11 replies to this topic

[Scafloc]

Today I finally received the book! Of course I have started reading right away and was think about adding chapter summaries.
I know there were other users that were also thinking about this and about a slightly different format. So are there already people working on chapter summaries? And if so which, then I'll choose other chapters as there is no sense in doing things twice.

Another point: normally I would identify the chapters with the combination of POV and sequence number of the chapter for that character; Eddard III for instance. On the wiki I still want to do this but should we on the forum identify the chapter with the sequence number in the book to avoid spoilers? So for instance "the 3rd chapter after the prologue"?

[Anguy the Archer]

I'm halfway through, and have kept very short summaries (5-75 words). I was actually about to create a chapter list page, and the first chapter pages. I would have used the following naming convention, and was planning to rename the existing chapters in time if nobody objects (while making sure that all links continue to work, as discussed on the wiki):

(Using AFfC chapters here, as examples):
* [[Prologue (A Feast for Crows)]], with redirects from [[Chapter 1 (A Feast for Crows)]] and [[Mollander I (A Feast for Crows)]]
* [[The Prophet (A Feast for Crows)]], with redirects from [[Chapter 2 (A Feast for Crows)]] and [[Aeron I (A Feast for Crows)]]
* [[Cersei I (A Feast for Crows)]], with redirects from [[Chapter 4 (A Feast for Crows)]]
* [[Sansa I (A Feast for Crows)]], with redirects from [[Chapter 11 (A Feast for Crows)]]
* [[Alayne I (A Feast for Crows)]], with redirects from [[Chapter 24 (A Feast for Crows)]] and [[Sansa II (A Feast for Crows)]]
* [[The Reaver (A Feast for Crows)]], with redirects from [[Chapter 30 (A Feast for Crows)]] and [[Victarion II (A Feast for Crows)]]

I.e.:
* Actual page title is always based on the chapter title from the book.
* All page names are postfixed with book title in parentheses as a disambiguator.
* If page or redirect title is based on a character name, Roman numerals are added to identify them unambiguously.
* For those one-off chapter titles, redirects from first name of the POV are added
* For the changed POV names (Alayne in FfC), redirect from the original POV name is added (Sansa II -> Alayne I)
* Prologue is counted as chapter 1

If there are no objections I'll just start them like that. I would welcome it if you still kept notes, to expand on mine: They are certainly too short for proper chapter summaries, only suited for the the chapter list.

I don't know how spoilers should be handled on the wiki. If I start [[List of A Dance with Dragons chapters]] page with my short summaries, you can't edit it for now (and vice-versa once you overtake me).

Edited by Anguy the Archer, 14 July 2011 - 05:07 PM.

[The Pale Griffin]

I like the fact that your linking to the old pages. This allows us to use the "What links here" function for the old pages to eventually change all the references to the new ones so that we can eventually get rid of some of the redirects.

[Scafloc]

Anguy the Archer, on 14 July 2011 - 05:02 PM, said:

I'm halfway through, and have kept very short summaries (5-75 words). I was actually about to create a chapter list page, and the first chapter pages.

If there are no objections I'll just start them like that. I would welcome it if you still kept notes, to expand on mine: They are certainly too short for proper chapter summaries, only suited for the the chapter list.

I don't know how spoilers should be handled on the wiki. If I start [[List of A Dance with Dragons chapters]] page with my short summaries, you can't edit it for now (and vice-versa once you overtake me).

Who, already half way, impressive! Well, the coming weekend a lot of rain is expected so I should be able to read a lot (and make notes)
It the summary is not yet done let's include the text: "In progress" at the top of the page.
About the spoilers I think we cannot avoid that. The chapter summaries will contain the text "A Dance With Dragons" so it is clear that they will contain spoilers.

For the naming convention I would like to suggest one change: keep the prologue as prologue and not as chapter 1. Currently prologue (and epilogue) is used and the next chapter is then chapter 1, then 2 and so on. I we would rename this then an old link with name chapter 1 would then link (via a redirect) to chapter 2. I think this is confusing.

Edited by Scafloc, 15 July 2011 - 05:41 AM.

[Anguy the Archer]

Scafloc, on 15 July 2011 - 04:54 AM, said:

Who, already half way, impressive!

Not so much, I'm trying to take it very slowly -- I had two weeks headstart.

Scafloc, on 15 July 2011 - 04:54 AM, said:

For the naming convention I would like to suggest one change: keep the prologue as prologue and not as chapter 1. Currently prologue (and epilogue) is used and the next chapter is then chapter 1, then 2 and so on. I we would rename this then an old link with name chapter 1 would then link (via a redirect) to chapter 2. I think this is confusing.

As The Pale Griffin said, it would be easy to replace all old links with new ones -- a lot of automated editing tools and bots have grown around MediaWiki, and e.g. AutoWikiBrowser can be used here. I have experience with it and can happily do that, which means all internal links would be consistent and correct. We could delete the old redirects afterwards.

The only question IMHO is which system is best in the long term.
I could also omit any numbered redirects if they are more confusing than helpful, and we just delete the old ones once unused (and if we can get Ran to +sysop someone on the wiki, else he'll have to do that himself).

[Scafloc]

If we replace the links then there will not be any confusion so that would be great. And I think that POV (or alias of POV) + Sequence number + book is better then book + sequence number.

About the sysop option, I think there was a problem with accessing parts of the wiki but Ran would know.

[Linda]

Unfortunately, yes, there's no way of accessing the admin account on the wiki as long as the bridge between wiki and forum isn't functioning as it should.

[mor2]

Scafloc, on 15 July 2011 - 08:37 AM, said:

If we replace the links then there will not be any confusion so that would be great. And I think that POV (or alias of POV) + Sequence number + book is better then book + sequence number.

About the sysop option, I think there was a problem with accessing parts of the wiki but Ran would know.

So what have been decided, because at the moment the first 4 books use 'book+chapter name' and aDwD using a different convention. ( for reference here is the Category page  and the Chapters summaries page)


My only 2 cents on the matter that whatever the finally convention would be keep  'book+chapter name' redirects, which is much easier to link to.

[Scafloc]

I am in favour of keeping the redirects as well. Like Mor2 says it is easier to link to.
Another point is that the Chapter 40 says something about how far you are in the book while Jaime I does not.

Still I think that Jaime I is more stylish.

Edit: Another thing: I saw that for ADWD La Guarde de Nuit has separate pages for each chaper as well. We should add interwiki links. Maybe it is possible to do such a thing with a bot. Does anybody have experience in that?

Edited by Scafloc, 12 September 2011 - 12:28 AM.

[LuisDantas]

Scafloc, on 12 September 2011 - 12:26 AM, said:

I am in favour of keeping the redirects as well. Like Mor2 says it is easier to link to.
Another point is that the Chapter 40 says something about how far you are in the book while Jaime I does not.

The current navigating template for ADWD (which I believe is now in use in all of the 73 chapters, or at least pretty close already) includes a field for starting page for each chapter.  I believe it would be a good idea to include a chapter number in a similar fashing (going from 0 to 72).  Mor2's links have the necessary chapter number information, which I have attempted to include in the reference info in the Wiki articles (see for instance these two articles' references):

http://awoiaf.wester...elaesori_Qhoran

http://awoiaf.wester...dex.php/Moqorro

Quote

Still I think that Jaime I is more stylish.

It is, for sure.  Still, we have at least three characters using alternate names in ADWD, sometimes switching mid-book.  

Between that and the chapters that don't use the POV character as their names, it has become tricky to indicate specific chapters without using numbers while still avoiding spoilers and confusion.  

For instance, how many Cat chapters there are in ADWD, and which numbers should they receive?  

Any answer is unavoidably arbitrary to some degree.  Chapter numbers aren't, at least once we agree that the Prologue is Chapter 0 and the Epilogue is Chapter 72.  So I am very much in favor of having chapter number-based wikilinks, even if only as redirects.

Quote

Edit: Another thing: I saw that for ADWD La Guarde de Nuit has separate pages for each chaper as well. We should add interwiki links. Maybe it is possible to do such a thing with a bot. Does anybody have experience in that?

Not really, although I would love to learn.

Edited by LuisDantas, 20 November 2011 - 06:57 PM.

[mor2]

you summed it up nicely, now the only question is should we:
1. rename the pages to include the chapter numbers.(will auto create a redirect).
2. the other way around create pages with chapter numbers and create redirect to the current chapters.

the only difference is what the pages title will be. as mentioned before I am in favor of 1.


btw, thanks for finishing the feast of crows infobox update.

[LuisDantas]

You mean the Dance with Dragons infobox update.  My pleasure!