White Sand

[Dragon314]

You may want to add a white sand forum for the upcoming graphic novel and for those who have the Word document from brandon

[Left]

You may want to add a white sand forum for the upcoming graphic novel and for those who have the Word document from brandon

They're planning to, since it doesn't come out till this summer I think they're gonna wait a couple more months.

[Titan Arum]

I also have a feeling that they don't want people talking about what is in the prose version since it is still unpublished. If they open a forum up to it now, it may get inundated with that type of usage or speculation of how things will differ, which may spoil things for people who have not yet read the unpublished prose version. 

 

I'd say that if you want to talk about what may or may not be in the upcoming graphic novel version and you've read the prose version, ask to join the private discussion about White Sand. However...the chat may have hit the ceiling for the number of people who can participate. 

[Chaos]

Honestly, we have wanted to make such forums, but there are two factors in my mind.

The first thing is how do we close off access to unpublished works if people don't have the book? I don't want them spoiled. Having a password might be the way but then we have to send it out to people manually. Not ideal.

More pressing to White Sand is how would you segregate discussion of the prose version versus the graphic novel? There will be differences between the two (they will surely not be the same). At the same time, the prose version is relevant to discuss. I am not sure how the split should go.

I would like to steer this topic towards suggestions regarding how to do this. Our internal discussions have not led to ideal solutions. There may not be an ideal solution. But since we have to figure this out fairly rapidly, let's have this be that discussion topic. Obviously we require a White Sand forum.

[Pagerunner]

Chaos, I think the first issue you raised is somewhat self-defeating. You want to retain control over who has access, yet you also want to avoid manually controlling the access through use of a password. I don't think there is a way to confirm that someone has the book without case-by-case verification. Agreed, it's not ideal, since it would require someone to be a point-of-contact to add people to a group, which is what the current situation is with the White Sand PM thread. But I don't think we can have our cake and eat it, too, unless you would be satisfied having a pop-up that warns anyone entering the forum that there are crazy spoilers and unpublished info. (With an option for signed-in members to permanently dismiss it, maybe?) But I think it makes sense to want tighter control than that.

 

Is it possible to create a sub-forum that is not linked to anywhere else, and does not show up in the Recent Topics ticker (like the Introduce Yourself! sub-forum)? It would technically exist on the site, but the only way to get at it would be through having the direct link. (Or Googling it, I guess. Unless you are able to hide results from Google, too? I don't know much about these kinds of things.) A pinned post in Cosmere Theories could include who to contact to get access, and that mod could verify that requestors have received the unpublished book and are aware of the risks. But I don't know how complicated that gets, compared to a password-protected part of the site.

 

As far as naming the forum to distinguish the graphic novel from the unpublished version... it might be time for a White Sand forum for the graphic novel content only, with the secret Unpublished Works forum to discuss the prose version, along with Aether and Liar (since some parts of Aether were put into Liar.) Heck, I'd probably post a topic about Mythwalker. (My particular issue is that I've read Aether, but I'm intentionally not requesting White Sand, because I think it will be a more rewarding experience for reading the graphic novel. So, even in an unpublished works forum, I'd still have to tread carefully to avoid White Sand spoilers. But I may be an oddball in that regard, and would glady take that responsibility on my own head to talk about Aether.)

 

But no matter how you slice it, once a sub-forum is made for the White Sand graphic novel, it will be a challenge to keep prose spoilers out of it. Take Secret History as an example - how many topics had to get renamed and moved? It seemed like it was at least one a day. For White Sand, it's just the nature of how this book has been distributed; it's a unique case, how the full text is available upon request, but the version in stores only goes a third of the way through for now. It will present unique challenges, regardless of what is or is not done in terms of an Unpublished Works sub-forum. Once all three graphic novels have been released, the prose version could be discussed in the forums the same way Final Empire Prime or Mistborn Prime are (a.k.a., not at all). Until then, I think you should definitely limit the White Sand forum to the graphic novel.

 

So, to summarize:

• You're not gonna get better than a password-protected subforum, or something in that vein, without losing control over access.
• Don't let prose discussion in the graphic novel forum until the adaptations have all been released, regardless of whether or not there will be a forum to discuss White Sand Prime.

[Meg]

Did Mr. Sanderson give any hint whether he would allow discussion about the prose version after the graphic version is released (the first part)? I've to admit that as of yet I didn't think about differences.

A compromise might be that on the upcoming White Sand forum a spoiler requirement is stipulated as in "everything regarding the prose novel is to put in spoiler tags". I honestly don't think it viable to indicate the prose novel readers to private messages when the graphic novel is released. Also I can imagine that one would unconsciously type a post without thinking of where the source comes from (prose or graphic). Spoiler requirements shall be easier to be enforced than full prohibition.

If any discussion about the prose version will be prohibited after the release of the graphic novel, I really don't have an idea aside from intense moderating.

[Pechvarry]

If you wanted a closed White Sands discussion forum, you could always require things like "complete this sentence:" since anyone with a copy of white sands has an electronic (and thus searchable) version.  

 

That said, I'd just as well not see such a forum with the graphic novel around the corner.

 

As for how to separate discussion about the prose vs graphic novel?  Don't discuss the prose novel until we're completely caught up with the graphic novel.  That's my vote.

[Chaos]

But no matter how you slice it, once a sub-forum is made for the White Sand graphic novel, it will be a challenge to keep prose spoilers out of it. Take Secret History as an example - how many topics had to get renamed and moved? It seemed like it was at least one a day.

I should have been much better about centralizing discussion, but yes, we did need to focus on tagging things properly.

Is it possible to create a sub-forum that is not linked to anywhere else, and does not show up in the Recent Topics ticker (like the Introduce Yourself! sub-forum)?

Like the Introduce Yourself subforum? There isn't a subforum for that? It is my impression that if you have the permissions set to be able to view a topic, you will see the topic in the Recent Topics list. We have a few different permission masks--staff have a Staff Board where we discuss things, and you don't see those in the topic ticker--but we've wanted the site to be quite egalitarian. If it's public knowledge, it should be discussable. The unpublished works are difficult because you can receive them, but not in the way that you can buy or download or distribute it freely.

So I mean, obviously I can set up a system of restricted access, but it is implementing restrictions in a way that people don't get spoiled, and also, so people without the manuscript don't get angry at people who do have the manuscript. There is a subset of people that are extremely angry that some people (like me, for example) are a beta reader, and we make a point to not even mention it. You'd only know that in the book itself, our review (which make it obvious someone has an early copy), or I guess if you directly ask me. Like, people genuinely get upset. The forum for unpublished stuff has to be separate and not directly accessible from the general populace, because people will be angry that these people have this thing and they don't. Though it is relatively easy to get White Sand, it's not the same as, say, the Liar of Partinel sample chapters. The people getting angry do have a point, though.

The forum would need to be restricted, and so if not using permission mask trickery, it'd probably be a password. I imagine the complete the sentence idea is very, very good and is the simplest.

I don't think we'd unpassword it, ever, unless the full manuscript is actually distributed by Brandon.

Did Mr. Sanderson give any hint whether he would allow discussion about the prose version after the graphic version is released (the first part)? I've to admit that as of yet I didn't think about differences.

We have permission to allow discussion of the prose version, as well as for another thing (thanks Peter!). It is the implementation of doing it correctly that is difficult.

This matter is further difficult because we only get portions of the graphic novel at a time, instead of everything. That means there will be inherent segregation in that people who have read the prose version know the ending (though the graphic novel ending is a revised version of the prose).

So I guess that kind of settles my thoughts. It has to be two separate boards. I am thinking there will be a Taldain/White Sand board that is the public board, much like the main Mistborn board. No prose spoilers there. Then, in a subforum, there would be the passworded White Sand prose version board. Does that seem reasonable? I guess I was making it harder than it seems. No overlap will need to suffice.

Our initial idea was to have an Unpublished Cosmere Works forum containing White Sand and the other manuscript you can get from Team Sanderson, but Taldain is actually a real thing, so we'll place the White Sand prose subforum in the Taldain forum.

[Young Bard]

If you're thinking of adding a password lock, could you just ask Brandon to add it to the beginning/end of the Aether script, so that anyone who receives it will get it? Then you can announce it in the PM thread. The only people who wouldn't have access to it that have read it are people who have read it but haven't joined the thread yet, and there will be few enough of them that you can PM them with the password manually.

 

I said Aether because the graphic novel makes it more difficult with Sand. I don't really know how that will work.

[Ookla the Absent]

Yeah, but I got Aether but not White Sands (not for want of asking...) so not sure that would help...

[Stormgate]

Yeah, but I got Aether but not White Sands (not for want of asking...) so not sure that would help...

The system isn't perfect. If you reply to the e-mail where you got Aether informing them that you didn't get White Sand, you should receive it quickly.

[Haelbarde]

Is the prose version ever likely to become more readily available, once the Graphic Novel is released? Or is it the sorta thing that would contain spoilers for other Cosmerey things, like WoK'? 

 

Related, and potentially relevant question - has he said if we'd ever get to see WoK' once we're sufficiently far through SA so that it wouldn't spoil important details?

[Argent]

Sooo... password-protected forum is fine, let's just make the password easily accessible to anyone with a copy of the White Sand manuscript. First word, last word, whatever. 

[Master Elodin]

But people may have different versions.

[Argent]

I wasn't aware there were different versions.

[Chaos]

There are certainly not multiple versions that were distributed. That file hasn't changed for over a decade.

The only people who may have a different version would be Brandon's alpha readers, who read it before he ever got published.

[Master Elodin]

Oh really? I guess I was misinformed then.

[Chaos]

Oh really? I guess I was misinformed then.

This was certainly my understanding but I will poll the PM thread.

[Mestiv]

Is it possible to create a group of users, like Mods and Global Mods are a group, that would have access to a hidden subforum? We would have open and visible graphics novel forum and a hidden prose forum. This way there will be no leaking information through topic names, and adding new people to a group can't be that hard.

[Young Bard]

Is it possible to create a group of users, like Mods and Global Mods are a group, that would have access to a hidden subforum? We would have open and visible graphics novel forum and a hidden prose forum. This way there will be no leaking information through topic names, and adding new people to a group can't be that hard.

 

I think Chaos intends for it to be a system in which they don't need to do anything at all extra, though.

[Mestiv]

Can there be a group that a user can join voluntarily, without any action from admins? That would be quite convenient I guess.

 

Anyway, if we are to help decide what's the best way to deal with this, Chaos should tell us what tools do we have. Groups? Passwords? Hidden sub-forums accessible only via link?

[Young Bard]

Can there be a group that a user can join voluntarily, without any action from admins? That would be quite convenient I guess.

 

Anyway, if we are to help decide what's the best way to deal with this, Chaos should tell us what tools do we have. Groups? Passwords? Hidden sub-forums accessible only via link?

 

I think that's all decided now, and it's just a matter of implementing it. Chaos mentioned a date in the PM thread, but I'm not sure if he's OK with it being made public, beyond Soon^TM.

[Chaos]

Can there be a group that a user can join voluntarily, without any action from admins? That would be quite convenient I guess.

Anyway, if we are to help decide what's the best way to deal with this, Chaos should tell us what tools do we have. Groups? Passwords? Hidden sub-forums accessible only via link?

You'd need to be manually added to such a group which is why we aren't doing it that way.