Number of Character Appearances VI - Wrecan: "I like counting things"

[Jasdoif]

...Okay, I guess the candidates comprise everyone who's really enthused about the thread

Since I think we've arrived at a general direction, and since it looks like this is rapidly getting nowhere with no one actually running anything being proposed....

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The candidates (i.e., the people who've expressed an interest in curating the next version of the thread) are Emanick, Gift Jeraff, knag, Schroeswald, and TheWombatOfDoom.

This will be approval voting: post your vote for up to three of the candidates; the candidate who has the most voters will be designated curator apparent start the next version of the thread. Bolding your vote would be helpful; and if for whatever reason you want to change your vote later, please post a new complete vote, not just a post stating whatever changed from your previous vote.

In the event of a tie, I will choose one of the tied candidates (which almost certainly won't may or may not involve trial by combat with Peelee, the Mod on the Silver Mountain (which almost certainly isn't may or may not be located on the plane of Ysgard, where a free true resurrection effect will reverse fatalities (which almost certainly would may or may not be accidental) the next morning)). Not coincidentally, I will not being taking part in the initial vote.


Do note that there is no requirement for a curated thread to have a single curator. Class and Level Geekery is tag-teamed by Kurald Galain and RMS Oceanic, for example; and Crusher handles a section of the MitD threads largely overseen by Grey_Wolf_c. The "winner" coming up with a creative cooperation with other candidates is certainly an option.

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Concurrently, let's also vote for the next thread (sub)title.

Again, approval voting; post your vote/nomination for as many titles as you like, even if that's only one. Curators are certainly within their rights to title the next thread as they wish (obviating the need to establish a tiebreaker beforehand), but we've gotta start somewhere....

So far, "Remembering Absent Friends" and "To absent friends" are the proposed titles.

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My inclination is have this open up until sometime Saturday, to keep this within a week; but I'm open to extending that....

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Emanick, and may Thor have mercy on their soul

(No stated preference on thread titling)

Grey Wolf

[137beth]

I'll put in a joint vote for Emanick and TheWombatOfDoom. For title, I prefer "Rembering Absent Friends."

[ByzantiumBhuka]

No preference on who's the curator, but putting in a vote for Remembering Absent Friends as the title.

[Joerg]

No preference on the curator yet. Maybe the candidates could post a short pitch explaining why they should be elected?

Another vote for Remembering absent friends.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I’ll put in a vote for Emanick and TheWombatOfDoom. No preference on the next title, although I will miss this one.

[Schroeswald]

I presume I'm not allowed to vote for myself (and even if I could, I wouldn't feel comfortable voting for anyone), but I support Remembering Absent Friends as the thread title.

Honestly I don't think much separates the four of us, I guess I might move faster in updating, but knag always does it pretty quick on the wiki and everyone is still pretty active and everyone else has been on the forums longer than me, so there's my amazing pitch (shrugs).

Oh and also, we might want to add another thing for the FAQ, explaining a likely title and what happened to Martianmister.

[Emanick]

Thanks for stepping up to handle the voting, O Potassium-Laced One.

I've already come out in support of it, but I'd like to reiterate that Remembering Absent Friends is a great thread title and I'm fully behind it.

As for short pitches - well, like Schroeswald, I think everyone would do a pretty good job. I was picked as the threadrunner last time we were looking for a replacement curator, though, so that may or may not count for something. For a long time I ran my own parallel "number of character appearances" tracker on my laptop with a slightly different methodology, so I've been interested in this subject for a very long time. (I've also been around the longest, although I'm not sure that's relevant.)

Plus, I'm self-employed (although I can't promise that won't change down the road), so I have the flexibility to update fairly quickly.

Oh and also, we might want to add another thing for the FAQ, explaining a likely title and what happened to Martianmister.

Fully agree with this.

[Peelee]

No preference on the curator yet. Maybe the candidates could post a short pitch explaining why they should be elected?

I assume lust for gold. Power. Or maybe they were just born with a heart full of neutrality,

Oh, and To absent friends. I like that phrasing just slightly more.

[137beth]

Oh and also, we might want to add another thing for the FAQ, explaining a likely title and what happened to Martianmister.

I'll third this recommendation.

Maybe the candidates could post a short pitch explaining why they should be elected?

The candidates are hoping to steal this thread's secret supply of cupcakes 🧁.

[Schroeswald]

The candidates are hoping to steal this thread's secret supply of cupcakes 🧁.

I will free all the chocolate cupcakes into the wild (why did my phone keep trying to capitalize that) to breed and for forumites to eat as they wish, I demand only the vanilla cupcakes for myself.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Being a candidate, I will refrain from voting on the curator. I would like to point out that with this many people interested in assisting with curating, it would be lovely to see us actively assisting with the thread no matter who curates! Its nice to see such support and I really agree that each person here is a strong candidate.

That being said, l'm voting for "To Absent Friends" for the next title.

And thank you banana, you're voting expertise is commendable.

No preference on the curator yet. Maybe the candidates could post a short pitch explaining why they should be elected?

Another vote for Remembering absent friends.

That's not a bad idea. I motion instead of a pitch explaining why they should be elected, maybe a explanation of about them, and why they want to curate.

[Gift Jeraff]

I've been participating in these threads for a little over a decade now and wouldn't mind curating the next one, so I'll throw my hat in the ring.

Voting 'To Absent Friends' for the thread title.

[Precure]

Not sure if I'm allowed, since I'm a new member, and not very active since registering here, despite of following this forum and this thread for a long time. I'd vote for Gift Jeraff and To Absent Friends.

[Jasdoif]

Not sure if I'm allowed...

Of course you're allowed! If you can post, you can vote.

[Precure]

Of course you're allowed! If you can post, you can vote.

Thank you for your answer.

[Jasdoif]

Guess it's (past?) time for a tally....

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Curator Candidate	Votes	Voters
Emanick	3	Grey_Wolf_c, 137ben, Jaxzan Proditor
TheWombatOfDoom	2	137ben, Jaxzan Proditor
Gift Jeraff	1	Precure
knag	0
Schroeswald	0

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Proposed Title	Votes	Voters
Remembering Absent Friends	5	137ben, ByzantiumBhuka, Joerg, Schroeswald, Emanick
To Absent Friends	4	Peelee, TheWombatOfDoom, Gift Jeraff, Precure

[Schroeswald]

With the new comic up,

1194: Belkar Bitterlead, Minrah Elle Shaleshoe, Mr. Scruffy

[Jasdoif]

Well, three days with no activity...guess it's time to call it. it()

Congratulations, Emanick, on being dutifully appointed as the next thread starter!

[137beth]

Congratulations Emanick!

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Congrats! And whatever help you need, I'm game to assist!

[Precure]

Congratulations, Emanick.

[knag]

I would like to re-open the voting and put in my approval for knag and Schroeswald. That way we don't have to feel so bad about not getting votes.

I'll put in my vote for To Absent Friends as well for thread title.

And congrats to Emanick! Well deserved. As always, I will maintain the wiki Character Index of Appearances stays in synch with this thread, with a few exceptions:

1. Vampire Spirits other than Greg are not tracked (this is too confusing to a casual reader).
2. Altered appearances are not indexed, but are noted in parentheses in the cast list.
3. Additional Sapphire Guard members not identified in this thread are tracked.
4. One or two Sapphire Guard members have different names than in this thread to avoid ambiguity (I'm looking at you, Chonmaged Sapphire Guardsman).
5. Total appearances will not necessarily synch with this thread, but will always be the sum of appearances in the index. There is no other way to be consistent, and the loss of the early Number of Character Appearances threads means we can never go back and find out what the differences are between my index and this thread's count. Given the nature of how this thread is curated, I think it's highly probable that the overall counts on this thread are not accurate, even if you could sum up all the strip posts listing who appeared.

Note that currently the Brightstone family members have different names than in this thread. That is not a matter of wiki policy but just laziness on my part. I need to set my (1.67x1015)Q bot to changing all the instances of the one name to the other...

[ByzantiumBhuka]

Congratulations Emanick! I can't wait to see the new thread pop up.

I'd like to switch my vote to To Absent Friends as well.

[Emanick]

Thank you so much to everyone, both those who voted for me (or who voted at all! In an electorate of this size, every vote counts!) and those of you who have wished me well and congratulated me, and/or offered me help. And thanks in particular to our peerlessly-peeled resident banana for organizing the voting!

I'd like to apologize for the delay in my setup of the new thread - I'm a comedian by trade, and, given the spread of covid-19 and its accompanying restrictions, this past week has not been kind to those of us who rely on large public gatherings to earn our keep. I'm also facing some tax and health-care related deadlines, so this week has been even more chaotic than the pandemic alone would have made it. I hope to have the Number of Character Appearances VII: To Absent Friends thread, with all of its necessary updates, up within a couple of days.

In the meantime, what do you all think about a minor shift in methodology? Martianmister decided not to track Durkon*'s appearances in comics where he didn't speak (or appear inside Durkon's head), as well as (IIRC) before he was freed from thralldom, but I've always felt that that seemed a bit arbitrary and it never made much sense to me. I'd like to change it, especially since we now have Word of Giant confirmation that Durkon* did, in fact, exist in Durkon's body from the moment he was reanimated. That said - although I don't think the rules of curatorship require me to have people vote on decisions like this - what does everyone else think? It would seem to be in poor form to start off the new thread by making a unilateral decision that went against the general consensus.

On another note, any tips on how to replace all those defunct smilies? I haven't looked into that yet, and I'm guessing it will be by far the most time-consuming part of setting up the new thread.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

In the meantime, what do you all think about a minor shift in methodology?

You have my backing for your proposed changes. Heck, you probably have my backing for any change in methodology as long as you make a note of it in the first post.

I don't think the rules of curatorship require me to have people vote on decisions like this

Sort of, they do, but also they don't? You can't make decisions unilaterally, but as long as there is consensus it's fine, so pretty much what you are doing

Specifically, the curator cannot prevent certain topics from being discussed, prevent any given poster from participating, or make any sort of executive decision on what is or is not included in the opening post of a curated topic.

(emphasis mine)

Grey Wolf

[Schroeswald]

I am very cool with counting vamps when they don't talk, but thrall!Durkula has been described as sort of a different character from Greg, so it feels weird to count him before he has any control or free will over the body he's controlling.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Congratulations, Emanick. I hope that everything‘s going okay with you; certainly totally understandable that real life takes priority over a thread.

I don’t really have a preference for counting Durkon*’s appearances. I understand the logic for the current counting, but I’m not strongly attached to it or anything and I think it’d be fine if you’d like to change things up especially if you have a solid rationale.

For the smilies, I think you’d have to get whoever made the original image to host them somewhere where they can be linked to from here, or you’d have to make and host new ones yourself. I don’t think either will be the easiest of tasks. (Personally I’d love new smilies, as my signature is currently very sad (even setting aside the fact that, as Jasdoif has pointed out, I need to restructure it to fit in the quote you referenced earlier)).

[Gift Jeraff]

Congrats, Emanick, and I hope things turn for the better.

As for Vampire Durkon, I do think that counting the physical vampire body as an appearance for both the vampire spirit and the host simplifies many things (e.g. for characters like Malack or the Priestess of Hel with Long Hair we can remove their living version as they would always have the same number of appearances as their undead counterpart). However the recent answer from Rich about thralls has made me think martianmister was on the money. On the other hand, going down that route opens a whole other can of worms about which minor vampire was a thrall, when they were released from thralldom, etc.

[Vargtass]

I think there is no strong reason to complicate the tracking of the appearances of vampires. We know that Durkon* sees himself as a vampire with Durkon's appearance, from the mental image he assumes inside of Durkon's head. Therefore, I think that the vampiric appearance of Durkon should Count as an appearance both of Durkon (it's his body, only with an interesting alteration) and Durkon* (it's at least a representation of what he looks like). With this, it does not matter whether Durkon* is a thrall or not, he still looks the same, therefore is at least a representation of what Durkon* looks like. ThrallDurkon is not a separate person, it is Durkon* dominated by Malack.

By extension, all the above apply to other vampires as well, and simplifies the counting: any appearance of a vampire counts as an appearance of the vampire and the host of the vampire, and we may disregard the counting of the host if we have not seen them Before becoming a vampire.

My two cents, or korvören (as it may be, in Swedish) ...