Reading order list?

[classicdrogn]

Hey gang, I haven't really been following this project (because I know better than to think I'm going to write anything significant) but the image thread and Intelligent Device discussion has gotten me more curious - is there a reading order list somewhere? The wiki would be the most likely place I suppose, but if it's there it's not set to be visible without being a member. Not even the index linked from the landing page is, apparently...

[Black Aeronaut]

Chronological works best, I think.

Trouble is, we've yet to put together an actual chronological listing that doesn't involve clicking through each of the dates in the category pages.

For my stuff, I need to work out a major revision of the opening story, but the next one after that, Full Metal Boogie, is good to go.  Then after that is the 2016 Halloween Party, and then How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love the Grief Seed.

[robkelk]

Trouble is, we've yet to put together an actual chronological listing that doesn't involve clicking through each of the dates in the category pages.

Which only works on the wiki - which is still restricted to writers and prereaders.

[Labster]

And of course I will still be writing story set in October 2016, it's just less important than the later things that I'm currently writing now.

We should open up the wiki.  If we want to hide stories in development while using the wiki, our options are:

• Requesting Extension:Lockdown
  
• Setting $wgNamespaceProtection can prevent writing, but not reading, of a namespace
  
• Setting up yet another wiki and moving pages between them
  
• Just opening up the wiki and letting people see drafts
  
• Hosting the finished stories somewhere else like AO3
  
• Making a stickied post here with all of the stories in a plausible order
  

[robkelk]

• Setting up yet another wiki and moving pages between them
  
• Hosting the finished stories somewhere else like AO3
  

Which would lead to a "which version is canonical" issue. When (not if; it'll happen eventually because humans are fallible) the versions on AO3, the wiki, and this forum don't all match, which one is the "correct" one that people should read?

(Also, AO3 requires login to read stories - a low barrier, but a barrier nonetheless. For people who value their privacy more than they value the stories on that site, it's an Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence)

• Setting $wgNamespaceProtection can prevent writing, but not reading, of a namespace
  
• Just opening up the wiki and letting people see drafts
  

Not everyone keeps drafts on the wiki, so either of these would lead to an uneven reading experience.

• Requesting Extension:Lockdown
  
• Making a stickied post here with all of the stories in a plausible order
  

Taken together, my preferred option - the wiki already has a template that identifies stories that we could use to add the necessary code to all of the story pages at once. We would need to draw up a list of the page types that we want before requesting the extension, and we might need to explain why we need Extension:Lockdown when we can have Extension:RightFunctions simply by a bureaucrat checking a box in the wiki's extensions list. (Yes, I know they aren't the same.)

[classicdrogn]

Not being involved on the creative end, I'll just note that no login is required on AO3 unless the story is restricted to require it, something I have only encountered once. I know this to be true, because I don't have an AO3 account, but read there far more than FFn or TTH these days, and only slightly less than the SB/SV/QQ trifecta (all of which I do generally read while logged in, actually.)

[robkelk]

Ah. I guess people keep recommending the restricted stories to me, then.

[Labster]

Aren't Harry Potter stories automatically put in the restricted section?

[Black Aeronaut]

We might need some kind of centralized version control system. I know there's several that will work for colaborative writing projects. Question is, which one do we want?

[Labster]

Oh, that's an idea.  We could use git and publish our product on GitHub Pages.  I think we could configure it with a private repo but have the website be public.

EDIT: Nope, not without paying M$ some money. But I believe you can do the private repo/public pages thing easily on a Gitlab free account. So pretty much the same idea.

[classicdrogn]

Fitting for the premise of the work, too.

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh, that's an idea.  We could use git and publish our product on GitHub Pages.  I think we could configure it with a private repo but have the website be public.

EDIT: Nope, not without paying M$ some money.  But I believe you can do the private repo/public pages thing easily on a Gitlab free account.  So pretty much the same idea.

Fitting for the premise of the work, too.

Hah!  We can even make that into part of the story...

"Note from the Megami: as the System continues to stabilize, please note that there will be regular and irregular  changes as the Malleable Causality System makes appropriate adjustments..."

This would make our story into the literal definition of Metafiction.

[classicdrogn]

So did anything come of this, or is it just a good idea for later/when things are more complete/somebody (not it!) to work on/etc.?

[robkelk]

Right now, it's "just a good idea for later/when things are more complete/somebody (not it!) to work on"

[classicdrogn]

Okay. I'll wait warmly

[robkelk]

* robkelk blows dust off thread

We are keeping this in mind for when we post the post-retcon versions of the stories to the forum.

However, we need to write the stories before we post them. Long-time readers no doubt remember how many years it took us to finish the Halloween story, and this job is larger than that one.