Project Feedback: New Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online Novel?

[James]

Intermediary Update (Novel Paragraphs Editor)
Automatic selection and progression of focus chapter.

Focus Chapter
The Novel Paragraph Editor, when loaded under default settings, should now automatically select the current “focus chapter” (presently the first chapter that does not have at least 1☆ in both English and Translation). Just in time for Chapter 1 to meet the criteria for advancing the focus chapter to chapter 2.

It will respond based on whatever the data tells it. If, for some reason, a paragraph was kicked back to 0☆ in an earlier chapter, or a new paragraph was added at 0☆, it would never the focus chapter to the chapter that contained that paragraph until it met the necessary criteria.

Behind the Scenes
This update also includes some code to track and store the chapter data and statistics for the feature above, but also, for other features that may come. For example, I’ve been gradually preparing things like this that can be combined into a chapter “status report” that would contain potentially useful information. One example would be the status report could point out that an individual is flagged in the Officers Editor as appearing in a given chapter, but that they are not actually tagged in that chapter.

Back to working on the Locations Editor.

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Translation Status 1☆
A thought on the “Translation” status. It could be quite reasonable to meet Translation Status 1 by making sure the important contents of a paragraph (e.g. individuals, locations, numbers) are in agreement with translations from others like Moss Roberts and even Google translation can provide a nice little reality check on some points. It ought to be more intimately tied to translation knowledge in progressing beyond, but the main point of the first star of status, there, is to make sure there are no prominent errors.

[James]

Intermediary Update (Novel Connections Editor)

Yu Sumei reference data is now available to the Novel Connections Editor
I also populated chapter 2, since it is the chapter that is currently being reviewed.

[James]

I have prepared and uploaded Chapter 11 with all the pertinent accoutrements.

I’m just going to gradually continue publishing these chapters for the sake of having the project online in a usable state alongside any contributions to editing the novel continuing as it pleases everyone to do so. And I’ll aim to review each for proper labeling of individuals, some automatic tagging, and some basic editing like expanding dangling single names to full names. Anyone is, of course, free to rummage and edit ahead, whoever they like, or to focus some of their energy on whatever the current “focus chapter” happens to be.

[James]

Okay, pardon the period of silence there. I’m going to get back into the swing of things and have just uploaded Chapter 14.

I have a habit where I tend to be pretty hyper-focused on whatever I’m working on, so when I’m sorting out nuts and bolts life throws at me, like some unexpected deadline tax stuff, I tend to focus on that. I’ll aim to keep a general presence here so it isn’t as though I am sometimes just stopping for a little while. I understand some regular engagement with fields here is valuable not just for a project like this, but also, frankly, for my mental health as well!

[ZL181]

Okay, pardon the period of silence there. I’m going to get back into the swing of things and have just uploaded Chapter 14.

I have a habit where I tend to be pretty hyper-focused on whatever I’m working on, so when I’m sorting out nuts and bolts life throws at me, like some unexpected deadline tax stuff, I tend to focus on that. I’ll aim to keep a general presence here so it isn’t as though I am sometimes just stopping for a little while. I understand some regular engagement with fields here is valuable not just for a project like this, but also, frankly, for my mental health as well!

I will populate Chapter 14 in a little while.

I think it is definitely good for people to check in with old friends not only to benefit their mental health, but the mental health of their friends as well. We are meant to socialize with each other, and so we should try to maintain those connections whenever we can.

[James]

I will populate Chapter 14 in a little while.

I think it is definitely good for people to check in with old friends not only to benefit their mental health, but the mental health of their friends as well. We are meant to socialize with each other, and so we should try to maintain those connections whenever we can.

You are very right, my friend.

I had another “fun” weekend adventure dealing with an entity who spent the end of the week and weekend in a rather deliberate effort to exploit my employer’s website. Lots o’ monitoring, log reviewing, a security review, and some code writing along the way. Thankfully everting held up splendidly.

So false start. Now I can relax again. lol

[ZL181]

I am sorry that this "entity" would even dare take up your weekend with such distasteful acts, I do not know why they enjoy ruining websites. In the end, your prowess bested this "entity" and everything, as you said, held up splendidly. I hope that my company can help you relax!

[James]

I am sorry that this "entity" would even dare take up your weekend with such distasteful acts, I do not know why they enjoy ruining websites. In the end, your prowess bested this "entity" and everything, as you said, held up splendidly. I hope that my company can help you relax!

I imagine they are up to the usual sort of bad. Gather information to level a threat that it is not exposed. Gather sensitive account information to exploit individuals. Gather financial information to take advantage of users.

Today I did indeed have an opportunity to relax and work on some things for me.

Which included fixing a bunch of broken stuff on game pages at KMA. It feels nice to be leaning back into these labor-of-love projects.

It makes me happy that I have friends, here.

[James]

The Curious Case of Chengs
I’ve been chatting with ZL181 about the novel’s habit of referencing siege targets and some locations with ‘cheng’ when the name seems to be commandery based. So we may have Peicheng, or Liangcheng, and so forth. At the moment it is pondered if this is just a way to say sieging the pertinent city in Pei commandery or the like, so currently I am tagging these locations as “Peicheng” but linked to Pei commandery (as one example), which also seems to be the solution employed by Moss Roberts.

For the purposes of having a standardized approach, I wonder if anyone else has thoughts on a different approach?

We would normally keep with the policy of rendering relevant translation (e.g. Pei City, or as a more familiar example, ‘Hulao Gate’ or ‘Hulao Pass’ instead of ‘Hulaoguan’), but that doesn’t hold if it is not a reference to the city Pei.

[James]

Our Dong Zhou has brought up readability for reading something like a text (e.g. letter) in the novel, so I thought I would experiment a bit with how this might be approached.

Here is an example of what I have experimented with:

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Any thoughts? Does this seem pleasant and readable? And not too unusual in formatting?