New Scholar's Guide

Greetings, and welcome to The Elder Scrolls Lore wiki.

This is a guide to help you understand the nature of this wiki, and why it exists.

Apocrypha
WIP

Learning Lore
Before one can post and participate in /r/teslore, a new scholar has to get the basic knowledge of the lore. Note that it is impossible to simply summarize ES lore, as it is vast and contains far too many topics, but there are some sources that can get you started. The best way to start is by reading the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages’ Overview of history can give you a good overview of historical events you will need to understand in order to participate in /r/teslore. After you have read through the history, the best way to start learning is by researching different things you care about in www.uesp.net and http://www.imperial-library.info/. Look up any article, and follow links from there. For example, if I were to be a new scholar interested in Argonian culture, I would look up Argonian information in UESP. From there, I would be interested in Black Marsh’s history, and would look that up. Then I would research the rest of the provinces, and then I would research Yokuda, Akavir, and Pyandonea. Suddenly I have a large amount of lore knowledge, just from being curious and looking up articles. It is strongly suggested that every new scholar should do this. Curiosity is what drives understanding. Once you think you have a good basic understanding of lore, it’s time to start getting involved in the subreddit.

Posting In The Forums
So you think you know a good amount of basic lore, but now your questions are greater and cannot be simply answered by looking up a definition or an article. That is perfect. This is what gets a new scholar started.

Questions aren’t always for threads, though. It is heavily stressed that one should always read the FAQ before posting. This applies to both new posters and old ones- as no scholar likes to answer the same question 20 times. The FAQ can be a great place for simple learning like the one suggested in Learning Lore. Read through the FAQ, get to know the popular questions, and read through and analyze the answers.

So now you have a question, you know it’s not in the FAQ, and you really want to ask the community. Great, it’s time to post a thread.

Every thread should have a good, non-misleading title. Make sure to make it clear what you are posting about in your thread. Please refrain from posting threads with very general titles such as “I have a few questions” and “Just want some criticism on this theory”. Titles such as these can be easily fixed by adding the specific topic of your post in your titles (Ex. “I have a few questions about Alduin” or “Just want some criticism on this theory concerning Astrid’s control over the Dark Brotherhood”).

In the post itself, a scholar should make it clear what his/her question/theory/etc. is about.

If you are posting a question, it is suggested that you also make it clear what knowledge you do understand on the subject so that a commenting scholar can adjust his/her comment to make sense to you. If you do not, don’t be surprised if the answering scholar uses terms you do not understand.

If you are posting a theory or an explanation of lore, make sure to support your claims with sources and be ready to argue for your theory. Good sources are the UESP website and the Imperial Library- but some other /r/teslore posts and lore forums links can be just as good. If a commenter asks you to make your writing clearer to them, or ask for any additional information, do your best to answer them clearly and provide any additional information needed.

Once you have posted your thread, scholars will do their best to answer your questions and add to your theories. Do respond to your commenters- be it to argue with them or just simply thank them for their help. If a highly voted comment does not get a response from the OP (original poster), its commenter may feel as if their comment did not answer the OP’s question. Remember the rules established in the sidebar- upvote clear, explanatory, thoughtful comments and never downvote if you simply do not agree with the comment. If you do not agree with the comment, make a good comment arguing against it. Making a good argument and strongly debating it is much better and more honorable than simply throwing around downvotes.

So go ahead and post, reply to the comments, and post again. As long as you are curious and want to know more, never stop asking.

Becoming A Good Scholar
After you have started posting and commenting you are ready to start your existence as a scholar of ES lore. Now that you know how to handle yourself in the subreddit, start getting involved! Post in the community threads, give your opinions and answers to others’ questions, upvote and downvote, and most importantly remember to learn. If you ever go by the thought that you are ultimately knowledgeable and have no more to learn, you are not worthy of being called a scholar. A good scholar always seeks new frontiers. Imagine if humans in the renaissance age decided that they can never learn more- that their way of life is perfect and nothing should change. The same goes for understanding of lore. As long you are interested, keep learning. It really all comes down to curiosity. Now that you know the basics you are ready to unleash that curiosity at the subreddit and start getting involved. Don’t be afraid, we all had a start.

Remember:
 * Post, get involved, and keep on asking questions.
 * So get out there! You’ve got to start somewhere, after all.

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