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Date Posted: 08:44:51 07/29/02 Mon
Author: DeepaD
Subject: Ok, second thoughts
In reply to: DeepaD 's message, "The Bookmarks Reorganisation Thread" on 10:09:44 07/28/02 Sun

Whew! It's nice to have people think my ideas are good for a change!

Ok, all of you, thank you for those definitions. My next problem is, how do we classify them by file size? Because the thing is - unless an author mails us and tells us how many words it is, we aren't going to know, unless some dedicated reccer copies the entire text, pastes it into Word, and does a word count!
And we need a system that will be easy for reccers to use, because there is no way me and the other mods will be able to verify each length on our own...
So, if we have
Vignettes - under a thousand words
Short Story - 1000 to... I don't know Robert, I think 20,000 is too big, I was going more with 7,000.
Novella - ok, if you think we need five categories, but it's going to be a lot of work - we could peg this for roughly 7,000 to... 50,000
Novel - 50,000 up
Series - ok, do we need this category in this case? It is more of a thematic than a size difference, after all, just for instance, Herself's bittersweet stories are not really that long put together, but since they are episodic, they seem like a series, and not a novel. So, going strictly by size, couldn't we just incude the term 'series' in whichever category we bunged the bookmark into?

Thanks so much for your ideas. I'll need all the support I can get to pull this off, because now that I think of it, it is such a big job! *whine*
Ok, so next, can any of you wonderful authors who post in html files, tell me how I classify according to file size, and how I make a guide that even the laziest reccer can follow...

I know, I know - I just keep on asking, don't I?

Deepa D.

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Replies:

[> [> Re: Ok, second thoughts -- Robert, 10:34:17 07/29/02 Mon

>Whew! It's nice to have people think my ideas are good
>for a change!
>
>Ok, all of you, thank you for those definitions. My
>next problem is, how do we classify them by file size?

I'm not sure you can.
The file size for a story can vary by over 50%,
depending which programme was used to produce it.


>Because the thing is - unless an author mails us and
>tells us how many words it is, we aren't going to
>know, unless some dedicated reccer copies the entire
>text, pastes it into Word, and does a word count!

There are other ways to do this, of varying degrees
of sophistication.

Set your browser options appropriately and you can
open the file in the text editor of your choice then
do a word count, without any need to copy and paste.

For a more approximate figure, which requires even less
technical skill than finding the file size, you could
ask the reccers to go by how long it took them to read the
fic.

It's easy enough for people to find their reading speed
to within 10% and it's not difficult to work out how
long it took to read the fic.

>And we need a system that will be easy for reccers to
>use, because there is no way me and the other mods
>will be able to verify each length on our own...

Of course.
However you do have a number of fics in the list archives.
You could, as a one off exercise, find the length of each
fic. I've seen freeware programmes that will do that for
every html file in a directory with a single click. Doing
that would give you a much better idea what the
distribution of fics lengths actually is, meaning that you
can actually get a near even split.

You don't want to find that 80% of fics fall into the
same length category, because that wouldn't be helpful.

>
>Series - ok, do we need this category in this case? It
>is more of a thematic than a size difference, after
>all, So, going strictly by size, couldn't we just
>inlcude the term 'series' in whichever category we
>bunged the bookmark into?
>
Yes, just put series in parenthesis next to the title.


[ Edit | View ]

[> [> [> Re: do you have a link for that? -- DeepaD, 20:52:20 07/29/02 Mon

That freeware programme - I could use it to do the fics in our archive, and hopefully arrive at some kind of standard... would you have a link to it, or the name?
Right now, I'm not really concerned about dividing the fics into equal categories. If there are more stories, and only a few novels, or lots of vignettes, its fine by me. I'd much rather work by a definition that is eaily accepted by the majority of readers.
Since you've been so helpful, do you think you'd be up to helping me size the fics in the bookmarks...?!
Well, ok, at least you can just tell me the length of your own!

Deepa D.


[ Edit | View ]

[> [> Re: Ok, second thoughts -- Cas, 03:24:26 07/30/02 Tue

>Ok, all of you, thank you for those definitions. My
>next problem is, how do we classify them by file size?
>Because the thing is - unless an author mails us and
>tells us how many words it is, we aren't going to
>know.

It would propably be worth checking how many of the stories already have the file size listed at some point in the site they're archived with. For example, anything at ff.net will do, and for all the fics archived at my site I've always included a word count.

Cas


[ Edit | View ]

[> [> [> ah...? -- DeepaD, 08:57:34 07/30/02 Tue

Cas, brain me for being an ignoramus incarnate, but where is the link to your site..?
And, do you think you might possibly be up to helping me track down at least some of the fics' sizes in our bookmarks...? maybe just the ones you already know...
(ok, I know I'm pushing this)
Deepa D.


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