Topic Review and Update

[Drashner1]

Todd,

What emphasis, if any, are we putting on consolidating topics? Is there a rough number we are trying to get down to?

So - to answer your earlier question first:

I'm not against consolidating/reducing the number of Topics on general principles as long as it's done cautiously. Which is to say - Topics, by their nature, have a lot of dependencies in the form of 'higher level' Topics above them in the topic tree and 'lower level' Topics that spin off from them. As well as all the associated articles linked all over the place.

We've never actually tried to remove a Topic since the current CMS based EG was created. I'm sure it's not that difficult in absolute terms, but I would really prefer to not break anything while trying to pull a particular block out the Jenga tower as it were.

So - certainly something we can consider on a case by case basis, but if/when we decide to actually do it, please let's follow a 'measure twice, cut once' approach.

If you haven't seen it already btw, I'd suggest taking a look at the Topic Tree on the CMS - it's handy for seeing the 'big picture' and will likely play a central role if/when we reach the point of remove/consolidating Topics. Recently Trond and I had a brief conversation about possibly making the Tree or something like it a site map for the website, or at least the EG portion. Something to think about later.

Re your immediate question - I haven't been thinking of this project in terms of consolidating the number of Topics, so don't have any goal in mind in this area. If you have some Topics in mind that you feel need consolidation already - or you come across some in the course of this project - please share and we can discuss.

On a related note - and since talking about goals reminded me that I should probably write some down...

Goals for this project:

Review the content of all EG Topics and update as necessary to:

a) Bring the Topics into line with our current vision and Canon for the OA setting.

b) Correct any errors, typos, grammar issues, etc.

c) Reduce the number of Topics via consolidation or removal if/when that is deemed desirable on a case by case basis.

d) Better organize the information presented in the Topics and create a more coherent and consistent vision of the OA setting within that Topic area (e.g., History).

That's what comes to mind for now. If anyone has additional suggestions in this area, please make them.

Also - I agree with your suggestion that we should start with some smaller Topics to get in some practice and possibly develop a process or best practices before we take on something huge like the History Topics.

Also Also - I talked with Trond and he was able to provide me with a spreadsheet list of all the articles in the EG that are marked as 'minor' - that is to say when seen in a list of articles, the entire article text is there rather than being accessed via clicking the title of the article. I've copied the list into the Stub Hunting tab on the project spreadsheet. I hoping this will be helpful to those members who are looking to do some Stub Hunting. If Stub Hunting is something you would be interested in helping out with, please PM me and I'll give you editing privileges on the spreadsheet.

Ok - I think that covers things for now. In terms of what Topics we should attack first - do you have any suggestions or should I just go hunt one of the smaller ones down and we can have at it?

Thanks!

Todd

[MacGregor]

Todd,

Thanks for the in-depth response. If we wanted, this could dovetail with my proposed 20 year article review. That would essentially make it ongoing, or do you think we should prioritize focus on topics?

[Drashner1]

Todd,

Thanks for the in-depth response. If we wanted, this could dovetail with my proposed 20 year article review. That would essentially make it ongoing, or do you think we should prioritize focus on topics?

I think that to a certain degree we can do both at once.

The day to day life of the forum demonstrates that we can take part in multiple conversations at the same time.

Close to half of all the topics on the tracking sheet have posted creation dates prior to 2002 - and in practice I'm confident all of them predate 2005 regardless of any later date they may show - which later dates I take to be revision or possibly replacement dates. So working on the topics actually fits in with the overall 20 year review project at least in part.

I do think that we should aim to do the topic review/update as a thing in itself (rather than just touching the topics in order of their date) because I see the topics as being the 'skeleton' that the rest of the EG is built around as well as areas that readers tend to see first a lot when learning about the OA setting. So getting all the topics current and in line with canon (and consolidated as well if/when we decide to do that) also has impacts on 'first impressions' and also how much we have to explain the 'correct even though it's not in writing' info in the setting.

Putting all this together - and folding in a thought I had this AM:

I would suggest using this thread to post 'general' topic review info and discussion as we've been doing so far.

For individual topic review and revision, we post a separate thread in this sub-forum about the topic in question. Basically 'Topic X - Review' - a copy of the topic text and some wording to kick off review/discussion. That wording could range from 'does anyone see anything that needs revising on this?' to 'I suggest this should be revised as follows - thoughts?' to 'I think this needs revisions, but not sure how - suggestions?' or whatever seems appropriate.

Doing a different thread per Topic is going to result in a lot of threads - but it also means that we can have as many topics being looked at as there are people acting as volunteer reviewers. That's just thee and me atm, but I'm hopeful additional people will join in - and that the wider group will offer thoughts and feedback on our request for review posts of course.

The 20 year topic review - as currently proposed - would be an editor/admin function so would presumably take place 'behind the scenes' for the most part. But I would think that some percentage of the reviewed articles would require changes on a scale that would lead us to want to run them by the general community anyway - either for ideas on what the change should be or additional ideas that could be folded in since we're touching the article anyway. Some members might even be inspired to perform a major update/expansion of an article when they see it. This is not to say that each and every article would need to be run by the forum - but some probably would be.

Having said all that - some thoughts that just occurred as I was typing this:

1) For any given year, there may be many many articles that were created in that year. If the goal is to review - and where necessary update - all the articles for a given year, how do we go about doing that, logistically speaking? Also, how do we keep track of what we've done and what is left to do?

a) Re the first, perhaps we aim (as a general rule of thumb or goal) to have all the articles for a given past year reviewed over the course of the current year (e.g., all articles from 2000 at least looked at by the end of 2021 if we started doing this in January). We might also 'decouple' the act of reviewing an article and determining whether or not it needs updating from the actual act of updating it - at least in principle. Some articles might take only minutes to update, assuming they need any updates at all. Others might need major rewrites taking weeks or months and the act of making the update itself might not start for weeks or months for various reasons. Looking at the sheer number of articles (Alan must have been a machine and never slept!), I strongly suspect we will need more than a year to update any given year. Which brings us to...

b) Re tracking progress (aka how to eat an elephant ) - I can ask Trond to pull a spreadsheet of every major (non-stub) article in the EG and use that to create a tracking grid such as has already been done for the minor/stub articles, but with the publication dates included. Be warned its going to be a long and intimidating list. We can use the grid to track what needs to be looked at, what has been looked at, what updates (if any) are needed, and what articles have been updated.

2) If the topics are to act as the 'skeleton' of the EG, it might be best to start working on updating those first before starting the 20yr article update cycle. Primarily because if the topics are to lay out whatever current Canon is, then we would want the articles to follow that Canon and that's easier to do if we already have the relevant topic updated. To make progress on both fronts (topics and articles) we could use the review and documenting needed changes process for the articles to keep a record of what needs changing and then actually make sure we have reviewed/updated the underlying topic before making the changes to the article - or at least know what changes we want to make to the topic so the article can be updated to match that.

If we wanted, we could start the topic process now and then kick off the article review/update process either later this year or in January 2021. Starting a 20yr review process at the start of the 21st year appeals to my anal retentive nature, and gives us time to work out kinks in just one thing first. But I realize that may just be me and am certainly open to alternative suggestions.

On an alternative note - and considering articles and making some hopefully 'quick-n-easy' early progress - we could also look to the current stub article list - many of which are likely to overlap with the 20yr list - and spend the rest of this year working on those and then start the 20 year update process in January. This would let us also get our feet wet in a hopefully fairly easy way and give ATMLVE a hand in this area.

Whether we want to start the topic process now or wait on that until January along with 20yr list - or start the stub and 20yr list first and the topics in Jan - or some other combo of these - is fine with me. That would be a 4 month delay for something- but in the grand scheme of things is almost no time at all when measured against the history of the project as a whole.

Thoughts?

Todd

[Drashner1]

Just a quick update - the Stub Article review has been progressing, although we still have a ways to go.

I have some time off around Thanksgiving and again around Xmas. I'm planning to take some time during one or both of these periods to update the website based on what has been reviewed by that point. Deleting, combining, etc.

Thanks!

Todd

[Worldtree]

I'm looking through this stub list and can merge or delete minor articles in the v section to start

[Drashner1]

I'm looking through this stub list and can merge or delete minor articles in the v section to start

If possible, please just mark items for possible deletion/merger/whatever for now. We can then regroup and look at how to attack actual changes or if there are any items we have concerns about doing something to.

Thanks!

Todd

[Worldtree]

I'm looking through this stub list and can merge or delete minor articles in the v section to start

If possible, please just mark items for possible deletion/merger/whatever for now. We can then regroup and look at how to attack actual changes or if there are any items we have concerns about doing something to.

Thanks!

Todd

ok sounds good
i asked for access to the spreadsheet linked at the beginning of the thread
or should i ask access from elsewhere?

[Drashner1]

I'm looking through this stub list and can merge or delete minor articles in the v section to start

If possible, please just mark items for possible deletion/merger/whatever for now. We can then regroup and look at how to attack actual changes or if there are any items we have concerns about doing something to.

Thanks!

Todd

ok sounds good
i asked for access to the spreadsheet linked at the beginning of the thread
or should i ask access from elsewhere?

You can just access it from the link on the forum (or from the link wherever it may be) and be able to make edits or notes or whatever right away.

Thanks!

Todd

[Drashner1]

So - a quick update:

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I went in and deleted or otherwise updated a bunch of the items on the Stub Article list that had been marked for deletion/updating. These items have been marked in blue on the spreadsheet.

I'm planning to do another round of such deletions/updates between Xmas and New Years and then periodically (monthly? quarterly?) after that. Will post updates to the thread as that continues.

In the meantime, the task of reviewing and posting suggested future action for the remaining stubs continues.

Many thanks to ATMLive, Dfleymmes1134, and everyone else who is helping with the review and markup process!

Progress!

Todd

[Drashner1]

On a different, but related, note -

While we've been making progress on the Stub Article portion of things, things haven't been moving as fast on the Topic Review and Update front.

I blame myself as Life has been very busy and I've not made progress on the Megacorps rewrite or general advocating for the Topic Update part of this. I really need to be three of me. If anyone has a gently used home cloning or engeneration kit they'd be willing to part with at a reasonable price, I'd be interested.

Anyway - regarding the Topic Review - it has been suggested that we start with shorter Topics and look at the oldest ones first as well as possibly considering the removal or consolidation of some Topics. It's also possible (probable?) that a lot of the shorter Topics will just need a bit of polishing (or not even that) rather than major rewrites.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to start on any of these fronts?

Thanks!

Todd