I'm wondering, should I take the Obscure texts as canon? Should I accept them as long as nothing in-game contridicts them? Or, are they more of a http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfDante then http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod?

Canon, yes. Truth, no. Just like any in-game book. Anything at The Imperial Library is canon to me though.

We cannot say how YOU should perceive them. TES is a giant hub of fantasy, and for everyone that giant hub has a different color. You can choose yourself if you like it as canon, or if you don't. We are given a lot of beautiful legolike blocks with which we can build our own TES world. It's up to you how and which ones you use.

For a straight answer in completely straightforward terms (yes I'm in a boring mood): Pete Hines says "it depends." The general consensus is that all of them are canonically something people think happened. Whether they are true or not is, like all TES in-universe texts, deliberately left open to interpretation.

As for their "cred," because people feel this is important, if they aren't simply books that never made it in, they're usually ideas that the writer was present for the creation of but that have not yet been used in a game, written out longhand in story form. A good example is the kalpa-cycles. That was in an Obscure Text, but became relevant in Skyrim.

Like most games, or Fantasy Novels, the Lore is created before the game and story is created. This creates a consistent world in which to place the plot. The in game books are the Lore. Kirkbride, Noonan, Rolstan and Goodall were all involved in the early stages of the series development and wrote the Lore for the series that the games are based on. Sure, some of the Lore was created or introduced as each game came out, but the TES world was pretty well defined early on the series.

Yet, and I'm specifically referring to Kirkbride's texts, there are quite a few texts added much later, after the lore had already been shaped and MK was no longer employed by Beth.

Interesting, I've never seen that quote before. Source?

But the lore had been shaped before he stopped working there, that's why we tend to accept them as, if not truth, as lore.

It was on the twitter. There was that guy who was trying to disprove the lore texts he didn't like, and he asked Pete four questions which were answered chronologically, it was really quite humorous when he tried to rearrange the answers to make it look like pete said they were non-canon not realizing I, too, follow Pete on the twitter. But since this happened way before Skyrim I think it may have disintegrated into the ether of the twitter by now.

I know, and I accept them just like most people here, I'm just naming the reasons anybody would have not to believe them.

If you enjoy the obscure texts individually, and enjoy what they add to the world as a whole, what does it matter whether they are canon or not?

MK wrote the Pocket Guide to the Empire and the 36 Sermons, the practical and the metaphysical foundations of the setting. Regardless of who is or isn't presently on the Bethesda payroll, MK is the authority on the subject. (He isn't the sole contributor - CCNA listed others, for example. The takehome message though should be MK is more justified in judging the canonicity of Bethesda's work than vice versa.)

People get hung up on that, though. Not just in this series but in a lot. For example, Burnie Burns always dances around the question of melding Red vs Blue and Halo canon and generally seems to encourage exactly that thought process but people keep asking "does it/where does it fit into the Halo story?"

That's really a matter of opinion, and it doesn't do justice to others who contributed to TES.