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221 lines
7.9 KiB
221 lines
7.9 KiB
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<title>What's next for the Lurker's Guide?</title>
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<h1>What's next for the Lurker's Guide?</h1>
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<p>
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As the series has drawn to a close, I've received a lot of E-mail wondering
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what the future holds for the Lurker's Guide. Here are some answers.
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<p>
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<b>Will the Lurker's Guide disappear?</b>
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<p>
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Nope! I have no plans to ever take the site down. Of course, twenty years
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from now it won't be updated too often, but the existing material will, barring
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disaster, be available for you to download to your
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contact-lens Web browser and read while your car drives you to work.
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<p>
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<b>Any plans to publish the site in book form or on CD-ROM?</b>
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<p>
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I'm willing to entertain offers to that effect, but I'm not actively seeking
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anything at this time. For one thing, the site is still an unfinished work,
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as you'll see below.
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<p>
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If the Guide is published in some form, most or all of the proceeds will go
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to charity, since so much of the material here is the product of other folks
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on the net. It wouldn't be fair to the Guide's countless contributors for me
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to make a profit from the sale of their work.
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<p>
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The ideal format in my mind, by the way, would be a DVD-ROM (so the hypertext
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links still work) with the script for each episode included alongside the
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synopsis, and with video clips of various scenes. Obviously that only flies
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if the authors of the episodes want it to.
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<p>
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<b>Will it ever be updated again?</b>
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<p>
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First of all, I've accumulated a substantial backlog of suggestions for guide
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pages over the years. It'll take quite some time to go through them all and
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add them to the Guide as needed.
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<p>
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Leaving aside the backlog and any upcoming movie(s), there're
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two significant things left to add: background pages for season five and, more
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importantly, a new section on each guide page to discuss foreshadowing and the
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eventual answers to the episode's unanswered questions (e.g. the guide page for
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<a href="/lurk/guide/053.html">"Point of No Return"</a>
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will discuss when and how Lady Morella's prophecies came true.)
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I intentionally avoided doing that kind of thing while the series was still
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in progress.
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<p>
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I have a stack of E-mail along those lines to go through as a first cut; then
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at some point I'll actively solicit suggestions.
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<p>
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And of course all that material will be split off into its own section at the
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bottom of each page, or maybe even placed on entirely separate pages, so as
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not to spoil upcoming episodes for viewers who're watching the series for the
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first time.
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<p>
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Finally, the Guide is chock full of text I'm not entirely happy with. If a
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book or DVD/CD publishing deal should happen, I'll want to go back and touch
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up a lot of old material.
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<p>
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<b>The big one... will the Guide cover Crusade?</b>
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<p>
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If I can find the time to write the software to handle it, yes.
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<p>
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The original Guide is almost exclusively a hand-edited affair. I have a little
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bit of automation to handle the page headers/footers and the datestamping of
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material on the episode pages, but the actual text of the Guide is all raw
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HTML I maintain using a text editor. I read the suggestions in my mailbox and
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write the material on the guide pages based on them. I edit the synopses as
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they come in, add links to the Poll 5 results, add new entries to the What's
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New page, and so forth.
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<p>
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In short, it takes a heck of a lot of time and energy. And now, knowing full
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well what I'm in for (I didn't at first) I'm pretty sure I won't be able to
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keep doing this for another five years.
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<p>
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So the two options are to decide the Guide won't cover Crusade, or to build
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something new, and hopefully better, that takes less effort to maintain.
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<p>
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Version 2 of the Lurker's Guide, if it happens, will look something like this.
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<p>
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The episode guide pages will be similar in appearance to the current ones. But
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instead of flat Web pages, they'll all be discussion areas, to which anyone
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can add new material at will. My role will be to go through the new
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submissions as they come in and decide which ones I would have included in the
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Guide if I were still maintaining it by hand. I'll mark those messages as
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moderator-approved and delete the inevitable flames, trolls, duplicates, and
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"testing, 1 2 3" entries. I may also appoint other moderators to help out.
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<p>
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When you enter the Guide, at first you'll only see the moderator-approved
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entries for each episode, a view similar to what you get today. But with the
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click of a button you'll be able to expand the guide page to include all the
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discussion, approved and otherwise, and you'll be able to add your own
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thoughts.
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<p>
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In addition, synopsis writers and other such contributors will be able to
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upload their work directly to the site without going through my mailbox.
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<p>
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How is this better than the existing site? In a few ways.
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<ul>
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<li>
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Credit where credit is due. Right now the people who send in submissions
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for the guide pages typically don't get credit for them. The new setup will
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list the author of each tidbit (though probably only in the non-moderated
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view).
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<li>
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Instant feedback. The pages will get updated even if I'm busy at work and
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don't have time to go through my mail.
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<li>
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Greater diversity of opinions and speculation. One consequence of everything
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going through me is that I throw out a lot of material I don't think is
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relevant, including speculations I don't think are likely to pan out. While
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on balance I think that helps the Guide more than it hurts, there are no
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doubt lots of readers who would prefer to see all the speculation, no matter
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how outlandish. By switching between the moderated view and the discussion
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view, you'll get the best of both worlds.
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<li>
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Uniqueness. The Guide has spawned a lot of imitators (which is just fine by
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me, I should add -- the more the merrier).
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If it's successful, this will raise the bar a bit and put B5
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out ahead of the pack in terms of fan sites. I haven't seen any TV-show
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sites quite like what I have in mind.
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<li>
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I'll be able to get something resembling a healthy amount of sleep.
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</ul>
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<p>
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What I've described isn't a trivial undertaking. It's a fairly complex
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Web-based database application, in fact. Luckily that's more or less what I
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do for a living, so given the time it's all quite doable.
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<p>
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Crusade's delay until June is a blessing for me in some ways, since it means
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there's some chance of getting all this stuff up and running, should I decide
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to do it after all.
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<p>
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I'll keep the What's New page updated as things progress, so you can follow
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the development there.
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<p nowrap>
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<nobr><a href="/lurk/lurker.html"><img
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align=bottom border=0
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alt="">
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</nobr>
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<h5>
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Last update:
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November 30, 1998
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</h5>
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</body>
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</html>
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