User talk:Vetinari

Welcome to the Order, Vetinari!

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Feel free to contact me on my talkpage if you need anything. Master Sima Yi (talk) 23:32, July 21, 2015 (UTC)

Lavoisier

Hey Vetinari,

Did you play the "Chemical Revolution" DLC by any chance? If so, I'd like to ask you for a favour. I've tried to activate the content myself but it doesn't work for some reason - can you transcribe the database entries for Lavoisier and his wife for me? I'd really appreciate it, cause I haven't found them online anywhere.

Thanks for reading, have a nice day :) Crook ^{The Constantine District} 16:55, October 5, 2015 (UTC)

Assassin's Creed movie

Hi my name is crazybob and i owned a new ubisoft wiki called Ubisoft motion pictures wiki and i need some volunteers to help me out with the assassin's creed movie coming out in 2016. CB2014 19:55, November 19, 2015 (UTC)

Movie Novelization Special Edition

Hey Vetinari,

From your recent edits on the Movie novelization article, can I conclude that you have the Special Edition? I was wondering if there was anything of interest in there that could be added to the wiki (I myself only have the plain paperback lol). Since there's apparently concept art, you could totally upload that or something. Again, this is all assuming you actually have the Special Edition, so uh, get back to me on that? :p Crook ^{The Constantine District} 22:38, January 14, 2017 (UTC)

Abstergo Madrid

Hey Vetinari,
I put the Delete template on the page because Jasca already stated here that the Abstergo Foundation Rehab Ctr *is* Abstergo Madrid. I assume(??) the longer name is the official public title, while the shorter one is for the CEO, Board of Directors, etc. to quickly differentiate between the Abstergo's global branches, but I'm just guessing on that. Anyway, thought I'd let you know my reasoning - Darman (talk) 01:00, February 18, 2019 (UTC)

Thought it might happen but it seems to me that the rehab centre is part of the Abstergo Madrid building rather than Abstergo Madrid being another name for Abstergo Foundation. Though I don't think it's clear anymore whether or not Abstergo Foundation is a company in and of itself or a specific medical centre within Madrid. As far as I know Jasca is interpreting the same info I am rather than there being official word somewhere. Plus I would argue merge into Abstergo Madrid instead of outright deletion. ;) Vetinari^{(Appointment)} 01:14, February 18, 2019 (UTC)

Or I should recheck the novel, eep. Vetinari^{(Appointment)}

"Abstergo facility in Madrid". Vetinari^{(Appointment)} 01:22, February 18, 2019 (UTC)

There's a Special Edition??? *sigh* Of course. Would've liked to have known earlier, but you say I'm not missing much. According to the O.E.D., foundations are separate from an industry/ company. In short, they raise money while the parent company uses it for products, research, etc, so that's one issue resolved. Thus, it isn't too far to suppose the Rehab Center is one of the Foundation's many possible assets. Whether Abstergo has a branch and the Fdn in Madrid or if the Fdn is Madrid is the issue, and here I still think we should hedge our bets: better to have to write the page later if/when more info comes than confuse readers (AC and non-AC alike) with details based on unclear descriptions. - Darman (talk) 02:05, February 18, 2019 (UTC)

AWBs

I've responded to your message on my talk page. --Jasca Ducato (talk | contributions) 09:00, February 18, 2019 (UTC)

Merge Proposals

Hello! I just opened up a discussion on our open merge proposals. It's quite long, but if we discuss it we can close them (especially because there are some from 2014 still unsolved :o)

If you have the time, could you offer some input? Thank you a lot. - Soranin (talk) 22:27, May 21, 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a source

Hello, I saw your edit summary on Njörðr, and I wanted to explain why our wiki sometimes cites to Wikipedia and why it is not always viable to relegate information not given in an Assassin's Creed source to the behind the scenes section.

We have had a long history of wrestling with this problem where being absolutely, unrelentingly strict about citing only to Assassin's Creed sources can actually produce awkward gaps in the writing or otherwise drastically stunt the flow. This is because Assassin's Creed is a work of historical fiction based on the real-world such that some basic information about subjects are not always explicitly stated by Ubisoft, who may assume that it is already common knowledge or that that bits of that background context can be searched up by players on their own. Therefore, our wiki has come to permit taking information from external sources to a limited extent.

Of course, this alone does not explain why we would cite to Wikipedia which is known to not be authoritative. There are two reasons for this. First, editors often do not have immediate access to more authoritative sources but need to work efficiently.

Second, there is a misconception about the purpose of citation. While it is always better to cite to more authoritative sources and citing to a less credible one damages one's credibility, the practice of sourcing is ultimately based in the principle of transparency. The fact of the matter is that people often do not take information from the best sources, but they will hide that fact by refusing to cite at all! The real purpose of citation is to be open and honest about where one has taken their information even if it is a bad source. This way, people can better gauge and judge the credibility of the information you are providing. I know that you might think that it is better than not to take information from Wikipedia at all in the first place, but then we return to the first point about filling in gaps left by Assassin's Creed. Citing to Wikipedia is not ideal, but if an editor does happen to take information from Wikipedia because they did not bother consulting more authoritative sources, they are required to cite to Wikipedia so that we know. This is better than the previous practice of editors constantly taking from Wikipedia anyways but trying to hide that fact. ._.

All that having been said, it is possible to argue that the info about Njörðr being the father of the twins Freyr and Freyja is not so necessary that it needs to be mentioned if Assassin's Creed doesn't. (This is as opposed to other cases where the most significant info about the subject is not mentioned by Assassin's Creed).

I just thought that it was important to explain this ahead of time for future reference. Using Wikipedia as a source being folly is a common stigma, but it's more complicated than that. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 21:49, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oh I get it, I don't like it but I get it. The Indiana Jomes Wiki bumps up against real history, deliberate anachronisms for dramatic effect and assumed knowledge often enough that finding a clean compromise isn't necessarily possible. Sourcing nightmare. I still find assertions like Aletheia being Veritas and Greek goddess of truth blah when that seems to go against her MO in Odyssey though and no-one's even added the Wikipedia citation to that yet. ;) Vetinari^{(Appointment)} 22:18, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I was just explaining the general policy. This doesn't mean that individual cases like the one you just mentioned regarding Aletheia, which I'm not familiar with, might not still be wrong due to conflicts with Assassin's Creed lore or being too speculative. You are certainly free to contest those. Likewise, it's to be expected there are errors which have slipped through here and there in the wiki where editors failed to follow the guidelines and cite properly.

I do think that if you were later to encounter examples where it's actually seriously problematic not to use external sources, you could then better appreciate why this is a necessary measure. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 22:46, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Also just to be clear, in cases where the facts are different in the Assassin's Creed universe, that would automatically overwrite the real historical facts, so these aren't the cases where there would be a problem.

The problem I'm referring to is say if Beijing has never been mentioned as the capital of China in Assassin's Creed, whether during the Ming or currently. Then strict sourcing policy would dictate that it is forbidden to ever mention that Beijing is a capital anywhere in our wiki. So, our article for Beijing would have to describe it as a major city at most (or even more strictly, just a city) or the city where the Forbidden Palace is located (according to Chronicles: China). Both are not wrong, but they would awkwardly beat around the bush about the actual main significance of the city even in the game it appears: it was the capital of the Ming dynasty, something we would never be allowed to just say. So external sources are used to cover cases where technicalities would force us to make unnatural writing choices. Another scenario is in articles on wars and battles where the Assassin's Creed sources only shows part of a war or battle, and we are left with the possibility that we cannot transition from one scene of the battle to another in the battle if we are strictly using only Assassin's Creed sources. These are the "awkward" holes I am referring to.

On closer inspection, I don't think your example with the "Aletheia" article was a relevant case, and it leaves me concerned you actually didn't get it. First, the sentence reads that she was considered a god[dess] in Greek mythology named Veritas, not that she really was a goddess. Second, our paragraph about her relation to "truth" is sourced directly to Database: Angrboda. Third, removing that sentence won't impede the writing quality, so it was not a good example.

Anytime you think that our articles have sentences which have not been properly cited, I encourage you to take initiative to add {{Fact}}. I also don't know why you assume the editor who wrote that took it from Wikipedia and not that it may have been mentioned in an Assassin's Creed source, but they forgot to cite it. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 03:19, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

• • • • I don't assume the editor got it from Wikipedia, I assume someone will credit it to Wikipedia unless it's mentioned in a Discovery Tour or something. Although I realised undoing an edit on the Nine Realms page that I think I used Wikipedia and other unsatisfying Googling for that page to list nine since ten are referenced. Vetinari^{(Appointment)} 22:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah that's not what I meant. I wasn't suggesting that our policy is to automatically credit information to Wikipedia if we don't know where information came from. The policy is that every editor has to take responsibility to cite where they got their information, even if they think it is a bad source, so there is transparency that they added information to the article taken from a bad source. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 22:34, 12 May 2021 (UTC)