New Articles Needed: Site and Forum now Linked
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That's disturbing.
Try again now?
If it still doesn't work, can you please let me know what browser you're using?
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Nope, still nothing.
I'm using Firefox with AdBlock enabled, but disabling AdBlock doesn't do anything.
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Is there a link marked "Toggle editor"?
Do you have javascript etc. all enabled?
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JavaScript is enabled but I see no 'toggle editor' button.
Should I email the article to you instead?
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Yeah, okay
I just wanted to resolve it for anyone else who submitted something.
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Weirdly though, in Safari and Firefox on my machine, it shows the toolbar.
I wonder if it's a permissions thing.
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Did you manage to sort the article out, Mystara? I haven't seen it on the site yet.
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Sorry, it's on my to do list.
I'm moving properties this week, so I haven't had a lot of time
Hopefully I should put it up next week
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Hi, SpectralScorpion (I'd use your real name if I knew it ). Your article's been announced on Knightmare.com, Facebook and Twitter, indicating that it's ready to read. It has been interesting to read the various analyses and opinions in the piece. I must ask though: did you have anyone proofread the article before it was published? A number of factual inaccuracies have slipped through:
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You refer to 'MacGruder' in your section on Cliff's quest. The character was credited as McGrew.
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You say that Kelly got three riddles right. She got her third riddle wrong and scored two. Unfortunately this error invalidates part of your argument.
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Your section on Mike states that 'the only other contestant in Series 8 to reach Level 3 through open play [was] Daniel'. Presumably you're discounting Dunstan and Oliver as not using open play; but what about Nathan?
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'It was established very early on in Series 8 FLOAT spells were needed for trapdoors'. FLOAT spells were often needed, but it was never a rule in the way that, say, giving the Series 4 boatman precious metal was. We don't know whether Richard would have needed to use a FLOAT spell once he'd unlocked the rune cover (nor how he'd have got one if so); Nathan used two alternative aids for safe descent; on the Golden Galleon, Dunstan fell safely without any aid (although one might argue that a ship's hatch wasn't a 'proper' Dungeon trapdoor like the others). (I'm inclined to think that Mike was in losing status for not taking the Brain Pills and would have been fireballed in the Level 2 trapdoor room even if he hadn't tried the door, but that of course is pure opinion.)
Also, in terms of grammar, 'the star moved much slower than Simon would of' should be 'the star moved much slower than Simon would have'.
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Sorry Drassil, it was written in a hurry over the course of two busy weeks. I'll admit that my research wasn't as extensive as it should have been. I did proof-read it but only to the extent of my narrow knowledge. The only other person to have seen it after that was Alan.
With Alan's consent I'm happy to make some edits to the article to incorporate your points.
My name is Alex, by the way.
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Good article, mistakes aside.
Agreed that Cliff and Leo were harshly treated. I have never considered Simon's death to be unfair, though - they guided him in completely the wrong direction, probably thinking the cave mouth was the exit, which is simple team error. I disagree about Helen too, massively unfair IMHO! As David has mentioned, Mike was probably in losing status already so his death was unfair on purpose. -
I proof read it, but not to the extent of fact checking.
If you'd like to update it, Alex, you're more than welcome. However, I think there's a certain validity to what you remember as an unfair death. A followup article, having been made aware of the facts might be a second interesting article
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Don't think I could manage a followup article - it took me ages just to think of those examples.
I've made an amended version that incorporates Drassil's observations. Could you give me an email I can send it to? You can PM it to me if need be.
Don't think I can manage another article in the near future, though I might draw another KM-related picture sometime.
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Great to see so many comments on Facebook re. the jumping the shark article – seems to have polarized opinion nicely!
With 10 years plus of the forum and all those TES articles etc. it’s very difficult to find new things to say about the show, certainly in terms of commentary. In writing my three articles, I suppose my approach has been to try to find new ways of presenting old arguments. It turns out that the ‘jumping the shark’ angle has actually been covered on this very forum, with a thread started in 2006 (Canadanne actually summing up the good/bad points of each series a little over a year ago in a post which would itself form the basis of a good article).
I have mixed feelings about this. Frustration that what I hoped would be new ground is in fact a well worn path. But also relief that I hadn’t spotted that thread until after my own article was published – if I had, I probably wouldn’t have bothered writing it and nobody would be discussing it on FB. At the same time, there is unavoidably an element of diminishing returns. My own view is that it’s probably worth treading the same ground to get more people thinking about KM, to get more people contributing to the debate - to keep KM alive.
I’m also conscious that there can be a fine line between what constitutes a forum post and an ‘article’ – I could just have used the forum for my output. Mystara could perhaps provide some stats on this, but I imagine that more people are likely to read stuff on the main page and comment on FB rather than use the forum? If so, this means that many great forum discussions will only be read by a relatively small number of people; in order to keep the site as dynamic as possible we therefore need a stream of new articles for a wider readership.
I’d be interested to get your views on this – are these articles worth doing? If so, would you have any ideas for a genuinely original article?
I’m also very aware that I’m a relatively new contributor and don’t want to ‘hijack’ the site in any way by bombarding it with my own personal musings! (though I have been an on/off visitor since my first year in uni when I discovered the site in its clara.net incarnation – blimey, 13 years ago!).
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There are quite a few different numbers but here we go:
A typical Facebook post from us receives several thousand exposures over about one or two days, along with perhaps 15 comments and 100 likes. After a couple of days it stops completely.
An article usually gets a few thousand unique hits, constantly but forever increasing. 10 per day is a good rule of thumb.
We have about 5 active forum contributors, 10 silent readers, 700 accounts, of which 200 have been used in the last 3 or 4 years.
In short, almost nobody reads the forums, which is why I push for people to use the main site more.
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Has the forum ever been advertised on Facebook? I think a lot of people just don't realise it's here. Heck, I've been aware of Knightmare.com since 2001, but didn't notice there was a forum until 2010!
To HobGoblin, I would definitely say keep writing those articles - I love reading a well-written piece of commentary, even when it relates to a subject that's been discussed in the past.
A typical Facebook post from us receives several thousand exposures over about one or two days, along with perhaps 15 comments and 100 likes. After a couple of days it stops completely.
And therein lies the major drawback of Facebook posts - it's great that lots of people will see them, but they are so ephemeral. A few months down the line, nobody will even be able to re-read the comments that were left, let alone join in the discussion. That's what I like about the forum - the posts are here forever and can be easily revisited at any time.
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I didn't realise there was a forum til August last year! Was aware of Knightmare.com long before that. Alan, have you tried to contact Challenge TV via facebook or twitter to see if they could allow you to promote the website and maybe the forum?
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Firstly, I have just asked Challenge about some promotion for the site and forum. We'll see if that amounts to anything. If not, I might simply start mentioning it in all of their posts about Knightmare.
Secondly, you're absolutely right about Facebook posts being ephemeral. Facebook have tried to change that by the use of "discussions", but in practice nobody actually uses Facebook that way. People comment on status updates, and that's about it.
Thirdly, I think the forum has better exposure than it's had in the past. However, it's still something that we need to improve on.
One problem is that many people are scared away by how hugely disorganised and cumbersome the forum is. Looking at the topic of a thread tells you very little about what you might find within it. Previous incarnations of the forum necessitated big threads that people were encouraged to update (e.g. "News relating to actor X"). However, in practice, these are very very difficult for new people to traverse or to search.
Hence, there's a great deal of information here in the forums which is, to all intents and purposes, "lost". New people either won't bother, or won't know to look for it.
Hence my pleas for people to post news to the main site, and to consider converting their threads into articles, where they'll get much bigger viewership
Fourthly, we are trying to integrate the main site, forum, Facebook and twitter more closely. Recently, we added a new module that automatically posts knightmare.com articles to Facebook and twitter. However, it's not quite working right yet. I'd also like to modify this module so that it automatically adds a thread in the forum and links the forum to the main article. However, that's time consuming.
I'm also still hoping to add a medal system. The icons are done, but it needs some programming. My hope is that this would encourage people to become more involved in the main site (which lots of people see) as opposed to the forum (which very few people see). Again, it's something that's time consuming to do.
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I wanted to add some apologies here. Firstly, for the proof-reading issue at the end of last year. I would normally have been delegated that sort of task, until I went underground in a sordid job-degree two-timing mission. For sure, I'll be glad to reprise that role.
I've also had plans for little projects that, for one reason or another, haven't been fulfilled. For some of these, I suspect, the moment has passed. Some may yet be possible. And, encouragingly, some have emerged that could not have been foreseen before.
An example of the latter: one of my colleagues here at Leicester has been working on Knightmare as part of her doctoral thesis on the representation of fantasy in children's television from the 1950s to 1994. I'm very much hoping to encourage her to pen a contribution for the site (for where better than here?)
I honestly don't believe that the 'stock' of Knightmare is exhausted yet by any means. But as Alex and Chris have both rightly insinuated, it's more of a challenge now to be innovative than it once was. There's value in taking time and care to make contributions worthy.
It's been a decent 12 months for Knightmare, all considered, and I'm convinced that this can be met with new content. The timing has just been a little frustrating. I definitely look forward to helping out more once the civil war with my 80,000 word thesis is finally over (and hopefully without any beheading. Crumbs, even Knightmare didn't succumb to a formal execution. Imagine...!)
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