Morrowind talk:Kill Raynasa Rethan

Note About Article Ownership and Theft

To address the issues raised about my addition:

1A) Copied from another website: Yes, I had copied and pasted it, but I had fully attributed it, and while not 100% sure about how or if it even affects game mechanics differently than usual since I'm a Morrowind noob, the walkthrough writer from whom I had gotten it had seemed to think it significant enough to highlight and so I thought it had been worth mentioning here as well.

1B) Copied from another website: Of course, if it had just been an issue of formatting the attribution incorrectly, then that could have been easily rectified.

As for the other issues raised about my addition:

2A) Not notable: The walkthrough writer from whom I had gotten the warning had thought it significant enough to highlight and so I had figured players reading about this quest on this site would possibly want to know as well. My line of thinking had been: This writer's walkthroughs tend to be the condensed versions, and so anything that the writer is highlighting is probably significant or different from the norm in some way, if even just slightly.

2B) Not notable: In addition, because it would have plausibly been the first time that some players would have been encountering some of the items in the room (e.g., this quest had been my first time coming across an ebony longsword), this was just an extra warning to players who cared about this sort of thing, i.e., that all future copies of anything they stole in Morrowind would forever be marked as stolen (again, a fact a new player like myself had not learned from UESP, but rather, via the other walkthrough writer's warning and only at this point in time when I had already completed nearly all the House Telvanni quests and had already stolen several other things).

And last, but not least:

3) Issue not unique to this quest or location: But actually, it is unique to this location (or so I think it is based on my understanding of the original text I had copied this warning from, (again, a noob, so I may be wrong)). See the original warning from the walkthrough below along with the link to the full text. Compare with the Note under Rethan Manor at https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Houses. I realize one is talking about the location as a quest and the other is talking about it as your stronghold, but I think they're talking about the same place? I think that's actually why there's an issue because the game views it as a faction stronghold, rather than as a character's property.

Original Warning: Caution: whatever you do, don't steal anything. There are all sorts of goodies just laying around (like those Ebony arrows and darts), but they're all owned by House Hlaalu and stealing them will taint the ownership attribute of every other item of that type that you get or have.

Credit: http://tesguides.com/tes3/quests/sadrithmora/telvanni.htm

Keneticmotion (talk) 13:44, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for a well-written and well-presented summary of the reasoning behind the edit. To address the points made here:

1A & 1B: It is the policy of UESPWiki that content is not to be copied from other websites. It is not a matter of attribution, it is a matter of copyright. We encourage all editors to contribute original content rather than copying material. In the case of a note such as this one, it is easy enough to put the issue in your own words that copy-pasting from another source is unnecessary.

2A & 2B: The issue of theft in Morrowind is covered in detail on the Crime page, including ownership and the fact that all similar items will forever be marked as "stolen". There is nothing about this location that makes the mechanics of theft here any different from any other location in the game. To note these mechanics in every location where theft is possible would result in a massive amount of duplicate and redundant information being presented. Why the author of the walkthrough in question decided to point these issues out here specifically is unknown, since the same can be said for any house or manor in the game which the player does not own.

3: As mentioned in the previous point, there is nothing unique about this location that makes theft here any different from any other location where theft is possible. The Rethan Manor note on the Houses page is referring to an issue which arises if the player owns Rethan Manor (i.e. is a member of House Hlaalu and has constructed the manor as part of the House Hlaalu quest line); in this case, the fact that items and containers are NPC-owned rather than faction-owned is significant as it means you will be guilty of theft even though you own the manor (which is different from Indarys Manor and Tel Uvirith, hence noteworthy). However, this distinction is irrelevant for the current quest, since you would (obviously) not be a member of House Hlaalu and would not own the manor, and removing anything from the manor would be considered theft either way.

In summary, UESPWiki strives to be an encyclopedic source of information on the Elder Scrolls series of games, and information is presented in detail in a variety of different places. Article notes are usually used to point out and highlight things which are different, unusual, exceptional, or unexpected in some way, rather than to provide information which is comprehensively covered elsewhere. While I acknowledge and respect the fact the edit in question was made in good faith in an effort to improve the article and inform the reader, the fact that taking things from Rethan Manor during this quest constitutes theft does not, in my opinion, warrant an explicit mention as the mechanics and consequences of theft are covered elsewhere and there is nothing which makes theft from this location different from theft in any other location in the game.

— Wolfborn^(Howl) 22:19, 10 July 2021 (UTC)