Phantom articles: Pick them
There is a rule which I think is intended, and meant to be obvious, but not actually stated anywhere (unless I missed it):
- You are meant to fill in the phantom articles cited by other people as you go - so if there are existing phantom articles for a letter on that letter's turn, you should seriously consider filling something in before making up a totally new entry, otherwise those phantoms may never get filled in. - MyrdemInggala 13 March 2006, at 10:17 AM SAST
- I concur - I'd even suggest that if you get to a page and the number of articles plus phantom slots equals the number of players, you should be forced to take a phantom slot - d@vid 2006/03/13 09h35
- I've added d@vid's point as a rule clarification since I assume that's what the rules intend. - Hodge 13 March 2006, at 11:28 AM SAST
Article references: Non-circular
Suggested tweak:
- You should not directly cite an article which has cited your article. Circular references are disreputable, so you shouldn't make them this obvious. - MyrdemInggala 11 March 2006, at 10:08 AM SAST
- I concur - d@vid 2006/03/13 09h35
- An amendment, related to the issue of additional references right at the bottom - if we allow more than the required number of references to be included, then maybe we can allow referring to an article that refers to you, but not make it count towards the minumum number. - MyrdemInggala 31 March 2006, at 03:10 PM SAST
Main page layout
Suggested tweak:
- The main page should NOT list the full citations and back-ref links for each article. This is already taking up too much space and the info in question is only relevant within the context of the actual articles. All in favour of removing this extraneous info from the main page and leaving it solely within the articles themselves, say Aye! Alternatively, create sub-pages for each alphabetical category, keep the current format and move all pages to their respective alphabetical category pages. All in favour of this option say...erm...Nurgle! - OOPMan 12 March 2006, at 11:23 AM SAST
- I'm very much against option two, so No-nurgle from me. I agree the main page is getting cluttered, but the information is quite useful. Wibble on the aye. - Hodge
- The clutter will only get worse and the information really is redundant. It already exists within the pages themselves and just makes using the contents a pain. It also makes editing the contents a hassle, or am I the only one who thinks Wiki markup could learn a lesson or two from XML and just generally be less ugly and non-intuitive... - OOPMan
- anti-aye and anti-nurgle; my intention for the front page layout was to have all the info neccessary for a player available in one place, at a glance (I regard the info on the individual pages as the redundant copy)
- regarding the markup, I don't think there's a problem (I avoided tables for that reason) - you may love or loathe markdown, btw
- perhaps create a separate LrSimpleContentsPage?? - d@vid 2006/03/13 09h53
- Meh. I agree that it's useful to have info about the citations on the front page, but I also find it irritating to have to write out lots of verbose markup for each entry. Making another contents page would exascerbate the problem; it would be one more place for people to have to put stuff manually! How about streamlining the format of the citations, to make them quicker and easier to enter, and make them take up less space? - MyrdemInggala 13 March 2006, at 10:17 AM SAST
- What about removing the information which occurs in multiple places on the front page? I'm thinking mostly of the author tags included in the references, since the author of an article can be determined by just scrolling around the page a bit. If no objections, I'll implement this later. - Hodge 13 March 2006, at 11:25 AM SAST
- d@ve, your position that the info the reference info in the articles is a little wack, to be frank. Open an encyclopedia. Take a look at the index. Do you see reference and citation links affixed to each index entry? Not last time I checked. there are two good reasons for this: It takes up space. The references and citations have a context primarily within the specific articles. It's not really useful to know that B is cited by A without knowing how exatcly B is cited in A, which you learn by reading the article in question...I really really really think that the index should be just that. An index, a quick entry point. If we really want an inter-linked web then we can come up with a separate thing like that after the whole thing is done. I just don't see a cluttered index page being of much use. - OOPMan 13 March 2006, at 08:03 PM SAST
- I don't regard the index as an "in-character" index, it's a tool for the players, and should contain information to facilitate running the game
- if you want a simple index, how about the RSS feed of the index page? (need to remove authors and null entries) - d@vid 2006 March 14 11h12 SAST
- Okay, well, I guess more people want the expanded index :-( Sigh. Minimalism dies once more ;-) - OOPMan 14 March 2006, at 10:09 PM SAST
- OK, reverse suggestion: since the references/cited by info on the index page is here to stay (in its slightly more compact form), why not chuck out the list of citations at the bottom of each article (leaving only an author name, and maybe the backlinks [automatically generated with a pagelist] ), and insert inline wiki links into the body of the article? - MyrdemInggala 31 March 2006, at 02:59 PM SAST
Phantom articles: Pre-booking
Suggested Tweak:
- Another discussion page be created so that people can "pre-book" the completion of future entries. It'll make it easier to determine, at least for now. In guess later on it won't be so necessary, as most letters will have enough entries to pin everyone down before hand, but near the beginning it could prove useful... - OOPMan 12 March 2006, at 07:15 PM SAST
- Agreed that we need a mechanism, but rather than a new page, perhaps just an announcement on the entry page itself about which scholar is working on this entry. I have just done one for Groundlings?. - Perry 13 March 09h13
- I'd suggest that this can only be done for the next letter, to prevent exceptional cases of pre-booking (but I won't take Groundlings?, Perry :) - d@vid 2006/03/13 09h35
- I second that - it's good to know at the start of a turn whether all the phantoms are covered, but being able to book aaaaages in advance seems a little unfair. Also, if new people join and have to catch up, it will be harder for them to interlink their stuff with other stuff if the existing players have pre-booked all the existing phantoms. - MyrdemInggala 13 March 2006, at 10:17 AM SAST
- I suggest booking by just filling in yourself as the author on the front page. "Booking" an article should commit you to writing that article. Also agree that you should only be able to book for the next letter. - Hodge 13 March 2006, at 11:25 AM SAST
- I agree that booking for the next letter only makes the most sense. Hodge's method seems like a good idea. I also think that one should not be able to book for an entry cited by oneself in the previous letter's section. What I mean is: If I write Aardvark for A and cite Buggery for B I can not write the Buggery article myself. However, whoever writes Buggery for B decides to cite Cranium for C. I can write Cranium for C, he can not. The only exception, I think, would be if no one else wants to write the entry and really really really wants to put their own one up for that letter. The idea is to prevent people (Unlikely as it is to occurr), from running a chain of articles from A to Z... - OOPMan 13 March, at 11:39 PM SAST
- "I also think that one should not be able to book for an entry cited by oneself in the previous letter's section" - but you could never write an entry you have cited - d@vid 2006 March 14 11h24 SAST
- Fair enough, one week ahead it is. - Perry 15 March
Unbalanced referencing system?
- Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but the referencing system for the game is a little unbalanced. For the 1st articles you need to ref 2 unwritten entries. For all the rest, except the last 2, you need to ref 2 unwritten and 1 written. For the last 2 you need to ref 1 and then 0 unwritten and 1 written. This is all good, but will lead to ref clustering in at least the 1st half of the alphabet. All of the B entries will have to ref to an already written A entry. Which is a little odd structurally. I suggest that you alter the turn structure a little to alleviate this slightly. Here's what I recommend. Instead of running from A to Z, we run as follows: First A, then Z, then B, then Y, etc, etc, etc. On the last two days you follow the rules as normal. While this order won't completely alleviate the problem, it will spread things out a bit more and quickly reduce the preponderance of entries referring to the last 2 or 3 letters covered. Anyway, thoughts? - OOPMan 13 March 2006, at 08:20 PM SAST
- I'd like to see how it plays out by the vanilla rules; I think personal choices will avoid an rampant clustering (also, the important point, is to build on existing entries; i.e. the rules automatically create a collaborative continuity) - d@vid 2006 March 14 11h22 SAST
- Fair enough. I think the clustering will only really be prominent in the first quarter of the Lexicon and will pretty much disappear after the second half... - OOPMan 14 March 2006, at 10:10 PM SAST
- Let's run with it as written for now. Just watch to make the early entries detail rich enough to permit massive reference loads. - Perry 15 March
Word count
- I think that the word count is really important - specifically the max of 200 words, which I increased from the original to allow a decent buffer
- as a whole entire lexicon will be encyclopedic, each entry should be a nugget
- (my thinking is that other players, and observers, need to read this all, and it should be easy to dip into) - d@vid 2006 March 14 11h15 SAST
- Good point. Going over the word limit by more than 100 words is not cool. I'd say +50 is fair enough. If the entry is really well written, however, exceptions could be made :-) - OOPMan 14 March 2006, at 10:11 PM SAST
Character Related Stuff
- A lot of character backgrounds mention items that could well become entries in the Lexicon. I'm thinking two things. One being that player of a character have preference in writing the entries for these things. The other being that the player of a character be given the opportunity, after the Lexicon has run to conclusion, to add entries for said items, if they have not been added already. For example, Motile Caverns are mentioned in The Underdweller's background. TU has first dibs when it comes to writing about Motile Caverns. Additionally, if no one else has written about Motile Caverns by the time the Lexicon has concluded then TU's player may do so. What do you guys think? - OOPMan 17 March 2006, at 11:14 PM SAST
- I think it's generally a good idea for us to be able to add to the Lexicon after the formal game has finished to fill in any gaps. Character-based dibs are cool; apart from that anyone should be able to call dibs on one gap at a time by booking it on the index page. - MyrdemInggala 19 March 2006, at 10:20 AM SAST
- I must say I thought the lexicon would remain in stasis (but possibly be usable as a setting backdrop?) once it's done - otherwise it's all spin-off serieses, cereal boxes and crass commercialisation! :)
- on a related tangent, it's now turn D and if anyone were to take on a Damascus Surgeon entry, I would find it hilarious and they would be guaranteed to have vile words spread about them in return >:> - d@vid 2006 March 23 10h07
Slow down?
- is it just bad luck that we appear to have slowed down at the same time, or should we change it to one turn a week? (I was worried that that will be too slow to remain interesting, but if that's the natural inclination, maybe it's not so bad) - d@vid 2006 March 23 10h09
- I'm going to be running late for a while. I've just arrived in the UK, so it will probably be a while before I have everything under control. Hopefully within 2 weeks I can start regularly entering again. - OOPMan 15:54 GMT+0, 24 March 2006
Filling up references
- look at the letter G - almost full! how cool! :)
- I propose that a letter cannot be overfilled with references (i.e. only as many as there are players)
- once we get there (if it's full) it'll be a grab for existing slots rather than making up an entry - a neat dynamic - d@vid 2006 March 24 11h05
Overabundance of references
- I have noticed that some people have effectively put in more than the required number of references (but not linked them as "official" references). We could allow people to put in more references than they have to (since it makes the articles more interlinked, which is better). My concern with these unofficial references that are popping up is that if people don't notice that they are there, inconsistencies and contradictions can creep in, since people will only look at the backlinks when looking for information about the phantom article they're filling in. - MyrdemInggala 31 March 2006, at 02:59 PM SAST
- I reckon if there're any inconsistencies they can be resolved by future entries
- perhaps these "passing references" should be linked in the entry text? - d@vid 2006 March 31 17h04 SAST
- But then why don't we inline all the references (see suggestion higher up) and mark the ones which are "official" in some way? We can bold and italicise links, so perhaps bold your official references and leave the others as normal links?
- If the first thing you do when writing an article is auto-generate the backlinks and save, you can instantly see all the articles which have mentioned the article, and go read them. - MyrdemInggala 01 April 2006, at 01:35 AM SAST