Chaos

I don't think so. It's oddly segregated, and I don't like it. The spike in February was right before the leap to IPB. I think some of those are spambots. The September one is definitely from the ARC contest (as well as the TWG bump), and the December one from Inquisitor Santa. Yup. We thought it was a good idea to have a placeholder. Since this definitely isn't the first person to say "Chaos needs new reputation", I've finally updated our long out of date reputation system. With, you know, ranks from Stormlight Archive. The new ranks are: 0 - 17th Shard Trainee 5 - Awakener 10 - Misting 16 - Mistborn 24 - Elantrian 32 - Shardbearer 40 - Full Shardbearer Knight Radiant - 50 Worldhopper - 64 Sliver - 75 Splinter - 100 Shard - 128 And after that... well, RAFO Suffice to say, they space more dramatically and they now go up to 1024. That should keep us busy for a while. Hopefully.

I was kind of surprised that hasn't already happened.

I would like to announce that I have over 200 reputation. Muwhahahaha! (Feel free to upvote this)

Good lord, how do you even get that many? I've barely had any since I switched to Firefox and Chrome years ago. Seriously, what sites are you going to? (Also, it's a fallacy that Macs are immune to viruses, but if you have that many it certainly can't hurt.)

Also, I sort of feel that in doing that, Stormlight wiki artificially increases its article count with not as much content.

Hey Mer! Man, you are going to like the end of Hero of Ages. Hurry your butt up I'm Chaos, the forum admin and theory guy. I'm around a lot! Hey. Hey. Hey. I do not stalk 17th Sharders, nor do I date 17th Sharders. You're safe. I date 17th Sharders' roommates. Get it right. (This is a true story, my girlfriend was roommates with a 17th Sharder. And yes, I say this fully knowing Joe and Eero are going to freaking paste this statement in every girl's intro thread now. Sigh )

That would be awesome, but I spent more than a few hours simply collecting stone for the sky canal. Obsidian would take way too long for the amount of material we need.

I actually upvoted your post. That was a very cogent and well-written response. That always deserves an upvote. I'm not so very married to the idea that I wouldn't enjoy a good discussion upon its merits. Why would I dislike that? Though, I must say, I disagree with you on a couple of matters. I, for one, have seen downvotes applied in a use appropriate manner, which I felt was valuable. I don't want to single anyone out, so if you would like examples, PM me. Since I've felt downvotes have been beneficial, I will at least discuss my reasoning for why I like having that in place. Before I begin, let me reiterate that if downvotes are abused, I will take very swift action and remove that functionality. As I said, I'm not married to the idea or anything. Perhaps I should explain exactly what I meant with "self-policing". It is not related to offensive material (though it could be). Offensive material should be reported immediately, and we have many members who report such content almost immediately. I should know, I get an email every time people press that button! The only instance where something offensive happened, I believe it was handled very quickly. Offensive content is deleted or redacted. With exception to the accidental downvotes (which are really annoying--I'd love for there to be a way to edit which vote you give, like you can on polls. Sadly, they are totally different systems.), I think downvotes have been used in a responsible manner, and have not been abused. It is another method for people to voice their opinions. 17th Shard is full of smart and cogent (and attractive) people, so That's a good point. I do have faith, however, that our members are pretty awesome. If ten of these smart members told me I posted something completely idiotic, I want to not think "Wow, they hate me" but "Hmm, that wasn't the best. I could do better." I think downvotes do not, by themselves, immediately lead to a counterproductive community. I feel I have a job to be welcoming and help people feel at home so that discouragement doesn't happen. I like it as a self-improvement thing. And I like the feature for other reasons, as I explain below. If the community shifted to such a negative culture, I would disable downvotes. My goal--and I believe all the staff's goal here--is to foster healthy, intelligent discussions. I can understand the fear about a more negative community. That would be horrible. Not only would downvotes be abused, but there would be extensive flame wars, and other awful things no one wants. If downvotes caused such a widespread detriment to the community, I would take swift action. However, I would argue that sometimes, you can't actually make a cogent response to a comment. If the goal is to foster healthy, intelligent discussions, we have to admit that it is possible for people to make less intelligent posts, which are not helpful. Sometimes the best reaction, instead of getting into an extensive discussion about how that person was unhelpful, maybe you just want to voice your general distaste for that. If more troll-ish people arrived, I think downvoting would be perfect. You don't want to feed the trolls--they would continue arguing with you, derailing the thread and certainly not adding to the overall discussion--so it could be more effective to have downvotes, and move on from the troll. That way, the troll knows, "Wow, a lot of people didn't like that." Sometimes, anonymity is better, because that reputation counter denotes the sum of the community's reaction to a post. By responding in a post, the "troll" could feel they are personally being attacked, and thus attack you back. With reputation, that person doesn't get the ability to lash out at any specific people. It is the community itself voicing that opinion. For old TWGers, remember UtopiaGreen? That's the kind of thing I am talking about here. Wouldn't you have loved to downvote him? If you're thinking "It's not okay for a person to attack a specific person, but it's okay for the community to do so?" then a-ha! Yes, you got me. I don't want the community to attack specific people for the sake of attacking them. That's awful. But, in that troll example, we see that sometimes it is good to enable people from voicing their opinion on a post. You could downvote me for this post. You could downvote any of my posts! But, let's say a member who just hates us downvotes every post ever, for no reason at all. Jerky Downvoter downvotes everything. I don't know about you, but if I see a downvote, I look and see "hey, did this contribute to the discussion? Was it good?" If I feel that a downvote was issued wrongly, I'd upvote it. (I'm speaking of myself as a forum member, not forum administrator, in this case) In an ideal world, over the average of many user responses, we get a reasonable view of the post. So Jerky Downvoter won't have a big contribution in the long run. But, let's say my post is so atrociously bad that many people want to downvote me. I can think of a few times where I'd be, "Yeah, I deserved that. I was pretty dumb." It can keep me accountable--it can keep everyone accountable--and thus increase the overall health of discussions. That is certainly my hope. Hope is one thing, and if it does not go according to plan, then as I have said, I'd take action. I don't want a negative community. I like your neutral argument. That was exactly the intention. I feel that a combination of replies and up/downvotes is most beneficial. It gives people many possible ways of interaction. Sometimes, you don't have time to write an essay as a response, and so maybe you want to say "This is good!" or "This was no bueno!" It's a good hybrid system, and thus far, it's worked extremely well. I've been very pleased, and I think many people are pleased about the reputation system as well. Does that make sense? Let me know if it doesn't. I'm all for good discussions--this isn't a replacement for that. Nothing would be.

Well, our main mine shaft is built right under, so yes We have built our first outpost, and we will soon have constructed the Imperial Sky Canal to get to all of the dominances in our Final Empire.

Correct. One solution would be to disable downvoting, but I personally find it a smart idea for the community to police itself, and downvoting can be an effective means of doing so.

Lots and lots of Terraria, with Kerry. We have now built seven floors to our "house", Kredik Shaw. Pretty soon we will start building spires.

Just about died laughing. Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory (from the Onion)

Huh. I totally missed this; I thought Alloy was concurrent with Warbreaker. I like the order Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, Way of Kings, and Alloy.

I think "from Mistborn" means "born on Scadrial", so I don't feel Hoid qualifies under this criterion. This is very cool that there are more. Brandon has always said that in the novels there are more worldhoppers than we have caught.

I would like to announce that I have completed all my graduate school applications.

Huh. I must have missed that too. (Of course, I'd always thought the recipient was from Dragonsteel, so I could have glossed over it)

Good point, you are right. It's the Old Magic, explicitly, that is doing that. The specifics aren't quite clear beyond that, since we know little of Old Magic.

Short answer: all known information is acceptable to add to the wiki. There is not a system for major spoilers. Basically, the Coppermind is a source for all known knowledge, so you are always welcome to add it. Citations are preferred, but some articles have true information that has not been cited. That's okay. If it is true and pertains to an article, I feel that it should go in the wiki. So, go for it

I strongly recommend Notepad++ for a basic text editor. Much more fully featured than Notepad.

1. Everyone is correct here, Ruin and Preservation did not create their magics. Specifically, the Metallic Arts are a function of the natural world and how it interacts with its Shards. The Shards did not "create" them. The applicable quote you're looking for: So, my translation: the holders of Ruin and Preservation (Ati and Leras, respectively), didn't say to each other "Yo, let's totally make THIS power!" It was the nature of their Shards and their intents, and how they interacted with the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms which make the powers work in the way they do. (Something like that.) Magic can't just do anything, there are apparently a finite number (but large) amount of abilities the cosmere has. That said, I'm sure something Allomantic gold will become important somehow later on in the series. It's too bizarre when everyone in the world says "Man, that gold Allomancy, we really don't know what's going on there" for it to be nothing. 2. I'm not certain. I feel everyone else's answer on the subject is pretty reasonable. 3. I know, it'd be a shame to see them gone. I mean, they have to come back somehow, but that's a total mystery. For example, Brandon has said this: So... I have no idea how'd we get atium, but I really want it to happen. (Both quotes, by the way, are from the Hero of Ages Spoiler Thread) Nope. I'd go all Principle of Intent on you, but the short answer is that the Shard's intent (their name, like Ruin and Preservation) does not influence the powers that you get, but rather, how you gain the power in the first place. Hemalurgy, for example, if you look at the pure powers you get from it (gaining Allomancy or Feruchemy), it doesn't seem Ruinous. It's only when you look at how the power is obtained (killing) that you realize, hey, it's pretty Ruinous. Feruchemy can't be of Preservation, you see. You are giving up your body's power temporarily when you store it, which isn't Preserving it. Instead, Feruchemy is the balance, because your body's power--while not being preserved--isn't destroyed either. Allomancy, it turns out, is of Preservation because it preserves your body's energy (you don't become physically weaker, nor does Allomancy reduce the amount of Preservation in you), and instead draws on Preservation directly. It's all about how you gain the power, not what the effect of the magic is. (Pushing and Pulling on metals doesn't have much to do with Preserving anything). Does that make sense? This is actually the canonical description that Brandon gave us. Sorry for the rant. I'm kind of partial to the Principle of Intent.

Unfortunately, I've never heard what the effects of being a Sliver are.

Yeah, I tested this a little earlier, because I thought for sure it made the forum marker light up. Not so.

Point of order: I feel that "powering Hemalurgy" is a little misleading. Because when I think of "Ruin powering Hemalurgy", I think of this: Yeah, I'm kind of being pedantic, since Ruin obviously gave Marsh those spikes, but there's nothing to suggest Ruin directly fueled Marsh's metals, as Vin did with Elend.

I don't remember that ever being explicitly stated. Citation? As far as I know, a standard theory on the boards is that Hemalurgy can steal other abilities, and there hasn't been a quote refuting this. This idea is backed up in the end of the Alloy of Law, with that Note on the Metallic Arts. Yeah, it wasn't really possible to ask follow-ups, since I had sent Josh and Mi'ch these questions via email. I concur, I find this line of thought much more valuable. I'm sure Inquisitor children are just humans. But in their Spiritual DNA... yeah. Or, would they be more inclined to Ruin because of it? Interesting indeed. That's an excellent point! I had totally forgotten about that. Upvoted!

I concur, this would be very good. I think the old SMF boards did that. I'll search if there's a nice easy plugin for something like this.