what you mean. I understand when a slower pace is needed to supplement a story, but I am just not a fan of stories slowing to a crawl to detail a trip to the market.

Of course, we have two distinct writing styles, and two distinct stories we are writing. My story The Vampire's Tale, for example, is about a specific event. A vampire is out on the loose, and he murders a Blade's family, so he sets out to seek revenge on the vampire. For me and my particular story, the mundane, such as a trip to the market or a trip to the chapel for prayer, are not things that will necessarily advance the story, although if used right, it could serve as a break from the intensity of the action.

Your series, from what I am gathering from the scraps and pieces you've put up as you assemble it into a full piece of art, is written with the specific intent to journal the lives of the family and the events around them, which makes the mundane, such as news of a far away event, important, because, using the Red Year as an example, when word spreads to the press and to the pubs of the Empire, your character of the time would hear it, or he would read the newspaper, and he'd have a reaction to it, because supposing he was a merchant for example, he would suddenly have lost access to many centers of trade in Morrowind, and would have to find a way to redirect his efforts elsewhere.

Like I said, to each his own. It's just two different writing styles and two different types of story that we want to tell. Thanks for your insight, and if you want to butt heads some time and talk writing and fanfiction in better detail, then go for it. --Snowmane^{(talk•email)} 07:16, 11 January 2013 (GMT)

A (very probably) longwinded explanation

Alright, guys. The whole pretending I am somebody else charade isn't working out so much. Some will hate this explanation, some will say "Snowmane, why do you say all this private stuff?", etc, but at this point, I don't care. For the last year and a half UESP and its editors have felt like family to me, and like any family, honesty is the key to relationships working out, and I could use some good honesty right now. The air needs to be cleared, I think.

Here's the first thing I want to say... I am User:Jo'Sakhar.

• Who?: You know... Jo'Sakhar, the new guy who works his ass off in the Morrowind namespace taking pictures and writing pages to bring the space up to speed? If you don't recognize the name, check here. (Sorry, I HAD to joke, but let's get back on topic)

• Why: To make a long story short, many, many months ago, I had a closer friendship than I should have with an editor who will remain unnamed, for the sake of everyone's privacy (and, I would like to ask that nobody goes around looking for who it is), and for the last many months, I was arguably in a state of depression, as my good friend Jak said, and my editing became sporadic, I lost interest in the site, and I would only edit on my own personal projects. The wiki, hell, everything, ceased to amuse me, so I just gave up.

First, I left IRC, since the instant messaging nature of it meant frequent interactions with me, some of which by people who had no business knowing details (again, no names for privacy), then eventually it the wiki. Over the last month or so, my editing became less and less, trickling to a near stop. I started talking to another friend, and I found that boost I needed to start feeling better and crawling out of my hole, and I decided to start tidying up Morrowind, something that I've always had on my platter to tackle eventually. I just didn't want to be doing the work as Eric Snowmane, a patroller, mentor, blocker, blah blah blah, because I didn't want to become someone dependable to talk to, in case I relapsed into my moods and left the wiki again mid-task... So, I cooked up Jo'Sakhar, a man of no significance who could come and go as he pleased.

I've been feeling significantly better the last few weeks in regards to everything, and I have been finding that need and want to socialize with our goofy, dysfunctional family, as Kitkat jokingly refers to the wiki as. I've been slipping into IRC as Jo'Sakhar, and I find it so wonderful to talk to people, but I hate lying, and it's so difficult to not scream out "Oi! I'm Snowmane".

Anyways, like I said, I am feeling better, and I want to be here now as who I am, and not behind a mask. Jo'Sakhar will cease to perform on the wiki, and I will immediately continue Jo'Sakhar's projects and see them all to completion still.

I don't know whether "testing my mood" qualifies as a justifiable use of WP:CLEANSTART, and if it is, it's an interesting use of the concept, but it's something I felt was necessary, though I apologize for not mentioning it to any administrators, which probably would have been a good idea.

Comments aren't necessary, this post was more of a statement than anything, but if you want to say something, you have a short while while I am integrating Jo'Sakhar's pages into my own space, then it's off to bed, since it's damn near 4AM, local time. ES^{(talk•email)} 08:47, 27 February 2013 (GMT)

Snowmane, while I definitely understand your reasons for wanting to work anonymously for a while, you have to understand that this community has been dealt a very serious blow by editors using sockpuppet accounts in the past, and it's disappointing to learn you didn't bother to notify even a single administrator of your alternate account. As a mentor, patroller, blocker, and experienced member of this wiki, other users look up to you and should be able to trust that, at the very least, you are who you say you are. That you abused that trust by working secretively under another username will make it very difficult for others to trust you in the future. As you said yourself, you were lying to the community, and I'm sure you can understand why this is problematic.

Since we have not found any sign that you were using your sockpuppet to cast additional votes, using this account to patrol edits made by your sockpuppet, or any other abuses of your patroller rights in relation to your sockpuppet, no administrative action is being taken at this time (not that any of us necessarily believes you would do any of those things, but still). In the future, if anything like this happens again, please take the time to make one of us aware of your intentions, so we can ensure no one has a reason to question your actions. ⇠eshe^talk 01:22, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

I'm sorry, Eshe, I truly am that what I did (and neglected to do), has caused this ding in your, and everyone else's trust, in me. All things considered, you as my friend and confidant who was so intimately involved in this all, deserved the truth from the beginning.

I should clarify, though. I did send one email, to Krusty, since I knew he'd be more hands-off about it all than others I could have emailed. The email, which I will forward to you after I finish this, indicated my intention to do this, I just hadn't named the account yet, and said something to the effect of (I'm paraphrasing here) "in a few days, when I finally do it, I'll be sure to let you know", and I simply forgot, since I had a busy few days in real life at the time. It wasn't until after the fact that I thought of it and apologized for the lack of notification.

And, if it's any consolation at all, I very carefully looked around for precedent, here and on Wikipedia for Clean Starts, I very carefully analyzed what could go wrong, I dug through our archives for precedent related to sock puppets and risk of discovery, remembering RH70 talk about Joram and his escape from whatever his drama was, and I spoke to him about this as well... Granted, he's not an administrator, so that's not an adequate substitution, but at the very least, I knew what not to do, and everything was carefully thought out, and very cautiously executed, to ensure that nothing would compromise my anonymity or put me in a bad position in regards to the politics and law of the wiki.

We can take this up in more detail in email, Eshe, when I forward you that, unless you want a completely transparent inquiry into this on the wiki, which I would cooperate with. I meant no harm with what I did, though I understand the situation I am in, and accept any action against me, should you change your mind and find it appropriate. Again, I'm sorry, my friend. I'm sorry for the deception, I'm sorry for the lying, and I'm sorry for my own actions (and lack of), relating to the situation, and I offer you and the community my deepest apologies. ES^{(talk•email)} 02:21, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

Oh gosh, we don't need a full-on Inquisition or anything. I understand and honestly don't doubt your reasons for doing this (I mean really, who hasn't wanted a vacation before?), and as I said, there was nothing fishy going on that I could see. It hardly counts as a clean start now that you've gone back to your original account, but I think you understood going into this that there would be some mistrust and doubt if you ever did so. I was very concerned until seeing your response that you didn't understand how serious it can be for a little community like ours when someone does something like this, but I'm relieved to see that you thought it through, and I feel reassured you won't try anything like this again without really making sure someone is notified first. So, welcome back, and thanks for being so open and cooperative about this :). ⇠eshe^talk 15:02, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

Well, one thing comes to mind, Eshe. I did make one comment as Eric Snowmane in regards to Jo'Sakhar while I was editing as Jo'Sakhar, though it was only indirectly. Velyanthe and I were in my private IRC channel that I use so my friends and I could privately group chat together, and he made a comment about talk pages being patrolled and that resulting in them being left unanswered, and Jo'Sakhar's sandbox was on the table as one of the examples in question between us during the conversation. We felt somebody ought to say something and direct Skyrimplayer towards the proper patrolling guidelines.

It was just listing that page diff as an example here while politely telling Skyrimplayer about patrolling guidelines. I don't feel like it's an issue, but I'm not the admin, you are, and I wanted to give you that, in case you never saw it, because it's a case where I did reference Jo'Sakhar as myself (as in, say it while acting as Eric Snowmane), and we need transparency about my time as Jo'Sakhar. ES^{(talk•email)} 18:54, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

As someone who is spending a lot of time on the UESP wiki (and playing Elder Scrolls games on my XBox) because of depression issues myself, I am heartened by this tale. I for one have not lost trust in you, Eric. We all go by pseudonyms here anyway, and I know your real name isn't Eric Snowmane, just as mine isn't really Daric Gaersmith. You pretend to be Eric Snowmane, and you pretended to be Jo'Sakhar, to me there is no difference, but then, I'm not all that gone on wiki politics myself. You tried to reach out to me on IRC a couple of days ago, and I wasn't around, and I do apologize for that. As I say, I'm going through my own struggles with depression, so I'm probably not someone to have a meaningful conversation with about such things anyway. I come here to discuss the fictional world of the Elder Scrolls, as it is much more fun to me than real life. I don't judge you for wanting to be someone else. I might point out that in the site's Privacy Policy, it says that IP addresses are logged even for registered users, although only administrators can see them. A sharp-eyed admin would have been able to see that the IP address for Snowmane and the IP address for Jo'Sakhar were no doubt the same. – Daric↝talk 23:38, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

Daric, IPs are not displayed in the account creation log, even for admins. Out of respect for our editors' privacy, we are not in the habit of running IP checks on every user, and as a policy we do not look into user IPs at all unless we have good reason to do so. Thank you for your input, but I think this matter has been settle fairly neatly at this point. ⇠eshe^talk 23:48, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

(←) I appreciate the support, I guess? I haven't got the faintest clue what's going on here. And, I don't remember "reaching out" to you? We've had general fanfiction discussions, but I haven't, and don't intend on, sharing my personal affairs with you, as nice a guy as you appear... And, what Eshe said: Admins have better things to do than go tracing IP addresses between users. This matter, like Eshe said, is closed, and unless another administrator wants information, I will cease responding to this thread... Unless one of the leprechauns (*Cough cough* I'm looking at you, Kitkat) wants to provide a river of Guinness for a "Welcome home" celebration :P ES^{(talk•email)} 23:54, 28 February 2013 (GMT)

Welcome Ba...errr...not :)

Good to know you're still alive, at least. I was wondering what happened to you! Hopefully your internet issues will be resolved soon! – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:14, 27 May 2013 (GMT)

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday! It's about time you got older, right? ~ Dwarfmp (talk) 05:04, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

Thanks, Dwarf. Let me thank everyone in advance who posts to my page today, since come morning I am taking off to return home for a few weeks to pack and get ready to take a job and stuff, which means another break and offline time. Love you all! -snowmane  ^xoxo 05:16, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

Hey hey, 21 today! Congrats Snowmane! Hope you have a great day. — Daric✐ 17:59, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

It's your birthday?! I didn't forget or anything... Anyway, happy birthday, man!--Skyrimplayer (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

Daric Gaersmith came out of hiding to say happy birthday to me? Aren't I special :D Anyway, thanks, you two. -snowmane  ^xoxo 19:29, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

Happy birthday. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:34, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

Happy birthday! 21...that means you're legal to drink in the US, doesn't it? – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 20:10, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

(←) Yeah, though I forgot my wallet and ID at home. And, , oar thnx for birthday wishes, guys :) -snowmane  ^xoxo 21:33, 20 September 2013 (GMT)

Thank's

Thank you for your warning about images. So I can't upload any of them because I play on a notebook with 16:9 ratio. Then I shoul stick to in-game tests and othe Creation Kit info. --Dahkteromar (talk) 22:15, 10 November 2013 (GMT)

Well, you can still upload them. Use a photo editor (doesn't have to be fancy like Photoshop or Apple's Aperture) with a "crop" function, and you can just crop the images to the correct ratio. -damon  ^xoxo 22:44, 10 November 2013 (GMT)

How do I update the image? I have tried but it says: "File extension ".png" does not match the detected MIME type of the file (image/jpeg)." And I cannot rewreite the destination name from .png --Dahkteromar (talk) 23:06, 10 November 2013 (GMT)

(edit conflict) Don't worry. I made this mistake a few months ago lol. Even the veterans screw up and learn something. ;) You can not upload a jpg over a png. Make an entirely new upload with the jpg extension, and put {{prod|replaced with .jpg version}} on the original upload. -damon  ^xoxo 23:18, 10 November 2013 (GMT)

The Vampire Tales

Love your books about the vampires. Had to drink my ice cream! lol. Could you give me any tips to help me write mine?KaidaThyme (talk) 01:54, 17 November 2013 (GMT)

I write a story, I do a lot of research on people, events, etc in the surrounding time period, so I have an idea what the state of the realm is at the time of the story. I like my stories to feel like they belong in the world of Tamriel, and I am not a fan of rewriting game story lines and claiming it is something original or special. It's not; it's just a re-working of already written works.

To be honest, though, there is no real way to write a "good" story, be it fanfiction or a real novel. It just takes practice and skill at the actual art of writing, and it takes a creative mind to make something that is emotionally significant in some way and leaves an impact on the reader. There's nothing really I could say as a "tip".

And, if you care to hear, I actually despise The Vampire's Tale. It's special because it's my first long story, but in other aspects... I can see flaws. Inconsistencies because of how long it was between each writing, my grammar needs work in some places, and I found the plot to be cliche and in many places rather undeveloped, though I suppose in some ways that is why people like it.

I guess I have one "tip": Write and stick to an outline before you write a full story. I didn't do it with Tale, which is why it is riddled with inconsistencies and poorly executed. I always had a vague idea of the story's premise, but with no real guidelines, I had more room for error than I care to admit.

I really doubt I was helpful, but that's what I have to say. -damon  ^xoxo 02:12, 17 November 2013 (GMT)

Actually, it helps quite a bit. I'd like to share with you the basic storyline of the one I'm trying to write, if you'd like to read it?KaidaThyme (talk) 16:09, 17 November 2013 (GMT)

I certainly can critique it if you'd like. Email me whenever you like, and I can read it and reply when I find the free time. (Admittedly, I'll be a little slow to read it, as I'll be occupied for a few days, so it will be a slow reply). -damon  ^xoxo 01:56, 18 November 2013 (GMT)

Revert on mythological reference

Hi Damon,

So it looks like you reverted my first contribution to the wiki, at Skyrim:Aela the Huntress. What did I do wrong? I don't understand your summary speculation isn't needed. Little is needed on a wiki, but usually much is desired. I figured possible mythological connections would be of interest. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2013 (GMT)

Well, we typically disallow trivia, because it tends to open the floodgate for things that aren't relevant to the article. I'm not saying what you added isn't relevant, it's just something not necessarily desired. However, if you want to post to the talk page on that article and argue a case for including it, we can see if others find interest in, and agree with having it included on the article, since limited trivia is sometimes added on a case-by-case basis. -damon  ^xoxo 22:54, 20 November 2013 (GMT)

hmmm.breaking your rule, but...

Hi Damon, thanks for your reply thought it better to reply here as the other converation was on Eshe' talk page. I've added the show/hide to what I've completed so far in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/User:Biffa/sandbox/2 for Kolbjorn Barrow however when I preview it doesn't seem to work the way I thought. What I wanted was to have the titles of each section visible in a column with show/hide buttons at the end next to them. I've obviously done something wrong, but if/when you get a minute if you could have a look I would deeply appreciate it. It's not urgent as I'm waiting for letters from Ralis to do each section instead of waiting in game, I'm carrying on with other updates. Thanks again Biffa (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2013 (GMT)

Using it the way you appear to want to use it, I am not certain how that would be done, to be honest. I may have to pass this off to someone else. Perhaps Rob knows what's up? He's the template guru and might have a better idea than I do. -damon  ^xoxo 18:04, 22 November 2013 (GMT)

That's a common issue when you've got a lot of pictures and such on the page. The only solution that comes to mind is to put all the showhides in a table. I've done that on your page now. Let me know what you think. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 20:26, 22 November 2013 (GMT)

Thank for that Robin, Once I've finished gathering all the info from gaming it'll look mighty fine with the ability to just look at what is there at a given event/day. Thanks for the help! Biffa (talk) 00:19, 23 November 2013 (GMT)