TBAY: The morning several days after the night before

[carolynwhite2]

Miss Havisham woke up in her office several days later. Touchingly, 
she found she'd been laid on a deep pile of old posts, and more had 
been spread on top like a duvet. Really, it was very warm and 
comfortable... she tried to remember what had happened. Hazily, she 
thought Jen had said:

'OK, OK, I'm thinking we just need a goal, that's all!! That's what 
we do here in America when 
production lags. Mission statements! Philosophies! Say we decide to 
launch this thing when we get up to the posts for OOTP? We'll have 
something to shoot for. A DEADLINE, that's what we need. Coders will 
come out of the closet, taking batches of coding right and left to 
meet our productivity expectations! '

This was remarkable. The girl was showing drive..initiative..a grasp 
of strategic detail..UNLIKE SOME. It was all coming back to her now:

'Ginger stared, dumbstruck.  Miss was out cold, thank goodness.  
Turning to the others, she saw that dumb was manyfisted.
"Does this mean that we'll have to, well, you know,"  she 
grimmaced. "Think? I mean, I never signed up to do thinking.  Wasn't 
in my contract.  I thought that was what Miss was for.  My shrink 
isn't going to like this one bit.  We better placate her.  Or have 
her stuffed and mounted...nah, that's what got me in trouble last 
time.  Better skip that."

Miss Havisham pursed her lips.
Stuffed and mounted, eh. That would be noted down in the little book, 
oh yes.

Potioncat, after her naughty nautical experiences as a nurse was less 
fazed by seeing the captain out cold on the deck:

"More whisky?" Potioncat just shook her head. That's the last thing 
Miss Havisham needed. What she needed was a report, an idea...numbers 
to change in the catalogue, new headings to enter! ....more work for 
Miss is definitely what she needs, it will make her feel *useful*. ;) 
Keep her off the Ogden's or Gordon's or whatever that brand was.'

Miss Havisham heaved herself to her feet and made herself some strong 
coffee. She was pleased to see her three vile cats industriously 
shredding all the stupidest new posts as they slid down the shute. 
Amazingly, given they were only animals, they could pick out 
braindead posters with unerring accuracy. She opened them a tin of 
finest tuna as a reward (checking first it was caught with a rod, 
because of the dolphins).

Clearly Something Would Have To Be Done. After thinking for a bit, 
she sent a rocket-propelled owl deep into the Microsoft caves, 
wherein dwelled Dumbledad. She extracted a half-promise that he would 
try to get on with the UI on Sunday...

Then she investigated Jen's idea: taking us up to OOP would mean up 
to post 61393. It's certainly a target worth aiming for...but how to 
incentivise the cataloguers? That's 14193 posts to go, and there's 
nine weeks before HBP is published - that's approx 1500 posts per 
week. Perfectly do-able - we've averaged about 2000 before now. 

Thoughtfully, Miss Havisham chalked the numbers up on the magical, no-
mess office display board and placed it right in front of the door as 
they walked in, so no-one could fail to see it.

She fell into a reverie, as researching the OOP start-date had led 
her into finding her own first post (75162), and then a later one, 
detailing just what she thought of OOP (76396). Not as bad as her 
vivid imagination had painted. And little gems here and there, such 
as Silmariel replying in delight to Kneasy's elaborate plan to nuke 
the WW (76254), oh, and her all-time favourite post described the 
nature of HPfGU debates (77115). Ah...

Her reminiscences were interrupted by a glance at her in-tray... 
Potioncat appeared to have changed her mind again:

Hardly any post about someone's age is only about one character. If 
we slip "calculating ages" under a character's name, many of these 
posts would need multiple codes.
<snip>

So, here is my recommendation:
1.2.12 Calculating Characters' Ages no posts go here.
1.2.12.1 Weasley ages (to include all Weasleys) renamed from Weasley 
Age Gap it would have more than 40 posts.
1.2.12.2 Students' Ages (to include those characters who are students 
during Harry's time, except for Weasleys. This would include Viktor, 
Flint, etc...should they come up. More than 20.

There are about 20 or so posts left. We could make it 1.2.12.3 
Adults' Ages. Or there could be one for the Marauder Generation and 
one for older wizards. At the moment, I vote for one heading only. 
This leaves the only tricky one that sometimes Molly and Arhtur fit 
in adults and sometimes in Weasley. My feeling is, depending on the 
post it might go either way but not to both. 

Jen: I like it, and agree with having one Adult category. It's not 
like people will have to wade through thousands of posts to read 
about the Marauders or something. 

Miss Havisham scrawled on the bottom:

Yes, I don't mind this alternative solution - but only second-level 
headings automatically prevent you from coding to them. If the 
heading was X.X.X, it would always be possible to code something to 
it. I would not want to make this topic a second-level head, so I 
think you should only have the sub-heads you have devised - but where 
should they go?? Under character development maybe?

Wearily, she stomped out of the office, pausing to put a bar of 
Honeydukes finest on everyone's desk, stepped through the prose 
portal and resumed battle with RL....

Carolyn