Before I get too entrenched in the Archive uploading process (and since I'm at least skimming everything I'm uploading anyway), I wanted to ask the community here something that came to mind.

Would you like it if I made a simple graph/map/whatever of what planes/stories/characters interact? For instance:
The Dead City
->Ren Winmoore
-->Illarion Vale
--->Keter
->Vasilias
->Ariva
-->Ikass

Two Bullets
->Fisco Vane
->Jakkard
-->Centaur Wine and Noggle Ale

But all that in some sort of visual format.

What do you guys think? If I make it now while I'm going through the archives, it saves time adding on to it later.

I think it would be pretty cool, but I wonder if it would end up being a LOT of work. But hey, if you're willing, I would dig it.

That's the beauty of it: right now, I'm having to reorganize most of the Archive anyway, so I'll be checking where things intersect.

Like, I had forgotten that The Dead City mentions Illarion Vale, Ihn Gallad, and the Mending, but now I can connect those together (even though all three are just mentions [if you don't count the sequel that BeastEngine, Trolljuju, and Barinellos were working on {that has no hope of finishing anymore <Bracketception*>}])

*Borrowed from Ruwinreborn.

So, let me ask this: Is the format you're thinking of using something you could easily edit later? After all, as more stories are written, more interactions are likely.

There's a Draw feature in google drive that might work for this... it looks pretty kludged together though and it might not fit all the connections we have...

I actually don't have any particular format in mind yet... I would probably scribble the whole thing down on paper first, then find some way of putting up digitally. I'd probably test out some sort of table-format first, though I'm not sure how that would work out.

Ultimately, this is just something I'd work on a bit rather than becoming part of the Archives themselves (that is, unless you guys really wanted it to be).

Honestly? When I first thought about this I pictured a flow chart, with circles/squares/other shapes representing stuff in the Archives and lines and arrows pointing to other stuff in the Archives.


I'll check that out, then; I'm currently logged into the Archivist's Drive anyway.

That...would be pretty cool.

Okay, I cleared my brain fart away and realized I have a flowchart app that would be perfect for this; and I just started to get a feel for how it would go. So.

Which direction should I build from?

Should I go in order of the Archives, so that we get:
Plane (Ikass)
->Character (Vasilias)
-->Work (The Dead City)

Or backwards so that we get:
Work (The Dead City)
->Character (Vasilias)
-->Plane (Ikass)

Or maybe mix it to flow more organically? Like:
Character (Vasilias)
->featured in Work (The Dead City)
-->which takes place in Plane (Ikass/Ariva)


Hmm.... I can actually make lines without arrows. Would that be better?

I'd use lines without arrows, actually. Simplifies the process considerably.

I think this could be cool to include in the archive, especially when (if? (I really hope this isn't an "if")) the main page for this site goes live.

It may need to be stickied if it does go in... OH SHOOT THE RULES

That would be really cool, but we need to be sure that it's something we (and I really mean you, to be honest) can easily edit later on.

Within the app, editing it is no big deal. The only problem I can foresee is what I cannot prepare for -- how the app may or may not be updated; whether I'll need to "pass the torch" to someone else (since it's exported in different, less editable formats like pdf or jpg).

I dunno, at this point it's still in the planning stages.

Another argument for this map just occurred to me: making a flow-chart would still be easier than having to update every concerning Work/Plane/Character whenever we vote something in that expands upon something we already have.

This is a very good point. I wonder if we could integrate a flowchart and a wiki together as one entity...