Hello!

[Cindy C.]

Deranimmer wrote:

> Er, well, hello all!

Well, hello to you, too!  And welcome aboard!


> I must say, I'm tremendously honored to ask to be helped with all -
-
> 
> <waves hand helplessly at the 59,121 messages>


Can I say that the feeling is mutual?  We're honored to have you, 
and we feel helpless.  ;-)


>I frankly 
> haven't a clue how to get started. 


Not to worry.  Perhaps a quick tour around the place is in order?

I'll hit the highlights, and I'll let others pop in to correct me 
and embellish and all of that.

OK.  This is the FAQ list.  The only thing we do is handle 
the "Fantastic Posts and Where to Find Them."  

We don't have anything to do with the administration of the HPfGU 
lists.  No, no, no.  There is a whole separate list for that -- you 
know, sending howlers, assigning elves to new members, posting ADMIN 
announcements, determining list policy.  Quite a number of the FAQ 
members are members of that other list (known as the "MEG" list -- 
for Moderators/Elves/Geists).  So don't worry.  You won't have to do 
any actual heavy lifting or anything.  Everything we do is creative 
-- we're creating new FPs and updating the old ones.

We do, however, have our own system of governance -- anarchy.  No 
one is in charge, and our active members all have moderator powers.  
Just don't, er, delete the list, OK?  ;-)  When someone has an idea 
or proposal, they just toss it out, and if a few people nod and no 
one objects, then we act on it.  

>Don't get me wrong -- it looks 
> like *fun* work -- but I rather feel like I need the equivalent of 
>a List Elf about now to tell me where to begin. 

Well, that's the best part.  There's nothing to do right now but 
learn your way around.  You'll want to read the archives and poke 
around in the databases and files.  

Back in September, we decided to make a big push to improve the 
FPs.  We reformated them to make sure all of them had working links, 
we spiffed them up visually, and we launched a few new ones.

We also embarked on a very ambitious plan to catalogue the main 
list.  We created an Excel spreadsheet of most every post from post 
20,000-41,000, more or less.  We also described the post and 
assigned key words to the posts.  So now if you want to find posts 
that discuss whether Ron is ESE, you can use the Excel spreadsheet.

Why only 20,000-41,000?  

Uh, we got tired?  ;-)  Seriously, we worked for months to produce 
the catalogue, and we realized we'd never be able to keep up at the 
rate members were posting.  But it is a fabulous resource 
(previously, each FAQ writer had to comb the entire list to find 
relevant posts), and we're exploring ways to handle the deluge post-
OoP without resorting to the previous cataloguing process.


>Do we get assigned to specific sorts of things, or do people 
> sort of take various tasks as is their preference? 


The latter.  In fact, the reason we don't have a "Harry Potter FP" 
is simply because no one has volunteered to write one.

When the FAQ list was founded, each member took a gob of topics and 
started writing FAQs.  This worked well enough in the beginning -- 
list volume was low, so one person could easily handle several 
topics.  When we decided to gear up in October, though, we realized 
the list was too large and too busy for one person to handle any one 
topic.  

That means that the way you get work around here is just step 
forward and say, "I'd like to write X.  Would anyone like to help?"  
And you take it from there.  Or if someone is already working on an 
FP, you can just ask them if they'd like help.

>What FAQs are we thinking of updating -- or are we just going to 
>wait until OOP comes out and then update *all* of them in 
>one "swell foop"? 


Ah, you ask good questions.  Originally, we were hoping to finish a 
few more FPs before OoP, but <checks calendar> that doesn't look 
likely right now.  So we'll write and update FPs after OoP, I guess.

I think we'll all take some time to read and enjoy OoP and post a 
bit and whatever, then we'll turn our attention to writing/updating 
FPs.  My feeling is that the first month of posting post-OoP won't 
contain all that many posts that are "fantastic."

I might have a go at updating Hypothetic Alley a bit, though.  
Imperius!Arthur, Assassin!Snape.  Maybe there's some other stuff.  
And Eileen said she'd like to create something to point people 
toward the Crouch Triology Cubed.

I posted a status chart about a week ago saying who had agreed to 
work on what post.

>When we do see 
> particularly interesting posts, is there some sort of catch-all ?
>file we can send them to until we're ready to write them into a 
>FAQ? 

Uh, yeah.  Only I haven't created the database for that yet.  
<blushes>  But yeah, I think just having each of us identify 
fantastic posts we happen to notice and enter them into a database 
here will be more manageable than trying to catalogue post-OoP posts.


>Does being on this list mean that I have to start reading all the 
>posts, at least to the main list? 


No way.


>Is this even humanly possible? 

No way.

 
> And, er, would it perhaps have been better for me just to have 
>lurked for a couple of weeks and watched things operate until I 
>could answer all of these questions myself?

Heck, no!  We love questions.  There's a lot to figure out, so shout 
out if you have any questions at all.

Let's see.  Our recruitment drive is going very well.  I've invited 
Derannimer, Melody, Phyllis and Abigail.  Veronica is too busy right 
now, so I've told her she's welcome any time her schedule eases up.

OK, what did I forget, folks?

Cindy