The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
[Spoilers for all books] Theories index
Ms Duck:
--- Quote from: Serack on December 14, 2012, 03:35:08 PM ---Oh, lemebeclear, I think you are doing a great job, I just wanted to point all that out for the sake of all the citation suggestions that have been coming out.
This is a huge project that you are taking on, and the index framework that you have hashed out works really well (some committee input did take place, but you are the executor, and get to take ownership of the awesomeness of the results :) )
--- End quote ---
agreed !
a lot of these theories are very much joint efforts; Molly/Mab may have come out of me having way too much starbucks icecream one night but without the input of Landing, Piotr and the two of you it never would have become remotely coherent or plausible.
maybe when making theories, a citaiton/ thanks note would be appropriate?
Cenphx:
Hey Serack-having read your comment about the citation suggesion, of which ive made a couple :), I was wondering if you and/or Elegast could provide some direction on what would be helpful suggestions for us forum-ites to make? I remember that for the Reference Collection thread nominations, there were some critieria you all used to decide which theories/threads would count? Could you outline some criteria you would like us to use here? That might help keep our suggestions to the most useful ones.
Serack:
--- Quote from: Cenphx on December 14, 2012, 04:47:24 PM ---Hey Serack-having read your comment about the citation suggesion, of which ive made a couple :), I was wondering if you and/or Elegast could provide some direction on what would be helpful suggestions for us forum-ites to make? I remember that for the Reference Collection thread nominations, there were some critieria you all used to decide which theories/threads would count? Could you outline some criteria you would like us to use here? That might help keep our suggestions to the most useful ones.
--- End quote ---
Well, the whole DFRC concept is a living idea that still evolves, and we have 2 new great curators that have already started adding some of their own touch to it much to its benefit!
I am going to answer this question in two ways.
First is a some emphasis on technical formatting of suggestions for this index:
From experience, what Elegast is doing here is a great deal of work, and the closest you can come to making a suggestion something that he can straight copy/paste into the index the better. He also has the ability to pull the code directly from your post, so posting suggestions in accordance with his original guidelines really goes a long way in making things work well for him:
--- Quote from: Elegast on December 12, 2012, 08:00:23 PM ---A theory is expected to come as a one sentence proposition (it can be right or wrong).
BAD:
Why has Harry build LC? (That's not a statement, it can't be right or wrong)
GOOD:
A. A. Summers is Aurora's daughter (Slate as the father?)
BETTER: add a link to the theory
A. A. Summers is Aurora's daughter (Slate as the father?) (source)
BEST: add a link to the profile of the owner of the theory
A. A. Summers is Aurora's daughter (Slate as the father?) (source)-GrandPanjandrum
--- End quote ---
Also, Elegast didn't mention it, but the reason why some sources have "* Date" tacked on is to emphasize to the Special Collections Division that these topics are still subject to autodelete monster consumption. It is general policy to only move topics to the DFRC once they are "mature" and are not subject to active or feverent discussion/contribution. (Hence this index we are currently discussing being in the "Spoilers" section as of this comment). This keeps the bulk of active discussion in the Spoilers section, and keeps the DFRC set appart as a more quiet reference section with dusty tomes. (I don't think I make a very hot librarian though... I guess I could shoot for a Rupert Giles look though)
The second part of my answer to this question is a little less concrete. I can't say what type of ideas/posts belong indexed because my limited impression of what makes a good theory post keeps getting stretched beyond my imagination by so many awesome contributions to the forums.
However, I will say that if you remember a discussion regarding a theory that took place within the past year or so (or is contained in the DFRC or other archives) do your best to try to dig it up (the advanced search function buried in the search tab near the top left of the page is pretty powerful once you get good at tweaking your searches, although some of the recent forum code updates have caused it to throw lots of false hits that fill up the 25 hit limit crowding out the good ones). And if you can't find a topic that you think does the subject justice, then I love seeing people create their own :)
Also, I posted a few suggestions for building a topic that is intended to serve as a major theory/reference thread here when the DFRC first was created
Edit: it looks as though Elegast did an excellent job of answering this question from another (probably more pertinant) angle in a post below.
Serack:
Woops, I hit post on the wrong topic, having multiple ones up at once... I reserve the right to add a few extra thoughts to the above post, since I wasn't quite finished with it ;)
Elegast:
--- Quote from: Cenphx on December 14, 2012, 04:47:24 PM --- I remember that for the Reference Collection thread nominations, there were some critieria you all used to decide which theories/threads would count?
--- End quote ---
We should check with Serack, who is the founder/owner the Reference Collection, but to my knowledge there is no formalized criteria to include threads on the DFRC.
The fundamental question is: do we want to save the thread from the auto-deletion monster?
In practice, the threads being kept fall in five categories:
Theory
A thread where a new theory is explained.
Example: Serack's Lash theory
Discusion
That's a thread where the OP is often weak, but the following replies are strong.
Example: conversation about the Blackstaff
Fun
Those are just fun threads.
Example:Knnn's code
Factual references
those threads try to collect all the fact on an aspect of the DF
Example: the legendary timeline of Priscillie
References about theories
A thread where the OP try to gather all the knowledge about a theory in a single post. (often the knowledge is spread in many thread, with no coherent organisation/structure).
Example: my Cowl = Kemmler thread.
Concerning the threads I would like to see: I'm hoping someone will make a post about the different possibilities concerning Victor Sells/HW belts, and evaluate the strength of the respective explanations. We have one thread about it the collection, which is heavily biased toward the Erlking hypothesis.
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