| GratefulFan 09.06.2010 12:01 |
I've been thinking for a while about the idea of this community building the ultimate Queen reference site with the goal of indexing every little bit of useful information and media on the internet. The project itself would have no or very, very little original material but instead build a database of what would essentially be links to all the great resources already out there. The important distinction of this project would be that it would not be a static list or static html page, but a fully flexible and responsive database where a person could start with any bit of information and follow it anywhere and everywhere. Start with 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and with a click have paths available that bring you to information on history, interviews that referenced it, studio data, information on ANATO, collector's info, YouTube performances etc. etc. Each of those paths then let you bouce off in another direction or return to see more about Bo Rhap. In addition we could ultimatly have guided lists compiled by various experts here (eg. studio, live, collectors etc.) The idea is that it would be the utlimate starting spot for anyone from the most knowledable Queen fan who knows more or less what he or she wants to put their hands on, to a complete novice who needs a starting place to learn and enjoy the greatness of Queen. There would be a number of site contributors/editors whose input reflects their areas of expertise or general facility with research and database management. I would write and maintain the software and establish the database that we would build as a community. The idea is not to replace the fantastic work of others out there but to pull all of it together in a truly dynamic fashion. Beyond being useful, there would as far as I know be nothing out there like it for any band, and it would be great to honour our guys like this. They deserve it. Good idea? Bad idea? What do you think? |
| Queenrockyou 09.06.2010 15:20 |
Well, I'm waiting for what the other thinks, but if I have always been keen on indexing and cataloguing stuff instead of sharing stuff and ideas with no direction, I guess the distinction between live stuff and studio stuff has to be done. For the live side, Queenconcerts.com, Queenlive.ca and Queenonstage.com is already a real good package, and they are all quite articulated, and you can easily go from one to another. Direct links between them could be nice, but I guess it is still quite advanced as it is. Plus I am working on news ideas about the index on Queenconcerts.com, that could lead to a better interaction with Queenzone. As far as studio stuff is concerned, we have ultimatequeen.co.uk, and several other websites. Maybe those ones would need some better articulation, I don't know, I am more into live stuff for some years now (though I don't dislike some good rarities or studio stuff here and there of course). What is your idea about articulating that information / ideas about studio stuff ? Can you explain a little bit more the ideas you have in your tortured mind ? I would be happy to know what you have in mind, and I already fully support any idea of articulating everything together. May I help you, I'm on it, but I'm curious first to know what you want to achieve and what others think about it. Regards, Olivier, Belgium. |
| GratefulFan 10.06.2010 07:05 |
The sites you mentioned are fantastic and stand perfectly on their own. But they're not one reference, they're a thousand references: every concert and every song ever played at each show. A project like I have in mind would almost reverse engineer these great sites so that the information they contain could be reached inline with all associated information currently scattered on the wind. Want to know about the song 'Save Me'? A properly designed and populated database could easily and intelligently assemble information on the fly about who wrote it, when it was written, what albums it was on, any relevant studio notes, what live shows it was played at, any trivia out there, YouTube clips, interviews that mentioned it, bootlegs, collectors information etc., all in the form of links and connections to information already out there. And then each of those points has another whole data set associated with it...perhaps you click 'Brian May" as the writer, or "The Game" as the album, well then you're off in another direction to explore every data point associated with those things. Kind of like amazon.com or wikipedia where indirectly everything knows about everything else. There would be a tremendous amount of discussing and hashing out just articulating what the scope of data on Queen is and how all those bits relate to each other before I could even design the database tables, which is a critically important step in a project like this. Literally the foundation that determines the quality and fitness of everything built on top. It would be a huge project, but one that once populated would automatically churn out a tremendous amount of data in a form that would suit any and every need of any and every person and truly communicate the scope of influence and accomplishment of this great band. I think we'd need 10 or 15 people - and the right 10 or 15 people - on board and committed for at least a year to even consider beginning. And there would be ongoing costs as well relating to the ISP, domain name, etc. etc. that would somehow need to be community borne. So, not for the faint of heart but potentially really, really cool. |
| tcc 10.06.2010 07:27 |
My two cents' worth: It is better to build up the information in the wikipedia pages of the songs than to start a fresh website. |
| GratefulFan 10.06.2010 07:37 |
In this project, the information would remain in the wikipedia pages etc. etc. - NOT be repeated. It's not about reinventing the wheel. It's about pulling it all together and relating the pieces of infomation to each other as a means of organizing, discovering, and accessing information. It's not just songs, it's everything ideally. At it's heart, it would just be a really smart, super flexible index. |
| tcc 10.06.2010 08:10 |
My two cents' worth again: The information are already in link, link, link and in Sebastian's website. All that is required to be done in the wikipedia pages of the songs is to: a) standardize the aspects of the songs to be referenced and b) provide the link to to these websites for the aspects covered by those websites. |
| GratefulFan 10.06.2010 08:43 |
Either I'm failing to communicate the intent of the project, or you are failing to understand. Regardless, it's all moot if there isn't community interest. :) |
| Queenrockyou 10.06.2010 14:39 |
No, I think you're wrong saying there is no community interest. There is, that's why the websites already quoted are really important. I just think we have some difficulties to imagine what it would look like eventually. It's hard to imagine how it would be in the end. While the websites quoted disappear for example ? Who will be able to update data, and who will control that ? That's what seems difficult to understand. There are some other questions I guess that some don't clearly understand. Regards, Olivier, Belgium. |
| GratefulFan 10.06.2010 15:55 |
I find it completely unreasonable that all you people cannot read my mind! What's up with that? ;) Give me a day or so and I'll try to do a really rough mock up entry in a post that might help make what I'm proposing make more sense. |
| Queenrockyou 10.06.2010 16:44 |
GratefulFan wrote: I find it completely unreasonable that all you people cannot read my mind! What's up with that? ;) Give me a day or so and I'll try to do a really rough mock up entry in a post that might help make what I'm proposing make more sense. OK, I guess this is the right way to do. Maybe we have some difficulties to understand what you mean, especially for people like me who are not English native. Whatever, I guess we'll have a better idea while you show an example of what you mean. If the project is great and OK for the majority, then don't refrain it ! Regards, Olivier, Belgium. |