Ambrosia Software Web Board: Random Story Trivia - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Woohoo! I'm actually a bit surprised it happened already because we've had some pretty long chron series. I wish cache22 was here to see this.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 01 December 2014 - 01:23 PM, said:

I guess Grapper will just have to return six or seven more times.

Is that a challenge?

Yes. I hereby formally challenge you and everyone else here to sequelize Grapper's Return until it is the longest series.

Fun fact: I like spreadsheets. We can always use another spreadsheet.

Nice, Fiery! I have a chronicle spreadsheet in my Story Archive notes folder, but I only have info on series, not each individual chapter.

Question: What order are you listing the chronicles in your spreadsheet? It seems like kind of reverse-chronological, which some exceptions; or maybe it's in order of latest-reply, or maybe I'm missing something obvious.

Tracking individual chapters makes the most sense to me, especially after the May Chron Challenge (as a result of which lots of series now effectively have multiple authors). And, with a lot of information, we can break down the information to make the different graphs. I think the yearly graph is interesting, because although 2014 shows the huge surge from Katerei's work on Sail, you can see it's also drawn contributions from lots of different people.

It was supposed to be be reverse-chronological, but I guess I forgot to resort it after I put the last few in. Fixed now.

Ooh, data. I like data. And it's all clicky!

I didn't realize 2012 was such a bad year for chrons.

I really like your documents, they're so handy! ^_^ Are you planning to any further back, or leave it at 2010 so that we have easily-accessible statistics about the last few years of chronicling?

P.S. Sely, want to trade colours on the author by year/month graphs? :D

This post has been edited by BreadWorldMercy453: 03 December 2014 - 06:35 PM

iKaterei, on 03 December 2014 - 01:10 PM, said:

Neither did I. That's why we need more data!

BreadWorldMercy453, on 03 December 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

I'd like to have all the chrons in the list, but that's long and I'm lazy . If we want to have recent statistics, it's easy enough to create a rolling graph that covers just the last three years, or six months or something.

This post has been edited by Pallas Athene: 04 December 2014 - 03:44 AM

Avatara complained that The Trial/Hym should be considered a novella instead of a short story. I found a set of definitions that looks OK from the Nebula Award Rules:

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Under these definitions, The Trial/Hym is a novella, and I've updated the spreadsheet as such. INCIDENTALLY it also means Grapper's Return is considered a novelette.

I added a table summarizing word counts by story type. Interestingly, despite the length of the novelishes, short stories are still the biggest category. I think that's good. (However, if I don't add pre-2007 data, Kat is likely to overtake it soon)

Pallas Athene, on 04 December 2014 - 08:50 AM, said:

Clearly that means everyone else needs to write more chrons!

What I mean is, should I add to your spreadsheet, going further back to include older chronicles, or would that just mess everything up? The list of authors would be really long if we include anyone who's ever submitted a chronicle. Also I don't know if all of your data-sheets would need to be updated manually, or if you have some kind of fancy computer program that just knows how many words per author/month/year/etc.

& I've just noticed that the spreadsheet has already been substantially updated, so does that mean it's no problem? Should I add more? (I don't even know if I have permission to edit it, or however that works)

BreadWorldMercy453, on 04 December 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

We already have two pages of authors on the time graphs, but more importantly, with a lot of authors it becomes much harder to tell the colors apart.

Is there a way to just lump all the one-story authors into a general "Other" category, or would that not help enough?

BreadWorldMercy453, on 04 December 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

Nothing fancy. I've done everything by hand so far. I'd like to go back all the way, and I wouldn't mind help. Right now only I can edit the sheet, but if you tell me what email to add you by on IRC I can add you.

Avatara, on 04 December 2014 - 02:58 PM, said:

I didn't find it very easy to distinguish by color anyway. I just mouse over the bars for information.

If you put a cutoff at 2.5k words, there's already 13 authors above that point. I can add graphs that focus on the most prolific authors, or just on recent stories, or such, if a request is made.

An impressive bit of work . I had no idea that I'd written so many words for chrons, especially since before this year I hadn't really posted any in years.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 03 December 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

I'd rather not. I much prefer green to orange.

In my defense, I was blue when I asked.

(I mean, I was happy, but coloured blue.)

Pallas Athene, on 04 December 2014 - 05:53 PM, said:

It might make the most sense to split the year graph into two (or three?) for authors. You could have a year graph for the entire timespan to show the number of stories or total number of words, but the authors that were prolific around the start of the chron forum aren't the same ones that were prolific 2004-2009 which aren't the same ones that have been posting post-2010.

I mean, there are a few exceptions like cache, Katerei, and Rogan, but I don't believe you'll find many others overlapping time eras.

You forgot Selax! He's been writing chrons since 2004.

Avatara, on 04 December 2014 - 11:42 PM, said:

Actually, the data doesn't really bear out the idea that we have different posters post-2010. Most of our posters in 2010-2014 were also posters in 2007, the big exceptions being you and me. There *is* more of a shift around 2007. 2006 was the last year for cache22 and dusk, while 2007 was the last for Mr. Somebody, CrazyChick, and DarkJet and first for 453, Jehezekel, and Ragnar0k.

2009 is just an oddball year. Its only two chrons' authors never wrote anything else, so it doesn't group with anything.

I think we've got all the chronicles on the spreadsheet now. There were a few things I didn't know how to handle:
Under "author" I put Bryce for Cause & Effect (it was actually posted under his character-account Talm), and iKaterei for Hand of Fate part 1 (it was actually posted under cache22). I wasn't sure what to do about Dark Legacy, which was posted under cache22, but I understand Moonshadow had some part in writing it too... I just put cache22 as author of all the chapters, I don't know how much Day did or how to credit her :\

Also, some stories have included big chunks of TSes or Taverns (for example, New Horizons). I don't know if I should attempt to figure out how many words are not actually unique to those Chronicles, or if it matters. Also, I should maybe try to figure out why the word count for New Horizons is a few thousands words off than what I'd recorded - it looks like it's not actually a "novel." (Edit: Okay, there are 15637 words in Part II, but we have 10905 listed on the spreadsheet. Did I just forget to count the words that got cut off (& added in the comments), or Fiery did you subtract the bits that were copy/pasted from the Tavern?)

There were a few stories that I don't know what to put as "type." Conspiracy of UrSylph's Stolen Jade Book, Fourth Prophecy of Nemeleus the Savant, and Ancient Lore.

Oh, and is there a difference between "play" and "screenplay"? Is it that "play" is for live theatre and "screenplay" is for movies?

I've preserved the typos in Chronicle titles. (I may have added some typos of my own) I know that on the old Chron board, it was impossible even for moderators to edit the titles of Chronicles, so the original typos probably would have been corrected, if it was possible. I don't know if that means we ought to correct them now.

My dates are often a day off from Fiery's, I'm assuming because of our time difference? Is there a "board time zone" I should use to determine the dates of the Chronicles? I figured it doesn't matter much, but it would slightly change the "by month" & maybe even "by year" stats.

This post has been edited by BreadWorldMercy453: 06 December 2014 - 01:56 PM

BreadWorldMercy453, on 06 December 2014 - 12:10 PM, said:

Yeah, that's how I'd label them. I seem to recall cache posted both sections simultaneously to ensure people would see Part 1 first. I still had limited computer access back then.

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Unless one of them shows up to tell us who wrote what, we'll probably have to leave it as just cache's work. I mean, technically Avatara wrote some parts of Hym, but I feel like that's splitting hairs (maybe Av will feel differently. )

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We could just have a miscellaneous category.

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Yup, those are the conventional distinctions.

I mentioned these in channel, but I guess you weren't around:

1. TheScribe should be treated as cache22, since it's a character account.
2. Ping really should be treated as Bryce, since technically he wrote it (even if indirectly) and published it.
3. You have New Horizons as a Novel, but per Sfiera's guidance, it should be a Novella until 4000 words.

1. I agree, and I've changed it (hopefully that's okay, Fiery)
2. I think of Ping as a writer in its own right (possibly our only robot writer!), but maybe you're right. I've changed that too.
3. I suspect I've undercut Part II by some 5000 words, which will bring it up to a novel. I was waiting for Fiery's confirmation though.

4. Ancient lore is a song, looks like.
5. The Fourth Prophecy of somebody I'd say is a Short Story.
6. I have 15,464 words for New Horizons Part II (I didn't count the intro).