[Scribe, etc.] March-April 2020 update

[GV]

The March 2020 and April 2020 Clarks have been scribed.  Many apologies for the delay re March.  Quarantine-brain.

No meaningful work on the Clarkives I can report on this update...

A lot of random stuff this month - the quarantine has allowed me to work on a lot of nagging Talossan projects.

Date of publication of this update: 4 May 2020

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As I write this, I am have the names-translations into Talossa done for all know extant editions of Àr Päts: the new 2003 Comprehensive Edition, the 2004 Edition, the 2005 Edition, and the 2008 Free Edition.

For Talossan scholarship and historical preservation, this is a major milestone-project now nearly completed.

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proposed Royal Archives classifications as of 27 April 2020

Public: those items vetted for Talossan-language names and online-friendly - This stuff goes into the Talossan Public Archives.

Secret: Everything going to the Public Archives as well as urtexts of everything.  Such urtexts (officially deisgnated or not) are in the original language of their writing in all respects, including the use of original-language names.  These urtexts are never to be made publicly available by any means, including online presentation.

Compartmentalized: There are a few documents, all in my possession afaik, which contain personal information too sensitive for even the Secret Archives.  These items are meant for as few people as possible and only for those eyes which need to see them.

Knowledge of their existence, a general summary of their contents, and as well as those individuals who need direct access to them remain with the Royal Archivist, Monarch, and Prime Minister.

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As previously announced libraryoftalossa.com now redirects to http://wiki.talossa.com/TalossaWiki:Library

The Library of Talossa is an organ of the Talossan Royal Archives, but it is also a depository for the Scribe of Abbavilla.

As always, I must and do stress work on the Library of Talossa is ongoing - a forever-project.

A major decision having been made, however, is to do what I think people previously have intended to do with the Wiki Library / Library of Talossa and use the Dewey Decimal System.  I had thought of classifying the J**nakiv completely separate from everything else (even the 900 section for History), but that would be a bit janky.  JJ's stuff will be physically stored separate from other things, but will be classified as everything else will be per Dewey.

As to the precise 'edition' of the Dewey system I will use, that is up in the air, as once I start putting together call number classifications, I do not intend to change them.  Therefore, once I start classifying documents, the Dewey 'edition' used for the Royal Archives will be 'locked-in' for a very long time with little or no respect to future editions unless a transcendent new classification paradigm is thought up in Dewey circles.

This will necessitate a complete eventual reworking of the Library of Talossa Wiki page - LOL.

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ARCHIVING WITT XIV

The protocol outlined in last month's update is going well.  As of the date of this update being published, the Royal Archives has yet to extract from these archives the secret private-messages which keep these files from being made public.

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ROYAL ARCHIVES WHITE PAPER

The Royal Archives White Paper is currently outdated, and I am currently strongly considering chucking it altogether in favor of keeping and updating that information directly on the Wiki.

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CURRENT PROJECTS

DONE 1. Creation of an archive of all extant Witt VIII combined with the 2002-2003 PM archives of GV, Mximo, and XConâ
DONE 2. PM / Witt VIII archives in the new edition of the Water Street Codex
DONE 3. Catching up with the TalossaWiki Digest of Laws

IN PROGRESS 4. Clarkives primary sources list
IN PROGRESS 5. Witt XI archiving

This past month, I completed the first pass-through of getting .html 'single-file' archives for all 13897 Wittenberg XI threads.  This past month saw the full closure of that Witt, and the thread-count forever ends at 13897 with Alexander Davïnescu making the final post and (presumably) 'flipping the switch', closing off the ability to reply to threads.  Glüc (I believe) had a few weeks prior turned off the ability to make new threads.

This month has also seen the reorganization of the Wittenberg XI archives on my local machine.  Currently, iCloud archives this stuff to the cloud, but uploading to GoogleDrive and other platforms will be forthcoming.  Uploading all this data (gigs upon gigs) will be a real pain, but it needs to get done, and eventually it will be.

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As for the CLARKIVES, I have come to realize that is a project that builds on primary source documents and is not a primary source in and of itself.  Therefore, in my mind, that can be put onto a back-burner for now, but I know it's one that needs to be done sooner rather than later.

My focus as Archvist right now needs and must be the collecting of primary-source documents.  I will soon work on creating a policy as to how the Royal Archives classifies a document as 'primary' or 'secondary' source.


OTHER PROJECTS status:

Of course, all of these are in concert with the 42 Project.

CANCELLED - Library on Wiki now Library of Talossa.  The old project was... 1. Sync Wiki Library with the Library of Talossa...

...into the Library of Talossa on GoogleDrive and the Library of Talossa on the TalossaWiki - This will mean keeping two iterations of the Library of Talossa.  Redirect libraryoftalossa.com to the Wiki and on the Wiki, put a link to the GoogleDrive. 

See also if I can put a link from the GoogleDrive to the Wiki.

2. Clarkives continue to be a work in progress, but the archives of the GV, MPC, and XC PMships from 2002-2003 has been made independent of the Clarkives - a huge step toward the  eventual completion of the Clarkives

3. A fully-fleshed-out academic census of all extant editions of Àr Päts with the creation of talossan-name translations for all of these. - I need only to complete my part of making new online editions, and the world will see this work once more.

DONE 4. A final census and vetted talossan-name translation for the Big History (1992 edition, last corrected in 1994) - 2nd only to the GV et al PMship archives, this was the most tedious Talossan project I have ever done.

The results of that labor will soon see the light of day in the Library.

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My chief Talossan goal for the quarantine has been the completion of the combined Witt VIII extant / PM GV, MPC, & XC 2002-2003 PM archive, known as the 2nd Edition of the Water Street Codex.  To wrap my brain around the utter tedium and exact nature of this project required oodles of unbroken time.

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The quarantine, at least for my Talossan life, continues to be incredibly productive with a number of really nagging projects getting done at last...  Compared to where I was even a year ago, I am astonished with how much I've been able to get done with Danihél's help with the name-translations.

Many thanks, all!

GV, Scribe etc.

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Talossa Database System (administered and created by MPF)
www.talossa.ca

http://wiki.talossa.com/Organic_Law

El Lexhatx
http://wiki.talossa.com/Law:El_Lexhatx

The Library of TAlossa aka the Talossan Public Archives on the TalossaWiki
http://www.libraryoftalossa.com

The 42 Project
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UzbMyC8EOgg8J85rIZEY5C44z3Pqbj70dB2UMmZ9OW4/edit?usp=sharing

The Talossan Royal Archives White Paper (currently outdated) - everything you ever wanted to know about the Talossan Royal Archives
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P7szJDxaLlRMNY6FMIZjHkufj1tAcA2kZZvV8jqvyzs/edit?usp=sharing

<end of update>

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Is it possible you could stop leaving the same notes repeatedly on the Digest of Laws?  It's insane to keep noting every month that the database is the primary source, or keep noting who the monarch is.  That's not actually useful information for anyone looking at the laws, and it makes it harder to look through the actual laws, and it makes the page way longer (and it's already a long page) for no reason, and you're just making more work for yourself.  I did it myself but had to roll it back, since I'm legally not allowed.  It's entirely your call what to do, but I just don't understand this.

Here is an edit with that stuff removed, to save you the trouble if you decide to go with my recommendation.  There's just the information that people come to the page for, neatly organized and presented: http://wiki.talossa.com/index.php?title=Digest_of_Laws&oldid=27246

If you want to be recognized for your work, maybe I could write a bill and get someone to sponsor it that will do the job?  Give you some special award or something?  The Wonderful Award for GV as Thanks for Amazing Dedication from a Great Talossan?  You certainly have done a ton and deserve it.

[GV]

I surrender.  ;-)  lol - Thanks for your Wiki revisions.

As for 'awards', I don't give a d*** about stuff like that.  The Senäts award was very nice, but I didn't need it.

There are two things I care about, the chief of which is people responding in droves to the call-for-minions that will go out in the fullness of time - probably this week.  The other thing is when I put up 'updates' to the private Talossan Royal Archives Staff FB group, people give me their thoughts and ideas. 

Everything I've done in the past two years has been stuff no-one else could do to suit me and stuff working with digital and physical archives only I can make sense of.  I am still very much in the throes of stuff like that, and the project I'm working on this week is 2400dpi scanning L'Anuntziâ from the original copies Ben gave me in 2002 (or 2003??).  My flatbed scanner is incredibly slow with 2400dpi, but it's a workhorse, and some of these pages are such with tiny fonts and faint typing I need all the scanning power I can get.

One thing I will put the word out about this week is the need for a full listing of primary source URLs for all post 1 June 2004 PDs, election results, hopper threads, Cosâ voting threads, talossa.ca pages, etc., etc, for each and every Clark.  Once that is done, I will put together a standard for creating Clarkives for all of these, delegating that task off to many, many minions.  I can deal with pre-1 June 2004 Clarks for now.

Thanks so much, Alexander!