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ttlanhil

tenatively volunteering for historian

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now that I've got a few weeks of holidays, I figured I'd be able to dive in to some more EL stuff.

my laptop going away for warranty repairs has been an issue for this, though, and I've had the 'flu for a while, so not able to do the more complex work.

I should be able to start at it again when I get my lappy back (probably friday)

 

I intent to try setting up a system for recording the histories of draia.

 

this will be attacked as follows:

1) planning time for a database. figuring out what all of the key items are in the stories(people, places, all that)

2) searching for stories. this will include things in the storylines forum, and anything else people point me to

3) populating the database with the stories

4) making some tools to be able to make use of the information in the database

 

steps 3 & 4 will overlap a fair bit.

 

the parts I'd most appreciate help with are 2 & 3. this will consist of finding the stories and doing some basic classification and formatting (this will be a relatively simple procedure, merely listing the key people, key places, etc etc. no coding skills or anything required)

 

for anyone who'd like to help with this project (many people can, if a lot of people each provide classifications for one story, it'll get a lot of work done fast), please let me know.

any sources of stories that are not in the storylines forum, again, please post with the URL (or a copy if appropriate)

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Finally! I found an Archivist! :) This will be an IMMENSE help in the future, ttlanhil. :P Great to see you go for this!

 

-Lyn-

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heh, I know you've been wanting someone to do this a while. it's just so large a project.

and I don't feel I really know the history of draia well enough for some of the storylines work (boy, I bet I'll be tired of it by the end of this though)

but there's just not enough people to get it all done, so I'll be attacking this as a toolsmith, my general approach. see if I can find a way to make it work, so that other people can easily do small parts. I'm hoping that will get more people involved.

 

don't expect this to be done anytime soon, though, even without putting any stories in it could take a fair while... the really scary bit is the incontinuity, though, that's going to be really hard to solve

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okay, I've been working on database design.

I've considered wiki, but I don't think they typically have the strong relationships and dependancies I need to make sure it works.

now, in order to be able to jump back and forth all over the place, the info needs to be split up a fair bit, the stories alone are only a part of it.

there's also people, places, how the stories link, and a lot more. pretty obvious, but it does add complexity.

I think I'm set up to cover all the info needed, but I want input before I go further.

can anyone think of important information that doesn't fit how I've currently designed it, and doesn't fit well? (if it can work, but not well, then that's an indication something may need to be changed)

 

ta,

~ttl

 

 

 

 

notes:

an event can only take place at one time. that could be one day, one month, a year, but it's basically a single event. a story is a number of events, making up a longer tale. stories are non continuous.

people who change significantly (such as accension as the extreme case) will be made up of 2(or more) person entries

same with places

 

a # at the end means that it's a link to one of the other tables. event.story# links to story.id#

a [] at the end means it's a list (or can be) not just one entry. story.event#[] means there's a series of links to multiple event.id# s

 

story

----

id#

event#[]

starttime

endtime

title

scope --how big this event is. the highest level is things like the birth/death of races, etc. things that have no impact on the world outside of the story have the lowest rating. this will be used so you can 'zoom in' on the time line

description --an abstract, intro, whatever. no point restating each story, just giving an overview

 

event

-----

id#

story#

author#

medium --books, folklore, etc

veracity --how reliable the story is. recent books vs ancient folklore, etc

people#[]

date

place#[]

item#[]

version

title

scope

changes made --changes this story makes to the EL world, not changes to the story (ie, when magic becomes available to mortals)

content --the actual story

 

person

------

id#

name

title/position

race

age

description

startdate

enddate

AKA# --if this person becomes someone else (like accension), then this links to the other person entry. order determined by start/end dates of each

 

relationships --this can also be large groups, like religions, races, etc. in this case, the linked people may only consist of people important to the group, ie god, preists, but not worshippers

-------------

person#[]

description

startdate

enddate

 

author

------

id#

name

story#[]

notes/desc

 

special items --no point in listing things like 'iron sword', but any special item that's of story proportions can go here

-------------

id#

description

startdate

enddate

person#[] --owners/maker/etc

event#[]

 

place

-----

id#

name

location

description

startdate

enddate

inside# --what place this one is inside. Serdia will be within Draia, portland within Serdia, Portland library within Portland, and so forth. care must be taken in regards to the time issues, though, see next point

AKA# --if the name changes or whatever, this links to the other entries

Edited by ttlanhil

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Two links to help you:

 

Storylines Status (every important story in the history of EL is there... read them, and you'll get a good grasp of the events.)

 

Eternal Lands Fact Files (this was compiled by me regarding the information that Ent provided in his NPC scripts... some of the details about place histories may change, as the quests are rewritten).

 

If you could implement a search function for certain topics, like races and religions (eg. all stories featuring Elves), that would be extremely useful. I would suggest renaming your "story" category to "event" and "saga" to "story", just for clarity's sake. (We don't have any real sagas yet, but they can be added later as an even higher function, I suppose). The main aim of this is writer's resources, so we want it to be as useful to writers as possible (with the sub-goal of documenting everything important in the storyline).

 

-Lyn-

Edited by Lyanna

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If you could implement a search function for certain topics, like races and religions (eg. all stories featuring Elves), that would be extremely useful. I would suggest renaming your "story" category to "event" and "saga" to "story", just for clarity's sake. (We don't have any real sagas yet, but they can be added later as an even higher function, I suppose). The main aim of this is writer's resources, so we want it to be as useful to writers as possible (with the sub-goal of documenting everything important in the storyline).

177165[/snapback]

I'll change the names, they're just temporary and used for database definition anyway.

searching will be available, I'll expand on the groups part, that can be used for races, religious orders, etc.

a full search is also possible, working through the content, but that's a lot more work for the computer and will return a lot more than the viewer probably wants to see

 

Is this like going into some website programming code or something?

177166[/snapback]

it will work as a website, yes. figuring out where and setting it up is somewhat of a minor issue at this stage, though, as it will take a while to build everything and figure out how the stories fit together. and optionally contacting authors and telling them of conflits, seeing if some of these stories can be tweaked so that the timeline meshes well

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Ttlanhil, if you need any help at all when it comes to the stories, please let me know. I'll do anything i can to give you assistance. Any questions you may have, I'll get the answers.

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Hosting shouldn't be a problem..we can put it on EL.com I think.

 

I'm going to revise the Story submission lisence for EL a bit..and have the authors sign off on it so that if we need to change things in their stories to be consistent we'll be able to do that. I'm just afraid conflicts will arise and we won't be able to get a hold of the author..and then what do ya do? :/

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I'm going to revise the Story submission lisence for EL a bit..and have the authors sign off on it so that if we need to change things in their stories to be consistent we'll be able to do that. I'm just afraid conflicts will arise and we won't be able to get a hold of the author..and then what do ya do? :/

177209[/snapback]

 

YES, please! It's quite incredibly difficult now, because according to the license we have to consult and document every little spelling change that we make, for the writer to approve of. It takes forever. And the consistency issues would be even harder to deal with unless the authors sign off their permissions, as you've suggested.

 

-Lyn-

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Actually I edited it to include typo's/small grammar changes a few weeks ago.

 

But what I am talking about here are a bit more major things, if we cannot get ahold of hte author and NEED to change something.

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okay, so here's where it's all at now. nearly all planning done, 1/2 to 2/3 done the tools

and I'm resigning. apparently people haven't had enough notice about what's going on (yeah, I know, check the previous post dates), and are just now starting to argue about how it should be done

if things get sorted out, I may some time later come back to work on this

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okay, so here's where it's all at now. nearly all planning done, 1/2 to 2/3 done the tools

and I'm resigning. apparently people haven't had enough notice about what's going on (yeah, I know, check the previous post dates), and are just now starting to argue about how it should be done

if things get sorted out, I may some time later come back to work on this

209396[/snapback]

Your call. But I see no need for resignation. Perhaps I do not fully understand. People are always misinformed and have incomplete information or none at all. It happens. The fact remains you are the best person for this job. I await your return.

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Your call. But I see no need for resignation. Perhaps I do not fully understand. People are always misinformed and have incomplete information or none at all. It happens. The fact remains you are the best person for this job. I await your return.

209403[/snapback]

I've been told that my way is wrong by an admin. several times. and head of stoylines and quests has said that setting up some sort of archival is something to do later on(ie not now) he might just not be aware that this is already happening... but either way, people need to get themselves sorted out. there's no point in me spending more time on this if in the end an admin says "we'll do it this way", and what I've done is promptly ignored, is there? I can see it happening

once things get figured out, I'll look again at if it's worth continuing on this

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*wonders what archiving has to do with restructuring storylines and quests...*

I never stated no wiki...i have never used it, all I see is that either way the structures both of the groups and of the forums needed changing and organization, with or without wiki. I just simply said to take the discussion elsewhere because it had no bearing on the other topic at hand.

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*wonders what archiving has to do with restructuring storylines and quests...*

I never stated no wiki...i have never used it, all I see is that either way the structures both of the groups and of the forums needed changing and organization, with or without wiki.  I just simply said to take the discussion elsewhere because it had no bearing on the other topic at hand.

209408[/snapback]

when did I say you were the admin being referenced? I didn't

 

bleh, I give up. I thought I took long enough to make what I wrote clear... either I didn't, in which case my writing/editing abilities are all shot to hell and I'm of no use at all anymore, or people don't even listen to what I'm talking about anymore, in which case... hmm. how about that, eh? either way it's pointless for me to keep at it

 

so here we go. I'm on vacation. I'll get in contact with the people who I have work for. once people figure out what they should and shouldn't be doing, I might come back to dev work

 

edit: However I'll still work on the Times for now, in case people were wondering about that

Edited by ttlanhil

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Calm Down ttlanhil ;P I just found that post that we are refering too, After I posted here. Either way, you are very talented and we could use your skills. Nothing is wrong with achiving things, I am all for it. Also know that we are not going against you, just insuring we understand correctly and add our input, the same you do for us.

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Calm Down ttlanhil ;P

209415[/snapback]

no.

I'm sad, not angry.

look at how long lyanna was trying to get someone to work as archiver with no-one stepping up. then look at how long people have had to debate my plans since I posted them for the world to see and comment on (though they've changed a lot since then, but since no-one seemed to care how it worked, i didn't bother updating)

and now just recently I've been told several times that what I'm doing is wrong. I tried to spell out how wikis won't work optimally for this sort of job. and how what I was working on would work better (I mean, really... customised work can be expected to better suit your requirements than a general job, right), but no help. and now, rather than back when it should have been (though at that time I already knew wikis were suboptimal for the task, but that was the time to argue about how it should be done)

 

new head of storylines/quests not knowing where things are at, I can understand. there's a lot to keep track of. huge amounts of stuff to be aware of

several admin ignoring my explanations/questions/missing the point, well, that just makes it hard to get work done. which comes to my next issue... exam time is coming at uni soon. so I've had less time to work on stuff anyway

so really, I should be picking the jobs I want to do (since it's my relax time) instead of what needs to be done

and y'know what? archival work aint exciting. it's something that we really need, because just look at how hard it is to trace a race, say, or check anything else in the forums about storylines... and because of this, anyone writing stories that affect more than just the characters and extras in their stories gets told "this doesn't fit with the official storlines, read XX, YY, and ZZ"... and XX and ZZ could conflict anyway!

but it's not something I want to be spending my time on

doing editing (well, proofreading now) of stories, on the other hand... it's more fun to read what other people are writing

and the Times. that's a fun project. there's a fair bit of work I need to put into that soon, but it's something I wanna do

of course, writing stuff myself can also be fun, though I don't do it that often

the other thing I enjoy (most of all) is programming... though there are other problems there as well now... some of which I certainly can't go into here

 

so.

until people in charge figure themselves and their jobs out, or exam time at uni finishes, I'll be picking the jobs I wanna do, instead of what needs doing.

 

all that aside...

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new head of storylines/quests not knowing where things are at, I can understand.

209435[/snapback]

 

 

That would be me as you well know. And I am fully aware of what's going on.

 

I will review this and look at what will be best. I never said that you were wrong, but maybe your way isn't the most efficient. If you think otherwise - show me.

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Gotcha. You do what you feel is right. I respect you ttlanhil.

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That would be me as you well know. And I am fully aware of what's going on.

I have serious doubts anyone can be fully aware of all that's going on and has gone on (apart from maybe lyanna ^_^)
I will review this and look at what will be best. I never said that you were wrong, but maybe your way isn't the most efficient. If you think otherwise - show me.

209438[/snapback]

sigh. this again?

I've been working on this months, no-one else helped with the design, and all the input I've had is an admin telling me what I'm doing is wrong, and just recently, which is the wrong time, and bad practice in development

I have already, many times explained why I'm going custom job instead of wiki... I doubt another option will present itself, but if it came up while I was working on this, I'd evaluate that too

 

And I am fully aware of what's going on... If you think otherwise - show me.
I've explained it more than once. if you didn't read it, understand it, or remember it, then you're far from 'fully aware'

 

 

 

 

thank you to brom

 

 

 

(in general, not to any one person)and I'm sick and tired of answering the same thing over and over again. so I'm just gonna ignore it from now on. if I don't respond to something, go figure out where else I already answered it that I figure you can read it

Edited by ttlanhil

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Ttlanhil, can you please show me whatever you've been working on? I'm sorry I don't get to read all the forums, so things can easily pass me by.

If you want something recognized for certain, just send me a pm about it! If someone is starting a project for the game please show me and bug me about! Don't be afraid to pm me because im too busy or something...if anything those are the kind of pm's i DO want! :)

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I've explained it more than once. if you didn't read it, understand it, or remember it, then you're far from 'fully aware'

209448[/snapback]

 

What I meant was that I haven't seen any result of your work. So if you have something to show me please send a forum PM and show me.

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eh... okay, I'll come up with some example pages and put them somewhere... they won't work as far as adding/removing entries, of course, since that requires the database to be set up and working... and I'm not leaving my laptop on and connected to demo it :)

 

okay, bear in mind that this was just a quick jump-ahead, and not the final version. thanks to the magic of CSS, it's also easy to make reasonably large changes to the layout and colours as needed.

and none of it will work, in the save/edit sence.

treat it like a low-bandwidth screenshot :)

 

oh yeah, and the example data is silly. that's to be expected with me ^_^ it should show how things will work though

 

http://www.users.on.net/~gingerman/index.htm ~ start page

it knows I'm admin (which means also editor), so the help for an admin/editor is shown. this will be different if not admin/editor

http://www.users.on.net/~gingerman/index_edit.htm ~ if editing it

cant edit entries unless editor, can't edit things like user lists and announcements unless you're admin

http://www.users.on.net/~gingerman/admin.htm ~ the administration page. used to add/remove editors, which should be rare

http://www.users.on.net/~gingerman/people.htm ~ cut-job of editing a person entry. all stories involving this person will have a link that goes to this page, etc. if your browser is newer, check out things like the tooltip on 'fred mkII' in AKA, this gives the title as well as name (and might include something like date of birth)

of course, when you're not in edit mode, which is usually the case, you don't have that bandwidth used for the forms

 

key points (some reiteration): uses forum logins & admin list. much simpler for the users :) (and don't worry, forum admin, all the indexer admin do is add/remove editors and add/remove announcements. neither will happen often, and I'll probably take care of it in most cases.)

stories remain in the forums (or someone elses' webserver). this thing will only give a link to it (but the indexer does keep a synopsis/summary, so you can get an overview spanning many stories)

you can follow links all over the place quite easily. eg: the story page will have a list of all people involved, so you can follow one of those links, and the person page will have a list of all stories the person is in, so you can go to that story...

the 'timeline' page: you can select groups(such as draegoni), or people, time limits(or not, for all time), and only stories of high importance(it made a difference to the world) and veracity(we know it happened. it's no myth)

what does that give? a breif history of the draegoni, all major events that shaped their race

you can also set to a lower importlance level and timeframe, and get a more complete history of, say, the church of aluwen

more generic search will also be there, of course. each data page(as in, not admin, index, etc) will have a search function for their own data, and you can have an indexer-wide search.

I'm debating whether the searching should be limited to people logged into the forums though (protection against DoS attacks and such. the forums does it as well, so it wouldn't make things worse)

before the final version goes live, I'll also go through storylines, looking for questions(and post asking for them) to find out how people need to get the data out (the birth&death of the centaurs, for example)

 

remember that what's posted is still rough. the look and the design will be polished still(though if there's someone good with website design who wants to help out a bit, that'd be handy)

 

 

It won't mean much to many people, but the webpages will be all strictly to the new standards. that means that it's far more back- and forward- compatable, and will work & look the same to all people. none of that matters much, except the part where different browsers acting differently can cause bugs

Edited by ttlanhil

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