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Update on our progress
3 min read
Hiya everypony!
So I decided it's time to give a little update on the project for those who are interested and are following our progress.
First of all, we have officially entered Phase 2 of the project.
Phase 1 was, more or less, the testing phase. See how my bookbronies are, what's their style, work-morale. I tried to answer questions, clear up a few misunderstandings and make sure everything falls into place.
In this first phase we kinda worked on archiving Nightly Roundups, ATG Alumni art, Imageboard pics and Vectors.
Of course, we didn't just work on these. Meanwhile in the background the comic section, drawfriends, wallpapers, custom ponies, every other material and news are being covered and archived, on a daily basis, so I don't list them seperately.
In Phase 2 the Vector section gets finished, we start working on the Fanfiction and GIF sections and try to do something with the Imageboard folder.
These are the last few big chuncks in the project. Once this is done, the Project reaches beta status and we enter the last phase.
Before we enter Phase 3 I will upload The Book, but exclusively for those who are working / helping with the project, so they can give feedback, toss in some ideas and so on. This will be a raw, "unedited" collection of everything, regardless of permissions granted / withdrawn. This is for ourselves.
I decided to devote the majority of Phase 3 (along with some polishing) for administration, and try to get most of my bookbronies to send out letters and notes regarding permissions.
We will try to reach as many people as possible and in case somepony does not wish to be included, we will remove his/her art in phase 3. Also some major advertising will take place, if everything happens according to our plans
Before anyone points out, no, it's not easier to ask first before putting in content. This work requires us to push hard and keep up a fast pace. Since we are downloading everything from the source (well, if there's one) and add tags and credits to everything we can, it's actually easier to remove content later with simple search tags. Don't believe me? Go an make a collection of 57.000 files and we will talk again. Oh yes, that's where are at the moment. 57.000 files. And we aren't even done yet. I predict the final collection will hold around 65.000 - 70.000 files. This fandom is wicked
Also, happy happy news, our programmer brony made us a nifty little program that scans through the filenames and creates a list with all the artist names and sources. (Only works for dA, FA and Ponibooru images, due to their 'unique' naming format.) This will make our lives a lot easier
So yes, overall we are progressing, working, so no worries, The Book is on its way
As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or some other matter you wish to discuss, don't hesitate to contact us at bigbookofbrony[at]gmail[dot]com.
So I decided it's time to give a little update on the project for those who are interested and are following our progress.
First of all, we have officially entered Phase 2 of the project.
Phase 1 was, more or less, the testing phase. See how my bookbronies are, what's their style, work-morale. I tried to answer questions, clear up a few misunderstandings and make sure everything falls into place.
In this first phase we kinda worked on archiving Nightly Roundups, ATG Alumni art, Imageboard pics and Vectors.
Of course, we didn't just work on these. Meanwhile in the background the comic section, drawfriends, wallpapers, custom ponies, every other material and news are being covered and archived, on a daily basis, so I don't list them seperately.
In Phase 2 the Vector section gets finished, we start working on the Fanfiction and GIF sections and try to do something with the Imageboard folder.
These are the last few big chuncks in the project. Once this is done, the Project reaches beta status and we enter the last phase.
Before we enter Phase 3 I will upload The Book, but exclusively for those who are working / helping with the project, so they can give feedback, toss in some ideas and so on. This will be a raw, "unedited" collection of everything, regardless of permissions granted / withdrawn. This is for ourselves.
I decided to devote the majority of Phase 3 (along with some polishing) for administration, and try to get most of my bookbronies to send out letters and notes regarding permissions.
We will try to reach as many people as possible and in case somepony does not wish to be included, we will remove his/her art in phase 3. Also some major advertising will take place, if everything happens according to our plans
Before anyone points out, no, it's not easier to ask first before putting in content. This work requires us to push hard and keep up a fast pace. Since we are downloading everything from the source (well, if there's one) and add tags and credits to everything we can, it's actually easier to remove content later with simple search tags. Don't believe me? Go an make a collection of 57.000 files and we will talk again. Oh yes, that's where are at the moment. 57.000 files. And we aren't even done yet. I predict the final collection will hold around 65.000 - 70.000 files. This fandom is wicked
Also, happy happy news, our programmer brony made us a nifty little program that scans through the filenames and creates a list with all the artist names and sources. (Only works for dA, FA and Ponibooru images, due to their 'unique' naming format.) This will make our lives a lot easier
So yes, overall we are progressing, working, so no worries, The Book is on its way
As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or some other matter you wish to discuss, don't hesitate to contact us at bigbookofbrony[at]gmail[dot]com.
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The Big Book of Brony and you.
8 min read
Greetings everypony.
First of all, let me thank you for coming here and taking the time to read through this journal. I will explain what this project is about, how we work on it and what our goal is.
It all started by my own archiving and organizing nature back when I joined the fandom in late January. I started to save everything pony related I came across. Around May, my personal collection has grown to such size I started wondering, and based on some feedback, it was already something beyond what most people have and seen. So I decided it would be a good idea to share it !
The goal was to give back something to the community, not for fame, but for the warm fuzzy feeling that I did something to show the world how awesome this fandom is.
Sadly, I have become a bit lazy in the wrong moment when the fandom has gone into a creative craze and the ammount of new material and news popping up each day became more and more each and every day. I kept up with archiving everything on a daily basis, but each day, I got behind a bit with the actual work of organization itself. A few weeks ago I reached a point where I had to put away my stubborn pride trying to do this task all alone, and asked for help. That's how we started.
The Big Book of Brony is a collection aimed to include everything brony and pony related:
Listing everything would take pages, so take this as an example of what we will present in The Book:
- fanart
- gifs and imageboard images
- fanfics
- brony games and game mods
- subtitles
- vectors
- lists to gaming communities and forums
- podcasts
What we won't put into the book:
- We won't include episodes
- We also won't include music, or PMVs/YTPMVs and such for sheer size issues (as of the moment the collection is around 35Gb, if I would add my personal PMV/music collection, it would immediately jump to 110 Gb.)
- gore and r34 material
Imagine The Book as an encyclopedia. It's not another website. It's not a new Equestria Daily and not a constantly updated collection (at least not for the moment). What we are trying to create is to put everything created by the brony community in about one year, archive it, organize, categorize and present it to the world in a well thought out system for everypony's enjoyment. Imagine it as Volume I.
There might be a Volume II a few months later, but that depends on a lot of things so I can't promise anything yet.
Regarding how the team and the project works:
We have 12 bronies working on the project at the moment, including myself. I am the project coordinator and everything runs into my hand. I handle the administration, letters, notes, I'm giving out tasks and organize/categorize everything that I'm being sent by my bookbronies (that's how call the team members). Lucky me I have a very supportive little group there who make an excellent job, I'm truly honored and happy to have them by my side, whom without this project could never become as awesome as it will be.
The work is seperated into 3 stages, each stage has it's well organized sections and tasks. We have nearly completed stage 1 and entering stage 2 in the coming days. At the end of Stage 2 The Book will enter its beta phase and when we are done with Stage 3, it will be released, either hosted on a dedicated site or via torrent, that will be decided later.
Regarding common misunderstandings.
- We are crediting every single person / team who's work is presented in the book. No exceptions. This I have made very clear and putting a lot of emphasize on it during our work.
- We won't claim anything to be ours in the book, save for the intro (which is written by one of our members) and the actual process of collecting/categorizing.
- Since I am being accused of "Republishing/stealing people's work to present it under myname", to quote some individuals, I have made a promise that I won't be credited in The Book in any shape or form. I'm not doing this to gain anything.
- The Book is completely free, will always remain free and of course we only use material that is already freely available.
What was all the flaming about?
- Permissions. Due to the magnitude of the project, I have found it virtually impossible to ask for a permission from every single person, as it means thousands and thousands of people.
- Due to this, my original intent was to not bother with permissions at all, but that actually felt bad, coz I wanted artists to have an affect on their work in some way.
- Though I knew it's not the best solution, I tried to come up with a compromise. I decided to take permissions automaticly granted, while I keep advertising the project and ask people to send me emails and notes whether they want to be included or not. Meanwhile I tried to reach Ponibooru (with no success) and the MLP-Fim Group here on dA (also with no success) and EqD (with success) to help me gather permissions and advertise to project. I was sending personal notes to more well known artists as well asking for permissions, for pure marketing reasons, so I can put their names next to the project thus encouraging others to give theirs aswell.
- The feedback on the first week was extremly positive, filled with support, cheering and excitement for The Book. I was creating a list of permissions granted, as well as taking personal requests from artist (such as to not include certain art pieces that were stolen from them without them being credited). Frankly, not a single person has prohibited me from using his/her art.
Tha flaming started on 20th of October, when our advertisement appeared on EqD for the 3rd time and some people found my method of choice for permissions unpleasent. Instead of being approached in a normal manner, I was immediately attacked in a flaming war of hatred against my person, where I received numerous uncivilized messages filled with insults, threats and smearing, while I was also told by some bronies that certain malevolent individuals are spreading rumors of me that made worrying artists ask me if I'm goign to credit them or am I actually selling the book.
I have taken notes of every artist in the process, whether they were granting their permission or prohibiting to use their work, and answered to all emails and dA notes I have received (even those which were obviously showing hate and possible trolling, maybe that wasn't a great idea).
I am not hiding anything, never did. I'm not lieing to anyone, I'm as honest as I can be.
For that reason, I provide a link for those who want to see the original ponychan thread which got locked since then: www.ponychan.net/chan/collab/r…
In case it gets deleted, I have saved the thread, going to upload it and replace the link if there's interest for it.
Regardless of all the flames, I'm still receiving supportive notes and emails from artists and even got some artists to actually grant me their previously hastly denied permissions, after they took time to look into the matter. My team stands by me, which is - needless to say - an extremly good feeling.
So, the work continues. We will finish the project, though at the moment we are creating it for ourselves. How it will be published - if at all - is yet to determined based on the happenings of the coming days. I'm still asking for permissions and still making notes and hoping for the general support of the community. I will put a lot more effort into it, as I'm giving out more and more work from my hands to my bookbronies and focusing on administration.
I thank you, dear reader, for taking time to read through this gigantic wall of text. I hope I managed to answer all your questions.
Also, brohoof to all of you who are showing support. It's greatly appreciated
P.S.: If you have any more questions that haven't been answered, don't hesitate to contact me here on dA or at bigbookofbrony[at]gmail[dot]com.
First of all, let me thank you for coming here and taking the time to read through this journal. I will explain what this project is about, how we work on it and what our goal is.
It all started by my own archiving and organizing nature back when I joined the fandom in late January. I started to save everything pony related I came across. Around May, my personal collection has grown to such size I started wondering, and based on some feedback, it was already something beyond what most people have and seen. So I decided it would be a good idea to share it !
The goal was to give back something to the community, not for fame, but for the warm fuzzy feeling that I did something to show the world how awesome this fandom is.
Sadly, I have become a bit lazy in the wrong moment when the fandom has gone into a creative craze and the ammount of new material and news popping up each day became more and more each and every day. I kept up with archiving everything on a daily basis, but each day, I got behind a bit with the actual work of organization itself. A few weeks ago I reached a point where I had to put away my stubborn pride trying to do this task all alone, and asked for help. That's how we started.
The Big Book of Brony is a collection aimed to include everything brony and pony related:
Listing everything would take pages, so take this as an example of what we will present in The Book:
- fanart
- gifs and imageboard images
- fanfics
- brony games and game mods
- subtitles
- vectors
- lists to gaming communities and forums
- podcasts
What we won't put into the book:
- We won't include episodes
- We also won't include music, or PMVs/YTPMVs and such for sheer size issues (as of the moment the collection is around 35Gb, if I would add my personal PMV/music collection, it would immediately jump to 110 Gb.)
- gore and r34 material
Imagine The Book as an encyclopedia. It's not another website. It's not a new Equestria Daily and not a constantly updated collection (at least not for the moment). What we are trying to create is to put everything created by the brony community in about one year, archive it, organize, categorize and present it to the world in a well thought out system for everypony's enjoyment. Imagine it as Volume I.
There might be a Volume II a few months later, but that depends on a lot of things so I can't promise anything yet.
Regarding how the team and the project works:
We have 12 bronies working on the project at the moment, including myself. I am the project coordinator and everything runs into my hand. I handle the administration, letters, notes, I'm giving out tasks and organize/categorize everything that I'm being sent by my bookbronies (that's how call the team members). Lucky me I have a very supportive little group there who make an excellent job, I'm truly honored and happy to have them by my side, whom without this project could never become as awesome as it will be.
The work is seperated into 3 stages, each stage has it's well organized sections and tasks. We have nearly completed stage 1 and entering stage 2 in the coming days. At the end of Stage 2 The Book will enter its beta phase and when we are done with Stage 3, it will be released, either hosted on a dedicated site or via torrent, that will be decided later.
Regarding common misunderstandings.
- We are crediting every single person / team who's work is presented in the book. No exceptions. This I have made very clear and putting a lot of emphasize on it during our work.
- We won't claim anything to be ours in the book, save for the intro (which is written by one of our members) and the actual process of collecting/categorizing.
- Since I am being accused of "Republishing/stealing people's work to present it under myname", to quote some individuals, I have made a promise that I won't be credited in The Book in any shape or form. I'm not doing this to gain anything.
- The Book is completely free, will always remain free and of course we only use material that is already freely available.
What was all the flaming about?
- Permissions. Due to the magnitude of the project, I have found it virtually impossible to ask for a permission from every single person, as it means thousands and thousands of people.
- Due to this, my original intent was to not bother with permissions at all, but that actually felt bad, coz I wanted artists to have an affect on their work in some way.
- Though I knew it's not the best solution, I tried to come up with a compromise. I decided to take permissions automaticly granted, while I keep advertising the project and ask people to send me emails and notes whether they want to be included or not. Meanwhile I tried to reach Ponibooru (with no success) and the MLP-Fim Group here on dA (also with no success) and EqD (with success) to help me gather permissions and advertise to project. I was sending personal notes to more well known artists as well asking for permissions, for pure marketing reasons, so I can put their names next to the project thus encouraging others to give theirs aswell.
- The feedback on the first week was extremly positive, filled with support, cheering and excitement for The Book. I was creating a list of permissions granted, as well as taking personal requests from artist (such as to not include certain art pieces that were stolen from them without them being credited). Frankly, not a single person has prohibited me from using his/her art.
Tha flaming started on 20th of October, when our advertisement appeared on EqD for the 3rd time and some people found my method of choice for permissions unpleasent. Instead of being approached in a normal manner, I was immediately attacked in a flaming war of hatred against my person, where I received numerous uncivilized messages filled with insults, threats and smearing, while I was also told by some bronies that certain malevolent individuals are spreading rumors of me that made worrying artists ask me if I'm goign to credit them or am I actually selling the book.
I have taken notes of every artist in the process, whether they were granting their permission or prohibiting to use their work, and answered to all emails and dA notes I have received (even those which were obviously showing hate and possible trolling, maybe that wasn't a great idea).
I am not hiding anything, never did. I'm not lieing to anyone, I'm as honest as I can be.
For that reason, I provide a link for those who want to see the original ponychan thread which got locked since then: www.ponychan.net/chan/collab/r…
In case it gets deleted, I have saved the thread, going to upload it and replace the link if there's interest for it.
Regardless of all the flames, I'm still receiving supportive notes and emails from artists and even got some artists to actually grant me their previously hastly denied permissions, after they took time to look into the matter. My team stands by me, which is - needless to say - an extremly good feeling.
So, the work continues. We will finish the project, though at the moment we are creating it for ourselves. How it will be published - if at all - is yet to determined based on the happenings of the coming days. I'm still asking for permissions and still making notes and hoping for the general support of the community. I will put a lot more effort into it, as I'm giving out more and more work from my hands to my bookbronies and focusing on administration.
I thank you, dear reader, for taking time to read through this gigantic wall of text. I hope I managed to answer all your questions.
Also, brohoof to all of you who are showing support. It's greatly appreciated
P.S.: If you have any more questions that haven't been answered, don't hesitate to contact me here on dA or at bigbookofbrony[at]gmail[dot]com.
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Devious Journal Entry
1 min read
Phew, done.
Browsed through all the comments aswell. Replied to some.
Now that I'm done with the administration and everything, I can get back to work.
And wait for the new episode to be uploaded, wohoo Time to find out what Luna is really like.
Oh that reminds me, isn't it sorta illegal to, you know, get the episode off iTunes then reupload it publicly for free?
Oh sure, Hasbro didn't say they don't like it, so it's fine.
Browsed through all the comments aswell. Replied to some.
Now that I'm done with the administration and everything, I can get back to work.
And wait for the new episode to be uploaded, wohoo
Time to find out what Luna is really like.Oh that reminds me, isn't it sorta illegal to, you know, get the episode off iTunes then reupload it publicly for free?
Oh sure, Hasbro didn't say they don't like it, so it's fine.
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Devious Journal Entry
1 min read
Ok, I actually decided to stay up a bit more, checked, noted and answered all dA notes I have received.
If you haven't received a reply, don't hesitate to contact me, though I'm fairly sure I have sent a reply, even if a simple one, to each and every one of you.
Once again, as for the emails, if you wrote to me regarding your permission status, it only gets updated on the public Google Doc every few days so don't worry if you can't see yourself appear or your status change just now. We are on it.
Now, dA comments are a whole different issue and I'm really looking into that only after I have had some good sleep.
Good night everypony ^-^
If you haven't received a reply, don't hesitate to contact me, though I'm fairly sure I have sent a reply, even if a simple one, to each and every one of you.
Once again, as for the emails, if you wrote to me regarding your permission status, it only gets updated on the public Google Doc every few days so don't worry if you can't see yourself appear or your status change just now. We are on it.
Now, dA comments are a whole different issue and I'm really looking into that only after I have had some good sleep.
Good night everypony ^-^
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As stated several times in the related ponychan thread, we will rework and change a few things with the project.
Those who are still supporting us, I thank you very much ^-^
Those who don't, your decision is noted.
Those who are still supporting us, I thank you very much ^-^
Those who don't, your decision is noted.
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