TCWiki:Editing threads
From TCWiki
- Insert comments wherever you want; just put a colon before each paragraph to indent, and four tildes after to date and sign. Replies to replies should be double-indented with two colons, and so on. —Brent 01:14, 17 Apr 2005 (PDT)
I've started importing tC's threads into the wiki. I have a skeleton for the entirety of tC's hard canon (with the exception of the two Izuko threads, which I'm not quite sure how to integrate), and have copied over both The Great Fanboy War and all five parts of The Church of Miho Bulletin. I have a program that does this—it runs through the printable versions of threads and spits out a gob of wiki markup—and after six threads it seems pretty reliable, at least for the older stuff.
However, as Opt so correctly put it in IMspace:
- That doesn't sound like it would be very readable.
And it really isn't. Take a look at one of them—all the vital information's there, but it's hard to read.
Now, this is mostly here so that people can link to it, but I don't think that's a particularly wonderful reason to leave it in the state it's in.
I think there are a few things we can do to improve it. There are precedents for this—AC edited a significant chunk of A Normal Day in MegaTokyo for FF.net, and of course there's the OLSAL novel. And remember, we don't have to do this all at once—the early threads, at least, have about 150 posts per thread, and a couple people doing ten posts at a time could finish a thread every week or two.
(BTW, I think the Fanboy War's probably unfixable, but I'm not really convinced it should be "fixed" anyway.)
Contents |
The easy stuff
Move feedback to the talk page (discussion tab)
Several threads, OLSAL in particular, have lots and lots of praise interwoven with the story. We should keep this, but I think it can be moved to the discussion tab where it won't be in the way.
Move omake
Similarly, there's a lot of clever but off-topic stuff in many threads. We can move this to the end of the page, or maybe to separate omake pages.
Delete coordination posts
A lot of time in a live RP thread is spent coordinating—"Your turn", "Let's wrap up this thread", "No, you fool, you can't do that". I don't think we need this now, though, so we can probably delete it. (There are also a few empty posts; I think these can be deleted.)
- I like my threads raw, actually. It gives me insight into how the ooc politics work. I think I may be the only person who finds ooc politics interesting rather than repulsive, but it's nice to see examples of when it was working and when it wasn't, so we can imitate the times when it was. BozoCat 10:38, 10 Oct 2005 (PDT)
- Yeah, keep 'em raw. It shows how things work behind the story. Especially before there was a IRC or AIM chat room or email list. Back when all we had were OOC and PM...*gets all nostalgic* That and it help the newbs learn how things work. [[User:DarkTan|DarkTan]
The harder stuff
Rearrange posts to form scenes
The nature of an RP means that there may be three or four scenes randomly interwoven. It might be more readable to rearrange posts so that scenes form a cohesive whole, consign author information to the margins (a little box with the author's name ought to be sufficient, IMHO), and insert scene and chapter breaks.
- I think the constant jumping around is good. Maybe adding the Location, Plot, and Timestamp, heading would be good. But I think the posts should be left in the order they were written, including the OOC posts and other nonsense we have a habit of throwing in there. DarkTan
Summarize
The chief barrier to new players reading the archives is their length. I think the best way to lower this barrier to entry is by providing concise summaries. I have provided and example in some of the U.S. Versus Them threads, though that work is ongoing. I'd like to actively encourage summarization, as I think it's the most important way we can make things more readable-- even more important than formatting or removing spammy types of posts. BozoCat 10:38, 10 Oct 2005 (PDT)
The controversial stuff
I'm not really sure I want to do these, simply because they're so scary (and require so much work), but I'll mention them for completeness.
Rewrite bad posts
Let's face it, there have been some really awful posts. There have been people posting in RP style (with stars for actions); there have been people with horrifying spelling; and so on. Should we rewrite these?
- If we did either of these, I'd like to have a before and an after version of the thread-- the forums have eaten threads before, and I'd like to make sure the original text is preserved. It's nice to be able to look back and say, "So that was exactly how it was written".BozoCat 10:38, 10 Oct 2005 (PDT)
- If this was to be done, I think the original authors (if possible) so edit their own post. I know I had a lot of crappy posts back in New Blood. DarkTan
Rewrite first-person
Most of tC is written in third person, but some is first-person too. Should we rewrite these posts?
- The first person posts are among some of the best and worst writing, unfortunately. Nightwalker and Meagen both wrote in first person at times, extremely well, as did BGMaster. And some people who don't write so well either, or took things too personally. I say leave it as it is. A lot of the essence of these posts would be lost in the shuffle.BozoCat 10:38, 10 Oct 2005 (PDT)
- I agree entirely, the first person perspective, while usually annoying and poorly done, can also give new meaning a depth to the post. Also allows the reader to see a little more in to the mind of the character. DarkTan
