Bit of a random thought, but back to books & qualities & such - what do folks of house ruling that instead of the generic +3 to quality (expaneded guidelines), add the authro's Teaching score? To represent their skill in conveying their knowledge to an auidence? Would mean that older magi could impriove their book wirting abilities slightly and that fresh magi arent quite as good? Also give a new specialisation Teaching (books/writing)
Kal
Old magi easily achieve Magic Theory Scores of 10 or more. If the same were true for teaching, we'd get books that are much better than the current ones. If we assume that a good writer has trained at least one apprentice, he got 15 x 2 xp exposure = 30xp in teaching automatically, so Teaching 3 is very common in the order (higher for fostered Bonisagi). I assume the writers of the system wanted to avoid building in exploitable weaknesses in the xp field (you can also see this when you compare the vis study rules to earlier editions).
I personally think that it doesn't break the system to use teaching (though I'd forbid puissant teaching in combination with good teacher then) instead of the +3 - characters advance a little faster though and vis study becomes even more useless than it is now.
As many magi are entirely selfish though, many would take that exposure XP in magic theory or the arts used rather than teaching wouldnt they? But I agree, that teaching 3 is probably fairly common.
Which is another question. How common is it for magi to never train an apprentice? I assume most wish to see their legacy continue but some presumably never take an apprentice. I wonder how common that would be.
I think it depends on whay style of the magi - combat magi i think would be the most likely not to train apprentices, seemly due to the likehood of them dieing before hand and such magi not needing to have board knowledge of the Arts. Crafters/enchanters and general lab rats probably would, mostly out of wanting a lab assistant, plus they tend to have boarder knoweldge of the Arts. Political magi are a grey - they may not have board arts, but being socialable they may want to have companionship (at least for a few years), plus having a personal secertary is probably useful...
Also, with the house rule suggestion, I would probably alter the Texts specialisation of labs, adding it gives bonus's to writing books (3 pints for +1 Teaching), same as for scribing - would make sense for an author to have a very 'library-type' laboratory.
But yes, it would reduce the value of Vis study even more, which is a same, but thats a whoel different discussion in itself...
Kal
Yeah the other great problem with the 'writing proliferation' is studying form Vis is going to be very uncommon. Unless you have a virtue that gives you a bonus, or you crave the possibility of twilight you would never have a reason to bother.
Which makes me wonder, do criamon crave tainted vis to boost their chances of an enigmatic experience?
That is an interesting idea - tainted vis - infernal deception - finally ciramons make sense :mrgreen:
Kal
The extremely simple version:
Try googling "dark age myth".
Now then lets have some reality injection:
web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/medmyths.html
[i]The medieval burning of witches.
Medieval canon law officially did not believe in witches. There were very occasional individual witch trials in the Middle Ages, but the persecution of witches only became a mass phenomenon from around 1500. The height of persecution was in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries ...[/i]
[i]Religious taboos prevented medical dissection of bodies
Katherine Park's book on late medieval dissection [/i]
[i]The Renaissance.
The thesis that there was a rebirth of learning in Europe in or around the fifteenth century, after a thousand years of darkness, is too diffuse to admit of clear agreement or disagreement. Nevertheless, the claim that the "Renaissance" is almost entirely a beat-up, put about by a gang of anti-Catholic art historians, has much to be said for it. See `The Renaissance myth'. [/i]
historymedren.about.com/od/daily ... d_hoax.htm
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article714033.ece
The unique feature of Rome was not its arts or its science or its philosophical culture, not its attachment to law. The unique feature of Rome was that it had the world’s first professional army.
The renaissance that wasnt and the advancements that preceeded it during the middle ages:
web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/renaissance.html
The best known work of medieval thought, both in its own time and now, is Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. In book 1, question 1, article 1 of this treatise, the roundness of the earth is given as a standard example of a well-known scientific truth.
[i]The main elements of the Renaissance myth are familiar enough: the sudden dawning of a new outlook on the world after a thousand years of darkness, the rediscovery of ancient learning, the spread of new ideas of intellectual inquiry and freedom, investigation of the real world replacing the sterile disputes of the scholastics, the widening of the world through the discovery of America and the advance of science, the reform of religion. Apart from a few quibbles about the supposed suddenness of the change, and that more on the grounds of a general belief in the gradualness of historical change than because of any evidence, this paradigm seems to be as firmly in place now as it ever was.
In fact there is no truth in any of this. On the contrary, as we will see, the "Renaissance" was a period when thought declined significantly, bring ing to an end a period of advance in the late Middle Ages. [/i]
Inventions in other fields had made the world very wide - Europe had more or less regular contact with Greenland in one direction and China in the other. There was a Christian archbishop in Peking and missionary activity in a number of other Asian countries. Marco Polo's account of his travels enjoyed a great vogue. In 1291 the Vivaldi brothers of Genoa set out from Morocco in an attempt to find a sea route around Africa to India. Unfortunately they vanished without trace, but their relatives did establish trading agencies in India, reached by the Red Sea route.
The history of medieval science has only been treated seriously in comparatively recent times, since it suited the theses of most historians that the medieval scholars should have been poring over ancient books instead of examining the real world. Less culpably, an interest in science and skill in medieval Latin are, in the nature of things, rarely conjoined. But with the excellently chosen texts now available in translation in Edward Grant's Sourcebook in Medieval Science, we can see how good the science of the time really was. One thing that becomes clear is that all the best bits come from the period 1250-1350, that is, Dante's lifetime plus a few years either way. By then the best of Greek and Arab science had been translated and absorbed and new discoveries were being made.
The habit of thought according to which anything might turn out to signify and affect anything else led to the search for occult influences. Astrology, of course, purported to find one set of hidden causes of action. Alchemy enjoyed its heyday in the Renaissance, catering to a similar market. So did witchcraft. Naturally the existence of people hunting for occult powers generated the fear in others that they might be successful. Repression grew in proportion. Witch-burning and the Inquisition tend to be seen now as belonging to the Middle Ages, being incompatible with the Renaissance myth of growing enlightenment. Though the Middle Ages had these phenomena from time to time the real rage of the hate against witches and heretics exploded as the fifteenth century progressed (or regressed). The Spanish Inquisition was at its worst at about the time of Columbus' voyages, by which time it had become linked with political repression and proved beyond the power of the Pope to control. The large-scale hunting and burning of witches belong mainly to the sixteenth century.
The literary end of intellectual life did not fare much better than science, except that the slump was not quite so long. Rather than protest, as is usual, about the difficulty of confining historical movements within definite dates, I am happy to name the fifteenth century as coinciding quite accurately with the decline of literature.
[i]We ought to know what to expect from this kind of development, since we have very close parallels to both in the last thirty years: the introduction of television and the landings on the moon. What television produced was a flood of drivel catering to the lowest common denominator of the paying public, plus a quantity of propaganda paid for by the sponsors. Much the same happened when printing was invented. This is a slightly unfair judgement in both cases, since there was a quality end to the early printing market just as there is in television. Certainly some worthwhile early printed books and recent television shows can be exhibited. Even so, it is hard to see that thought in the later Middle Ages was greatly restricted by having to rely on manuscripts.
Everybody knew that the best ideas were to be found at the best universities, especially Paris and Oxford, and it was simply a matter of going to one of these to find out what the ideas were. After the invention of printing, the universities carried on much as before, but in addition the reading public was besieged by book salesmen convincing the semi-literate of the virtues of works on alchemy, millenarian prophecy, sayings of the ancient sages, signs for recognising witches, pornography and similar rubbish. It is no wonder that the sixteenth century yielded such a crop of conflicting and mostly lunatic sects. [/i]
While an estimate of longitude 180 degtees wrong is strange enough, the truth about the workings of Columbus' mind is odder still. What he actually expected to find in "India" was the Garden of Eden, which, according to some commentaries on Genesis he had been reading, was located at the farthest point of the East.
No psychological insight is needed to guess Petrarch's motives in pretending that a thousand years of darkness had ended with himself. But there is something of a puzzle as to why later historians continued to accept the exaggerated account the Renaissance gave of itself.
listverse.com/2009/01/07/top-10- ... ddle-ages/
[i]Myth: People of the Middle Ages were crude and ignorant
Thanks largely to Hollywood movies, many people believe that the Middle Ages were full of religious superstition and ignorance. But in fact, leading historians deny that there is any evidence of this. Science and philosophy blossomed at the time – partly due to the introduction of Universities all over Europe. The Middle ages produced some of the greatest art, music, and literature in all history. Boethius, Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarch, and Machiavelli are still revered today for their brilliant minds. The cathedrals and castles of Europe are still standing and contain some of the most beautiful artwork and stonework man has been able to create with his bare hands. Medicine at the time was primitive, but it was structured and willing to embrace new ideas when they arose (which is how we have modern medicine).[/i]
IF you want to talk about the great loss of literature and knowledge, then we most of all will have to talk about:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_period
and:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Antiquity
rather than about the middle ages.
The "dark ages" if western Europe is specified if you have to use the definition, belongs to the time around 450-650AD.
insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/20 ... ious_.html
As the entry for "Dark Ages" over at Wikipedia correctly notes, "Most modern historians dismiss the notion that the era was a 'Dark Age' by pointing out that this idea was based on ignorance of the period combined with popular stereotypes: many previous authors would simply assume that the era was a dismal time of violence and stagnation and use this assumption to prove itself. The term is now widely considered to be pejorative."
- Arts, Crafts, Technology: Without the great advances in scientific and mechanical application that occured during the Medieval era, the modern world would not exist, or at least would be very different than it is. Consider: "During the 12th and 13th century in Europe there was a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the invention or adoption through the Silk Road of printing, gunpowder, the astrolabe, spectacles, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques, agriculture in general, clocks, and ships. The latter advances made possible the dawn of the Age of Exploration."
sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=91498
[i]The Roman Empire is somentimes overrated, and was extremely authoritarian. Darkness, famine, poverty and sickness are amongst the more popular words to describe the Middle Ages, and also what happened during the Greco-Roman, period. Like all eras even the high middle ages had its ups and downs.
Some reasons because the Middle Ages were not dark
Scientific Foundations Laid - While progress in Science was slow during this period in the West, the progress was steady and of a very high quality. The foundation was laid here for the wonderful blossoming of science that was to occur in the High Middle Ages to come. It can be safely said, that without the study of Science in the Early Middle Ages, we would be considerably behind in our scientific knowledge today. Ronald Numbers (professor at Cambridge University) has said: ‘Notions such as: “the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science”, “the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences”, “the medieval Christians thought that the world was flat”, and “the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages” [are] examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, even though they are not supported by historical research.’
Carolingian Renaissance - The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of advancements in literature, writing, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies which occurred in the late eighth and ninth centuries. The Carolingians were Franks and the most well known is Charlemagne. The Carolingian empire was considered a rebirth of the culture of the Roman Empire. At the time, Vulgar Latin was beginning to be replaced by various dialects as the main spoken languages in Europe, so the creation of schools was vital to spread knowledge further amongst the common people. It was also this period which gave us the foundation of Western Classical
Art and Architecture - During the Early Middle Ages, architecture was diverse and innovative. It introduced the idea of realistic images in art and it laid the groundwork for the Romanesque period which was to come in the High Middle Ages. The period also included the introduction and absorption of classical forms and concepts in architecture. It can safely be said that this period was the first period of high art - with previous styles (Migration period) being much more functional and less “artistic”. In the Early Middle Ages we witness the birth of an astonishing and beautiful history of art and building.
Law Becomes Fair - The Early Middle Ages had a complex system of laws which were often not connected, but they were effective and fair for the most part. For merchants traveling around the world, there was the Lex Mercatoria (Law Merchant) which had evolved over time, rather than being created. This law included arbitration and promoted good practice amongst traders. At the same time, Anglo Saxon Law was formed with a focus on keeping peace in the land. While this eventually lead to some very tough laws, living under the legal system in the Early Middle Ages was probably the best time to live - as it was still flexible and fair for the majority. The third important legal system was the the Early Germanic Law which allowed each person to be tried by his own people - so as to not be disadvantaged by ignorance or major cultural differences.
Agricultural Boom - If you were wanting to die a martyr by starvation, the Early Middle Ages were not the time to do it! As a consequence of the excellent weather and greater agricultural knowledge, the West did extremely well. Iron tools were in wide use in the Byzantine empire, feudalism in other parts of the world introduced efficient management of land, and massive surpluses were created so that animals were fed on grains and not grass. Public safety was also guaranteed under the feudal system and so peace and prosperity was the lot for most people.[/i]
livinghistorylibrary.org/for ... owtopic=97
The concept is generally thought to have originated with Francesco Petrarca. Petrarca was highly critical of the lack of the written word, specifically the disuse of Latin in poetry and literature. This critique was then perpetuated several times throughout history. It is thought that Petrarca most likely believed that the Early Medieval Era was inferior to his own and therefore unenlightened and ‘dark’.
The term Dark Ages has been generally discredited among medieval historians, but it hangs on in popular culture and "common knowledge." It's based upon the idea that the Roman Empire fell from its glory throwing civilization into chaos and barbarism, a fallacy since the Western Empire was in a state of decline. I see more continuity than discontinuity in the progression from the end of the Western Empire and the beginning of the early Middle Ages.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_demography
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography
[i]The population levels of Europe during the Middle Ages can be roughly categorized:
* 400-1000: stable at a low level.
* 1000-1250: population boom and expansion.
* 1250-1350: stable at a high level.
* 1350-1420: steep decline
* 1420-1470: stable at a low level.
* 1470-onward: slow expansion gaining momentum in the early 16th century.
[/i]
Now, if you care to actually look at the times before and after the dreadful dark ages, please do explain what exactly makes them such an utter lowpoint in history?
I think a point is being missed here quite profoundly.
No-one, to my understanding is suggesting that the dark ages is an appropriate term to describe 1220.
No-one is claiming that in any true expression of the quality of life the era widely known in popular cultureas the dark ages was genuinely all that dark, certainly not a time of barbarism and suffering.
What is being claimed, and what you have yet to refute is that the TOP END of scientific and scholarly actvity did 'forget' things that had previously been known. That the lot of the ordiary peasant farmer improved as tools got better isnt disputed. What is disputed is that in the ancient world there was a great deal of scientific infomation in the very top echelons of society that were completely forgotten or ignored. Particularly in fields such as mathematics. Progress was made undeniably, but in other areas.
Improvements in farming technieques in particular and attitudes to land ownership and vassalage had profound effects for the ordinary man. Changes in social systems made life at the bottom end of society in many ways better than under classical systems. That, I repeat is not being challenged.
The 'myth of the dark ages' is a whole host of ideas bundled into one MOST of which have been utterly refuted and stem mainly from intellectual bias and prejudice towards the glory of the romanticised ancient world. You said that and I think we all agree. We now place a much higher value of the cultural developments of things from what were previously considered barbarous times... fine. Agree... that does not mean a blanket refuttal of every single claim ever made about the dark ages.
We are talking here about the legacy of the dark Ages and its consequent effects on the availability of texts to the Order of Hermes, in an attempt to put the train back on the rails, stuff is lost, no living credible historian will deny that because we have innumerate references to that in other surviving texts.
The "Dark Ages == Middle Ages" equation is long out of fashion, and good riddence to it. The thirteenth century certainly is not one of fading civilization.
However, the first few centuries after the fall of Rome were undeniably "Dark" in the sense of declining material culture, reduced literacy and output of theoretical and practical sciences (including for example navigation), and general breakdown of peace and security in much of formerly Roman Europe. It's more popular to call this period Late Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages, but that doesn't change the essential nature of it. Recovery probably started around the second half of the 8th century and didn't really take off sustainably until the second millenium.
Personally I find these earlier centuries fascinating and a much better fit for the fantastic elements of AM than is the 13th. But that's another story.
Ken, it's perfectly realistic.
In real life, I give scores to books, or clusters of books, on a regular basis. It's a process called "conspectus" and librarians do it all the time. Real books, in real libraries, are assigned scores based on the level of reader that they will suit. So it's actually not all that odd for books in covenant libraries to have levels. Real books do, after all.
It's also not unrealistic to be able to flipthrough two books and know which has a higher "level" or which has a higher "quality". It's a specialised skill, sure, but I do this all the time, because I'm a reference librarian. I regularly say to a customer "This is a better book for what you are after than this book." based on my assessment of the material in the book, and its style.
This really and truly happens.
Now, what I'd really like is for the next version of Ars to use conspectus scores instead of book-by-book scores, because it really libraries, that's what researchers really do. If you want to research the genetics of the fruit fly, you don't look for a library with one great and definitive book about fruit flies, you look for a library with dozens of papers of middling value about fruit flies, because they, as a whole, are more use than the single book. Next time around, I'd like your library to just be 15 scores, and you can add or substract by getting more books. This removes many of the capstoning problems in the current system (where the best book is clearly the best, and you need nothing else).
It's a piece of ancient Irish law, in which Saint Columba was ordered to turn over a psalter he had copied from Saint Finnian's psalter, without permission. "For cow its calf, for every book its copy."
Columba said "Sod this." and got an army together, and putting the pages of the copied psalter on battle standards, massacred a heap of people at the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne. The church then threatened to excommunicate him,but he instead accepted exile into the wilds of Scotland, where he founded the Scottish church.
Hi,
Thank you! I have learned something about libraries.
considers I've done research, and my experience on the receiving end of a library has been that sometimes this is true, but sometimes I need something definitive, especially when I need to know something on the periphery of my focus.
considers more The closest I have gotten to being a medieval scholar has been my time in yeshiva, and in some ways that is pretty darned close because most of the texts involved are available in period (and all of the most important ones). In other ways not close at all, because having access to printed books makes a difference. The method of study remains close to medieval, with alternative lectures by the teacher, based on the texts involved, and disputation, which is different because that is done in pairs (chavruta). In that experience, certain texts were essential--a vast number of lesser texts will not substitute for the lack of a Talmud, or even Rashi's gloss. (And I probably shouldn't say even, because Rashi's gloss transforms the Talmud from a rambling mess at Quality 3 to something that a fourth grader can profitably dip his toes into.)
considers still more The examples might be very different by their nature; certain subjects have authoritative texts that must be read but other subjects do not. I was able to learn all about genetics without ever having to read anything written by Watson&Crick or Gregor Mendel. I could not study Talmud without a Talmud, though studying Jewish Law is possible (I end up knowing what some authority says the rules are without understanding how he got there, how alternative rulings might be possible, and how to issue rulings in dissimilar cases.)
I'd like this too. I was a big fan of the 15 Arts being represented by 15 numbers. I find the current system unwieldy.
Anyway,
Ken
Hi,
Every now and then, I consider really writing up all the rules and background for The Saga I Don't Run, and my favored start date is something like 1000CE.
What you write about the fantastic elements rings true for me, but other issues loom larger. The Europe of 1200 is connected to our modern world in ways that that of 1000 is divorced.
In 1000:
There are vikings in England, and they might stay there. If you told someone that the Normans would rule England before the century was out, and that the vikings would never return... fantasy!
The Reconquista has not only been stalled, but has been turned back by a resurgent Caliphate. If you told someone that the Caliphate would soon shatter into impotent kingdoms, and that the cross would rule Toledo before the century was out.... fantasy!
The Roman Empire is on the move! A vigorous emperor, Basil II, is making gains across the board. If you told someone that by the end of the century, the empire would be a broken shadow of what it was, never to recover, and that a century after than, it would be sacked by Christians.... fantasy!
There are pagans in Europe. Vladimir has recently converted, but the people are largely resisting. The Baltic and much of Scandinavia, pagan. Their conversion is less fantastic, but still different.
It is a decent time to be Jewish. There's a Jewish kingdom all the way out past the Rus and the Empire. Jews soldier in Iberia, own land in France, dress like other people and have amicable social intercourse with them.... There are incidents, of course, and some nasty ones, but that's true in today's Europe too. If you were to tell someone that by the end of the century, there would be wholesale massacre, with the remnants eventually forced to wear the yellow badge, that their books burned in the streets... he might say, "If only that were true!" But we have people like that today too, and.... fantasy!
Most of the great medieval books have yet to be written.
There are no universities, though precursors exist. No Gothic cathedrals. No Crusades. No Inquisition. No Magna Carta. I can keep going with this. It's a very different world from that of 1200, less obviously connected to our own.
Anyway,
Ken
Now then, It seems you and I share a profession, for I too am a librarian. Although I am reluctant to appear to disagree with you for the 2nd time in a day, can you honestly say you have ever done that for anything other than base literacy levels? I have never come across an abstract or catalogue record with a subject level attached. So far as I know there is no MARC indetifier for such a field either. I can see how the system would work well in a school or similar where the levels are all very low and very different, but I couldn't imagine looking at a newly published acedemic artilcle and attaching 'mechanical engineering lvl:12' to the record. Maybe things are different in the US.
As to your point about libraries in general though I am half way to agreeing with you. The suggestion here harks back to how libraries were in 2nd, maybe other editions I can't remember. I think that for Summa this could and probably SHOULD be done or optional for convinience. The mechanics for abstractly improving them would work perfectly fine. It would also make trading between your saga and NPC covenants less 'random' because I cant imagine anyone creates libraries for them.
However, one does reach a point in research in a particular field where you do need specfic titles. This is where tractati fit in. I have filled in innumerate ILL cards for my own research requesting very specific titles from places where I know they have a copy. I have no further use for generalist works on the Great War, my particular field of interest as I learn nothing from them. Although I do enjoy bemoaning their flaws. I would be quite sad to lose the immersion factor too that the specific titles actually provide.
Yes, of course I can.
Conspectus style reports are occassionally required for state funding here and I was also a collection development librarian for a year, so yes, I've done a complete conspectus on a library service more than once.
Conspectus is a collection-by-collection assessment of subject, with certain key texts, and certain other sources, called "collection level indicators", being the flags that you have hit a certain level. This means you don't find a number of a particular book saying "Conspectus 3", but if you are doing conspectus by the list checking method, and you see a book that's a collection level indicator, you know the collection's score, and because the book is listed as being a level 5 book, you know its score too. And I, looking at books, know perfectly well if a book is level 4 or level 5. I presume you do too. (Oh, in my country we use an 8 level conspectus, for any Americans who are playing this game from home. I recall LoC use a 6 level system ? RK, you're a Brit, right? I have no idea what your people do.)
No, there isn't one. Well, if you look at the 006 tag, you have a couple of fixed field markers which will indicate higher conspectus levels, because they suggest the book is written for a specialist (006, place 5) in an academic format (um...006, later on? I most recently used SirsiDynix and it has a tool to slot these in place, so I can't recall the place numbers), but no, there's no single data element: that's not the point. By the by, Dublin Core has a place for a qualitative measure. RDA will have a place for it if you want, because it'll accept Dublin Core records.
The large national databases have it de facto, because they can be queried with a list of ranked titles to get a conspectus number for a collection. You can run a report on your database to see how many hits it gets for titles of the level 5 list, for example.
Do you have a collection development policy, and does it include qualitative measures of collection depth, possibly with a six point scale? That's a conspectus level. If you don't have a written collection development policy, what do you have? If you do but lack a qualitative measure of depth, how do you target your purchases? Have you outsourced that to a consortium, or something?
I'm not in the US - I'm an Australian. I didn't suggest the system was a granular as in Ars. Here, the granularity is eight points. In the US, it's six. My point, to Ken, is that books and libraries -do- have scores in real life. I stand by that, because all he needs do is go to the Australian Libraries Gateway to get the basic eight point scale, and then click on to a subject, Anthropology, say, to get a qualitative list of books which, if you have all of them, gives your library a score of X in that subject, And yes, I have walked along with lists of titles and physically checked shelves to see if they match the lists, because I'm in my mid-thirties and electronic sampling wasn't possible back in the day.
I will however say that back when I was the serials librarian for a scientific research library there -were- such numbers for articles and they are -more- granular than Ars. They are called "impact factors" and are based on the number of citations of the article, and where they are published. They aren't available at the time of publication, of course, but they were available for decisions on, for example, renummeration. You can get lists of the impact factors of scientific works, and yes, ones with higher IF are treated as better and cost more to buy, and the authors get more benefits from their institutions. So, sure, such numbers exist for articles. Not at publication, no, but in review, and the authors of articles -certainly- know their IFs, because they are a key performance indiciator in their contracts.
I can kind of see it, but I'm not sure the mathematical complexity of the model is necessary for the story it generates.
I do agree that for real world research, you do eventually need specialised titles. That's because real knowledge is like spells, not Arts. 8)
Hi,
I have noticed something similar. (Well, usually similar, at least once the fundamentals are learned.)
Here's a rule variant I hadn't yet found the context for, until now:
No Arts books!
Instead, magi learn and invent spells, or craft items and get a number of xps per season equal to the greater of a) the magnitude of the spell plus the Quality of the Lab Text (Com + usual bonuses for writing good books; lab texts now have Quality), or b) the magnitude of his Lab Total. These xps are divided as he pleases among the primary TeFo and Magic Theory. A magus who invents spells can gain the benefit of being a good writer for the xps he gains on his own. A magus who learns multiple spells in a season may add the magnitudes but must take the worst Quality.
Unfortunately, this idea does not extend well to other topics, like, say, Theology.
Also, this variant destroys the need to trade books. So it's probably not a good idea, except perhaps with revision.
Hmm. And some people will not like that the higher your Lab Total, the more xps you gain. considers I see this as less of a problem, because Lab Totals tend to grow slowly after a certain point. (It probably plays well with another variant I posted long ago, in which starting Arts worked differently, though fewer points would have to be given.)
Anyway,
Ken
Thanks for the reply Timothy, I have leared somehting new about my own profession today. To my knowledge, which is not encyclopeadi by any means, there is no such system in ues in our libraries here. If it is used in the British Library it hasnt been for long as I have not seen a catalogue record with it. Then again, I tend not to borrow new books from there, only very old ones. They would have been unlikely to have been updated.
I had however seen IFs and can see where you are coming from in that respect, altough as I had seen it used was more as a guideline as to the relative 'worthiness' of titles and was more of a 'must read' thing for undergraduates.
We do have a system in education which divides things into 5 levels which could pobably be adapted, and I completely agree on an 8 point scale I could probably judge any material assuming that spans the depth of human writings. i.e. levels 1 and 2 being for children or similar.
It is not a job I would particularly relish though, and I admire your inner strength. I like a bit of cat & class now and then if the record is in a grey area and you have to scratch your head about it... but I couldn't do it for a living. I need human interraction, issue figures and all that. Even mad old ladies trying to email their children in Hong Kong staring at a computer for the first time in their life. It all has its own special charm.
Completely off topic this I know, but it is interesting to me at least... I am always interested to see how things are done differently in other countries, especially when they cover an aspect we simply do not.
Do read back in the thread...
Never said anything about that not happening at all.
Claims about how >90% of literature gets lost for example, thats bullshit.
Read my provided links will you? The mathematical part for calculating accelerations and speed/time is a legacy of "the dark ages". Without that, Copernicus for example wouldnt have had the tools for his ideas...
Thats ONE example. Showing once more that the problem here is that the myth is ever present.
An example included in one of my links...
If all agreed, i wouldnt have to post such an annoying amount of links just to prove the point.
A point which i might add, you also missed out on with your assumption "but in other areas", failing to realise that the foundation for scientific progress after the renaissance(which itself had almost no scientific innovation at all) was laid during those "dark ages" which you state as "Progress was made undeniably, but in other areas."...
Yes, but also realise another very pertinent point here, what was lost was the greek/roman stuff, their "paradigm" so to speak, and part of the very reason that there was scientific innovation rather than evolution during the middle ages is very likely exactly because of this loss, as while alot of knowledge was out of easy reach (lost is often incorrect as well, because the "lost books" still mostly existed at least SOMEWHERE even in the late middle ages, the problem was that they were not available), it also meant that alot of incorrect preconceptions and stratified lines of thought became less prevalent.
Again, the idea of the "dark ages" was thought up by a self-aggrandising poet considering himself the next best thing after god(well not far from it at least)...
If in a thousand years, people referred to the 20th century as that of the "New man!", based on the ideas of Soviet bolsheviks, the facists and nazis, would you consider that a great idea?
Thank you for saying almost the same i did! :mrgreen:
Only addition to repeat is that together with late antiquity, the great losses happened mostly during the migration period, 300-700 AD, which of course is part of and/or overlaps late antiquity and early middle ages both.
And yes indeed, good riddance! We have enough myths where they shouldnt be anyway.
And btw, librarians everywhere? Im not a "pro" such myself, but i have worked as such for a while, once upon a time long long ago. :mrgreen: