Thursday, June 21, 2007

Commentaires Par Moi

Commentaries by me about the blog.
No criticism intended or inferred at all.
Just obervations for those who may or may not need them and for me too.
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1. The opportunity for multiple posts/comments telling a story in the form perhaps of a one-act play was commenced by Tradgardmaster and Gallia on 8 June 2007 entitled Off The Gallian Coast. The initial post was followed by 13 comments or follow-ups stopping on 19 June I think. You may want to go back to 8 June and read the whole thing - 14 posts.
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2. On 20 June 2007 Tradgardmaster continued Item #1 reconfiguring things with a new initial post entitled On A Galley, etc. It is a resumption of the story or play.
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3. Item #1 allowed a continuous and perhaps seamless story which I liked. As time went by from 8 June to 19 June, the initial post and its eventual 13 comments dropped lower and lower in the postal standings (newness). Does this make the story go out of sight and therefore out of mind for the rest of us? Does this kind of thing make it harder for us to follow a story without having to remember that somebody's post has 3 comments and then only look in if a fourth appears. I don't think I can remember that kind of detail with all the wonderful stuff going on and I know I don't want to reread everything.
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3. Item #2 brought the story back to the top or front page, as it were. This post will drop it into second place. As time goes by should the thread continue, it will drop lower and lower.
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4. So perhaps it is a good idea when a thread is resumed as Tradgardmastare did on the 20th instant, that some reference is made in the form of a narration to go back to the earlier thread so the story does not have a confusing gap. The two of us kept things going for a long time and I guess thought it was personally fun. I suppose one purpose to do these kinds of things is to spread it around for those so interested. Thus opening the same storyline with a new headline is where we ought to go in the event a story gets longish like ours.
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5. One thing I would like to see on a regular basis is the map at the top of the heap every couple of weeks.
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6. Now it looks as if Tradgardmaster and 'Comte de Rapprochement are off to the capital of Gallia, but I have yet to write about this.
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Votre Serviteur,
Bill

5 comments:

tradgardmastare said...

Much food for thought for me personally as well as for all of us. We ,I feel , all work together to entertain each other and to make the 18th century come to life-perhaps not as it was but perhaps as it should have been.
With so many new states arising we need to update the map and keep it ever surfacing as Gallia suggests.
I have gained so much pleasure personally from my country and the blogs I read daily . Thanks to all of you.

Snickering Corpses said...

I'm tempted to say we ought to have a forum that would be used for this sort of interactive narrative, and use the blog post for more declarative items such as declarations of war, treaties, and notices when something has been put on the forums. It *is* rather difficult to keep track of, the more conversations we get, even with the exchanges of diplomatic letters.

MurdocK said...

This was part of the point of starting the Emperor vs. Elector blog.

Something strictly collaborative.

It was not meant to be a place to talk about your latest minis or painting technique or to blab about your own imagi'nation'.

It was to be a clearing house of connectivity in a 18thC imagi'nation' context.

While I had hoped for some 'battle' ideas to come about, perhaps this more narrative format is better, since the technical details of how many troops in what formations using what rules to run the battle out is not needed.

One thought would be to use the 'subject' footer at the bottom of the text and set a 'title' for all of the connected posts. This way if one wants to read all 'connected' parts of the narrative all they need to do is clik on the footer 'title'.

Cheers

Bluebear Jeff said...

All good suggestions. The footer idea by Murdock is certainly one to carry forward on.

One thing that I wish to point out . . . I started this blog and am officially the "owner" . . . but I have not and do not intend to be taking any sort of major role. As far as I'm concerned, this blog is a democracy -- we are all "owners".

Indeed, I've carefully refrained from supporting either Emperor or Elector because I did not wish to seem to have any "bias" (except, of course against those most VILE Stagonians -- also my creation).

I too have enjoyed the interactive "play" of various stories . . . and I'd like to remind you that you can go back and "edit" your previous posts to include things like footer links (at least I'm pretty sure that you can).

Please, keep the stories flowing . . . and a few good conflicts wouldn't hurt either.

Now, one final suggestion -- do as I do and ALSO visit each of our individual blogs every day. I check to see who has new posts on their home blogs every day.

Finally, if you have a blog or website for your country that isn't listed in the Links, please let me know and I'll add it. My email address is . . . bluebear@uniserve.com


-- Jeff (of Saxe-Bearstein)

Snickering Corpses said...

I personally have all of our blogs (and some others) set up in Google's RSS Reader, which I check each day when I have opportunity as a means of learning when there has been a new post. The only thing it can't do is notify on a reply in comments.