The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

I'm dismayed to discover that none of my DOGA agents have a decent excuse to ever use it, but it is lovely nonetheless.

hS

Tortoise shell (亀甲) framing a flame. The tortoise shell references the world turtle myth, and the flame is drawn to resemble an onibi 鬼火 or a shiranui 不知火.

I'm used to writing tone tags with a slash. (No relation to slash fic, heh.)

And don't worry, I’ll make sure to misspell his name. (Have you seen the badfic I’ve intentionally written?)

—Ls

and go ahead with the badfic thing; I can't wait to see how hilarious the whole thing is gonna turn out.

Note: I consider the spelling Schönheit to be accepted; you gotta find other ways to mess up the dude's last name if that's what you're going for.

Poor Inasuke still can’t get a Vil mini! I kinda want to write a Twisted Wonderland badfic with one just to help him out

Where is Kaguya? I’m very curious now.

Oh, can I adopt Korras? I’d love a mini-fire ferret!

—Ls

It’s not clear how it’s derived from your username. Not that that’s a bad thing at all, I’m just curious.

(Most of us who have a message ender that isn’t just [symbol]name derive the second element from our names somehow, often abbreviating a two-part name—the Lin and Star are actually from different sources, kinda.)

—Ls

I particularly liked that Egon was able to remove an entire bathroom.

—Ls

I try to keep track of the Recent Changes page. I’m not sure I can help much right now, because my tablet is too old to edit Fandom, but I’m hoping to get a new computer that I can use more soon.

I did see those badfics. They definitely needed deletion, though I really wished I had approached it better. cringes

Also, thanks for the restructuring my missions on the My Immortal page. I’m not sure if they were supposed to occur exactly on the day they were published... but frankly, my missions don’t have a clear timeline. I like the way it looks now.

—Ls also likes wiki-ing

Part Two

4. I learned how to use CSS to make those NSFW and Spoiler banners flex to work around infoboxes and images, so they're much more versatile in terms of where they can be placed on the page. They don't have to go right at the top anymore, and I believe Fandom recommends avoiding tophats. Therefore, I've moved them below the lede when possible. I'd like to do this across the board, including on pages that discuss inherently sensitive subjects. My logic is that the page's title itself should be a clue that its content should be read judiciously, and also that the lede should make it possible for a person to glean a basic definition of the subject without going into detail.

I've been removing Spoiler banners on pages where the subject is over five years old.

I'll also remind everyone that the NSFW banner should only be applied if the article content itself includes NSFW details, not simply because it's about something else (like a fic) that is NSFW. On the matter of sensitive subjects, it IS possible to discuss any subject in a PG-13 manner (which even permits the occasional swearword, btw). As long as this is the case, no warning is needed. But if a section quotes or summarizes a lot of questionable material from badfics, then the banner is a good idea.

~Neshomeh

Just in case anyone has looked at Recent Changes lately and had their eyes pop at the truly absurd number of edits I've made in the last couple of days, here's what I've been up to:

1. I discovered how to use the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} template. This allows me to instruct an article's title to display however I want, such as with italics (for long or multi-part works) or with quotation marks (for short works). I've been applying this to all continua and fic pages—including styling long fanfiction titles according to convention for maybe the first time ever. A lot of the Legendary Badfics and other stories are multi-chapter beasts, and it makes sense to acknowledge that. Not doing so was basically a weird statement that fanfiction is lesser than other forms of fiction, and you could make a case for that, but that's not what italics vs quotation marks means, so it was never really an appropriate way to make that statement. This was probably entirely my own fault, since I've been the one beating the drum for any styling of titles all along. I don't mind redoing it myself. (But I could use some help on the Killed Badfic pages if y'all are willing, though.)

I've also recategorized all the badfic so that it doesn't appear in the Badfic supercategory, only in Killed Badfic and/or Legendary Badfic. Since we do not intend to host pages for just any badfic, it makes sense to me to treat that category strictly as an organizational one for subcategories and lists. I hope doing this will subtly discourage the addition of pages for just any fics in the future. Not that it's been a huge problem or anything—but, oh yes, I did delete a couple badfic pages that were marked for deletion and really had no objective relevance to the wiki. You're welcome, Linstar!

I also relocated a bunch of OFU pages from the Works By Boarders category to a new OFUs By Boarders subcategory. They were cluttering up the Works supercategory.

2. I discovered how to implement a template for those little quotations at the tops of pages! It is called {{Q}} and the format is:

{{q|the quotation|who said it}}

It automatically applies a fancy angle bracket and italics to offset the quotation. Further styling (such as linkage) can be done in both fields. I've been applying this to all the top-of-page (or section) quotes I can find. This can be used at the top of a section, too. If you spot one I haven't done yet, feel free to do it!

3. I also added a little javascript module that provides a page preview when you hover your cursor over a link, which has proven very helpful for finding those quotes. I'm not sure I love it, though. The default image that displays when the script can't find an image on the page is really annoying, IMO. I could get custom JS turned on for our wiki, and then it would be possible to tweak the module, but I don't know if that's a rabbit hole I want to go down. I don't actually know javascript. Thoughts?

... I think that's about it. I've stumbled into editing some pages more extensively, such as when I've noticed broken links or just terrible writing, but I'm trying not to.

Feel free to use this thread to ask any wiki-related questions you've got.

~Neshomeh

Human population growth is already slowing. If I remember right, the UN predicted that the global human population would top off at under 12 billion. And what the Malthusianism critique said is correct: the birth rate in food-secure countries is lower than in food-insecure countries, due to education and women's rights allowing women to make informed choices about whether they want children or not. The countries in question are well on the road to becoming "developed" countries, and humanity will soon reach a point where equilibrium is reached between human births and deaths.

Overall, I do not think overpopulation is something people should be concerned about. But those are just my thoughts on the subject. /nm

It’s just that it includes a link to another article that does, in fact, claim that.

However, just because one guy says that doesn’t mean that he’s right.

First of all, he’s a prominent microbiologist. His predictions have nothing whatsoever to do with microbiology, which makes me question his claims heavily.

Secondly, he admits he’s just being pessimistic. That doesn’t automatically make him wrong, just... interpreting events through a specific lens.

Thirdly, his entire argument is essentially just Malthusianism. Malthusianism has had serious, and quite valid criticisms.

—Ls

and I will try not to put myself in situations that require reassurance-seeking in the future.

Three of the Demonly Kings against a gang of Stus and a boatload of plagiarism, and something happens at the end.

Our species first appeared 300,000 years ago. We only developed modern agriculture 11,000 years and change ago. Even if things do indeed go bad throughout this century, we're adapted to survive a world that is much, much less engineered for human comfort and survival. We'll still be able to construct shelters, forage food, and build community. Remember, it's not our technology or economies or legal systems that make us "civilized." It's our ability to join together in cooperation and care-giving, to protect and provide for each other. And that's something that coded right into our DNA, something we had for millennia before we even arrived at the technological breakthrough of "put seeds in ground on purpose."

—doctorlit asserts that humans will do well

And, for a welcome gift, a brand new thing invented just this second!: Belgian Bleepolate coins! It's the latest craze in HQ, at least among a few people. Depends on who you ask. Just like chocolate coins, of the fairly good quality chocolate variety, except they'll provide a hint of relief from strange things seen on missions and the designs...seem to still be settling, really. Currently, there's the DMS cactus and Le Cagou's cartoon kagu bird design (see: https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/New_Caledonia#Restaurants), but theoretically more may come. Even odds whether HQ businesses will accept them as currency, though ;)

Hope you enjoy your stay here! You seem to have a lot of fandoms in common with other Boarders, as far as I remember, so I'm sure you'll find some good discussions.

~Z

Thanks for the clarification. I got confused, and concerned, for a moment when I saw the original post. /nm And you haven't bothered me too much, so don't worry about me.

I doubt humans will go extinct, as we've proved ourselves to be quite tenacious. One of my worldbuilding projects actually revolves around some human populations leaving the Solar System to spread across the galaxy once Earth becomes inhospitable; a subsequent convention among the space-bound countries puts the home system off limits for war purposes, although stuff like tourism and pilgrimages to Mecca are permitted, of course (albeit super expensive because in this universe, the resources required for FTL travel are difficult to mass produce). And this is a bad scenario, where humans continue to strip Earth of resources and slowly degrade it, causing them to move off-world. In the end, I wish humanity the best and hope we don't trash our planet beyond saving, because I'm rather fond of Earth.

Well, that was sappy of me. On a tangential note, I kind of want to see a space battle within my lifetime.

I'd love to see as many as you feel like making. So far my favorite is the DMS patch.

(Redesigns according to different cultures can be very fun, and very interesting! And these are just artistically nice into the bargain, which is even better.)

Thanks for sharing!

~Z

PS: I see no reason why these couldn't go on the wiki, especially if you have an agent who wears one. Even without that, really.