User talk:Sol Pacificus/Archive 3

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)

Hi Sol,
Just thought I'd bring this up again. I regularly lurk in the Recent Changes, and over the past few days, I've seen Samanthademeste repeatedly add various categories to pages where they are inapplicable, just like last year. Her latest edits have been swiftly undone by Soranin, Lacrosse, and even you, so there's no lasting issues on pages, but she seems to have ignored both my own and your messages on her talk page. Is there anything we can do about it or do we just keep watch when we can? If her edit history is any example, even the lowest-tier block would not work since her sporadic appearances mean she could easily bypass it. Darman (talk) 02:35, 17 August 2022 (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)

Hello again, Sol.
Thank you for replying, your advice is much appreciated. I don't mind that you're late, since I did say it wasn't a pressing issue what with more important matters releasing (this week!!). And thanks for the referral, I'll ask XOdeyssusx for more more about infoboxes.

I think you may be confused, though, because I have "Arno's Chronicles" in the infobox, not Altaïr's Chronicles. Altaïr's game, I recall, is his quest for Adha that ends just before his failed mission in Solomon's Temple, while Arno's game is a very loose adaptation of Unity; I've listed a number of its contradictions with the main game in my sandbox too. Or were you confusing it with [Assassin's Creed (mobile game)]? That game has a number of errors, among which is that Masyaf as a wintery Templar stronghold where Abu'l Nuqoud (referred to as "Vizier Abull Aswad") hides instead of being the arid landscape of the Levant used as an Assassin HQ in AC1, Revelations, etc.

Regarding non-canon appearances excluding Ezio's, I'll merge them back into the single list format. I believe most of them that appear as separate subsections are because of my edits to list The Ming Storm and its audio production, Turbulence in the Ming Dynasty. How many non-canon appearances should we have before we mark a cutoff and create a new subsection, then? – Darman (talk) 02:00, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, it seems like I misread somehow. By the way, I noticed that the links you have in the box actually seem to be placeholders for the most part. My suggestion is that when you link to the characters, you should use the names they are referred to by in these mobile adaptations while the links should lead to their corresponding canonical counterparts. For the non-canon appearances, it's not a standardized rule, but if you want to be consistent with my preference thus far, I would create a non-canon subsection when there's at least three titles that would fall under it. Or do you think at least two would be better? Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 20:36, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

No worries about misreading, it happens all the time. So you'd rather I use the pipe trick instead, so it looks like [[Abu'l Nuqoud|Abull Aswad]]? Sure, I can do that, though it'll only apply for 2-3 characters across the entire infobox. And yeah, about the placeholder names for the memories, none of the missions except in Arno's game have any names like "Vilified", "The Wounded Eagle", "Hide and Seek", etc. They're only known by the the city it happens in and maybe a date. So for AC1's adaptation, it technically only has the three chapters to choose from which consist of Acre, Masyaf, and Jerusalem. Given its unusual format compared to how we've structured memories, I thought I'd follow the naming convention used in AC: Bloodlines, which stylizes missions in the infobox as "Assassination - Assassination II - Assassination III - Interrogation - Interrogation II", etc.

I think three non-canon appearances suffices for a separate section. To me, two listings looks incredibly short to have a whole new title line devoted to it. I'll try to fix as many of the old Ming Storm edits as I can recall. Speaking of which, how are we to integrate those events into the pages? I know we have the {AmbCanon Start/End} templates used for the Deux Royaumes comics, but Ming Storm mixes in a few extra details that aren't in Chronicles China. For example, Gao Feng—who oddly only appears as a corpse for an autopsy—is said to have died beside his own eunuch aide Pang Chung, despite the game only showing Feng alone on a cliff and not mentioning Chung at all.

Also, I'm a bit confused about the Deux Royaumes comics. I was under the belief that all the historical parts were "real" while the modern was definitely non-canon, but Accipiter's page uses the {AmbgCanon} templates while the events surrounding an unnamed Egyptian Assassin and Numa Al'Khamsin/El Cakr in the 13th century as detailed in the Egyptian Brotherhood page do not, and I've not found a definitive Ubi source saying the historical parts are likewise out the canon window. – Darman (talk) 03:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

For the placeholder names, what was catching my eye was the inclusion of Animi avatars, which as far as I know don't appear in the mobile adaptations. Looking it over, I also do think that the navbox looks too cluttered and should be cleaned-up, but as I said, I recommend talking to Odey about that. I will get back to your questions about incorporating Ming Storm later, but you can try double-checking with Cris and Lacrosse regarding the canonical status of the Deux Royaumes comics. I'm pretty sure for a long time the historical portions of the comics has been canonical, but I recall there being some inconsistency or controversy about it recently. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 03:16, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Ohh, that's what you meant by placeholders. The Brotherhood multiplayer avatars are skins/Animus mods for Ezio after completing X number of missions (I think, have to review footage), while the AC3 ones are visual only and are used in place of Connor's apprentices like Stephane Chapheau, Deborah Carter, etc. I thought I should include them because they appear, but I can remove them if it's better. – Darman (talk) 03:35, 11 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)

Pictures for cities during different eras?

Hello I have a question. It is possible to put two or more picture of the cities infobox as a new standard if the city made appearences at different era in the series like London, Paris, New York? I remembered when we didn't know the canon gender of the misthios or Eivor, we had an infobox where you can change the picture by clicking on male or female. The idea would be to make this but with pictures of different era. Example: Paris 886 pictures and 1790's pictures. Or London 870's pictures, 1868 pictures, en 2016 pictures (from the movie). It could be decline for place like the Villa Auditore or the Homestead.Francesco75 (talk) 09:28, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in, Sol, but I'm just adding my own thoughts here. I actually like this idea, as it'd give readers a visual of how a place grew/declined over time. I know the Lego Wiki did similar for a while with the various iterations of the same character, and we currently have the tab format for profile pics displaying both AC1 soundtrack covers while both AC Rogue and AC3 pages show their Remastered art. I think the only issue would be which pic to show first, the latest in-universe one or at the height of its power before falling to ruin. Assuming it's implemented pending your decision, of course. – Darman (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Also butting in. I think the most modern canon depiction should be the default and then work backwards in time for the other tabs. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea Francesco. :) I also agree with Lacrosse that we should prioritize the most modern cannon depiction. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:59, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Can we used concept art as pictures for the infobox like the ones in Project Legacy?Francesco75 (talk) 05:29, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Animus mod paragraphs

Hi Sol,
I don't believe the formatting was...standardized(?) on how to introduce gear that players get as Animus mods. I know you've edited a few gear pages and had noted in one edit comment that writing "[item] was made available to [player character] through an Animus modification..." was clumsy, but I can't seem to find it now. I know that sentence structure is now stuck on nearly all Animus mod gear pages, but did you have a better one in mind then? I was thinking myself of something like this:

"In [year], the Assassin Layla Hassan applied an Animus mod to create a usable simulation of the [item] while reliving the memories of [character]."

What do you think? Or would you prefer something more concise? – Darman (talk) 02:00, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Edit: I think I found your edit by chance clicking "Random Page"? You changed the last line of "The Forlì Punisher", and honestly, it reads a lot smoother than what we have everywhere else. I think I'll just copy/paste that and change the necessary details as appropriate, if it's OK? – Darman (talk) 02:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

First, always bear in mind that writing in and of itself is not formatting. This is a misconception and bad habit that I've cautioned many other editors on often. If you see one way that an article on a weapon is written, it does not mean that you have to copy the exact same sentence like it's a formula and transpose it onto all other articles on weapons. Good writing requires thought to adapt it to the particular subject and context.

That having been said, there are of course certain phrasing that is incorrect. "...obtainable by [main protagonist]" was a widespread one because that phrase only makes sense from an OOU-perspective. In real-life, you wouldn't write about a firearm that was on the market and so specifically describe it as "it was obtainable by this particular person". That would sound really weird.

Onto "[item] was made available to [player character] through an Animus modification", you have to understand that this phrasing is wrong not just because it's clumsy but because it is erroneous. I found a random example, Swift Slayer:

"It was made available to the Spartan misthios Kassandra through an Animus modification by Layla Hassan, an Assassin who relieved her memories."

The problem with this sentence is that "made available to. . .Kassandra" would literally mean that Kassandra, the actual person, got the weapon. And how does this sentence say that the actual Kassandra got the weapon? By the fact that Layla made an Animus modification of it. What this sentence basically says is that in the 5th century BCE, Kassandra magically acquired this special battleaxe because more than two thousand years in the future from her time, a woman experiencing her memories through an Animus added a mod for it.

The sentence doesn't make any sense. Yes, we might say that we can understand that it meant the avatar or character of Kassandra in the Animus, not the actual Kassandra, but the sentence doesn't technically specify that and that correction can only be inferred from outside knowledge.

I understand that editors were struggling to word it in a way that makes sense because this is a really unique scenario that hasn't been encountered in the real-world. It is really unfortunate that this badly worded sentence got copied and pasted across so many of our pages. I corrected this sentence several times, and each time, I did it differently because when we write articles, we are not supposed to be thinking that there is some exact, correct way to phrase it every time and that this must be the same across all pages of the same type. Remember what I said about "Spartan misthios Kassandra" vs. "the misthios Kassandra" vs. "Kassandra the Eagle-Bearer". All are correct because all are true. There's no "formatting" standard that you have to pick the same one over the others all the time, and it'd be silly to "standardize" it. Copy and pasting is not good writing. That's not what writing is about.

So as for how I rewrote the sentence in "The Forlì Punisher", this is just one way that it can be written. I understand for the sake of efficiency, editors will be tempted to copy the way I wrote it as a formula and then transcribe it onto all the weapon articles pertaining to Animus mods. Since the sentence is correct, it won't be wrong to do this. But I don't want editors to foster the mentality that this is the only right way to write it because that is how we ended up with the two above examples of bad writing being proliferated across hundreds of pages. Editors see the way something is written, assume it is a "standard", then copy and paste it again and again without thinking about whether it actually makes sense or not. There have also been other cases in the past where something I rewrote did make sense for a particular article, but then editors would again copy and paste that onto similar articles in places where it doesn't work as well.

Formatting is the styling and organization of the article; the writing itself isn't formatting. Good editors should learn to write originally and think each time if they're basing a sentence off another article if that sentence really works the best in the article they're writing.

Your own example of how you might reword it is fine by the way. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:11, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't there a discussion somewhere here about what you've just described, the impossibility of an Animus code patch actually affecting the lives of the subjects thousands of years in the past? Because I'm sure that you're not the only one who has noted that.

You're right, endlessly copy/pasting just ends poorly. Editors can become stuck in rote repetition and don't expand their vocabulary or writing skills, newcomers can pick up and propagate the patterns they've seen to multiply the problem even further (I know I'm guilty of both), and overall it's clumsy for even casual readers to see. Thank you again for reminding me of the example of potential other ways to introduce Kassandra, I'd almost forgotten what with seeing one form near everywhere.

I do know for a fact that at least a few pages are cribbed direct from their database entries, from minor things like some AC2 buildings with just a few paragraphs on them to nearly all of the info on the Eight Tigers. Alas, so much to fix on top of new ACV info, so little time. – Darman (talk) 13:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi

Are you the main administrator for this wiki?

My name is Anonymous230385 and I play a lot of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I've noticed there's a few details that are somewhat incorrect so I figured I want to revise some of the articles related to that.

Is that fine with you?

Sincerely, Anonymous230385 ^{Any questions? Wanna talk?} 19:20, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a public wiki so feel free. If you are unsure about anything or its going to be a major edit it might help to discuss it on a talkpage before going through with the edits. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 19:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. Well okay then.

Most of my edits should be minor actually. Anonymous230385 ^{Any questions? Wanna talk?} 20:22, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello and welcome! Yes, I am the main administrator currently. We certainly need a lot of help on our Odyssey articles so your contributions would be appreciated. :) From your edits so far, it seems like you might have some confusion over where the information you should add should be placed. Do you have any questions in regards to that (e.g. the function of a "Behind the scenes" section vs. "Trivia" section, etc.) Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 04:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Some question about AC: the Silk Road.

Hello, I read the book and I have some technical questions about informations in the book. Not major spoilers. -There is a Hidden Ones bureau in Antioch. Do we refer it as a part of the Levantine Assassins or the Byzantine/Ottoman Assassins. Levant is a broad term. Today it include the region of Hatay (Antioch) but in the 15th century, all the eastern side of mediterranea was called levant, so Greece, Turkey and even Egypt. -A mention of Hidden Ones in Rome: do we categorized them as Roman Hidden Ones or Italian Assassins. So question is simple if we considered that the Polos only build a guild in Venice and not the Italian Brotherhood. -Basim refered as a Mentor once, but after only as mentor.Francesco75 (talk) 22:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I also see that you make a page on the Sogdians. They are multiple times refered in the Silk Road. As the article is lock, you can update it.Francesco75 (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

That's an unresolved matter that's actually quite significant. We basically need to open up a whole forum discussion on it. I know we've touched on it before but never came to solid conclusions. For example, there's the issue that we seem to be unsure whether to treat the Assassins in Alamut as part of the Levantine Brotherhood or the Persian Brotherhood. Since it predates the globalization and expansion initiated by Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, we might consider the Assassins in Alamut as part of the same branch as the ones in Masyaf which were retrospectively called "the Levantine Brotherhood" by later Assassins. On the other hand, the AC1 game guide describes Al Mualim essentially forming a separate branch when he moved to Masyaf, but it's unclear if this was a de jure distinction or a de facto one.

We did have a more extensive discussion regarding the Roman Hidden Ones vs. Italian Brotherhood and have decided to keep them separate for now. If I can find that discussion, I will give you a link later. For the specific question of Antioch, I can say that I personally dislike using contemporary political borders as the basis for how we conceptualize boundaries in the past. Obviously, political borders have not always been the same, and it doesn't make sense that historical Assassins and Templars' regional divisions would be coterminous with modern borders. (Before, I favoured the idea that there were different branches of Assassins in the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista but now we know it was all just one Spanish Brotherhood -.-). From the info you've given me, I don't think we can really draw any conclusion. Are there any more details about their connections with other bureaux?

Also, I've unlocked "Sogdia". You are free to edit it. Thanks for reminding me because I had forgotten I had protected it before. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 08:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

It is a quick reference. Basim sent a letter to the Hidden Ones in Rome as for Chinon and Alexandria. Rome responded saying they couldn't sent anyone. Basim ordered Hytham to write them a letter explaining that the situation in Antioch is clear and that they need to rebuild the Bureau of Antioch. So we can imagine there is a bureau in Rome but no other info.

I have another question. In the book they refered multiple times to chai or tea. Can I create a article on tea as it also appeared in AC3 in the Boston Tea party but also as a crafting items. I replay Liberation and I saw we didn't have a article on the trade mecanic of Aveline with the different items. Some items could have an article as coffee (which appeared in Liberation Unity) or fur (AC III, IV, Rogue, Origins). I don't remember all the items so I need to finish Liberation.Francesco75 (talk) 09:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

An article on tea would be wonderful. :D And I'm not just saying that because my sister and I have been practicing chadō this past year. Your points about why it merits an article are valid and yes we can also create articles on those other resources and trading goods. Coffee is also mentioned in AC2 when Ezio tries it for the first time.

I wonder if there's any possibility that the bureau of Antioch is its own branch entirely? Thinking it over, it could fall under the Levantine branch, but I would caution that determining that wouldn't depend so much on the geographical limits of the Levant but whether or not lore-wise the bureau is affiliated with the Levantine Brotherhood. The problem with that is that the name "Levantine Brotherhood" currently and strictly-speaking refers to either the state founded by Hassan-i Sabbah and/or the branch established in Masyaf by Al Mualim. This is how our article about it currently describes them. As I said, based on The Essential Guide, we can infer that the name "Levantine Brotherhood" was applied to these Assassins retrospectively, as well as for the Assassins that remained in the region after Altaïr. But for the Assassins in the Levant before the state founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, I think to be safe, we should distinguish them from the Assassins of AC1. Also is there any possibility the Hidden Ones of Antioch are affiliated with the Egyptian branch? Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 17:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

In the book, Oisel said, after receiving indication from Basim's informant that "Decidedly, the Levantine Brotherhood is one of the most discret and the most mysterious". Oisel also refered Basim as "one of the Mentor from the East" and said he is the "mentor" of the city of Antioch but it could be a manner to speak as he didn't see any Antiochian Hidden Ones during his journey. Also in some case the narrator used the term Assassin and mentor with a little "m". No direct link with the Egyptian Hidden Ones, they only answered Basim's letter as he sent its to many bureaus across the world.Francesco75 (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

AC Sisterhood

Hi Sol,
I see you added a link to your profile for the upcoming AC Sisterhood page, and the new Wiki banner about the #HoldUbisoftAccountable movement. I think it's great, and have been hoping we'd be get to creating the page ever since Access the Animus got theirs, though I admit I'm uncertain how/where to start.

I don't know how much info you've managed to gather so far, but a while back, I drafted the links in my sandbox for a bunch of tweets documenting various stages in the initiative from Kulpreet, official Ubi accounts, and both Aya and Cleopatra's actors. I don't know if the community was already in discussions on it then, but I thought the posts would be important in the future. I forgot to get screenshots what with other projects I have and fixes elsewhere to do, but hopefully they can be a start for sources. – Darman (talk) 02:55, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Darman. Yes, we're actually in the final stages of publishing an article on AC Sisterhood and have been collaborating with the admins from the other language versions of Assassin's Creed Wiki on it. We have all the notes down, and I only need to do a final rewrite. I was hoping to get it done by tomorrow, but I have been stumped by writer's block. I indeed was wondering if some tweets would help with citations, so your offer actually comes as a pleasant surprise. Thank you very much! I will take a look at them. :) Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:03, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Great, glad I could help! Looking over them again after so long, I do think we should include as refs Ubi's statements via @assassinscreed and @MobileACR, if only to compare them against what is now known from games reporting, that little changed internally despite these claims of support.

Oh, and in more recent developments which you may already have seen, both Matthew Kirby and Magnus Bruun have voiced their support, with Kirby's already a ref here (his decision to write Eivor as a woman) while Brunn has approved of the Sisterhood tattoo design in Nov 2020, mentioned the Sisterhood in a Dec interview with @ACFirstCiv, plugged eps 1-4 of the Sisterhood Speaks in March 2021, then appeared on the show in May. I'm pretty sure Cecilie Stenspil supports it, but her interview was short and it's been ages since I saw it. – Darman (talk) 15:40, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello again. Not sure if you already saw this, but as part of the AC15 celebrations, Ubisoft interviewed the founders of the Sisterhood initiative. I was going to put it in your draft page, but as I doubt you'd want me to edit your sandbox yet I still think this should be kept for the page's eventual sources, here's the ref:
 AC Community Spotlight: AC Sisterhood on Ubisoft's official website (backup link)
Oh, and they also had an interview with Access the Animus:
AC Sisterhood ALLIANCE - Sary from Access The Animus on the AC Sisterhood YouTube channel
– Darman (talk) 02:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Isu groups

Hi Sol,
I've been intermittently keeping tabs on the pages for Odin, Aletheia, and Loki, and after a bunch of recent edits to each by User:TiagoFF, I've noticed something and am confused on how to address it before it spreads further. In TiagoFF's honest efforts to expand these gods' pages, they regularly refer to "Greco-Roman Isu" coming into conflict with the "Asgardian Isu"/Æsir. However, the terms noting which region's mythology they were part of are retroactive, since the Isu were memorialized by humanity as different elements of local legends only after the Great Catastrophe and did not take on those attributes from the start. Both myself and Lacrosse (see their edit comment to Æsir page) agree there were just "the Isu" as a whole, part of which was the group humanity later named the Æsir. How do you think we should best try to cover the unnamed faction?

Related to this, I think we may finally have seen some details about the War of Unification mentioned years ago in Syndicate, even if it's not directly named. Although Eivor's cultural upbringing masks all non-Æsir as jötnar, the Isu are clearly engaged in a civil war, and it seems the Æsir are the splinter faction. However, I cannot think of why the majority of Isu are fighting the Æsir, since there was already strong internal division through Hyrrokin, Angrboða, and Gunnlöð's opinions on humanity and how to save themselves from the Great Catastrophe (see "Mistress of the Iron Wood", "A Feast to Remember", and "Animus Anomalies") even before Odin enters Jötunheimr for the mead. I would suggest the war was sparked by Loki and Angrboða's affair, but that seems too petty a reason. – Darman (talk) 01:00, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Rolling a boulder

Any chance you could chip in on Talk: Sisyphos, please? Then I can shut up about it one way or the other. :P Not that I don't love my edits being wiped wholesale which removes citations altogether. Vetinari^{(Appointment)} 20:12, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Odyssey Timeline

Hi, Sol Pacificus! I've finally finished the timeline for Odyssey, having in thought the levels of each region, the historical events and the location of Kassandra in Greece at the time. Even added the new Crossover Story that's releasing tomorrow. There was a little thing that I saw in a video that definitly puts it as the final memory for Odyssey, after the Fate of Atlantis. Just need some help adding the two DLC Cyclops and the Lysander and Demosthenes storyline: the latter needs to take place after Kassandra has cleared all the forts in Greece, which means near the end of her journey but also needs to match with the Battle of Megara, that occured in 424 BCE historically. I would really like to your feedback on this so I could start correcting the memory pages.TiagoFF (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello Tiago. I've just returned to this project. Apologies for being slow at getting back to you. In order for me to have full clarity of how accurate our timeline is turning out, I will need to construct my own chart of the different timelines suggested by the multiple sources and by different users. I have started progress on it, and it will complement your page because I will use yours as a reference as well. It differs from your page in that while you're trying to fit in every memory in the game, I am comparing the chronologies between sources so we have an established reference page for the inconsistencies since we're bound to forget the fine details after a while. I intend to finish this page as soon as possible, and I will definitely work on it every Thursday, but I also am working on our wiki's article on ACSisterhood at the moment, so I need to finish that by the end of this month, so I will be prioritizing on that.

Once I am done with the chart, I can help out with the final unresolved questions about the timeline. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure about the Cyclops, but I was tempted to treat the Lysander and Demosthenes quests as ahistorical to Kassandra's life. I'm not so sure, but I think Lysander should be too young to be a commander during the events of Odyssey. It's about 20 years before his rise to fame at the end of the war, but then again his Wikipedia page doesn't give his age, and it's not impossible for him to have been very old by that point. In any case, I remember Lacrosse thinks Kassandra should have been in jail during the Battle of Megara of 424 BCE since the novel mentions that the Battle of Delium passed during her imprisonment, and the Battle of Megara historically took place between Pylos and Delium I think. However, the novel fudges up all kinds of dates about events that transpired during her imprisonment. I can't recall (or find) if the game also mentions the Battle of Delium in passing.

If indeed Kassandra participated in the Battle of Megara, then we should be able to safely assume she fought with the Spartans against Demosthenes though. At that point in time, she had joined with the Spartans again. Unless she could have been doing Demosthenes' Spartan-hunting quests before she left Athens in the wake of the plague (before proceeding to help Lysander in turn), I don't think she ever canonically helps Demosthenes. Notwithstanding this, one would think if she really did kill so many polemarchs for Demosthenes, she would have never been given a chance to reclaim her home in Sparta. And historically, there were only ever six Sparta polemarchs at a time because they commanded the largest divisions in the army while Athenian polemarchs were ceremonial military officers since actual military command had been transferred over to the position of strategos. It might be noted that the dialogues seem to go out of their way to not refer to the commanders you're tasked to kill as actually polemarchs, which could just be a gameplay term used incorrectly. Regardless, there's just a lot of problems with this pair of questlines. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 09:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Sol Pacificus!

No worries about the delay. Everyone here knows that a person replies when he/she is available.

I've checked your timeline (it's really detailed btw) and I think you're right: it might be a good strategy to compare different opinions on this. I really think that the problem is the LotFB: Chapter 1 and the Demosthenes and Lysander questilines. I'll still try to place the Cyclops missions in the timeline when I can, based again on Kassandra's relative location in Greece at the time.

Maybe, in the end, we might be able to build a timeline that everyone can consult if they want to execute the "canon" playthrough. Btw, good luck on the article on ACSisterhood:) TiagoFF (talk) 16:35, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

So I've noticed that you put Lokris, all of Malis, and the Abantis Islands with Thermoylae in your timeline. I'm guessing this is based on the recommended levels for those regions. In my playthrough, I explored Malis and killed Zoisme on the way to Thermopyale before taking a stop at Euboea, imagining that this was Kassandra getting supplies and then getting side-tracked. However, I skipped Lokris until the Boeotia campaign because I just thought it was way too out of the way to make logical sense for Kassandra's trip from Phokis to Thermopylae. Complicating the matter, in the novel, she just sails with her crew straight to Thermopylae. If that were the case, how could she ever have passed through the rest of Malis to kill Zoisme?

This heads into the territory of novel vs. game, which we will still have to resolve later, but for now, I do have an idea of a different scenario which could at least maintain Kassandra's assassination of Zoisme. The Adrestia itself had to have sailed to Thermopylae, but perhaps Kassandra decided to trek overland through Malis to rendezvous with her crew in Thermopylae? This isn't entirely unreasonable if she knew that her ship is known to her enemies and wanted to throw them off for a moment while she hunted Zoisme. Still, it's just a proposed headcanon. Her reason doesn't matter so much if we decide to favor the game's tracking of her journey, but this is a problem we would have to eventually solve. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 04:28, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I thought that we could put Zoisme assassination after Thermopylae, since is the only timing where Kassandra is near her location. (And, before altering the Silver Islands arc to 426 BCE, when Kassandra would found Myrrine she would've killed 19 Cultists, like you have hypothesised before. So, I based on that.

I also put the Lokris arc in the way to Andros and before Euboea because of the clue to find the identity of Skylax the Fair. That way, Kassandra would've found his location and then, assassinates him when on Chalkis. Also, the Lokris questline is a bit small. I guess that probably the Adrestia stopped there just to rest? I honestly don't know why but it makes sense because of the clue. - TiagoFF (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Creative vs development

I was going through some pages we have on ACV comics following the announcment of Forgotten Myths, and I'm wondering if you know what the difference is, if any, between the game development teams and comic creative teams. Wouldn't creators be developers, even if it's a different medium, and shouldn't we file them under that category instead? – Darman (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but I honestly have no idea. :P Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 04:28, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, OK. Just thought I'd ask if you knew something I missed. Would it be alright if I consolidated the categories, then? – Darman (talk) 06:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello again. I'm working on recategorizing the Blood Brothers and Song of Glory images to fit their new page names, and was reminded when editing Feng Zisu's page that I had asked this question last year. Do you have a better idea on whether there's a difference between a comic's creative or development team? If there's no difference, may I merge the categories or would you rather something else? – Darman (talk) 20:51, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Paragraphs dispute

I've read your reply on Soranin's page, and I'd like to thank you for interceding. I clearly did not know the best way to resolve it nor how to fix the actual matters at hand, and I'm sorry you had to step in, as I know I made it worse by provoking Sarasti through my own misunderstandings. I'd also like to apologize for my conduct. That was unbecoming behavior as a veteran member to be so rude to a new user, and I'm sorry you saw that. Reading Sarasti's comments and note on my talk page, I thought theyt sounded similar to how Batalex would smugly insist he knew better than us after spamming Warren Vidic and Adam Smith's pages. Instead of lashing out in misguided attempt to defend both myself and Soranin on being told that our work was unintelligable, I should have stepped away and let someone else try to fix the situation. Soranin clearly had the cooler head than I, if based only for her short comment and tagging you to judge the incident. – Darman (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Proofreading

Thank you for letting me know. I believed how I start things off was a bit mundane as well, but I did not want to stray from the structures I looked over, in terms of previous materials/items made before. Anyway, thank you. I'll do my best to take this into consideration and better my wording for future works. Batfan13 (talk) 23:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Trying to contact someone to approve edits

I made a couple of changes on the armor page (Odyssey), and wanted to perhaps make a few more, but they keep getting reverted. I'm looking for an admin with a few minutes to spare to contact me at my e-mail (preferably) so that these changes will stay permanent. I've played every AC at least once or thrice, and am on my second play-through of Odyssey and noticed some incorrect information in some areas (i.e. the "Athenian Helmet" is only obtained from the "Portion Control" quest, and cannot actually be purchased from a blacksmith, or looted) that I would be happy to aid in correcting so other gamers like myself who enjoy using this wiki don't get led astray. Thank you Chrisrayotwell (talk) 21:25, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Hello Chrisrayotwell, from your contributions record, I only see a single edit on the "Armor" page before you contacted me. Were you using a different account to edit before this? The way wikis work is that anyone can edit almost any page without official approval from admins. You don't need to ask. But your edits can also be reverted, and there's a culture of mutual respect and consideration. So we want editors to take initiative when they think an edit should be made, but when an edit might be contentious or controversial, you should usually try to communicate with others by using the article's talk page first. If staff reverts your edits without comment—although I always encourage that editors leave explanations when they revert—it might be because your edit violated the manual of style, current conventions, or it was just a simple mistake. So we always advise new editors to read and familiarize themselves with the manual. You can also always try contacting the contributor who reverted your edits for an explanation.

In regards to the specific edit you were referring to about "Athenian Helmet", it was likely reverted because our moderator thought you were mistaken because these details in Odyssey can be hard to verify. If you are confident that you are correct about this, you could try making the same edit again and using the edit summary to clarify the reasoning for your edit. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:06, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Thoughtful response

I appreciate your detailed & thoughtful response to my querry re: edits. And, yes, I did leave out the proper link when I edited that particular item. I believe it was corrected by another admin though, thankfully.

I did have a few other questions re: the addition of notations to a couple of items. There is an EPIC Persian Warrior's Waistband that is looted from the Ruined Sanctuary of Ajax with a unique +50% CRIT Damage, which is lost forever until a New Game Plus if it is sold or dismantled- good to note somehow for gear collectors.

There is also an EPIC Bandit's Bow with +50% CRIT Damage, and an EPIC Dark Steel Mask with +100% CRIT Damage while Full Health, both of which are only sold by the Oikos of the Olympians. To be able to purchase these though, you can't have an identical unique RARE or EPIC in your inventory or storage of the same type; i.e. I couldn't buy the Bandit's Bow from the Oikos until I dismantled the Odessa's Bow in my Ship Storage.

I also have a Spartan Waistband with unique flavor text which I am trying to find where I received/found it in a current NG+. The text reads "You can tell the work of a Spartan craftsman, and this belt is a prime example."

Just something to think about.Chrisrayotwell (talk) 19:36, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Citation for source(s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQC3i3hwSg&t=0s

Peony

I just added a link from Wiki. Don't know if I put the culture section, but it is there. Letting you know. Batfan13 (talk) 21:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Checking names

Was clicking through the Timeline infobox during our discussion on the Mongols, and on seeing the page for the Siege of Diaoyu Castle, I clicked the WP link out of curiosity, and turns out WP changed the castle's name to Diaoyucheng for the building and siege pages ever since Nov 2019, citing its Common Name principle. I was going to move our pages to match the changes, but I remembered our discussions on updating our naming policies, where you said that us using WP's name policy could cause problems we'd have to regularly fix, and as an example pointed to our omission of Gaius Julius Caesar's praenomen. Can I still move them, or should I just change the {{WP|REAL}} link instead? – Darman (talk) 01:25, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello Darman, thanks for checking in with me. Yes, we don't follow by Wikipedia's common name policy. In this case, we should prioritizing using the name as formatted in Tomb of the Khan or any other Assassin's Creed source it may have been mentioned. The chéng (城) just means 'castle', so whether we call it "Siege of Diaoyucheng" or "Siege of Diaoyu Castle" really makes little difference. It's just whichever Assassin's Creed uses. (P.S. The diàoyú (釣魚) simply means 'fishing', so technically it could also be translated as "Siege of Fishing Castle" :D, which is what I would do if I were a historian. But let's use the name as formatted in Assassin's Creed.) Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Cut content of ACID

A little bird send me the game text file of ACID, it revealed some old Stories, cut Database entries and more things never released in the game. (Specially Black Flag Update) I put the old stories in Niccolò Machiavelli's journal.

And I have a question, can I create some articles for cut Database entries? –UJ112013 16:21, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello, apologies for missing your message months back. I am not sure which cut Database entries you're referring to, but in general, yes, you are allowed to create articles for cut content. If it turns out we don't thing they're suitable for any reason, we can delete them later. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:23, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Codex fixed, mostly

I managed to (mostly) fix the Codex pages with pics and paragraphs—I've described it in more detail on my talk page— but it's still...not quite right. Do you know what went wrong? Thanks for alerting me to its issues, I hadn't seen that. – Darman (talk) 13:50, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Dynasty translations

I was rereading the Dynasty pages for what issues you've translated (currently, Flower Banquet 1-3 and Golden Turtles 2-5) and I'm simply here to say that I really like your work summarizing them and honestly view it a good cut above the Titan comic summaries we use from the Ubi forums. Even if the issue isn't written out but the info is on a main page, like with Yan Jiming's bio up until Beacon Fire 6, I still find the way you write the details flows really well. I know there's plenty on your plate, and having few editors here who both can read Chinese and translate it while still keeping local idioms intact limits our ability to update them yet, but just thought I'd tell you. :)

(P.S. I still think your initial wording of "[Xianzhi] pins [Lingcheng] over a merlon, threatening to oblige his wish to exit Tong Pass by yeeting him right off the wall" is hilarious. Very serious events described just smash-cut straight to casual slang lol) – Darman (talk) 02:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Hey, I am glad that you enjoy those summaries. I was an aspiring writer when I was a kid, but I am not very confident of my writing skills outside of academia now. I still couldn't help but try to add some more flavour to the summaries because I don't like it when people think plot summaries can just be monotonous, vague repetition of events. A lot of times when I read plot summaries for movies, they are hard to understand. They still need to flow in a way that is engaging and gives the reader sufficient context.

One thing about my translation style is that I try hard to preserve the Chinese idioms even when they are not necessary. I think this serves to link the reader more closely with the culture they are reading about. I also like to preserve the cadence and rhythm of the speech as much as possible, something that the Tokypop translators do not care about at all. Because of this, however, I can sometimes be too literal in my translations. I can be a little too reluctant to swerve away from the literal translation and substitute with something that sounds more natural in English. Recently, in my work on "Abe no Nakamaro's letters to Li Bai", I have been trying to improve this about my translations, which is why I keep going back to polish them, trying to figure out the right balance between being accurate and sounding natural.

Keeping up with Dynasty content is quite stressful, especially since there are other major projects on the wiki warranting my attention. I decided to put off updating most character pages until the comic ends, so I wouldn't have to keep updating them as I go. It is awkward to have some plot summaries up but not others, so I will also need to complete those.

And by the way, if you liked yeet, I would be in favour of re-adding it in if approval from other editors around here is unanimous. >:) One can make the controversial take that it improved the quality of the summary hehehe. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:15, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

You've done great with the translations thus far, so keep up the good work! Hey, the whole point about any wiki is that anyone can edit it, and that the site's pages are in constant stages of "incompletion" even if they were previously thought to be finished,* so even besides my other projects here, I don't mind ACD pages being unfinished. I'm honestly glad it's ending, so we can finally update the pages without having to wait for another comic issue.

As funny as I think it still is to have someone described as being yeeted (yoted?) off a wall, I don't think such language befits what should be a more encyclopedic outlook on the series. XD – Darman (talk) 00:05, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

*For ex., I think we can tinker that small bit in ACV's "A Feast to Remember" when we hear Ezio's question to Minerva from AC2's "In Bocca al Lupo" and add it to the "Before his birth" bio section, as well as Soranin's proofreading and ref updates of the page if it's not already added (I can't tell)...once it's unlocked.

Hello Sol,
I've been reading your latest extensive edits to various Dynasty pages and am again inspired to help with it. I have access (for now) to online versions of Dynasty's Chinese issues, and while I clearly cannot read it, I'd still like to contribute to our Dynasty project. I know you have warned both myself and others about attempting to add information based on supposition without knowing the language, idioms, and regional history, especially as you've also said the English translations themselves are rife with errors. But would you prefer that I keep to uploading images of people, places, and events? It'd only be after you or others have written out and sourced the details so I have less chance of messing up with a wrong file. Darman (talk) 14:55, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

We actually could use some more help providing our readers with more Dynasty images, and you should be able to correctly identify the scenes described in articles to help provide the right images. So you're welcome to help out with uploads. Just remember that ideally text should be removed from all speech bubbles, and images should also not be watermarked.

If you're enthusiastic about Dynasty, I can't tell you that I don't appreciate that, but you should still refrain from contributing based on content you can't access. It's not just a matter of how likely you are to be right or wrong with your guesses, it's a matter of "academic" integrity. No one should be contributing information about something they don't genuinely know about—that's dishonest work. That's why I come down strictly against it. Likewise, it's also dishonest to cite to a source you didn't actually read and therefore didn't actually use. (It goes without saying that using Google Translate also doesn't count as it is far less accurate for non-European languages).

Odey (who has recently renamed herself Lady Kyashira) and Sora have both contributed Dynasty content, and errors do come up in their edits as well, but it's different because they're at least contributing based on sources they are able to access. So like Odey is using the English and Sora, as far as I know, the French and/or English, and what errors arise from their edits are the fault of the publications they're using. If either could read Chinese, I would tell them that they should be using the Chinese material, but since they can't, they're only doing the best with what they have on hand. It's still honest work.

Thank you for checking in with me about this. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 05:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I won't write on things I don't understand, but I'll try to add images where/when I can once people have written about them. Also, something else that caught my attention: I know the Manual says it doesn't matter whether to use British/American/Canadian English, so long as it is consistent in the article. But I realized that the redlink for the "Defence of Tong Pass" uses British English, while all other articles here with similar titles ("of Masyaf", "of Monteriggioni", "of Samos", and "by the Book") all use the American spelling with ⟨s⟩. Shouldn't we change the link for consistency across the site? – Darman (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I write using Canadian English, not British English. Canadian English shares some spelling practices with American English and some with British English. Years ago, I advocated Canadian English as the standard since Assassin's Creed was created by a Canadian developer and earlier games showed more signs of Canadian English. (EDIT: I thought this would be a nice echo of Wookieepedia standardizing American English because Star Wars is made by an American company, and the Harry Potter Wiki standardizing British English because Harry Potter is written by a British author and set in the UK). We were unable to reach a consensus, hence why we don't have a standard. For my part, my issue with standardizing American English for our wiki is that we have firmly standardized British/Canadian English grammar and European formatting styles, so why would we then use American English spelling instead? Also the users arguing for American English before were British, and so ironically they didn't understand all of American English spelling practices and so their attempts to standardize it created inconsistencies that I think results in Canadian English being the easiest for us to transition into standardizing. I don't have an answer to your question because we never got past the stalemate about the spelling standard, but I stand by using Canadian English and have just so far refrained from correcting articles using American English to my liking unless I'm rewriting the whole thing. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 20:05, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Raphael Sánchez

Hello, I would like to ask if there is any evidence to prove that Raphael Sánchez is Jewish.一个赛艇门 (talk) 06:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Neither Raphael Sánchez nor Luis de Santángel were explicitly called Jewish in Discovery, but their forced conversions to Christianity are mentioned. Raphael Sánchez in "Survive the Ambush" refers to these "reluctant conversions" in the plural, and for Luis, it is brought up towards the end of the game again in "Rid the Palace of Inquisitors". That they were referring to being converted from Judaism (as opposed to Islam or another religion) is technically extrapolated from external sources since Luis de Santángel was known to have been a converted Jew historically and because in Spanish converso in this era was understood to mean converted Jews. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 13:31, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me again, I have another question about Helene Dufranc. The memory page only mentioned that she had been were trained by the Assassins and was born into a family of Assassins, but this cannot be evidence that she was an assassin. Haytham Kenway is a counter example. The Crows can also be regarded as a counterexample.一个赛艇门 (talk) 02:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

New Wiki Representative

Hi there! I'm ReverieCode, and I was just assigned to this wiki to be your new Wiki Representative.

I know that another Wiki Rep (Surafbrov) reached out fairly recently on Discord to say the same thing, so my apologies on any confusion - basically, a few Wiki Reps were temporarily assigned to wikis as a replacement for others who unfortunately are no longer with Fandom while our team was adapting to that, but from now on, I'll be available here permanently as a WR to provide any assistance needed.

(As for myself, I'm very excited to be here - I've been an AC fan ever since the first game and played them all up to Valhalla, it's definitely one of my favorite game franchises. I've also visited the wiki quite a bit to refresh my knowledge before each new game, so it just feels right to be here :P)

If you have any issues (technical or otherwise) to report, or questions about anything Fandom-related (or if you happen to know of anyone else who does), please feel free to send them my way, and I'll do my best to help out. I'm in the process of joining the Discord server, so I'll be reachable in there also. See you! –ReverieCode <staff/> 09:53, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Misspelled images names

I just realized that I misspelled many ACfilm images' names as "AC f l i m", should I leave it alone? Because I can't move all misspelled images at one time. UJ112013 (talk) 13:23, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Sorry to jump in, Sol, but I also saw the uploads and have got this handled. No worries, UJ, all the file names are moved and now fixed. – Darman (talk) 14:10, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for taking it out of my hands Darman! Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 20:49, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I am Fandom's new Senior Community Manager for Gaming

Hello there! My name is Jieyang and I'm going around saying hi to admins in the community. I joined about two weeks ago but you'll be seeing me around more in the future. I played the heck out of the Ezio trilogy way back in the day. I enjoyed Odyssey the most from the more recent huge titles but I'm super looking forward to Mirage. I love a nicely contained AC game.

You can learn more about me through my blog. Feel free to drop me a message on Discord as well! - Itsjieyang (talk) 19:55, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Mobile Theming

Hey! You may have seen the pop up already, but just wanted to give a heads up that mobile theming is now available to all Fandom communities. This means that the colors selected in the Theme Designer for the desktop themes can now be applied to mobile. That includes background image and heading fonts also - and there's a preview of what the mobile display looks like from ThemeDesigner as well.

For the mobile theming to be turned on, there can be no contrast problems in the colors selected. You should see some warnings on ThemeDesigner for any colors that don’t have enough contrast - that just means those colors would need changing to either a lighter or darker tone before theming changes can be saved. (Fandom has a blog post that offers more information on web accessibility.)

If you need any extra details, feel free to check the announcement blog, and also the updated help page for ThemeDesigner, which covers all the new changes. I'm also around if any help is needed with this or if there are any errors to be reported.

I definitely recommend trying to toggle mobile theming on, since it improves mobile in a very big way and lets you have the wiki's theme in there (instead of Fandom's default themes, which can be very blank). –ReverieCode <staff/> 13:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Map details for AC: Atlas

Hi Sol, the Assassin's Creed: Atlas shows some mapping details like Coordinates and Location maps. Can we put those in the Infobox like Wikipedia? I got the book these days. --UJ112013 (talk) 15:49, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Minor edits

Hello Sol,
I'm writing to see if you could perhaps resolve a matter for me. I was checking the Recent Activity feed when I saw XOdeyssusx had added all the dialogue for the new memory "The Raven and the Cuckoo". However, they marked a +14,000 byte edit as "minor", and I've seen them do this with a good number of other pages before, giving them hundred- or multi-thousand-byte updates tagged as inconsequential in nature.

You both have been on the wiki for far longer than I, so I doubt it is simply the mouse slipping to check "This is a minor edit" instead of "Watch this page". I do not understand why it is happening, though, as I've always been told minor edits are supposed to be for grammar changes, typos, etc, not paragraphs of information. I wrote to them almost a week ago about this asking for clarification if I had missed something discussed elsewhere but have not received a reply on either of our talk pages. Do you think you might be able to reach them for me and settle this somehow? Thank you. – Darman (talk) 00:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Ming Storm series

I was going through my edit history and saw I had edited some pages of characters who appear in the Ming Storm series. I was wondering, I know we all have loads on our plate as we try to finish off/clean up Odyssey and Valhalla with its DLCs while preparing for the influx from Mirage, but given how much info Ming Storm will have on Shao Jun alone, could we implement a canon/non-canon tab system like how Wookieepedia has Canon/Legends? I asked you about how we could incorporate the info in August, but we both got sidetracked in the 3 month since and I also know it's not critical to finish.

At the moment, only about one-third of Category:Individuals (non-canon) have canon counterparts from the series' first games (Shaun, Desmond, etc), and I believe all those ten have pretty short pages anyway, so it's not a big thing for them. However, while Ubi itself has admitted Ming Storm will contradict with Chronicles China and Embers, the first book (and maybe second? Haven't read yet) still samples info from both media while adding its own flourishes that make events unreconcilable in some pages' current states. For example, Wang Yangming still dies, but sitting peacefully after playing a tense game of Go against Zhang Yong rather than being stabbed through the chest. – Darman (talk) 00:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Proofreading Alfred

Hi Sol,
I apologize for the lateness of this considering when you messaged me, but I thought I'd update you on the proofread you requested I do on Alfred's page. I've completed an initial version that tried to correct and/or elaborate on Batfan13's additions, though as I noted in edit comments, it will still need more information from "Kingdom's End", "Holy Day", and "Impaling the Seax" that I didn't have the mind to add. – Darman (talk) 01:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Why do my community posts keep getting removed?

They're related to Assassin's Creed and don't violate the guidelines. So what the hell are they getting removed for? —unsigned comment by Ratboy181 (talk · contr)

Hello, I see that you have had two posts removed. One was a low-quality meme and another was a poll. Our guidelines state that low-effort posts may be removed at moderators' discretion. The poll was partly related to Assassin's Creed. For future reference, I think it would have helped if you had provided context behind what you were polling because otherwise something like that can be misconstrued as random. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 14:01, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Also for future reference, please sign all talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~). Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 14:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Improper images

Andy19965362 has uploaded a few images here from various media, but has always kept the file names as the default alpha-numeric character strings from his browser's "Save image as..." function and has consistently never sourced them, both things I have repeatedly fixed when I saw them. Most recently, he uploaded a slew of fan rendered Assassins from r/HeroForgeMinis, again unnamed and unsourced, never mind that they are not from a Ubisoft partnership to begin with. Can something be done? I have twice asked him to abide by our Image Policy for names and sources, but since he has given no indication of seeing the messages nor responded to them, I am doubtful he would listen to the message from {{Warn1}}, but am also unsure whether a block would work as intended given his irregular contributions. – Darman (talk) 23:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm just bumping this. Andy has persisted in this, uploading nearly 2 dozen improperly-named and unsourced images that have yet to be or were renamed in the time since I last wrote this, and I am unsure if a third use of {ImgVio} from me would help. Could you perhaps send them a message, whether as text or through admin powers? – Darman (talk) 13:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for deleting the bad files, and I see that Soranin also had a hand here renaming and sourcing other ones. I'm hoping Andy will notice this time and catch on to the correct way to do images, but only time will tell. – Darman (talk) 04:15, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

No problem. I actually had deleted them at first then restored them because I wasn't sure if it was better to rename and source them for Andy. But I was too busy with other wiki work yesterday to do it right away, and I was glad that Sora took the initiative on that. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 16:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Image licenses

I see that a lot of images have the CC-BY-SA license. I had two edits reverted changing the license from that to fairuse, with the rational that the images are part of p romotional content. I disagree with mass addition the free Creative Commons licenses because Ubisoft still owns the property, and never gave up the permissions. SeichanGrey (talk) 22:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

How did my talk page post break the rules?

Per title MedievalVibes (talk) 19:04, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello MedievalVibes, talk pages are meant only for discussion on how to improve an article, questions about the way it is written, formatted, etc. or other matters related to its construction. They're not meant to be chats about the article subject as a player or fan. The forums/Discussions board is the space for topics like that. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:00, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Complaint

Editors/Administrators like you are why I left Wikipedia. Nothing but a tiny little Napoleons. You will destroy this place. —unsigned comment by Revan's Exile (talk · contr)

Hello, as I explained to Darman36, I am performing a clean-up drive of the category structure as it has been a navigational mess for a long time. My edit to "Kassandra" was to bring it in line with both Wikipedia's guidelines on categorization and the recent consensus we reached in the forums regarding this overhaul. A page that is in a subcategory should not also be placed in that subcategory's parent category, as that is a redundancy that clogs up the parent category. The category "Olympic champions" is already in the broader category "Olympians", so the page "Kassandra" only needs to be in "Olympic champions", not "Olympians". Interfering with categorization corrections is extremely disruptive because of how extensive and painstaking the process will be. I had to lock "Kassandra" at the first sign of potential edit warring over it by users unfamiliar (or unwilling to respect) the clean-up drive. Also, it goes without saying that there were better ways for you to voice your confusion or disagreement with it. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 05:59, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll leave you alone, but I want you to know one thing

You will know how to play smart, but I doubt you know how the world works. GamnaStyle543 (talk) 15:08, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Washington and Connor's village

I have no intention of starting an edit war, so I'm leaving this here instead of actively editing the articles themselves. I highly disagree with the idea of writing it as if it was ambiguous whether or not Washington was responsible for the 1760 attack. Because it's not ambiguous and was never intended to be. Minor historical inconsistencies aside, Washington being responsible for the destruction of Connor's village is and always has been an established fact in the franchise's lore, dating back to the Forsaken novel in 2012, and later corroborated in Initiates and other subsequent media. It's an extremely important plot point as it's the primary catalyst for the negative shift in the relationship between Connor and Washington. To pretend that it's ambiguous, or worse, that it might not have even happened that way, completely undermines AC3's narrative and Connor's character arc.

I recognize that telling you all this probably won't change your opinion on the matter, but I just feel that it needed to be addressed. N217062 (talk) 02:36, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello N217062, thank you for taking the initiative to message me about this. I genuinely find that "Washington being responsible for the destruction of Connor's village is and always has been an established fact in the franchise's lore" is at worst a false claim and at best a claim that requires a leap in assumptions when it is subjected to scrutiny, even when accounting for Forsaken. First, I think it is disingenuous to characterize the inconsistencies with history as "minor" given that the points I found were numerous, but I need to clarify that there is a difference between (a) the lore in the canon deviating from real history and (b) evidence from the timeline informing us what happened within the Assassin's Creed universe.

If we are talking purely about real history, then George Washington never burned any indigenous villages at all during the Seven Years' War, not even during the Forbes Expedition of 1758, which was just an arduous march to Fort Duquesne preoccupied with building a new road that came to nothing because the French blew up the fortress by the time the British reached it. As well, Forbes expressly tried to pursue a friendlier policy toward the natives during his expedition, and Washington did not have the authority to order a scorched earth campaign against the natives. I am not arguing that Washington did not destroy Connor's village in Assassin's Creed history just because it did not happen in real history. I understand that the premise of Assassin's Creed permits deviations from real history. In fact, by Washington's own admission, he did prosecute a scorched earth policy on native villages during the Seven Years' War, so we have to take this deviation from real history as what it is.

What I am arguing is that given all the evidence we do have from Assassin's Creed itself, it was never proven that Washington actually burned Connor's village itself nor was it ever disproven that Charles Lee, et al. were the perpetrators. I need to ask you to adopt an open-mind and analyze each evidence logically from within the universe itself, and remove yourself for the moment from what you assume is obvious about the authorial intent of Ubisoft. I am going to repeat the same list of evidence I have already explained in the articles.

1. The Templars are unreliable narrators: When I say "unreliable narrator", I don't mean that their claims are necessarily false, only that the characters are by nature not as authoritative as third-person omniscient sources. You bring up that Forsaken confirms that Washington burned Connor's village. I just reviewed the novel: it does not. It only confirms that Charles Lee and the others told Haytham that Washington attacked and burned the village 14 years after it happened. They could have been lying. It only confirms that Haytham genuinely believed that Washington burned Connor's village instead of his subordinates. He could have been wrong because he wasn't there. In fact, Haytham in Forsaken is a notoriously unreliable narrator. You were right that Haytham was feigning ignorance when he first heard the news from Connor, but there is still no hard evidence in the novel that Washington burned Connor's village instead of the Templars.
2. Washington never confessed to burning Connor's village: As I already explained in the BTS section, Washington only confesses vaguely to having also pursued a scorched earth policy during the Seven Years' War. He never confesses to burning Kanatahséton specifically. Haytham uses the tactic of leading questions and responses to guide Washington into admitting having burned native villages in the Seven Years' War and to lead Connor into "putting two-and-two together" that it had been Washington all along. This scene does not contain hard evidence that Washington burned Connor's village, regardless of what we may assume is the authorial intent. Sourcing policy does not hinge on assumptions of authorial intent but on the sheer facts.
3. Since there is no hard evidence that Washington actually burned Connor's village, the only evidence is Connor's eyewitness account: Connor was assaulted by Charles Lee and the other Templars, who hurled hate speech against him that revealed their intense racism against indigenous peoples, and threatened both his life and his village. This happened within the same day that it was razed to the ground. From an in-universe perspective, this is much harder evidence than Haytham's word about what happened.
4. Where real history does inform us about what happened: This is the part which I think confuses you. Of course Assassin's Creed history can deviate from real history, but there are parameters, and these deviations should normally be canonically confirmed. Neither Assassin's Creed III nor Forsaken confirms these deviations from real history such that (a) Washington remained in military service after 1758 (b) the French and Indian War continued to wage in the colonies south of Canada in 1760, when it is known that it had ceased there (c) that the Iroquois were enemies of the British instead of their allies. In fact, Shaun Hastings notes in the database entry for Washington that Washington did retire from service in 1758. You may counter that Hastings was deluded by distorted history, but this is uncertain, and it remains evidence of some weight. Because there is no hard evidence that Washington actually burned Connor's village and because the evidence of what we have of timeline of the war within Assassin's Creed corresponds with that of the real history timeline, this is where what we know about the historical timeline can serve as evidence for our understanding.

Breaking it down fact-by-fact, the particulars of how the writing communicates to us that "Washington burned Connor's village" does objectively introduce ambiguity in Assassin's Creed III and Forsaken. I sincerely believe that there is a possibility that the writers of Assassin's Creed III did intend for there to be this hidden level of ambiguity for the perceptive player, rather than the chronology issues being an oversight, especially since Washington retiring in 1758 is a rather specific detail.

You argue that it is unambiguous because of how significant Washington's responsibility for the destruction of Kanatahséton and the death of Ziio is for Connor's character arc, that it is the "primary catalyst for the negative shift in the relationship between Connor and Washington", and that it is central to AC3's narrative. I anticipated this argument and strongly disagree for the following two reasons:

1. Whether or not Washington was the one who burned down Connor's village in his childhood, Washington still ordered genocide against his people right there in the Revolutionary War in spite of Connor contributing so much to his cause. Even if Washington didn't target his people earlier, it doesn't make him any less reprehensible to Connor or to the story or to our eyes that he is about to commit such an atrocity now. Their relationship would still be broken. Washington still remains a genocidal racist. He still betrayed Connor.
2. Whether or not Washington truly did burn down Connor's village in his childhood, Connor still believes he did on the basis that he is trying to genocide his people as of the Revolutionary War. The impact on Connor's character development would not functionally change that it was the Templars who did it back then, not Washington. Washington would still be a broken pedestal to Connor.

Using solely Assassin's Creed III and Forsaken as sources, per sourcing policy, it is not confirmed that Washington burned down Connor's village and killed his mother. We use facts of the story not assumption of authorial intent. However, later sources like Assassin's Creed: Initiates, Assassin's Creed: Rebellion, and Assassin's Creed: Atlas do state plainly that Washington was the perpetrator. Although the latter two are weak sources, the former is fairly strong. In this light, I do not deny that, also per sourcing policy, Initiates canonizes that Washington burned down Connor's village.

(a) Because Initiates canonizes that Washington burned down Connor's village, it is not wrong to write plainly in our articles that he did. I do not dispute this.

(b) But it is simultaneously not wrong to write that Washington was implicated in burning down Connor's village while refraining from writing the plain and hard claim that he did. Writing in this way does not conflict with canonical sources.

Both approaches are correct. So why would I hold a firm stance on the latter but not the former? Because I am not convinced that later sources like Initiates and Rebellion are not retcons based on oversight. The evidence of the incident in the original and primary sources leaves it open to interpretation, which is a literary device. I am convinced that the ambiguity in Assassin's Creed III and Forsaken could have been by design. It seems to me that you think it is unambiguous because of your assumption of authorial intent and the narrative significance, not the facts of the evidence presented when subjected to scrutiny. Assumption of authorial intent is subjective and not admissible; my assumption is different from yours.

In fact, Initiates tried to patch the plot holes to force Washington into being the perpetrator in a clumsy fashion, suggesting that he issued the order from his home in Mount Vernon, essentially when he is no longer a military officer. We do not have the authority to rule that this information from Initiates is non-canonical, but we can choose to be prudent and judicious about it to avoid reifying shaky canon. This is why I have decided to relegate this information to the BTS section where it is less controversial. The information I have decided to maintain in the body is everything that is indisputable. If you argue that Washington burning down Connor's village is indisputable, then I counter that the fact we're having this debate shows that it is totally disputable. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 05:25, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that Initiates entries being written by in universe characters with access to what Desmond saw in the animus are also susceptible to unreliable narrator. Additionally Haytham has Washington admit to giving a similar order "14 years ago", so in 1764, 4 years after the death of Connor's mother. Incidentally I think him being able to be tricked into a false confession shows the nuance on how he views the natives. This reading of the narrative has Washington erroneously lump Connor in with the tribes that supported the French in the Seven Years' War showing his lack of regard for the different groups beyond whether they are his allies or not at the time. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 05:49, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Empress Zhang

As you likely have already seen, I recently edited a number of pages related to Blade of Shao Jun after finding copies of all its English volumes to read. I recall our above conversation earlier about Yang Yuhuan and her names in Dynasty, and felt to ask you about a similar question I have now for Empress Zhang. In August 2021, User:Kulurak moved the title of the manga issue "Shao Jun and Qijie" to "Qixie" per its official English title, while the Empress' page still uses the former spelling. I figure the difference is in how one romanizes it, but is there a preferred spelling to use? – Darman (talk) 23:35, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello, if Qixie is official, it is a misspelling by Ubisoft. The correct romanization is Qijie. As well, the katakana indicates that even the Japanese pronunciation is Jie. Per policy, we correct misspellings for character names, even when official. However, for the title of a published work, that might be more complicated. I recommend keeping the misspelling since, like it or not, that error is the official, published title, but Zhang Qijie has to remain correctly spelled. I will double-check my copy of Blade of Shao Jun tomorrow. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 07:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Butting in to say that my copy of V2 has the spelling as "Qixie", not only for the chapter title but also in the text itself. - Soranin (talk) 18:41, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

OK, I will wait. I thought the correct spelling would overrule, but I want to check. – Darman (talk) 04:00, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The English copy does use the misspelling "Qixie" all throughout. But Darman, I already gave my answer above. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 19:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

New pages for Jade

Should we have a page for youxia? I believe there is precedent through the jarl and reeve pages about occupations with titles not in modern English. And with Jade's beta footage showing multiple knights-errant who trained under Wei Yu, I think this marks its first actual appearance after Li Bai briefly mentioned the adventurer early in Dynasty. Admittedly, Dynasty and Jade would be the only in-universe sources so far, as it's a primarily Chinese story element and it did not appear in Chronicles China. And should we also have one for Mohists, too, since they also make an appearance after Dynasty and we have pages (in various progress states) on mythologies and religions? – Darman (talk) 00:05, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we definitely need a page for youxia because its centrality to Jade is such that it's essentially the term for an Assassin in this era. To be exact though, youxia is not just mentioned in Dynasty since Li E is essentially one. I am only just learning it may have originated as a Mohist concept, but the term evolved in later time to describe wandering heroes in general. It's also not just a story element. Even though they could not leap across buildings, slay dozens of enemies single-handedly, or sneak through heavily fortified military installations undetected, there were historical individuals who qualify as youxia as they would've been in reality (i.e. revolutionary leaders, vigilante activists, or, in the more cynical sense, mercenary adventurers or rebels with a violent, criminal past). Liu Bei is the best example in my mind (just read the "Appraisal" section at the bottom of his article), but historians have also argued that Liu Bang, the founder of the Han, qualifies (but in the more cynical sense). I would recommend that you wait for me to write it though. Currently, we are trying to rush through the beta test before it ends, recording footage of all our plays as we go. An article on Mohism is also a no-brainer. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:35, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, I would not have pegged Li E as a youxia. To me, his identity as a Hidden One and the obligatory conflict with the Ancients that comes with the membership took priority over his being a wandering knight. I take it, then, that Mohist philosophy is the Chinese Hidden Ones' precursor to the Creed before the Creed is finalized and spreads through Eurasia? And of course, there are the conditions that not all youxia are Mohists, and vice versa, and probably also that those who do happen to be both are not necessarily Hidden Ones. Oh, and I absolutely would have waited for you to start the page. I am well aware of my own lack of knowledge on Chinese history nevermind culture, so I would trust you, Lady Kyashira, Kaikai947, or perhaps even Soranin to make it. – Darman (talk) 01:20, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand what a youxia (or xiake) is. A youxia is, simplest I can put it, like a heroic individual who fights for the justice of the people, especially when they're willing to break against social norms and expectations in championing their cause. (The more cynical interpretation I mentioned is that, of course on the flip-side, when you take away the ideals of the youxia, the political reality people might see is instead a mercenary adventurer, a miscreant youth with a penchant for rebellion as Liu Bang was, etc. Whether the cynical interpretation is valid is a matter of perspective and up for debate). Far from being conflicting with the Hidden Ones, most everyday people who meets a Hidden One would probably just think of them as a youxia. The Hidden Ones to Chinese society would've been a youxia group, and that is in fact precisely how Li Bai alludes to them when recalling meeting them in his childhood in Central Asia.

As for Mohism, I was just telling the others earlier today that after doing more reading on it, I think it is a mistake for the writers to make Mohists synonymous with Assassins. Some of their ideological beliefs comport more with the Templars in my opinion... and according to my research, their historical links with youxia is contested. Also, we just noticed that Mohism isn't mentioned once in the beta version of Jade despite having been central in the alpha, so we now suspect there might have been some editorial decision to cut out Mohism from Jade. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:37, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm an idiot. I forgot that the game manual is replete with references to Mohism in addition to one of the achievement categories being called Mohist. :( Also Darman, I am starting to upload footage of my playthroughs on YouTube for the benefit of wiki editors. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 09:26, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

It's alright, the beta's still new and we're all trying to gather as much info as possible in what limited time we have before it's updated while Mirage is also releasing within months. I did find your YouTube channel and I'm glad you've uploaded those missions because everything I'd seen so far was repeats of the same memories. It makes sense that civilians may see youxia more cynically, not only for being unaware of why they fight for the public, but also in-universe for not knowing about the Hidden Ones/Ancients conflict. How should we reconcile the inconsistency of game/IRL Mohism, then, since you say parts of it was more in-line with Templar ideology? And based on your findings, what philosophy(ies) would be better suited to the youxia than the tenuous connection that Ubisoft chose? – Darman (talk) 05:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I think I may have been unclear again Darman about youxia. The cynical interpretation is usually brought by modern Western scholars of history and political science. The way I understand youxia is that throughout Chinese history, there was an undercurrent of admiration for outstanding individuals who travel the lands righting wrongs for the common people. "Hero" in the Chinese sense wasn't necessarily someone who was infallibly noble and good, but someone who embodied certain qualities that made them "stand out" amongst others and these qualities usually entail some sense of initiative, courage, and willpower to defy social norms for the sake of a cause (not even always indisputably good) in an otherwise conservative society with rigid social roles. In fact, I would go as far as to claim that the youxia of classical Chinese literature indirectly influenced the qualities of today's archetypal shōnen anime protagonists, like Naruto and Sasuke.

But the point isn't that "civilians may see youxia more cynically". Quite the opposite. My meaning is that for everyday people who don't know about Assassin or the Templars or the shadow war between them or Isu, people in Tang society who have been helped by a Hidden One would probably think of them with the best concept they have to understand them: the youxia. Youxia has a positive, not a negative, connotation, and Assassins/Hidden Ones essentially are what Chinese people would think of as youxia. Heck, Altaïr, Ezio, Connor, Bayek, Shao Jun, all of their stories and exploits fit into the archetype of the youxia. My point was also that youxia isn't like a title or a formal profession. It's a concept for a type of individual in reality, in addition to being a heroic archetype in fiction. The cynical view stems from modern Western scholars deconstructing the traditional romanticized view of youxia to evaluate how the kind of people who would have been real-life youxia were really like.

As for Mohism, I still need to do more reading of it, but there's really nothing we can do if Mohists and Assassins are really synonymous in Jade except accept the canon. I am finding that what is mentioned about Mohists in Jade uses a lot of outdated stereotypes and mistranslations. Mohists were already linked to Assassins in Dynasty, but I mind that less because I can imagine a Mohist community in the 8th century to have changed a lot from some of the Mohist ideas in the Warring States period.

I'm glad you found my channel. Just to let you know, I haven't uploaded the story missions between the prologue and the "ending" because they were kind of messy and need to be edited before uploaded. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:35, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I will answer your question about what philosophies I think align more with youxia another day because I actually am typing with a broken keyboard right now, and it is late for me, but I do appreciate the question. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:40, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Admin+

Hey there! I’m reaching out to introduce the Admin+ program (if you haven’t heard about it already!) & let you know I’m here if you have any questions about it. Take a look at the details here & feel free to send over any questions you have. pikushi ✧.* <staff /> 19:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Citing comics

How is citing the comic volumes different from just the single issues? Unless they have extra information in sidebars, text panels, etc, why cite to a volume if the same information will be in the single issues? In my experience, I've always known collection paperbacks to simply merge all the issues together for seamless arcs and the only extras they had were pages showing alternate cover arts. I'm just confused, since I thought we are just supposed to cite [main media] – [Published issue/DLC]. To my memory, we rarely cite entire DLCs like Tyranny of King Washington unless the preceding sentence(s) encompass broad facts that span the entire arc, e.g. "In a simulated alternate reality, Connor fought King Washington.^[citation]" – Darman (talk) 00:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

If you're referring to this particular edit, it wasn't necessarily wrong in and of itself because it is more ideal to cite more narrowly to a specific issue or memory. However, I reverted it because in your case, as I've noted to you a few times before, you have had a habit of going around just marking thing after thing up for further maintenance or tweaking things that end up becoming just a series of not actually very substantive or constructive edits. It's a bad habit, in my honest opinion. Marking certain things as needing maintenance, needing citations (whether narrower or any at all), etc.—normally these edits are perfectly fine. But there is a point where it just gets excessive and makes people wonder whether you're just here to put up notices everywhere or if you're actually going to do some of the improvement work, content creation, etc. yourself.

In this case, it was really just one edit, and I also understand you might not have access to Black Cross to actually improve the citation, but I felt the need to discourage you from slipping back into the habit of making edits just for the sake of adding a "citation needed" to a citation here and there. Instead, I would really like to encourage you to spend more of your energy and enthusiasm for wiki editing into making more major contributions of your own. You don't have to go around fiddling with articles for perceived imperfections here and there, especially if you do not have the means to correct them yourself. Higher quality rather than higher quantity. I believe you have a lot more to offer if you were able to find a particular work or area of Assassin's Creed that really interests you and focus on really making some extensive development in that project. You know, Soranin focuses on redlinks, Tiago focuses on timeline and memory organization, Kulurak focuses on ensuring we're always up to date on media. I remember Crook back in the day liked to focus on ensuring we have good coverage on female protagonists, and Nanomat focuses on tracking down the real-world origin of the weapons in the games and assessing their historical accuracy. Odey and Batfan have been responsible for a lot of the content creation for Valhalla.

As for the particular line itself, its main issue was that it had erroneous and misleading information. Ideally yes, it should have had multiple citations to every issue from which that line derived its information, but if you're just passing by an article, see a sourced sentence whose information might be taken all across a work, you don't have to make an edit just for the sake of adding a "citation needed" on top of that because the citations aren't narrow enough. Reverting just for the sake of discouraging a bad habit from resurfacing may seem improper, which is why I spent my whole morning today addressing the issues with the article by doing a complete rewrite of it, so that I wasn't just reverting your edit.

If on the other hand, you're confused by the few instances today where I have cited to an entire volume, it's because collection paperbacks actually do tend to have a bit more extra content than just alternative art. They tend to have appendix pages giving more background information. I just haven't been sure if I can call them appendixes officially. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:55, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Mirage news post

Fandom staff said to contact you on your talk page about this. You deleted my Mirage news page. I would like it restored please. It cant be low quality or anything if it literally links to an article giving valuable mirage info. Who wouldn't want a free Mirage copy? MedievalVibes (talk) 17:10, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

A random link to a free download for Mirage sounds like promoting piracy to me. I didn't check the link either because I couldn't be sure that it was safe. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 17:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

It links to an article on a website called gaming bible, it's perfectly safe. There's other sites with this news too, but i just linked this one. It's not piract, Intel are giving it away as part of a deal. MedievalVibes (talk) 17:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the moderators cannot just take your word that the link is safe, and in any case, a post promoting a free giveaway for the game does not meet our standards of quality for discussion posts. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 00:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Response to the case

In addition to everything I said in the Discord thread:

Okay so first of all, I asked for repromotion ONCE, this was back in early june, never asked since. Again I am no longer asking for repromotion. I haven't bringed up that "case" ever since

Second of all there is nothing wrong with asking why my posts were deleted. And asking for additional transperency/questions, and giving my opinion(s) as to why I believe it should be restored

Also about your claim that I asked for mod "to bypass phone verifcation", I looked at our dms and this is what I said "also can I volunteer for a discussion mod role on the AC WIKI FORUMS?" So that disproves your claim of me asking for mod just for bypassing phone verification. I didn't know that being a mod on the WIKI FORUMS = being a mod in the Discord server

I haven't been bringing this up again and again. The reason I commented on that thread was because I was trying to let you know about the verify member feature, and I simply included that last part to let you know that I told you a solution last month and you seemingly forgot

Also, your claim of me "never living up to my promises" is ludicrous, first of all, you don't know me IRL. Second of all, I don't remember promising anything. I said stuff like "I'll see" or "I'll think about it", but that doesn't count as promising.

I do not have a history of bad behavior here, the only supposed bad behavior was me not wanting to change my username. Again this is for privacy, getting hacked/doxxed etc is all to common these days. Other than this, my behavior was perfectly fine. Plus this was many months ago. I'm not even bothering you guys or coming up with excuses, all I asked was for you to verify me so I could chat, this was my only request, I'm just looking to chat in the server, not ask for a promotion

The fact this whole thing was made into a "case" is just silly. It was just a simple request as I recently discovered that mods/admins could lift the phone verif requirement for individuals. Again, I just want have casual chats in the server about AC, just like I do in the forums

I hope we can reach an agreement. MedievalVibes (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Also, "we've grown weary of how you constantly try to bring back up your case and get us to revisit it, as you have done so again here."

I thought you simply forgot to respond or you didn't check the DMs, but it turned out you secretly created a whole case about it with the team. I can't "constantly try" to bring up a case I didn't even know existed!! MedievalVibes (talk) 01:09, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay let me be clear, when I responded to that thread earlier, my intention was to help YOU by letting you know about the feature, YOU are the one who brought up the shitshow from May, not me. MedievalVibes (talk) 04:36, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

MedievalVibes, first of all, you have some misunderstanding about the issues I raised. I never said there was anything wrong with you asking why your post was deleted because there isn't.

The problem with your responses to Thanius' thread is not with your initial comment suggesting the "verify member" button. As I've already explained, you had a habit of coming back to my Discord DMs even after your dismissal to try to make or renew requests to the team and me even after I have repeatedly said "no". So, I felt the need to caution you against slipping back into using their thread asking for assistance as a platform to renew your lobbying. I noted firsthand that we should avoid derailing the thread, which you immediately failed to do by using that thread to try to negotiate for resuming DM communications and then subsequently posting argumentative comments about whether or not you were technically dismissed.

Your message to me here displays your characteristic denial of the details that led to your demotion, and you are forcing me to repeat the same explanation I have given you again and again on Discord. We were accommodating to your concerns about privacy but have a policy of requiring that moderators on our Discord server have a user name that identifies who they are on the actual wiki. This is to ensure that a moderator on our Discord cannot abuse their power by pretending to be someone else or pretending to not be whoever they are on the wiki. (As I noted before, this is not an imaginary scenario since once upon a time when I went on the IRC channel of Wookieepedia to raise concerns regarding the conduct of a now-banned administrator, the administrator did pretend to be a different individual defending that admin for them). The team believed that your concerns that merely having a common identifier between your wiki activities and Discord activities would be enough to violate your privacy were incompatible with your duties as a moderator. Nonetheless, we offered you as many as 4 different solutions to accommodate your concerns, among them using a variation of your wiki username (e.g. Medieval) or creating a different Discord account for use only with the wiki server. Not only were you adamant that having a common name on both Fandom and our Discord server at all was a deal-breaker, but you repeatedly prevaricated every step of the way through the process, going back on compromises and giving non-committal and dis-earnest responses again and again that displayed no appreciation of the exhaustive efforts the team were showing to help you. You procrastinated so long with vague answers ("I'll see", "Soon") that the team felt that you were taking advantage of our patience to drag out the problem indefinitely, and you quit (with nothing but the Plankton meme) on 27 May only when you were faced with the demand to adopt one of our compromises within 48 hours if you wished to remain a moderator.

The technicality of you resigning before the 48 hours had elapsed is inconsequential. The team unanimously believed that you were unfit to be a moderator. In addition to some of the moderators finding your conduct towards them disrespectful, uncooperative, and inappropriate, you came under suspicion of only desiring to be a moderator to try to circumvent the need for phone verification to access our server. We do not express this suspicion lightly. Your request to be a moderator was preceded by 5 messages over the course of months indicating dissatisfaction with the security measure. This was followed by a 6th message asking "would giving me a role bypass it?". Only 9 minutes later, you made your request to be a moderator, which against my better judgement, I entertained only because I thought it was fair that I present it to the team as opposed to ruling against it unilaterally and because your behaviour on the forums then had not yet given me cause for concern. As well, the moment you were promoted, you remarked upon finally being able to bypass the phone verification, and the moment you quit, you lamented that phone verification was once again a barrier for you.

"The case" in question I'm referring to is only this whole incident that you were very well present for. I didn't just "secretly create [a] whole case about it" after your demotion. Since then, you have made a request to have your mod rights restored on 1 June, in complete defiance of all that was said and done just several days prior, and then you tried to argue the whole case once again while throwing shots at the other moderators. On 26 July, you asked to be given the editor role on the wiki instead and expressed annoyance three days later at not having yet received a response to it. Here, I should point out that I had actually manually approved you for messaging on our server again on 26 July without yet granting you the editor role while I investigated your qualifications for it, but apart from finding that you did not meet those qualifications, the team by consensus were opposed to approving you for messaging on our server at all. You messaged me twice more on 30 July and 3 August, returning back to the matter of bypassing phone verification and bringing us back to square one, and you reminded me again on 17 August.

While I admit I ideally should've gotten back to you on those last messages, throughout the entire history of our correspondence and your interaction with the team, you displayed a persistent unwillingness to take "No" for an answer, always trying to negotiate, bargain, or "lobby" for ways past the "No". I spoil you by even continuing to spend so much time dignifying you with my repeated explanations of the problem.

Regarding you demonstrating no integrity regarding promises, that is already clearly in this very evening's thread when you said "I promise not to drag anything", then proceeded to drag this matter on again, and when you wrote "I won't speak about this further in this thread", then proceeded to post two more comments talking back. Although I certainly could, it should not be necessary to go blow-by-blow revisiting every instance where you displayed this pattern of going against your word to the moderators. Your focus on trying to dispute fine details in minutiae about your incident misses the big picture of the recurring behavioural issue.

I will tell you here and now that this will be our very last correspondence on this matter. If you revive this argument once again with any member of the moderation team, you will be given a ban. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:56, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Pages

Hello! Where could I find a list of pages that need to be added to the wiki? I would love to help out more where possible. I have a great deal of knowledge on all the games bar Rogue, as I replay them regularly, so you can trust that my information will be reliable :) —unsigned comment by Raythehiddenone (talk · contr)

Hello! You can find such a list here. Please make sure your edits are in accordance with our manual of style and welcome aboard! - Soranin (talk) 22:48, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. I'll also try to add to the stubs. Raythehiddenone (talk) 00:18, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Heyy again!

Hello! I'm wondering if you guys are in need of another forum moderator, as Mirage is around the corner and thus activity increasing. If so, I'd be more than happy to help out! Why do I want to be a moderator, well I've been an Assassin's Creed fan since 2011, and I've been using your wiki since 2012. AC has gotten me through a lot of dark days, and I honestly feel indebted to the franchise. And because your wiki has taught me a lot of valuable information, I really want to give back in some way. I haven't been here long, but this already seems like a cool community which I would want to stick around.

I'm not big on editing, but I try to contribute here and there, with hopefully more pages to come. I'm very active in the forums though as I love talking with fellow fans. I have a fair deal of wiki experience, I've edited on other wiki sites way back in the day. And I have a good deal of knowledge on AC so I could help answer any questions that arise, and help settle any disputes if there is any.

I hope you'll consider giving me the role, and I look forward to hearing back! If you want to contact me in private, please add me on Discord, my username is raythehiddenone.

Raythehiddenone (talk) 04:19, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello Ray, it's always nice to see a new, dedicated contributor around here. We need all the help we can get because of how much the Assassin's Creed franchise has expanded. We aren't actively looking for another forum moderator at this time and don't usually take applications. We also expect moderators to have had substantial experience working with our community, so while your offer is much appreciated, it's a bit early to take it into consideration at this time.

This is particularly so because our team has merged the forum moderator and wiki moderator role together, meaning promotion to one means promotion to the other simultaneously. The moderator is then permitted to choose for themselves what area of moderation they prefer to contribute to. Although this grants maximum flexibility to the moderator as to what duties to undertake, it also means that there are higher baseline qualifications for their selection.

We thank you for your passion in contributing to our wiki and its community and look forward in turn to seeing more of your work. :) Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 15:07, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

That's alright, maybe another time :) Raythehiddenone (talk) 17:36, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi again, I have a question, what's the difference between forum moderator and wiki moderator on this wiki? I did a search on Fandom earlier and it seems there's 2 types of moderator roles, thread moderator and Content moderator, I assume that's what you're referring to? If so, I'd be happy to perhaps just take on thread moderator sometime if you'll have me as I'm most interested in the forums. (Could you perhaps tell me the qualifications for that?) Just really want to give back, but I'm satisfied with whatever your decision is :) Raythehiddenone (talk) 03:13, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Forum moderator and wiki moderator are alternative names for thread moderator and content moderator respectively, yes. As I have already explained in my previous response, our local wiki practice merges the two roles together into one: a moderator. Qualifications for being a moderator include competency and good character.

Competency involves experience with working on the wiki and familiarity with site policies, the community culture and negotiation process, and the formatting style as laid out in our manual of style so that whenever a new editor needs assistance, you would be able to provide it. Currently, you yourself are a new editor, with only 15 edits in your record. Activity on the forums is not a metric because merely posting prolifically does not necessarily prove any ability to be a skilled contributor able to assist other users struggling with edits, nor would a high quantity of posts necessarily mean good conduct has been displayed.

Good character includes but is not limited to a sense of responsibility and integrity; a respect for community guidelines; humility and patience when making mistakes; honesty; a growth-oriented attitude; and an ability to cooperate with others by being willing to assume good faith, by being receptive of feedback, and by being willing to make the effort to move the conversation along. It also entails trustworthiness, which is really something that has to be demonstrated over time through positive interactions with other members of the community. Finally, it goes without saying that for a user to prove good character, they cannot commit offences such as vandalism or sockpuppetry.

For future reference as well, "bumping" a talk page message by making a non-genuine edit is not a correct way of sending a reminder. If you wish to remind a user about a message they may have missed, you can simply post that reminder as a new message, but you also have to be considerate that the recipient may simply not have had the time to get back to you yet. 5-7 days is a good guideline depending on the severity of the issue, but "bumping" a message when less than 24 hours has elapsed is not. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 18:30, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying. I used to wiki edit a lot back in the day, but not on this specific wiki, so you are correct that I am a new editor here. I have given the policies a good read, and as I mentioned I have a great amount of knowledge on the series as I've been playing since 2011, and have platinumed all the mainline games, so I would be able to help with information and facts if people struggle with that. I'm hoping to make more pages of my own in the near future, I was just saying that I overall prefer the forum aspect, I often check it to kill time during work lol. In regards to conduct, I try to be as friendly and courteous as possible.

For the forums, I have noticed many people incorrectly categorizing posts, this one of the reasons I would like to be a moderator, so that I can help categorize the posts.

However, I can understand your concern on me not being here very long. I would also like to apologize for the "bump", it's just that I know FANDOM don't notify people of Talk Page replies, so I wanted to make sure you see my reply, as there was someone else making many edits around the time that my reply repidly vanished from recent changed. I will definitely keep this in mind for next time though. I also see that there's an active Discord server, would you prefer I contact you there about anything going forward? I understand that many people prefer instant messaging. Raythehiddenone (talk) 19:58, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Fandom does in fact notify users of talk page messages, and I would actually prefer that you continue to use my talk page for future inquiries rather than Discord messaging. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 21:53, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I meant that it doesn't notify of replies. And that's OK :) Raythehiddenone (talk) 22:11, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh actually it does notify users to replies as well. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 22:15, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Greetings

Can we talk about medievalvibes? —unsigned comment by Patrick61010 (talk · contr)

Who is this? Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 02:40, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

A friend of medievalvibes. why exactly was he banned so unfairly? —unsigned comment by Patrick61010 (talk · contr)

I mean it's not like I'm medievalvibes himself. so please unblock him. —unsigned comment by Patrick61010‎ (talk · contr)

Sol, Patrick61010 is the latest in somewhere around 800 or 900 sockpuppet accounts of MIDKOWITCH. He contacted MedievalVibes, passing himself off as a random person who just happened to stumble across the block you set on Medieval, offering to try to get the block removed.

The messages above are a fishing attempt to get information out of you that he could use to play you against Medieval, which he's done before. If you look at Medieval's message wall on the Villains Wiki, you'll see Patrick61010 gloating about trying to trick Medieval. There's also an admission that he's attempting to get you to change Medieval's block to a permanent block, which belies his seemingly innocent-looking question about the block being unfair.

If you have any questions about this, let me know. —RRabbit42 (talk) 05:19, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

It took a couple of days, but this sockpuppet is now globally blocked, as is almost all of his other accounts. —RRabbit42 (talk) 22:34, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello RRabbit, we actually caught on to Patrick's act pretty quickly, but the ridiculous irony with the situation was that MedievalVibes had already been committing real sockpuppetry with the account Raythehiddenone. You need not worry because Patrick did not play us against MedievalVibes; MedievalVibes had already crossed too many lines himself. Because the matter was under investigation and deliberation at the time, we refrained from getting back to you immediately about this, so my apologies for that. But we thank you for taking the extra step of notifying our community about this issue with Patrick as well. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 17:05, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

My article

I see my Haystack article was deleted, (mind you, it took me a while to make) could you tell me what site policies it violated? I understand the sourcing policy now, and will keep it in mind for next time, but can you tell me what else it violated? Just want to make sure I know for next time :) Raythehiddenone (talk) 19:50, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Religion/Philosophies Article

Hi Sol Pacificus,

I understand and I usually check on any new page I make throughout the day and the week to proofread and make multiple minor edits if needed. Nevertheless, your response is true and I never meant to offend anyone's beliefs or to misinform. I'll take your words under advisement and gratitude. I'll try to publish after proofreading beforehand more often starting now and also stay away from these pages until I better my English skills. Thank you for your feedback. Batfan13 (talk) 18:42, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh Batfan, it's nothing to feel bad about. I actually didn't really notice anything in the "Hinduism" article you just created that was somehow glaringly offensive—just some wording I wasn't sure about. It's just that not being either Hindu or Indian and knowing from experience how exacting people can be about how religious beliefs are described, I thought it best to be safer than sorry. It's true that I do often have concerns about your English, but you really did nothing wrong, and I recognize that you've always been trying the best you can to help improve the wiki and that's what really matters. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 22:17, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Image categories

Hello Sol,
Your current work on another bout of reorganizing page categories for Greek people made me think of something. Should the images for Isu-related things/people follow the same most specific rule? Just was thinking because many files mainly from Odyssey and Valhalla are sorted for objects as [Game/Images], [Piece of Eden/Images], [Spears or Staves of Eden/Images], [Gungnir or Spear of Leonidas or Staff of Hermes/Images] and for people as [Game/Images] [Isu/Images] [Norse or Greek god/Images]. I know I've been guilty of over-using the categories like this. This likely also applies to the older Apples of Eden, now that I think back on it. With the recategorizing, wouldn't [Piece of Eden/Images] be just a list of all the [object/Images] categories to sort through rather than every image with, for example, the Staff of Hermes? Now, I am aware that this is definitely very far from a pressing need. It's just a possible backburner maintenance thought that crossed my head. – Darman (talk) 05:20, 25 November 2023 (UTC)