Archive 2009
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Company-Conventions-Stores-Ideas: About the Company:
Dear Jean: Webmom:
Archive 2009
Jean, is there some sort of alphabetizing rules somewhere? Library standard or some such? Do you have a link? Thanks in advance.
Shawn, there are indeed alphabetizing rules. The rules are not standardized.
Basically you can pick and choose one rule from the following pairs:
1A. You can put things in order letter by letter and count the spaces as a letter with "nothing (a space) coming before something".
1B. You can put things in order letter by letter and not count the spaces as a letter.
These rules produce the following lists:
1A. absolute, absolute humidity, absolute zero, absolutely, absolutes
1B. absolute, absolute humidity, absolutely, absolutes, absolute zero.
++
2A. Do not spell out numbers. Put them in numerical order. Numbers come before letters.
2B. Spell out numbers and use the wording that is meant.
This would produce the following lists
2A1. 4 dogs I have loved
2A2. 1492, the voyages of Columbus
2A3. 1492 things to do with an SSD
2A4. Four tables of F&E, or, Blowing things up with gusto!
2A5. One big mistake I made at Origins
2B1. 4 dogs I have loved
2B2. Four tables of F&E, or, Blowing things up with gusto!
2B3. 1492, the voyages of Columbus (Fourteen ninety-two)
2B4. One big mistake I made at Origins
2B5. 1492 things to do with an SSD (One thousand, four hundred ninety-two)
2B is quickly fading as machines are used to do alphabetizing.
Please note that "filing rules" for libraries can be quite different. There, punctuation, status, dates, etc. can all trigger different rules. Both the American Library Association and Library of Congress have entirely different rules (and these are covered in small books!)
Does that help at all?
Or you could just arrange your books the way I do...
Thickest to thinnest... and if there's a question, digital calipers can usually resolve the confict and if not, then the conflict is resolved thusly:
tallest goes before the shortest...
color of the spine, in ROYGBIV sequence...
chrononlogically by date of initial publication...
if conflict still exists, throw one away!
Jean, yes it helps because now I know I am not crazy :+), I now see that there are different systems which account for the different ways the lists come out, now to pick one system.
Tony, That works good for binders and books, but when all the cards are the same thickness....throw all of them away?
hmmm... ships by number and then height of warp nacelles?
On... I didn't realize you menat Fed Comm cards.
Those are even easier.
Organized by SFB R section (1.0 for generics, 2.0 for Federation, 3.0 for Klingons, etc)
then alphabetically by SFB abbreviated nomenclature...
(although... I must admit, the Hydrans get shuffled to the back of the stack... just because)
fc cards have a number in the lower corner, I meant Starline 2400 ships :+)
Jean, I often see the complaint on the BBS that "reports are not formated correctly" is there an article somewhere on formating reports correctly or instructions for I am not seeing somewhere? Was it an input guide in CL I am forgetting?
Shawn, this is an example of a correctly formatted report:
FED GVX - Missing Scout Diamond - Ryan Opel, 15 Nov 07
It identifies where the problem is, what the problem is, who you are, and the date.
My reports may look like this:
(OR02.F13) I think there needs to be a space between TACHYON and FIGHTER. Jean Sexton 7 May 2008
When you format your report like that, then SVC and Petrick can easily sort the reports to be in order and not have to jump all over fixing this thing here and that thing there.
Does that answer your question?
Do you have to put in something about which product?
Shawn,
Usually, when a report is posted, the product is implicitly obvious. For example, when posting an after action report item in the CL40 topic, the product being discussed is obviously CL40. And, when posting a report, the reports will almost always be posted in a context defining topic.
However, if a report item is ever given in an ambiguous setting, then, yes, identifying the product is a good idea.
ahh, that makes sense then.
CL #23, pg22 has some good info on how to submit a scenario.
Getting Odd Characters in URLs to Work
Sometimes, when you put up a URL, you will notice in the preview that something is hanging off the end and looks like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27074773@N02/4120273453
Notice the "@" is where the URL stops.
That is a sign and a signal that there is an issue and you have a special character in your URL.
If you want the URL to work correctly you have to do the following.
Use the following chart: http://www.asciitable.com/
Look down the Chr column until you find the offending character (in this case, the "@"). Find the corresponding code in the Dec column. In this case it is 64.
You have to use the command \ char { 64 } (with no spaces if you want it to work right) where there is the @ in the URL.
Then you will get a URL that looks like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27074773@N02/4120273453
You will notice this one works.
This took me a good chunk of time to work out. Since it did (and I don't want to reinvent the wheel later), I'm adding the information here where it won't get aged out.
Guys. please do me a favor and don't post a direct link to Current ADB News on websites that bots and spiders can find. They invariably come and try to post and then SVC gets nasty calls from our host.
The moment a bot finds it and tries to post, I end up with a lot of work. I have to create a new topic, named something like Current ADB News 2, so I can tell it apart from the original. I have to set it up to mirror the other one (you can post, you can see messages, and you can see the "About Message"). I have to create the new "About Message". I have to transfer all the archived messages into the new topic. I have to transfer all the current messages into the new topic. I have to delete the old topic. I have to rename the new topic. Finally, I have to put the new topic back where the old one used to be.
The result is transparent to you, the user, unless you happen to see the work in progress and wonder, "What in the world is going on?" The end result is the link that led the bot or spider here doesn't work anymore and I've just spent half an hour fixing the problem. This time, it was half an hour delay to all my reports and reminders to the Steves.
If you want to post a link. post it to the "About the company" level and tell them to pick "Current ADB News". On that level, the bots or spiders don't have a place to post and they get frustrated and go home. 
Frustrated bots make Jean a happy camper!
Thanks for your cooperation.