Ambrosia Software Web Board: No Chronicle of the Month July - Ambrosia Software Web Board

This month, we had two chronicle submissions. They were:

[url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/newsdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=52&forum=*Cythera+Chronicles&DaysPrune=25&article=000128&startpoint="]Conspiracy of UrSlyph's Stolen Jade Book[/url] by Bryce's computer
[url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/newsdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=52&forum=*Cythera+Chronicles&DaysPrune=25&article=000129&startpoint="]Tales of the Macilnar I[/url] by Mr. Somebody

Why, you may ask, is there no chronicle of the month? While the Conspiracy of UrSylph's Stolen Jade book was an admirable feat of computation, in the interests of fairness, I must judge it by the same criteria as a chronicle written by a human. By those standards, I think everyone here will agree that it is not even worthy for consideration as chronicle of the month. Thus, Mr. Somebody's chronicle will continue on to compete against future chronicles.

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Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

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I'd like to nominate Ping for an honorable mention as the first inorganic author of a published ambrosia chronicle.
And frankly, there is nothing in the rules about quality, so I do actualy think it should be eligible for chron-of-the-month, even though victory is not realistic. If 'Grapper's Return' can WIN chron-of-the-month, Conspiracy of UrSlyph's Stolen Jade Book should at least be eligible. But I'd be happy just to see the computer's work recognized with an honorable mention.

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"Programming is an art form that fights back."
- Unknown
   
"I do not fear your Powerful Racoon, for I have a Short Poker of Shooting!" - Random Story Creator IV

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He does have a point there. We should've ran "Grapper's Return" against a story from Ping.

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"What we do not know, we cannot begin to understand."

The difference is that Grapper's Return was a legend. If Grapper's Return had been submitted any time recently, it would have been discarded immediately. I think you'll probably agree that the same should have applied to the Conspiracy of UrSlyph's Stolen Jade Book if it had been written by a human. As a computer scientist, I appreciate the programming effort involved, but this is a competition of literary merit, not technical merit. If I held the chronicle of the month this month, it would be effectively the same as running it with only Mr. Somebody's chronicle. If I recall correctly, it was Mr. Somebody that pushed for the following rule:

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This is a rule with which I agree. It would violate the spirit of the rule to run a chronicle of the month competition this month.

(I knew I'd get some flak for giving Grapper's Return chronicle of the month )

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Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

[This message has been edited by Slayer (edited 07-31-2003).]

Well, can Ping still get some kind of recognition as our first digital author? I really think an honorable mention is the least it deserves, if only for the historical record. Go ahead and mention why it got it the HM if you want, that's all the better. It seems that, should the Chrons ever make a full recovery, it would be good for the writers of that era, whoever they will be, to be able to recall the time when the human board-members had neglected them and only Ping was there to entertain us

Furthermore, both the comments on the chron itself and the one's I've received personally indicate that the chron was very entertaining to many people. It wouldn't be the first time we've had a humorous chron receive attention, look at that "Life in Cythera" poem thing that cache22 wrote way back, or the out-takes from Collusion.

Were Ping's chron strictly serious, I would most likely agree with you. But it isn't intended to be, it's supposed to be funny to a very significant extent. Why else would I have given it words in it's vocabulary like 'strange goat'? If it was supposed to be serious, don't you think I would have diked out the part about batteries?

I think that Ping's work needs to be judged on it's merit as a humorous work. Nobody complained when they competed against the aforementioned Collusion Out-takes chron even though they were primarily funny and not serious, and it was entered running just like the others. That sets a precedent, in my opinion.

That said, if you really don't want to treat the matter according to normal procedure, why not have a special running between Grapper's Return and CUSJB, like Avatara suggested? Both works are quite short, a lot of people could read them, and we could blow the whole thing up into a big sensational thing and create publicity for the Chrons (Hey, this might actually work, when you think about it. Challenge the voters to do better. )

Please stop looking on CUSJB is a bad chron, look at it is a chron that is designed to be so bad it's funny
You could even think of it as a satirical protest on Grapper's Return winning Chron-of-the-Month. Or you could look it as any other humor.
But whatever you do, don't ignore it just because it was written by a computer and not just with a computer! That kind of prejudice has given many humans a bad name over the centuries - and even if there had been some basis for these prejudices at the times in which they were commonly held, remember how history views them now!

So don't be a carbon-supremacist, give Ping a chance

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"Programming is an art form that fights back."
- Unknown
   
"I do not fear your Powerful Racoon, for I have a Short Poker of Shooting!" - Random Story Creator IV

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Well, I don't think it being a "legend" gives it the right to be able to bypass all of the rules and become a chronicle of the month with a 1-0 vote that nobody got to participate in. You said that special chronicle Kat and cache wrote up for our 100th chron (Hand of Fate?) was something special, so it didn't run in the chronicle of the month, but it did get an "honorable mention" for being special. Perhaps you should do the same for Grapper's Return, because it isn't really CoTM material (I think that was a joke you were playing when you said it was), but it is one of those stories that falls under the category of "special" - because it does have a history. The same holds true for Ping's story, its "special" - as in, its the first story to not be written by a human, and the story turned out reasonably well for its purposes (you've admitted that).

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"What we do not know, we cannot begin to understand."

Bryce: Your words have softened my heart to CUSJB. It was indeed a humorous chronicle. My decision about no chronicle of the month stands, but I will award CUSJB an honorable mention (despite this rule: "Nominating oneself for an Honorable Mention is generally frowned upon"). It feels odd having two honorable mentions and no winner, but there it is.

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Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

[This message has been edited by Slayer (edited 07-31-2003).]

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Ping thanks you

[quote]Originally posted by Bryce:
It seems that, should the Chrons ever make a full recovery, it would be good for the writers of that era, whoever they will be, to be able to recall the time when the human board-members had neglected them and only Ping was there to entertain us  

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Would you like fries with that?
Ambrosia Beta Tester!

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Sorry, i really did forget about you... but there technicaly was a time in which only ping's chron was there.

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"Programming is an art form that fights back."
- Unknown
   
"I do not fear your Powerful Racoon, for I have a Short Poker of Shooting!" - Random Story Creator IV