Indexing MUP

Questions, comments, quips, criticisms, suggestions & compliments regarding the podcast and this forum.
Shimmin Beg
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Indexing MUP

Post by Shimmin Beg » Sat Dec 05, 2015 11:57 am

So for a while I've been mulling over the idea of whether it'd be possible to set up some kind of tagging/indexing system for MUP episodes.

The thing is, there are getting on for a hundred episodes now (plus games, of course), full of interesting discussions, rules queries, inspirations, ideas for using monsters or characters, plot seeds, Keeper tips, player tips, historical insights, you name it. But audio is notoriously poor for actually finding information again, or cross-referencing. If someone wants to look through all your ideas about pulp play, say, or using byakhees, or Robert Chambers stuff, or particular types of stories... there's not much option other than re-listening to all the podcasts (which isn't exactly a choice, but it takes a while!).

My idea was that if people could tag podcast episodes to indicate content, that might make them not just an interesting listen at the time, but also a viable reference resource that people could use, in the same way as things like the YSDC Wiki.

Long-term it'd be great to include multiple podcasts, but let's not get ahead of ourselves...

What do people thing? Especially the hosts? The show notes are great, don't get me wrong, but a tagging system would be useful for finding stuff across the whole range of podcasts, and also allows flagging up of specific content rather than general indication of topics.

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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Keeper Jon » Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:22 pm

I think this is an amazing idea. I have no idea what the level of effort would be to complete a project like this, nor do I know how to implement it, but if I had instructions I could follow, (and the time available to do it), I'd be glad to help out. Great idea, man! :cthulhudance:

Shimmin Beg
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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Shimmin Beg » Sat Dec 12, 2015 8:11 pm

Glad you like it :cthulhu1:

It's actually possible that the YSDC wiki would be up for adding this to its set of projects - along with doing the YSDC audio, of course. That's categories, not tagging, but it might work. I'd really prefer to have tags though, this stuff isn't really hierarchical. Plus it allows for all kinds of oddball tags, depending what people think is relevant.

I'm just asking my library buddies for help, see if one of them knows a standard way of handling this kind of thing.

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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Shimmin Beg » Wed Dec 16, 2015 10:01 pm

So consultation with my library buddies suggests that the best bet might be a plugin. If your site is built on Wordpress, there are a few tagging plugins you might be able to add to the site. Unfortunately I don't know anything about Wordpress, so I can't particularly advise :S

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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Dr. Gerard » Thu Dec 24, 2015 5:13 pm

I'm also very enthusiastic about this idea - delayed response is only due to my refuced forum time over the last few weeks.

There is already a tagging system that we use for the posts, but it is mostly a repeating list of tags like "7E" or "bestiary" that would not help specific searches very much. I will raise this with Dan when we reconvene in January. I like the idea of crowd sourcing it. With a few people working on this, perhaps the effort would not seem so daunting. I don't frankly want to listen to every episode again from start to finish, but I would offer to carefully tag, say, ten of them. In the meantime, if anyone wants to jot down tags for new episodes as they come out, shoot us a comma-separated list and I should be able to paste them into our current tagging system ad hoc.

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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Shimmin Beg » Fri Jan 22, 2016 8:27 pm

I know the feeling - I'm really scrambling for time just now.

I'll try to tag the next podcast I listen to, and we can see how that works out.

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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Shimmin Beg » Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:01 pm

Okay, here's a sample for you. I ended up listening to episode 27 again because I knew that had a range of content. Here's the potential tags I came up with:

campus crier, cryptocurium, ysdc, miskatonic river press, punktown, tales of the sleepless city, achtung! cthulhu, mountains of madness, joe broers, props, sculpture, collectibles, yig, hplhs, dark adventure radio theatre, charles dexter ward, unspeakable oath, cthulhu mythos encyclopaedia, delta green, mythos fiction, relic radio, period resources, orson welles, audio resources, field trip, ripple rock, shipwrecks, maritime history, british columbia, eltdown shards, reading tomes, hpllp, the challenge from beyond, yithians, jimmy and the professor, scenario design, brainstorming, vikings, geology, underground, subways, London, gaslight, aliens, plants, elder things, parasites, byakhees, shoggoths, infection, transformation

Campus Crier here is a brief topic, not just a segment. There's a lot of topical tags because you guys threw a LOT of ideas at that scenario to see what stuck! I didn't include absolutely everything, I tried to keep it to things that it seemed like people might want to look up. But... I am an ex-librarian, so hey. So, what do you think?


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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by Shimmin Beg » Fri Jan 29, 2016 7:59 pm

Not so much, honestly. I spend so much time listening to podcasts... it's kind of like hanging out with friends when you don't quite have anything to say, you know? Just sort of lean back and let it wash over you. The trick is going to be tagging the ones I listen to when I'm running :S

It also reminded me that this scenario ideas is beast, and I should try running it. So many cool ideas knocking around here.

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Re: Indexing MUP

Post by fox01313 » Sat Jan 30, 2016 2:52 pm

Tagging would be a chore to set up but once it's ready (as having to do similar things for work with building work related publications), it should be great. Though I will say now keep the tags simple, unique & just don't create a ton of variants (i.e. red shoggoth, pine-scented shoggoth....seen tags go crazy & just gets to be a headache). Sounds like a great idea so I'm curious to see how it turns out.
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