User talk:Sol Pacificus

Old sock

I think we have another sock on our hands. User:FrikiXL has revived the "Warren Vidic was a Nice Guy with Empmathy" edit wars, insisting that they "have been studying the psychology of fictional characters for 5 years". They've also been adding/removing [[Category:Scientists]] to the Historians category, and admitted they "will never give up". Thought you should know. – Darman (talk) 21:55, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Templar Pages

Hey! Been rather busy on my end, however got more time recently. Regardless of personal Life, recently I`m currently writing a few pages in regards to Templars(The Templar Pledge), their distinctions(Corruption & Moderates), specializations(Assassin Hunters), ranks(Advisors, Knights, Commanders, Lieutenants) and organization(Rites & HQs). So I've been going through existing pages as well for all of this to gather whatever information we've missed previously, because by the look of it, Templar pages seem quite neglected in comparison to Assassins pages. Just giving a heads up on the progress itself and recently found out how to use sandboxes, so i'll begin working on the pages in my own sandbox here rather than on Notes. And it would make these discussions far more focused on the source material instead of semantics such as discussing the terms Moderates, Moderates Templars or even if there is such a thing.ACsenior (talk) 12:01, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Welcome back ACSenior. I'd actually be excited to see more of your work on Templar pages (because you're right they do get neglected) as long as you don't mind my reviews of them. :P I am hoping to be more productive again as well. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 14:48, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Sol :). Appreciate that and if there's ever anything on your mind, my talk page is available. That's great, do what you gotta do until then.ACsenior (talk) 15:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Cult of Kosmos debate

While I've not been part of the Kosmos debate and no idea of the current status of the staff debate. Just a proposal given my current updates on Templars pages, that is to create a Navigation template for the Hermeticists that includes all information on Hermeticists, including the Cult of Kosmos. Because regardless of its status as proto-Templar, it is an Hermeticists organization that simply had a different view from the original under Pythagoras and treating it as part of Cult of Hermes makes their organization page less disjointed as it currently has elusively the "correct" versions only that also ended up collaborating with the Templar Order instead of the Order of the Ancients. Thoughts?ACsenior (talk) 15:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Memory infobox

Just to be sure, I thought the description field of the memory infobox is the place for ingame descriptions of the memory (like we did with Odyssey articles). I saw Baftan13 changing descriptions, like here on Reporting on Cent and now i'm in doubt. Is the ingame description supposed to be there or not? I've been adding the ingame descriptions from the quest log, and if that's incorrect I can do something about that :) Thanks in advance! Kennyannydenny (talk) 09:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Category spam

I believe we have a new badge hunter about. User:Samanthademeste recently added the "Assassin allies" category to a number historical personages pages, despite the page content not reflecting such a classification. Louis XVI of France and Jacques Necker seem to be repeat targets, having been hit with this act thrice at time of writing. I've since undone the edits, but this is not my first dance with them. Their contributions show they've performed similar tricks with "Templar allies/puppets/conspiracies" on pages where the category does not apply, and I tried to advise against such activity on their talk page in late January after they had another edit flurry, though it seems to have been ignored. Just thought I would bring this to Staff attention. – Darman (talk) 14:55, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

They've been at this since 2018, it's certainly... something. - Soranin (talk) 20:38, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Constant reverter

I don't know if this user has slipped Staff attention, but User:NoMoreVillains has persisted in their edit spamming. I've been watching them for a while, and despite DarkFeather's attempt 2wks ago to reach out on their talk page and see if they're having trouble editing after spamming the ACU logo, they have not acknowledged his message in a reply, nor do they show any signs of stopping what I've identified as their trademark of continually and unnecessarily reverting images to past versions. Indeed, just today, they reverted [File:ACIII Templar Cross.png] a total of 6 times within 2hrs before Soranin restored it to its original upload. I cannot say whether they're badge hunting, as some of their regular page edits have been legitimate, but these constant reversions certainly add to edit counts. I felt I should mention this for the sake of editor integrity, as they do not appear to listen to Staff. Thank you. – Darman (talk) 01:30, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes thank you for taking note of this and letting us know. It really doesn't matter if they're badge hunting or not because whatever their motive, it does constitute spam and vandalism. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:32, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Ambient dialogue

Hi Sol,
I was playing ACOD recently and came across some ambient dialogue from Barnabus. I want to add it here, or check that it hasn't already been added, but I don't know where to put it. I could have sworn we had a page dedicated to ambient dialogue said when sailing about / exploring, and I think I visited it once or twice, but I don't recall the page name, and it's not in my watchlist, the ACOD template, or [Category:ACOD gameplay]. You wouldn't happen to know what it is, would you? – Darman (talk) 02:45, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Belated edit: And I don't think it was "Floating conversations", either, just to clarify. If memory serves, it had a bunch of lines from Herodotos and Barnabus, and I think it was some user's working subpage—like [User:Kennyannydenny/Valhalla notes]—that we forgot to move? – Darman (talk) 12:10, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello Darman, I really don't remember clearly at all because the closest thing I know we do have is the "Floating conversations" page. I definitely recall at least having a discussion about ambient dialogue like that but not if anything has come from it. You might have better luck asking Lacrosse. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 21:34, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, thank you for the help. Just thought I'd give it a shot. Luckily, Soranin found it! It was [User:Sadelyrate/Location commentary in Greece] – Darman (talk) 00:35, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Floating conversations

I'm not sure I follow your edit summary on Battle of Thermopylae? The page for floating conversations already exists and there's even a section for Kassandra? - Soranin (talk) 15:26, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh, then what was the point of removing the link? It wasn't a redlink. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 15:54, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

They were redlinks, because they linked to 5th century BCE conversations which does not exist, its function being served by the floating conversations. This is how it looked before I changed those links to the floating conversations one. - Soranin (talk) 15:56, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh yeah looks like in my hurry, I saw it backwards somehow. My bad. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 15:59, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

All's well that ends well. I know you're probably tired from having to double check the billion new pages I've been making (accurate estimate). Thank you :3 - Soranin (talk) 16:05, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Le Buddha

Sol, changing topics onto Buddha. There was a mention of Buddha in the Cryptic Messages from ac1, but it was in chinese, so I might be completely wrong, since I'm only going by the translation in that page. Should be the second to last one in the list. Thought I'd let you know :D - Soranin (talk) 01:58, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Mister Pacificus

I wanted you to do an edit for me on the Cult of Kosmos page, about the Sokrates DLC of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. About him coming back after Sokrates, and returning to normal after Kassandra defeated Alexios, freeing the cult of corruption from him. DarkSword65 (talk) 15:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Overzealous deletions

In case you may have missed seeing my reply on my talk page, I would like to say that I'm sorry for filling up the "To delete" queue in my overzealousness to clean up the wiki. I had not considered that as a consequence of repeatedly using the delete template. Given that this appears to be a problem for me at least twice now, I agree with your statement that it probably would be best for all of us if I were to step back from that and divert my attention elsewhere. Thank you for the message explaining this again. – Darman (talk) 13:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't miss it, was just taking a bit of time to try to think of a thoughtful reply. As always, thanks for being receptive to our concerns. I understand that you didn't mean any harm and couldn't have foreseen that this would have been an issue since even we were kept off-guard about it. Keep up the good work! :) Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 16:05, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Vandals

Hey Sol,
Sorry to bother you at this hour, but just a heads up, we have two incredibly persistent vandals—namely, LordOfTheFix‎ and Frejth2King‎—plaguing Azar's page, making a slew of fake category pages, posting a file altered from the official 3D model, and vandalizing many other main and two users' pages. I've been in a rapid-fire edit war undoing everything they've done for the past hour and then some. Vetinari already noted on Azar's page that this is likely because they are gender-fluid, while I'm of the opinion that these editors are the same individual. When you can, could you block them and delete the pages they've made? Thanks. – Darman (talk) 00:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the prompt alert Darman. It should be taken care of. Let me know if I've missed anything. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks like you got rid of it all, except for their first spam page, simply [Smiling Azad]. Thanks for solving that. – Darman (talk) 02:15, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

ACD and Blade of Shao Jun pics

Hey Sol,
I was adding categories to pics from Blade of Shao Jun and I remembered that we, through you, have elected to have Empress Zhang's page go by her birth name of Zhang Qijie. I changed the old category and updated other images with it as needed, then had a thought: since we're using full names rather than titles where possible, would that mean instead of doing [Category:Emperor Xuanzong of Tang/Images], we would write [Category:Li Longji/Images]? And related to ACD, when would you recommend we use Yang Yuhuan's courtly title over her name? Just want to check first. Thanks, – Darman (talk) 13:35, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

These are all good questions. I actually think we need to revisit our article title standards and have been meaning to open up a discussion in the forum about it. This is prompted in no small part by lingering questions regarding how we title articles concerning royals, like Queen Victoria and Emperor Xuanzong. As for when we would use Yang Yuhuan's courtly title, I would not give a hard rule regarding this because I have noticed that our editors typically rely so much on unnecessary, entrenched formulae that they forget that good writing hinges on some flexibility. As an example, we give the impression that Kassandra must always be referred to as "the (Spartan) misthios Kassandra" when (a) that is totally not a rule and (b) we essentially always fail to mention that her actual mercenary alias is "the Eagle Bearer".

Going back to Yang Yuhuan, I would say use your best judgement depending on the context and flow of writing. In Li Bai's article, I wrote "Yang Yuhuan, who as guifei was the highest-ranking consort to the Emperor" because that extended context about who she was felt necessary to me, and it would have been redundant to say "Yang Guifei, who as guifei..." On the other hand, there may be other scenarios where it's better to make apparent her actual position, but it isn't necessary to give a whole extended appositive about what that position is. Both are acceptable, and using "Yang Guifei" is only anachronistic if we are discussing her before she attained that title. The most important point I was trying to make is just that we shouldn't fall into the habit of thinking one or the other is suddenly forbidden, like how, by convention, we now have conditioned ourselves and new editors that it's somehow wrong to introduce Kassandra in any other way but a set phrase about her being a Spartan misthios. It's a bit preposterous really. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 13:51, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the trend of introducing people by their connection to a place/group may have started from Origins, with "Bayek of Siwa", which has now morphed into Kassandra's descriptors and Eivor's particularly lengthy one; I'll admit that I have definitely contributed a large part to that last one. The only meta reasons I can think of for why we felt a need to specify that Kassandra was a Spartan mercenary are to differentiate her from other mercs in the Peloponnesian War, and because the series has had a number of Italian mercs in Ezio's saga like Bartolomeo d'Alviano, though I don't know how well the theory holds water.

I do think we should revisit article titles when we can afford the time from Valhalla's mountains of content, because naming can indeed get ridiculous. Very often, I find that Ezio is written in full as "Ezio Auditore da Firenze". Using a place in the name as with Leonardo da Vinci is one thing, but I feel like this is basically saying "John Smith of Louisville" over and over, especially when countless other people's pages only use their first and last names. But then again, he's from the noble House of Auditore, so would the place be in his true name like with James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan? Except Mario Auditore is also a noble and is never "Mario Auditore da Monteriggioni", so maybe not? I'm confused... – Darman (talk) 02:30, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh no, the trend far predates us. It is a direct result of wiki standards to contextualize terms, especially individuals and places. It is widely practiced in Wookieepedia to a degree that academia would see as excessive (but on the other hand, I find that academic works tend to contextualize too little, basically always naming a whole bunch of random people like I am supposed to know who they are). I myself promoted this trend before you started editing too .My point isn't that this trend is a problem. It's not wrong at all to introduce Kassandra as "the Spartan misthios Kassandra", only that editors would be mistaken to think that this is the only right way to contextualize who Kassandra is. I remember a now inactive mod disputed whether or not it should be "Spartan misthios Kassandra" or just "the misthios Kassandra", but it'd be preposterous to say either is wrong. We should contextualize; we just shouldn't think we always have to contextualize the exact same way in every article, in every sentence. Be flexible.

For Ezio Auditore da Firenze though, I believe it is titled like that because when meeting Yusuf Tazim for the first time, he explains that the inclusion of the toponym in the full name is part of the Italian custom. If this is true, then "da Firenze" is officially part of his full name even if the birthplace might not be part of the full name for individuals of other cultures and periods. Mario Auditore is never referred to as Mario Auditore da Monteriggioni in our wiki for the simple reason that he has never been referred to as Mario Auditore da Monteriggioni in any sources we know of. How an individual names themselves or how they are named in the sources comes before any understanding of what "should" be the right way.

For someone like James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, it is standard in English to just introduce British nobles by their title only. James Brudenell in scholarly works would often just be mentioned as "the Earl of Cardigan". But I've always hated that so much because it is confusing to me since there can be many figures in history sharing the same title. It is one of the reasons why I say I think academia tends to contextualize too little. This is why if I were writing about him, I really would introduce him as "James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan" since he is better known by his title, but I also want to give his actual name. But in any case, the take-away from this is that it's also important to observe the unique naming customs of different cultures. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:53, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Just wanted to clarify also that how we title an individual's article and how we introduce them in writing are two different things. Ezio's article should be titled "Ezio Auditore da Firenze". That's his full name, both according to him and other sources. But when writing, it is perfectly fine, in my opinion, to just introduce him as "Ezio Auditore" if it makes the sentence flow better. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 03:02, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

OK, that all makes sense, thank you. So we should keep [Category:Memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze] as it is then, since it's his full name in-person and in external media? – Darman (talk) 16:20, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that category name is perfectly fine. On the subject of categories though, we really should move back all the pages in "Assassin Brotherhood members" to "Assassins" and "Templar Order members" to "Templars", a matter I noticed you brought up a little while ago. The move had actually originally been performed by Jasca using his bot to preempt any community discussion on it, as was his way. But I heavily objected to it because category names should always use demonyms when possible, to be concise and less wordy. Since it was an unauthorized move, it is within our rights to move them back though it may still be better to double-check with the community on it. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 16:58, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Non-canon games

I recently found full playthroughs on YouTube of most of GameStop's mobile adaptations of AC games and I'm wondering: although they're non-canon, should we have memory pages for these, too, in a similar vein as the missions in AC II: Discovery and the individual chapters of AC: Awakening? They'd be really short, though, as there's far less dialogue than even in Discovery, and would look more like Rebellion's side-quest missions. I only know the mission names for Unity's adaptation, but I'm sure I could find out the others by using an emulator. – Darman (talk) 01:20, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't mind having them. We probably never did because very few people were ever able to play them (they weren't on smartphones), and their non-canonicity is extreme even for non-canon content. But since we cover other non-canonical official Assassin's Creed media, there's no reason not to document these games as well. In fact, I have watched those, and I have already added info about the unique (and comically brutal) deaths all of the Templars have in these adaptations to the corresponding character pages. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:24, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the most outrageous difference I can immediately recall is that Ezio's fight with Rodrigo in AC II is instead in some ruins and against some old man who can shoot fireballs, which Ezio can inexplicably deflect with his sword! Since all these mobile adaptations were by one company, I was thinking of having the memory and game navboxes at the bottom (tentatively named something like {{ACGamestop}}?) list every game's sequences like the one for the Chronicles series, instead of individual navboxes at the bottom for games that only have 9-12 main missions and no side content. Would this be OK? – Darman (talk) 22:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm wondering if there might be a better name than {{ACGamestop}}, but if we really can't think of an alternative, I think it would do. I think your idea to organize it like we did for Chronicles is perfect. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 17:50, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

So! I've finally completed a draft of the game and memory tables in my sandbox after watching the walkthroughs, as well as some other info that hasn't been noted on the respective pages. I figured I'd use a similar color scheme to the {{Non-Canon}} template due to how much these platformers differ from the main games. How do they look? Do you have any questions /recommendations? Instead of {{ACGamestop}}, I was thinking of using {{ACMobile}} instead because it's shorter and also covers all mobile adaptations, and {{ACMoMemories}} for the missions box.

And I just had this thought now, but would you rather we use a ⟨;⟩ to denote non-canon media appearances or have it as a subsection of Appearances? Because I've seen both formats scattered here, eg. on Edward Kenway and Shao Jun's pages, respectively, and thought I'd ask before I continue further. – Darman (talk) 13:00, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Sol, I guess you've been pretty busy IRL for the past week and some, but thought I'd bump this up in case you missed it or simply forgot. If you could take a look at the boxes I've made when you have time, that's be great, but no need to rush it either, as it's not pressing like the imminent Siege of Paris info coming down the pipe. Thanks, – Darman (talk) 03:30, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello Darman, apologies for the exceptionally late reply again. I had, in fact, forgotten or missed your message at first. For the navigation boxes, the only glaring issue I can see at first glance is that Altaïr's Chronicles does not belong with this group. It's a distinct spin-off game equivalent to Assassin's Creed II: Discovery, Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, Assassin's Creed: Memories, etc. It's not a mobile adaptation of a main installment. It's also a canonical prequel of the first Assassin's Creed. We already have the navigation box for it too at {{ACAC}} and {{ACACMemories}}

Other than that, I would recommend that you check with XOdeyssus for the formatting because I haven't been part of the discussions about formatting updates for navigation boxes. Without having spent the time to review the mobile adaptations, I cannot check if there are any errors in appearances for it. I do like {{ACMobile}} more than {{ACGamestop}}.

I appreciate you asking me about how we list non-canonical appearances. Actually, the main way we were doing it at first (and how I was doing it) wasn't to create a separate section at all. Instead, non-canonical appearances would be listed regularly in the same list as canonical appearances, and it would be specified as non-canonical in parentheses just like the terms "Mentioned only", "First appearance", etc. The only time we would create a separate section for non-canonical appearances was when there were a lot of them, which I would assume is the case for Ezio's article. When I noticed you making them separate sections all the time, I wasn't sure whether that is better or not because the community hasn't had to talk about this yet. However, when we do create separate sections for it, I would say we should use === === as usual. ; was only ever used to create subsections in Trivia sections since it didn't feel right for them to have real subsections. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 23:43, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Not Bat-Creature

Hello; no, I have not joined Discord yet. My audio keeps messing up and lagging in and out. Also, the other account is not me, for further reference. Just letting you know. Batfan13 (talk) 12:41, 6 August 2021 (UTC)