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[Royal☭]

Wouldn't a wiki work for this idea?

And sure, I'll sign up.  Nothing I write can be worse than what's on TV already.

I'm going to PM you my e-mail address on the assumption that this isn't one of your usual punks.

For some reason.

[Thad]

Some way for the grammar squad to keep things legible

Not it.

[Kazz]

Let's not worry about the quality of the canon until we've actually established one.

[Mongrel]

I don't think I'd like to create a cannon so much as I'd like to forge one.

[Arc]

And then the world exploded.

[Detonator]

A wiki/blog story is a cool idea, but it also has a much higher possibility of not working.  It also means that only the people contributing to the story will read it, as opposed to all forum lurkers if we just make a thread.  Just because it's a linear thread doesn't mean we can't have seperate plot threads.  Not to be the wet blanket I always am, but let's just try to get something simple off the ground before we think of anything too revolutionary.

Also, make the story as stupid and nonsensical as possible.  The great thing about KateStory is that it could not be destroyed because plot and logic meant nothing (something we turned into a plot element, ironically).  If we try to make something good people will be afraid of ruining someone else's plot, and contributions will go to zero.

And fuck PMing you to contribute.  Just make it open to whoever wants to add something.  Adding a hoop to participate may improve quality, but like I said in the other paragraph, we don't need quality.  We need people to participate, the more the better.  Once we get a feel of how we work as a group effort, we can move up to something more experimental and interesting.

[Brentai]

Exquisite Knorpse worked.

In fact it's pretty much the first forum project I've seen get off the ground since OH, which wasn't a communal effort so much as a legion of single people in a row.  So if you want this thing to take off, you pretty much need to pay attention to what the Knorpse did right.

Everyone who participated was in it from the start.
Everyone knew what their role was before the project began.  Many people had their own ideas brewing already before it was even time to work.
Everyone was given a starting date, and a gracious but strict deadline.
Each participant had a very limited ability to mess with the flow of other people's work.
And maybe most importantly, there was a single dedicated moderator who not only kept the monkeys on their typewriters, but invisibly streamlined everything together so that it all made sense as one finished product.

Obviously that and this are two different things, but it's important to take a look at all that and decide which of those proven elements are going to help you in this particular endeavor.

[Thad]

Det makes a valid point.  If making it harder for anyone just to jump in and contribute was a good thing, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, we'd be 2 pages into KateStory XVIII.

On the other hand, being able to sort by tags (eg character, setting, sort by chronological order in case of flashbacks) would be pretty effing cool.

[Ocksi]

I think the point IS something quality and I think Brent's looking at it the correct way.

Decent collaborative fiction is a lot of fun to make, and I think we should give it a shot.

[Thad]

"Quality" is an awfully nebulous term.

I think the more contributors, the better, and the lower the barrier to entry, the more contributors.  I'd rather have something that's fun but peters out and collapses under the weight of too many contributors than something that's tightly controlled and produces a sound beginning, middle, and end but has only three people working on it.

I guess it's a question of whether we're more interested in the product or the process.

[Bongo Bill]

Who the hell's gonna read it but us, anyway? I say process.

[Kazz]

Allow precedents to be established by the earlier stories. Maybe we should set up some sort of wiki for this. Some way for the grammar squad to keep things legible, and diminish the criticality of any editors. Maybe toss a user rating system on there, who knows?!

Who the hell's gonna read it but us, anyway? I say process.

Who the fuck do you agree with, anyhow?

moving on.

Det, I have more faith in the community than that.  If someone's incapable of sending one PM to me, they're probably not prepared to contribute to the project anyway.  And someone who doesn't want to visit the blog is probably not going to visit the thread, either.

How the hell can you say that "the more contributors, the better" and then propose that we use the method that doesn't organize the story at all?  In a blog, you can add tags to the post to signify what characters are involved or what plotline the post belongs in; if this grows above 10 contributors, that stuff is going to be necessary for writers AND readers.  You click a tag, and you see all the posts relating to a particular character or plotline.  In a single thread, people are going to struggle to find a place for their own posts, because they'll be intimidated by the prevalent plot thread in the linear-ass structure of the messageboard.

Of course, I don't know why I bother arguing with you.  Had I come in and proposed that we put everything in a thread, you would have told me it was going to fail and we should use a communal blog.  Because I have never, ever been right.

That said.  The blog's going up shortly.

[Detonator]

Sorry Kazz, I didn't really know what you were going for.  I think a well-written story can work, but I'm not quite sold on the blog.  If it becomes huge, it will be handy, but I would like to see it actually get huge.

My suggestion is that you have to kick it off very well, Kazz.  Make an opening post that sets the theme and then let us loose.  If you give a blank slate, it'll be harder to get started.  But you know exactly what you're expecting, mostly, so it would be nice to have something to start with, even if we can branch it off into something unrelated immediately.

Well, I am looking forward to this now.  I wonder if you will let me contribute without actually sending a PM.

[Bongo Bill]

Blogs are pretty single-threaded too, if that's what you meant by that. I'm not sure it is. 'S why I proposed a wiki, at any rate. Even so, a format is a format, but collaborative fiction is fruit and cake. My inability to form a conclusion about the way to do this suggests that I anticipate participating?

(Just because nobody's going to read it is no reason to eschew mechanically correct English!)

[Thad]

How the hell can you say that "the more contributors, the better" and then propose that we use the method that doesn't organize the story at all?  In a blog, you can add tags to the post to signify what characters are involved or what plotline the post belongs in; if this grows above 10 contributors, that stuff is going to be necessary for writers AND readers.  You click a tag, and you see all the posts relating to a particular character or plotline.  In a single thread, people are going to struggle to find a place for their own posts, because they'll be intimidated by the prevalent plot thread in the linear-ass structure of the messageboard.

Seems to me that anyone who's contributing should be reading the whole thing anyway.  I don't expect it to turn into thousands of pages; I think keeping rough track of the story thus far shouldn't require nearly the overhead you're suggesting.  I see being able to sort by plot threads and characters as a neat idea, but hardly essential to the process.

Blog makes more sense for threading like that, but Bill's idea for a wiki is good for keeping encyclopedia-style information about characters, locations, etc.

That stuff's handy, but with respect, my recollection is that your ultimate choice to throw up your hands and bail on KateStory was pretty largely based on your refusal to spend five minutes reading the character guide I'd put together.  And you were one of the more dedicated contributors.  Creating additional resources to make it easier for people to keep track of details only works if people are actually interested in taking the time to peruse them.

Anyway.  However we go about this, I think it's a neat project and an interesting experiment, and I'm looking forward to it.  But I think you may be expecting something a lot bigger than I do.

[Kazz]

I'm not!

You guys have an odd concept of what you think I'm trying to put together.  I'm not expecting an enormous universe overnight.  But I'm trying to make sure it doesn't die.  I think putting it on a forum like ours dooms it.  Archiving here is garbage, and referring someone to a past event would be a chore.  You're effectively forcing a new contributor to read the entire fucking thing; if the story goes on for a year or so, the story will kill itself that way.  It will turn into the incestuous garbage you guys want to avoid.

On a blog, each post is its own webpage, and the archive can lead someone to any given post easily.  I still can't get my head around why everybody's against it.

I haven't written the introductory post yet, because the blog's not even up.  But if you guys are just more interested in fighting over what I'm already doing wrong, before word one gets written down, I'm more than happy to just say "fuck it."

Det: Why the fuck are you morally opposed to PMing me?

[Bongo Bill]

Come to think of it, there are wikis that can act like blogs and blogs that can act like wikis. Plugins abound. I'm having a serious Reese's moment here.

[Thad]

But I think you may be expecting something a lot bigger than I do.

I'm not!

[...] if the story goes on for a year or so [...]

You are.

referring someone to a past event would be a chore. [...]

On a blog, each post is its own webpage, and the archive can lead someone to any given post easily.

I'll grant the archive (and category sort is better still), but I'm not sure what you mean by that first part.  You can link to individual posts here.  You can even use a quote tag to quote them directly, WITH a link.  That's a multiple-step process on a blog.

I still can't get my head around why everybody's against it.

It's at least one extra step and one extra account for everybody who wants to participate.  If we're to use tags correctly and effectively, and ESPECIALLY if we're to set up a character wiki or anything along those lines, it's going to be a LOT more overhead.  That may make it more accessible in the hypothetical situation where it's still running in a year, but it makes it less accessible in the concrete situation where we're trying to get it started right now.

I haven't written the introductory post yet, because the blog's not even up.  But if you guys are just more interested in fighting over what I'm already doing wrong, before word one gets written down, I'm more than happy to just say "fuck it."

Stop getting your panties in a bunch just because people are offering criticism.  I think everyone here's been perfectly civil, constructive, and even-handed about it.  I already told you I'm in regardless of how we do it; debating implementation details is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and for God's sake it's not a personal slight against you.  The fact that a number of different people are offering a number of different ideas proves there's enthusiasm for the project, not a concerted effort to tear it down before it gets off the ground.

You disagree with Det.  That's fine.  You've explained WHY you disagree with him; that's better still.  But -- and correct me if I'm misreading -- you seem to be reacting to him defensively and with open hostility.  And that doesn't help anybody.

[Detonator]

You disagree with Det.  That's fine.  You've explained WHY you disagree with him; that's better still.  But -- and correct me if I'm misreading -- you seem to be reacting to him defensively and with open hostility.  And that doesn't help anybody.

This is mostly because I seem to take offense to the idea of PMing Kazz.  I admit it's mostly just to openly troll him, but I don't think participation should be so strict.  Ideally, I want people to see this build up, and want to contribute themselves.  I'm not worried about random people ruining it, I think our community is too small for that.  If it were an open blog or wiki, editing offensive posts and banning trolls shouldn't be too much of a hassle.

If I haven't signed up yet, and have a killer idea for the next part of the story, I don't want to have to PM Kazz, wait for him to respond, THEN be able to sign up and add the story.  Who knows when he'll be back?  Correct me if I have the wrong impression of the process here, but I think an open means of entry with active moderation will be better for the story and participation of new people.  I don't like it when only two people are throwing the story back and forth.

But yeah, these are just considerations.  If this thing lasts for a year, I'll be ecstatic.  Not to be pessimistic, but we should lay the foundation to help us get to a year of contributions rather than preparing for it as if it were inevitible.

[Classic]

If I were to contribute to a collective narrative more than I already am, I'd definitely want the versatility afforded to a wiki-blog(-tubes) if a Mayor's going to sit down and write a paragraph of story, presumably they'd have enough infatuation with the idea that they'd be excited about doing all of the relevant legwork.

Though, if Kazz were really dead-set on his blag-wiki(-osphere) the obvious compromise would be to have it run for a few months here, and then in a single Herculean effort lock the thread and port every relevant post into the (inter-)wiki-blago. By that time, presumably the contributors will have enough vested interest to deal with the hassle of the new interface and the amount of writing will be enough that the new interface is worthwhile for reading accessibility.