SCP Wiki – Daniel Tharp

August 23, 2016

Single Entendre

So we came down on the side of taking the train. I had to admit that the stress incurred by driving was exceeding the enjoyment I was getting of being home a little earlier. And costs are in favor of the train, too.

This comes just as I’m starting to get creative urges again. I have one project I’ve committed to, getting a new website going for a childhood friend that’s become a popular stand-up comic. But that’s going to be a collection of off-the-shelf software, and I don’t see it being terribly involved in the long run.

I’m not sure what the project is going to be that wins the battle of attracting my interest. I think it’s going to be something with The SCP Wiki, but it’s not going to be Project Foundation, the name that was given to a full wheel reinvention of the website, all functionality. I indicated to them that I’m not willing to put in that much effort until they at least begin the process of incorporating, to reduce the liability I would have of being associated with it.

But there are other things that could be done that don’t involve the full commitment of that wheel reinvention. Honestly, I think it would be a wise mental separation to make this creative outlet something that is not tech-centric. I wrote a post back in April that laid out a plan for a new site, and that is the most intriguing thing to me at the moment. I like the name SCPrompt, as it works two ways. I think I’m going to pitch that to staff in a more concrete manner, and I can build up some of the infrastructure regardless. So there’s a bit of a tech element, but it’s largely peripheral to what … (More) “Single Entendre”

SCP Wiki

April 1, 2016

A Modest Shitpost Proposal (Or, Shitposal)

I’m blown away by the vigor that the SCP community jumped on the Crack Fiction Contest with. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s allowing for low-level funny posts, or because of the super-short notice, less than a day to go from title to execution. Whatever the reason, there’s a lot of latent excitement there. I am thus wanting to seriously consider a spin-off wiki that does nothing but short-term events, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, these contests are incredibly disruptive when we do them on the main wiki. It positively fills up the newly created queue, drowning out unrelated mainlist entries and tales, drowning out requests for critique, and generally derails the site for the duration of the contest.

(Note, I am not advocating that there should never be contests on the main site, just that when they occur pretty much nothing else can.)

Second, some people just work better with a writing prompt, and there’s really no limit to how the prompts can work. It will result in an altogether different content then what’s on the main wiki, and logically they should probably be separated as people looking for one type of content aren’t necessarily interested in the other. This is a similar reasoning to the aborted attempt to run regular fuel contests on /r/scp which would become a writing prompt, ultimately axed because it would be too disruptive to do on the main site regularly (see the first point) and Reddit wasn’t a good place to host the content.

Third, it will give me a good way to get live Admin-level access to a working, active wikidot wiki to better build out PF, should the time come that we actually incorporate. I have put out there that I will not continue development of Project Foundation until … (More) “A Modest Shitpost Proposal (Or, Shitposal)”