The Future of CanonWars

Did a related website in the community go down? Come back up? Relocate to a new address? Install pop-up advertisements?

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2046
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The Future of CanonWars

Post by 2046 » Wed Jun 04, 2014 2:52 pm

So originally, I was going to use CanonWars as a place to house topics on other interests of mine (politics, religion, et cetera), but that never materialized, in part due to the old security concerns ... I blog elsewhere for that.

So, it has basically just been a repository for Star Trek and Star Wars canon policy discussions. In that regard, it was historically successful, to wit:

1. The Information

It delightfully housed the Star Wars canon writings and research, but that's all been ganked now by Wikipedia, with nary an attribution. The same is true of the Star Trek canon information.

Thus, to a large degree, the unique research that I brought to the attention of the world . . . digging up old quotes, locating old remembered snippets, covering new quotes . . . has indeed gone into the world and taken root.

2. Popularity

At one time, CanonWars was the #1 Google hit for Star Trek canon ... now it's on page two somewhere. I don't remember if it was #1 for Star Wars canon, but I'm sure it was up there . . . now I don't see it anywhere (though that's largely because of all the new Disney stuff that's been happening lately).

---------

So at the moment, it's safe to say that CanonWars is dead. Regarding Star Wars canon, after what EU-philes are calling "the Disneycaust", the need for a canon argument repository seems more than a little minimized. As for Star Trek, other than a big page I have yet to complete regarding the JJ-verse canonicity, there's not much going on there, either.

The way I see it, I have two options.

1. Go Big

Set up a fully-fledged open wiki and perhaps a forum and allow folks to come there to discuss and debate canon policies for a zillion franchises, with my Trek and Wars articles as start points (or just ganking back from Wikipedia as appropriate).

This would have the effect of broadening the focus and thus the appeal and google-ability, but frankly sounds like more than a bit of work and isn't something I'm terribly interested in doing . . . I care rather little for most sci-fi universes.

Besides which, anyone can set up a free wiki to do the same thing, but none have . . . that either means it's a great idea or a crap one. I presume the latter, because other than the domain name having some old street cred, what's so special about a big site about canon policies? It might service the Spacebattles crowd and might even get some minor academic attention, but I don't know of that being a place that would actually draw interest and repeat visits and such, even with a forum.

That said, in my recent perusings of Spacebattles I saw people talking about Andromeda's canon policy, and when I went googling I found nothing substantial. I don't know if this is also the case for things like WH40K (did I even get that right?) and similar.

This idea would also require community involvement, and unlike certain folks who thrive on personality cults, I generally have no interest in such things.

Despite all the negatives, though, this idea is not without appeal.

2. Go Home

This is the "pull the plug" option. All that would be needed is to take the pages and put them on ST-v-SW.Net or NoLettersHome.Info as appropriate, set up redirects (moved permamently), and then let the domain eventually expire, with the hope that anyone searching for something where they find a link to my site knows how to use the Wayback Machine or something.

The appeal here is that it involves the least work.

Thoughts?

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by Trinoya » Thu Jun 05, 2014 1:36 am

Honestly... If you feel you can get it set up and that it would be able to sustain itself (because lord knows a lot of policy can get gutted or changed in a heart beat) I'd say go big.

If you feel that it'd be too much of a time sink I'd pull the plug and put the pages up elsewhere.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by Lucky » Thu Jun 05, 2014 10:04 pm

2046 wrote:So originally, I was going to use CanonWars as a place to house topics on other interests of mine (politics, religion, et cetera), but that never materialized, in part due to the old security concerns ... I blog elsewhere for that.

So, it has basically just been a repository for Star Trek and Star Wars canon policy discussions. In that regard, it was historically successful, to wit:

1. The Information

It delightfully housed the Star Wars canon writings and research, but that's all been ganked now by Wikipedia, with nary an attribution. The same is true of the Star Trek canon information.

Thus, to a large degree, the unique research that I brought to the attention of the world . . . digging up old quotes, locating old remembered snippets, covering new quotes . . . has indeed gone into the world and taken root.

2. Popularity

At one time, CanonWars was the #1 Google hit for Star Trek canon ... now it's on page two somewhere. I don't remember if it was #1 for Star Wars canon, but I'm sure it was up there . . . now I don't see it anywhere (though that's largely because of all the new Disney stuff that's been happening lately).

---------

So at the moment, it's safe to say that CanonWars is dead. Regarding Star Wars canon, after what EU-philes are calling "the Disneycaust", the need for a canon argument repository seems more than a little minimized. As for Star Trek, other than a big page I have yet to complete regarding the JJ-verse canonicity, there's not much going on there, either.

The way I see it, I have two options.

1. Go Big

Set up a fully-fledged open wiki and perhaps a forum and allow folks to come there to discuss and debate canon policies for a zillion franchises, with my Trek and Wars articles as start points (or just ganking back from Wikipedia as appropriate).

This would have the effect of broadening the focus and thus the appeal and google-ability, but frankly sounds like more than a bit of work and isn't something I'm terribly interested in doing . . . I care rather little for most sci-fi universes.

Besides which, anyone can set up a free wiki to do the same thing, but none have . . . that either means it's a great idea or a crap one. I presume the latter, because other than the domain name having some old street cred, what's so special about a big site about canon policies? It might service the Spacebattles crowd and might even get some minor academic attention, but I don't know of that being a place that would actually draw interest and repeat visits and such, even with a forum.

That said, in my recent perusings of Spacebattles I saw people talking about Andromeda's canon policy, and when I went googling I found nothing substantial. I don't know if this is also the case for things like WH40K (did I even get that right?) and similar.

This idea would also require community involvement, and unlike certain folks who thrive on personality cults, I generally have no interest in such things.

Despite all the negatives, though, this idea is not without appeal.

2. Go Home

This is the "pull the plug" option. All that would be needed is to take the pages and put them on ST-v-SW.Net or NoLettersHome.Info as appropriate, set up redirects (moved permamently), and then let the domain eventually expire, with the hope that anyone searching for something where they find a link to my site knows how to use the Wayback Machine or something.

The appeal here is that it involves the least work.

Thoughts?
I'd say that you should go for what ever you think you have time for as I have no idea as to how much work running a web site actually entails. Go big certainly sounds interesting, but i refuse to cast a vote.




I think you need a page on Star Trek and Star Wars canon on your site no matter what, and to that end i would like to offer some often ignored information in the Next Generation Technical Manual.
Publisher: Pocket Books Star Trek Series: Star Trek Title: STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION TECHNICAL MANUAL ISBN: 978-0-6717-0427-8 Page: VII wrote:
To any would-be Star Trek writers, we'd like to emphasize that this is NOT required reading. If your writing a Star Trek story, you will probably be doing yourself and the audience a disservice if you use more than a very tiny amount of this material. Remember, Star Trek is about people; the technology is merely part of their environment. As Gene points out in his introduction, the real mission of the starship Enterprise is to serve as a vehicle for drama.

An important word of cation: All Starfleet personnel are hereby advised that any previous technical documentation in your possession may be suspect because of an ongoing Starfleet program of disinformation intended to confound and confuse the intelligence assets of potential Threat forces. Such documents should therefore be verified with Federation archives and this Manual for authenticity.
Publisher: Pocket Books Star Trek Series: Star Trek Title: STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION TECHNICAL MANUAL ISBN: 978-0-6717-0427-8 Page: 129 wrote: While the maximum payload of anti-matter in a standard torpedo is only about 1.5 kilograms, the released energy per unit of time is actual greater then that calculated for a Galaxy class anti-matterpod rupture.
Maximum Photon Torpedo Yield = 64.44 Megatons
Publisher: Pocket Books Star Trek Series: Star Trek Title: STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION TECHNICAL MANUAL ISBN: 978-0-6717-0427-8 Page: 141 wrote: Matter from the primary deuterium tankage and the total supply of anti-matter from the storage pods on Deck 42 are expelled simultaneously, producing an energy release on the order of 10^15 megajoules, roughly 1000 photon torpedos.
1 Megajoule = 1000000 Joules

10^15 = 1000000000000000

10^15 Megajoules = 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 J

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 J = 10 zettajoules

10 zettajoules = 2390057.36138 Megatons

2390057.36138 Megatons / 1000 = 2390.05736138 Megatons

2390.05736138 Megatons = 2.390057361 Gigatons

Maximum Photon Torpedo Yield = 2.39 Gigatons
Publisher: Pocket Books Star Trek Series: Star Trek Title: STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION TECHNICAL MANUAL ISBN: 978-0-6717-0427-8 Page: 141 wrote: The release yield of the secondary system is calculated to be 10^9 megajoules, roughly equivalent to 500 photon torpedos. The secondary destruct system becomes the primary system for the Saucer Module in Separated Flight Node.
10^9 Megajoules = 1000000000 Megajoules

1000000000 Megajoules = 10000000000000000 Joules

10,000,000,000,000,000 Joules = 10 Petajoules

10 Petajoules = 2390.05736138 kilotons

2390.05736138 kilotons / 500 = 4.78011472276 kilotons

Maximum Photon Torpedo Yield = 5 kilotons

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by 2046 » Fri Jun 06, 2014 12:45 am

Yes, "The Many Torpedo Yields of the TNG TM" needs to have a page.

As far as work, I mean, it's not really that bad, depending on how you do things. There are all kinds of ways to do it. ST-v-SW.Net is still rather primitive by today's standards, though it was never exactly cutting-edge. That makes it simple and secure, though.

It is, however, inconvenient. There are ways around that, but it's still a lot easier to blog or post here. In the case of the blogging, that's a ton easier because (a) I don't feel it needs to hit as high a standard of composition and (b) I don't have to do any of the layout work.

I once spent a frickin' huge amount of time on Drupal intending to use it for ST-v-SW.Net but it never materialized. In the case of NoLettersHome, I've put many, many hours into getting a good grip on MediaWiki, and back in the day I'd put a good bit of time into CMSimple. That MediaWiki time would go to good use if I Go Big.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:37 pm

There's efficiency in simplicity and clarity. A vast variety of today's most successful startups provide very intuitive and simple systems, often intertwined with web interface that provide a fluid SAAS experience.
Contrary to the vast cesspool of "news" websites today which display some of the worst cramped layouts ever seen in history, your website always went straight to the point.
HTML5 wouldn't offer any ground shaking revolution as far as your website's needs go. Perhaps a shy visual revamp might help, but I don't even think it's worth the trouble. Besides, you'd probably have a 50% chance coming up with a UI that hurts me eyes. Hits and misses, y'know.

As for CanonWars, there's definitely potential.
I'll send you a PM for that.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by 2046 » Tue Jun 10, 2014 1:47 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's efficiency in simplicity and clarity. A vast variety of today's most successful startups provide very intuitive and simple systems, often intertwined with web interface that provide a fluid SAAS experience.
Did you quote this from a marketing drone? If not, you have untapped career potential.

Also, that made me think of IFTTT.

Thank you for the other kind words, especially the notion that I get straight to the point.

(I don't hear that a lot. ;-) Obviously that refers to my web design rather than my excessively nuanced phrasings ("Darkstarese") that so many have found difficult. I recall Wong complaining about my semi-polite-but-not-at-all-really reference to a practiced liar, very possibly him, as one who engaged in persistent "terminological inexactitude". Of course, even when someone brought it to his attention that it was a Churchill-ism, and thus 'an elegantly insulting phrasing from a more civilized age', as it were, he merely complained about that instead.)

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jun 10, 2014 9:54 am

2046 wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's efficiency in simplicity and clarity. A vast variety of today's most successful startups provide very intuitive and simple systems, often intertwined with web interface that provide a fluid SAAS experience.
Did you quote this from a marketing drone? If not, you have untapped career potential.
Ha ha. Now that I read it again with clear eyes, you may be right. It was 1 am when I typed that in one single burst, my eyes were already crossing. True, it really sounds like your average template of PR pitch. :) :)
Also, that made me think of IFTTT.
Mmm... I didn't know that service. I'm not sure about its intrisic value, they don't really sell their thing well on the first page (no clear good example).
Thank you for the other kind words, especially the notion that I get straight to the point.

(I don't hear that a lot. ;-) Obviously that refers to my web design rather than my excessively nuanced phrasings ("Darkstarese") that so many have found difficult. I recall Wong complaining about my semi-polite-but-not-at-all-really reference to a practiced liar, very possibly him, as one who engaged in persistent "terminological inexactitude". Of course, even when someone brought it to his attention that it was a Churchill-ism, and thus 'an elegantly insulting phrasing from a more civilized age', as it were, he merely complained about that instead.)
Yes, your style is tad tough to get used to at first. :)
Although on the other hand, perhaps it's refreshing?
As you guessed correctly, I talked about your website's layout.
In a way it feels classic, but when you think of it, there would be no essential need to have anything else. No need for widgets nor a litany of social network buttons, even less functions that move and collapse page sections which would only make the browsing slower, etc.
Besides, you largely avoided the undoubtedly outdated nested design with sliding bars. In many ways, your website layout is almost primed for a transition to flat design with least effort.
Odd thing, but let's say that if you were to attempt to turn your entire website into a wiki, the wiki format would most likely destroy the flow of it and make it harder to navigate (wikis are in fact a mess in many ways).
At most you might want to think about a tablet/mobile friendly version and that's not even much needed. Most of the content of your webpages relies on code and text in some vintage fashion way, so that's rather widely compatible.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by Lucky » Sat Jun 14, 2014 4:59 am

2046 wrote:Yes, "The Many Torpedo Yields of the TNG TM" needs to have a page.
I find page VII to be more relevant to whether or not the Tech Manual is intended to be canon in the first place. It says from both and in and out of universe point of view that it can't be trusted to have accurate information.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by 2046 » Sun Sep 07, 2014 10:55 pm

Alright, gents, so I've decided to both go big and go home.

http://canonwars.blogspot.com/2014/09/a ... rscom.html

The tl;dr version is that I'm shutting down CanonWars.com and moving the Trek canon stuff to ST-v-SW.Net and the Wars canon stuff to NoLettersHome.Info, with permanent redirects hopefully driving traffic in those directions.

But, I am also going to preserve the CanonWars concept by way of a free Wiki page somewhere where everyone can contribute on whatever franchise of whatever genre they like. Hopefully this will evolve into a fairly hands-off thing, which should be made somewhat easier by using some wiki host rather than maintaining back-end stuff myself.

I presume this sort of thing will include Japanime, Team Edward versus Team That Other Guy, and so on, but oh well. I just think it'd be nice for someone to be able to have a place to go to find out what the hell the canon policy is for Babylon 5 or something instead of basically just having to guess, which seems to be the case now. Amateurs!

I'll probably do some invitations on Sufficient Velocity and elsewhere when the time comes . . . hopefully this will eventually include some other person running it, or even taking it over later.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:45 pm

While I knew about canonwars for it had a very clever and to the point name, I remembered hearing about NoLettersHome after reading your post. The name is as nondescript as it can get. Why keep the SW canon separate, out of a vs website (ST-v-SW.Net) where the ST canon will be found? It boggles the mind.
If anything, CanonWars should have clearly been about hot debates regarding canon, not about your views on politics and the colours of your favorite pair of socks. :|
I am therefore extremely puzzled by your odd choice of function for each one of your websites. Those with a name hugely hinting at a given activity were to be largely devoid of it, while bizarro name choices completely failed to convey anything. Now I don't have a nose in your traffic stats for NLH, but I do wonder how many people you even managed to attract to this site, say naturally, on mere SEO power alone.

Now check this out: thestarwarscanon

That is the kind of website you'd expect to go to for anything about the Star Wars canon indeed. I didn't even find your website in my search query for 'star wars canon'.

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Re: The Future of CanonWars

Post by 2046 » Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:45 am

1. True, a marketing guru such as yourself would find my choices odd. Of course, I'll be shutting down CanonWars which is currently still hosted via GoDaddy, which is itself hardly an obvious name for a hosting company.

1a. I suppose I could repurpose CanonWars and make it the SW technology site. Since NoLettersHome was named based on The Clone Wars but the concept is now rather broader in scope, this might make some sense. But, that'd also be messy as hell, and right now the main benefit to keeping CanonWars is its search rankings. As noted, Star Trek canon is the main searchable item in that regard, so turning it into a Star Wars tech site seems kind of pointless.

True, if you search for "star wars canon parallel universe" without quotes, CanonWars does at least show up on the first page. But who's gonna care about that anymore? I'm content with the idea of 301 redirecting the canon pages toward NLH and ST-v-SW.Net, respectively.

1b. I have no ads, so in the grand scheme search ranking is not especially relevant.

2. As far as I know, I never discussed politics or socks at CanonWars.

3. I could maintain a Star Wars canon thing at ST-v-SW.Net, but I'd rather not have the same thing in two places . . . hence my desire to keep SW-only stuff exclusive to NLH. Further, since the NLH concept involves some special techniques anyway, it makes sense to give it its own home.

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