User talk:Rpeh/Arc 200710

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Congratulations![edit]

Can you feel the power? Welcome to the club. Just in time, too, because Nephele's on vacation now. Let me know if you have any procedural questions about anything. --TheRealLurlock Talk 20:10, 1 October 2007 (EDT)

The chamberlain places the robes of state upon his shoulders then Rpeh takes the orb in his left hand and the sceptre in his right. Hush falls as he prepares to make his inaugural address.
We are deeply honoured. The trust placed in us by our beloved subjects is humbling and we will do our best to be worthy of it. We would reassure our subjects that our new station will not change our character in any way.
 :-p --RpehTalk 00:05, 2 October 2007 (EDT)
Congratulations! I am sure you will do a great job. --Mankar Camoran 08:10, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

Re: Unfaithful Lover...[edit]

The MW version isn't half so sexy. I'm trying to depict sexy female. And have you seen my Ahnassi sexy male box yet? Somercy 17:35, 4 October 2007 (EDT)

Feel free to use any and all userboxes I create. I'm gonna offer Eshe, Nephi, and Guildknight use of my Lover one. Anyway, speaking of lovers, how are you these days? Somercy 10:12, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
School, work, personal issues. I mean, unless you want to see my Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics. Meh. Trying to prove something. You know how it goes. Could use a hug. I have a thought for a new Editors fic, but it's not moving. Plotbunny, but no muse standing over my shoulder cracking a whip. Somercy 13:24, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

The Morag Tong[edit]

Hi Rpeh its Vladrus, you probably cant remember but you helped me fix my construction set. Now this is going to sound really pathetic but im stuck gaining entrance to the morag tong headquters, ive found the trap door in the storage area but cant get it open ive used ever lock pick under the sun even a master one but it just says lock to complex, I dont suppose you know the answear.--Vladrus Blenwyth 05:50, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

Sorry but that sounds like a Morrowind question and I've not played that game. You'll be best off asking on a game-specific talk page - possibly the discussion page of this article. Somebody else may know. Good luck! --RpehTalk 06:24, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
OK thanks anyway.--Vladrus Blenwyth 07:13, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
To save you the trouble, I'll answer it here. You're looking at a 50 point lock, you'll need to have some skill in Security in order to have a chance of opening it. The best lockpick in the world won't help if you don't know how to use it. Alternatively, you could cast an Open spell of 50+ points at it. There are scrolls and some magical items available that do this if you lack the Alteration skill to cast such a spell. --TheRealLurlock Talk 09:00, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

Spam/Vandalism Problems[edit]

After I finished for the day with the Image Project, I checked the recent changes one last time. I reverted the three spammed pages immediately. I don't have the access to change the list of the banned keywords or bann the users, so the next time you're logged on, could you take a look at it. I'm at loss as to what to do. --Vesna 00:20, October 6 2007

Crap. Make that five cases. I'll post this on Lurlocks page too. Spam........

Never mind, Ratwar is taking care of it.

Thanks[edit]

Hi Rpeh. Thanks for your welcome! I don't think it's likely that I'll be a regular contributor, I'm afraid -- the things I've posted are essentially itches that needed scratching, and now I've scratched them :-) But I check in every now and then. See you around! - Petrushka 07:09, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

Retaking the Fringe[edit]

My point in adding the note was that the text as it stands says things like "Kill the Knights" and "Eliminate the knights", several times, which implies that that's the only way you can do it, which of course it isn't. Maybe it could say "Kill or sneak past the knights" in the main text rather than as a note??? (BTW, how do you add the User: info bit at the end of your text?) — Unsigned comment by Vlad the Imperial (talkcontribs)

That's fairly standard terminology on most quest pages and is really short for "Deal with they according to your character's strength and/or preferences". If you want to add it back on I'll leave it alone but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody else takes it off later. It's generally better to keep things short and sweet. To add the signature, type four tilde characters (~~~~) at the end of your post. It'll expand into a basic signature but if you want to be a bit more fancy you can change the default in your "My Preferences" screen. --RpehTCE 07:33, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

A Doubt[edit]

I saw you removed a redundant phrase in this article. I noticed a lot of NPC pages contain such phrases. Should I remove them when I encounter them? --Mankar Camoran 10:28, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

I have a feeling that they probably should be removed. Lots of Morrowind NPC pages are like that, where the related quests are mentioned in the article and again in the "Related Quests" section. We don't like redundancy around here, so those pages should probably be changed. --Eshetalk10:47, 11 October 2007 (EDT)
Just to extend Eshe's point, it's one thing if a quest is mentioned at the start of a long page of text then again at the end, but cases like that one where the two were right next to each other are a bit silly! Actually if you go back through the history of that page and see how it evolves, you can see how it ended up like that. --RpehTCE 11:16, 11 October 2007 (EDT)
Thanks to both of you for removing my doubt. I looked at its history, Rpeh. You are absolutely right about that. --Mankar Camoran 11:30, 11 October 2007 (EDT)
A lot of the formatting of the text on NPC pages dates back to before we had any kind of consistant formatting for these pages, so there's bound to be some redundancy. For example, most of them mention the NPC's race, gender, class, and possibly faction affiliation in the first sentence, even though you could simply shift your gaze a few inches to the right and find all that same information clearly listed on their NPC Summary. Does that mean we should re-write all of these pages to remove redundancy? Not necessarily - particularly when (as is true in a lot of cases) there isn't really that much more to say about a particular NPC. Thing is, there's a LOT of these pages, and writing a nice unique little essay for each of them, while it might be kind of cool, just seems like more of a waste of time, so that's why so many of these pages look so much alike. --TheRealLurlock Talk 13:31, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

Country flags[edit]

Where are you getting these flag images from? I tried Wikipedia, but they're all in SVG format, which isn't supported on this site. I mean, I suppose I could screenshot the Wikipedia flags, crop them and scale them in Photoshop, and then upload them here (that's what I did for the US flag), but that's kind of a pain. If you've got some good source with them already at the right size, that'd be great.

Incidentally, not sure if you saw the question I asked here a while ago: Category talk:Users from Great Britain. I figure as the ranking Briton on the site, it's your decision what to do about alphabetizing it. It's currently under 'U', not for "United Kingdom" but for "Users", which is why it's listed after the United States on the category page. This is clearly wrong, but I wasn't sure how you wanted to handle that. --TheRealLurlock Talk 13:11, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

The English one I just knocked up since it's so easy but for the Union Flag and the Welsh Flag I did the screenshot, crop etc method. Yes it's a pain but it's not like we need to do all 150+ countries at once! Ranking Briton? I wonder where that puts me on the Order of Precedence? :) I'm not sure to be honest. Yes, it should be the UK but User British makes sense but User from the UK is a pain. I'll probably change my mind half a dozen times and end up annoying an Irishman anyway. --RpehTCE 13:48, 12 October 2007 (EDT)
Not sure how many Irish people we have here - I just did a search of the User namespace for terms such as "Irish", "Ireland", (as well as equivalents for any other likely nationalities), and that one didn't come up much. (Nor did Welsh, which was why I didn't put those on the list initially.) As I understand it, though, "Great Britain" just refers to the island, and is a geographical distinction, rather than a political one. For what it's worth, Wikipedia sorts it under 'B': [1]. Though there's a seperate one for English, and yet another for British-Irish if you're worried about annoying people. --TheRealLurlock Talk 14:14, 12 October 2007 (EDT)
I think it looks odd to have both "Britain" and "England" / "Scotland" / "Wales". I suggest all British users under Britain (and remove the others), or separate entries for each part and no "Britain" entry. My preference, for what it's worth, is just to have one category for "British users" (filed under B) and remove the rest. Vlad the Imperial 14:39, 12 October 2007 (EDT)
I'd leave 'em all up there. Yes it's a bit odd but then the whole United Kingdom is a bit odd! This isn't an important part of the site and as far as I'm concerned if somebody wants to claim they're from the Independent Nation of Cornwall, or the Kingdom of Fife, that's fine by me! --RpehTCE 14:42, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

How can I write Fanfiction ?[edit]

Hey friend how can I write Fanfiction ? Can you please tell me ? Lord Geogorath 15:12, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

As Douglas Adams once said, "Writing is easy. All you have to do is stare at a piece of paper until your forehead bleeds". You just need to come up with a story and a setting and get going. The Lore:Names page should give you ideas for character names (that's where I got mine). The other thing to try is reading the fan fics already on the site. They will give you a feel for the sort of thing people are already doing. Mine's probably not best for that as it's very much unfinished - I wanted to ram the dialogue down before filling it in properly. When you've got something, post it at a page like General:Your Story and you're done. Have fun. --RpehTCE 15:28, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Hitting a thousand...[edit]

Wow. And January will be my one-year anniversary. I just want you (all, not just you) to know how much the community and camaraderie here mean to me. I love you all. By the way, I'm working on chapter two of the Spam Battle fic--"The Vaffanculo Robots." Somercy 11:27, 20 October 2007 (EDT)

Italian robots?? --Zoidberg 11:59, 20 October 2007 (EDT)
Sounds interesting... especially given the literal meaning of "Vaffanculo"! --RpehTCE 15:06, 20 October 2007 (EDT)
Yep, and it's close enough to the nonsense they give to work. Zoidberg, look it up. Its meaning suits. My only question is which charas to use. Who have been the heroes in this one? --Somercy 09:01, 22 October 2007 (EDT)
It's largely been the usual suspects, but if you want to do some research you can see who has been blocked for being a nonsense bot here and then look at their contribs to see which page they vandalised and the edit after that to see who put it back. Long-winded, I know... --RpehTCE 09:46, 22 October 2007 (EDT)
Meh, but worthwhile. Lessee. You, Nephi, Lurlock, doing the blocking, for the most part. A few others of us reverting the edits. Workable. Somercy 09:49, 22 October 2007 (EDT)

Glasscrisp Thursday[edit]

Hope you don't mind me tacking the answer to that question on to previous conversation, but didn't want to answer it there. Anyway, I am the sort of person who uses many and varied online names, and Glasscrisp was the username I had on Gaiaonline for a while, sorta stolen from a teacher of mine. Thursday was the day I started the yahoo account. If you think that's weird, I've some names that really are odd and take explanation. Somercy 11:28, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for the explanation! It reminded me of Grabpot Thundergust from Discworld, or even Guybrush Threepwood from the old Monkey Island games, which you are probably too young to remember... Ah, those were the days! --RpehTCE 11:33, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
Old fart. I mean, if you ever see a Thessily Jones, a Denna Haldane, or in many cases, a Seeky, it's me. You, though, seem to just work with Rpeh and varient forms thereof, yes? Wait...you said Discworld? You're that kind of geek? Somercy 11:37, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
Well I am exactly twice your age! I tend to stick with rpeh, rpe_herbert or occasionally herbie because it helps me to keep track of all the various usernames and passwords I have. And I love Discworld! I'm that kind of geek and most other types of geek. Although I don't play D&D any more and never played Magic, The Gathering. Otherwise, pretty much most of them! --RpehTCE 11:45, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
The only reason I stopped playing D&D was because my DM left for college. My brother and boyfriend are conspiring to get me to play Magic. I'm a mythology buff, I read a lot of sff, and I'm into anime. I can recite pi to about 38 digits. I geek. Somercy 11:49, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
I stopped D&D when the members of our group all went to college too, although we'd been feeling let down by the Immortals rules and had been playing rather less towards the end. Mythology has always been something of a passion along with ancient history. For instance, the other day was the anniversary of the Battle of Zama and I was able to give my workmates a long and detailed description of the Punic wars to their evident delight (at least, I think the snoring was a sign of delight). My reading these days consists of almost nothing but sci fi although I'll swap anime for comics. And I only get up to 25 digits or so on pi, although knew it up to about 50 when (and I'm not making this up) we had pi competitions on the bus on the way to school. This is not good. I already asked one beer-drinking, wiki-editing, computer-programming woman on this site to marry me. If it turns out you like good beer too, I might be asking another! ;-) --RpehTCE 12:05, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
Well, note my age and the country I live in (whoops, I didn't put that userbox up.) Ahm, I've never had much experience with beer. But, I am a comic-book geek, though I've been out of the loop since my supplier went to college. And as for ancient history, I'll swap that for Shakespeare and other classical lit.
Wait, who'd you propose to? Somercy 12:12, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
You do look my son, in a moved sort, as if you were dismayed. Be cheerful sir! Our revels all are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, are all spirits and are melted into air. Into thin air. (etc) I like Shakespeare too :) And it was Nephele, on IRC. I think she realised I was joking! Looks like I'm going to have to move to the States though... --RpehTCE 12:16, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

(sodomize the colons--I can't count them anymore.) Nephi...Hm, I just got such a fanfic idea! Anyway, if you do move, stop over in Chicago, visit me! You got that? Somercy 12:24, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

An exchange program would be a great idea! And if you're ever going to be in London I can show you the sights (comic stores, internet cafes - the important stuff :) ). And I just hope Neph's husband isn't on the site! --RpehTCE 12:29, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
Oh, I see... as soon as someone younger comes along, you claim it was just a joke. *sniff* Watch out, Somercy, it won't be long before an even younger editor comes along who knows how to spell and use the shift key! And then you won't even be given a chance to respond with your own geek credentials. D&D: yes (and a safe bet it was before either of you started playing since I, too, stopped when I left for college). SFF: yes (BTW, rpeh, you're off the hook on Neil Gaiman -- for now). Mythology: I was made by Zeus in the image of Hera, after all! I'll concede on pi, though: I maxed out at about 5 digits, just enough to not get kicked out of the math club.
I'll just have to go drown my sorrow in beer ;) --NepheleTalk 14:34, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
You turned me down anyway! :-( I would have guessed at impeccable geek credentials though. I think I first played D&D in 1984 - the original red boxed set. I understand it's now on v3.5 of the rules and judging from what I read in the excellent Order of the Stick (if you don't read it, you really should!) it's changed a huge amount since then. What's changed on the Neil Gaiman front? --RpehTCE 14:47, 25 October 2007 (EDT)
Ahem, but a younger girl might be below the age of consent wherever she is. Either of you read anything by Alan Moore? Somercy 09:51, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Yes, I wasn't going to mention that! Alan Moore has done some great stuff. The first ever comic I read was V for Vendetta and I recently had to spend quite a bit of time persuading people that it was excellent and not rubbish like the film. Obviously, Swamp Thing and Watchmen are also magnificent and so are the various League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books. I liked the first Top 10 collection though I felt it slipped a bit after that. Some of his stuff tends to be a bit... distant for my liking. Like he's too busy telling his story to make me care much about the characters. But he also got Neil Gaiman into comics, so he's got to be thanked for that! --RpehTCE 10:00, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Okay, a chance for me to really outgeek you. I assume one of his works you liked less would be Promethea? I rahter liked it, and understood the Kabbalistic journey in it. Loved Top 10. Liked Watchmen. Haven't yet read Lost Girls, though I'm still iffy on if I want to. Somercy 10:05, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
You probably beat me on Moore. I haven't read Promethea. But I just went to take a look at my shelves and I think the geekiest single book I own is "The C Programmer's Guide to the NetBIOS" by W. David Schwaderer. Any advance on that, geek girl? :) --RpehTCE 10:12, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Computers aren't my specific geekdom, so I can't beat you in them. But how about this fact?--while I'm here on the UESP at school, I'm also in the middle of an anime-based rp on another site. But if it has to be the single geekiest book I own, I'd say the most recent-editioned unabridged Oxford dictionary, which I regularly flip through for fun words. Somercy 10:16, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

(outdent)Well I'm wiki-ing on this PC, playing Ob on another whilst a third PC is my web and mail server plus another acts as a firewall and router. My database server is currently switched off. That's computers again, but you definitely beat me on the anime! --RpehTCE 10:19, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

As I said, I'm at school. They blocked my rp sites, so I have to use a proxy server a friend of mine set up...what's the most recent sff book you read? Somercy 10:21, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Currently on The Dreaming Void by Peter F Hamilton [2]. Before that, Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds [3]. Hmm. Both rather Space Opera really... You? I'm always looking out for other good authors. --RpehTCE 10:23, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Recently re-read Ender'd Shadow, by Orson Scott Card. Um, I'm actually more into the fantasy half of sff, and am deeply in love with Mercedes Lackey's books. Some of Piers Anthony's older stuff (Killobyte, for example) is good, but recently, he's fallen into a plot-rut with his Xanth series. Somercy 10:27, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
I must confess that peer pressure pretty much stopped me buying fantasy. I got an Amazon delivery at work one day with some fantasy stuff in (can't remember what it was now) and got such a mickey taking that I didn't do it again. It's odd, because the same people all love Harry Potter (me too, of course). I might well check out some new fantasy books and see what I've been missing. I doubt you'll ever get me away from my beloved Sci-Fi though! I used to own a load of old pulps from the 1950s (and no I didn't buy them brand new, cheeky!) that are unbelievably dated today but are full of the real excitement and wonder that was around back then about space travel. If you can switch off the part of your brain that wants to laugh, they were great fun. I don't actually know what happened to those... shame. --RpehTCE 10:37, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Duh, forgot the best sci-fi author I know. Spider Robinson. He write the sort of books that make you want to meet him, in case he's like his character. Sci-fi set in bars and brothels, with puns, talking dogs, time travellers, and such pathos, I actually cried when he killed off a certain character. Anyway, I'm assuming that it's not good to get such a mickey, eh? Somercy 10:41, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Sorry, I keep doing that. It's rhyming slang. Mickey = Mickey Bliss = (word I can't use on the wiki to do with urination). Synonyms: Ribbing (very 50s), joshing (even more 50s), being made extreme fun of. You know what I mean! It's one of the strange thing about rhyming slang. You come up with a phrase that rhymes and then lop of the bit that rhymes. So: Boat = Boat Race = Face. Raspberry = Raspberry Tart = Fart. In fact, I can show off my geekiness by quoting the following verbatim from a radio comedy show called Unnatural Acts, broadcast circa 1990. Jeremy keeps thinking the random cockey is talking in rhyming slang, but she isn't:
Jeremy: Be off with you, you scrounging Didicoy!
Cockney: Don't you talk to me like that you stuck up git!
Jeremy: Hmm. Git. Bit! Bit of stuff, tough. Tough at the top, pop, pop goes the weasel, easel, easel and paint, saint. Saint Augustus, dusters, dusters and broom, room. Room with a View, two, two hundred yard dash, cash, cash and carry, marry. Marry? Marry? Marijuana, banana. Banana split, git. Are you calling me a git???
--RpehTCE 10:51, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Okay, that's pretty dorky. But you invoked one of my involuntary geekdoms, radio. You see, radio as you know it, old-timer, is dead. It's all pre-recorded, jock in the box. Not worth the magnetic tape it used to be on, this digital crap is. I mean, even good shows are syndicated. Ever hear of Doctor Demento? Somercy 10:55, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

(outdent again) Never heard of that, I'm afraid. Radio on this side of The Pond is going through something of a revival. We have a few good commercial stations, plus of course the dear old BBC. Radio 4 is absolutely wonderful. You get superb news programs, good drama, some of the world's greatest comedy and NO adverts. Plus the shipping forecast. You aren't really British until you've listened to at least one shipping forecast. On that link, look at the white box with text starting "And now the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office". Now imagine the whole thing being read out in an impeccable Home Counties accent. Plus we get Test Match Special when the cricket's on, which has to be heard to be believed. If the queen announced she had sold the country to McDonalds there would be less of an outcry than if the BBC tried to shut down Radio 4. :) BTW - we should probably move this to email or IRC to avoid cluttering the Recent Changes any more! --RpehTCE 11:03, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

Time to chime in on the geekiness train - Doctor Demento - look him up, that's where Weird Al Yankovic got his start, among others. Incidentally, I just got finished reading the first Discworld book - not bad, but he's no Douglas Adams, as much as he tries to be. --TheRealLurlock Talk 12:22, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
You're right about Pratchett, but on the other hand he writes two books per year rather than Adams' one every 5! I personally prefer Pratchett's later books to his earlier ones (but flame wars have started for less!), because he finally tried to write better not just faster. Doctor Demento sounds like an interesting character. Our closest equivalent would probably be John Peel. When he died a couple of years ago it was a real "You remember where you were and what you were doing" moment for many people. --RpehTCE 12:31, 26 October 2007 (EDT)
Ahem. Adams died in 2001. That might explain why he hasn't come out with much recently. Lurlock, I'm somehow unsurprised you know of the Doctor. One of the colleges I'm looking at for next year is actually his alma mater, up in Oregon. Somercy 14:42, 27 October 2007 (EDT)
Mainly know of him by extension with being a Weird Al geek. Most of the music I listen to (other than classical) is the geeky humorous kind - They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, Wevie Stonder (look it up if you want to hear some really bizarre stuff), etc. --TheRealLurlock Talk 15:48, 27 October 2007 (EDT)