Forum:Portals - Why didn't you guys use them?

My question is this; Why didn't you guys utilize Portals?

By portals, I mean, for instance, you could have "Fallout 2:Example", and if there was an item of the same name in F3, you'd also have "Fallout 3:Example".

UESP (Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages) utilizes Portals, and it makes things alot cleaner cut, despite my hatred for them (see my user talk page on UESP if you want to see why, same username on UESP, "Daedryon").

If you guys had implemented Portals in the first place, you could have cut down on all the Disambiguation pages this Wiki has, and you could have added new Search options such as searching through specific titles, like searching Fallout 3 only.

Now, I would suggest that you guys get a team together and move/merge/redirect/whatever all pages into Portals, and design portal mainpages for each Fallout game, but that's alot of work for a wiki this size.

But if you were to do it, it would make people like myself who only play Fallout 3 alot happier, as we'd be easily able to find info on Power Armor in Fallout 3, instead of going to one big page for Power Armor in every game. Now, of course, separating all this by game would lead to alot of stub pages, but who gives a crap about stubs anyway?

Comments? Opinions?

My opinion: You guys screwed up from the get-go when you didn't use portals. It just makes my searching for Fallout 3 specific material alot harder than it could have been.

Example: The Main Page for the Oblivion Portal

 λ T 23:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, also, you guys could have made a portal for Canon info, like UESP has for Elder Scrolls' "Lore".

And another thing! Why don't you have any information on test cells, like the itemtest room and such that can be accessed via console commands on the PC? I'd love to read about that stuff!  λ T 23:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

What you're requesting is actually separate namespaces for games, not portals. We already have portals like e.g. Portal:Fallout 3. And I'm not into separating stuff that appears in all games into separate pages for each game. I prefer to have an overview of all information about a given character, item, creature, etc. on one page, as we do now. Otherwise, we'd have to have separate pages like: Etc. It might work fine for UESP, but for me it's too much redundancy. If you're used to UESP, this format might be more convenient to you, but it's the only wiki I know that uses such a format, and most gaming wikis (not to mention other big wikis like Wikipedia) that cover a whole game series use a format similar to this one's, and I personally find it more convenient.
 * Fallout:Ghoul
 * Fallout 2:Ghoul
 * Fallout 3:Ghoul
 * Fallout Tactics:Ghoul
 * Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel:Ghoul

So thanks for your suggestion, but we're not going to use it. Ausir 00:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to ask one thing, Daedryon: were you the one behind this little gem? http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/5/5c/Scribe.jpg/15px-Scribe.jpg Tagaziel (call!) 06:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That stuff maybe works for UESP, but considering anons can contribute here, I'm not keen on all the work it'd entail to constantly move articles to the correct namespace (because you can count on a lot of people not getting it and/or not bothering to). Plus from my point of view, namespaces are for seperating different types of pages, not for some sort of categorization. -- Porter21 (talk) 07:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * MikaelGrizzly: No sir, I was not the IP who left that message on Ausir's talk page. That message was left in May '09, last month, and I was already blocked from UESP at that time anyhow. And if you don't believe me, I welcome you to request a CheckUser on myself and that IP. I had to laugh at that message though. I'm guessing that IP was an editor from UESP. I had no honest clue that this topic had already been suggested by a rather vicious IP address on Ausir's talk page, as I've barely been here that long, and barely been active here anyway, due to my Sysop duties at the Castle Crashers Wikia.  λ T 18:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, no need to suggest that everyone who prefers UESP's namespace format necessarily hates this wiki and wants it to be closed down. And not everyone will hate the wiki just because it uses a format different from the one they prefer. Let's keep it civil, folks. Ausir 20:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I am keeping it civil, dude. I'm just stating my stance on UESP and it's administrators, and how egotistical they are. I'm just surprised one of them didn't stalk me down to Wikia and try to have me permabanned, like they did to User:Dagoth Ur, Mad God who caused so much trouble here, he got regex-banned Wikia-wide.  λ T 20:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

As for the test cells, nothing is preventing anyone from adding them. I guess no one was interested enough so far. You're welcome to do it yourself! Ausir 22:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I would if I had the PC version, but I don't.  λ T 22:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Which is exactly why those pages don't exist, console players outnumber PC ones in the FO3 userbase. Add to this that stuff like taking images, getting console IDs, indepth data on weapons etc has all to be done by the PC players and you know why more niche pages like the testqaroom aren't very high up on the priority list of PC/GECK users here. -- Porter21 (talk) 22:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ooh...well...look at this. Looks like we are using portals after all. *rolls eyes*  λ T 14:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We were using portals way before your post, so I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be. All that has changed is that Ausir created the missing ones for the older games (FO1, FO2, FOT). -- Porter21 (talk) 16:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I used to be an extremely active editor at the UESP, and I was involved in many critical decisions there. I'm not really an active editor here, since I just arrived. However, as a wiki editor in general, I know that each wiki administration has the right to their own decisions. The Vault is not the UESP. I see some benefits behind namespaces, (which are not the same as portals, so please make your terminology clear, as both The Vault and UESP use portals for the main game pages),but at The Vault, I think it makes much more sense not to use them. Consider this: A ghoul is a ghoul, and a deathclaw is a deathclaw. Both creatures have history from the first two games and presence on the west cost of the US. To say that we should have seperate pages on them for each game requires more work, and I'm assuming that the basic purpose here is so that you can treat the wiki like a Fallout 3 wiki and totally ignore everything about the previous games. This is a wiki about the universe of Fallout. It's too bad if you want to only read about Fallout 3, and for that matter, it's not even that hard: just scroll to the bottom of the page, the Fallout 3 stuff is usually under its own header, last on the page, and often the most fully fleshed out, thanks to the plethora of Fallout 3 players coming to edit the wiki (players such as myself). Frankly, the administration of ANY large wiki, be it UESP, The Vault, or Wikipedia, will not undergo a huge overhaul because one person thinks it should change. As a note, I think that UESP itself is one of the demonstrations of the failure of a namespace based gaming wiki. They have a seperate Tamriel namespace so that universe wide things can get implemented. I prefer using (Fallout 2) or (Fallout 3) at the end of specific things that conflict, like NPC names, and leaving the things that appear in all games to their sometimes fascinating articles covering all three games. --[[User:Dylnuge|

Dylnuge ]](talk · edits)