Fivers are missing the first few lines!
 

How can we enjoy the full fiver experience if we can't read the entire fiver? Here is a short, very incomplete list of fivers that I believe are missing lines from the very beginning:

The Inner Light (This is one of mine, so I take especial pride in it)
The Royale
Pen Pals
The Offspring
Allegiance
Clues
First Contact
Galaxy's Child

This is a call to all fivists! Please check your fivers and post the titles of episodes that are missing lines so that Zeke, Marc, Kira, etc can fix them at their liesure.

Just poking around at random for a few minutes, this also seems to have happened to the fivers for:

Yesterday's Enterprise
The Most Toys
Rascals
Lower Decks

So far, I haven't seen any from other series so affected.

I bet Zeke is collecting them for a mix-and-match kind of Concentration game -- "see if you can tell which fiver this first line is from" or "be the first to put the correct first line to each fiver" kind of thing.

It's a longstanding bug in my PHP coding. I'm working on a new version of fiver.php which will fix this, among other problems.

Thanks Zeke, I was expecting something like "How dare you insult the sanctity of Five-Minute Voyager! You will never publish another fiver if I have anything to say about it!" :wink:

Seriously, there are scads of fivers out there, and the problem isn't site-wide, so Zeke needs us to find the fivers! Help preserve the visions of fivists everywhere! *a flag starts fluttering in the background* Keep reading the fivers and posting titles! Hey, if you've been leery of reading the hundreds of fivers that exist, just think of it as a public service! :)

Okay, let's get systematic about this. Granted, the only people who can be SURE that first lines are missing are the section heads (who probably have other things to do, besides we'll be keeping them busy fixing them) and the actual fivist of that fiver. I know that many of you, especially section heads, have dozens of fivers to your credit, but the rest of us only have a few. If you could just check all of your fivers and update here. If you could gently prod any other fivists you know to check this message board, that would be great.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. When in doubt, it's an easy thing to compare the fiver as it currently appears here to the version published at TrekNation.

Okay, okay! I admit it, it was me! I ate those lines. I was feeling hungry, and there wasn't anything else edible in the house (all out of boots, even), but I honestly figured no-one would notice if a few lines were missing.

Man, I'm so ashamed now. Although on the plus side it's something new to tell my therapist about.

Um, I did, at least for The Inner Light, and the same first lines are missing! I concede that this "mission" of mine started with my annoyance that the first lines of my only Trek fiver to date (note, this will not always be the case, even in the short term), but in return you must concede that the problem is widespread, and that a fiververse-wide effort will be required to restore the complete fiver experience.

P.S. You weren't wondering, but I did check the source code, and the lines aren't there either. I assume this is the case elsewhere. Simple human error, accidental deletions, no question, but these things are fixable!

Well, I think this is probably perfectly normal behaviour for a Dark Jedi Time Lord......

:mrgreen:

You guys should read the Phantom Tollbooth. They really make you eat your words over there...

As it happens, that's a favourite of mine. Be danged if I know where my copy is lurking though.

I'm fond of it too -- as you can imagine, I particularly like Digitopolis.

Oh yeah, Digitopolis. I have no doubt that all the fivers you could ever want are in Infinity, but it'll take a long time to get there. Too bad 0.58 of a boy can't help.

Looking at Pen Pals, I think that this hasn't quite been fixed yet. Yeah, Zeke's list is long enough, but the leaning stack of random books has to allow for one more before Jenga-crashing.

ahem.

Fair point, evay; but Nate, thanks for reminding me, because I'd completely forgotten about this problem. Fortunately, fixing it will line up perfectly with something else I'm working on.

Yeah, I slipped. Sorry about that. That's what happens when I get bored and start going through all my former forum threads.

Tell you what. Every time I slip like this I'll add a week to my penance. April 14th.

that's very fair of you, Nate. Thank you.

Was the coding ever changed? The first lines still seem to be gone.