Project thingummy/Definitions files/snipe-fests/auto re-numbering/kids/Lupin

[carolynwhite2]

Jen:
Maybe I've overstepped my bounds here. The bottom line is we won't 
be able to code enough posts AND finish the review if we want to 
launch prior to HBP. 

.. when I run across a post where the person doing the review 
is tied up in RL and can't get back or has disappeared, and I know I 
may be the last person to deal with that post before we open up to 
the public, well....I figured a unilateral decision is better than no 
decision.

Kelly:
I think it's important that we finish as many reviews as possible by 
launch date. 

But we should try to avoid any reorganization and redefining of the 
categoies that already exist, since this could be annoying and 
confusing to the catalogue users.

I'd like to finish my reviews now. I won't be able to do any 
reviewing once I go to sea, since my version of the catalogue will be 
static (I can add category changes like last time, but won't be able 
to see newly coded posts or the results of others' reviews).

However, the post counts of my remaining categories are a bit 
daunting...


Carolyn (sighing rather gloomily):
I am pretty nervous about launching the catalogue unless every 
category has been checked and cleaned up relatively recently - 
particularly the very large ones (and yes, I am guilty of losing the 
will to live on Voldemort, I will finish it).

I also think that changes as we go along will be inevitable even once 
launched, and the users will just have to live with it. I am hoping 
that Paul's and Tim's interface will be clever enough to morph along 
with our changes - ie, be driven by the real categories we are using. 
Providing that there is always an up to date definition associated 
with a particularly category, so that users can click on to check 
what is in it, hopefully that will be self-explanatory enough.

It's a tall order, to finish up to GOF, review all the sections *and* 
hope that Paul and Tim get their stuff done by 16th July. Probably we 
should moderate our expectations somewhat. I am chasing various 
people offlist to see if we can get a bigger team on the project 
again, but RL etc..

It sounds to me, Kelly, that it might be better if you stayed with 
the reviews for now if that will be difficult to do on board. 
Although I suppose you could have a pleasantly fiendish time going 
through and making decisions on posts in a section, and then emailing 
me a list for someone else to do the actual shifting about!


************
Ginger:
The one I looked at in "files" was a whole list from top to bottom 
that had the category#, name, definition, and reviewer name.  The 
ones I did were the pets-TWT.  They were empty.

Carolyn:

The files you should have been looking at probably are three Word 
files about three-quarters of the way down the list called, 
respectively:

REVISED DEFINITIONS, Section 1 Text Analysis

REVISED DEFINITONS, Section 2 Character Analysis

REVISED DEFINITIONS, Section 3 WW

**********

Ginger:

I started rejecting when it got past valid posting styles.  There 
were a couple that maybe could have been kept, but these were really 
long posts and the part that could have been kept was in the middle 
of an un-snipped snipe-fest.  If I recall, I did keep one of the 
later ones attempting to explain things and smooth feathers.  Oddly 
enough, it started out with a really good post that I thought about 
reposting on the list now, but after what it turned into, and the 
current list dynamics, I thought twice.

Carolyn, mildly intrigued:

What was the argument about? Who were the protagonists?

**********

Kelly:
Is there a way to recode a long list of posts without doing it
manually post by post? I've started moving posts from the Admission
process category to their new homes, but it may take a while, and is 
mind-numbingly tedious. Posts can basically be divided into four
categories:

1) Admission process posts: no change
2) School population posts: drop 3.16.3 and add 3.16.3.2
3) Reject group 1: drop 3.16.3
4) Reject group 2: drop 3.16.3, add 0.0.5 and reject marker

Any way to automate this?

Carolyn:

Unfortunately, not very easily. Paul is able to remove a post 
category en masse from a given section (as I have recently asked him 
to do on Kathy's character ages section - I have asked him to take 
1.2.12 off of all posts remaining in that section, so effectively it 
will end up with zero posts).

In your second example, if *all* the posts currently in 3.16.3 should 
now be 3.16.3.2, then I can do that for you.

But there is no way of automating the rejects that you mention, the 
only way you could do it was if they were in a separate section to 
start with, which would take as long as doing the rejecting probably.

***********

On a completely unrelated and off-topic note, to all you Brits, do 
you learn to spell by sound rather than letter? 

I mean that they have alternate names for each letter, based on
how they sound.


And on another slightly off-topic note, abovementioned sister was
visiting me this weekend, and we got into a HP discussion, at which
point I noticed just how far beyond the normal range of HP obsession 
I have journeyed. 

Carolyn:

Do you know, I can't remember for the life of me how I learnt to 
spell. Since it was nearly half a century ago (OMG...) I suspect we 
did it the traditional way by copying words off the blackboard. I 
have no recall of a phonetic approach at all, but I can remember as 
clear as day the moment I first learnt to read properly. I was about 
4 or 5 I think and standing at my teacher's desk, and suddenly it all 
just clicked and I read a whole page to her. Had my nose in a book 
ever since.

Hm, on the topic of children, as you may know I lead a sheltered life 
(ie avoid 'em like the plague), but saw a friend recently who insists 
on producing them at regular intervals, and joy, the eldest (now 11) 
said he'd read HP. Aha, I thought, a member of the target audience. 
Enthusiastically I started questioning him what he thought of OOP, 
hoping for juvenile insights into What It Was All About. He just 
looked at me scathingly and said HP was *so* last year..and his 
mother said they'd never bothered to buy OOP. Crushed or what.

***********

Ginger:

I noticed that the Lupin section has a "ESE!Lupin" and a "Good!Lupin" 
category. I had understood that ESE categories were to be arguements 
both for and against a character being ESE. Currently there are 62 
posts in ESE, and 9 in Good, with 5 of these being coded to both. I 
noticed Snape has the same thing. How are we figuring this out? I 
know that in coding, I have only run into Good in respense to ESE, so 
I have coded to ESE. Do we code to whichever set the ball rolling 
first? And in reviewing, how do we determine this if some previous 
posts have been rejected? 

Carolyn:
Frankly m'dear, we'll need to make some decisions what to do about 
all this. The reason there are ESE! and Good! categories under Lupin 
and Snape in particular was because it was a way of sub-dividing the 
seemingly endless list of acronyms. They often split into the two 
camps quite nicely. Of course, in the actual threads relating to the 
acronyms there are posts arguing both ways.

Also, with Lupin in particular, I am very keen that we get all of 
Pippin's ESE!Lupin posts in one place. You have to watch out very 
carefully for these, because they weren't necessarily called that at 
the beginning. There are also other posts there not by her, but 
acting as precursors to her theory. I think they are very interesting 
to read in that context, plus sundry others who have come to the same 
conclusions.

I think the principle I would adopt is to try and keep threads 
together that relate to acronyms. Where there are posts that don't 
relate to any acronym in particular, but fall into either good or 
ESE, I would allocate them accordingly. There are also probably other 
posts on other topics relating to Lupin which you might like to come 
up with some new headings for - eg relating to his lycanthropy.

There is also going to be a further issue relating to discussions of 
Shrieking Shack II - whether he didn't take his potion deliberately 
or not. There are hundreds of posts about that. Can't remember if 
they should be in the chapter refs or not (check Jen's list of rules).

This section is undoubtedly a big challenge. I'll email Talisman and 
see if I can get her to consider what to do with Snape, since it's a 
similar problem.


>>I'll reiterate that there is Butterbeer and 
Ogden's in the refridgerator from my last trip to the HH.

>>Ginger, off to the chiropracter.

Now you're talking. Sounds like you could do with a slug of Ogden's 
yourself for you back. Kneasy swears by it...literally.


Carolyn