I Thought I'd open a poll about post size and thread length for Archives of the WX Threads

[John Bumbledore]

Topics here are currently paged after 15 posts and WX was dependent on post size with 10 being the average (I think).
I was wondering

When archive topics are created here, who would prefer (A) a set number of WX post per message here vs (B) who would like it better if the archive messages here were limited by size.

Along with that choice is what you think about the total length of the archive topics here.

(1) Would you like all the WX closed thread (volumes) for a single thread in one long topic here?
Or
(2) Would it be better to keep separate topics for each individual WX thread volume?

Six choices: (You may Choose 1)
A1
A2
B1
B2
Don't care
Other: (If you select other then please make a reply to this topic with the details of your other choice or opinion.

(This poll will be open for 30 days Beginning Feb 28, 2011 8:20 PM Eastern USA)

Sincerely,

[Lady Arabella]

John, which of the options is the easiest to do? Or, are they all about the same amount of work?

[Verity Weasley]

I'm thinking along the same lines as Lady Arabella, I think, being that whatever is easiest for the archiver should be the method that is chosen.

[Potteraholic]

Hi, John. When I first saw your poll, I had absolutely no idea how to answer your question, and still don't, to be honest. I just don't really understand the choices... I'm good at some techie stuff, but then I can be quite dense about other, quite simple things sometimes.

I do agree with Verity, though. I think folks who are taking the time and making the effort to archive anything from WX should do it in the manner they see fit. If we all try to come to some sort of an agreement about how things are archived, and I'm not saying you suggested that at all, given our time constraint, I don't think we could come up with something that we (all the folks who are volunteering to archive) could all do. We all have different technical capabilities in our computers and in our brains and different time constraints.

I'm archiving all The Five Words Stories, and not having Notepad or any program that automatically saves web files somehow, I am copying and pasting stuff into Word documents to transfer over to here. Given the nature of Five Words, it would be unmanageable to archive every post. In 13 Volumes, with 2,500+ posts in each, it would just be overwhelming to try and save every one of them. That's over 32,500 posts! And I don't think every post needs to be saved, quite frankly; just the finished stories, the stats, the post-story comments, and various other related bits of information. I am posting each item in its own post, for organizational purposes, and using the post title option to help with this organization.

I am including the name of the original poster in bold, as well as the date/time and post# posted in WX at the top of most posts. This is what makes the most sense for me, for what I'm archiving. That's my plan for the 20 Questions games, and riddles and quizzes, time permitting. I'm just going to save the relevant pieces of information: a finished 20 Questions game, with all questions asked and the answer, and in the case of the riddles and quizzes, the original game, and then the game's answers. That's all I need to have for an archive of past Potty Games.

Maybe there's TMI in this response, none of which was helpful to anyone, LOL, but at least I can explain my process somewhere on here, in case anyone's wondering.

EDIT: I'm one of the folks who picked the 5th option, but it's not that I don't care, it's just that I don't think it matters much. It's just good that things are being saved and transferred at all, at this point, with just over a month to go.

PAH

[Denise P.]

I picked the 5th option as well but I am pretty laid back about archiving anyway. Kip will confirm that I have always said let threads expire and die. Several years have passed and now I don't want to see everything gone forever. I don't think everything needs to be saved but there are some threads that should be saved.

I copy from WX and paste into a reply box here. I add in the bold tag for the person who posted and that is about it.

I think that if someone is willing to transfer a thread, they get to decide how they do it

[John Bumbledore]

Perhaps I'm just thinking of too many choices.

-I'm up to 50 WX post per message here on a "JK Rowling Official Site 15-05-2004 to 09-11-2004" archive ...

at least until I found the file was corrupted, missing some posts and double copies of others.

[HungarianHorntail11]

Hi and thanks for asking but I agree with the consensus which seems to be to leave it up to the individuals archiving. I am thankful for anything that is saved.

Just wondering if there should be a place where all archived/saved/transferred info. can be grouped in case we have a move to another site for any reason? Am I opening a can of worms?

[Potteraholic]

Just wondering if there should be a place where all archived/saved/transferred info. can be grouped in case we have a move to another site for any reason? Am I opening a can of worms?

Oh my! What a thought! (It crossed my mind, too.)

I updated and moved to the header the excellent list that MAMS posted in the other forum in the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] thread. I'm thinking a similar list or thread should be posted here? I volunteer to update it.

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