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The Almeopedia!

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 5:26 am
by Warmaster
Ok, i've only been on five minutes and have already plowed through Kebri and Cuezi pages. Somehow i fear i shan't be getting much writing done for a while :P

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 5:53 am
by Nuntar
The resemblance (in appearance, I mean) between Benhêk and Nortala is quite scary...... I hope it wasn't deliberate! :roll:

Anyway, I'm enjoying it a lot, but there are two things I really miss, and I think these should be a priority even before adding more articles:

* IPA transcriptions, for the title of each article at least, especially if it's a name. Remember that those of us who enjoy dipping into your work but don't yet know it back to front might not know offhand what language a particular name is from. Also, having examples makes it easier to get to learn the pronunciation rules of each language.

* Redirects. For instance, typing "Benhek", without the accent, into the search box should get to the article on Benhêk.

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:27 am
by Rory
w00t.

I've been waiting for this for years.

Literally.

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:20 pm
by con quesa
Nifty as hell. I always wondered where the idea for the Elenicoi came from.

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:37 pm
by Anguipes
All I have to say is: *glee*

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:52 pm
by Zerrakhi
I just received my notification:
ChangeDetection.com robot wrote:At your request we have been monitoring the following page for
changes:

http://www.zompist.com/change.html

A change was detected at:

Sat Aug 26 10:05:34 PDT 2006
Unfortunately it's very late here, and it will have to wait until a more sensible hour...

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:47 pm
by Leo
Great move! :D Wish it had been done sooner

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:25 pm
by Kuh-five
Well, I guess this is as good a place as any.

The template for countries should have the thumbnail map incorporated into it (see here), right below the name at the top. I'd do it myself except I have no clue how to do it.

Nice job!

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:41 pm
by krinnen
My first impression was: Qué copado, la reputa madre!!!!

my second impression: wow.

Then I shed some tears.

now, I'll go read some more. :wink:

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:42 pm
by Gareth
Great to see this up. I just have a few questions:
When Mark writes new material, will it all go in the Almeopedia, or will the zompist.com site be updated as well?
I notice that the Curymise resemble the ilii, in hairstyle and body shape if not in skin colour. Presumably there's no genetic link, so is this parallel evolution or cultural imitation?
I'm having the same problem with the Almeopedia as I have with the Wikipedia - Internet Explorer displays all the special characters as either little boxes or inappropriate characters. How do I see say, a glottal stop?

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:21 pm
by dunomapuka
It's great. Particulalry, I'm amused by the biographies. I liked reading about the particulars of how Ružeon's reconstruction. The Řon Lebië Kestië sounds like some kind of Dewey Decimal Language.


Oh no, the Wekipaijua!

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:49 pm
by Chengjiang
Almeopedia -- the reason I fell short on sleep last night. Amazing.

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 4:55 pm
by -
Great work by Mark as usual. The "fanboy" entry for the Knights of Devora is hysterical.

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:32 pm
by BGMan
Very interesting. Two thumbs up. I didn't see the Fanboy version of the Knights of Devora. Major chuckles! :D

(Minor gripe/rant: I just wish everything didn't have to be in Arial. Man, I hate Arial, but all Wikis are all set up to use it, dernem.)

I wonder, maybe the country entries could include figures on population? I know Verduria has about as many as one of the major European countries. How about Dhekhnam, Xurno, Kebri, and the rest??

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 7:31 pm
by Warmaster
ils wrote:Great work by Mark as usual. The "fanboy" entry for the Knights of Devora is hysterical.
On the less fanboyish side, the proper entry keeps making me think of Batman! :P

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:24 pm
by tsmoss
I loved all the humor in it--the aforementioned "fanboy" version of the Knights of Dévora article, the Wikipedia parody, Lore as Iesu, Chow Yun-Fat as Beretos.

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 9:26 pm
by zompist
Great idea on the IPA. Very possibly some people are not up on all the phonologies of Almea.

The redirects are a good idea too (I've put in some already), though that would be low priority for me, and a useful thing readers could do.

Fey, I kind of like the thumbnail maps where they are. Besides, templates are just horrible to work with. MediaWiki markup language is really nice for many things, but whoever invented the template syntax should be shot.
Gareth wrote:Great to see this up. I just have a few questions:
When Mark writes new material, will it all go in the Almeopedia, or will the zompist.com site be updated as well?
Depends on the scope. The 'pedia format works best for short to medium-sized articles. Longer items like stories and grammars will continue to get their own pages on zompist.com.

To get Windows IE to display special characters, you'll probably need to install a language pack, or something. If someone's done this successfully, maybe they can explain. (In this area the Mac is ahead, so I figured I'd use Unicode throughout and let Windows catch up.)

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:26 am
by Zerrakhi
I've created a user page and used it to store a list of ideas.

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:27 am
by Nuntar
zompist wrote:The redirects are a good idea too (I've put in some already), though that would be low priority for me, and a useful thing readers could do.
Oh :oops: I hadn't realised it was set up so other users could edit -- not the sort of thing I'd feel comfortable doing with my conworld! :wink: I wouldn't mind making myself useful by doing some redirects.

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:26 am
by alephnaught

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:17 pm
by zompist
Nuntar wrote:Oh :oops: I hadn't realised it was set up so other users could edit -- not the sort of thing I'd feel comfortable doing with my conworld!
Well, it's not becoming a collaborative conworld, just a collaborative resource. :) See the Editing Guidelines for more details. The analogy I use is that it's like a Battlestar Galactica wiki: you shouldn't be writing episodes or creating characters, but you don't have to wait for Ron Moore to write it all.

Plus, you can write articles in Almean languages with almost no restrictions. :)

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 2:34 pm
by BGMan
zompist wrote:Plus, you can write articles in Almean languages with almost no restrictions. :)
Hmm... is it possible to do as they have in Wikipedia, and set up a Verdurian version of Almeopedia? :P

Just imagine, reading an article and looking on the left-hand language bar, and seeing "Soa Sfahe" or "Kebreni" instead of "Deutsch", "Français" and the rest... :D

Here's a question: Almeopedia says that Verdurian is the language of about 27 million people in Eretald. The Verdurian language article at http://www.zompist.com/verdurian.htm says 55 million. Which is it? :?:

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:35 pm
by Tuli
BGMan wrote:Here's a question: Almeopedia says that Verdurian is the language of about 27 million people in Eretald. The Verdurian language article at http://www.zompist.com/verdurian.htm says 55 million. Which is it?
It's the smaller number. There's a post somewhere here where Zomp says he overestimated when he wrote 55 million. I believe he also said there are 6 million in Verduria itself (not sure if that meant the kingdom or the province).

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 3:55 pm
by kuroda
Kick. Ass.

Personally, I liked the police mugshot of Jesus.

Too many mammaries to be safe work browsing though, I have to say.

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:22 pm
by BGMan
kuroda wrote:Kick. Ass.

Too many mammaries to be safe work browsing though, I have to say.
Haha, I noticed that all the pictures of the different Almean human races are females. I'm sure Zomp knows his audience will be mainly men and is catering to the market. :P (Not that I mind... 8))

Anyone else notice that the picture of Fanao was the same as the Knights of Devora Fanboy version? :D