Edit counts!

[lian]

Inofficial post is unofficial and curious.

I only very occasionally add stuff to Fanlore, but I used to be a heavy editer back in the day. So it idly occured to me to check my edit count: I've never done that before, but apparently it's right there under "My preferences".

Turns out my edit count is 1,208. Hmmm... honestly, I have no idea whatsoever whether that's meagre? average? creditable? (I thought it was more, tbh, seeing as I do tons of silly little typo edits etc.)


Indulge me -- what's your edit count? And how does it compare to your expectations? Any anecdotes you want to share?

Comments

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

I'm ...pretty sure most editors do it more systemtically, though ^^

Seems like you are right. Editing is easier if you have a plan. The most successful plan so far is "documenting ALL the zines!"

Other plans include: "everything Forever Knight", "everything Mary Renault" (which means that we have more pages about The Charioteer fanfiction than about Harry Potter fanfic. No, seriously. XD), and "documenting ALL Digimon doujinshi".

My personal plans include: "I ♥ Merlin/Arthur", "if it's good enough to rec, it's good enough to make a page", "Big Bangs FTW!" and of course "documenting ALL the fanfic/fanart/vid pages". ^^°

[lian]

Oh, I have plans alright ("o hai there video game cats!" "QUEST FOR SOURCES, BRB"), but editing is also easier if you're dedicated to actually keeping to the plan :P let's just say that's not exactly my personal strength...

So I absolutely commend your dedication to Plans With Cute Names! :D

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

but editing is also easier if you're dedicated to actually keeping to the plan :P let's just say that's not exactly my personal strength...

That's why I have more than one plan! I'm fickle and I need to switch between things. The trick is to break it down into small parts that make you feel accomplished (also, I have a notebook where I write down every page I make and then cross it out; that means I have pages upon pages with crossed out stuff and never more than one or two "to do" items) and relax with low energy edits when you don't feel up to more (adding the date cats does it for me XD).

[morgandawn]

My other projects(besides "Helping Mrs Potato Head 'Document ALL The Zines'" are:
*Document ALL The Conventions
*Document ALL The ALL The Vids (this plan is much more vague so it a bit harder to carry out)
*Document Virgule-L (the first slash mailing list) - which includes cherry picking interesting conversations and getting permission to summarize/quote with attribution

and my personal favorite....
*Document ALL the Supernatural Big Bangs.

But you're right....with so much to document and only one slightly battered editor, some of these projects will stretch over years

[onceamy]

I'm terrible at plans. Though one plan that I feel has been successful is for me to document things as they happen in areas I care about or see a lot of. The lack of Tumblr sites is another area I'd like to have more brains to document.

Still working on getting Fanlore's name out though and every article helps with that.

And of course there's always my pro wrestling page filled with redlinks that I could fill in

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

Though one plan that I feel has been successful is for me to document things as they happen in areas I care about or see a lot of.

That's a good plan. :)

The lack of Tumblr sites is another area I'd like to have more brains to document.

Just making short pages with the name, link, general description and a screencap is usually enough. The more pages you make, the more stuff turns up that you can add to the other pages you've made.

[onceamy]

I never even thought of screencapping -- I am going to own at documenting the Texts From Last Night stuff that I have bookmarked now :)

Yes, documenting the big events in your fandom -- even if it's just a stub of links that somebody can click on (however I notice Webcite is not working well, so this makes me worry for link rot) is definitely helpful.

[morgandawn]

I am hoping that WebCite will be back online soon (I'll give it a week after Labor Day). I've decided that I need to link to the actual page, with WebCite as a backup (I had been lazy and was only using WebCite for unstable pages - now I'll use both).

I am going to test Zotero today as a means of organizing snapshots of webpages.
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/lls/choose_citation_mgr.html

[(Anonymous)]

I think that's an important thing to remember; EVERY article is important.

Here's three reasons:

1) it adds content to which fans can add, making the article that much more complete
2) it adds content to which fans can link, making existing articles that much richer
3) it adds content, which, and as awils1 comments, gets Fanlore's name out and encourages the first two

Never, never feel that a page or an edit is too small; I can't even begin to count how many times I've added the very barest mention of a fanwork, only to come back later with many more details, or hooked up information to pages that the original creator may have made thinking, 'Oh, this is so trivial or small..." They're all pieces of the puzzle, and every little bit helps tell the stories.

MPH