User talk:Zeracles/History of the Star Control fan universe/Chronology

Noteworthy Events

Probably no-one's interested, but keeping this open, here's some things I would include

• maiden posts on the SCDB (if these are difficult to find, maybe just registration dates)
• new SCDB threads
• maiden posts on the UQMF
• new UQMF threads
• UQM version releases
• music remixes
• artwork
• melee tournaments
• mods
• ideas (good ones, that is)
• posts on the PNF main page or changes to the PNF in general
• changes in personnel (like Scott taking over the PNF)
• new ultronomicon pages
• maiden edits to the ultronomicon
• fiftieth edits to the ultronomicon
• 500th edits to the ultronomicon
• final edits or posts of people who seem to have disappeared (inactive for a year, say)
• revisions to the UQM source
• flame wars (well, they help shape the politics of the SCFU)
• bans

Maybe there's a whole lot of stuff I've missed, feel free to add them. --Zeracles 19:15, 10 March 2008 (CET)

Levels

I'm thinking it would be good to sort events based on their significance.

1

• maiden post/edit on or ban from * for one who currently has <50 posts/edits on *
• new threads which got <50 replies
• new ultronomicon articles
• maiden revision to UQM source for one who currently has <50 such revisions
• flame wars

2

• maiden post/edit on or ban from * for one who currently has 50-500 posts/edits on *
• new threads which got 50-500 replies
• this is the level on which I think any actual work (mods, artwork, etc), no matter how insignificant, should go - it's one thing to propose a new idea or post something random, but it's quite another to actually set aside some time and actually follow something through
• melee tournaments probably go here
• changes in personnel
• maiden revision to UQM source for one who currently has 50-500 such revisions
• something more significant than usual happens on the ultronomicon - an intense discussion, even a bit of friction perhaps, a conclusion on editing policy, et cetera.

3

• maiden post/edit on or ban from * for one who currently has 500-5000 posts/edits on *
• new threads which get 500-5000 replies (I don't know off-hand if any of these exist, but there are some on the SCDB which theoretically must if the SCDB survives for long enough)
• on this level I would put "major" works. Not a mod which does something minor, but say, a UQM release or music remix pack release
• also, anything which was important enough to go on the PNF main page's news probably deserves to go here
• maiden revision to UQM source for one who currently has 500-5000 such revisions

4

This would probably be the highest level, I'm not aware of anyone who has 5000+ posts (Lukipela might be getting close if one was to combine his SCDB and UQMF posts), but I have no idea if anyone has 5000+ ultronomicon edits to their credit (this might have happened). Here would be the most important events, including things like the release of SC2 and the beginning of the UQM project. If anyone was to get to 5000 posts/edits though, I'd consider creating a level 5 for events which this doesn't really compare with. The solution could be to have the highest level as a variable which is adjusted as necessary.

Discussion

The above is where we will modify these levels, and below is where we will discuss, if there is to be any discussion, heh.

I've decided to go with changing the significance of some events retrospectively. For example, rather than list the first and 50th posts of someone, I'd just list the maiden post as an event, and ignore the 50th. When the 50th post happens, the significance of the maiden post is bumped up. The 50th post, for example, is usually nothing special anyway.

So far I've chosen to sort thread significance based on the same threshold as poster significance, for consistency. I know this doesn't match the definition of hot topics and very hot topics.

One strength of generating this rather than editing manually is that if we ever changed our minds about these level definitions, it would be easy to regenerate the whole chronology based on new definitions.

I'm not sure how to treat the significance of an ultronomicon page - a page might be important if it takes a lot of edits to get right, but this also depends on the quality of those edits. Maybe a page is significant if it has a lot of links with other articles, but this doesn't seem satisfactory either. At this stage I'd put the generation of a new article at level 1 and keep it there.

Also don't know how to rate the significance of an idea - an important idea will have influence on important events, but it would be nice to recognise its inception. There might be room for subjectivity here.

As for whether it's wise to compare things like wiki editing and actual work with posting activity, I would, because the fan universe might not survive on work alone. Posting activity is a measure of a fandom's vitality, which for SC is something to watch, unfortunately (all the same I think the doomsayers are wrong). So I do think posters, threads and such should feature in this history.

I've also decided to recognise those who work directly with the UQM source (like meep-eep/svdb, mcmartin and avolkov).

Open for discussion as always. --Zeracles 20:37, 27 April 2008 (CEST)