New and Improved Guidelines for Cataloguing Posts

[ssk7882]

Oh, dear, Debbie!  I had no idea that you lived in that part of the 
country too.  Okay.  I'll just add you and your family to the list of 
people that I worry about these days then.

No, it isn't funny, and it has got to be a terrible thing to try to 
explain to children.  Random strikes of fate are not very easy for 
any of us to come to grips with, and that there is human agency 
behind it in this case just makes it that much worse.  My thoughts 
are with you.  Keep safe.


Debbie asked:

> Is there any way to tell when pulling up the topic terms whether 
> it's been changed since I last looked at it? I mean, besides 
> counting the terms on the old list and comparing it to the number 
> on the screen? 

Sadly, I don't think that there is.  Using the printable record 
function does make it a lot easier to scan the list quickly to see if 
anything relevant to the batch of posts you've just catalogued has 
been added, and you can always jot down the number of entries in the 
database somewhere and compare it, but other than that, there's 
nothing that I'm aware of that can help us here.  


Eloise wrote:

> But I'm stuck. How do I find a keyword for SYCOPHANTS (a discussion 
> of the diversity and characteristics thereof) without using the 
> word, um, sychophants? Which in the context, is always capitalised?

For one of those "I identify and sympathize with SYCOPHANTS and 
here's why" posts, I might do something like this:

TBAY, Characterization, Reader Reaction

And put some mention of SYCOPHANTS in the comments field.

Similarly, "George" posts are really "Why did Snape join/leave the 
DEs" discussions, with "George" used as a kind of shorthand for an 
entire canonical argument.  So I'd keyword them appropriately, 
including a TBAY keyword to alert people that this particular post 
might require some background to understand, but mention George only 
in the comments cell.

> Going back to the guidelines, I guess I'm not quite sure of the 
> reason *why* we're using the TBAY prefix as a keyword, at all.

Some people find TBAY posts rather confusing.  Using the prefix as a 
keyword will give those FAQ editors who just can't cope with them 
fair warning when they are assembling their material.  I can imagine 
that it could be very frustrating for a FAQ editor to pull up a bunch 
of message numbers for what look to be perfect illustrative posts, 
only then to find that they are all written in a style which the 
editor finds opaque.  Keywording makes it easier for people to weed 
them out, if they so choose, or at least to have them all clumped 
together in the sorting array.

> On the subject of what *not* to include, I suspect that I may be 
> leaving in posts that could be cut, but I've erred on the side of 
> caution. I've commented occasionally that the post adds little (I 
> even employed Pip's friend ANN, yesterday). I'd rather leave it to 
> the discretion of the FAQ editor to make the final decision. 

Yes.  That's been my philosophy as well.  The situation that I would 
very much like for us to avoid is one in which the FAQ editors, 
having noticed that some groups of messages seem to have been far 
more idiosyncratically or extensively culled than others, get all 
*paranoid* and decide that they must do a cull themselves to make 
certain that the cataloguer did not leave out anything good, or 
impose too much of her own personal taste on the work.  I don't want 
the FAQ editors to worry that worthy posts might have been omitted on 
the whim of the cataloguer.  I want the FAQ editors to feel that they 
can trust the spreadsheet to include everything that they might want 
to find.  So I've been trying to err on the side of caution as well.

This brings up a point that I'd wanted to raise with you all, 
though.  I've been attempting to catalogue the current batch of posts 
as they've been appearing on the main list, and I'm discovering that 
there is a problem with this idea.  The problem here is that it is 
impossible for me to know which threads are going to evolve into 
something...well...*useful,* and which threads are fated to crib-
death.  I suspect that as a result, I'm putting in a lot more time 
and effort than I would necessarily have to if I had the benefit of 
hindsight.

This has led me to wonder if cataloguing current messages is really a 
very efficient use of my time at all.  So I thought that I'd punt the 
question over to you guys to see what you think.  Does it make sense 
for me to be doing this? Or would it make more sense to wait until 
46,000 before anyone starts cataloguing the current thousand posts?  
Or at least until the list hits 45,500?

I'm inclining towards the latter opinion myself (especially since 
it's already a given that the FAQs can never be *perfectly* 
current).  If others agree, then I will leave the 45000-46000 
spreadsheet as it is, to be taken up and completed later on, and 
instead get to work on an older block of messages.  (I'll even take
a recentish batch, so that Eloise's TBAY misery can have some 
company.)  But I thought that I'd best run that idea past you all 
first, to see what you think of it.


Elkins