The Index of the Giant's Comments

[genderlich]

10 as it is doesn't make a whole lot of sense without context. The replacement is much better; I'd have voted for its inclusion in the first place.

[Kish]

I prefer the replacement for 10. It is longer but with that it's more descriptive of Rich's opinions on the subject with no ambiguity. I think 10 could be taken (by a minority of people) that Rich thinks it's okay to place newborns in campaigns as long as they have that stat block .

My thought is the opposite; 10 is better than the proposed replacement because the replacement is something some people would just glance over with, "Oh, huh, I guess that's a style difference," whereas the link behind 10--with lines like "Congratulations, Baby-Killer"--makes Rich's reason for thinking that clear.

[137beth]

My thought is the opposite; 10 is better than the proposed replacement because the replacement is something some people would just glance over with, "Oh, huh, I guess that's a style difference," whereas the link behind 10--with lines like "Congratulations, Baby-Killer"--makes Rich's reason for thinking that clear.

I'm gonna agree with this. I actually think 10 does a clearer job illustrating the point than the proposed replacement.

[Ron Miel]

You know, I still don't see the logic of selecting only 1 quote on a subject. Why not just say something like:

The Giant's thoughts on slaying juvenile monsters.
[Comment 1]
[Comment 2]
[Comment 3]


With the appropriate links. It costs nothing, except for a few characters towards max post length, and would be helpful to include them all.

[Taelas]

I rather think the max number of characters per post limit is more of a hassle in this particular thread than you may be expecting, Ron.

[theangelJean]

After changing all the urls to post tags to save space, the first post was still at about 2/3 of the character limit. Adding the table tags will increase that, although I guess it's not by much. But the Index is growing all the time...

That said, we're at page 42, so in a little while ThePhantasm will be able to reserve more than two posts from the top of the next thread. Especially if we keep up the rate of chat that isn't directly about quotes. :P

I prefer ChristianSt's suggested quote rather than 10, as a clear statement of Rich's point of view. But given the amount of disagreement over which one is clearer, I wouldn't be especially against including them both.

[DaggerPen]

Would something like:

Giant's thoughts on slaying juvenile monsters 1 2 3

work?

It includes all the links, but it's very concise. A thread like this has character limit issues, certainly, but I doubt that those scant few characters will ever make or break anything. If it comes down that close to the wire, we'll be going the route of removing longer unnecessary quotes, not character snipping.

EDIT: Oh, the BBCode counts as part of the character limit? That's... unfortunate. Still, we're close to a new thread. I'd say add all three of them and hope the Giant doesn't go on a posting rampage before we're at the new thread.

[ChristianSt]

My thought is the opposite; 10 is better than the proposed replacement because the replacement is something some people would just glance over with, "Oh, huh, I guess that's a style difference," whereas the link behind 10--with lines like "Congratulations, Baby-Killer"--makes Rich's reason for thinking that clear.

While it is a valid conclusion to draw from it, imo some people could misinterpret it rather easy (we are still on the internet - written language isn't the best way to transport sarcasm and such).

It is more a funny quote I would want to add to my signature, than a quote I might want to provide in a serious discussion.

Spoiler: Thread Rules Part c)

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c) The index is a forum tool, meant primarily to provide easy access to direct statements from the author for the purpose of forum discussion. Thus, while the index may be fun to read through on a whim, this is not its primary purpose or focus - it is a research aid more than it is a trivia collection.

I think the replacement quote fits this goal better than 10.

You know, I still don't see the logic of selecting only 1 quote on a subject. Why not just say something like:

The Giant's thoughts on slaying juvenile monsters.
[Comment 1]
[Comment 2]
[Comment 3]


With the appropriate links. It costs nothing, except for a few characters towards max post length, and would be helpful to include them all.

And also we don't want to include redundant information, so if we think Comment 3 adds no information, than we shouldn't list it.

Spoiler: Thread Rules, Part e)

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e) Quotes that contain redundant information need not be included. This reduces clutter. The quote should only be included if it provides new information or clarity, or if it expounds upon information included in a prior comment.

[Kish]

While it is a valid conclusion to draw from it, imo some people could misinterpret it rather easy (we are still on the internet - written language isn't the best way to transport sarcasm and such).

If there is actually anyone on the board who would take Rich saying "Congratulations, Baby-Killer" as a sincere expression of approval, I am as utterly opposed to choosing the quotes for the Index to cater to this hypothetical person as I would be to a proposal to rewrite everything he said to ensure no words of more than one syllable are used.

[Muenster Man]

You know, I still don't see the logic of selecting only 1 quote on a subject.

Because we're also trying to pare down the Index by removing unnecessary quotes.

My thought is the opposite; 10 is better than the proposed replacement because the replacement is something some people would just glance over with, "Oh, huh, I guess that's a style difference," whereas the link behind 10--with lines like "Congratulations, Baby-Killer"--makes Rich's reason for thinking that clear.

Yeah, you're right. The conciseness of 10 would probably be better evidence for the forum in general. While the replacement does describe it in better detail, that assumes most people will read it top to bottom, which assumes a lot.

Also, since both statements have a good amount of support for them, but 10 is the funnier and more memorable one, I'm changing my vote to 10.

[Jasdoif]

My thought is the opposite; 10 is better than the proposed replacement because the replacement is something some people would just glance over with, "Oh, huh, I guess that's a style difference," whereas the link behind 10--with lines like "Congratulations, Baby-Killer"--makes Rich's reason for thinking that clear.

Interestingly, you've described why I prefer the replacement to 10; a series of one-shot lines is a lot easier to discard as "style differences" when there isn't any reasoning backing it up.

In particular, the replacement spells out that it doesn't matter if the baby is capable of posing a threat due to the capabilities of its race/species, it still shouldn't be statted or treated as a combatant. Whereas 10 doesn't even mention dragons in the post text, only the post/thread title; possibly confusing the issue as to what's being considered a "baby".

While the replacement does describe it in better detail, that assumes most people will read it top to bottom, which assumes a lot.

...how is it "assuming a lot" to think that people will read the entirety of a post they specifically followed a link to from the Index? Isn't that why a link from the Index would be followed in the first place?

[Muenster Man]

...how is it "assuming a lot" to think that people will read the entirety of a post they specifically followed a link to from the Index? Isn't that why a link from the Index would be followed in the first place?

I wish I shared your high opinion of everyone on this forum. But the replacement isn't as concise as it could be and I can't help but think that some people would just skim over it thinking "tl;dr"

I like both quotes, but for the purposes of this thread, I now think 10 does the job slightly better.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Anecdotally, sometimes I follow the link from here and read the thread, but often I only care about what Rich said about that subject, not the context he said it in. I don't think you can count on people reading the rest of the thread.

Edit: Oh you are talking about reading the whole post, my comment is about reading the whole thread. Sorry. Yeah, I agree, planning for people not reading the whole post in a thread devoted to linking to particular posts is... not a good plan.

[ChristianSt]

We will now resume taking nominations for quotes to be removed from the index. These nominations will be voted on later.

So I want to take a break in discussing 10 vs. replacement and would nominate something for removal:

An OOTS Computer Game? No current plans for one. See here for more. (06/10/2013; #892)

An OOTS "Munchkin" Board Game? No current plans for one. (07/06/2013; #897)

Top Webcomics: Do not vote for OOTS on Top Webcomics. (5/19/2010, #724)

I don't think these quotes add anything really valuable to this thread.
I'm not exactly sure on the "no OotS XY"-quotes, but I think they don't add that much - I don't see any reason why someone should assume any of those things should happen unless there is an announcement about it.

[137beth]

Because we're also trying to pare down the Index by removing unnecessary quotes.

But if we are arguing about which quote adds more, and what information is in one quote but not the other, then they aren't unnecessary.

[Emanick]

ChristianSt, I disagree on the OotS computer game and the Top Webcomic one. I'm not sure why The Giant would have gone on record about the computer game if he didn't want people to know that he had no plans for it, and it's exactly the sort of thing that people sometimes wonder about. I've certainly wondered about it before.

The Top Webcomic voting becomes an issue most years, and it's very handy to have that link for when the annual contest rolls around and threads appear asking people to vote for the Order of the Stick.

The Munchkin thing seems oddly specific (although apparently not specific enough to prevent Rich from receiving an offer on precisely that subject), so I have no problem with getting rid of that quote.

[The Linker]

I wish I shared your high opinion of everyone on this forum. But the replacement isn't as concise as it could be and I can't help but think that some people would just skim over it thinking "tl;dr"

I like both quotes, but for the purposes of this thread, I now think 10 does the job slightly better.

When the point of the thread is 'here is where you can find lots of information on what Rich has to say regarding various minor or major aspects of the comic,' I really don't think we should be structuring it around the people who are not interested in reading what Rich has to say. That's-- that's on them. If they don't care enough to read through that post, then... they don't care. And that's fine, but it seems silly to spend any effort on retaining the readers who don't care about the minutiae at the detriment to those who would prefer more in-depth explanation.

I really do feel like anyone who would be scared off by three paragraphs of author insight would not be here. They're not the target audience in the thread of pages and pages of author insight.

[Flame of Anor]

I'd agree about removing the No OotS Munchkin Game and the Don't Vote On TopWebcomics quotes, but I recommend retaining the No OotS Computer Game one because that topic comes up so often.

[RMS Oceanic]

I nominate the removal of the Pyramid Double Bluff explanation. I don't think it's a question desperately needing an answer these days, and I'm aware of the character limit.

[oppyu]

Recommendation regarding character limit; we natter a LOT in this thread, and we're already at 42 pages. When it comes time for a new thread, the curator can just reserve three or four posts at the top of the thread.

[Ron Miel]

Agreed. We shouldn't exclude a quote just to save a few characters.

And best if TP reboots the thread ASAP.

[137beth]

When the point of the thread is 'here is where you can find lots of information on what Rich has to say regarding various minor or major aspects of the comic,' I really don't think we should be structuring it around the people who are not interested in reading what Rich has to say. That's-- that's on them. If they don't care enough to read through that post, then... they don't care. And that's fine, but it seems silly to spend any effort on retaining the readers who don't care about the minutiae at the detriment to those who would prefer more in-depth explanation.

I really do feel like anyone who would be scared off by three paragraphs of author insight would not be here. They're not the target audience in the thread of pages and pages of author insight.

This sounds like a good argument for including both quotes.

[ChristianSt]

Agreed. We shouldn't exclude a quote just to save a few characters.

And best if TP reboots the thread ASAP.

I don't think we should hasten the creation of a new thread - in fact I think it would be much better if we get the current restructuring/adding/removing done in this thread.
Doing so would prevent a split to the current discussion, and also would enable a cleaner start (since we don't need to discuss these issues at the start of the new thread)
(It might even be against the forum rules to restarting it without hitting the the "end of the thread", because for one topic there should be only one thread)
[At least if I understand you correctly, for me "rebooting the thread ASAP" means to start the new thread best now, without actually resolving the current conflicts first.]


Also even with reserving multiple posts, character limit is still somewhat relevant:

The more quotes/content there is, the harder it is to organize/find the right thing - so discarding unnecessary quotes is still good (even if character limit is used as a sort of tie-breaker for the decision).
I also imagine that the jump from one to two posts (I'm not really counting the Geekademia Interview, since it is just static content) could increase the organizing overhead quite a bit (depending on how it is structured) - and everything that makes it easier for ThePhantasm (who makes imo a really awesome job at curating this thread!), is worth a consideration alone for this reason.

[Leriel]

What about
- Keeping this thread "as is". Only the phantom should modify the index of Giant's comments. No more entries here.
- Opening a new thread (or more than one if needed) for discussing further entries. Obliouvsly, the Phantom will provide a link to the "work in progress" thread(s) in the first page of the "official" comments one.

This will allow extensive discussions, and it will keep clean this starting thread.

Just my 2 cents...

[Mammal]

If there are 3 quotes that should be read in sequence, perhaps you could quote them all in one comment, in this thread, and then link to the comment, keeping a link back to the original posts in the original thread?

I'm thinking specifically of his three shorter posts about killing juvenile monsters.

[Jasdoif]

If there are 3 quotes that should be read in sequence, perhaps you could quote them all in one comment, in this thread, and then link to the comment, keeping a link back to the original posts in the original thread?

I'm thinking specifically of his three shorter posts about killing juvenile monsters.

Well, we already have a few entries in the Index with supporting posts in their comments. So maybe we could do something like...

{table=head]10/04/2013|#922|[div]Babies shouldn't be statted[/div]The inclusion of combat stats for newborns encourages combat with newborns, which shouldn't happen. See also Rich's proposed alternative "stats", here and here.[/table]

...that?

[ThePhantasm]

Things seem pretty evenly split on this issue, so in that case including both (or multiple) quotes in one entry will probably be the way to go.

- Opening a new thread (or more than one if needed) for discussing further entries. Obliouvsly, the Phantom will provide a link to the "work in progress" thread(s) in the first page of the "official" comments one

No. We've discussed it before, and decided against it. There's no good reason to have two threads instead of one. AND on top of that there's a forum rule about this: "One Topic, One Thread."

[Ron Miel]

No, you misunderstand. I'm not saying we should have two threads. I'm saying that you should move the discussion to a new thyread, and end this one.

You'll have to do it soon anyway. We are nearing the 1,500 post limit. I just think it would be best if you did it ASAP.

And in the new thread, you can spread the comments out over two or three posts, and reserve a couple of posts for future use. That would make the character limit 5x larger.

[ChristianSt]

No, you misunderstand. I'm not saying we should have two threads. I'm saying that you should move the discussion to a new thyread, and end this one.

You'll have to do it soon anyway. We are nearing the 1,500 post limit. I just think it would be best if you did it ASAP.

And in the new thread, you can spread the comments out over two or three posts, and reserve a couple of posts for future use. That would make the character limit 5x larger.

While character limit is a concern (and I think not necessary only as a technically constraint), I don't think it is that urgent - I just checked the first post and it is at around 34k characters, so there should be enough space left for the lifetime of this thread (unless ThePhantasm has something truly epic in the pipeline) [for comparison the Geekademia Interview is at around 49,5k - so that is probably the reason why the ToC is in the first post].
And I think ThePhantasm is fully aware that it would be good to reserve some more posts for the next round, just in case .

And I didn't implied that you wanted two threads to discuss, I only said that restarting early might even be against the "one topic, one thread"-rule, because there would be two threads without really having a reason for it. I'm not sure on that, but we are only at page 42, so this thread could still last some time. Depending on how fast things are going in the next time I think it might not even necessary to do it this year. (Ok, at the moment there is quite some discussion going on, so I wouldn't bet on that )

[ThePhantasm]

No worries, I've been aware of the impending reboot for some time. Its not quite ready yet but should be soon. I'd like to get this voting business cleared away first. That should put us pretty close to 1,500 posts.

There probably will not be another update to the index in this thread before the move.

And yes, the new thread will have much more space at the front end.