A Year Too Late

If I really cared any more I could get depressed at the poor standard of admin on UESP these days. A good example is this post from TheRealLurlock expressing concern at the block settings he's been using on IPs. In a nutshell, Lurlock tells us that he doesn't know what he's doing and it's taken him months to say anything. Yeah, that's the kind of admin a site needs.

There's a reply from Lonely and Desperate saying the same thing, although the diff for that one is lost thanks to Daveh being incompetent. Lastly we have Whining Little Bitch doing his usual trick of replacing actual thought by copying stuff from Wikipedia. He suggests limiting the length of blocks to a year or less.

I thought this sounded a bit familiar and remembered this discussion started by rpeh on 1 May 2011. It seems I've got a better memory than Lonely and Desperate because he took part in the discussion but obviously doesn't remember anything. Rpeh's reason for starting the discussion was exactly what it's taken the other dullards 15 months to realise: that just because someone vandalises a page from a given IP address, it isn't always going to belong to a vandal.

The original proposals didn't go anywhere because LaD is an idiot and some other user I'd forgotten was also an idiot, and has done the square root of fuck all in recent times. While rpeh's suggestion to unblock every single indefinitely blocked IP address was a stupid suggestion that would have led to days of pure spam, the basic idea of not perma-blocking any IPs in the future was a good one. It's a shame it took so long for the others to get there.

Nothing to Say

I deliberately held off on this for a while but it's been ten weeks since Lonely and Desperate made a post about the state of the UESP blog. An editor named ThuumofReason asked "Wasn't rpeh in charge of it?", which prompted L&D to ask if rpeh's permissions had been removed, to which the Queen of Trolls makes a short (by her standards) reply, indicating that she had added L&D to the list of admins.

That was all back in mid-April.

Since then there's been one anaemic post from Daveh the Incompetent... and that's it.

I would never have believed it but kicking rpeh out has killed the UESP community. Another tick on the list of reasons why Daveh made a stupid decision.

It Comes to One Man

As promised, a little more on the recent activity of TheRealLurlock.

Most of his recent edits have been about the Tamriel Rebuilt (TR) project. In case you don't know, it's a huge project to create the whole of Morrowind province using the Morrowind engine. This might sound silly to those of you who haven't played the game, but TES III: Morrowind only featured the island of Vvardenfell. You can see what that means in this image. When complete, the TR project will contain about five times as much land as the original Morrowind game. The other thing to say is that the quality of the added lands is really, really high. The first two releases made by the team were great but the latest one - Sacred East - is mind-blowing because of the increase in quality that the admins have required.

What does this have to do with Lurlock?

When UESP decided to document TR there was a bit of an argument between Lurlock and rpeh about how it should be done. I can't be bothered with diffs, but you can see it here. Lurlock wanted a whole new namespace while rpeh and Queen of Trolls wanted to avoid namespace explosion and to use sub-namespaces instead. The latter solution was used, but despite the claims of the people on that side, things reached the point where QoT's wiki extensions had to take special account of the extra sub-NSs. Anyway...

The project grew, with rpeh taking the lead with lots of help from TR insiders like Gez and Theviking, to become a part of the site that took up a lot of space without generating lots of views.

Whenever TR released a new map, rpeh would set up RoBoT to create stubs for NPCs, quests, places and so on, then begin the process of filling them in. The team working on those pages did a decent job, and although there are (as of right now) 280 stubs, that compares favourably to the 271 Daggerfall stubs and the shocking 1,387 Skyrim stubs.

So instead of a competent group of editors filling in a set of bot-created pages, we have... Lurlock.

No, I don't think this is going to end well either.

Rpeh for Admin - for real!

I can only assume there is a spy in UESP Watch Towers, because it's the only way Krusty could have timed his nomination of rpeh for Admin precisely after I went away for a week.

Of course we don't need to do any diffs for this story because it's obvious that there will be loads of editors supporting the nomination but that Rawtwat the Vicious and Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick will oppose it, right? Eh? What's that? Really? Seriously?!?! Okay, let's do this properly then.

Things started off as predicted, with Alpha Kenny Buddy, Pwnageincarnate, Legoless and Corevette789 all voting "Yay" before rpeh had even posted his responses. Next came Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, then rpeh added a whole extra load of crap, then comes the first opposition: Wrye.

It's been so long since Wrye has shown his face that I couldn't remember much about him, except that he was a bit of a pompous twat at times. I had a murky memory of him even managing to annoy the usually unflappable Timenn, and eventually found the debate here. The next memory refresher was to look at his edit distribution, which made my eyebrows go up along way.  40% of his edits are about promoting his modding projects in the Tes3Mod and Tes4Mod namespaces. Another 14% has him arguing in UESPWiki space, 17% in User space, and after that, there's almost nothing. Now I see why rpeh wanted regular admin votes - this guy is treating the wiki like his own private website.

Anyway. After nice, subtle dig from rpeh, we have several increasingly desperate attempts from Wrye to justify his vote interspersed with several people telling him he's a moron. Eventually we come to our second Oppose vote, and it's from Whining Little Bitch fully living up to his name, in a post demolished by rpeh a little later.

The next odd vote is from DKong27, who I had firmly in the "Support" camp, but who voted "Neutral", making the accurate point that rpeh does tend to make enemies, but it's this vote that really made me swear in disbelief. Elliot voted to support rpeh's RfA. Let me repeat that: Elliot voted to support rpeh's RfA. In a well-written and thoughtful post, Elliot takes a brief look at their history, moves on, and expresses some hopes and thoughts for the future. I might have to change his name if he keeps making posts like this one.

With the vote currently at 17-2, and a full week already gone, it's only a matter of time before UESP has a new admin. True, Daveh might decide not to listen to the community's suggestion, but since we know he's already given rpeh server access, I can't see that being a problem.

Let's hope he has learned from the mistakes of the past and is not doomed to repeat them.

Maybe this time

It's been a whole month since Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick's block ran out. I didn't want to post the day after it happened in case it had simply slipped his memory, but after a month it might be that he really has "moved on".

Herschel blocked him for six months starting on Sep 1 last year, and that block ran out on March 1 this year. One month and one day later and still nothing from EtOT.

I know that several sad people commenting on this blog are going to do the usual ritual of telling me not to bother any more, to which I'll say only this... it's been two months since my last post because there's been no drama, no trouble, no acts of viciousness... it's been quiet. The way a wiki should be.

What's changed since I set up this blog? No more Rawtwat the Vicious. No more ^CEshe^V. No more Queen of Trolls. No more EtOT. Their feet no longer press on the brake pedal of good relations. The Great Deceiver has returned, but it seems he is willing to accept a subordinate role as sergeant to Krusty's general.

I'm going to keep watching. In fact, I've started editing again. Let's hope things remain quiet for now.

Rpeh for Admin?

Wow, I didn't see this one coming! A user by the name of Shianni asked TGD if he'd be interested in becoming an admin. The reply was a little evasive, and seems to be a way of making sure he has enough support before committing himself, but it appears that we may be seeing a second RfA from rpeh sometime soon.

It's worth taking a look back at his previous RfA. To be fair, he did most of the things he said he would, and continues to do them. "Beyond that I intend to keep doing what I've been doing; edits, patrolling, answering questions and uploading unfeasibly large numbers of images" - done. "This may be a touch pessimistic but I think the biggest challenge will be keeping the site active with the enthusiastic community we currently have" - accurate, and I think it's fair to say that rpeh has done his fair share of keeping good editors with cookies, compliments and help. "[T]his may be an opportunity to look at making large-scale improvements in the site; enhancing the navigation and adopting a more consistent look, perhaps through increased use of templates" - also done. Only Nephele and RobinHood70 can say they've done as much template work as rpeh.

It will be interesting to see how this develops. A proper RfA might bring Nephele and Ratwar back out of the woodwork to vote "Oppose", and one or two others might vote the same way because of what happened in August 2009. If I had to call it now, I would say that there will be a majority in favour by about 7-5, which might not be enough to declare consensus. If people don't come back only to vote no, the majority would be larger.

Rpeh... the vicious?

It's true that The Great Deceiver has a habit of being a bit of a dick, but in the absence of anything else worth reporting, let's look at a couple of his latest talk page comments.

I had to flick back through a few pages for this, but it seems this edit was the one that raised TGD's hackles. I can't see why... it added something new to a page that didn't have much info. TGD's response was "learn what phonetic means", which it has to be said is a fair comment. Undoing the text was a bit stupid, though, since it served to show the link between the runes of the Dragon Language and the Latin letters. If you wanted to delete anything, it would have made more sense to delete the translation then link to the Dragon Language page for it.

The discussion moved to TGD's talk page, where Debatra made the point that it might be useful to include the trans-literation as well as the translation (Debatra didn't use the long words - that is just me proving my superiority). The Albino Idiot added its view, before the expected put-down from TGD, reply from Debatra, and final response from TGD.

There's nothing particularly notable about this except that TGD got so defensive. What's the big deal? Surely it makes sense to include the interim form as well as the translation? Why get so upset?

A New Project

Having recently dismissed two projects for being silly ideas, The Great Deceiver has... created a new project. This seems to go back to an ancient argument between TheRealLurlock and TGD that partially concerned how the Quest Header template should be used. I can't find that discussion now so if anyone can supply a link, that would be great.

There's a relationship to be drawn between the age of a game and the quality of the UESP pages related to it. Mark game age on the X axis and quality on the Y, and then starting from a low base, the line rises to a peak with Morrowind and then trails off towards the Oblivion/SI end. There's an obvious reason for this, which is that the old games have nobody playing them and their content dates back to the pre-wiki days of UESP, while the Oblivion pages are infested by 12 year olds adding their favourite tips, however pointless they may be.

Morrowind is at the top of the quality scale because most of the content for the game was added after the site went wiki, but before all the children got involved. This tends to mean that most of the content is just as it should be - sparse, but accurate. People can find what they want without being drowned out by trivia. The only problem is that it's all been so sparse that useful information hasn't been added. It looks like this project might be a good way to fill in the major gaps.

Compare this to the silly "Add Far Too Much Fucking Information To The Oblivion NPC Pages Project" or OBNPCRP as its disciples call it. There's a line to be drawn between too much and too little information, but I would rather see things fall on the Morrowind side of that line.

See you in the Spring

Fun times on UESP last night. In the middle of another boring argument between The Great Deceiver and Whining Little Bitch, who should appear but Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick!

Despite having claimed to be "done" with the site, EtOT popped up to deliver what he evidently thought were a few well chosen words about TGD, in a post so transparently trollworthy that not one, not two, not three, but four different editors removed it. EtOT's edit warring led to WLB warning him, which of course, EtOT removed. WLB reinstated the warning with section protection, so EtOT did some whining of his own and had the gall to warn TGD for edit warring, twice - a warning removed first by TGD himself, then by Corevette789. At this point, Herschel stepped in and blocked EtOT for six - count them! - six months, with an email and talk page ban to go with it.

The message should be clear to you, EtOT (and I know you still read this): you are not wanted on UESP. In one evening, you managed to piss off SerCenKing, TheAlbinoOrc, Arch Mage Matt, Rpeh, RobinHood70, Corevette789 and Krusty. FiveFour patrollers and an admin. That's pretty good going even for you.

See you in March. I'm sure everybody on UESP will have a happy Christmas / Hanukkah / whatever knowing you won't be anywhere near the site.

Storm in a Teacup

I had intended to skip this topic, but the way in which the argument keeps going makes it unmissable.

Things started with this edit, which deleted a section of a page on a largely irrelevant mod called FCOM. If you look over the history of that page, you will notice that for the last year, nothing much except deletions and reversions has taken place on it, so how did such a controversy erupt?

The answer is this edit from The Great Deceiver in which he fully blanked the page and redirected it to the FCOM site because he didn't believe the page was being maintained. A day later, a user named Haama restored the page and then exploded on the CP.

What follows is a fascinating back-and-forth debate where Haama, and another user called DragoonWraith acting like the world was about to end, and TGD defending his actions.

So what do I think about it? Well TGD's actions seems a little extreme, but the overreaction by the other editors has been incredibly funny to watch.

Ah. I see Timenn is trying to stop things going any further. Good luck on that score!

Two New Patrollers

For some reason, the comment sections on previous posts are calling the fact that Corevette789 and Jplatinum16 have been nominated as patrollers worthy of comment.

Neither event is really worthy of comment, but on the off chance that this will shut you up, here's the post.

It was Vesna who nominated Corevette789 and The Great Deceiver who nominated Jplatinum16. So far the only controversy I can see is a competition to see who can stick his or her tongue furthest up the nether regions of the two people concerned. Neither nomination has anything less than a panting declaration of love in the voting section. They will both go through, despite the idiotic "UESP Watch Reader 101" comment that "I don't [Jplatinum16's] nomination will be successful here. I assume he left the word "think" out of that comment on the grounds that he doesn't understand the word.

Anyway. Here's the post... but it's not really very interesting, is it?

UPDATE: My bad. I hadn't noticed that regular moron MEG had voted against Jplatinum16, which at least gives us all a pretty solid clue to the identity of "UESP Watch Reader 101". Perhaps MEG could pass comment on this edit to the Arcane University page, and the creation of this page?

It's... oh... so quiet! Shh! Shh!

Now let me be honest and say that the Recent Changes page looks like a bomb exploded. Recently, when this has happened it has been because of a huge fight between The Great Deceiver and Elliot the Banned, Obnoxious and Thick but not today.

The activity today has been mostly from Arny, Mikeyboy52, GUM!!! and Scorpio... four newish users who excel at irritating other users by plastering the site with edits on talk pages.

Things began with Mikeyboy asking Elliot's Bitch about image linking that turned into a discussion about images in signatures. When TGD came in with what's becoming a standard tactic from him - a link to Wikipedia - you might be forgiven for thinking the discussion was over. No. Mikeyboy moved it on to TGD's talk page instead.

Meanwhile, Scorpio made this edit, which added a list of "Notable People" to the Leyawiin page. Now this idea has some good points and some bad points, but what everybody would agree is that it didn't need a load of new users talking about it. We then get at least 100 edits from the group named above and it all ends with Scorpio blanking stuff because he was feeling picked-upon. He also gave Arny a rather wet slap. Eventually, the Queen of Trolls warns him for slapping but he doesn't listen and goes on and on, evidently with a broken CAPS LOCK KEY. Herschel, then TGD ask him to calm down but to no avail. After some more vandalism, for which QOT blocked him, he leaves a nice message for her, before Timenn extends the block to a month. For no good reason.

Two lessons have been learned today. 1) 12 year olds should NOT be given Internet access without supervision. 2) God! Isn't it dull without EtBOT!

Busy Morning

Looks like war between Nephele the Pious and The Great Deceiver has broken out overnight.

It began with NtP confirming that the Masked Template Guru was wrong to delete anonymous posts for no reason by suggesting a new policy about such posts. She then follows it up with another policy aimed straight at Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick and TGD.

It doesn't take long before TGD opposes them both.

It also doesn't take long before he comes back with a policy proposal of his own, aimed so directly at NtP that it's probably still ricocheting back and forth between her nipples.

Elliot the Thick then appears - neatly proving rpeh's point that he only ever turns up for the controversy, which is the very definition of trolling - and makes three typically pointless posts of his own.


Nephele's first policy makes some kind of sense but it would be much easier to disable anonymous editing altogether rather than having some kind of half-arsed measure like this that is totally open to interpretation and will only lead to more edit warring.

The second one won't work even for a moment and is a really, really silly suggestion by NtP. As TGD has already pointed out, Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick will edit pages he knows TGD is about to edit to prevent TGD updating them. EtOT pretends he doesn't know how he can do this, but that's nothing more than a smokescreen.

TGD's suggestion is definitely overdue. Nobody left on the site knows anything about Garrett and Endareth, while Rawtwat the Vicious should have been removed as an admin months ago.

So we have Nephele making snide remarks about Rpeh, Rpeh telling her off in reply, then Nephele aiming policies at Rpeh and Rpeh aiming one right back.

This has all happened since Nephele the Pious returned from her break. Perhaps she should be blocked for disruptive behaviour?

UPDATE: EtOT has always got to get the last word in, although even by his standards this is illiterate and difficult to understand. I think he is trying to say that he doesn't have time to edit the wiki. Then how does he have time to annoy everybody on the admin noticeboard? Simple answer: EtOT is a lying bastard who is only out to cause trouble. TGD may not be able to use the "T" word, but I can: Elliot is nothing but a troll. Block him now.

Tempora Mutantur

A Brief History of Time UESP Template Improvements:
Nephele, 20 March 2009: I've got these great ideas to improve our templates.
Rpeh, 20 March 2009: Wow those look great but "my biggest concern is the impact on the database"
Nephele, 20 March 2009: Dun worry, I iz teh uberl33t hax0r! All your base, etc...
Rpeh, 16 May 2010: Dave, I think we have a problem.
Daveh, 17 May 2010: Yeah, HAL, I think we got it.
Rpeh, 17 May 2010: I'm feeling very enthusiastic about the mission.
Rpeh, 23 May 2010: Uh-oh Daveh. The AE35 unit is about to undergo critical failure.
Frank Poole, 23 May 2010: Yeah, Houston we have a problem.
Nephele, 30 May 2010: Okay, you know I said my code wouldn't cause these problems?
UESP Servers: Daisy... Daisy... give.....me.....your......answer...........do..........

Bloody hell, he's at it AGAIN!

So Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick's latest retirement is over and he is back at UESP being as obnoxious and thick as ever.

I'm afraid I cannot be bothered providing all the diff links this time. It's yet another argument between EtOT and TGD, in which neither was particularly helpful but EtOT (as ever) was worse. Eventually, Corevette789 gave him a waring and EtOT went to whine about it on the admin noticeboard.

For everybody's sake, can someone please block EtOT for good? He has proven both on UESP and Wikipedia that he is divisive and useless. It also seems he has managed to drive rpeh away from the site. Judging from the tiny number of entries in the patrol log, that means the huge backlog of unpatrolled crap that rpeh cleared up is beginning again.

Somebody block that waste of space before it's too late.

UPDATE: Looks like the Masked Template Guru has taken care of most of the patrolling, but how long will that last?

One Last Piece of Idiocy?

I'm away for a few weeks and there's a piece of stupidity from Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick! Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?

The trigger seems to have been some incident in IRC between EtOT and rpeh. At first, EtOT reports it as an "Abuse of power", but after a couple of replies from The Great Deceiver, he decides it was worth an indefinite block.

Now normally, I'd say that TGD's reply is unhelpful, but since it's EtOT we're talking about here, there isn't really any better response. EtOT could just as easily stand for Elliot the Obnoxious Troll, but I would rather emphasise his stupidity.

Unfortunately, TGD didn't follow his own advice. After EtOT changes the title, TGD "reverts trolling", which EtOT undoes while accusing TGD of almost violating 3RR (the Wikipedia rule that says you can't make more than 3 reverts to a page within 24 hours). TGD points out that EtOT is talking out of his arse and EtOT admits the mistake, but doesn't apologise of course.

At this point, Southern Belle steps in. She politely tells EtOT to stop being a trolling bastard and wags a finger at TGD, presumably because she had to find some way of balancing her reply. More whining ensues from EtOT before SB tells him straight: he was trolling in IRC. EtOT then reminds us all why he gets the "Obnoxious" part of his name.

We then get Herschel's first major contribution as an admin. He agrees with SB and also tells EtOT that he's a troll. EtOT bids the site goodbye again before Lucius Tarquinius Superbus adds a typically magnificent reply. NOTE: current number of edits made by EtOT after leaving: 7.

Timenn (and I need a new name - he has not been around enough lately to justify the LGA tag) wraps the discussion up by giving EtOT what must surely be his last unofficial warning.

Hopefully this goodbye will be more permanent than his previous dozen or so. It is now clear that everyone is sick and tired of Elliot. The scariest thing about him is that he shows exactly the same behaviour on UESP and WP and still doesn't understand it when people tell him off. You have to wonder if he is like this in Real Life.

Rawtwat - Still Vicious

After the surprise of rpeh's patrollership nomination, we have the staggeringly-unsurprising news that Rawtwat the Vicious doesn't like the idea.

It's a typically nasty and vicious post from Rawtwat and although TGD tells him not to make personal attacks in a reply, somebody should really give Ratwar an official warning.

It's not going to matter, of course. The current vote is 5-2 and I can see at least two other votes going rpeh's way before it closes. What's fascinating is that, again, RtV and Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick are on the same side. Rawtwat should take some time to think about that.

Other people should take some time to consider how much longer Rawtwat can be allowed to violate policy before he brings the position of Admin into disrepute.

Wow. Who Saw THAT Coming?

The Great Deceiver nominated himself for patroller again last night, which I don't think anybody was expecting. Predictably, Elliot the Obnoxiously Vicious had to vote no, hilariously claiming that patrollership is his gift to offer.

So far, yes votes from Corevette789, Atreus, and the Masked Template Guru.

Is this the first step in a return to sysop status for TGD?

It's About Time

Finally, the patience of other users has been exhausted by Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick's behaviour.

It began with Lucius Tarquinius Superbus who in a brief (sarcasm) post outlined most of the case against him. Southern Belle follows up and suggests allowing EtOT to resign first (what's the point? Resign or be demoted anyway isn't much of a choice). Serial annoyance MEG pops up again with a confused series of posts and agrees, then Elliot's Bitch The Editor With an Out of Date Name demonstrates that he needs a new nickname.

So far, EtOT is only facing calls for his patroller rights to be stripped. Nobody has yet responded to Timenn's call for comments on the mutual block-fest from Saturday. Nothing yet from The Great Deceiver either. Presumably his response is going to be several megabytes long and will crash the server when he posts it. I can't believe he's going to remain silent on this one.

Elliot and Drama. Is Anybody Shocked?

Well my request for excitement on UESP has been answered. Once again it all gets fun because Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick is back on the site.

It started with a suggestion from The Great Deceiver that the gold and mercantile be removed from the place summary. That makes sense, I suppose. It's not the building that sells you your potions, after all. Joram RobinHood70 agrees, so all looks good. The Great Deceiver adds a little more information to "reinforce" his opinion... but also adds a little comment as an HTML comment that doesn't show up: "given that I've now discovered who added it in the first place...". Since it turns out that the person who originally added the parameters was Elliot the Thick... it's not too long before Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick is involved.

EtOT ignores most of TGD's comment so TGD tells him so.... and then we're off to the races!

EtOT posts an insulting comment in reply and then an anon reverts it, calling Elliot a Troll in the process. Corvette789 gets involved and reinstates it; revert by anon; revert by Corvette789; revert by anon; revert by EtOT; revert by Timenn; then EtOT removes TGD's comment into the bargain.

Meanwhile, the anon warns EtOT for his personal attack, which gets reverted, reverted, reverted etc (can't be bothered with links).

Also meanwhile, EtOT warns the anon, followed by revert, revert etc, and eventually EtOT uses section protection to make the warning permanent. He obviously doesn't know that you're not supposed to use protection to further your own arguments.

Timenn has tried to clear things up, but as it stands, EtOT is doing what he always does: being a total fucking asshole.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: Elliot should never have become a patroller. He is an obnoxious troll and never does anything useful. Block him now.