The History of NESing

[The Strategos]

Certain members qualities recommend themselves as planners: Dachspmg, jalapeño_dude and Symphony. Other possibilities include The_Strategos or Perfectionist.

Since my name was mentioned, I'll go ahead and say I am:

1) Working six days a week at 10+ hours a day
2) Working on a Religion Guide (approximately 75% completed)
3) Working on an alt-history
4) Working on my master's thesis (table of contents, two page abstract, and bibliography due August 13th)
5) NESing
6) Other assorted activities of leisure

So without dropping one of those I have no time and I don't see this as worth my time enough to drop any of them. Now my schedule will clear up some in a month, but knowing this forum, in a month this project will either be finished or dead.


That said, if there is someone who does wish to spend their time on this, please, please, make sure it is a history and not a panegyric. There is enough of the second as it is on this forum, we do not need more.

 

[human-slaughter]

I would be interested in seeing a timeline. Probably would help somewhat with the historical part. Like with starts of big/popular/ingenious NESes and maybe peoples join dates who are still around/active/contributed much to the community.

 

[Thlayli]

I don't see this project being a massive time drain, because unlike most NESes, it has a definite endpoint and a clear, finite timeline.

On Dachs' point, I also view this project as being complimentary to the NESing Wiki, since material from the History can subsequently form the basis for countless Wiki articles, just as the Encyclopedia Britannica is the primary source for so many Wikipedia articles.

It is in the best interest of Wiki supporters to simply kill two birds with one stone, providing new material for this project which can then be Wiki'ed, or vice versa.

 

[Dachs]

perhaps we should vote on the people who wish to do this.

Voting works oh so well on this forum, certainly. The ability to manage people effectively isn't a popularity contest. But whatever, maybe we'll muddle through that way.

I don't see this project being a massive time drain, because unlike most NESes, it has a definite endpoint.

Sounds kinda contrary to the OP, when you mentioned that 'certain members of the community' having to volunteer significant portions of their time. And by its very nature it doesn't have an endpoint, because it's a history. (Unless you like to make bad predictions like Fukuyama and say that history is over, I assume that we'll do something noteworthy in the future that will require addition to this monolith.)

On Dachs' point, I also view this project as being complimentary to the NESing Wiki, since material from the History can subsequently form the basis for countless Wiki articles, just as the Encyclopedia Britannica is the primary source for so many Wikipedia articles.

But the Wiki is dead. (Long live the Wiki! ) My actual point was that I don't see how you will have any more of an incentive for people to work for this than they had for the Wiki. Of course, were either one completed, the two would be complementary (the French seems to have addled your ability to spell in English ), but my main issue with the project, other than a diversion of resources, is that it will have the same difficulty getting people to do work that the Wiki did. We did get some good (if prolix ) results when people actually did feel the need to edit the Wiki - the partially completed NES2 V page is good proof of that, where we got a cool graphic, a quasistandardized 'battlebox' for quickie NES statistics, and a helluva lot of material - but that obviously didn't happen for most NESes. Or even some NESes. People didn't even really edit their own player pages, for crying out loud.

So yeah, in short: why would waxing nostalgic (or writing a teaching tool, whatever you want to call this project) about past NESes in a 'History of NESing' form draw more effort than waxing nostalgic (or whatever) about them on the Wiki? I don't want to devote any more of my effort to something that isn't going to be supported until the bitter end.

 

[Thlayli]

IRC channel is go for meetings, after August 18. And assuming I find a planning/editing committee by then. >_>

First off, this is a history. It isn't going anywhere, so there are no deadlines to meet except our own. But NK is correct. We need to get a general outline of NESing history, a rough timeline on which to work.

But even before that, we have to define the scope of the project, and its' aims.

What is our goal? To chronicle the first 5 years of NESing history.

Why? To preserve the formative events of our community, in order to improve future games and educate future players. And to recognize without judgement that which made NESing what it is and shall be.

What is to be avoided? A catalogue of specific events within NESes, a biography of any one or specific player histories, a forum for expressing personal opinions on trends or events within NESing history.

How will this history be organized? To be decided. Development of trends within NESing (rulesets, game types, etc.) in light of specific player/moderator contributions to feature crucially. Some type of chronological format will likely be adapted, specifics pending further discussion.

---

Edit: I think the French do use an 'e' there. My Anglais has been getting a little rusty. And yes, you have full bitter end promises from me, an incoming history major who's already done/going to do a kabillion of these projects with OTL history; one more won't cut to the quick.

 

[Daftpanzer]

I don't see the point in labelling the wiki 'dead'. I propose: it will recieve as much attention as people want to give it, and there's no point either shutting down or expecting more from people. I suspect the wiki will slowly work its way into things here, give or take another few years

It is in the best interest of Wiki supporters to simply kill two birds with one stone, providing new material for this project which can then be Wiki'ed, or vice versa.

I wish to express my support for this.

 

[Terrance888]

You forgot

WHO?

And I'll say, Me.

Of course, tomarrow is busy playing with my best friend but I would Love to take the time off to look at old NESes. Find first appearances and other things.

I think we should get a timeline.

With a Horizontal Bars. The NES Name will be in the bar and will have important times marked including discussion, start, updates, and end.

So JalNES would be Start: about a month ago. Updates? Measured by perhaps pluses. Ending? Not yet. Then, you can click an update Plus mark (with a number?) And read the update. Click the Name and arrive at the beginning. We can start With a timeline for the First NESes with perhaps a few important dates.

Will need someone with a graphing program and I don't have one. However, I will happily study it and write up an non-biased report and players/roles.


Starting: Random from the Last Page. Less than 20 Pages.


Starting with Skilord's NES...

Wow... I almost can't ****** **** ** ************!

 

[Thlayli]

Thanks Daft.

Uh, okay Charles. If you really want something productive to do, go catalogue all the surviving maps from each stJNES update, in chronological order, separated by NES, and save them all in a word document. If you can do that successfully, I'll take your suggestions seriously. If not, I'll be forced to conclude your attention span slightly too short to participate. Okay?

 

[Terrance888]

All stJNES? Well...

Hell to real Life. This Is NESING!


EDIT: 5 pages...

"Sanity is sending you a message sir!"

"Dam sanity! Charge!"

(also, does it have to be word? I don't know how to get online pics onto word.)

 

[Dachs]

(also, does it have to be word? I don't know how to get online pics onto word.)

You'd have to use the print-screen button. Couldn't he at least make a slideshow or something? Word docs full of images are...kinda dumb.

 

[Jason The King]

Why is he doing that anyways? We don't have any kind of structure defined yet.

 

[Dachs]

Why is he doing that anyways? We don't have any kind of structure defined yet.

Huh...yeah...doesn't seem quite necessary to do it, and certainly not in that way. Word docs full of images would seem to be almost prohibitively large, too. It's almost...almost...as if it's a thinly veiled version of a snipe hunt!

 

[Thlayli]

Charles wants to help, so testing him out as an information gatherer will determine whether or not he can be relied on during the development of the project. And a word doc filled with organized links to images would work just fine, if Charles can handle that.

Anyway, the whole 'legendary NESes' thing is a little overdone, but we should definitely put together a list of turning points, listing NESes, like LINESII as the standard example, and a quick notation of the concepts that it introduced or popularized (the random map fresh start and/or shaded cradle) and subsequent NESes that drew on this (multiple shaded cradles in BirdNES) until it became a polished, accepted standard (End of Empires, for example).

The economic center and its derivatives, accelerated timescales (like the BT) and derivatives, the introduction, innovation, and eventual universal acceptance of individually introduced concepts and their collective impact on NESing's 'way of life,' like update and order length and complexity, will probably feature centrally.

 

[Terrance888]

I have a better Idea.

I will salvage those I get into Image Shack Slide Show. Then you can use it if you want with labels.

"Sanity has an Idea!"

"Dam s... Wait? What Idea?"

"Instead of Wording it Slide Showing it with Title slides and descriptions!"

"Excellent! However, me troops need sleep, will see sanity tomarrow!"

Please tell me your idea. I kinda like slide showing it with titles for different NESes and a link. Then description for important pics.

currantly doing provinces and finding no Jason Pics.

 

[Symphony D.]

Charles wants to help, so testing him out as an information gatherer will determine whether or not he can be relied on during the development of the project. And a word doc filled with organized links to images would work just fine, if Charles can handle that.

...

What is to be avoided? A catalogue of specific events within NESes, a biography of any one or specific player histories, a forum for expressing personal opinions on trends or events within NESing history.

You know, I said I wouldn't interfere, but I'd have been harangued at least twice by now for doing a similar such thing, so I feel compelled to intervene. You just got done saying you weren't interested in particular NESes, so you send Charles off to "test" him by compiling a useless document full of stuff that falls under the list of things you've said you wouldn't use?

It's called a wild goose chase, and you're doing it to get rid of him. Even I had the decency to try and encourage people at first in my programs, Thlayli.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

NK and Thlayli, if you have all this free time why aren't you continuing PureNES?

That being said, I'm not willing to commit to a big project at the moment: college will drastically change my time commitments, and I'm not sure yet if I'll have more or less time for NESing. I also agree with the comments of others expressing doubt about whether the project can actually be sustained. But if it by some miracle can, you'll probably get some input from me.

 

[North King]

NK and Thlayli, if you have all this free time why aren't you continuing PureNES?

How am I included? I haven't talked with Thlayli in weeks, I didn't propose this.

That being said, I'm not willing to commit to a big project at the moment: college will drastically change my time commitments, and I'm not sure yet if I'll have more or less time for NESing. I also agree with the comments of others expressing doubt about whether the project can actually be sustained. But if it by some miracle can, you'll probably get some input from me.

That's more or less the same situation I'm in.

 

[silver 2039]

Why don't you spend time opening some actual NES's instead of rooting through corpses?

Anyway I don't see the purpose this serves at all.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I might be able to contribute, but I'm kind of focused on finishing my LINESII update.

 

[Thlayli]

Okay, first off, Symphony. I already asked you to stop contributing 'comments' if you weren't interested in the project. Second, you couldn't possibly see a use for cataloguing all of the stJNES maps, such as examining the development of the standard 'Jason map' and early mapping techniques in general? No, let's rush to assume I'm getting rid of Charles. And I only wanted a list of working links to begin with, not exactly an impossible task.

I'm putting all other projects and NESes on hold, with the exception of LINESII, to coordinate this effort. Since it's technically my brainchild, I might as well assume the editor-in-chief position.

As for criticizing the purpose of history in and of itself, isn't that kind of what we DO here? What is a NES if not a collectively created history, guided by a moderator? The sum total of the histories created so far, the story of our forum, deserves retelling, at least so future NESers aren't born into a vacuum.

With that in mind, we have both primary and secondary source material to work with. The former consists of orders, stories, updates, maps and the like. The latter consists of summaries and guides, such as the NESing Wiki and the NESing Guide.

At the least, I would need one person (hopefully a consistent Wiki supporter) to collect relevant data from the secondary sources, and one or two people (hopefully forum members active for at least 2-3 years) to serve as consistent researchers.

Anyone is free to write individual articles on subjects that interest them (like the rise of the fresh start, the changing influence of stories, etc.) that will then be edited and incorporated into the history, with personal recognition.