Request: Stubs

1. Request: Stubs

   #1

   It could handle a nicer name.
   
   
   MoonHunter - manfred we should really set up a protocol for wiki-like stubs here.   
   manfred - What do you have in mind?
   MoonHunter - Well if we had the concept of "stubs" here... people would be more likely to break bigger submissions that seem to have locations, npcs, plot, etc all pushed to one...
   MoonHunter - into small elements that could be mixed and matched.  Stubbing would let you put up a temporary stub for a submision that has been released... rather than stuff being left in the work spaces
   manfred - Hmmm... so essentially 'In Work' submissions, that the author deliberately keeps short, with little intention or time of expanding them. Regular submissions that will be strongly linked to others, without being marked as too short.
   manfred - Graphically, they may be put even closer in a Codex to other subs.
   MoonHunter - It would help change the "texture" of our submissions, allowing for smaller pieces to make a greater whole. 
   MoonHunter - Just a thought I was having.   
   
   
   A Stub would be a short submission, presumably not long enough to fit our refined tastes. The author may not have enough time or drive to make it something more, a stub would be, however, a part of something bigger that is already complete to a significant degree, so it is not useful wasting away in the In Work area or similar. Time, and perhaps popular demand may lead the author to make it more complete.
   
   The statistical rewards for a submission (XP, sub.count) should be greatly reduced, some (HoH, Golden vote) be not available at all. Of course would the users be able to express their like or dislike. And of course the stub could be expanded into a regular submission, which is its presumed destiny. Until then, it's fate is to support another submission(s), and be judged upon them.
   
   
   So, what do you think of such 'lightweight' submissions? Can you find use for them?

2. Re: Stubs

   #2

   Do the "Ideas" fit your idea of Stubs?
   
   We could modify the ideas to become these stubs unless you are looking for a Stub type checkbox and place them in our normal categories. 
   
   Would you want them to be brought together like a codex, or do would you prefer to be able to actually suck the Stub into the submission, more like how scrolls are but with the ability to place them wherever you want in your submission. Perhaps like a quote in the forum with the authors information and then the Stub in a blockquote or something?
   
   Or are you thinking completely different. I might have a sense of what you are talking about, but not sure I totally get it.
   
   Guess what I am looking for is a "how do we use it" type thing. We can have all you say but what would define it beyond what we have with the horribly neglected (by me) ideas?

3. Re: Stubs

   #3

   For those that don't know: If you want to see stubs in action, go to wikipedia or any wiki.
   
   A stub is an submission that is too short to provide complete coverage of the subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information. To qualify as a stub it must at least define the meaning of the article's title. Often that means  a few (three to ten)  short sentences, but less text may be sufficient to qualify as a stub for a submission on a very specific item, and complicated sumbission with more than ten sentences may still be stubs. On Wikipedia, many articles which are labeled as stubs are much longer than that.
   
   For us, a stub must include enough information to explain "why the submission exists". and what it is when referenced.  So this is the stub for a city, it will include the name for the city, and some notes so it can be referenced in the sub.
   
   
   The use of stubs will let us link across things more easily. People will not be required to put several submissions worth of submissions in one submission) So instead of having a place submission with several npcs (some of which are quite detailed), items, neighborhoods, etc, we would have one sub with several stubs (some of which might be quite complete).
   
   The use of stubs will take away the need for place holder submissions in people's work spaces. And allow submissions to be expanded out into parts.
   
   About Stubs Here
   
   These stubs should function just as submission. They need to be addable to codices, linkable, and have comments.  They could function just as normal submissions, just they need to be flagged so people don't treat them as submissions.
   
   I would like to see it pop up as a selection, in the workspace menu.  Some canned text could appear in the grey box or between the introduction/ summary and the main text.
   
   Ideally, Stubs status should nulify their xp and not be votable - much likle being in the work space.  Unlike the work space, these would be open and visible for everyone.
   
   Stubs should be editable by anyone, not just the original owner. Or marked as closed (so they can be edited as per normal) or open (anyone can take control of them)
   
   Really, the mechanics are secondary.  It would be nice if we could have fancy blocks on xp and voting, but not required.
   
   What we need to do is come up with a format dumped text for a stub.
   
   A Wikipedia stub is a short article in need of expansion. View the main list of stub categories and of articles contained within them.
   
   Is an example
   
   
   
   Some work on stubs
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_types
   

4. Re: Stubs

   #4

   The ideas as they exist on the site are complete ideas... one shots.. we tend to ignore them right now because they are hard to access.  However, what prevents them from filling the role of stubs here, is that they are not linkable.

5. Re: Request: Stubs

   #5

   We make them linkable. Muahahahahaha.
   
   The more I think about them, the more I want to improve the ideas to the point we are talking about stubs. The main problem is that you would want to be able to comment on them and treat them like limited submissions. My thought is that an idea remains an idea until somebody adopts it as a stub. They can click on a link next to the idea or something and it converts that idea into our stub and gives it the proper restrictions as far as no votes etc., but it 'copies' it from the ideas to the submissions at that point. This way we can still throw out our ideas into the ideas area without a ton of stubs cluttering up the site. Then, once somebody has something to add to the idea they promote it to a stub and put in their comments and/or additions. Once the stub gets enough attention or a real sub is created from it then it can be changed to a normal. So instead of stub->submission like on wikipedia, we have idea->stub->submission.
   
   Something like that anyway.

6. Re: Request: Stubs

   #6

   The ideas are just that. In their current format, they are just small bits of useful information. Some of them have been expanded into full submissions (or have been included in submissions). 
   
   Stubs really need to be submissions that anyone can work or comment upon.  And they need to be easy enough to "throw out there", that someone will set them up as they go along with a longer submission.
   
   Ideas and Stubs are really apples and oranges. 

7. Re: Request: Stubs

   #7

   I am all for the concept of Stubs! 
   
   Strolepedia here we come!
   
   

8. Re: Request: Stubs

   #8

   Chewed on this a little bit and it seems that stubs are more like the posts/discussions we had in the forum before the 2.0 conversion and we stopped putting stuff in the forum.
   
   I was reading through a couple of the forum discussions that were imported to the main site and I miss the freedom of discussion we had with the forum. The main citadel seems to discourage the active sharing and building on incomplete ideas. It is more of "here is my post, comment on it" type thing. The scrolls break the mold a little but they are still asking for specific thoughts on a specific topic and each idea is usually still a standalone.
   
   Our charter for the main site is complete ideas, anything less needs to be in work where it does just sort of sit until the author starts messing with it and updates it. In work seems to mean that the author has started and not finished it, not that it is sitting looking for collaboration.
   
   There are exceptions of course, but the fluid creativity between people on an incomplete idea has drastically slowed down compared to the old days don't you think?
   
   I see these stubs as a return of this to a point. You are looking to have a place for short or incomplete idea that can be expanded on by others. More of a submission that actually wants collaboration vs what we have now.
   
   I like the idea of the stubs to a point, but in this vein I think we also need to open up the forums again to allow the freedom of discussion that we used to have. Any ideas that become complete can be very easily moved to the main site as we have in the past only this time it is on a much smaller scale so it is a lot less labor intensive. The stubs can be more useful for already established things that are interconnected while the forums should be used to build a new idea to a submission worthy discussion.

9. Re: Request: Stubs

   #9

   I find myself in strong agreement with most of what you have said here.

10. Re: Request: Stubs

    #10

    I came here to start on them but I still fail to see how you want me to implement them.
    
    Ignore the definition for now...what do you want them to be able to do? That is what I need to code them. How will they work, where will they show up, how will they fit in with codices/scrolls/posts?
    
    I just really can't seem to grasp this whole idea...and I want to!
    

11. Re: Request: Stubs

    #11

    Had a couple chats with Moon and Manfred today and I think I finally got it. :)
    
    They are implemented: phase I.
    
    Stubs are pieces of information you may use over and over. Maybe a quick description of you world without going too deep that you might link to all the subs associated with it.
    
    Stubs could also be a piece of information you intend on updating and fleshing out but it still holds enough information to be informational. You may not want to add yet more things to your sub so instead you link to a couple stubs with pertinent information that may be fleshed out still. That way you don't throw in a bunch of half ideas into a sub leaving more questions, you sort of push them off to a stub so people know that this is an associated idea that will continue to be developed but is not key to the submission.
    
    Stubs work just like "In Work" except they are stubs and available really and don't clog up your in work. They really aren't in work, they are stubs of information that you may or may not get around to updating.
    
    Stubs will also be editeable by anybody if you leave that option open when you submit it. I haven't coded that so will go into a little more detail later. But mostly they are ideas that could use some expanding and are sort of a free for all to do so. You can also lock your sub so that only the original author can edit them which could be the case in many circumstances.
    
    Getting over sickness so 2300 isn't real late, but late enough for me. I hope manfred or Moon will correct me if I mispoke as I am wiped. Will work on some more of the stubs features tomorrow but they should be working fine in the Stub V1.0 sense.
    
    Oh, you can only get to them by links or in the author's profile. I have the only current stub. You link to them just like any other submission. You cannot vote on them, HoH, Golden, Favorite, or anything. They are just floating out there waiting to be linked to.
    
    Did we decide the summary needed to be a little more detailed or should stubs even have a summary I wonder? Probably not when you think about it...

12. Re: Request: Stubs

    #12

    Now if we just had a Stubs home, to find them...  I just made three and nearly lost them because you can't find them in search. Eventually I managed to remember all the linking and found them, but it would of been nice to either
    
    1) have a home of their own    a **
    2) have a stubs section in each category ****
    3) find your own stubs (on your operations page) ***
    

13. Re: Request: Stubs

    #13

    They are in a special listing like your in work,advice requested,etc , or at least they are for me...
    
    

14. Re: Request: Stubs

    #14

    Stubs work pretty well so far. Only one minor gripe: you can't make them a Suggested Submission. But I'm sure that will come eventually as well.

15. Re: Request: Stubs

    #15

    That was one of the requirements for them... eeekk!!!!  Strolen...!!!!
    
    

16. Re: Request: Stubs

    #16

    I didn't specifically code them to NOT be able to, so it is just a bug with the stub format change I would guess. Try and look at it tonight.

17. Re: Request: Stubs

    #17

    We also kind of left out the documentation part.
    
    Just wanted to mark this for later on. :)

18. Re: Request: Stubs

    #18

    Are we going to get the ability to add codicies as suggested submissions?
    
    I'm in the process of moving a lot of stuff out into subs, and adding them back as codex entries would work for what I'm trying to do.
    
    

19. Re: Request: Stubs

    #19

    Stubs can be as of now Suggested.
    
    Please try it out.

20. Re: Request: Stubs

    #20

    Worked so far.  Am going to try this out a bit more soon.
    

21. Re: Request: Stubs

    #21

    Thoughts on the "Stubs in Scrolls" question - HOW?
    
    If it comes to linking, I see a simple option: link by submission number, nothing else. The reason is there's a limit on the minimum number of characters on comments (15) - and a simple number will fit in just fine.
    
    
    More difficult is the design question. Submissions can have comments, and comments can have replies... I hope we won't go deeper than that. :)
    
    A Stub embedded in a Scroll serves as a type of comment - but it can have its own two layers of replies. So we either show them all, as a deformity from the rest of the site; or go the Codex route, where the replies are hidden. They could be even completely hidden, but in both cases there needs to be a link to the submission/Stub itself, where all is displayed. Especially if there is more than meets the eye.
    
    So a StubInScroll needs a different design than a common Scroll comment - but close enough so that it won't break the existing design.

22. Re: Request: Stubs

    #22

    Stubs separate like Suggested Submissions but with the entire contents or inline with the scrolls, number of comments annotated, and the stub title linked to the actual stub?

23. Re: Request: Stubs

    #23

    The concept was to convert certain scrolls into codices of stubs, so the various villages/ planets/ books entries could be more easily referenced and pulled into other submissions or used in other ways.
    
    So stubs in scrolls was not really a request, just a miscommunication.

24. Re: Request: Stubs

    #24

    Correct. It would free up a wealth of information to make what currently are scroll entries into a form of stub which could be reused inline the way scroll entries currently are.

25. Re: Request: Stubs

    #25

    So, more thoughts.
    
    Since what I'd like are a type of stub, then scroll entries would then need a title. Hmm.

26. Re: Request: Stubs

    #26

    That would be a format issue. Rather than making it automatic, it would have to be done manually. There are codex entries that would not need that convention.

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