October Status and Progress Report

[Cindy C.]

Hi, all,

We've been FAQing our brains out for a little over a month, so maybe 
it's time for a status and progress report.  Forget about raises, 
bonuses, vacation time, health insurance -- nothing makes workers 
happier than detailed periodic status and progress reports, right?  

Right.  So here's where we are and here's where we're headed.

PERSONNEL

We have a new FAQ member who is probably trembling with anxiety at 
the prospect of having her de-lurk posted for all to see.  Welcome 
aboard, Ali!

At this point, we have 11 active cataloguers – Amy, Catherine, 
Cindy, Debbie, Dicey, Eileen, Elkins, Eloise, Kimberly, Penny and 
Pip.  I'm thinking we probably don't need any additional people, 
although we do have one invitation outstanding but haven't heard 
back.  We also have a core group of link checkers and coders in 
Barb, Jen, Joy, Marina, Parker, Porphyria and Sheryll.

CATALOGUING

Of the 21 message blocks from 25,000-46,000, all but 5 have been 
checked out.  Five are completed.  

Of the 21,000 messages we set out to catalogue, we've catalogued 
around 6,000, which is very good progress (28%).  If we continue at 
the same rate (allowing for a slow-down around the winter holidays), 
we might finish cataloguing (Phase I) by the end of January.  

At which point we can start doing what we all came here to do –- 
writing some FAQs (Phase II)!

That said, it would be great if we could find a way to move more 
quickly to finish the cataloguing.  After all, if we start writing 
FAQs in February, we'll be hard-pressed to write all of the new FAQs 
and update the old ones before an OoP summer release.

So what does everyone think?  Is there anyone who doesn't have time 
to do a complete message block but who would be able to take a 
smaller chunk?  Is anyone encountering any problems in the 
cataloguing process?  Any ideas about how to streamline things?  Any 
helpful tips based on experience with the process so far?  Are there 
any problems that keep coming up in the cataloguing that we could 
try to address?

Once we've finished writing new FAQs and updating old ones, we can 
turn our attention to cataloguing the posts that pre-date Message 
25,000 and cataloguing messages after 45,000 (Phase III).

THE MOVE TO THE FA SERVERS

We're aiming to move the FAQs to the Fiction Alley servers by 
November 15 to coincide with the release in the CoS movie and the 
anticipated membership spike.  We'll need to put all of the old FAQs 
onto the new "Fantastic Posts" templates Porphyria has worked up 
(Porphyria will explain the templates in a separate message).  We're 
hoping to have as many of the old FAQs coded and link-checked by 
then, but a few of them will be loaded in their current form and 
coded to have their message citations lined after the move to 
Fiction Alley.

As for the new FAQs, the launch will include new FAQs for Pettigrew, 
Black, Mysteries, History, Weasley Family and Snape.  Lupin is still 
in progress, so we'll launch him when he's ready.

Housekeeping tasks for finishing off the move will be to draft an 
ADMIN for the main list, finish as much coding and link-checking as 
we can, and revise the Humongous BigFile to include the new 
Fantastic Post link.  Once we've moved everything, Steve can take 
the old FAQ site off of the Lexicon server.

We're also going to move Hypothetic Alley from the ADMIN files area 
of the main list to the new FAQ site.  Since HA is essentially a FAQ 
(a compilation of posts from the main list), it makes some sense to 
house it with the FAQs, especially since more newbies are likely to 
find it that way.  Also, for some reason no one can figure out, HA 
is very slow to load in its current location, and some people have 
been unable to read it at all.  Even the new, sexy, stripped down 
version that Porphyria has placed in the FAQ staging area is slow to 
load.  We're hoping that moving it to the new server might help, but 
we don't know for sure.  

So that's where we are.  Thoughts, suggestions, questions?  Go on, 
don't be shy.

Cindy and Elkins