[game_preservation] DOOM manifest for PVW project

[Henry Lowood]

Andrew,

1. On the books.  There are plenty of books on DOOM level editing and 
programming.  Trust me -- I still have a nice vertical pile of them on 
the floor of my office at home.  I won't say how high ...

2. On the web links. We do have local copies for the sites we crawled as 
part of our site.  If you look closely and know how Archive-It builds 
its links, you can tell which are normal crawls and which are ours.   I 
would say it's about 50-50.

3. Also on the links, the reason for the live links is robots.txt blocks 
on crawls.  Classic Doom, for example. I have no idea why.  Some day 
when I have time, I will write to them and ask them to open it up.  Yes, 
whenever possible, I would point to an Archive-It or Wayback Machine 
crawled version.

4. Dates in the manifest. Actually, the manifest is not even required 
for the Bag (we are using Bag-It for the file transfers).  Our guru in 
all things metadata/schemes is Jerome McDonough, who is on the list, and 
he puts a ton of effort into mapping relationships and all that.  My 
perspective as a curator here in the archivist role is that some sort of 
human-readable manifest belonged in the bag, so I just put it there.   
It is not typical to do so, as far as I know.   I thought about dates, 
but this leads to another issue, which is that these documents as 
standing alone here are really out of context.  So, my feeling is that 
if there is a date on the document, that should suffice.   A propos, 
keep in mind that the documents here that are not actually DOOM are 
included as "context" for DOOM.  Again, it's not a research project or 
even a collection, really.  After the bags are delivered to the digital 
repository, we have the option of presenting the material in a different 
way.

5. In the last question, did you mean a problem as in a legal problem?   
We asked id for permission to do this, and we got it.

6.  Thanks for catching the error.

Henry



Andrew Armstrong wrote:

> Yeah, I was joking about the wiki, it's your document, hehe - you said 

> you have a wiki ;) perfect application unless you've got a good 

> relational database for processing entries like that :)

>

> I've got no documents myself on doom level editing - I dabbled a 

> little in it but that was, wow, years ago now, sorry. I'll leave it to 

> someone else to know of a good one, I am sure someone else on this 

> list would have a clue. I wonder if any of the DOOM books are related 

> to level editing directly. There I know there is a few on just DOOM 

> itself - I still need to read Masters of Doom, going to borrow it off 

> a friend sometime (who ranted it was a great book himself, popular one 

> that :) hehe).

>

> A few things if you want more comments - for the web links, perhaps 

> there should be secondary links to Archive-It copies of the resources 

> linked to directly (unless the implication is you have local copies 

> downloaded of them) - most of them are Archive-It or Wayback but a few 

> are just direct links at least (classic doom links, some mobygames, 

> planetdoom...). It seems more a mistake not having them - thus I guess 

> it's a standard practice to get an Archive-It copy to add it to a 

> manifest?

>

> Another thing is dates. Is it worth in a manifest listing the dates 

> items were either created or posted, or when they were looked at on 

> the internet? Most do have wayback implicit dates mind you, and in a 

> list that might not be appropriate I guess :)

>

> Finally - I just wondered, probably slightly related, but I guess 

> there is no cause for concern having items like the DOOM manual 

> basically in a manifest - ie; I presume a user-scanned copy of it (or 

> maybe off the CD versions?). For other games, links to unofficial 

> translations for ROM files, or emulation programs necessary to run 

> something, etc. always might need to be added, no problems there I 

> hope - I've no idea what the range of things the manifest should have 

> in it is of course, or what reasons there might be to not add anything 

> (apart from the obvious "you can't fit everything in, and not 

> everything is of the same importance").

>

> I also did thoroughly re-read it just now - you've got an error for 

> "MobyGames entry  for Ultimate DOOM" copies the link from the above entry.

>

> Andrew

>

> Henry Lowood wrote:

>> Andrew,

>>

>> I think you were kidding, but just in case: Please don't put it on 

>> the wiki.  It's a draft for comments.   When all is said and done, 

>> we'll have all the documentation up on our project wiki, at which 

>> point it will be available for all sorts of pointing and clicking.

>>

>> On maps/levels in the manifest (at that time, the terms were in 

>> flux). Since this version, the one document I have added is Forsman & 

>> Kremeier's classic piece on BSP and DOOM rendering, plus there is the 

>> Q&A on editing.  But you're right, a tutorial on map/level design 

>> would be nice.  If anyone wants to suggest a good document on that 

>> topic, I'll consider including it.

>>

>> Another point is that there is a fair-sized library of printed books 

>> on that subject, which we can hope will still be available 100 years 

>> from now.

>>

>> Henry

>>

>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:

>>> Thanks for the advice, I did open it in Open Office but sometimes, 

>>> well, things do get mangled (whatever Microsoft format it is, mind 

>>> you). It's pretty basic text though, hooray :D I'm tempted to put it 

>>> on the wiki :)

>>>

>>> I liked reading the manifest. Covers all the areas I can think of 

>>> except I guess technical documentation and tutorials for how to 

>>> build levels for the game are kind of missing (so both technical 

>>> documentation on the game, and how to build things for the game). 

>>> Not needed for getting to know the game though.

>>>

>>> A very good example, certainly since it contains everything that 

>>> would be needed to literally install and play the game, with some 

>>> good important background pieces too.

>>>

>>> Andrew

>>>

>>> Devin Monnens wrote:

>>>> The latest Open Office seems to have .docx support. But I still 

>>>> refuse to save anything in that format. This format shift has 

>>>> caused nothing but troubles. I don't even see how it is supposedly 

>>>> 'better' than the old version. I have enough trouble trying to 

>>>> teach students how to use the new Office without having to describe 

>>>> to them how to 'save as' a document (yes, this is rocket science to 

>>>> them).

>>>>

>>>> -Devin

>>>>

>>>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Alan Au <aau at alum.mit.edu 

>>>> <mailto:aau at alum.mit.edu>> wrote:

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>     Microsoft released a compatibility tool a while back:

>>>>

>>>>     http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en

>>>>     <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en>

>>>>

>>>>     - Alan

>>>>

>>>>     ________________________________

>>>>     > Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:59:40 +0100

>>>>     > From: andrew at aarmstrong.org <mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>

>>>>     > To: game_preservation at igda.org

>>>>     <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>

>>>>     > Subject: Re: [game_preservation] DOOM manifest for PVW project

>>>>     >

>>>>     > I finally got some time to check this out, apart from it's

>>>>     DOCX, and

>>>>     > darn shucks if I don't own that particular bit of software.

>>>>     Can anyone

>>>>     > whip up a ODT or DOC version? :) I am interested in reading it.

>>>>     >

>>>>     > (Proprietary formats for documentation of preservation

>>>>     practices, let's

>>>>     > not even get into that argument/minefield, hehe).

>>>>     >

>>>>     > Andrew

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>     _________________________________________________________________

>>>>     Bing brings you health info from trusted sources.

>>>>     http://www.bing.com/search?q=pet+allergy&form=MHEINA&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TXT_MHEINA_Health_Health_PetAllergy_1x1

>>>>     <http://www.bing.com/search?q=pet+allergy&form=MHEINA&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TXT_MHEINA_Health_Health_PetAllergy_1x1>

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>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>> -- 

>>>> Devin Monnens

>>>> www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>>>>

>>>> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

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>>

>> -- 

>> Henry Lowood, Ph.D.

>> Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;

>>  Film & Media Collections

>> HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall

>> Stanford University Libraries

>> Stanford CA 94305-6004

>> 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 

>> <http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>

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-- 
Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
 Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
<http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>
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