Arcanum Feature Suggestions

[MonsterMetroid]

Main suggestion I have is when you click a recent source on the sidebar it should take you to the event page with the sources tab set as active. Small thing, but it jars me every time.

[King Cole he/him]

I would love something that shows you the newest WoBs. Instead, I just look at all the events and try to remember if the numbers are different

[Chaos he/him]

37 minutes ago, King Cole said:

I would love something that shows you the newest WoBs. Instead, I just look at all the events and try to remember if the numbers are different

That is coming eventually. Having Recent Entries is a priority.

[digitalbusker he/him]

Is there a description of the search syntax somewhere? I'd like to know how to search for:

(Hoid OR Wit OR Cephandrius) AND (sword OR blade)

ETA: Since a helpful resource has been linked downthread, and so I'm not (just) cluttering up the feature suggestions thread with an easily answered question, I hereby suggest a link to that helpful resource be added to the Advanced Search page.

Edited January 12, 2018 by digitalbusker
Thanks

[Pagerunner he/him]

1 hour ago, digitalbusker said:

Is there a description of the search syntax somewhere? I'd like to know how to search for:

(Hoid OR Wit OR Cephandrius) AND (sword OR blade)

 

This topic will have what you're looking for: 

 

[Lightning he/him]

On 12/28/2017 at 3:52 PM, King Cole said:

I would love something that shows you the newest WoBs. Instead, I just look at all the events and try to remember if the numbers are different

Just wanted to add my "ditto" this this! 

[Serack he/him]

On 11/9/2017 at 7:45 AM, thegatorgirl00 said:

Will there be specific user pages, like on the shard? If so, can we have links to those pages from the WoBs when that person is the questioner? 

Additional, related request:  a way for anonymous questioners to get attributed.  

Inspiration:

I just came across a reddit post where someone mentioned asking a particular question at a particular event and after having the pleasure of looking up his WoB, I saw that his question is attributed to “Questioner” and wished there was a way the guy could get credit for it.  

If it matters here’s the comment:

It’s #20 of the San Diego signing

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/172-oathbringer-san-diego-signing/#e8562

Edit:  he also says

And for the record the guy after me was asking if a drab could go to Roshar and regain their breath through the Stormlight magic, kinda like how "Vasher uses the magic there instead of needing a breath every week.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Serack

[Chaos he/him]

I replied to his post  Anyone can go register an account and make such an edit, and I encouraged him to do so.

[Tesh Any pronouns]

I went to the Provo signing on Friday, and asked several questions. So I just joined the Arcanum, and posted one of them, and I have a question. How do you get the little tag on it that says 'paraphrased'? Right now I just have it large next to the speaker.

[+Extesian he/him]

10 minutes ago, Tesh said:

I went to the Provo signing on Friday, and asked several questions. So I just joined the Arcanum, and posted one of them, and I have a question. How do you get the little tag on it that says 'paraphrased'? Right now I just have it large next to the speaker.

I've edited it to have the proper paraphrased marking Tesh. There's a box you can tick to paraphrase it though forgive me, I'm not sure if that shows up for non-Arcanists? Interesting question btw, never occurred to me to ask that. Curious to know what your other is. Thanks for asking. 

[Tesh Any pronouns]

3 minutes ago, Extesian said:

I've edited it to have the proper paraphrased marking Tesh. There's a box you can tick to paraphrase it though forgive me, I'm not sure if that shows up for non-Arcanists? Interesting question btw, never occurred to me to ask that. Curious to know what your other is. Thanks for asking. 

Okay, thanks!

And it appears it's just for Arcanists. I'll just put it in parentheses for the other four.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Tesh

[+Extesian he/him]

7 minutes ago, Tesh said:

Okay, thanks!

And it appears it's just for Arcanists. I'll just put it in parentheses for the other four.

Huh really? I should know that, I've been so busy for so long I've been a very poor Arcanists. I'm happy to edit them once they're up to have the appropriate marking. Thanks for the contributions, in this time of very few signings, new WoBs are worth their weight in aluminum.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Extesian

[WeiryWriter he/him]

22 minutes ago, Tesh said:

I went to the Provo signing on Friday, and asked several questions. So I just joined the Arcanum, and posted one of them...

Would you also mind posting those in the event thread? We really prefer to have something to cite as a source for every entry in Arcanum, whether that is an image, a snippet of audio, or a paraphrased report here on the forums.

[Chaos he/him]

We'll get that paraphrased in there as a thing non-Arcanists do.

One thing I'd really like you to do, Tesh, is actually post your WoBs in the event thread. I realize this seems silly, but five years later, I'd like there to be a paper trail of where stuff comes from. You have no idea how frustrating it was converting stuff from Theoryland to Arcanum and there was no source listed! We had no idea where it came from. So that was quite difficult at times. 

Of course, you'd have no way of knowing this as our precise style guide isn't public--yet--so my apologies. I really appreciate you adding it to Arcanum. Add it to the event thread when you get a chance  

This has another benefit: it lets people discuss said WoBs (whereas Arcanum is not a discussion platform). 

[Tesh Any pronouns]

47 minutes ago, WeiryWriter said:

Would you also mind posting those in the event thread? We really prefer to have something to cite as a source for every entry in Arcanum, whether that is an image, a snippet of audio, or a paraphrased report here on the forums.

47 minutes ago, Chaos said:

We'll get that paraphrased in there as a thing non-Arcanists do.

One thing I'd really like you to do, Tesh, is actually post your WoBs in the event thread. I realize this seems silly, but five years later, I'd like there to be a paper trail of where stuff comes from. You have no idea how frustrating it was converting stuff from Theoryland to Arcanum and there was no source listed! We had no idea where it came from. So that was quite difficult at times. 

Of course, you'd have no way of knowing this as our precise style guide isn't public--yet--so my apologies. I really appreciate you adding it to Arcanum. Add it to the event thread when you get a chance  

This has another benefit: it lets people discuss said WoBs (whereas Arcanum is not a discussion platform). 

I'll do that right now. Thanks for letting me know.

[Scion of the Mists]

On 11/8/2017 at 7:44 PM, Chaos said:

As for read functionality... That's a nontrivial feature. Mid 2018 at earliest, but I don't think it should be prioritized. I'm also not sure it is truly necessary as when new stuff is out you'll just read the new event once.

For things like book signings, this is mostly true (although sometimes things are added later).  However, the big thing are the General XXX 2018 type events (e.g. Reddit, Twitter), which are updated continuously over the course of the year, but keep the same Jan 1, 2018 date.  

I understand that read functionality isn't an easy thing to add.  Maybe a "date updated" field somewhere or a "recently updated" tag would be helpful.  

My current solution is to attempt to memorize how many entries each of these 5 events has to see if it's changed.  As my memory is terrible, this doesn't work very well.  

[Chaos he/him]

9 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

For things like book signings, this is mostly true (although sometimes things are added later).  However, the big thing are the General XXX 2018 type events (e.g. Reddit, Twitter), which are updated continuously over the course of the year, but keep the same Jan 1, 2018 date.  

I understand that read functionality isn't an easy thing to add.  Maybe a "date updated" field somewhere or a "recently updated" tag would be helpful.  

My current solution is to attempt to memorize how many entries each of these 5 events has to see if it's changed.  As my memory is terrible, this doesn't work very well.  

I'm not disagreeing with you; there will be a Recent Entries thing eventually, I assure you. I understand the annoyance with those general events. 

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

I've been using Arcanum more recently, and one feature that should be pretty easy to add that would be helpful when viewing copied WoBs is to have the Event Name and date appear in the source link at the end of the copied WoB. Here's an example of what I mean:

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Why didn't Hoid take the second bead of lerasium?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Hoid knew that if he did so, bad things would happen.

source

Instead of just having the link to the source WoB say source, it would be nice to have something like this:

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Why didn't Hoid take the second bead of lerasium?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Hoid knew that if he did so, bad things would happen.

source (Idaho Falls Signing Dec. 29, 2018)

It's information that should be pretty easy to pull into the link, and the date of WoB is an important piece of information.

Arcanum is amazing, I just noticed that it would be helpful to know how fresh or stale a particular WoB is.
Thanks for all your hard work, Arcanum is amazing!

[Mestiv he/him]

@hoiditthroughthegrapevine done. Testing:

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

I was wondering about the pictures in the cover of this [Oathbringer]. Are they specific characters in the book, or just art?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

They are the Heralds. I went to some artists and said, "Do me your rendition of something that would be on the Sistine Chapel in-world for the Heralds," so that's four of the ten. So that is what we ended up with.

Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018)

 

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

Awesome! Thanks Mestiv!

Tested the new source link with the longest Event name on Arcanum to see how it looks on mobile, it looks great! (test spoilered below):

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

In Oathbringer, Kaladin was with Sah and the other parshmen. Are you going to release the rules for the game that they were playing?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

I've been tempted to release the rules for that game. I can't promise I will, but I would like to.

The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson (Oct. 25, 2018)

Here's how the link looks on Mobile, pretty slick brother, pretty slick.

 

Edited January 17, 2019 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
testing out how new source link looks on mobile with long event name

[Kidpen he/him]

That was impressively quick.

[GreenScyth]

A way to add/upload/reorder images directly on the "Create and modify entries" page would be nice.

[Some Random Spren he/him]

2FA might be useful in the future, although it's not as much of a priority as other features