User talk:Eli the Tanner

Dark elf is not necessarily drow
Hi there. Welcome to the wiki. You have made some excellent contributions. With regards to this edit, be careful not to confuse the dark elf with the drow, because they're not the same thing! ;) Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 01:58, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

Spoilers not needed
Sorry, one more thing: as per Forgotten Realms Wiki:Spoilers, the main spoiler warning on the front of the wiki is all that's needed. After all, every piece of information on the wiki spoils something! I'm not even sure why the spoiler warning template continues to exist! Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 02:01, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

Standard appendices and footers
Please check out Wikipedia:WP:FOOTERS - the stub template should go beneath the categories, so with regard to this edit, I've put it back. Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 21:50, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

Syluné living in Shadowdale
Thanks for the reference on the Shadowdale article. p.280 of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition doesn't explicitly establish Syluné's residence in Shadowdale, merely that she died there. It's important to be very accurate with what we cite on this wiki, so that if you were to imagine someone arguing with you over a piece of lore, you would be able to point them to your cited statement and say "that makes it undisputable"! I'm sure there's another source that can put this beyond doubt. Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 22:27, October 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have another reference that places her home as Shadowdale during her existence as a Spectral Harpist. Would this suffice?--Eli the Tanner 22:43, October 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * "Until recently, Shadowdale was home to the Knights of Myth Drannor and no less than four Chosen of Mystra: Elminster Aumar, Dove Falconhand, Storm Silverhand, and Syluné."


 * I'd say that covers it nicely! Great job. On the other hand, shouldn't that be "no fewer than four"? ;) Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 23:07, October 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I find those little 'Citation Needed' mentions make me feel sad, especially in articles that are usually properly cited.--Eli the Tanner 23:20, October 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know what you mean. When I visited the Shadowdale article, I was saddened to find that considering it's the home of Elminster, and has numerous sourcebooks dedicated to it through multiple editions, it was woefully incomplete, so I have been working to expand it. I took the decision to leave in the existing unreferenced material but obviously needed to mark it as such, and I don't know the sources well enough to know where to find specific information like that! There's still a lot to add to Shadowdale's presence on the wiki, of course, but at least it's looking a bit better! Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 00:03, October 27, 2010 (UTC)

Edits to spell pages
Thanks for the recent edits to spell-related articles. I was hoping you'd be able to hold off on these edits since we're just discussing the best way to present the spell-related information on the wiki, and I'd hate for a whole bunch of edits to require undoing or perhaps altering again. There's a discussion at Forum:The future of spells that you're welcome to be a part of! Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 23:28, October 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure thing, I think it's best I stop anyway, I became aware of this contention part-way through the edits so I thought I should pause for now to see which way the wind blew. I'll happily revert edits which are deemed inappropiate.--Eli the Tanner 23:32, October 27, 2010 (UTC)

"Years by Name" Category
You are adding the category "Years by Name" to all years, but it does not work well, see the page. Pruano 00:40, October 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * Darn it! Why is that happening?--Eli the Tanner 00:35, October 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks like it only gives the Year name for pages with redirects. I would have to create duplicate pages and redirect them all....that may be abit much. I'll undo what I've done for now.
 * Yes, some other way must be done to create that page automatically, possibly passing a parameter in the category entry of the year.
 * However, i do not have the wiki knowledge to do it, possibly a suggestion in the talk page of an Admin? Pruano 00:43, October 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * I was doing exactly the same thing, and because of the huge and very mechanical activity required I thought I build a script wich goes through all the year numbers creating the year name pages, but if there was a way to do that internally (with wiki syntax) and automatically, it would be great. I really think we should use more year names in adition to the number. By the way, Eli the Tanner, your talk page had the year by name category in it and appeared in that page. I removed it. Mpj 16:08, October 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * The simplest way to do it would be for an admin to write a simple javascript script to convert text in a form into the proper XML format for the wiki. Then they could copy the years/yearnames from Wizards' roll of years app thingy into the form and let it convert it all. Then, in a bot account, import it. The hardest part of it all would be writing the javascript, but its a fairly simple code. Cronje 16:39, October 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * The year page already has the year name, its just the problem of passing it to the category page; that was why i suggested using the parameter approach, like the year category already uses it to sort the pages automatically
 * However, i dont recommend doing a completely automated creation of the year pages, since they would be missing the already existing references of other pages; that was one of the reasons i created a semi-automated approach in the form of a Greasemonkey script for the year page creation, instead of going the fully automated way (the other was to avoid tripping any spam filter alarms). Pruano 22:49, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

Second and subsequent references to the same source
Hi there. I thought I'd mention that if you reference the exact same thing twice or more in an article (same book and same page, for example) then there's a shorter form for the second and subsequent references, and this will simplify the listing in the references section at the bottom too. Take a look at this edit - does that make sense from seeing it side-by-side? Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 23:03, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

seriously...
I tryed to fix Drizzt's page, random a wiki contributure had Drizzt as a 75 wizard 45 figter and 83 Top i did not vandilize that. Itryed to fix it the best i could and seeing what he actually is i said i did a good job. I would like you to apologize for accusing me for doing such. Plus my name is Pharuan not Phaerun, and thanks for the codeing on the profile page. You might want to blame.

■(cur | prev) 08:41, February 13, 2011 85.106.198.54 (Talk) (23,475 bytes) ■(cur | prev) 08:39, February 13, 2011 85.106.198.54 (Talk) (23,481 bytes)

As you can see another person did the same look on recent activity to see for yourself: Fyodor edited by Cronje 4 hours ago Summary:  vandalism - Undo revision 95648 by 85.106.198.54 (talk)

Elminster Aumar edited by Cronje 4 hours ago Summary:  unreferenced edit - Undo revision 95645 by 85.106.198.54 (talk)

please don't place blame on others unless your a hundred percent sure. ~8:57 PM 2/13/2011 PU


 * I am sorry Pharuan, I was mistakenly led to believe it was you who was responsible for those edits. When I examined the history, no other contributor had made edits (it even highlighted the changes as if you had made them). Since then I have checked again and indeed it was not you. At the time I had no reason to suspect anyone else but you. I am grateful for your efforts to restore the page to it's original format. However I notice that you posted also posted incorrect stats and missed some other changes in your attempt to do so, in the future use the undo function if you believe changes are wrong.


 * Sorry for the mistake.


 * P.S. Remember to sign your talk page posts by pressing the signature button above. --Eli the Tanner 02:06, February 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, now i know what to do, thanks. --Pharuan Undearth 02:10, February 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. btw my sig button isn't working, or i didn't make one in which case i don't know where to go to do it.


 * It appears to be working fine, it will appear as a series of dashes(-) and squiggles(~) in the edit mode. --Eli the Tanner 02:17, February 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh that one i just copy and pasted yours and changed the time and user --Pharuan Undearth 02:21, February 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * im going to use the waves it easier.

Fanon
Can you help me with the new D&D fanon wiki I made? Here's the link:. --Pinguinus impennis 22:30, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * I will certainly have a look at the wiki and see if there is anything I might be able to contribute. Are you hoping to make this a compendium of ideas of sorts?--Eli the Tanner 04:05, September 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes. There, you can create just about anything you like. --Pinguinus impennis 04:08, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

Uploading images
Hi, for images that you upload such as File:Shadow Demon.jpg, if these are promotional images such as those found in galleries on the Wizards website, could you please use the Promotional template? Also please give the source, such as a web link to the original, or the book and page where it is to be found, and the original artist, where known. Thanks. Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 00:23, February 11, 2012 (UTC)

The House of Firehair
Please check the source that is already provided before you edit an article. Power of Faerûn capitalises 'The' throughout. Until a more recent source is provided which contradicts this I will undo your edit.--Eli the Tanner 16:46, February 18, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... Eli, I believe I will post this on FW's page... and I will look for a more recent source... I still think the "the" should not be capitalized since it is not in the Forgotten Realms Adventures. Darkwynters 18:50, February 18, 2012 (UTC)


 * Eli, actually… you're correct. Page 55 does have "The House of Firehair" capitalized within a sentence… doesn't make sense to me, but it's there… Sorry, man, about changing the title! Though, if I come across a more recent source… then, hehe :) Darkwynters 18:50, February 18, 2012 (UTC)

archmage
I didn't mean to credit him as an archmage, just as a ruler of Sorcere. Simply misunderstanding.Thomaslove92 21:37, February 19, 2012 (UTC)

Redirects on 1372 DR article
It looks like the problem was with the way Wikia processes double redirects. Because those two entries used a citation that redirected to Player’s Guide to Faerûn (note the funky apostrophe) and that redirected to Player's Guide to Faerûn, it was acting wonky. I've since made it so the two citation templates instead redirect to the proper template. Cronje (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:14, April 10, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey Cronje, I wouldn't have spotted that, thanks! I'll keep an eye out in case I see anyore like that.--Eli the Tanner 23:03, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

Excellent work
Eli, good to hear from you and thanks :) Please check out the ole Jezz the Lame page... now both our stats can be on the infobox... thanks to admin Cronje. I'm still looking for a "more recent" House of Firehair with no capital "the" Hehe :) Darkwynters (talk) 05:21, September 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * Eli, just a quick note... you are one of our best editors... thanks for all your hard accurate work on this fair wiki :) - Darkwynters (talk) 02:42, February 28, 2014 (UTC)


 * Thankyou very much Darkwynters, I'm a big fan of your Categorization work and though I don't do many edits I try to make sure they meet the standards you and the other admins have set :)--Eli the Tanner (talk) 10:52, February 28, 2014 (UTC)

Fixing pictures
Hi, I must have removed that one because either there was no copyright/attribution info at all, or it was listed under something like "the author has released it in the public domain" but there wasn't any attribution. It doesn't look like I can check now unfortunately.

With regards to File:Elminster2.jpg, this one has a licence, link to the source, and artist information, so all that really needs doing is whacking Information on it so it's all neatly presented.

Any existing or new images without proper copyright info and attribution leave the wiki open to issues regarding breach of copyright, which is never good. It's a massive job to audit all existing images, but I've been getting rid of or fixing any that I come across.

Frustratingly, it's not possible to put a "you must use Information when uploading" message on the "quick upload" interface. Even more frustratingly, when I asked Wikia staff about this, I was told this couldn't be done, since they were more interested in encouraging people to upload images than make sure they were being uploaded legitimately.

Any help you can give regarding getting uploaded images in order would be greatly appreciated. Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 17:47, October 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * Excellent! that looks much better, all my future pics can be uploaded properly now. File:Elminster2.jpg keeps asking me to log in again whenever I try to edit it so I assume it is locked down for only admins to fix (I was viewing its history before to figure it out what templates it was using) but I'll try and tackle any others I come across.


 * With regards to awareness raising for the template, could we add a help section link for uploading pics via the "quick upload" interface? That way people could check out our policy regarding uplading pics without changing the Wikia's ease of use.--Eli the Tanner (talk) 20:22, October 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * I like this idea very much. Would you like to put together some amends to the help section? I can go right ahead and fix up the Elminster image. Not sure why it's admin-only but I can only assume there was a good reason for it! Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 20:34, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

No offense, Majored in English and just have a habit of seeing everything with the American spelling. Sorry...

Ruleryear field
Hi Eli, thanks for your comments on the categories thread. In the summary of your recent edit to Silverymoon, you asked if "anyone figured out if ruleryear can work more like the owner field yet?" Which owner field? What would you like to see for the ruleryear in the infobox? I'm not sure what feature you are asking for. Please elucidate :) &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 17:04, July 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * Hey Moviesign, I was wondering about if the ruleryear field in Template:Location could work like the owner field in Template:Building. Essentially allowing a range of years to be noted e.g. Ruler: Alustriel Silverhand in 1235 DR - 1369 DR.


 * At the moment the ruleryear field can't seem to handle more than one date but the owner field/ruler field can (if one wanted). I was curious as to what was stopping this being an option? If we could properly list the reigns of various rulers that would be much more useful than the current iteration of a single year, I believe. I've had to use Template:Split table in the Silverymoon case on the old Ruler field to replicate what ruleryear should do, but it is not an ideal solution.


 * Any thoughts you have would be grateful. Have a look at Silverymoon and see what you think.--Eli the Tanner (talk) 18:22, July 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * I used the ruleryear field in the way it was intended and now it looks correct. However, it does not give ranges of dates, just the start date of each ruler. I guess it assumes the reader will figure out that the end date of one ruler is the start date of another, but this is not always true. If you like the look of the split table, then put it in the ruler field and leave the rest blank (like you did). The citations will have to go on the ruler's name rather than the date because the template automatically turns the dates in to links. Hope this helps. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 19:42, July 14, 2013 (UTC)
 * I checked the Building template and it does not do anything special. You have to use a split table there too. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 19:48, July 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * I was wondering why it can only give a single date instead of a range. What is stopping us from having that option? Is it a changeable part of the template? The trouble I've found with the split table is that it doesn't handle large lists very well (if we were to put all the rulers of silverymoon in for instance). Like you say, the current set up is not necessarily clear about whether the date is just the only available date we that know of (which is the case for many articles) or whether it was actually the beginning of their reign. If we had the option then it would make things clearer, it seems. Hope that makes sense.--Eli the Tanner (talk) 00:39, July 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, the ruleryear fields only handle 5 rulers/years, whereas the split table can take up to 10. If you need more than that, I can expand it further. I don't want to break all the pages that use the Location template, so I would have to add something new rather than change the old. I think you're going to have to make due with the split table to get the ranges you want. What specifically is the problem with split table? Enter it the way you want it to look and I'll try to tweak it. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 01:06, July 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * Tested out the limits of the split table, and you're right, it just cuts off anything after 10. When I noticed this before I didn't know there was a limit to ruleryear as well and figured I'd wait to see if that could be updated before persisting with the split table method. Have a look and see what you think. Maybe increasing the split table limit to 20/25 would be appropiate...can't think of stuff off the top of my head that would need more than that. That said, I'm sure there will be something sooner or later. Thanks for taking time to help (if possible) Moviesign, sorry to bother you with this.--Eli the Tanner (talk) 02:12, July 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm having fun :) The split table has been doubled in capacity to 20 items and I added an optional rulertable parameter to the Location template. Now the table is given the full width of the infobox instead of just the right-hand side and it looks much better. I would recommend that you move the "(warlord)" annotations next to the person's name instead of next to the date because it really modifies the person's name, not the date. I just hope it still all fits (maybe use  tags around warlord?). Let me know if you find any problems with the new feature. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 02:53, July 16, 2013 (UTC)

Sourcebooks by year
Hello! I would really like to get to know what Realms dates to assign to sourcebooks, which is especially problematic for Al-Qadim material which refrains from any clear in-universe dating. I started a discussion once about this, but did not make any inroads. You have assigned 1367 DR to Secrets of the Lamp in Marrake al-Sidan al-Hariq ben Lazan, it seems. Would you like to let me know what criterion you used? Hashimashadoo once suggested that 1359 DR roughly equated with publications in 1992, but I am not sure what he based that on. Thanks for all input! Daranios (talk) 18:59, March 21, 2014 (UTC)


 * A while ago, High admin FW and I discussed this in the Al-Qadim talk page... just my two bits :) - Darkwynters (talk) 22:33, March 21, 2014 (UTC)


 * I have tried to follow up on that discussion, if you are interested, please have a look there. Daranios (talk) 15:20, March 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello there, Daranios. As Darkwynters pointed out I was using the consensus from Talk:Al-Qadim as my basis for the 1367 DR dating. The few convergences between the wider Faerûn history and Zakharan makes placing the timescale of the Al-Qadim setting difficult. However There is one reference in the Grand History of the Realms that mentions the Scouring of the Utter East by Grand Caliph Arash bint Sanjar in 657 DR. Potentially this Grand Caliph could be the 1st or 3rd Grand Caliph (I lean toward the latter) who reigned about 500-600 years before the setting begins. This lends tentative (and speculative) credence to the idea that the 'present day' of Al-Qadim is within a century of 1367 DR. Unfortunaly that is the closest concrete dating I've been able to dig up.


 * Coupled with the general 2nd edition dating means 1367 DR is a safe(ish) bet for now. Hope this helps and sparks more Al-qadim lore threads.--Eli the Tanner (talk) 22:11, March 24, 2014 (UTC)