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Problem Pages[edit]

Discussion moved here from UESPWiki:Community Portal#Disambig pages

Well, since the Special:Disambiguations page started working properly, I've been going through the list (with some help from others) clearing off what I could. A large chunk I just got rid of by moving the Morrowind (base item) redirects back onto the main link - e.g.: Morrowind:Expensive Amulet now links directly to the item page rather than a relatively needless disambig page. (See Morrowind talk:Items#Base Item Redirects for a brief discussion of why I felt this was appropriate.) What remains is a bit questionable. Two pages I was unable to edit or even view were Morrowind:Merchant List and Morrowind:Alchemy Merchants, both of which link to the Vivec disambig instead of the city. Not sure why these pages won't load, but I do know that they're both rather large, so there may be server-lag issues. Several of the pages on here are redirects from alternate spellings - I think a nice optimization would be to make the Disambiguations page ignore all redirects, but that would require some PHP changes I'm sure, so - beyond me. Besides that, we have five links to the Oblivion:Arena page, which need to be changed to go to Oblivion:Arena (faction), but since they're being created by the Faction template, it might be tricky to fix those. Lastly are a few links to keys found in Morrowind, several of which share names. I guess those should link directly to Morrowind:Keys, but I don't feel like it now. Anyhow, not bad getting it down from over 150 to less than 20. Any suggestions for the remaining problem pages? --TheRealLurlock Talk 21:35, 20 June 2008 (EDT)

The problem with the two merchant pages is that the mass of templates they use make them too large for the server. They actually don't link to Vivec any more because I fixed them all a couple of days ago, but those two won't save properly. If the templates that, for example, display the number of bottles of booze were to come off then people might be able to view the information let alone edit it. –RpehTCE 04:01, 21 June 2008 (EDT)
Has something major changed on the site? Because these pages used to be editable. (I mean, I created them somehow, didn't I?) Anyhow, there's really not much I can do about fixing them, since I can't even look at them, so I guess we're stuck unless somebody else has any ideas... --TheRealLurlock Talk 10:49, 21 June 2008 (EDT)
I seem to clearly recall that when you made the last major expansion of the Merchant List article it took a dozen-odd tries before you could save the page. See, for example, my comments at Morrowind talk:Merchant List stating that "it nearly crashes the server when edits are made." I also remember Eshe being completely unable to edit the page (thus my edit summary on January 7th when I was able to make the edit that she'd been unsuccessfully trying to make all day). So, no, there is nothing that has changed on the site. It was nearly impossible to edit these pages last November, it was nearly impossible to edit the pages in January, and it is nearly impossible to edit these pages now. It's only possible to successfully make edits to these problem pages when the server load is particularly low, which hasn't been the case for most of the last week (and definitely won't be true all weekend, so please, everybody, could we not even try until next week, because each attempt just ties up the server for 15 minutes).
I would like to revamp these pages so that they are manageable. I have ideas about how to fix them, as detailed at Morrowind talk:Merchant List. But there was a distinct lack of response to my last two suggestions (other than rpeh's suggestion to delete all of the icons and colored text, which I personally sympathize with but I'm reluctant to do without any other feedback), so nothing has happened. Especially for a page that is practically orphaned and redundant, when I can't even find out why it's needed in addition to Morrowind:Merchants (which incidentally is not broken and and is not impossible to view). But if we'd all rather just declare the pages unfixable and give up on them, then I'd also be happy just deleting the articles and getting rid of the headache completely. --NepheleTalk 14:24, 21 June 2008 (EDT)
I'd go for deletion to be honest. The pages are clear examples of Style over Substance and the Merchants page does the job much better and without taking the site down. –RpehTCE 05:32, 22 June 2008 (EDT)
Would it perhaps work better if all the potion icon etc. templates were subst'ed into the page? That'd cut down the pre-expand size significantly, and might make it viewable/editable again. Obviously, such a change would have to wait until it can actually be editted. These pages still have many useful features that Morrowind:Merchants does not, such as indicating more specifically what kinds of goods each merchant sells, and being sortable so that you can see who sells the most. If there's a way to make them work without killing the server, I'd like to try that before just deleting them. --TheRealLurlock Talk 09:04, 22 June 2008 (EDT)
Oh, and for the record, one of the reasons Morrowind:Merchants loads so quickly is because it's a very incomplete list - there's like 10 times that many merchants in the game. I'm not sure what DrPhoton's criteria were for splitting this page, but I don't think he finished. --TheRealLurlock Talk 09:07, 22 June 2008 (EDT)
I'd love to give some input on the Merchant List, alas I am unable to open it ;) What I can say is that Morrowind:Merchants is underwhelming and incomplete, so if Nephele's fixes could make the Merchant List actually functionally, I'd be all for it. --BenouldTC 13:26, 22 June 2008 (EDT)
I've made some updates to the Merchant List, which I documented at Morrowind talk:Merchant List since that seemed more appopriate; feedback there is welcome. I've also made some more superficial changes to Morrowind:Alchemy Merchants, but those changes definitely weren't enough (saving the page just gave me an ugly error screen, although the save registered). I'll discuss more at Morrowind talk:Alchemy Merchants. --NepheleTalk 03:35, 25 June 2008 (EDT)