User talk:LadyLameness

re Ahu being Jezrien: Well what is the source for this? shouldn't such a claim have a citation? or if not, then just remove it entirely. (King of Herdaz)

Sorry!

I will inform the staff next time! Every wiki has a welcome template and a deletion template. And correction: it wasn't vandalism, it was just a mistake. --Auri (Express yourself, be heard!) 08:47, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Auri, I'm not quite sure what you mean about every wiki having welcome and deletion templates. We already have a 'to be deleted' template and have not needed a welcome template on the Coppermind up until now and without reasoning it does not seem clear as to what purpose they serve. LadyLameness (talk) 08:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

February 2020

Please can you not revert my edits. It is my talk page. You wouldn't like it if I reverted your edits on your talk page, so please, in the future, do not do it to mine. By the way, I was updating my new signature. Can you tell me that it is purple? By the way, do you like my quote? Remember: Express yourself, be heard! --Auri (Express yourself, be heard!) 08:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I've been involved in this too, so I'll chime in. We have no objections if you want to organize your talk page by adding section headers and the like, but you should not be changing the comments that other people have left and we will restore them if that happens.
--Stargazer (talk) 08:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Vessels

LadyLameness why lock the Cosmere navbox? There are so many permissions locked down on this wiki, that it's hard for others to actually make it better and more usable. The Cosmere navbox could be so much more useful - and the Vessels are definitely something that belong there (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Navigation_template#Properties). If you're reading about one Vessel, of course you're going to want to navigate to the others and the current setup is not at all conducive to that.

Hey! While we do try and limit locking pages, there are certain ones that get locked either because they have been repeatedly vandalised in the past or, in the case of the Cosmere navbox or other core wiki functions, templates, or special pages, because they need discussion before they are changed. We didn't actually realise this one wasn't currently locked, and the permissions that have been added are to promote active communication and aren't meant to imply that the page can't be updated. There is definitely an argument for adding the Vessels to the navbox, it just needs to be discussed and agreed upon first - if you wanted to come and drop your suggestion into our Discord then we can get that discussion rolling. :D

I do just want to note, that even if the permissions weren't currently set to 'staff only' on the Cosmere navbox page, they would still be restricted to logged in accounts that have been been given the editor permission - this is to stop spam and vandalism that will reflect on a large number of pages.

Are there other functions you've been having trouble with? It may be related to you not being logged in, but for spam prevention brand new accounts will have some additional restrictions that we can remove for you. Please let us know about of any other usability concerns you have - we are always looking at ways to improve user experience! LadyLameness (talk) 03:12, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

LadyLameness - that you're forcing me to create an email account to create a discord account in order to log in to discord and post a message to petition you to make an obviously helpful and needed change is just indicative of why this wiki isn't as high-quality as it should be at this point. Obligating new users to go through all this rigmarole is effectively negating all of the positive benefits of crowd-sourcing in the first place. I shouldn't be the one who has to justify a helpful change - the onus is on you or Stargazer to say why the change isn't helpful when it's clearly neither spam nor vandalism. And you'll notice that no comment was made by you or Stargazer why the change should be reverted - neither in the wiki nor the Discord.

As for the idea that navboxes need discussion before they are changed - I think you're going overboard here. It's not like the Cosmere navbox is some shining paragon as is. Vax is included as a planet purely on speculation, but Aslydin isn't included as a Worldhopper, Denth and Shashara aren't included, and neither are the members of the Ire, in particular, Riino. Including 'Survival Shard' under Shards is somewhat dubious, and Harmony wasn't even included until I added it. I'm glad you have re-added it following the reversion, but you broke the convention of alphabetical order.

Behavior like reverting non-spam/vandalism changes without explanation and excessive permissions are things that discourage people from participating in a community. For all you know, cliquey things like this have driven off newcomers that otherwise would've been willing to volunteer thousands of hours to better this wiki.

Hey, LadyLameness and Stargazer here! If you would prefer not to join the Discord then that's definitely fine - we can continue to use talk pages to discuss changes, most people have just found that tedious in the past and prefer the quicker responses that an active chat room allows. But it definitely isn't the only way to communicate, here is just fine as well and we can relay your suggestions back to the other editors!

Regarding the particular edit of yours that was changed, unfortunately, the rollback feature doesn't allow users to leave a comment when using it, otherwise Stargazer would have left some sort of note. We can definitely see how that would be very frustrating for you and are sorry that we weren't able to leave some sort of message to explain our reasoning. As mentioned above, we're not opposed to changing the navbars, it just needs discussion beforehand and for a consensuses to be reached.

Navbar's in particular can garner a lot of debate about what should be included and what needs to be excluded, based on spoilers, current size, and projected size of the navbox. Not everything can be included and some things that might be useful aren't always enough to warrant being added. If you have any arguments you want voiced then we're happy to pass them on to make sure they're considered.

You raise some good points about the status of the cosmere navbar, but there are also arguments for not including the Vessels at this point, and we'd want to have a fuller discussion on that before proceeding. The changes you've suggested have been raised and are being discussed. Some editors have suggested changing up the worldhoppers section as well now that you've brought attention to it - there are definitely some changes that could happen there and questions about who should really be included. Do you think there are other sections that could be improved as well? The big question that's coming up is around spoilers - for example with adding Vessels, there's worries about including Sazed and Dalinar as those are immediate spoilers that jump out on pages people might not be expect them to be on. Do you have any thoughts? The current suggestion is to maybe limit Vessels to the original sixteen. Also apologies for not putting Harmony in the right place - Ladylameness didn't realise you had put him somewhere specific for a reason, we'll make sure that's fixed.

As for your note about excessive permissions, it would help if you could clarify which other permissions are causing issues. Most pages should be open to anyone to edit; there are some functions that are restricted to the 'editor' category, such as making new pages, to prevent spam from automated bots, but we can easily move you into that category if you have an account. However, the most restrictions will apply to edits made without an account - this is for accountability purposes and to prevent spam or vandalism , which are issues we have had to deal with in the past. We can definitely get you into a permissions group that has less restrictions, however, you will need a Coppermind account for that to happen.

While we do want to make the Coppermind as user friendly as we can, we do have to balance this with issues we've previously come up against. Sometimes there are measures we've put in place that should be rethought and it's always useful when these are brought up by other editors as it might not jump out to us why they're problematic. Something may have worked well in the past, but is no longer relevant or is now actively making things unnecessarily hard. It's really helpful that you've pointed some of this out and we would appreciate any more feedback you're able to give. However, as mentioned, there is a balance we need to find, so some permissions do need to be set in place so that the editing experience is pleasant for both current volunteers and new editors. LadyLamenessStargazer 08:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

What level of evidence is necessary for 'speculation' to become 'theory'?

As far as I can tell, the "Unknown Shards" section is a collection of best-available-evidence. As much of this wiki relies on Word of Brandon rather than published book material, it seems somewhat unfair to ban metatextual speculation simply for lack of references. -- HoratioVonBecker

While we do allow some speculation on pages, we do have a high bar of what is required for it. Things that Brandon has spoken about outside of the books to a degree where we can be reasonably certain or that have been made clear from the direction taken in the books, for example. But, referencing is a very big key to speculations sections and a good rule of thumb to use is if there is not something that can be easily referenced then there is not enough evidence to be added to the wiki. This isn't the only rule of thumb, but is definitely at least the first question that needs to be asked. I would recommend taking a look at our help page for Speculation - it has a lot of useful guidance but I think the one to point out here is speculation is included when the article at hand would be critically incomplete without the speculation. This doesn't necessarily mean that information is missing but more that we can't explain something else without touching on what hasn't been confirmed (eg. Trell and the potential they are Autonomy).

In terms of the Shard page - as Windrunner explained in 2016 there is no evidence that there is a Shard called Justice - this is still the case now. There is also no evidence that Kelsier is a Shard; Brandon has followed up that Kelsier does not have actual avatars and this is just what he tells his minions. Regardless, parallels are not evidence nor are they citable or integral to this article. Core Cosmere articles also get held to a much higher standard because we get a lot of people trying to add baseless speculation and theories.

We have been working on a clean up project of our pages with speculation as quite a few had baseless theories that aren't suitable for the Coppermind. There are still some out there that you might come across but they are not good examples of what speculation on the Coppermind should be like. For pages with good speculation sections to references I would recommend Miles Dagouter and Pact of the Seven Peaks. I hope that helps clear up the confusion. LadyLameness (talk) 00:08, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

It does help, but it kicks the question back a step. Why isn't there a dedicated speculation section, if many people want to speculate there? Even if you determine that a main resource article is not the place to collect tenuous threads, it seems there should at least be a direct link to that place. -- HoratioVonBecker

Theorising and speculation are lots of fun but that is not the purpose of this wiki - that sort of collation is better done on the 17thShard forums. The wiki is meant to be a thesaurus of facts and confirmed information that people can use to learn about canonical information. Theories, as fun as it is to talk about them, do not fall under this category, and most end up being debunked either via wob or new book releases which would create quite a mess on the Coppermind over time if they were all being included. I would encourage you make a forum post if you would like to collect these theories - it also allows others to collaborate and engage with them which isn't possible on a wiki. LadyLameness (talk) 03:52, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems like the purpose of easy collation and trimming could be better served with an 'established theories' section, though? Forcing people to only post the hard evidence, without the theories they build toward, leads to a lot of text being obsoleted when we, say, get hard confirmation that Trell is the Vessel of Autonomy. (EDIT: I also had Thaidakar as Vessel of Prudence, then I realized said Vessel was female. This is why a proper collation section would be useful.)

There's certainly a useful purpose for 'this is all the hard evidence we have, everything else is *speculation*' - it's just, that's a tool for keeping theories on point. It's literally only useful, at that level of detail, to facilitate speculation. So why not actually facilitate it?

Sure, The Coppermind is not a place for acrimonious discourse, and moderating nerdfights is obviously a headache. But it's also literally the most obvious place to collect theories. Is telling people off for attempting that obvious step actually less headache than making them do it right? If so, do you want even want to make avoiding headaches your priority? -- HoratioVonBecker

Like I said before, the Coppermind is not the place for what you are describing. The 17thShard Forum and Discord exist for this purpose and are tailor made to keep track of theories and discussion, which seems to be what you are after. I would again recommend creating an account on the forums (if you haven't already done so) if you wish to keep track what you have outlined as it is not suitable for the Coppermind. LadyLameness (talk) 00:17, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi again. I know that the forums and the Discord exist, but they aren't as public or as well-organized as the wiki. I'm not trying to say the wiki should be the place to host several-thousand-word theorycrafting threads - that would hinder its' organization, and therefore its' accessibility. But in its' role as the most accessible resource, it seems like it would be the best place to index those theories. Brief summaries, with links to the appropriate speculation threads. Does that make sense? -- HoratioVonBecker

Hello, what you're suggesting makes sense, however as I've been attempting to explain that is not what the Coppermind has been setup for nor what it should be used for. I think we might be going in a circle at this point and I'm not sure if it's useful or productive for us to continue. The wiki isn't for compiling speculation, I'm sorry, this will have to be done elsewhere. Cheers LadyLameness (talk) 04:08, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Vessel's World

Hey LadyLameness,

Apologies a few things cropped up on my end thus delaying me from editing the site for quite a while. I hope you don't mind my delay in getting back to you.

I am just posting on your talk page to inquire about a series of edits you had made to the individual vessel pages where the world section of the character info box was switched from 'Yolen' to whatever world they currently inhabit. May I enquire as to what the reason for this edit was? I checked the style guides and there is no special rule there mentioned about vessel's only being marked for the world they are invested in and other pages of planet hoppers only reference their world of origin rather than the current world they inhabit. (See Vasher, Vivenna, Nightblood, Hoid, Nazh, etc) As such it would make more sense to me for the vessel's to similarly be down for their world of origin for consistency sake. If there is a reason for your own edit though that I'm missing I'm interested to hear it. --Debarra (talk) 12:45, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Debarra, welcome back. Information about the infoboxes can normally be found on the individual infobox template pages in Category:Infoboxes, though I have realized the Character infobox doesn't actually detail why it was meant to be used only when - this is likely because when the infoboxes were first set up the number of people working on the wiki didn't lead to differing interpretations or there was more discussion of how to define them at the time they were being used. I wasn't around during this time but I imagine the only information we had to work with was the immediate location of traveling characters hence why it reflects their current location. In terms of the information you wanted to add, I took a look at the other parameter's available and I believe you are looking for is birthplace. LadyLameness (talk) 17:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

So in order to make sure that I am reading your statement correctly, you are saying that you do not recall there ever being any discussion as to some sort of exemption for Vessel's infoboxes? In that case it would seem suitable then to update them to reflect their world of origin, thus bringing them inline with the various articles I referenced above.

--Debarra (talk) 16:48, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for checking, you have misunderstood my message. When the infoboxes were created (back in ~2010 when the Coppermind first started) it was with the understanding that 'world' parameter was being used in one specific way - this hasn't changed. I specifically was not on the staff 12 years ago so I am speaking about it second hand, which I think where the confusion has come from?

The purpose of the world parameter is what I said in my revert message - to reflect the book relevant location of a character. If you want to suggest a change then please do so and we can consider it - we are currently discussing a number of infobox parameters at the moment because the last couple of book releases have shown that people are having widely different interpretations of what they should be and it is leading to diversions and confusion. I can certainly take any suggestions to the staff group and we can consider. If you have any any details on how such an idea would be implemented that would also be useful - feasibility is one of the aspects that often prevents us approving a change as it consistently is not considered before ideas are put forward. LadyLameness (talk) 20:00, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I changed Tanavast's page to check an idea, marking Birthplace as Yolen and World as Roshar, to see if others agree this is how it should be done with the Vessels. Firesong (talk) 23:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks good Firesong! If you happen to have the reference on hand it would be good to add that as well. LadyLameness (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Using the birthplace as a tag just leads into the same issue however, why would the Vessels be referring to an entire planet rather than a specific location. Kaladin for instance has a known home village and thus has it down as his birthplace but Roshar as his world, see also Szeth. Characters without a concrete birthplace, besides the entire planet, simply have nothing labelled, see Dalinar and Shallan. Why should the Vessel pages be any different?--Debarra (talk) 23:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Again I must say that your interpterion of the infobox is confusing to me and seems significantly less practical than simply making the world tag apply to their world of origin. As I have pointed out previously every other usage of the world box points towards the individuals world of origin and you are yet to give a reason as to why the Vessel pages should be any different. The usage of the box already seems quite clear and has a commonly understood consensus among users, why are you not willing to apply this to the Vessel pages as well?

Furthermore the alternative your suggesting, from what I can gather about it, seems to make little sense. Are you suggesting that rather than simply change the Vessel pages to meet the standard as set out in virtually every other page that we instead remodel the site to match them? Even in that case the infobox raises more questions than answers. Why is Bavadin down for Taldain but not First or Scadrial despite them manifesting equally in all three worlds? (And as far as we know an Avatar is present on Taldain but no sign of Bavadin herself, the only world we see herself interact with is Scadrial.) Why is Rayse down for Roshar when we know he visited four separate worlds at least (Sel, Threnody, Ashyn, Braize) and based on how investiture works his influence would still be on those worlds? Why is Tanavast down for Roshar when we know that their influence extends, at minimum, to Ashyn and Braize as well, as all three worlds are in the same system? Why is Ati down for Scadrial when we know his investiture is on Nalthis since it helped create Nightblood in a significant way? Multiple word of Brandon's has stated that location isn't even a meaningful term for Shards and Vessels since they are omnipresent, we even see this in how Harmony mentions that he talks to other Shards and how Autonomy just appears in different places. So why are the Shards not down for every single world then?

Ignoring the Vessel's how else do you propose the other pages work? What world is Hoid currently on, Roshar or Scadrial? What about Nazh and Khriss? Last time we saw Khriss she was on Scadrial but we know she went off world since. What about characters whom we know are currently resigning in Shadesmar, and thus have no associated world of current residence?

These problems literally only exist if we follow this new suggestion, which seems only to be made simply so the Vessel pages aren't down for their world of origin like every other page. It makes little sense to try and change the entire site wide policy rather than update the 10 or so offending pages. You yourself have even mentioned that the only reason they weren't stating Yolen was because their world of origin was not known until recently, it seems like they always would have simply said Yolen if that was known from the beginning.--Debarra (talk) 23:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Debarra, you attribute much more "policy" than truly exists for the world parameter. We do need to figure more concrete guidance for what precisely these parameters mean (along with Featured In) exactly indicate now that time things will have immense planetary crossover. As Lady Lameness said, these infoboxes do not state what precisely to do here. This is complex. And yes, we do need to figure out guidance for worldhoppers as well. This is a tricky question that we need to resolve, especially as characters can be in different worlds at different times. It is clear you feel strongly, and it is noted. But you still ascribe much more policy than things being ad-hoc over the last decade implies. Stay tuned for future guidance, but let's not adjust this for now. Featured In and world are a mess to resolve, and will only get more complicated as things go on. -- Chaos2651 (talk) 05:14, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I think this needs to be taken down a notch - I have tried to answer your questions and if you have more then let's work through them, but I was really not expecting to come back to this and be yelled at, nor am I interested in continuing to discuss it if you're unable to do so in a civil manner.

As I mentioned before there are multiple parameters that we are currently having to re-evaluate because it's become clearer over the past few releases that they are more ambiguous than intended - this is in large part why things aren't 100% uniform across pages. However, that doesn't change the fact that the initial purpose of the 'world' parameter was intended to reflect the in book locations on the Shard pages. This is not a new suggestion, it's the original idea. That doesn't mean that it's perfect, nor does it mean that it is currently - or always will be - the best way to display information - like I mentioned before, there are other infobox parameters we are having to re-evaluate because they don't work as well as originally intended, there's no reason this one can't be re-looked at as well. The books have clearly moved on from easter egg appearances and there's going to be a lot more than just these things that need to be adjusted on the wiki to compensate moving away from relatively self-contained worlds. But there are a lot of pages that will be affected by structural changes, particularly ones made to infoboxes (and mandatory parameters specifically) and worldhoppers are going to be specifically difficult to deal with. Otherwise wouldn't it be easier to change the six pages you've brought up as being different, instead of the changing ten pages that are currently in line with previous decisions? You have good points, but there is more to a change like this than you're implying.

There's obviously a lot you've brought up that I could respond to but honestly after the tone in your last message, I'm not willing to spend more of my Tuesday evening digging into them if I don't think you're actually going to be a team player. I can help create a change proposal if you want - we can set up a separate talk or user sub-page and go through more of the nitty gritty and work out potential implementation and any run off issues that might occur. There may also be another solution that comes up (eg. is there an alternative title that is clearer or a different parameter that would work better? Do we need a 'world' parameter? etc). But I do need to know you are willing to come to the table, collaborate, and work with me, not against me. LadyLameness (talk) 06:42, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I am again confused by your sudden tonal shift here, at no point have I 'yelled' or resorted to personal attacks. I have acted in a civil manner throughout and the fact that you are jumping to such accusations and not presume good faith despite the sites own rules is worrying. (I am also going to link to the other wiki's page about the matter considering the brevity of the sites own rule in that regard.) If me simply disagreeing with you is somehow seen as 'incivil' and makes you resort to such rhetoric of me not being a 'team player' then I don't know what to say, the entire point of talk pages is to discuss matters such as this and if your reading anger or maliciousness into someone's reply then that is your own doing. How exactly do you expect others to say they disagree with you if your response will be to accuse them of acting in bad faith towards you personally?

Throughout this conversation I have been trying to reach a consensus and despite asking on two separate occasions am still no closer to understanding what exactly your objection is. No reasoning or argument has been offered beyond saying that we should remodel the entire infobox system, with no clear explanation offered as to why this is needed beyond avoiding editing the pages in question and suggesting that other 'changes' are needed but never specifying what. Only in this response have you offered a possible reason, that being that world for Shards are meant to reflect their 'world,' but offer no reference to a previous discussion about this or why a new consensus can not be achieved to simply update the vessels to their world of origin, like how the rest of the site appears.--Debarra (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Debarra, your question has been answered, the Staff is re-evaluating the parameters because they agree with your point of it being an issue at the moment. Site-wide changes like this do not happen instantly. You simply need to wait patiently for the staff to decide how we, as editors, are going to handle this issue. --Firesong (talk) 17:59, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

There's obviously some tension in this conversation right now. I'd like to step in and hopefully help ease that.

To be clear, the Keepers are aware of problems, that have been noted here, that arise from this parameter. Staff ARE in active discussion about how to use this parameter (or whether it's even worth keeping). Community input is valuable so if there are opinions about this matter (that have not yet been expressed), we'd love to hear them (via Discord would be preferred, otherwise either on the forums or a talk page/user page). However, it's not ultimately worth debating the usage of this parameter, when we are actively discussing how it might be better implemented.

To confirm: the policy of the "world" parameter in Character infoboxes has historically served the purpose LadyLameness previously described: to note the primary world in which the character is involved. It's concerned with narrative importance. By that policy, the Vessels should list the world of whatever series they are most involved in. The "birthplace" parameter suggested earlier does seem to accomplish the original goal of having Yolen listed as the birthplace for each Vessel. I don't see any issues with the varied level of detail on birthplaces--something similar is done with the Location infoboxes--and like with those infoboxes, the information should be as specific as possible. (e.g., Kaladin having Hearthstone listed implies he is also born in Sadeas Princedom, Alethkar, Roshar, etc.)

I'm happy to talk about this further if there's still confusion. --Jofwu (talk) 04:00, 8 December 2022 (UTC)