Unofficial Theory Index: A List

[Tempus]

Hello fellow 17th Shardianers and Theorists!

 

It can be very difficult to find theories scattered around this site, as the forum search is selective at best and at times downright dodgy. I've been thinking about various ways to gather and formalize theories in the past, but the biggest issue may simply be finding them. Thus, I've set out to make an unofficial index of theories.

 

You can find it on the Coppermind, here.

 

What does it do?

 

The Unofficial Theory Index gathers a list of theories into a sortable table on the wiki. You'll be able to look at theories by name, author, date written, location in the cosmere by planet, and category. Want to find every theory about Roshar? You can do that. Every theory written after Words of Radiance was published? You'll be able to do that. Every theory on magic on Scadrial? Yep, you can do that.

 

I've gone ahead and started today by adding 56 theories from eight theorists including myself. There are of course a few hundred theories, and I've barely scratched the surface, but it's a good start!

 

What can I do to help?

 

The Theory Index is on a wiki page, so feel free to add your own theories, or the theories of others as you feel comfortable. I'd appreciate it if you'd note what theories you'd covered, like "All the theories of person X", or "All theories on the Mistborn board prior to June 2012" or whatnot. That way we have a good grasp on what still needs to be covered.

 

I'd also like to ask some questions here about how the theories should be handled.

• For theories proven false, should they be removed from the list (making it shorter), marked on the list with a special marking (making them obvious), or left as is?
• Should exceptional theories or particularly interesting theories be marked to draw attention to them?
• Should there be a third tag column, in order to organize theories by common topics as well, such as FTL, Hemalurgy, Compounding, Surges, etc...?
• Should the date columns be colour coded by publication date of cosmere books, to allow for a more clear visualization of what information was available when they were written? Keep in mind 17th Shard was founded 2010.

 

I will be adding to this list semi-regularly, but please feel free to contribute, and give me your thoughts on some of the above questions!

[Aether he/him]

I approve of this. Any good List will get my approval! Though how the heck did I get so many mentions on the current list? I'm hardly the most prolific nor capable Thread starter. I will definitely contribute to complete the list.

 

As to your questions:

1. I think we should either have a separate list/section for disproven theories or remove them all-together. The intention behind the list is to make theory-crafting more accessible, right? Then things that have been definitely shot down will end up cluttering up the list.
2. Yes. And I believe well-researched and sourced theories, as well as particularly novel or imaginative ones, should be the ones that get the honourific.
3. I fear it will be impossible to make it accessible if we make too many categories. I think one for each Shardworld, one for the Cosmere and possibly one more specifically for Realmatics should suffice.
4. i don't think so, no. I don't think it would be constructive to make the listing overly complicated.

We might also consider removing theories that have been entirely proven by canon. My own "Szeth has an Honourblade" Thread is now completely irrelevant, as it has been proven without a doubt by the information readily available in WoR. My "Renarin's Box" Thread should be relevant, though, as it contains plenty of information about the Box that is not easily found. Unless the Threads digresses into entirely new and interesting things, both disproven and proven things should be removed or moved to a separate list..

Edited April 27, 2014 by Aether

[Tempus]

I approve of this. Any good List will get my approval! Though how the heck did I get so many mentions on the current list? I'm hardly the most prolific nor capable Thread starter. I will definitely contribute to complete the list.

I was going to start with Kurkistan, but his three pages of theories intimidated me. So I picked a few intelligent people on here who I've been impressed with and had slightly less theories to get the list started with. And you most certainly qualify as an intelligent person!

 

 

I fear it will be impossible to make it accessible if we make too many categories. I think one for each Shardworld, one for the Cosmere and possibly one more specifically for Realmatics should suffice.

 

Currently, I have one column for location based (the specific shardworld or 'cosmere' for cross-world things), and one column for 'category', giving the general category of the theory (Realmatic for magic, Plot for events, Character for a specific person, World for worldbuilding, and Joke for the Catquisitors =D). What I'm specifically considering adding is one column for topic. Like, for example, if you wanted to find all theories on FTL, it would still be a little inconvenient right now. If you wanted to find all theories on hemalurgy, the same. If you wanted to find all theories on Hoid, equally a little rough. The topic column would have no specific content, but just a single one-word topic for the central grouping which the theory could apply to, in the hopes of making it easier to search through.

 

 

As for proven and disproven things, I personally agree with you. Do you think they should they be moved into a separate list (which is neat for posterity), or deleted entirely (because otherwise it's too much like keeping score and a waste of space)?

Edited April 27, 2014 by Tempus

[Aether he/him]

I was going to start with Kurkistan, but his three pages of theories intimidated me. So I picked a few intelligent people on here who I've been impressed with and had slightly less theories to get the list started with. And you most certainly qualify as an intelligent person!

May I ask how you tracked down all of these Threads? The forum doesn't seem to have a way to search for any given user's original Threads. And thanks for the compliment! Also, you're not the only one who's intimidated by Kurk.

 

Currently, I have one column for location based (the specific shardworld or 'cosmere' for cross-world things), and one column for 'category', giving the general category of the theory (Realmatic for magic, Plot for events, Character for a specific person, World for worldbuilding, and Joke for the Catquisitors =D). What I'm specifically considering adding is one column for topic. Like, for example, if you wanted to find all theories on FTL, it would still be a little inconvenient right now. If you wanted to find all theories on hemalurgy, the same. If you wanted to find all theories on Hoid, equally a little rough. The topic column would have no specific content, but just a single one-word topic for the central grouping which the theory could apply to, in the hopes of making it easier to search through.

I hadn't actually noticed how neat your sorting was, and with how easily you can yourself decide how to sort them, I do not think adding a "topic" category would clutter it up after all. Go ahead, you have my blessing (as if you needed it...)

 

As for proven and disproven things, I personally agree with you. Do you think they should they be moved into a separate list (which is neat for posterity), or deleted entirely (because otherwise it's too much like keeping score and a waste of space)?

After skimming through some of my dead Threads, I think it would be nice to have them in a separate list. Even if a theory have been conclusively proven/disproven, the Thread itself will still contain a lot of useful textual references, WoBs, WoPs etc.. Though to avoid confusing non-17th Shard aficionados, I think we should keep separate lists for proven and disproven theories.

[Tempus]

May I ask how you tracked down all of these Threads? The forum doesn't seem to have a way to search for any given user's original Threads. And thanks for the compliment! Also, you're not the only one who's intimidated by Kurk.

 

Click on a user name, and in the upper right corner of their user page, click the 'Find Content' button. On the left side, click the 'Only topics' filter. You now have a list of every topic that individual has started. I then opened each topic in a different tab, and using my skillful keyboard shortcuts copied the url, post date, and title to the wiki page. If I'd never read the theory before, I skimmed it and decided on the categories. I should also note that I often renamed titles to be more descriptive, because some titles, especially in the WoR forum, have names that avoid spoilers but aren't as descriptive as they should be as a result.

 

 

I hadn't actually noticed how neat your sorting was, and with how easily you can yourself decide how to sort them, I do not think adding a "topic" category would clutter it up after all. Go ahead, you have my blessing (as if you needed it...)

 

Thank you father.

 

 

 

After skimming through some of my dead Threads, I think it would be nice to have them in a separate list. Even if a theory have been conclusively proven/disproven, the Thread itself will still contain a lot of useful textual references, WoBs, WoPs etc.. Though to avoid confusing non-17th Shard aficionados, I think we should keep separate lists for proven and disproven theories.

 

Alright. We'll probably do those on a separate page each then, to keep things clear and uncluttered. We can link to the pages from the bottom, ala wiki category boxes normally seen on the Coppermind.

[Aether he/him]

Click on a user name, and in the upper right corner of their user page, click the 'Find Content' button. On the left side, click the 'Only topics' filter. You now have a list of every topic that individual has started. I then opened each topic in a different tab, and using my skillful keyboard shortcuts copied the url, post date, and title to the wiki page. If I'd never read the theory before, I skimmed it and decided on the categories. I should also note that I often renamed titles to be more descriptive, because some titles, especially in the WoR forum, have names that avoid spoilers but aren't as descriptive as they should be as a result.

Neat! I might take a dive into Kurkistan next week. I can at least start by making a List of all of his theorycrafting Threads. I'll keep you posted.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I'm glad to see you're getting this off the ground, Tempus. I do apologize for being so very intimidating. Just wait until finals are over and I can update all my theories for post-WoR information...

 

 

Click on a user name, and in the upper right corner of their user page, click the 'Find Content' button. On the left side, click the 'Only topics' filter. You now have a list of every topic that individual has started. I then opened each topic in a different tab, and using my skillful keyboard shortcuts copied the url, post date, and title to the wiki page. If I'd never read the theory before, I skimmed it and decided on the categories. I should also note that I often renamed titles to be more descriptive, because some titles, especially in the WoR forum, have names that avoid spoilers but aren't as descriptive as they should be as a result.

 

This isn't quite all there is too it, actually. You'll note that there's a little "search limited from <one year ago>" note when you use the Content feature.

 

If you really want everything you have to use the forum's Advanced Search (that little gear to the right of the search bar). First Match such that you "Only search in titles", then enter in the author and some absurd time-region (I usually do 2008 to the present). Leave all other fields blank. That'll get you everything. For me, that's 4 ( ) pages with the last thread (by last update time) being "My copy of Alloy of Law has shipped. . ."

[Tempus]

This isn't quite all there is too it, actually. You'll note that there's a little "search limited from <one year ago>" note when you use the Content feature.

 

Hmm, yes. I did notice that threads earlier than 2013 were available, but looking at it again, they were resurrected threads, and it posts any with replies within the last year. I will have to rectify that - luckily the people I began with are mostly relatively new to the forum.

 

 

 

I'm glad to see you're getting this off the ground, Tempus. I do apologize for being so very intimidating. Just wait until finals are over and I can update all my theories for post-WoR information...

 

Bring it on.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

This really is going to take some time. Search programs and index lists are hard to program. Archiving them yourself will take even longer.

[Tempus]

This really is going to take some time. Search programs and index lists are hard to program. Archiving them yourself will take even longer.

 

I've made a number of web scraping programs in the past that perform similar functions, and the actual code itself would be straightforward. That said, a bot wouldn't be terribly helpful - many theories aren't properly tagged, or are labeled more human-readably (aka with inconsistent names). In addition, I would still have to go over each one to categorize them.

 

That said, doing it by hand is not such a difficult task. It took me two hours to setup the page, make the format, and copy in 56 entries. So let's say about 1h30 of that was copying entries. There are 3975 unique topics in forums that contain theories that qualify for the list. A brief survey of the WoR forum shows me that out of the 25 unpinned topics, nine could be considered theories, and four could be considered well-formed theories. If we round that off a bit, about 1/3rd of the forum there is theory related. By well formed, I mean 'longer than three sentences and with at least one piece of evidence'.

 

So, we're looking at an approximate amount of 1200 theory-related posts, of which about half that (600 or so) are gonna be well formed. If we split that and decide to add about 800 theories to the list, it will take about 24 manpower hours. This is not so long, really. Keeping it updated will be slightly more of a chore, but the further away we get from Words of Radiance the slower the forums will be, and with a more complete list it will be easier to retroactively update by date changed.

[Tempus]

Went ahead and indexed the entirety of the Warbreaker forum. Another 30 theories were added, I marked some of them disproved right away to make it easier to sort through those later.

[Moogle]

I like this, but linking to forum posts is a bit weird for a wiki. I think it'd be better to start a wiki page for each theory, so people other than the creator can update it with information from new books and the like. I have a few theories floating around somewhere in my post history, so I'll try and add a few of mine if you don't get to it before me.

 

Also, we've got the occasional theory that has never had a nice writeup, like Intent Meshing for how many powers each world gets. I should coalesce the information from that one thread where a few of us fleshed it out and make a page for that.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Moogle

[Tempus]

I like this, but linking to forum posts is a bit weird for a wiki. I think it'd be better to start a wiki page for each theory, so people other than the creator can update it with information from new books and the like. I have a few theories floating around somewhere in my post history, so I'll try and add a few of mine if you don't get to it before me.

 

Also, we've got the occasional theory that has never had a nice writeup, like Intent Meshing for how many powers each world gets. I should coalesce the information from that one thread where a few of us fleshed it out and make a page for that.

 

This was my original goal, as specified in this thread, and demonstrated on this wiki page. However, that requires significantly more work to maintain, and contributors would need to maintain their own theories.

 

This is however, a wiki list! Which means you can add the theories to your wiki user page yourself, and link them directly. We can even make a separate list for 'Theories maintained on the wiki' if more than a handful of theories start a wiki page for themselves. Or perhaps theories that we deem 'exceptional theories' can have wiki pages made for them, which would be neat.

 

I've certainly noticed there are theories which never got a formal thread, and were just kind of developed on the run so to speak. Patchwork theories spanning the comments on multiple threads, slowly becoming the accepted answers. While I'm currently writing up a Grand Unified Model theory on my local machine, and trying to address some of those there, really they should stand alone and not be part of some thing of mine.

 

Feel free to start on any of that if you like, Moogle.

[Tempus]

Added the entirety of the Elantris/Emperor's Soul forum. Added a topic column, and put in some rough 'stars' to denote good theories.

 

 

Feedback - nice to have the extra topic column, or too busy? Do you have any really good theories which deserve stars?

[Aether he/him]

Wow, great work. I like the topic column. It does not look "too busy". What I do find somewhat unfortunate, however, is that the "excellent theory" stars are somewhat hard to see. I like the idea of having gold, silver and bronze stars, but it doesn't seem to work as intended.

[Tempus]

I've given the stars significantly more contrast, Aether. Not sure if that improves the 'visibility' for you, or if you want something more clear. You can also sort by stars, incidentally. This will put the starred theories up to the top! If you sort by stars, then by topic, the stars sort will stay as a subsort. This makes it easy to find, say, all Gold Star theories on Roshar. Another thing I've considered is colour coding the rows subtly - that could be according to theory tag.

 

I've now finished tagging and topicing all previous recorded theories, and have added pages 21-25 of the Mistborn boards (sorted by Start Date). Total theory count is up to 159. That's about 1/6th done the expected total of 800-900 theories. I've also quickly made a Hall of Fame.

 

If you have further ideas for clarity/tagging/icons, let me know!

Edited May 7, 2014 by Tempus

[Aether he/him]

I am impressed with your dedication to this. And the amount of work is staggering! AND, your project is basically a really neat List!!

 

Up-votes galore!

[Tempus]

Alright, did another ten pages of Mistborn boards, now up to 238 theories. Interestingly enough, after Alloy of Law was first released, there were loads of theories - about 12 theories a page. The futher away it got from release, the post count didn't significantly decrease, but the theory count did. Dropped to about 5 theories a page. Even more interestingly, sometime in the last half of 2013, the amount of posts on the Mistborn boards begins to rise. I'm not sure what the cause of that is - no book releases around that time, nothing to draw people to the forums that I can tell, no Mistborn related events or news. Mysterious. I'm eager to see what trends I will notice in the last 10 pages of the boards. When I'm done the Index making a few graphs showing trends might be fun.

 

Another fun fact of cruising like this is seeing all the 'This is my [f]irst post, be nice' theories I've seen, for people like Outis and Observer and Kurkistan.

 

I'm reeeeeally looking forward to crusing the Cosmere Theories board (next on my list, and my favourite board). I'm really not looking forward to Way of Kings and Words of Radiance boards - so many posts, so many posts! And so much of it out of nowhere (though there are a few new theorizers who have limited themselves entirely to Stormlight who I'm expecting to hit my Hall of Fame, like Confused).

 

I'm also keeping the Hall of Fame up to date - it's been fun to watch Kirk rise from the ashes, constantly approaching the top of the boards. I'm excited to see how things will change when I hit up the Cosmere boards. I'm scared to see the wave of excellent WoR theorists though - 75% of the top reputation list are people who have majority posts in the Words of Radiance Boards. That's a scary thought for poor Cosmere theorists such as me.

 

When I get more theories on the board, I'll probably make some 'Specialist' Hall of Fame boards for people who are particularly excellent at certain regions, categories, or topics.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Nice work so far, Tempus.

 

I'm trying to stay away since I'm not exactly unbiased, but I stuck a "disproven" or two on a few of my theories.

 

Also, I've started following through on my threat: Here's a preliminary list of the threads I've started that need some updating love because of WoR. Now I just have to start remembering the innumerable thread-hijacking theories I've been part of...

[Tempus]

I appreciate you marking your theories as proven or disproven, Kurk! I mark theories when I see and recognize them, but I'm guessing I'm only getting around half. If you do update theories, I will either replace the old theory with the new one, or keep them both, as you desire. In the former case, I'll also update any score or topic changes necessary.

 

Incidentally, updated to 253 theories. Eight more pages of Mistborn to go.

 

Thread hijacking is a big concern for me. There are quite a few theories or good information that I've run across that aren't formal theories, are more of a mash of several different people and comments, or are generally scattered to the four winds. I've been making notes of some of them, and also writing down some topics that people have been looking for but don't really exist yet (though I'm certainly missing plenty).

 

I plan on starting a PM group once the TheoryIndex is nearing completion of the best theorizers, in order to both provide theorizers with ideas, allow them to present formal theories for things they've advocated in the past but never got completed, etc, etc. Just a pipe dream at the moment though - one step at a time. I'm hoping that people will pick up on those theories, choose ones they espouse, and formally make threads for them at a silver or gold level because I feel stating some of these things would really enrich the theorysphere. My plan after that is to hopefully transcribe some of the more important theories onto wiki pages, but that's even further down the pipeline.

 

At the current rate, I'm feeling about one to two months to finish the Index (faster if I can coerce someone into helping me with Stormlight, haha). Then another couple months theorizing, and then maybe a few wiki pages. I'm hoping a good, solid index and theory section can be constructed before the next wave comes along with Stormlight 3 and Shadows of Self.

[Aether he/him]

Speaking of hi-jacked Threads, I can't remember where I argued this (I should be able to located it though, if I just get around to it), but I am still convinced that there would have been Sliders, Pulsers, etc. in the Final Empire. They would have snapped (or not) without being any wiser, of course, and they wouldn't have any means of discovering their abilities, but they still should have been around. I am not really a huge fan of Mistborn, but I would like to formally develop this Theory.

 

A related one (for which I've also argued) is that I believe that Sazed's (and to a lesser extent Preservation's) ability to change the magic systems already in place are more limited than the majority of Sharders seem to think.

 

I also have a few more scattered Theories floating around, and I'd love to get around to give them their own Threads.

 

On a tangential note, I think it is great how this project of yours actually puts the Theory-crafting on the forefront (at least for a hand-full of us). While I love the community in general, I do think we have been slacking somewhat lately, focusing more on fun and games than on what drew most of us (I think) to the fora in the first place.

 

EDIT: Just a few thoughts:

• You should consider adding a green hue for the Proven Theories.
• Consider dimming the red disproven hue even further.
• I think you should add a link to this Thread on all of your Index pages, as a lot of the discussion and coordination are done here. It is relevant to the Lists themselves.

EDIT 2: By the way, what is the difference between "Best Overall Theorists" and "Most Prolific Theorists" on the Hall of Fame page?

Edited May 9, 2014 by Aether

[Tempus]

A related one (for which I've also argued) is that I believe that Sazed's (and to a lesser extent Preservation's) ability to change the magic systems already in place are more limited than the majority of Sharders seem to think.

 

That one sounds great.

 

 

 

 

On a tangential note, I think it is great how this project of yours actually puts the Theory-crafting on the forefront (at least for a hand-full of us). While I love the community in general, I do think we have been slacking somewhat lately, focusing more on fun and games than on what drew most of us (I think) to the fora in the first place.

 

EDIT: Just a few thoughts:

• You should consider adding a green hue for the Proven Theories.
• Consider dimming the red disproven hue even further.
• I think you should add a link to this Thread on all of your Index pages, as a lot of the discussion and coordination are done here. It is relevant to the Lists themselves.

EDIT 2: By the way, what is the difference between "Best Overall Theorists" and "Most Prolific Theorists" on the Hall of Fame page?

 

Proven and Disproven theories will actually be moved to their own tables, and possibly their own pages. This will help reduce clutter in the active index, keeping it (a little) more concise, and preventing it from ballooning immensely over time.

 

I should indeed add a link - I've also been meaning to add links to these from my signature. Since it's a List™, you should add it too!

 

As for the Hall of Fame...

• Highest Caliber Theorists is a measure of quality. The number there represents the average quality of construction of this person's theories. That is the metric I use to assign stars. Two is an average theory, and five is already exceptional.
• Most Prolific Theorists is a measure of quantity. It's a simple count of how many theories they have on the Hall of Fame.
• Best Overall Theorists is a measure of quantity and quality. It tallies the sum of all rated theories for that individual, where the theories are worth 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8pts respectively. 

You can find notes for those when you click the Edit button on the wiki page, commented out. You might also be wondering how I assign stars? I've tried to develop objective criteria. I have three main criteria, and a fourth sub criteria that is important. If you meet any of the main criteria, you get a Bronze Star. If you meet 2-3 of the main criteria, you get a Silver Star. If you meet all three main criteria and the fourth criteria, you get a Gold Star. Lastly, underdeveloped theories get marked if they are 3-4 sentences or less, or just generally not very good. The criterion are:

 

• Length: A good theory should be long enough to explain itself. 3-5 paragraphs are required for a pass here. For Gold Theories, the theory must be at least one full screen long.
• Formatting: A good theory should have a clear structure, with the necessary formatting to be readable. I'm looking for clean paragraph breaks, bolding, italics, semi colons, bullet or numeric lists, indentation, tables, links or underlining. If you have 3-5 of those elements, arranged nicely, you get a pass. No special requirements for Gold.
• References: A good theory should reference the text or have Word of Brandon's supporting it. Either direct quotes or indirect quotations will do, though direct quotes are better. 2-4 references/quotations are required to meet this criteria.

 

• Logic: To meet the Gold criterion, there must be a semblance of logic as well. Pure, unfounded speculation does not qualify. This is the most subjective criteria, but essentially, if the entire post goes along the lines of 'I feel it should be like this' with no sources, deduction or induction to back it up, the post is lacking logic and should not qualify.

 

Lastly, if I'm unsure whether or not to make a theory Gold, I put a <!--Gold Candidate--> comment above it in the index code. I'm attempting to keep Gold theories between 5-10%. When it drops below 5%, I go over the gold candidates and rank up a few of the most deserving. There isn't any risk currently of it passing 10% (though Cosmere theories might change that temporarily. WoK/WoR should bring it back down, though!). At the moment, it's sitting at 7.1%.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Tempus

[Aether he/him]

I should indeed add a link - I've also been meaning to add links to these from my signature. Since it's a List™, you should add it too!

I was about to say that my Signature specifically said Aether's List of Lists, but I happened to word it openly. Given how incredibly impressive yours is, of course it deserves a place there. I shall have to ponder on how I can properly accredit you, though.

EDIT: There. Let me know if you like it. I shall endeavour to add other Lists as well. I should really extend the List-Maker population. And in honour of this immensely thorough and baffling work, I hereby give you the title of Padawan, advance you to the rank of List Knight and bestow upon you the title of List Master, all at once. Thus, you surpass the only other official List-maker, littlewilson, who is still at the rank of Padawan.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Aether

[Tempus]

Just a note, updated to 261 theories. Hall of Fame also updated. 7 more pages of Mistborn to go!

 

 

Late Night Edit:

 

285 Theories and Hall of Fame update. 4 more pages of Mistborn to go - Kurk has caught up to skaa in Quality to tie for 1st, and passed me in both overall and quantity now to take 2nd. 

Edited May 10, 2014 by Tempus

[Tempus]

Mistborn Boards complete! 306 theories. Only about 31 of those are listed as proven/disproven, but I figure the number should probably be closer to 2-3 times that much. I will hopefully catch more on my second pass for editing purposes after I'm done getting all the boards up there.

 

Kurk finally passed skaa in the Quality Hall of Fame as well. Next up, Cosmere Theories!