Popular Post WeiryWriter Posted November 8, 2017 Popular Post Report Share Posted November 8, 2017 Hey everyone! It’s finally the day we have all been waiting fo-- Oh wait. No, not that day. You still have to wait a week for Oathbringer. But it is the day that I have been working towards for a couple years now. The idea that it is finally out is a tiny bit terrifying, but Harmony is it exciting as well. Before we get into it, we should all thank Theoryland and all those who contributed to their database. They have done a great service to our fandom. We just wanted something more tailored to us, with more features and active development. Here it is. Arcanum, the Brandon Sanderson Archive: https://wob.coppermind.net Take a look. There are over 7,700 entries in there. We did not simply copy and paste a bunch of text from the old Theoryland database. We hunted down audio from many years back and put it into our new system. The result is this for any audio we have found: You can press play on any entry and get the audio of that exact moment. No longer will you have to take it on someone's word on what Brandon said; you can just press play and listen to it! In the process of getting all these audio sources into Arcanum, we found that there were mistakes in some old transcriptions, or things that were never transcribed at all, existing only in heavily paraphrased form. As such we have worked hard to ensure the accuracy of everything that has been inputted into Arcanum. This is trickier than it may sound, as while our brains are good at registering the meaning of what someone is saying, they aren’t always so good at remembering the exact phrasing. If the transcriber is not careful, those mistakes can add up to the opposite of whatever was intended. Our goal is to have a centralized place where everyone can reliably find all audio and all quotes for many years to come, and do so in such a way that we can have these quotes be as accurate as we can get. WoBs for which we don't have audio (or are directly written by Brandon) are always marked as paraphrased, so you won't have to guess which things are accurate and which are not. Audio is the best way we can ensure accuracy, and so we put it front and center. (One note on Words of Brandon: signing lines can be very long, and Brandon's memory is not perfect. Brandon can make mistakes. Brandon can also change his mind when actually writing a book, instead of just talking about it. We do try to denote things like this whenever we catch them, but, at the end of the day, the books are the true sources.) What's in Arcanum right now? It has been a massive undertaking for our small team to import every WoB ever and update things to our new standards with transcriptions. We have a ton of WoBs--over 7,700 of them. A lot of this is from Theoryland, but there’s a good chunk that is brand-new stuff which is not. We have: Every annotation for the main books, including those for The Way of Kings Every relevant quote from Reddit and Twitter we could find Everything from 2014 to the present is fully imported* That includes several events where the full transcriptions were never made available, which include some never-seen-before WoBs: Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing White Sand vol. 1 Orem signing White Sand vol. 1 release party Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 Calamity release party Bands of Mourning release party Shadows of Self Portland signing Shadows of Self release party Firefight release party We are not yet finished importing everything from Theoryland, but we wanted to make sure that Arcanum was live and ready to go for the release of Oathbringer. We focused on events 2014 and forward as that was the point where the WoB situation began to deteriorate and things started to become harder to find. We do have various things from before 2014, most notably the annotations. We also have the A Memory of Light tour in (the Brandon related stuff, not the Wheel of Time stuff, which we are not importing), much of the Steelheart tour, and much of the Alloy of Law tour. We also have some very old, yet foundational events like the Hero of Ages TWG Q&A (where we learned about Shards for the first time), the Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A, and other text events. All said, we needed our Arcanists to transcribe things and we decided to spend our efforts on new things. After the Oathbringer tour we will get these older years inputted, and when there is audio, get it into our new format. If you're wondering whether Arcanum replaces Theoryland, the answer is yes, but on some very old things, we aren't going to do it just like Theoryland did. Theoryland made an event for every one of Brandon's blogs in the beginning, and we are not doing this. Many of Brandon's blogs are updates, announcements, and other things that are not important to search. We are just grabbing the parts of Brandon's blogs that are relevant. There are also a lot of interviews that Brandon did with media outlets that is more of a promotional nature and aren't important for Arcanum. Long story short, we will finish the project of getting everything relevant from Theoryland to Arcanum, but we felt you still should get Arcanum now, because we can wait a bit on some of the older Theoryland stuff being imported. (*There are some events that have general Q&As which are not transcribed yet, but those contain very little relevant information. We will get them in soon.) Other Big Improvements on Theoryland Arcanum has made big strides over Theoryland in usability. Arcanum has a totally responsive design, so it works great on your phone or desktop. Search Searching functionally on Theoryland, or rather the lack thereof, has become an unfortunate meme in the fandom in recent years. As such we’ve made sure our search works. We’ve also made sure to include options to give you more control to fine-tune the results you get. Citations In Theoryland it’s not immediately obvious how to link directly to an entry. For Arcanum we’ve made sure that it's easy to grab a citation, just click that Share link for the direct URL for the entry. You also get this link even in the search results page. How to help One of our primary goals with Arcanum is to make the transcribing process and input process are transparent, rather than be a mysterious cabal of people who input stuff into Theoryland at a very slow pace. And we need your help, too. The biggest help you can be is if you have a recording of a signing or something Brandon said, upload it! This was why we worked so hard to get Arcanum ready for the Oathbringer tour, so we are no longer in the Shadowdays where audio was hidden in random places. We can now have audio in one centralized location where we can transcribe it. Do you have audio? Adding it is easy! Go find the relevant event--we have most events made except very old one; Oathbringer tour events are already added--and on the upper right of the event, click "Upload Sources". Easy! If you get new audio on the Oathbringer tour, don't delay, let's get it into Arcanum so we can transcribe it immediately. If you have old audio from years past, we'd also love to see get that, too! Right now our Arcanist team has done transcribing efforts, and they are awesome and fast. But our plan was always to let the general public assist in transcribing too. This functionality is currently been the top programming priority, but it isn't ready right now. At the very least, you can upload audio. Stay tuned in our Arcanum forum or our Arcanum channel in Discord, and help coordinate event audio and transcription efforts there! Arcanum is a community effort. We can't do this without you. We hope with your help the Oathbringer tour will go smoothly and we'll get new information to you sooner than ever. In 2018, our software will go open source and if you're a web developer, you can go contribute there! If you're in another fandom and you'd like a system like this, you'll be able to make your own installation of it. Credits Arcanum has been in the works, in one form or another, for over two and a half years now. We're thrilled (and terrified) that you all finally get to see it, and we hope it will be everything you wanted it to be. We want to tell you everyone on the team. Our administrative consists of me, Mestiv, and Chaos. I suppose I'm ultimately in charge of this project, and I've transcribed a ton of things. Mestiv is our amazing coder who suggested all of this audio stuff, which changed everything. He's a rock star, and is the real hero. Chaos does a lot of the managerial work keeping everything organized. He also headed up the design team, and helped whip our Arcanists in the right direction to get things ready for launch. Special thanks to Joe_ST, who coded a previous incarnation of our WoB archive and always has sensible suggestions to improve things. Without Joe, we never could have gotten here. Our Arcanists: We invited a bunch of people who provided input, bug testing, and most importantly, worked their butts off inputting and transcribing things. Argent Blightsong Calderis Comatose Dragon13 Extesian jofwu Kandra Kurkistan Oversleep Pagerunner Windrunner Some special thanks: jofwu is a god at transcribing difficult audio (don't listen to the Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken audio unless you want to cry), Argent is an absolute machine of work-ethic and did so much, and somehow Calderis did all his Arcanum work on his phone. Last, but not least, thank you KChan for the beautiful logo, and moru for design help! We really hope you love Arcanum. There's still plenty of work to do on it, but it's amazing. Best, The Arcanum Team 27 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted November 8, 2017 Report Share Posted November 8, 2017 I just wanted to quickly say for a moment how awesome all the Arcanists are. They spent MANY hours and evenings going through plenty of audio, hunting down random things on Twitter and Reddit. They are really the rock stars. They are also rock stars for dealing with me being a grumpy manager and pestering them about tasks The Shadowdays of finding WoBs and researching are done, friends. We did it. This changes everything. This is so surreal to me, because I obviously wanted a system like this for so long. There's nothing on the internet quite like this system, to my knowledge, so designing how it should function, along with its look-and-feel, was terrifying. It's brand-new! This is also the largest project 17th Shard has ever done, to code something from the ground-up. It's crazy. Not only was coding intense, but on the input side of things, we basically redid all of Theoryland. How crazy is that? It's finally here for you to see and browse, and it will be around for the duration of the fandom, I assure you. There's still a lot to do. I'll be posting an Upcoming Features topic pretty soon, explaining what we still have left to do. We'll be very open about everything with Arcanum. But it's here, in time for Oathbringer, and that's incredible. Special thanks to Mestiv, who is the true hero. Without him, this would not exist. He changed this entire project and coded this all. What a boss. He's also the nicest guy ever (second to, I think, Brandon Sanderson himself), so you should pour a ton of adoration his way. He got all this audio stuff working. It's incredible. I hope you like it <3 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted November 8, 2017 Report Share Posted November 8, 2017 Arcanum: over 300 unique Brandon "uhh" and "hmm" sounds! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparkrunner Posted November 8, 2017 Report Share Posted November 8, 2017 Can we get celebration graphics for the site for a few days? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Extesian Posted November 8, 2017 Report Share Posted November 8, 2017 (edited) I'd like to step in to raise some toasts here. Quite a few people contributed significant amounts of time to this...masterpiece of Cosmerology. I feel like it's dominated my minimal spare time for a while but I was a later and lesser contributor (and helping was something I was both honored and duty-bound to do given my WoBsession). Sharders we all know and love like Jofwu, Kurkistan, Windrunner, Calderis, Blightsong, Oversleep. Particular praise to Pagerunner and Argent for their outsized contributions. Unsurprisingly Chaos is magnificent, delegating like a demon and pulling endless long nights, working on this thing long, long before I was even a member of this site. (And my involvement with this is recent so forgive me if I've under-credited people). I may have contributed a bit but I'll get so much more out of Arcanum than I could ever give to it. Many of you know my WoBsession and this transforms the ability to gain a black belt in WoBfu. But my endless thanks for truly making this Wonderland of WoBs happen go to two people. Firstly, Mestiv. The Codebringer. He has done so much in making this dream happen. I don't speak code but I understand what he's done is not easy and I know the results are beautiful. He has enabled our addiction. And, this cannot be emphasised enough - he's not even a WoB fiend. He did this for the community, for you. What a guy. But my endless gratitude, admiration and love are for Weiry. the Master of WoBs, a guy I looked up to even before I realized the scope of this and his part in it. He made this happen. Since long before i was a member of this site he plotted and planned, and of course WoBbed. He put in the work. He had the vision. This was his Citizen Kane. For years and years from now, when you can learn the Cosmere more easily, you have Weiry to thank. He's my hero, and he'd better be your storming hero too. So go! WoB like you've never WoBbed before. Browse over seven THOUSAND WoBs, many never before seen, with full sources. If you've ever wondered where that WoB is you swear you remember, it's here. If you've ever wondered about Brandon's intonation in that doubtful WoB, or wanted to hear his hilarious reaction to bizarre theories, the audio snippet awaits. If you're obsessed with a particular topic and want to research it, it's one search away. So go! Enjoy the labor of love of many, inspired by one. Soak it up. So go! Dance with the WoBs. Edited November 8, 2017 by Extesian 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted November 8, 2017 Report Share Posted November 8, 2017 For first time users, I'd suggest this WoB as the single greatest consequence of Arcanum:http://wob.coppermind.net/events/224/#e7159 Be sure to listen to the audio. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skaa Posted November 9, 2017 Report Share Posted November 9, 2017 (edited) Once again, congratulations to @Chaos, @Mestiv, @WeiryWriter and all the Arcanists! I regret contributing very little to the project, but I would love to help transcribing stuff in the future. Edited November 9, 2017 by skaa 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted November 11, 2017 Report Share Posted November 11, 2017 Something I have been working for a quite time now: Quote I long for the days of uninterrupted WoB digging. The age before Admins abandoned the lore and moderators turned against us. A time when there was still Hoid unknown and WoBs in the hearts of Sharders. The WoBs became ours and we lost it. Nothing, it appears, is more challenging to the knowledge of men than administration itself. Or was that knowledge an illusion all along? Did Brandon realize that the harder he tried to obfuscate, the deeper we dug? Perhaps he saw that the mystery and the unknown only make for a better grade of Sharder. But give away the knowledge long enough, and digging will eventually fade away. There are four whom we watch. The first are the programmers, forced to put aside free time to become project developers in the most brutal transition of WoBs in our time. The second are the Arcanists, the transcribers whose bad audio makes them weep as they work. The third are the admins who wear a project manager’s mantle over the heart of a beta reader. The last are the theoretists whose eyes opened to past WoBs as their thirst for theorizing wanes. The WoB Archive can change. Researching and Theorizing can return; the WoBs of ancient days can become ours again. These four kinds of people are key. One of them may enlighten us. And one of them will destroy us. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy92 Posted November 12, 2017 Report Share Posted November 12, 2017 This website has taught me that Brandon's college roommate was Ken Jennings. Mind blown. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormingTexan Posted December 6, 2017 Report Share Posted December 6, 2017 The new Arcanum is absolutely awesome thanks for all those that have spent so much time working on it! One request if I may. Is there anyway to add a sort feature when searching a tag? For instance sort by date? It would be helpful to be able to list WoB by most recent when searching a particular topic. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mestiv Posted December 6, 2017 Report Share Posted December 6, 2017 5 hours ago, StormingTexan said: The new Arcanum is absolutely awesome thanks for all those that have spent so much time working on it! One request if I may. Is there anyway to add a sort feature when searching a tag? For instance sort by date? It would be helpful to be able to list WoB by most recent when searching a particular topic. It is planned. You'll see it around New Year I hope. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormingTexan Posted December 6, 2017 Report Share Posted December 6, 2017 25 minutes ago, Mestiv said: It is planned. You'll see it around New Year I hope. Awesome thanks! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farnsworth Posted December 12, 2017 Report Share Posted December 12, 2017 Question: what defines a "needs attention" tag? I saw this Quote #1 Edit Share Play/PaThuse Questioner Can Hoid change how he looks? Brandon Sanderson He has various methods of changing how he looks. #hoid #needs attention This doesn't seem like it needs attention. Is there something I'm not seeing? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted December 14, 2017 Report Share Posted December 14, 2017 On 12/12/2017 at 11:40 AM, Ookla the maladroit said: Question: what defines a "needs attention" tag? I saw this This doesn't seem like it needs attention. Is there something I'm not seeing? I'm not sure why that one does, but just as a note, when copying, just start at the first speaker's name. Don't copy the buttons at the top because it garbles things as shown. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farnsworth Posted December 14, 2017 Report Share Posted December 14, 2017 2 hours ago, Chaos said: I'm not sure why that one does, but just as a note, when copying, just start at the first speaker's name. Don't copy the buttons at the top because it garbles things as shown. Okay! Should I edit this tag, or leave that to the arcanists? The issue with this tag is when I try to edit entries, I just search for the need attention tag and edit all those. It's a bit confusing when ones like these are included. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter Posted December 15, 2017 Author Report Share Posted December 15, 2017 3 hours ago, Ookla the maladroit said: Okay! Should I edit this tag, or leave that to the arcanists? The issue with this tag is when I try to edit entries, I just search for the need attention tag and edit all those. It's a bit confusing when ones like these are included. Go ahead and edit out the tag. If there is legitimately no need for it then it should be removed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mestiv Posted December 15, 2017 Report Share Posted December 15, 2017 Normal users cannot edit tags. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farnsworth Posted December 15, 2017 Report Share Posted December 15, 2017 Ah! Just realized. Oh well, it's not such a huge deal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serack Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 (edited) As the official WoJ (Jim Butcher) “Guru” I’m totally jealous of the tool you guys have created here. I could never live up to the standard you guys have set! This is an absolutely amazing resource, and I’m probably one of the people who best understands some sliver of the dedication and hard work it took (sliver because I haven’t even dabbled in the massive coding effort you guys have done here) so amazed Edited February 17, 2018 by Serack 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 22 minutes ago, Serack said: As the official WoJ (Jim Butcher) “Guru” I’m totally jealous of the tool you guys have created here. I could never live up to the standard you guys have set! This is an absolutely amazing resource, and I’m probably one of the people who best understands some sliver of the dedication and hard work it took (sliver because I haven’t even dabbled in the massive coding effort you guys have done here) so amazed Serack, Thanks for the kind words. The software will be open source soonish and you could install it yourself 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted February 17, 2018 Report Share Posted February 17, 2018 1 hour ago, Serack said: As the official WoJ (Jim Butcher) “Guru” I’m totally jealous of the tool you guys have created here. Oooh. It's nice to know something like this exists. I hope that when Palanaeum goes open source you'll make your own counterpart to Arcanum (I've poked a bit around reading WoJs but I only read up to White Night so I decided to avoid spoiling myself) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormingTexan Posted March 12, 2018 Report Share Posted March 12, 2018 Just want to say thanks to the folks transcribing these! I am literally hitting refresh every few minutes on the Orem signing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 16, 2018 Report Share Posted March 16, 2018 On 3/12/2018 at 2:42 PM, StormingTexan said: Just want to say thanks to the folks transcribing these! I am literally hitting refresh every few minutes on the Orem signing. You know what's going to make the process go faster? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted March 16, 2018 Report Share Posted March 16, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, Argent said: You know what's going to make the process go faster? Setting up a virtual jar so that people can tip transcribers with real money? Edited March 16, 2018 by Oversleep 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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