The Index of the Giant's Comments V―On a Saner Forum, We Wouldn't Need this Index

[Mad Humanist]

If you think there's reason to have an index thread for something like Common Questions Answered by the Comic, I certainly won't stop you from making it.

I've thought of doing this before. I'm not terribly enthusiastic though.

[Quild]

Ah, it's nice to have a new thread. With regards to de-cluttering, while I agree with some of the proposed removals, I think that most of them are perfectly acceptable quotes. I would also like to add my support for the Twitter quotes under debate.

You agree with some of the proposed removals but think that most are perfectly acceptable.
Hmmm, there have been 5 proposed removals, so you agree with two but thinks that 3 have to stay? Could you be more specific?

Opposed to all of the removals. 'Why would anyone ask that' applies to the majority of the quotes. Someone on a re-read (or a new reader) could ask any of them again when they get to those points.

This is not why I proposed those removals.
For four of the five, anyone can find the answer in the comics.
- The diamond dust one in 844?, well, maybe 845 wasn't up when the quote was included. Now, really, Durkon and Roy talks about it right after.
- There was a lot of discussion about if Haley had means to dye her shoes on the mechane while getting new armor. When the quote was included, word of the Giant was the only way to know she did dyed them. Now, it's unecessary.
- Elan's rapier thing, well, I think it was unecessary from the beginning. And it's outdated now. Word of the Giant is useless here.
- Protection from law: I think it's just a joke, really. You don't walk through a cop while caught red-handed because you casted protection from law. That's not what the spell does. At all. A good joke, but just a joke. A good one, ok, but would you include this?
- Haley not being Orrin's daughter? The suspicion was made because of the joke about Haley being part dragon and because of the baby's hair, but we've seen Haley's mom, Haley is not fifteen, we knew afterwards that Familicide killed the Draketooth and since Penelope died, so did her daughter (it's actually because the daughter died that Penelope died), we know that Haley's dad is not Orrin either, and so on.

Fortunately or unfortunately, those quotes are the only one for which I feel we can remove them. Out of slightly less than 200 quotes I've looked at (still have the "Writing" part that I want to read).
The other quotes give us the Giant's viewpoint, sometimes some rules explanation. It answers questions for which only the writer can answer and for which there is no certainty within the comics. Without these quotes, anyone answering would just be sharing his opinion of what the Giant had in mind here, or why he did that.

At any rate, I don't think there is much to declutter, courtesy to curators.

[pearl jam]

I don't have any idea how this idea might go over with the Giant/moderators, since it would almost certainly lead to more similar requests down the line, but it just occurred to me as I finished reading the previous post.

There seems to be a growing concern that the index as currently constituted has already become somewhat unwieldy and that the issue will only worsen as the index continues to grow, increasing the calls to remove some quotes.

The ability to sticky the current version, which of course would need staff approval, would allow us to start an "Index 2" for more recent quotes that ought to be recorded while allowing the current list to stop increasing in size.

I suspect the idea might not be popular with the staff, though, since there would likely soon be clamoring for more stickied threads crowding the top of the forum which is probably something they'd prefer not to encourage.

(I don't have any empirical evidence for this, aside from the lack of any stickied topics not begun by the Giant, himself, and just my own guess based on the way other issues are managed.)

Still, given that the Giant has expressed some direct support for at least some of the goals/content of this thread, it might not hurt to ask about it?

100% of the requests you never make will fail to be approved, after all....

I don't know. It was just something that occurred to me just now.

[Mad Humanist]

The ability to sticky the current version, which of course would need staff approval, would allow us to start an "Index 2" for more recent quotes that ought to be recorded while allowing the current list to stop increasing in size.

I think that would create a total mess. Ideally we would want as few indexes as possible. The argument for splitting one is to make the two more manageable than they would be separately. I think there is an argument for having a thread that answers common questions whether the answer is a post from the Giant, a tweet or a comic strip. However that may be too much work. We could also easily fill the front page with sticky threads.

[Jasdoif]

I've thought of doing this before. I'm not terribly enthusiastic though.

What has you unenthused about it? Do you feel it wouldn't actually be that useful a thread to have, or are you concerned about the effort involved in creating and maintaining it?

[Mad Humanist]

What has you unenthused about it? Do you feel it wouldn't actually be that useful a thread to have, or are you concerned about the effort involved in creating and maintaining it?

Oh definitely the effort involved. I guess I would want to adopt a similar model to this one though.

Edit: I worry specifically about burnout. Look at the latest posts on the Number of appearances thread for comparison.

[littlebum2002]

What has you unenthused about it? Do you feel it wouldn't actually be that useful a thread to have, or are you concerned about the effort involved in creating and maintaining it?

TBH I'd probably do something like this as well, but after starting the Brick Awards I've realized how much of a pain moderating a thread is.
Thanks Jasdoif!!
Also, an extremely cumbersome, not at all practical, but effective solution to our problem would be to have the full text of every quote from Rich in the Index.

[Porthos]

TBH I'd probably do something like this as well, but after starting the Brick Awards I've realized how much of a pain moderating a thread is.

And I thank you for the break from the Stick Awards. It's most welcome.

Yeah, yeah. You'd think "once a week" isn't that big of a deal. And it isn't. At all. But week after week after week without being able to blow it off once or twice if one isn't feeling it? Yeah. Thanks for the break. :-p

[Peelee]

TBH I'd probably do something like this as well, but after starting the Brick Awards I've realized how much of a pain moderating a thread is.

And I thank you for the break from the Stick Awards. It's most welcome.

Some of us are smart enough to see laziness as its own reward without experiencing it firsthand, thankyouverymuch.

Also, I've heard white text is popular this time of year.

[Jasdoif]

Oh definitely the effort involved.

Tends to be a widespread view, it'd be nice to have but no one wants to put the effort into it. Not an uncommon concept. Still, it does leave you (and everyone else who would want it) without the thread....

I worry specifically about burnout. Look at the latest posts on the Number of appearances thread for comparison.

Look at it this way: martianmister didn't start the original Number of Character Appearances thread, Porthos didn't start the original Stick Awards thread, and I didn't start the original Index of the Giant's Comments thread. Even if it does turn into something you can't keep up with, as happened to ThePhantasm, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to stop. The simple fact this project interests you enough to post here, nearly two years after I took over, should attest to that.


The initial setup is usually where the heavy lifting applies, it gets relatively easy after that. For instance, I only had to spend a night transcribing ThePhantasm's freeform text version of the Index into an XML structure of my design once, and only had to spend a morning write the XSLT that groups/sorts/bbcodes the tables and spoilers once; the ongoing part is mostly copy/paste/edit that only takes a couple minutes, tracking support or votes which can have a very slow pace (minimal effort over time), and devising titles and descriptions which is most of the fun.

And that's overkill if you're just tracking questions and comics, without needing to worry about specific dates (comics are chronologically ordered) or distinguishing posts from external URLs and stuff.

TBH I'd probably do something like this as well, but after starting the Brick Awards I've realized how much of a pain moderating a thread is.

Keeping the scope in mind helps there. A thread dedicated to answering common questions by referencing comics, for example, really only needs to be updated when new common questions or new comics come along...and it's likely new questions come along when new comics along. The lack of a set time frame makes it more leisurely.

[hroþila]

Tends to be a widespread view, it'd be nice to have but no one wants to put the effort into it. Not an uncommon concept.

I feel the idea might be best expressed thusly:

Spoiler

Show

[Peelee]

I feel the idea might be best expressed thusly:

Spoiler

Show

Dammit, i shoulda thought of that.

[unbeliever536]

Yeah. Voting for Plantain Menace not because I like it but because the other option seems to be a joke that actually puts down and belittles what this thread is and is for. It's a bad fit for this kind of thread.

On review, I think I actually...

Well.

• On a Saner Forum, We Wouldn't Need this Index - 21
• The Plantain Menace - 17
• The Giant Writes Back - 2

With a margin of four and only a couple posts left for a turnaround, I don't think another two posts could change the standing....So Saner Forum etc. it is!

The Index of the Giant's Comments V - On a Saner Forum, We Wouldn't Need this Index (which turns out is only two characters short of hitting the character limit on thread titles) is now open! Carry on discussion what constitutes signficance quotes and/or proper(?) pronunciation of plantain over there, if you would.

Dang it.

I was about to change my vote...

[Peelee]

Ya know, it might be worthwhile to discuss the merits of changing to an instant-runoff voting method for thread titles.

...is something i would say if i didnt have admiration and respect for the already hard work of the curator of our fruitful little corner of the boards, and wanted to burden him with a far heavier workload.

[137beth]

The question isn't whether someone will or will not ask about it at some point, but that the comic provides indisputable answers. Haley is not related to the Draketeeth because she did not die to Familicide (and also, she's the wrong age).

The quote in the index that I think you are referring to (this one) also has the Giant state that he put in a line about Orrin's daughter's age specifically to eliminate the possibility that it was Haley. The Giant's motivation for specifying the age isn't in the comic, only the age itself. That quote is not redundant with the comic.

[Jasdoif]

Ya know, it might be worthwhile to discuss the merits of changing to an instant-runoff voting method for thread titles.

You can discuss it if you like. It wouldn't have mattered here though; "On a Saner Forum" had over half the votes, which is sufficient for IRV to declare a winner.

The more general issue, though, is that IRV (and preferential voting systems in general) need to have the set of choices defined before the vote can fairly start; I'd need to set aside extra pages to split it into multiple phases, and then do more formal voting....I don't think it'd be more convenient for anyone.

[unbeliever536]

Ya know, it might be worthwhile to discuss the merits of changing to an instant-runoff voting method for thread titles.

...is something i would say if i didnt have admiration and respect for the already hard work of the curator of our fruitful little corner of the boards, and wanted to burden him with a far heavier workload.

Can I provide a needlessly complicated solution to this problem? Do bananas grow on trees?

Obviously we should all submit rankings of proposed titles. Then we could simply choose the Condorcet winner, or, in its absence, allow the thread curator to select among the Condorcet non-losers. A trivial script in any number of languages could handle... I'll stop.

Although, the index title does exceed the post title limit (which is four characters less than the thread first eight posts??? title limit because life is like that...). I propose that the index be retitled to bring the main title in line with the title of the posts .

---

TBH I'd probably do something like this as well, but after starting the Brick Awards I've realized how much of a pain moderating a thread is.
Thanks Jasdoif!!
Also, an extremely cumbersome, not at all practical, but effective solution to our problem would be to have the full text of every quote from Rich in the Index.

I ... what problem does that solve?

---

Spoiler: Quild discusses removing things

Show

I started having look at everything that listed in order to see if there were things I'm not aware of.

I think some things can be safely (or not) removed.

Characters: Items and Stats / Order of the Stick
Durkon Throws Diamond Dust - Durkon threw diamond dust into the air in 844.
This is quite covered in first panel of #845 and most users could answer if someone had a question about it.

Haley's Boots of Speed - Yes, she did get them dyed to match her brown/tan garb.
Since she used them in #979, there's now little doubt that they were dyed again.

Elan's Rapiers - He has two. His original, and one from Julio Scoundrel.
Maybe an "or not" one, but do we really need a quote about the fact that Elan got a rapier in #392?
I'm not even sure about what happened to it since it does not seem to be in the stuff retrieved by Roy and Belkar in #729. It's unlikely that it got lost though.
And let's not forget he got a Chaos Sabre in #943.

Also the name Zz'dtri is mispelled into Zz'Ditri's in the last part of same spoiler.


More reading later. I'm not sure such comments about existing quotes are welcome, so don't mind saying they're not!

Glad to count you in.
Thinking slightly more about it during lunch, the information about the rapier is anyway outdated because of this third rapier and because we're not sure of what happened to the second one (would be surprising that it got lost though).

But more to the point:
If you're reading the index in order to know what's in it, you're going to notice that there was no discontinuity here! But the idea of a discontinuity probably never hit your mind.
If you're reading or re-reading or re-re-reading [...] OOTS and are surprised by Elan still having a rapier at this point, you're not likely to check if this was asked in the index.
If someone is going to ask about where that rapier comes from, either someone will figure the maybe-not-obvious answer, or have in mind that it was already answered. If so, quoting the Giant is not very useful. I mean, if you know the answer, you don't need an argument of authority here.

So I'm not sure of when it's useful. But I let others be judge.

About the next spoiler:
Protection from Law is Illegal in Many Places
Wasn't this just a little joke from the Giant? Taking this kind of quote too seriously might be the kind of thing that upsets him.

V's Children - The Giant made them adopted to leave open the possibility that V/Inkyrius are gay or lesbian.
I understand that the index indicates what was the latest strip when the quote was made. However, it took me forever to realize that we know V's children to be adopted because of #631. For a long time, I assumed that this was not specified in comics. Maybe the little subtext could be modified in order to say
"The Giant made them adopted in 631 to leave [...]"?

Scrying in the Desert
Zz'dtri is mispelled again. (I wish I could spell it correctly myself without having to check every time).

Orrin Draketooth's Daughter - She's not Haley.
Has this ever be useful? Penelope looks nothing like Haley's mom in #772.

Durkon Throws Diamond Dust
Haley's Boots of Speed
Orrin Draketooth's Daughter

Agreed. Dump these.

Elan's Rapiers

Eh. I lean against cutting it on the grounds that it's not directly addressed by the comic, but it's also not particularly interesting. No vote.

Protection from Law is Illegal

Meh. I favor keeping it, but could be argued around.

Agreed re: all proposed non-removal changes, super-duper-agreed re: mentioning the comic establishing that V's children are adopted.

[Peelee]

You can discuss it if you like. It wouldn't have mattered here though; "On a Saner Forum" had over half the votes, which is sufficient for IRV to declare a winner.

The more general issue, though, is that IRV (and preferential voting systems in general) need to have the set of choices defined before the vote can fairly start; I'd need to set aside extra pages to split it into multiple phases, and then do more formal voting....I don't think it'd be more convenient for anyone.

I wasn't suggesting it to retcon the vote. I'm not that sore a loser.

The more general issue, though, is you deleted the punchline. That embiggens the joke, man.

[Ron Miel]

The Index of the Giant's Comments V - On a Saner Forum, We Wouldn't Need this Index (which turns out is only two characters short of hitting the character limit on thread titles)

And as it turns out, is slightly too long anyway. Once Re: has been added, it drops ex .

Suggestion - drop the initial The from the thread title. It might fit then.

[Jasdoif]

The more general issue, though, is you deleted the punchline. That embiggens the joke, man.

Well if we're going to have a conversation on how we determine thread titles, having it before we have to determine thread titles would be prudent. This applies regardless of embiggenment of any related punchline.
And isn't making white text obvious like explaining a joke?

And as it turns out, is slightly too long anyway. Once Re: has been added, it drops ex .

Suggestion - drop the initial The from the thread title. It might fit then.

Since we're able to post despite truncation, I don't think this is severe enough to constitute a problem; certainly not enough of a one to alter a chosen-by-vote title and draw attention to anyone who doesn't go back and edit the titles in their own already-existing posts.

Clearly I'll need to be more mindful of brevity with regards to future thread titles, though.

[Mad Humanist]

Since we're able to post despite truncation, I don't think this is severe enough to constitute a problem; certainly not enough of a one to alter a chosen-by-vote title and draw attention to anyone who doesn't go back and edit the titles in their own already-existing posts.

I suspect it is trivial to fix though. You can probably fix it next time you edit the original post.

[Peelee]

Well if we're going to have a conversation on how we determine thread titles, having it before we have to determine thread titles would be prudent. This applies regardless of embiggenment of any related punchline.

Yeah, I'd have thought you would commend me on my timeliness, since this is probably the earliest I could possibly propose this for the next time.

And explaining the joke makes it better.

[unbeliever536]

Idle question, Jasdoif:

I just noticed you've been keeping minor version numbers for the index in the OP. Are those "updates since last thread, or something else?

[Jasdoif]

I suspect it is trivial to fix though. You can probably fix it next time you edit the original post.

Going forward, sure; but extant posts would need to be edited by their authors. It isn't the ease of doing it that poses a problem for me anyway, fixing a minor truncation isn't valid justification for fixing a vote

Idle question, Jasdoif:

I just noticed you've been keeping minor version numbers for the index in the OP. Are those "updates since last thread, or something else?

Update cycles completed in the current thread (which I suppose aligns with "updates since last thread"). The "Latest Additions" table in the first post is keyed off the version number, so including that version number in the post seems sensible.

[unbeliever536]

Going forward, sure; but extant posts would need to be edited by their authors.

Which is why we should just drop the -ex, obviously

[DaggerPen]

I'm in support of most of the removals but abstain with respect to Protection from Law being illegal. For all that it was a tongue in cheek comment, "Wait, why not just buy Protection from Law?" is the sort of fridge logic I could see coming up on the forums in the future, and linking the comment would be useful. It is one easily found via a comment search on the boards, though, so I abstain.

[Throknor]

Well if we're going to have a conversation on how we determine thread titles, having it before we have to determine thread titles would be prudent. This applies regardless of embiggenment of any related punchline.
And isn't making white text obvious like explaining a joke?Since we're able to post despite truncation, I don't think this is severe enough to constitute a problem; certainly not enough of a one to alter a chosen-by-vote title and draw attention to anyone who doesn't go back and edit the titles in their own already-existing posts.

Clearly I'll need to be more mindful of brevity with regards to future thread titles, though.

Remove the spaces around the dash. Done.

[Jasdoif]

Remove the spaces around the dash. Done.

It's a fair compromise. Done.

[SaintRidley]

Now it looks a little sloppy, like V-On is a word (a censored form of the word Vogon? I can live with censoring the Vogons and their poetry, so this isn't necessarily bad) in the title rather than a number and the beginning of a subtitle.

[Jasdoif]

Now it looks a little sloppy, like V-On is a word (a censored form of the word Vogon? I can live with censoring the Vogons and their poetry, so this isn't necessarily bad) in the title rather than a number and the beginning of a subtitle.

Well the truncation looked sloppy in the post titles before, too Still, using a horizontal bar character ( ― ) rather than a standard dash character ( - ) might work better....