Forum interview: ask founder Dave H a question!

[Iamgoofball]

So...uhh...has DaveH responded yet?

[Avron the S'wit]

Give the man some time to answer the questions, silly! It's only fair.

[Daveh]

I do apologize for taking so long to answer this interview. Avron had told me about it last year but due to my poor memory and having too much on the site to do it slipped my mind. If you'd like to follow up on my answers or have other questions feel free to continue the discussion in this topic (I promise to follow it closely).

Do you have a favourite race to play as in the elder scrolls?

I don’t think I have one specific favorite race. In the early ES games I used to always play a Dark Elf but in more recent games I’ve played a variety of races depending on the character style: Redguard for a warrior, High Elf for a magic user, etc....

What kind of music do you like?

I’m not a big music listener and have a very wide range of favorite songs/groups from old school rock (Queen, Abba), country (Johnny Cash) and some more modern hip hop/pop.

You get three wishes off a genie. What do you wish for?

• The ability the make the world a better place
• A long and healthy life
• Go back in time and answer this interview earlier

You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down. You look down and see a tortoise, Dave. It's crawling toward you. You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Dave. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that, Dave?

Apparently I’m just begin a jerk in this imaginary scenario.

What made you start the UESP in the first place?
What was your goal when you started the Daggerfall FAQ's page?

I encountered and fell quickly in love with Arena after it was released and started to frequent the ES Usenet boards. There was a lot of talk and rumours about Daggerfall being in production at the time so I decided to start the Daggerfall FAQ which collected and organized all the pre-release information. After around a year of doing the text FAQ the WWW started on the scene and the FAQ was translated to the HTML format. The other FAQ editors and I discussed the need for a general ES site and so the UESP was born.

Are you surprised at how awesome and popular it has become?

Most definitely yes. I didn’t start the site with any desire to see it grow large/popular but, like how many sites are begun, just as an outlet to share my love of the ES games with other fans.

Who was the first MOD besides you, and why?

For the first 10 or so years of the UESP I was the one and only admin/editor. People would send me tips and information which I would manually add to the HTML pages. When we changed to a wiki format in 2005 Aristeo was the first active editor and later being the first admin. Due to a differences of opinion he left the site some time afterwards but was integral in getting all the original HTML content into the wiki and the site’s look and organization.

Which describes you: Paranoid, Crazy, Fun, Normal?

Depending on my mood I could be any of those but if having to pick just one it would be “fun” but in a quiet/relaxed way.

If you could be an animal what would you be and why?

A mudcrab (the talking kind obviously)

How hard was it for you to create the wiki and the forums?

It wasn’t necessarily hard as it was time consuming. While I’ve always been strong in computers I’ve had to learn everything for the site as I go which tends to take longer and lead to learning by trial and error...mostly the latter unfortunately.

At what point in the wiki's life did people start to show up?

The site was already reasonably popular when we changed to the wiki format so its audience came along with it. It also likely helped grow the site as now anyone could of helped contribute.

What caused you to create a forum page for the UESP?
What was the motivation behind the separate forums? Why not keep discussion on the talk pages or go for a wiki-style forum?
Did you intend for the forums to become so separate from the wiki or was it a natural progression?
What was your original motivation to create the forums?
Did the forums turn out to be anything that you thought in would, or extremely different?

We’ve had various forums over the years at the request of the users of the UESP. Early in the wiki stage of the site we decided we didn’t want the talk pages to become forum-like discussions so needed a separate forum for the site. Whether this was a good idea could be debated but it is what we have.

Do you have any other sites that you run or help maintain?

There are small sites I’ve created/run the biggest being http://www.eqwiki.net which was a Wiki for the Everquest MMO when I was active in that game (I haven’t updated it in years and needs to be cleaned up). Similarly dave.uesp.net is my personal wiki for collecting thoughts and other things (I used to use the UESP wiki for such things but it became confusing). There is also the http://www.emergentgamedesign.com blog which is more for the game design side which I haven’t updated in a while due to lack of time.

Any future plans for UESP that you're willing to share? Major changes coming or anything like that?

I think the UESP overall is going very well and there isn’t much to change. There are lots of minor things to improve like search and mobile which are in process. There is also a good amount of development work that needs to be cleaned up and organized behind the scenes. I’d also like to become more involved in the ES community via the forums (UESP and elsewhere), twitter, facebook, youtube etc.... but I’m focussing on fixing the outstanding wiki issues first.

When did you create the chat room? Just recently, or more than a month ago? I just don't know.

I think someone else originally created and started chatting on IRC and it took off from there. I’ve never been a big user of IRC/chat rooms myself (which is why you rarely see me there I suppose).

I often feel like contributing to the wiki, but on all the pages I go to someone's added some much more valuable information than I had to offer. What would your absoulte #1 tip be for someone who knows the community and the games but never seems to be at the front line of wiki editing even though they want to contribute?

Don’t be intimidated if you have content to add but don’t really know the wiki format or site organization. What you can do is create an account and create pages under your own user name (like http://www.uesp.net/wiki/User:Daveh/Lucene_Search). Once you get it to a point you can ask for feedback on it from http://www.uesp.net/wiki/UESPWiki:Community_Portal or directly from the editors/admins. Or just edit pages directly...the other editors will correct/improve your formatting as needed.

Did you ever predict it becoming such a fun community, and less of a Q&A for people with questions?

I had no real goals when creating the forums and I’ve basically let the forum grow and develope according to the people who use. This is probably the best way of growing a community anyways as often if you try to force it one way or another you’ll just stunt its growth altogether.

Do you hate being social?

My nature has always been a quiet and withdrawn one so don’t take it personally. I am, however, getting much better in my old age!

This whole thing started more than a decade ago with the Daggerfall FAQ. How do you feel about the astounding progress UESP as made, if I remember correctly, being one of the top 5000 most visited websites on the internet?

It is something I’m very proud of starting and being a part of and will do everything I can to keep the UESP at the top.

Do you spend much time around the Forums, not in an administrative capacity or any other official capacity, but just browsing and reading some of the discussion the Forums have made possible?

I’m afraid to say I have not been an active reader to the forums in the past although it is something I’d like to change since I’m doing the UESP full time.

Additionally, how great a part of your life is maintaining the Forums, and Wiki for that matter?

Prior to working on the site full time this year I would typically spend 10-40 hours a week on the site, almost all of it on server/software side however and very little directly on the Wiki or forums itself. Now that I’m full time it is the usual 40-60 hours a week although some of the time is spent on corporate/administration tasks as I learn how to manage a real (but small) company.

Also, what do you do for fun? School? Work? etcetera.

By education I have a Masters in Physics although my work for the past 13 years was more engineering related than anything (building/using water pipeline magnetic field inspection tools). For fun I have too many hobbies: ultimate frisbee for exercise, wood and metal working, home improvement, and computer gaming (although not nearly as much as I used to).

Has anyone donated to the site other than you?

Before we started showing ads we did ask for donations once the site costs expanded beyond a simple VPS server. I think we collected a few hundred dollars in a few months from various people during that time.

As to question: how did it feel for you to see the UESP inaugurate each new chapter of the Elder Scrolls into the existing knowledge base?

Seeing a new ES game or expansion is always an exciting and busy time. I haven’t done much content related stuff in years but I know the wiki admins/editors are busy for weeks before and after a new game is released. For me it is more making sure the site doesn’t break. For example after Skyrim’s release the traffic grew by a factor of 10 within a days which resulted in a variety of performance issues I had to track down and fix.

Do you play Team Fortress 2? If so, what is your favorite class?

I used to play a lot of TF2, mainly before the hat craze though. I typically used to play medic or soldiers. Medics are a very important class in TF2 that no one in public games ever seemed to play so I’d also go medic if needed. If played well it is pretty easy to get the highest game score as a medic (it helps if you have someone who knows how to play a heavy).

[Musicman247]

Woohoo! Thanks for answering our questions, Dave! Very interesting answers. We look forward to seeing you around more! Thanks for all you do that we never even realize is being done.

[Avron the S'wit]

Your answers made me laugh, Dave - but with you, not at you! Thanks for swinging by to answer them. Don't be a stranger!

[Alphabetface]

Thanks so much for answering these questions, Dave! I wasn't around the forums when this topic started, but it's fun to get to know some more things about you. And I think it's awesome that you get to do this full-time now. We love seeing you more active around the wiki.