Subject: The best way to write satire is to read other people's.
Author:
Posted on: 2016-03-31 19:26:00 UTC
I'd recommend Newsthump and The Daily Mash, but they are exceedingly British and there are references you may not get. Still, the cadence is similar to American satirical webzines, so give them a go. Fair warning, there may well be strong language at times. =]
(Wednesday Pluggage will be postponed until Friday; work stuff.)
I'd like to thank everyone for taking part in Operation Oscilloscope.
I'll start off with the thing some of you might actually care about:
Traces on the Oscilloscope
An explanation for those danged badges at last.
Now on to the rambling about why; you can probably ignore this bit.
Operation Kaleidoscope rose out of me looking at the Board and seeing something lacking. It felt too quiet, and the threads that were around didn't feel like the threads I wanted to see. So I chose to make an effort to improve that.
People have been doing this for years, mostly by posting 'why is the Board so rubbish?!'; it doesn't usually work. My method is different. For a month, I gave myself a set of rules:
-Post on every thread possible, at least once.
-Three times a week (Mon-Weds-Fri), create a thread that most if not all Boarders can get involved in.
The goal was to spark increased discussion, and prompt people to make interesting threads.
This isn't the first time I've tried this. Operation Kaleidoscope took place in September 2013, and I think I ran an Operation Teleidoscope somewhere in between too. All three have followed basically the same rules.
You may note I ended Oscilloscope early. That's because it was hard work; being ill for the middle of it didn't help, and nor did those danged badges, but the effort of being so talkative that (hopefully) other people got infected with talkativeness was just too much this time round.
So did it work?
That's hard to say. From the graphs, no: numbers of visitors are still dropping, and post-count dropped straight back off once I called it off. The number of threads posted in March is the same as in January or February, too.
From a subjective perspective? I kind of think it did, a bit. Certainly I seem to have given our newest members the idea that they should post lots of threads! But I do think people have come out with more interesting stuff in the last month.
But overall, it was a lot of effort for a very small gain. Oh, well, you win some, you muck up some...
hS
The graphs were really intruiging - how do you keep track of all the posts? It certainly appears to be a lot of work just looking at it, so congratulations on a job well done.
Also, the badges are absolutely brilliant. I was inwardly squealing when I saw them. They're so colourful, and the designs are creative and adorable. I'm curious, now - how did I earn the Threadlocked badge?
-Vee
At the end of the month, I copy the Board front page, and every back-page that contains posts from that month. I plug it into my spreadsheet, and run a cumbrous macro (related to the Dungeon of the Board, actually) which pulls out every post, its author, and its date, and slaps them together into a giant table.
Then I save the table for the month. I have one for every month back to December 2002.
Yeeeeeeah.
It looks like you Threadlocked me with this thread. The fact that it was about ranting, plus the little descent into sexual swearing down-thread, led me to steer clear of it.
hS
That is quite a bit of spreadsheeting. Back in 2002, I was very young, and had no idea of what the PPC (or fanfiction) even was. That list must be rather impressive.
-Vee
I didn't mean to gunjump, it just came to me!
What'd I gunjump over, again?
Didn't you sign up before it was even open?
hS
Mistakes were made.
I've been very curious about this whole thing. Yay! I finally know what the badges mean! =D This was all really cool, hS. I hope you do more stuff like it in the future.
I'm curious, though; what did I post that you couldn't think of a way to respond to?
-Alleb
The only comment I could come up with was 'I, um, don't see much specifically-Christian about it', but then I found a few articles that did, so I couldn't even say that. ^_^
hS
Which reminds me, I need to look up how to write better satire, so they'll accept one of my articles...
How long did it take you to think up the badges, by the way? You had quite a nice array of them.
-Alleb
I'd recommend Newsthump and The Daily Mash, but they are exceedingly British and there are references you may not get. Still, the cadence is similar to American satirical webzines, so give them a go. Fair warning, there may well be strong language at times. =]
I'll check those out. Hopefully I'll be able to find some particular authors that are fairly clean; thanks for the warning.
I have no return recs, so have some epic Tolkien fanart:
-Alleb
By way of reply, please accept some LEGO minifigs. You... might well appreciate them. =]
Since they're your primary fandom an' all. =]
When I first saw it, I just gawped for a few moments. Then I felt insecure about my own drawing abilities, which are roughly equivalent to the talents of a three-year-old who has just learned of a frightening new concept called "stick figures." But it was mostly overshadowed by gawping. ^_^
Eeeeeee, Alleble! :D Thank you! I hadn't seen these before. Hm, now I want to build the entire city from LEGOs... I'm gonna need some more blocks.
-Alleb
I mean, it's not a fandom we're likely to share - the heroes are the ones who pledge their allegiance to, and believe in the contents of, a very special book, subtle - but I know what it's like to have a tiny fandom be your primary one.
HM. I'm going to have to read up on this some more. A crossover idea begins to ferment...
I mean, they follow King Eliam, the Big Bad is called Paragor, he lives in Paragory, King Eliam died for His people, three and seven are symbolic numbers-- I could go on. The Door Within is a great series, in my opinion, but it's about as subtle as one of those inflatable bendy-men-things that wave their arms fanatically in front of car dealerships (in other words, about as subtle as I am ^_^).
Ooh, a crossover? Do tell! (If'n you don't mind, of course.)
-Alleb
Do you have full charts for all board activity? I mean, as in boarders joined, posts, mission rate, just.. things in general, for the entire history of The Board. Yeah, this does look kinda sad. But the thing is, this isn't exactly sone of those sites you can find easily on the internet. That may be a good thing, though. Less trolls to worry about. The more people in an internet community, the higher chance that someone will make it so that we can't have nice things. I do wish I had caught on to how the badges really work, they seemed cool. I'm a bit sad because now, I think this means the decline of the Absurdly High Level Hobbit Huinesoron in "Dungeon of the Board".
Last thing, you didn't post this just to squeeze just a little bit more life here, did you?
What I have is:
-The Board Archives of all posts we still have a record of.
-Permission Request Statistics from April 2010 to January 2016. I update this every so often.
-2015 in the PPC, an analysis of the stories written during that year.
-A file looking at how many missions agents tend to go on, based on the Complete List on the Wiki.
-An incomplete file describing the dramatic events that have taken place on the Board, such as spambots and trolls.
-A gigantic file of daily post-counts, broken down by Boarder, for every post recorded, which is what those graphs came from. It also includes the IP/views data, which I think is the only thing not publicly accessible.
That last gives me the ability to make graphs like this:
Which shows:
a) The dangers of estimates (the red region; the spike was definitely a period of high activity, but I don't think I was routinely doing 300 posts a month).
b) My long 'quiet period' 09-12.
c) That you're in no danger of seeing low-level Huinesoron the Hobbits. ^_~ I've only dropped below 100 posts/month once in the last 16 months.
Last thing: [Halo] Moi?
hS
I really want to know what all the badges mean, but I also really want to figure them out myself. To answer key or not to answer key, that is the question.
Oh well, my personal dilemmas aside, thanks for doing this. It was a ton of fun.
Do you mind if we keep this badge system and gift more f them. I found them interesting.
Besides, you need to cheer up. The way you post, one could think that the Board is dead or dying.
This is the graph of IP addresses visiting the Board since March 2013:
Our post counts may be crawling up, but the number of people here is at an all-time low. That's not a cheerful graph.
I am absolutely in favour of people handing out random badges. I'll note that every single one of the Oscilloscope badges marks a positive, not a negative - there's no 'post badly' badges.
hS
I've been trying to participate on the board as much as is feasible, which is... honestly not very, because I can't watch any videos or load many photos or even google docs most of the time (editing or sharing version just doesn't load on Internet Explorer on these computers), much less have the time to read much.
So I'll definitely be ramping things up when I return.
I appreciate the effort, certainly.
I think most of them centred around 'here is a big thing, lookit!'. Sorry about that?
I mean, mostly not sorry, because some of them were really good threads. But a little bit sorry.
Maybe this big: |-----|
hS
To even see the googledoc you were dumping the badges into in the first place. ^_^
I do kinda wish people would use the 'published' version from Google Docs instead of 'sharing' though, since I can at least access the first lot.
-July
The badges were a special case because I wanted people to be able to comment on it. :-/
hS
For a number of things, actually. Thank you for providing us with a wonderful puzzle to solve. Thank you for putting in so much work in an attempt to raise the bar. And thank you for FINALLY giving us the answer key.
I know that I posted some threads that I wouldn't have, otherwise. Well...I'd have posted the Catastrophe Theory thread eventually, but I did move up the timetable. I think that led to me re-starting to work on the next CT story, so...mission accomplished?
Also, if you remember, how did I jump the gun? That badge, in particular, bugged the crap out of me. I couldn't figure it out.
-Phobos, compulsive puzzle solver
You gun-jumped by posting alarmingly accurate lists of what the badges meant, in the very first thread. I was mildly put out at you for getting so many right. ;)
The badges were partly to make it more fun for me, and partly in the hopes that people would start trying to get them, and discover that the enjoyed whatever they had to do to get them, and thus keep doing it. That didn't work terribly well, probably because they were overly puzzly. But oh well, it was fun.
hS
I volunteered to beta twice partly because I wondered if there was a badge for it. The fact that I was so puzzled by them, and thus spent more time on the Board thinking about them, was also a contributing factor.
I approve.
I do have one sizable question that will likely affect how I look at the data you've collected. You said that "the threads that were around didn't feel like the threads I wanted to see." What did you want to see? What, to you, qualified something as an "interesting thread?"
PC, who honestly didn't notice the badges until the second week.
To be entirely honest, what I want to see is in-depth geeky conversations about minutae of continua I'm interested in (mostly LotR), but I understand I'm rather in a minority there. ;) So instead I've been all self-sacrificing and tried to watch for threads that are interesting for most of the Board, rather than me in particular (or indeed, me at all sometimes).
In general, what I like to see are threads that prompt open-ended interaction. That needs an opening post which provides a foundation for conversation, but then lets it spiral off in interesting ways. A couple of examples:
-Geeky fandommy threads, including ones about the PPC. The Magic in North America threads were good for this - people (including me) got to throw insane theorising at the wall, and interact over it. I think there was a MLP thread that did the same thing, though obviously I didn't get into that one.
-Things that prompt storytelling (not necessarily formal writing). The Dungeon of the Board, or the Shipfest, or whatnot. Anything that gets people scribbling down narrative ideas on the Board. I like it when people write.
-Threads that let other Boarders share the same kind of thing the original poster did, while also commenting on each other's. My Fanarts & Crafts thread worked perfectly for this, and was in turn inspired (to an extent) by Ix's costume, so that counts too. Ivy's Deduction thread, too.
-Other discussion threads, like posted news-articles and videos. The thing here is that the thread-starter needs to put in the effort to start a discussion. It's not enough to just slap up a link - lots of people won't follow links, and a lot of those who do will just reply with 'wow!' or the like. One needs to say something to start and shape the conversation about it.
(An example I didn't post: there was a new tyrannosaur described a couple of weeks ago. I considered posting both to say it happened - fannish geekery - but also to look at the pictures that had been done of it, and see how good/bad they were. I didn't do it because I couldn't find much to talk about.)
Then there's the threads that I don't find particularly interesting, but which I support on principle:
-People posting their stories. Y'know, the thing we're ostensibly here for. ;)
-Badfic threads. We used to pretty much have a big badfic thread every week or so; it's weird that it's stopped happening. I don't really get involved in them, but people howling over badfic is where the PPC started, so it's kind of a shame they've gone.
Most other threads I'd class as 'neutral' - things that don't really make the Board more exciting in my view, but don't drag it down either. That covers newbie threads, closed-ended questions (the sort that are usually answered with 'here's where to find that in the wiki'), beta requests and the like.
The one thread-type I've seen a lot recently that I've never liked is 'I'll be gone for the next three days!'; I don't think we're a fast-moving, intense-enough community that people need to announce when they're not going to be around. I used to vanish for 2-3 weeks over summer and not say a word. But like my favourite thread type, that's a personal preference, and not one I'd try to enforce (hence, no badge attacking it).
hS
(No doubt if you'd asked on another day you'd've got a different answer...)
I was honestly a bit worried that "in-depth geeky conversations about minutae of continua [[you're]] interested in" would be the entirety of the response. Fortunately, my fears were averted. The thread examples you gave are all definitely things I would also like to see more of, and going forward I will do my best to create better threads. (Actually got a few ideas already…)
I will admit to some surprise at seeing actual story posts classified as only "supported on principle." I suppose it's true that they don't necessarily foster conversation, but still.
With you 100 percent on absence announcements. Unless you're leaving anywhere from three months up to forever, I don't think they're necessary.
... because it's been a long time since I regularly read PPC stories, missions or otherwise. So I mostly skip over the story posts - but I absolutely think they should be posted. I just don't care much myself these days. ;)
(Despite the fact that I post one myself every week. What can I say, I've always been more of a fanwriter than fanreader.)
hS
So Phobos was right about the flower colors corresponding to the badge ring colors. He'll be pleased. I insisted they didn't match that closely.
There should be at least one gold rosette out there, though. I am the trivialest!
On the success of the endeavor, you did get me to start one thread I might not have otherwise, so that's something. I know my discussion follow-through has been lacking in recent years, though. Put it down to waning base enthusiasm levels due to aging?
(I am surprised more people didn't respond to Silenthunder's HP fan video plug, though. I would've loved to talk more about those.)
~Neshomeh
You and Phobos and Iximaz, in fact. Which I think means everyone who got the Metameta badge (and you've no idea how much I wanted to make a third 'Delved Too Greedily And Too Deep' level of that one ^_~).
Waning enthusiasm levels are a terrible curse which I wish we could all escape. :-/
hS
Although I'm not sure what I got it for, but glad to know I have the skills to do this.
... who utterly threw me by talking to me on the GDocs chat? I think that's where it came from.
Sneaky blighter.
hS
Even if the badges didn't do what you hoped they'd do, I enjoyed it immensely.
(Also, dangit, I wish I'd figured out how to get the sonic screwdriver earlier!)
As for dropping numbers, it's nearly April. The end of the school year is approaching, which means lots of exams, projects, homework, and studying. I'm sure they'll pick back up again soon.
For the past few years, our monthly post counts have peaked in March-May. Then we have a long decline over the course of late summer and autumn.
My theory is that people get so fed up with their revision that they take refuge on the Board instead. ;)
hS
I can satisfy my curi— wait a sec, what did I do before you? How did I ninja you?
((It feels super-weird to actually reply to questions about this now.))
hS
