Y'know what I hate?

[bluegargantua]

Wiki spam bots.

Grrr
Tom

p.s. New Lexicon game starting soon. Details shortly...once I clean up the mess...and lock stuff down...

p.p.s. GRRRRR

Comments

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Wow. I have no idea what you're talking about. But it sounds, I think, interesting. Are there more words you could use?

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_%28game%29

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

okay, maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't it be more interesting to make a game or race where you made wiki entries about things that are real? Do you just make them up out of your head? Is it like a fiction writing contest?

And I still don't know what a wiki spam bot is. That's one of those odd moments where I know all three words, I just don't understand what they're doing in conjunction with each other.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Okay, now that sounds snippy in my head. I didn't mean to be snippy. But I was reading the entry you linked to and it sounded really interesting until I realized that it was fiction. I study fiction for a living, so it's not like I have anything against fiction! But I just don't get where the fun is. So, perhaps less snippily: is it comparable to the fun of writing a story? Like playing an elaborate and written game of rigmarole?

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

Lexicon is a fiction-writing game. Writing fiction is pretty much the point. Some people enjoy writing fiction. Lexicon is a little like the fun of writing a story, but really more about creating a setting that stories happen in.

If writing fiction doesn't pique your interest maybe you should look into Lexicon's non-fiction cousin, Encyclopedia.

And a wiki spambot is a program that edits crap into your wiki - inserts adventisements and obscenities, deletes pages, and so on. Think of it as electronic graffiti and vandalism.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Thanks for the elaboration. I've never played something like that, nor really even heard of something like that outside of Little Women, which obviously didn't have the benefit of Wiki! I guess the thing that confused me is the idea of writing fiction in the guise of non-fiction.

The books in my dissertation include 2 books written *as* fiction that actually contain a whole bunch of non-fiction, one non-fiction that contains many of the narrative markers of fiction, and one mixed genre piece that contains fiction and non-fiction mixed together with few markers to indicate which is which. So this is kindof a major issue that I spend a lot of time thinking about.

It's interesting to me, additionally, to think of writing as a game. Writing is a job to me, and an onerous one at that right now. I wonder if I could learn something about loving what I do from such a thing? I got into this because I love reading and writing, and five years in, I can't feel that love anymore. Sigh. I wish I knew how to get back to that!

(Except I clearly love overly loquacious posts to strangers in LJ!)

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

Collaborative fiction. Like improvisation, playing jazz with someone else's riff.