Recruiting Skalds

[Sunflower]

Hey, Forum members! 
Do you enjoy the content you read here?  Have you ever seen a post quoting something clever from the Disqus pages and thought, "Wow, I missed that when I read that comic page"? 
Or, conversely, have you ever thought, "What hapless, ham-handed editing!  I could provide better Forum updates with one hand tied behind my back!"?

Either way, you're invited to join in the proud Skaldic task of retrieving good stuff from the daily Disqus discussions to the Forum.  After a marathon day of archiving yesterday, I realized there's no way I can keep up with the flood of Disqus comments, as they reach peaks of 1,000+ a day.

"But Sunflower," you say, "I thought you needed training and permission to become a skald."
Nope!  You just need to have an eye for good stuff (your definition of "good" may vary) and some patience. 

HOW TO DO A SKALD'S JOB
1. Topic-Oriented:

• Spend time reading the Forum attentively till you feel comfortable with how content is organized.
  
• Pick a topic you'd like to search for interesting, informative, or funny material in.  Examples:  Character Development of one of our main 5, Sports in the Known World, pets, agriculture.
• Check the list of existing topics to see if your subject already has one -- maybe more than one.  (We have several for armor and weapons, even one specifically for nukes.  Trolls, Beasts, the Rash, evil spirits, and magic fall into several overlapping topics.)
• Go forth and search the Disqus comments.
• When you find quote-worthy content, ask if you can copy it to the Forum.  One post per discussion topic is fine.  If nobody replies within 24 hours, I generally assume they're OK with it.
  
• Copy the Disqus content, create a post here, and paste the content in.  (I typically erase all the "Avatar/Votes/Days Since Posting" stuff.  But leave the original posters' names in.)
• Note that links posted in Disqus get truncated.  If you just copy-and-paste, the shortened links won't work.  You'll need to right-click on the links and copy them separately. 

2. Spontaneous preservation:

• Wander around in previous days' comments (which tend to get overshadowed by the current day's load).
• Before you create a new Forum topic (or if it's in a popular area such as Trolls or weaponry), do a search to see if there's an existing one lurking in the archives.
• Copy, paste, edit.

Poems (original or song parodies) are archived pretty reliably by the most prolific authors -- slim kittens, LOOney_DAC, corncobman, and so forth.

Be respectful of original posters' intent, but be selective.  In a long, rambling discussion, I sometimes omit irrelevant parts within a post.  But I'll always show the deletion with "...". 
I silently fix obvious typos (when I think of it).

If you want to reply in-Forum to the Disqus comments you're posting, that's fine.  But I advise you to do so in a different post, quoting the part you want to expand on or disagree with.  Don't give the impression you were part of the original discussion. 

Forum content standards are a bit tighter than the Disqus pages.  Swear words are ****'d out, and the Admin doesn't approve of non-family-friendly content.  It's OK to say something like "[CHARACTER] is totally hottt!"  But it's not OK to refer to body parts covered by a swimsuit. 

If you have questions, feel free to reply to this post or PM me.  Or confer with fellow Forumites.  This is a spontaneously self-organizing operation in large part, so if you come up with better ways to do things, we may end up following your lead.


Go forth and may your searches be fruitful!

Sunflower
A (not "The") Forum-Skald

[Richard Weir]

I must make an effort to join in and help - you've been sadly left to carry most of the burden of doing this!

[Sunflower]

I must make an effort to join in and help - you've been sadly left to carry most of the burden of doing this!

To paraphrase Sigrun:

"Left to carry the burden"?  Hah, honey, I elbowed everyone else out of the way! (I just realized that there's such a thing as obsessive archiving, and I'd never be able to stay on top of the -- happily proliferating -- Disqus comments.)

[Eris]

This excites me. Like, the idea of having threads with lots of information about around Weapon-smithing or Weaving or something. Oh, I feel all flustery. I'm getting all into this.

[Sunflower]

This excites me. Like, the idea of having threads with lots of information about around Weapon-smithing or Weaving or something. Oh, I feel all flustery. I'm getting all into this.

Eris!  I'm so thrilled you're taking to it.  I've already seen your post amalgamating a lot of the "prior art" on Sigrun's sweater.  Yaaaay!  Keep up the good work!  (The rest of you, go and do likewise -- if the spirit moves you.)

The delighted,

Sunflower

[Eris]

Eris!  I'm so thrilled you're taking to it.  I've already seen your post amalgamating a lot of the "prior art" on Sigrun's sweater.  Yaaaay!  Keep up the good work!

Hehehe, acknowledgement gives me the happys.

[Sunflower]

Pro-tips for information compilers:

Try not to nest quotes inside quotes here.  Our all-wise Tech Admin says that's bad for the Forum, in ways I don't quite understand.

If you're quoting multiple people from within the Forum, you should use multiple sets of [ quote ] and [ / quote ] -- juxtaposed, not nested.

If you're quoting people from Disqus, there aren't set "rules."  My practice has been to render Disqus usernames in Courier and Bold, and further make Our Dear Creator's name maroon.  (Any resemblance to the New Testaments that put the words of Jesus in red is... uh... purely coincidental.)

[Sunflower]

Here's a suggestion for some bold skald(s) with free time:
Collect some of the good comments about the nature of trolls, vaettur, "wights", and traditional Scandinavian beliefs in "the little people" on today's page (#274). 

I think this is a discrete enough subject to warrant its own new topic on the SSSS Board.  If and when we develop some sort of tagging/indexing system, we can then cross-reference and/or group it with the other threads about Troll origins and behavior. 

I can't offer much reward except warm praise, virtual fika, and the observation that this helps build your post count (if that matters to you).

[Eris]

Here's a suggestion for some bold skald(s) with free time:
Collect some of the good comments about the nature of trolls, vaettur, "wights", and traditional Scandinavian beliefs in "the little people" on today's page (#274). 

I think this is a discrete enough subject to warrant its own new topic on the SSSS Board.  If and when we develop some sort of tagging/indexing system, we can then cross-reference and/or group it with the other threads about Troll origins and behavior. 

I can't offer much reward except warm praise, virtual fika, and the observation that this helps build your post count (if that matters to you).

I accept your challenge!
...
...
...
This is going to be huge and take forever, isn't it?

Regardless, I'll do my best!

[Sunflower]

I accept your challenge!
...
...
This is going to be huge and take forever, isn't it?

Regardless, I'll do my best!

Pff, do what you can in 20 minutes.  You can always come back later -- or better, maybe you'll inspire someone else to pick up where you left off!  I don't want to wear out an eager young recruit in the first mission (as compared to the Sigrun school of rookie training). 

[Sunflower]

Greetings to anyone interested in being a skald (forum librarian, historian, reporter, clerk).

The Disqus pages are exploding with comments, despite (or maybe because of) the comic being on chapter break.

Would anyone like to try preserving some of its content for posterity?
In particular, I'd like to find the clever scenarios that popped up a few days ago, of what Our Heroes would be doing in our modern world.  (I was tickled by the thought of Emil as a male model turned right-wing politician -- shades of Scott Brown! -- and Sigrun becoming a motorcycle-riding, marathon-running serial entrepreneur with a painfully short attention span.)  I think those would fit best in Scenes We'd Like to See, although some of the longer ones might be good fodder for the Scriptorium.

I also recall interesting discussions about materials science in the Known World and how to synthesize plastic... although after 2,050-plus messages just on the most recent page, I may be hallucinating...

My practice in transferring content is to leave a Disqus reply to the poster (or the first in a discussion thread) requesting their OK to move the content -- or, hopefully, motivate them to do it themselves.  If you don't see any protests after 24 hours, you can assume it's OK to move. 

I have my own typographical style of reproducing Disqus conversations -- example.

But you don't have to do it that way.  Eris's method is great too (although I suggest slightly shorter posts, just for easy reading).  As long as you're giving credit to the original posters for their humor, insight, and/or creativity. 

Thanks for helping out, and good hunting!

[DancingRanger]

I'll help out! I have lots of free time and end up reading a lot of the comments ^_^

[Sunflower]

I'll help out! I have lots of free time and end up reading a lot of the comments ^_^

My hero! 
Here's a mission, if you choose to accept it:   

This past week, as Braidy Reynir has slowly been revealed to us, people have had a lot of entertaining speculations about where he came from and how Our Crew will react to him.  Of course, most of those scenarios have turned out to be invalidated by later events.  (Isn't that what you young folks call "Jossed"?)  But they're still fun reading! 

Would you (or anyone else reading this) like to gather those scenarios?  They could go into "How the team meets Braidy" or "Scenes We'd Like to See."  Criteria:  Not so much accurate predictions (most of those got captured already) as entertainment value.   


As a second choice, discussions about Sigrun's leadership style and whether she's nuts or sensible to freak out react the way she does when she discovers "garbage food" and a skinny stowaway instead of the crates of supplies she was expecting.  (You might want to check if some of those were archived already by their authors.)

Those could go into either the Sigrun Character Analysis thread, the newish "Crew Dynamics" thread that LooNEY_DAC started, "Crime and Punishment," or... start a new thread if you see fit!


Third... anything else that catches your eye.  I'm not the final arbiter of worthiness.  If something seems worth keeping to you, then it is.


Go get 'em!

[DancingRanger]

My hero! 
Here's a mission, if you choose to accept it:   

This past week, as Braidy Reynir has slowly been revealed to us, people have had a lot of entertaining speculations about where he came from and how Our Crew will react to him.  Of course, most of those scenarios have turned out to be invalidated by later events.  (Isn't that what you young folks call "Jossed"?)  But they're still fun reading! 

Would you (or anyone else reading this) like to gather those scenarios?  They could go into "How the team meets Braidy" or "Scenes We'd Like to See."  Criteria:  Not so much accurate predictions (most of those got captured already) as entertainment value.   


As a second choice, discussions about Sigrun's leadership style and whether she's nuts or sensible to freak out react the way she does when she discovers "garbage food" and a skinny stowaway instead of the crates of supplies she was expecting.  (You might want to check if some of those were archived already by their authors.)

Those could go into either the Sigrun Character Analysis thread, the newish "Crew Dynamics" thread that LooNEY_DAC started, "Crime and Punishment," or... start a new thread if you see fit!


Third... anything else that catches your eye.  I'm not the final arbiter of worthiness.  If something seems worth keeping to you, then it is.


Go get 'em!

Aye, Aye, Captian!

[Sunflower]

Greetings, would-be skalds.  Want the chance to venture forth into a strange and ever-changing world full of odd creatures and the occasional troll, to retrieve marvelous treasures for the betterment of the community?

In other words, can I interest you in retrieving comments from recent Disqus pages for the Forum?

Specifically, would anyone like to start compiling the comments from p. 314 about information retrieval and the presumed lifespan of CDs and DVDs?  Very meta, to be sure...

I think this would fit into a new topic all its own, within the SSSS board.  (Though let me search for any "prior art" on this topic.)

Your reward:  My eternal gratitude; higher post counts, helping you towards yet another glittering promotional reception in the Forum Lounge (only virtual cake and coffee at this point, unfortunately); and the possibility that printing out these pages could save civilization in the case of apocalypse.