[OOC][Info]Nothing Better Than This Wiki, part II

[robkelk]

After noticing that the map markers in North America fell into three distinct groups (plus Antigonish, Lake Wobegon, and Vancouver), I put together some regional maps. Gulfside Rest's page has the American South and Florida map, Club Lofts' page has the American Mid-Atlantic/New England/Midwest and Central Canada map, and Basin and Range Province's page has the California and Basin and Range Province map (logically enough).

"Why"? Because I could. I'm on vacation; I'm working on what I want to work on.

[robkelk]

My favourite local Indian restaurant is re-opening in three weeks (give or take a few days)!

I have thus added a map marker to the Blossom map.

[robkelk]

Documentation for the map tool we use on the wiki.

Because I keep misplacing that link. And because there are no streets drawn on our map of Lake Wobegon. Yet.

EDIT: Although there are a lot of things the documentation says we should be able to do that we can't.

Drawing lines on a map is one of the things that we can do. To illustrate, I've drawn a line connecting the places that folks resident at the Misaki residence can reach without changing Skytrain lines. (They can almost make it to the train station or the airport.)

[robkelk]

New wiki page! Copied below, as much as the formatting allows.


The following is the text from the Metacontinuity's version of the Wikivoyage page for Lake Wobegon. This page incorporates text from the real-world Wikipedia pages for Lake Wobegon and A Prairie Home Companion.

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Lake Wobegon is a small town in Central Minnesota. Sometimes called "the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve", it was made famous by Garrison Keillor providing weekly news reports about the town on American Public Media.


Understand

The derivation of the town's name is unclear. The locals say that Wobegon is an native word meaning "the place where we waited all day in the rain [for you]."

Primarily a farming community, the town's single largest employer is the Powdermilk Biscuit plant, just south of town.


Get in

There is no air or rail service to Lake Wobegon. The closest airport and railway station are in Saint Cloud.

By car

From Saint Cloud, take Minnesota State Highway 23 west to Avon, then County Highway 9 north through nearby Holdingford.

By bicycle

The Lake Wobegon Trail runs from Saint Cloud to Lake Wobegon, through Holdingford.


Get around

Lake Wobegon is small enough to be walkable.


See

• The Whippets, Town Team Baseball, "We'll Whip ya, whip ya good!" Plays at Wally "Old Hard Hands" Bunsen Memorial Field ("where The Whippets whip 'em all")
  
• The Herdsmen, champion church ushering team
  
• Statue of the Unknown Norwegian
  
• World's Largest Pile of Burlap Bags (created by Earl Dickmeyer to fund his and his wife's move to Fort Myers, Florida, and the centerpiece for a mysterious cure to ailments, such as kidney stones)
  

Do

• Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church; Father Wilmer
  
• Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church; Pastor Liz
  
• Camp Ripley, a Minnesota National Guard training base north of town that is also open to civilians, is a popular place for Minnesotans to train for winter biathlons.
  

Buy

• Bertha's Kitty Boutique ("for persons who care about cats")
  
• Skoeglin's 5 and Dime
  
• Co-op Hardware (formerly Bigger Hammer Hardware, from the joke: "If at first you don't succeed, try using a bigger hammer.")
  
• Clifford's (also known as "The Mercantile," which many residents still call it)
  

Eat

• The Chatterbox Café, "The place to go that's just like home."
  
• Café Boeuf, "Where the elite meet to greet and eat," with maitre d' Maurice.
  
• Moonlight Bay Supper Club
  

Drink

• The Sidetrack Tap, run by Wally and Evelyn; "The dim little place in the dark where the pinball machine never tilts, the clock is a half-hour slow, and love never dies."
  

Sleep

There are no hotels in Lake Wobegon proper. (Art's Baits & Night o' Rest Motel has closed its rooms; Art got sick of people being around, so you can't rent rooms there these days.)


Connect

• The Herald Star, town newspaper run by Harold Star
  

Go next

• Holdingford, which bills itself as the "Gateway to Lake Wobegon"
  
• St. Olaf, to the west on the road to Fargo
  

[Norgarth]

... St. Olaf, wasn't that the hometown of Rose from Golden Girls?

[robkelk]

... St. Olaf, wasn't that the hometown of Rose from Golden Girls?

Yes, it was. I didn't expect that to be spotted quite so quickly...

[Norgarth]

... St. Olaf, wasn't that the hometown of Rose from Golden Girls?

Yes, it was. I didn't expect that to be spotted quite so quickly...

While I'd never heard of Lake Woebegone before it was mentioned for NBTT, I was a fan of Golden Girls.

[Bob Schroeck]

<applause>

[Labster]

How far is Lake Wobegon from Frostbite Falls?

[robkelk]

The Wikipedia article didn't say...

[Mamorien]

The Wikipedia article didn't say...

But it's generally believed (citation left as an exercise for the student) to be based on International Falls, which is about a four-and-a-half-hour drive north of Sts. Cloud and Joseph. As always, we apologize for any convenience this may cause.

[robkelk]

I saw that Labster created a page for Phantomhive Manor, but left the default map on in. So of course I filled in some points of interest, and went looking for a possible real-world manor house (or converted manor house) that could fill in for the manor. I found a lovely hotel... and, ten minutes after marking it on the map, realized I'd found a manor house just off the A20 instead of just off the A21.

Oopsie.

Ah, well, I'll leave it on the map as a local hotel - at least for now.


EDIT: Or I could have just looked at what Labster said on the page... <D'oh!> I am obviously not at 100% today. The hotel's off the map.

On the other hand, there was room between where Labster picked as Phantomhive Manor and the closest airport with paved runways that I could add the real-world location of the 100 Aker Wood to the map.

[robkelk]

Two new map markers: bookstore and golf course.

[Labster]

I really didn’t choose the location. The mangaka did. Every single exterior drawing of the house looks like Scotney Castle, and even the floor plans fit. It felt like the manor was a bit out of the city as well. The New Castle would have been example of architecture from that era. Definitely an author who did the research.

[robkelk]

Since people mentioned going to the local IKEA in introductory stories, I've marked the local IKEAs on the residence maps.

Except for Windsor and Pensacola, which don't appear to have IKEAs.

[Norgarth]

nope, we used to have a small Ikea store in Windsor, but it was more a place to pick up orders from. It did have a display area so customers could check out what the furniture looked like (and impulse buy pillows, sheets, dishes, and such)

There have been rumor that a new IKea store will be opening in a former Sears store in town, but nothing definite

[robkelk]

During yesterday's writers' chat, we decided that it might be a good idea to have the 2016 Christmas party at the Grand Imperial Theatre - let the Hanagumi put on a holiday revue.

Thus, I just spent a few minutes putting "hotel" markers (and a couple of place-to-eat markers) on the Atlanta map. There's a range of quality of hotels - who gets the cheap rooms that Funtom pays for, and who dips into their own pockets and gets something better?

[Bob Schroeck]

Well, the college and high-school students obviously either get the cheap digs or wangle rooms at the theatre...

[Inquisitive Raven]

I live with the Button Lady. As such, I'm familiar with the fannish practice of packing as many people into a room as possible to reduce con expenses. I'll probably rent a room in a good hotel and have a bunch of people bunk in with me. Anyone who wants to contribute to paying for the room is welcome to, but it's not required.

In story, she'll probably continue to rent space in my SI's house after my SI moves into the Steeple and might actually put in an appearance from time to time.

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, wow. It's been years since we were last at a con where she had a booth. I knew she was still around, we just kind of fell out of the con circuit when Philcon reformatted itself. And having her as a drop-in character sounds great. I guess we should expect your residents to be wearing the occasional button...

[Inquisitive Raven]

She's been to exactly one con since the pandemic started and it wasn't as a vendor. Even before Covid, she was scaling back on events where she vended due to a lack of sales.

[robkelk]

I see Bob stubbed a few Sakura Wars character pages. I found images for two of them: Orihime and Reni.

(Yes, they're on Danbooru. They've crippled their Safebooru so much that it's all but unusable now. Click with care...)

[robkelk]

A while back, Labster created the "draft" template, for text that was not ready for prime time. He also created the "Drafts" category.

I just linked the two together. Now, every page that uses the template is listed in the category.

[robkelk]

Took a quick break from retconning and looked at the elementary schools near The Steeple. It looks like the public schools are all underperforming, especially in mathematics - Nanoha's strongest mundane skill.

So I pinned a private school to the map instead.

[robkelk]

Something useful about the date-format template that I chose for the wiki: If you give it just a year, it sorts to "January 0" of that year, and if you give it a year and a month, it sorts to the 0th of that month.

This is useful because we can get rid of a lot of the "TBD" date entries on the wiki. For example, the characters from Rita now sort to the top of the 2016 list, and the characters from The Addams Family now sort to the top of the November 2016 list. (The RWBY characters still say "TBD" and thus end up at the end of the list overall.)

It isn't a perfect sort when we don't have things plotted down to the day, but it's a lot better than "I don't know".