Subject: Thank you for your gifts.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-06-29 22:16:00 UTC
*looks at various and sundry random objects*
These should come in handy.
(Muahaha...)
This is just me being me. Seriously. I think, therefore I organize.
I set out to research the PPC so I'd know enough to write missions, and along the way I decided to organize all the missions on the Wiki, listing them under their Agent pages, under the continua where they took place, and on the Wiki version of the Complete List of PPC Fiction.
It took about two thousand edits. I figured I'd get it done in the month I was waiting to apply for permission, but I simply didn't anticipate it being such a big job (it's been about two months). In the long run, I benefit, because I've skimmed every single piece of PPC fiction out there and thoroughly read a large subset of that. (I tend to respond to a new hobby by thoroughly organizing and categorizing my knowledge on it, in case anybody hadn't noticed!)
Anyway, now that missions are listed under the continuum and under the agent pages, I've also made up a checklist to use when putting new missions up on the wiki. This way, people can easily find missions written in different verses and by different agents.
Posting New Mission Reports
(BTW, most of the missions I linked to were old missions, pre-Wiki; but do check your agent pages to make sure I got yours right, since I did tag a lot of mission links with the continua.)
I also found a lot of information for the concept pages, which I thought was cool, and put mission links on those as references.
Yay for wikis! :)
Good for you! Yeah, I wouldn't survive two paragraphs without the wiki.
I have so far had two people tell me that they did not want me to add mission links to their agents' pages. I have made note of their names and will not do so.
One thing, though: I had no way of knowing which people they were, in advance.
Obviously, user pages should only be edited by the actual users; but agents are different, since their missions are part of the PPC canon and should be preserved. Many agents whose missions I posted were the creation of Boarders who hadn't been around in a long while, and others belong to people who don't use wikis much. The vast majority of agents can be tagged "Inactive"; and if we don't want their missions lost to the mists of time, they have to be listed. The pre-Wiki ones even had to have pages created for them, usually very simple ones just listing their partner, department, author, and home page, or else a copy-and-paste of the profile they had on their web sites.
For an active agent with an up-to-date page, the only editing that ever needs to be done by anyone other than the agent's author is adding mission links. But, as I said, I couldn't tell who objected to my adding them, nor for that matter who was still around, or around often enough, to edit the page themselves.
My suggestion is that anyone who does not want others adding missions to their agents' pages should put a small note on those pages, stating their preference.
An easy way to do that without injecting superfluous content into the pages would be to use hide-me tags. If you've edited the main page, you've seen these. They look like this:
<!-- hidden text -->
Anything within the tags won't be rendered, so if you leave a note like that at the top of your pages, potential editors will see them, but they won't clutter your pages.
I will note that exceptions to don't-edit-my-page requests may nonetheless be made when it comes to fixing typos, broken links, shoddy Wikia markup, and other things that harm the Wiki's function and/or appearance. The Wiki IS a group project, after all, and those things reflect on all of us.
~Neshomeh
Nice work! That must have been a lot to do! Thank you for doing that!
Have some "Thank you!" cake with extra icing on it spelling out a big THANK YOU!
That was a project of epic proportions, and you did brilliantly. Kudos to you!
*looks at various and sundry random objects*
These should come in handy.
(Muahaha...)
This is just me being me. Seriously. I think, therefore I organize.
I too noticed how much work you were putting in (particularly when it was only your name showing up on the recent changes page). I didn't worry so much about what you were doing to the wiki, that seemed pretty clear, but whether you weren't neglecting your RL.
As for the question alluded to in this message's subject:
I've a question I asked a while ago on the talk page of the Unclaimed badfic page. Perhaps no one noticed because of the above mentioned reason. My question was whether it was a good idea to remove fic from the Unclaimed list if it had been on that list for more than 18 months. It would keep the list (more) manageable, and I figure if it hasn't been claimed in 18 months, it may never be.
I've also checked between the current list and the list on 1 Jan 2009 (roughly 18 months ago), and saw that 65 fics had been on the list for more than 18 months. Less than 20 fics that were on the list on 1 Jan 2009 had been taken off the list, and almost half because their link was dead.
I don't think the Unclaimed badfic list should be a place holder for badfic (we've got FFnet for that). It should be a place were PPC'ers can report badfic that they for whatever reason can't write a mission on themselves. If the badfic is still there after a prolonged period of time, apparently no one else can or wants to write a mission about it, and perhaps it would be best to just let the badfic get lost in oblivion (i.e. remove it from the Unclaimed list).
Any comments? Yay, Nay?
I ask because some of the fics there have also been sitting there a long time, and some of them were claimed by people who have either officially moved on (Tawaki) or just haven't been seen in a long time. Would it make sense to revert them to the Unclaimed list if the claimant hasn't been seen in a year or more?
I do think it would be all right to remove old fics from the Unclaimed list, too. In most cases, either they're claimed straight from the Board or they aren't at all.
(When editing either list, please remember to remove empty categories and alphabetize entries!)
~Neshomeh
I was wondering about that.
I made a comment about that on the Claimed Badfic talk page. Something about us collectively taking on too much of a case load. I guess they could be moved back to the unclaimed list; which is what I do with the fics I decide not to mission after all.
Timestamping is not strictly necessary. It's possible to open an old version of the list (in edit mode) next to a newer version (different tabs or windows on your browser) and remove everything on the new list that was also on the old list.
And I admit, I do wonder sometimes what the point is about having an unclaimed badfic page; aside from the real horrors, I don't think there's much point in listing unclaimed badfics. So I'm all for cleaning out the list.
As for Claimed Badfic... it should be a very temporary list, methinks. We can try to contact the people who have claimed things more than a year ago, but otherwise... I shrug. Go ahead - scrub, scrub.
The main page, current events, and complete list pages are all tagged with the dates. Expanding that to cover Unclaimed and Claimed Badfic lists makes perfect sense to me! Stick a note up there to tag all posted badfic with a comment and the date, and to remove anything older than six months or claimed by someone who's retired.
Fair winds! See you at the Tall Ships Races! (because this ship IS going to participate, no matter what)
I think I love you.
I too had noticed the problem with organization and missing missions on certain pages, but unfortunately I got absorbed in a new project before I could get around to doing anything about it.
Here's to hoping folks actually follow your guide.
Have several "Wow! Well done!"s and a Random Artefact of Rassilon for your troubles.
Looks like you've done a lot of hard work. Most impressive!
Have a free-range chicken and a Wiki Tiki (I don't know what that last thing is; just pretend it rhymes).
I too have been watching closely and was initially suspicious of the unknown username, and although I remain an edit-vulture who picks on just about any page that comes up in the Recent Activity screen, I thoroughly approve of the effort you've made.
I suspect that there may still be more out there, hiding, but perhaps it will come to light in time.
Congratulations!
~Neshomeh
That is absolutely amazing. Here, have brand-new copies of all of the Metal Gear games.
I have really enjoyed the changes and extended linking. I think my favorite part has been the adding example missions to the various concepts pages.
And I am impressed.
I admit, I wasn't entirely sure what you were doing until this post, and when you started I was wondering what upstart little newbie was making so many changes (and I mean that kindly, I assure you ;p ), as your wiki user name is different than your Board name, but really, looking at this now... Well. Very, very good job.
(...Particularly since I know I'm a bit lax about some of these things. I still haven't updated the Killed Badfic page with my missions' textual victims. Must get around to that...)
Also, I completely understand your need to organise and categorise everything - I do the same with files on my computer. Ten or twenty thousand of them at last count, and they're all filed down to a pin. Messiness makes my fingers itch, but I never had the time or energy to make more than a few minor changes on the wiki.
So in case you haven't noticed, I most thoroughly approve. I think you deserve a party. Or at least a whole bunch of gifts. Here! Have a Capillary Towel, a Transdimensional Pocket Knife, a Bag, and a a few bricks of chocolate. :)