One way of sorting out 85000 emails...

[a_reader2003]

Earlier this evening I said:

"I can re-post my proposal here if anyone wants to see it - tell me 
if this is permitted."

Wendy replied offlist:

Posting your proposal here is very much permitted, and would be a 
great idea. That is exactly the sort of thing we'd love to see on 
this list. So, feel free to post it whenever you'd like.
:-)
Wendy
Aka Hebby Elf

Ok Wendy..here it is, a little bit tidied up and edited after a few 
second thoughts since August. [Retires, donning tin helmet].

Subj:	Ambitious editorial idea for for HPfGU Admin Team..	
Date:	05/10/2003	
To:	hpforgrownups-owner at yahoogroups.com	
	
Hi
I have only been a member since about July this year, so apologies 
first of all for the temerity in sending in a radical restructuring 
suggestion for the site! 

However, foolishly emboldened by Amanda Geist's recent encouragement 
to Kneasy (82268), I thought I would send you some ideas I have been 
thinking about for a while now, which may fit in with what he is 
suggesting, or indeed, what you may be working on already.

It seems to me that the basic problem with the site at the moment is 
that there are too many messages for people to search easily. This 
leads to many of the repetitions and silly questions that people 
object to. This problem is exacerbated by bad headings and Yahoo's 
peculiar threading function.

Although there are resources, such as FAQS, Fantastic Posts, and the 
Lexicon to help, nevertheless people do have difficulty in finding 
out what has been discussed before.

My suggestions for sorting this out are first and foremost, aimed at 
the website, to improve its usability right now. However, they could 
also be the basis of an interesting publication eventually (more 
below on this).

1.    First, form a working group of about 100 keen HPfGU members.

2.    Then, allocate a set of posts to each of these people. At the 
time of writing, there are approaching 83000 posts, so this would 
mean 830 posts per person - a fairly manageable number, as many are 
quite short. Each group probably no more text than GoF or OoP if laid 
end to end !

3.    Next, decide on an initial list of possible headings. Everyone 
is familiar with the posts - it should not be difficult to anticipate 
what subjects are likely to be discussed. Fantastic Posts already has 
some useful headings, but it needs a lot of expansion to cope with 
all the extraordinary stuff that comes up. Filks need parking 
somewhere as well.

4.    The next stage is for each member to go through their 830 posts 
and correct the headings, using the agreed subject list, so that they 
properly reflect the content that they find. There will need to be a 
stop-and-pause process to discuss new heads that inevitably come up 
during this stage.

5.    If posts address multiple subjects serially, and can be easily 
split apart under different headings, then this should be done at 
this stage. Where posts address several topics, but in a more 
integrated way, probably the best thing is to copy the post as many 
times as required for the different headings.

6.    Once fixed, all the posts then need to be sorted into groups as 
per the headings, and (very importantly) put in date order.

7.    The piles of posts then need allocating to different people to 
work on - probably a smaller group than the original 100-strong 
working party, or maybe not if there are more than 100 topics (could 
easily be, I suppose).

8.    Then, for each topic, once it is in date order, the editor 
needs to go through and slice out any repetitive text, where it is 
not essential to understanding a reply. This will enable someone to 
read post 1, then all the replies, expansions, queries etc that this 
post generates in their correct order. Text only needs repeating 
where someone chooses to reply paragraph-by-paragraph to something. 
This exercise in itself will considerably shorten the total amount of 
text on each subject.

9.    It is important to preserve the flow of the debate, so even 
highly contentious ideas should be left in, providing they are not 
based on wrong canon. It would otherwise take too long and be too 
difficult to make decisions in many areas. (You can just hear the 
heated discussion: 'sorry, I just don't agree that Snape is anything 
other than a model teacher, so I cut out all this nonsense about bats 
and vampires'
.or.. 'I'm a practising Christian, I don't think this 
sort of thing should be debated at all
)!

10.    The process of doing this cutting and ordering will 
undoubtedly reveal repeated waves of the same question being asked on 
some popular topics. I think this should be left as it is, and 
possibly even labelled 'wave 1' 'wave 2' etc, to highlight when the 
argument starts all over again! The reason I suggest this is that, 
although the initial question might sound similar the 3rd, 10th, even 
20th time, in fact what tends to happen is that new shades of answers 
come back from new minds on the problem, or as a result of new 
information (especially post-OoP publication). In the case of named 
theories, it would definitely do no harm at all to show how the ideas 
have evolved over time 
 (this is where Kneasy's idea fits in I think)

11.    Probably the editor working on one topic should finally swap 
with another editor when finished, so there is a second eye on the 
decisions that have been made, and bias does not creep into 
contentious areas 


12.    These tidied, cleaned, shortened and ordered sets of posts 
should then be put up on the site as per their subject headings, so 
that people can quickly and easily find them and read themselves up 
to date on any given subject, from the original posts.

Although it sounds like a lot of work, I don't believe the whole 
process would really take more than a couple of months if it was well-
organised, and it would contribute so much to finding out what had 
gone before. I don't know much about the underlying structure of the 
Yahoo database, but I would think it likely that some of the initial 
sifting and ordering work could also be done electronically to save 
time. 

By the way, I am not suggesting deleting the main list, that should 
stay as it is, as a primary resource, as with all the other 
documentation - although the new files might be a radical replacement 
of the current Fantastic Posts section.

Obviously, there then needs to be put in place an ongoing update 
process, so new posts can regularly be added, to keep a subject up to 
date. 

That's Part 1 of my suggestion (don't groan, Part 2 is much shorter).

If this process is carried out, and kept up to date, you then have 
the basis of a fantastic book, to be pulled together at some suitable 
point after the end of Book 7. My initial concept of this was as a 
tribute volume to be presented to JKR, as a thank you for giving us 
so much pleasure over the years. However, I think a lot of HPfGU 
members would also like a copy (I know I would !), so perhaps it 
could be published on a purely charitable basis, all surplus to go to 
good causes after printing costs had been met.

For this book version, there would need to be much more editorial 
intervention - probably to choose the best posts, or best series of 
posts on the various topics, rather than include everything. However, 
it should definitely still preserve the original text of the posts, 
and not become a smoothed over and edited summary - half the 
amusement is following the various listies as they lock antlers. I 
can also think of a least a couple of posts which would make great 
headings in themselves. There was the listie who asked 
plaintively 'what is this canon, I would like to read it', and 
another who asked indignantly 'what is this Tbay stuff ?'  A 
perfectly reasonable question, of course
..

Another issue is copyright and attribution - as a publisher myself, I 
know these are big issues (I don't publish in this area at all, I 
hasten to add - my area is business and management!). The simple 
solution as far as the actual posts go is to attempt to ask each and 
every person their permission to use their post in this way. If they 
have disappeared, it may be ok to publish the posts anonymously. 

As far as the material quoted within the posts from the HP books, and 
many other sources, I guess you'd need to talk firstly to JKR about 
this, to see if she'd allow this (rather extensive use). If there 
were problems, you could get round it by just giving the book and 
page refs to long passages. For other quoted material, the same goes -
 give correct attribution, contact copyright owner in cases of doubt.

But it would make a highly unusual publication - a documentation of a 
publishing phenomenon. People just wouldn't believe the topics which 
have come up as a result of these books !

Well, I hope you'll give the ideas some consideration.

Cheers
Carolyn