The Index Reloaded --- (Index of the Giant's Comments II)

[Porthos]

Where's that quote about how Tarquin is the one who portrays himself as super competent (and we shouldn't necessarily believe him)?

I believe this is the one you are looking for.

IIRC, he did slightly clairfy his comment a bit later on.

[Zherog]

It'd still be good to have an idea on which way to go ahead of time in case it ends up not being workaround-able, I think. Then again I'm not really a fan of the subheaders in the first place, so I might be biased. (And nesting tables sounds painful.)

I'm hoping to find some time today to go looking for a site using the new software so I can get a look at it, play around, etc. If I find something that seems especially useful, I'll PM the link to you and Phantasm so you can give tables a look ahead of time.

[Gwynfrid]

Yeah, something along those lines. Swing the focus more towards Rich's subterfuge / misdirection within the story. I think it's a great read for those who read OotS with an eye toward story creation.

And, of course, if I'm in the minority, then so be it.

It may be a great read, but it veers away from the purpose of the Index:

Rule 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. It is for discussions more than it is for leisurely reading.

Also, this:

Rule D: If two quotes seem to contradict each other, only the quote that illustrates Rich's most recent and current opinion or position will be included. This is because of rule c). The index is not meant to be a complete collection for leisurely reading. It is meant to be an accurate research aid for forum discussions.

Here we don't have two quotes contradicting each other, but we have a strip that contradicts a quote, or, rather, makes it irrelevant. In such a case it makes sense to remove that quote.

[ChristianSt]

I don't know if anyone else is "working" on preparing the Index for the table change, but since I had a script to permute the tables cells, it was rather trivial to change it to encompass the gross of the table-code changes.

It isn't there 100% (as Jasdoif said, there seems we will have no colsp alternative when the change goes live), since I think it isn't really worth the time to try to get a solution with the current version, but once the change happens It shouldn't take that long to get those few changes.

[So before someone wants to put a lot of work into it, I think that time could be used better elsewhere]

[Jasdoif]

I don't know if anyone else is "working" on preparing the Index for the table change, but since I had a script to permute the tables cells, it was rather trivial to change it to encompass the gross of the table-code changes.

It isn't there 100% (as Jasdoif said, there seems we will have no colsp alternative when the change goes live), since I think it isn't really worth the time to try to get a solution with the current version, but once the change happens It shouldn't take that long to get those few changes.

[So before someone wants to put a lot of work into it, I think that time could be used better elsewhere]

I am, actually; I converted the free-form text Index into data structures to make the table version in the first place, so I can handle the rows and substituting for the table headers easily enough.

[Flame of Anor]

I believe this is the one you are looking for.

IIRC, he did slightly clairfy his comment a bit later on.

That's it. Is it not in the Index? If not, it should be.

[Porthos]

That's it. Is it not in the Index? If not, it should be.

I'd have to go back and check, but I believe there was some debate about it because of Rich, again IIRC, slightly clairifiying his position later in the thread when people started saying that Tarquin was an inept buffon and whatnot.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I'd have to go back and check, but I believe there was some debate about it because of Rich, again IIRC, slightly clairifiying his position later in the thread when people started saying that Tarquin was an inept buffon and whatnot.

Is this the post you are thinking of?

[Jasdoif]

That's it. Is it not in the Index? If not, it should be.

It is, it's a "see also" link for "Everyone on Tarquin's Team is Evil" in the Alignment section.

[Porthos]

Is this the post you are thinking of?

That's the one. And Rich's twin points about out-of-context quoting and his own tendancy to hyperbole and 'extemporaneous exaggeration' are something all of us should keep in the back of our minds when rushing to quote him on the finer points of this comic, I think.

[Flame of Anor]

It is, it's a "see also" link for "Everyone on Tarquin's Team is Evil" in the Alignment section.

Ah, okay, I see. I would never have thought of looking there. Maybe we should consider moving it to the Story, Plot, and Characters section.

[Jasdoif]

Ah, okay, I see. I would never have thought of looking there. Maybe we should consider moving it to the Story, Plot, and Characters section.

Sounds reasonable to me. An entry with a title like "Tarquin Grossly Overstates His Own Competence"?

[ThePhantasm]

I am, actually; I converted the free-form text Index into data structures to make the table version in the first place, so I can handle the rows and substituting for the table headers easily enough.

I'd hold off on that unless you've already finished... ChristianSt has a Pearl script he can use to reformat the table really quickly (as I understand it), so it will save all of us the trouble of reformatting the tables manually.

[Jasdoif]

I'd hold off on that unless you've already finished... ChristianSt has a Pearl script he can use to reformat the table really quickly (as I understand it), so it will save all of us the trouble of reformatting the tables manually.

It's done, with the exception of making the final decision on how to handle the subsections (since actual subheaders won't be much of an option without column-spanning, I checked with putting them in single cells and it's ugly). After that, and after making any last-minute adjustments that may be necessary, I can just reapply templates and get a new set of all the spoiler/header/table bbcode to post.

[ChristianSt]

As it seems Jasdoif has another easy time updating, I think we just see who of us can apply final changes first when the new version unrolls.

[Zherog]

For sub-headings, this seems to work.

Spoiler

Show

{TABLE="class: grid, width: 1000"]
   [TR]
      [td][CENTER][color=purple]Evil Characters[/color][/CENTER][/td]
   [/tr]
   [tr]
      [Td]
         {table="class: grid, width: 1000"]
            [tr]
               [td]Belkar is Chaotic Evil[/TD]
               [TD]#251[/TD]
               [TD]12/01/2005[/td]
           [/TR]
          [TR]
              [TD]Redcloak is Evil[/TD]
              [TD]#830[/TD]
              [td]01/23/2012[/td]
         [/TR]
      [/table][/td]
   [/tr]
   [tr]
      [td][center][color=blue]Good Characters[/color][/center][/td]
   [/tr]
   [tr]
      [td]
         {table="class: grid, width: 1000"]
            [tr]
               [td]Durkon is Lawful Good[/TD]
               [TD]#798[/TD]
               [TD]07/27/2011[/td]
            [/TR]
            [tr]
               [td]
Shojo's Chaotic Government
Shojo's Chaotic government was still good, not evil.[/td]
               [td]#891[/td]
               [td]06/06/2013[/td]
            [/tr]
         [/table]
      [/td]
   [/tr]
[/table]

The only issue - and I'm sure it's resolvable with a half-moment of effort - is that the columns between the two sub-tables don't line up. The "good" table allots much more space to the text, while the "evil" table distributes the space for the three columns evenly.

[DaggerPen]

For sub-headings, this seems to work.

Spoiler

Show

{TABLE="class: grid, width: 1000"]
   [TR]
      [td][CENTER][color=purple]Evil Characters[/color][/CENTER][/td]
   [/tr]
   [tr]
      [Td]
         {table="class: grid, width: 1000"]
            [tr]
               [td]Belkar is Chaotic Evil[/TD]
               [TD]#251[/TD]
               [TD]12/01/2005[/td]
           [/TR]
          [TR]
              [TD]Redcloak is Evil[/TD]
              [TD]#830[/TD]
              [td]01/23/2012[/td]
         [/TR]
      [/table][/td]
   [/tr]
   [tr]
      [td][center][color=blue]Good Characters[/color][/center][/td]
   [/tr]
   [tr]
      [td]
         {table="class: grid, width: 1000"]
            [tr]
               [td]Durkon is Lawful Good[/TD]
               [TD]#798[/TD]
               [TD]07/27/2011[/td]
            [/TR]
            [tr]
               [td]
Shojo's Chaotic Government
Shojo's Chaotic government was still good, not evil.[/td]
               [td]#891[/td]
               [td]06/06/2013[/td]
            [/tr]
         [/table]
      [/td]
   [/tr]
[/table]

The only issue - and I'm sure it's resolvable with a half-moment of effort - is that the columns between the two sub-tables don't line up. The "good" table allots much more space to the text, while the "evil" table distributes the space for the three columns evenly.

Wow, that looks really good.

[Jasdoif]

For sub-headings, this seems to work.

Stinkin' nested tables...still, it does work, and will work for headers as well as subheaders.

The only issue - and I'm sure it's resolvable with a half-moment of effort - is that the columns between the two sub-tables don't line up. The "good" table allots much more space to the text, while the "evil" table distributes the space for the three columns evenly.

The easy fix I did was to set column widths for the comic strip column (I used 50) and the date column (I used 100). With the table set to full width the browser will automatically size the remaining title/description column to use the space; With all the nested tables in the same outer table column all the tables end up with the same width for the same column, so they line up.

Here's my generated output for the characters in the alignment section, if you want to take a look:

Spoiler

Show

{table="class:grid,align:center,width:100%"]
[tr][th]Specific Characters[/th][/tr]

[tr][th][color="DarkRed"]Evil Characters[/color][/th][/tr]
[tr][td]{table="class:grid,width:100%"]

[tr]
[td][b][post=559967]Belkar is Chaotic Evil[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td="width:50"][i]#251[/i][/td]
[td="width:100"][i]12/01/2005[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=12587443]Redcloak is Evil[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td][i]#830[/i][/td]
[td][i]01/23/2012[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=999854]Nale, Sabine, and Thog are all Evil[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td][i]#142[/i][/td]
[td][i]01/20/2005[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=9914344]Tarquin is Lawful Evil[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td][i]#763[/i][/td]
[td][i]12/07/2010[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=16575471]Everyone on Tarquin's Team is Evil[/b][/post]
And Tarquin is kind of like the Elan of their team. See also: [post=16575446]here[/post].[/td]
[td][i]#934[/i][/td]
[td][i]12/08/2013[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[/table][/td][/tr]

[tr][th][color="Navy"]Good Characters[/color][/th][/tr]
[tr][td]{table="class:grid,width:100%"]

[tr]
[td][b][post=11507958]Durkon is Lawful Good[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td="width:50"][i]#798[/i][/td]
[td="width:100"][i]07/27/2011[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=15385275]Shojo's Chaotic Government[/b][/post]
Shojo's Chaotic government was still good, not evil.[/td]
[td][i]#891[/i][/td]
[td][i]06/06/2013[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[/table][/td][/tr]

[tr][th][color="Indigo"]Neutral Characters[/color][/th][/tr]
[tr][td]{table="class:grid,width:100%"]

[tr]
[td][b][post=12088089]Enor & Gannji are True Neutral[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td="width:50"][i]#812[/i][/td]
[td="width:100"][i]10/24/2011[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=11664984]V is True Neutral[/b][/post]
[/td]
[td][i]#801[/i][/td]
[td][i]08/17/2011[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][b][post=15667889]Who Else is Neutral[/b][/post]
A long list of Neutral characters in the comic. See also [post=15668522]here[/post].[/td]
[td][i]#903[/i][/td]
[td][i]07/22/2013[/i][/td]
[/tr]
[/table][/td][/tr]

[/table]

[Zherog]

Stinkin' nested tables...still, it does work, and will work for headers as well as subheaders.

The only thing I couldn't figure out quickly - and it doesn't matter here, I don't think - would be "column spanning" that wasn't the entire length. Even that could probably be figured out.

The easy fix I did was to set column widths for the comic strip column (I used 50) and the date column (I used 100). With the table set to full width the browser will automatically size the remaining title/description column to use the space; With all the nested tables in the same outer table column all the tables end up with the same width for the same column, so they line up.

Oh, neat. I didn't know (or more likely, didn't remember - haven't done HTML coding in at least a decade) that width could be specified as a percentage.

One thing to try on your sample table might be to set the outer table from "class: grid" to "class: outer_border" instead. That may eliminate some of the extra lines and make the nested tables blend a bit better. I played with it a little bit, and lines were still showing up - though they weren't as thick. But I spent approximately 2 minutes on it and really didn't give it much thought. Plus the site I'm playing on (I think the same as you?) doesn't have a very nice CSS style sheet defined for tables, so it's hard to say for sure.

[137beth]

Well, it looks like polls might be coming back. If that happens, I foresee yet another argument about how this thread does voting.
(for clarity, despite the link I just posted being a link to one of The Giant's posts, I am not suggesting that it be put in the index, as it is not related to OOTS and is not in the OOTS forum.)

[Sniffnoy]

Uncertain if these are really worth recording given what we already know, but The Giant has some comments in this thread about why Hel is drawn the way she is, and what's going on in her scene in #946.

Specifically:
The Giant doesn't care about mythological accuracy
What exactly is going on in that picture

...there are two other comments of his in that thread but they seem clearly irrelevant.

[Taelas]

The first one is redundant and the other I feel is unnecessary.

[Porthos]

Well, it looks like polls might be coming back. If that happens, I foresee yet another argument about how this thread does voting.
(for clarity, despite the link I just posted being a link to one of The Giant's posts, I am not suggesting that it be put in the index, as it is not related to OOTS and is not in the OOTS forum.)

If polls are anything like they were before, they are limited to one poll per thread. I doubt vB 4.x.x deals with it that differently.

I think it would be a horrible idea to open up a new thread just to hold a vote on whether to include something in the Index and then open up another thread for the next one. And the next one. And so on.

[ti'esar]

Uncertain if these are really worth recording given what we already know, but The Giant has some comments in this thread about why Hel is drawn the way she is, and what's going on in her scene in #946.

Specifically:
The Giant doesn't care about mythological accuracy
What exactly is going on in that picture

...there are two other comments of his in that thread but they seem clearly irrelevant.

The first one might be worth having just to reiterate, but the second seems pointless.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think it would be a horrible idea to open up a new thread just to hold a vote on whether to include something in the Index and then open up another thread for the next one. And the next one. And so on.

It would be, unless they create a subforum where those threads exist - similar to the dice rolling threads. A subforum with no indexing, with thread cleansing of a month after last post could work. You set up the vote, the vote concludes, you copy the results, and let the thread die.

GW

[137beth]

Hey, maybe we could save the arguments about using polls until after it becomes possible to use polls, if that even happens at all?


As to the quotes above, I would support including the first one as a "See Also". The second one seems irrelevant.

[orrion]

Uncertain if these are really worth recording given what we already know, but The Giant has some comments in this thread about why Hel is drawn the way she is, and what's going on in her scene in #946.

Specifically:
The Giant doesn't care about mythological accuracy
What exactly is going on in that picture

...there are two other comments of his in that thread but they seem clearly irrelevant.

I guess the first one could be a corollary to the other posts concerning "Don't care about rules," etc.

It's.. not really the Giant's fault if someone wants to go that far out there to read things into the art, so the second one doesn't really need inclusion. The Giant's posts didn't even stop the person in question from having his interpretation and in fact reinforced it by some method I don't claim to understand.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Uncertain if these are really worth recording given what we already know, but The Giant has some comments in this thread about why Hel is drawn the way she is, and what's going on in her scene in #946.

Specifically:
The Giant doesn't care about mythological accuracy
What exactly is going on in that picture

...there are two other comments of his in that thread but they seem clearly irrelevant.

The first one seems pretty redundant, as we already have a quote that says that. I wouldn't even put it as a "see also" sort of thing, since it doesn't really tell us anything new.

As for the second, I would say it doesn't need to be included. All it really is telling us is what is happening in that scene, which, in this case, should be pretty evident just by looking at the comic itself.

[NerdyKris]

Uncertain if these are really worth recording given what we already know, but The Giant has some comments in this thread about why Hel is drawn the way she is, and what's going on in her scene in #946.

Specifically:
The Giant doesn't care about mythological accuracy
What exactly is going on in that picture

...there are two other comments of his in that thread but they seem clearly irrelevant.

I don't think either needs to be included. It's been stated time and time again in regards to Thor that Rich is not copying the gods from the actual religions. And the second link is just someone over analyzing the image. All Rich is doing is stating exactly what we can all see is happening.

[Jasdoif]

One thing to try on your sample table might be to set the outer table from "class: grid" to "class: outer_border" instead. That may eliminate some of the extra lines and make the nested tables blend a bit better. I played with it a little bit, and lines were still showing up - though they weren't as thick. But I spent approximately 2 minutes on it and really didn't give it much thought. Plus the site I'm playing on (I think the same as you?) doesn't have a very nice CSS style sheet defined for tables, so it's hard to say for sure.

I was able to figure the lines thing out: table header cells (those with the "th" tag) still have cell borders in the outer_border table class. Changing the "th"s to "td"s removed those borders. That said, I find it aesthetically superior to leave those particular borders; the horizontal lines reinforce the structural feel of the table, and all the nested table look disjointed floating without them.

In any case, Rawhide already mentioned at least one of the standard table classes will be modified, so I'm not thinking that worrying about particulars of the table formatting is as significant as the table structure, and I think we've got the structural portion figured out.

The Giant doesn't care about mythological accuracy

We already have a similar quote from...over 800 strips ago (and happens to be the only use of the Wayback Machine in the Index). I suppose a case could be made for including this one as a "see also", or maybe as a more generic mention since the existing one is closely tied to Thor; but neither approach seems worthwhile to me.

What exactly is going on in that picture

The only interesting part I see there is about the possible "limitation of my art style". About the only way I can see it worth including would be if we wanted to wrap it together with the Character Appearances & Forum Speculation entry to form a "Limitations of the Art Style" entry...which, again, doesn't seem worthwhile to me.

Hey, maybe we could save the arguments about using polls until after it becomes possible to use polls, if that even happens at all?

Yeah; let's wait until we have the details on polls, before we get too involved on deciding if we should start using them.