Our Ages and the Guild of Archivists

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Over at the Guild of Archivists forums, I posited the question whether explorer-created ages would receive their own entries among their vast age archivie. Alahmnat had responded with a proposal on how these ages would be categorized; click the link below to see the discussion thread:

http://www.dpwr.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5416

Please chime in with your comments on the proposal. Since Cyan has appointed the GoA as the keepers of Canon, it is important that we provide our opinions on their archiving methods for our ages.

[pappou]

There is much wisdom in this, Robert ReBar.
Thanks for encouraging the debate.

It is a matter of The Categories, and the Architists are specialists at this sort of thing. Problem is, the Problem of the Categories is never solved. Alahmnat wisely sees it as needing the give-and-take of much discussion, and while discussion alone is not likely to solve these difficult category decisions, it should broaden the Archivists' understanding of how certain categories are perceived.

Thank you again for opening this up in GoW. Please keep at it. The problem requires much insight from folks like you, Kato, JoJon and others in the GoW.

[Dot]

Thanks, Robert, for the heads-up. I've joined in with the discussion over there, since it could have links with the FCAL process that Cyan has asked our three Guilds of Writers, Maintainers and Archivists to think about.

[GregW11]

Robert, are there fan-created Ages there too, or just "official" Cyan Ages? (I gave up clicking every link after the first page.)

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Currently there are no fan created ages in the archive. That's what had prompted me to pose the question, since MORE will be incorporating our ages.

The discussion topic presented Alahmnat's proposed method of categorizing the fan created ages, depending on whether they've received a FCAL. So, if you have a moment, please give him feedback on this method.

Thanks!

[Montgomery]

I'll visit and respond over there, too. But briefly I think we had in mind a Guild of Maintaners Book of Commentaries -- based on the historic precendent -- where our Inspection teams would pen entries into this book from our perpective based on our inspections and input from the Writer. This book would be publicly available. With the official formation of the Guild of Archivists, it's only natural for the Book of Commentaries to reside among the Archives. This would give all FCA it's own "shelf" within the Archives, but within that shelf the categories could be anything.

[Chacal]

I'll post over there too. Basically the idea of limiting archiving to those Ages that have received an FCAL is wrong. Archiving is one thing, legalities are another. If you ask any professional librarian, there are existing guidelines about what is worthy of archiving and what should be pruned, and it isn't based on legalities.

Decision to archive or not depends on the stated purpose and scope of the archive.
Under that light, limiting archiving to those Ages that have been accepted into MORE would is right if there is a conscious decision to limit the archive to canon material, otherwise it is wrong.