Talk:1632 series/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archived: This stuff was stale, and I kept the last section in the current talk when archiving. // FrankB 06:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Old Business

Slush is a common term in the (SF) publishing industry for manuscripts sent to publishers on speculation, that is, without the publisher's prior request for that particular manuscript. While the term is used on Baen's Bar slightly differently to mean unpublished manuscripts posted for review by barflies (with the understanding that the publisher never sees them), I don't see how that term is unique to the 1632-verse. AJK 18:17, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I've removed "slush". HFuruseth 17:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Strategy and Help Needed 24 Mar 06

Hi!

I'm new to the 1632 WikiEffort work needs, though not to WikiP (I'm a pretty advanced tyro), as I just kind of blurted out a major expansion of the 1632 (novel) minimal article last week, and have been building a synopsis and character list, et. al., it is obvious we need to get some dialog going here as well.
- I'm currently cleaning up that 'Accidentally' vomitous effort, which as essentially a good rough draft was unacceptable in tone and structure —- so still needs a lot of work (TLC). I'm figuring that most of it will become a stand-alone 1632-163x series underlying history or some such titled article, per the suggestions over there @talk:1632 (novel), but that article wasn't linked here, and as the flagship article in and of the series, ("Begin at the begining", I said to self.) it certainly needs a major expansion and a lot of TLC from hoards of editors. I'd like to see this whole group of related work brought up to WP:FA-like state (e.g. like this Starship Troopers, one of my models/tragets).

This should be the proper place to discuss such, and I'm finding it gloomily empty in a sad way.

Ditto for discussion on whether a character list should be in common, a seperate article or a sub-page. (And no, before you ask, I don't know the relative features. benefits, shortcomings of all those things— Yet!) But I do know it's long past time when this talk should have been archieved and such decided upon and discussed. But there is nothing to archieve, and its not being discussed until now, and I'm certain enough of my knowledge to attempt to reach back 32 years to do what is essentially a book report! So I'm calling for a mobilization of effort overall and discussion of divers things.

As you'll soon note, my grammer is pretty good, but my spelling is iffy when rushed– well, Ok, always. But I know my history from a lifetime love of reading it. So as large as this task looks to be, it is certainly worth doing. I can even make a case, perhaps a strong case, for this series leading me onto my first tentative Wikiedits as an Anom. though other literature had a hand as well.

I'm now also well into a (offline) synopsis for the 1632 (novel), and believe it's a divisible task, so am looking for people to take responsibility for pieces of that (organized by range of chapters) as well as an matching concurrent character list build in the same allocated groups of chapters.
This two are the largest things I can think of in the whole series (neglecting other synopsis as later tasks to be handled the same way), and each is section editable, so we many can work it and polish it off line, then cut it over to where it needs to go.
As it will be on a subarticle page, per my current understanding of the 'best approach', the raw edits will be linked to a talk page to resolve range vs range of chapter incompatibity issues and assign cites, by page, or take a good look at the assembled whole as it grows.

I'm not Trying to Take Over

But I have been a leader for a long while going back to boy scouts, mixed with 30 yrs in the USNR, so I am 'strongly suggesting' <g> we put things in gear collectively, working together as a group... probably on a project basis as well, as we almost certainly need more bodies typing— just think of the size of the character list series wide... It boggles the mind. No one can do that much work in volunteer time, unless it's by dividing things like (1st drafts—offline) into groups of little efforts, then combining them.

After sticking my foot in my mouth over at talk:1632 (novel) which was apparently mysteriously unlinked to this when I first found it, I'd like to alert you all that I'm maklng an effort to organize this whole effort with suggestions and questions and such over at Talk:1632 (novel) which needs to address the same issues aa are currently in this article... How best to divide up a very large project, and how to organize and arrange any an all of it. I've posted a couple of ideas over there. Asked a couple of questions. etc.
Much of the discussions I hope will ensue really belong over here or on a projects page, which is my next item of research. Does one already exist? If not, how to organize same, as this effort will only grow larger as Baen keeps adding books frenically in response to sales.

So please drop in and weigh in with constructive ideas and help.

It's long past time (5 years) for someone to make a decent stab at organizing it for both the work that needs done now, and that which will be forthcoming soon.

I've generated a letter emailed to Jim Baen and Eric Flint regarding copyrighted materials permissions, et. al.; the good news is Eric was up to his ears in writing against a deadline (my suspicion is the part of the Baltic War he is doing, as David Weber has scheduled his write in the same collaboration for early-to-mid summer (per webers site). The bad news is he asked for more time to consider it (Mid-April). I suspect it's also for time to look over our output.

What do you say we make him happy? I personally owe him for many a delighted hour of reading. It strikes me that this is a small way to repay the joy (and tears) he's evoked in me. How about you?

FrankB 03:12, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Novel_sequences, that the definition of the category novel sequences also applies to most sci-fi like this and Honorverse books. This needs to be addresssed, as the literary definintion of series of books is that of a collection where it does not matter in which order you read them. IMHO, this collection does. FrankB 04:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I have for many months supported the idea of attracting more Barflies to work on 163x section on Wiki, so I am glad to see some activity. Two notes: Category:163x was short and thus user-friendly, 1632-163x alternate history series is much less so (and still red) - I'd like to restore the old category. Also, 1632-163x series underlying history is another bad name, and looking at it I think it should be moved from mainspace to your userspace (or possibly project space) - to me it looks a lot like a good candidate for deletion in its current state.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

From: User talk:Piotrus (concurrent post FrankB 21:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)) First part is question on {User talk:fabartus}

163x Progression Answer

You: Why did you moved to replace the Category:163x with a much more cumbersome and less user-friendly Category:1632-163x alternate history series? Not to mention that this cat does not exist yet? I think we should restore the old cat, it was perfectly fine as it was.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:47, 25 March 2006 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fabartus" Reply:

163x=={ FanSpeak, WebHead, KidChat}/, not enclyclopediac and furthermore not proper English. Same thing with '-verse' suffixed 'Buzz=words', these are fine in common coloquialism on the web, but are something that should be included as 'notes' only near the bottom of an article; these things are taking to a higher encl. standard... Something like this should be the target in everyone's eyes.
More to the point, 163x conveys absolutely zero information to the lay reader, the whole 'purpose' of categories'. This construct, albeit longer, is also a label that will draw attention to the articles while conveying the information 'span of years' + Alt. Hist. = Oh, that's interesting. '163x' conveys instead Oh, look! Some kid has been making a typo with an incomplete label. This enclopedia sure has it's problems.
Which meaning do you want to convey? I gave my answer last night.

And what's the cost that you're fussed about? An extra few (20? 30?) characters but one time per article page plus my one-time investment to change that last night. Hardly worth the trouble arguing over considering since the prior tag said zip to the outsider.

If you guys had been using the talk pages correctly, this should have been aired out long ago, and someone else would have made my point. But the above's a flawed analysis too. When a new article is started, someone is just going to rip the guts out of the related ones preceding, modify what can be kept and start the new (e.g. 1633) material. He's not going to type categories, just copy them.

But until I stubbed that, you folks didn't even lift a finger to create a 1633 stub!!! Shocking! Totally mind boggling to me, considering how easy it would be to cc the old 1632 (novel) and paste it down!

Moreover, I'm looking forwards... as the stuff in the pipeline hits the stores, and if I can get you guys to actually bring some work onto the table towards Standards Like This then this is a tag we can grow the 163x proiject with knowing a reader/user-noneditor can get useful information from the category.

See talk: 1632 series; and esp. talk:1632 (novel) upshot is I spent whole night seeing everything here related to both Assiti and 163x; it's a wonder I can type as I'm not really awake. I need more than 3 hrs sleep at my age. I'll cc this to the series talk, as that is where it belogs like other series wide issues.

FrankB 21:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

from fabartus' Talk:

Are you familiar with Wikipedia:Naming conventions? Especially the ...while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. part? While a case can be made that '163x' vs. '1632 series', the '1632-163x alternate history series' is a horrible monstrosity (no offence) that nobody will be able to remember, and that is terrible as both any article name and as a category name (see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)). I appreciate your effort in developing articles, and you did a tremendous job in 1632 (novel), but you have to work on naming depeartment. Oh, and please don't overuse bold text, inclinations, headings and templates on talk pages - your posts look as a discussion of many users and are rather difficult to follow.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:36, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Respond to bring discussion here since are both online now. FrankB 21:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your query, this from the second link specific to categories is directly in support of my point:

Articles should be placed in the most specific categories possible. Categories should be more or equally as broad as the articles they contain; articles should be more or equally specific as the categories they are in. Avoid abbreviations. Example: "World War II equipment", not "WW2 equipment". (emphasis added)

FrankB 21:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a quick rejoiner here. But will keep a talk page open and refresh if you can figure out how to get around my using your own trump card. As far as the category 'creation', I asked for it to be moved in name, OTOH, since you feel strongly about this, we could compromise and keep both the old and the new. It's all a mere one time edit, save needing an admin for the move. I've arranged that by email, and I'm surprised he didn't execute on that yet. FrankB 21:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Proposal

I was just trying to figure out how to mobilize more editors as mentioned above by myself and user: Piotrus. The obvious corrallary to category is a users contributing to sort of project. So I'm proposing we do that with ourselves as soon as possible. A project page like WP:NA can then be on all our watch lists. Piotrus has the same goal, and I guess one avenue would be to post a notice on Baen's Bar that we're organizing such, and would like some help. Wouldn't do to bring Wikipedia to the attention of that crew either. But I believe that is premature until and unless we can put a better foot forward by expanding what we have now concurrent with real life, of course, something I ignored last evening by pulling an all nighter. (Frustrated: after a long system malfunction cost me much of edits Wedsnesday)

We should also get a notice out on the Village Pump; but the time to do that would be after building the project infrastructure... I'd guess there is a boilerplate somewhere. Can we have a volunteer to run that down and then start a projects page here: Talk:1632_series/Project_Page. Then we can all get together in it and it's talk, before formalizing the project to the various communities (above and below).

Volunteer to be the expert on Projects Pages (Sign Here): ?

Another need would be for someone to make a list of potentially interested editors we can 'Spam' a project invitation to once we're rolling along. Lets use: talk:1632_series/163x_Project_Invitees_List . We'll all see we're moving together as the redlinks disappear.

Volunteer(s) to editor recruiting subproject effort: (Sign Here): ?

Project Title Debate

The first order of business would be a project title. title=Category:WikiProjects&from=0 Seems to indicate that a name like my category change and the tentative 1632-163x series underlying history is more appropo than a bare uncomnunicative 'Assiti shards series Universe'project, though I think that ought to be a whole different project. The 1632 timeline is a well defined set, whereas the Assiti shards stuff is currently more tentative than real. I'd thought the current article there (Assiti shards) was ambitious and just a bit premature, but it certainly has some potential.

This is a list of current categories that should be enclosed within most our articles one way or another. Some of them may need a pipe trick to my mind as I compose this. Those that should be so modified, will be tagged with the appropriate text (in a later edit after some expermenting).

The whole purpose of categories is to make it easy for a reader to browse and check out possible topics of interest. The more, the better as they can browse the tree and browse back up a different branch to your favorite article.

About the new Cat name... and red links.

To user user: Piotrus... he did move it, but he's British and better at language than I, so he modified the name! I've composed an email with cites as to why he should change to match the syntax used in the articles. If he won't budge, It's a matter of common useage and lexicon, so I'll get someone else to move the name to the more colloquially accepted alternate history. Hot Tip: Follow that link for a precise on the distinction and useage, also: misnomer. The first is worth a read in total.

Someone want to volunteer to update it with something about Flint?

Sign up here: ?

Project Categories List (2)

Deleted this second listing as redundant; Click: 1632 series#Project Categories List (1) tidying up FrankB 01:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

For the moment, this edit is all I have, save to note that we can have a user category [[Category: Eric Flints wikiarmy ]] or perhaps [[Category: Multiverse editors]]. Ideas?

I've removed the categories from here as ~~going to~~ posted these categories at the top of this talk to see if we can draw attention from fellow editors of similar interest. If nothing else, I should draw attention to someone that likes patrolling and fixing up categories and I can point out some needed fixes in these. The whole system is haphazard an inappropriately crossed as these extra new categories should suggest to you. Given their intent, the first obviously belong in our project's output — the different articles. FrankB 01:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Delete Cats here... redundant list FrankB 01:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Category names discussions 3/25-3/26/06

Instead of Category:1632-163x alternative-history series, I'd really suggest using something simpler, like Category:1632 series. Sure, your is more descriptive, but it is also too long to remember, and it's strange: there is Category:Star Trek but no Category:Star Trek space opera television series; there is Category:Middle-earth but not Category:Middle-earth JRR Tolkien fantasy multiverse - see where am I going?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Or Category:Stargate. I concur; the category's name doesn't need "alternate history" unless there's some '1632 mystery series' or '1632 romance series' or whatever to disambiguate it from. And it doesn't need both versions of the date--either 1632 or 163x suffices.

—wwoods 06:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

- I haven't seen either of you address this from the standpoint of the category user... i.e. the purpose of wikicategories. There purpose is not to make your one time per article typing load lighter, but to convey information and link the user to other possible areas in wiki he/she may be interested in visiting. In a word, to make browsing easier, not editting. If you want me to have the impression you're a lazy typist, I got it. <G>, secondarily, I've already defined not one, bu two shorter names in parrallel to this. I just forget them! But I've also been fixing up all the categories and articles so subcategories and such are working so if you forget the name, click, your're also browsing to find the correct category name. Besides, they're posted above and I've CnP'd them at least half a dozen times. piece of cake FrankB 08:33, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- 1632-163x alt-hist
- 1632-verse alt-hist

Category:1632 series would be OK (though I still think that the current name is informative and thus more useful); any future change would, though, have to be processed through CfR. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, the first one should have been too, but no point in crying over the spilled milk. The two 'shorter' ones above are still too long. Frank, if you were right, than my examples from my post above would not exist: people find names like 1632 series good enough. Also, do you want to rename this very article from '1632 series' to something 'more' descriptive?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:33, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Xpost from user talk: Piotrus

re:*If you want to attract 163x-fans, check who edited the article in the past and inform them about your idea, if you want to seek category specialists, try Wikipedia talk:Category and such. I think that Category:1632 series is the best solution, no need for inclusion of '163x' (which I invented, as far as I know :>) or 'alt-hist' parts (just as Star Trek does not include Star Trek sci-fi or such).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:18, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

For the moment, I'm assuming that they have things on watch. I'll 'spam' an alert once I know no one is paying attention, or I get to tired to see what needs done next. In the meantime, there's been lots of progress. I believe they're all cat'd properly now, whatever names we end up with, it'll be easy to hop back and forth using the current state. You have a point on the '-1632x', and I'll shed no tears on that. So I can blame you for all that extra typing! What's your field of study, computer geeks almost always like long names. But '1632 series' doesn't give any clue that it's a book, or that 1632 is a year; moreover you chose a bad example with star trek which is iconic. The alt-hist conforms to the Cat naming conventions better, IMHO. I excepted it so I'm still waiting for a rebuttal on that point. I think it's only fair since you reference the document! :) ... Let me think on it some more. I haven't been to bed trying to move this project set into decent shape. If you have a good eye for spelling gaffs, a good look behind me would be appreciated! I'll see if I can scare up some copyedit types I know to do the same. I've been imbedding templates to attract help on that as well. We should really keep this on the series talk. Just bottom section post a minor period or some such with a summary message to go see where ever. Later! FrankB 17:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Ans Xpost from fabartus talk: Although I do consider myself part-comp geek, my actuall fields of study are social sciences (economics, sociology - see my user page bio :>). As for 'alt-hist' and Star Trek being iconic - please look at Category:Series of books (for example) and show me a single series that has a similar description. Sure, 1632 may not be well known, but neither is 99% of the other series - and do you see them with such labels? The only add-on a few (and I mean 'a few') of them have is 'books' (like) - but even Category:1632 series books that I think is overly complicated things unless we have 1632 series movis, comics, plays or something like this that would require a disambig - although I guess if we have Category:1632 series characters or such, than I could grudgingly accept the 'books' add-on.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

And ... a short while later in response: SO what do we do with what's done? Not me! FrankB What form are we not arguing about? More to the point, you do realize that any change is moot as they're already there. Even deleting one will cause more work. Some of them are redundant, but communicate different senses, thus are still useful. So what is the big deal??? The Cats are a one time, one edit in one page need. I fail to understand why this is no more than a matter of taste and style. Are you going to wake up screaming from a nightmare caused by the dream memory you couldn't shake screaming that you forgot the spelling? when you will hardly ever, if ever have to type one on any day going forward? Can we just get some work done instead of quarreling about a negligible preference? I'm sorry you don't approve, but if you haven't gotten the hint, I'm shocked at what I found for the state of this project. You guys started this a year or more ago and just orphaned it in a stub state. Is that because you had too many arguements and couldn't divvy things up, or because no one cared? FrankB 18:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

And another thing implicit in your post. Why should I lower my work ethic down to a level you find adequate? re: Sure, 1632 may not be well known, but neither is 99% of the other series - and do you see them with such labels? The proper resolution is to raise the quality of those kind of meely mouthed nonspecific half-assed strings. If someone jumps off a building you going to copy them? That's what happens when someone doesn't follow the guidelines. I may screw them up once in a while but it won't be because I'm not trying my hardest.

FrankB 18:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Category Issue Revisited-Standards Applied

FYI: This bears on the above minor spate on categorization. This Category:1632-163x alternative-history series is now DEAD, DEAD, Dead— replaced by the title Category:1632 series.

Apparently the category 'polizia' didn't like the long named version and have used AWB to update these articles across the board like this example. FrankB 18:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

End of Initial Archived page // FrankB 06: 22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)