Gareth wrote:I don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, but I think many of us have come up with the 'idea' of a card database. Unfortunately doing it well, from the DB structure to the massive amounts of content make it a lot of work.
I did consider creating a wiki for playing cards, but really after starting to understand the work involved (and other priorities) have decided to postpone it (so far, for about the past 2 years
).
Not to dampen your dampening, but:
1. While the amount of content could indeed be massive, this can be mitigated by creating a Wiki - initially, at least - with a limited scope (the decks from a particular country, manufacturer, genre or published within a given time frame.
Reference books often do this. For example,
The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards by Tom & Juidy Dawson (an excellent resource, by the way) not only limits its content to decks published in America, but to decks published in America up until (IIRC) 1930.
2. Making it a true Wiki, thus spreading the data entry work out among numerous interested parties, makes the work far more manageable (although whoever is in charge would still need to keep an eye on everything - a big job in and of itself)
Gareth wrote:Some things that I think would be important to make it a genuine resource for the community;
- Independence - not be related to any of the card sellers. (once you have links to 'buy from this dealer' on a listing of a deck the site becomes an advertising engine)
While I understand your concern, I believe that links to places where a deck may be obtained would be an important part of such a resource. A disclaimer stating that such links are NOT meant as recommendations nor as endorsements of the seller(s) listed, and shopping around is still recommended (Bla, bla, bla).
I think that one of the biggest jobs in such a project would be the Executive Editor in charge of overseeing everything, insuring consistency.
Not including such links would not only (in my opinion) eliminate a valuable part of the resource, but would discourage sellers from updating the Wiki, thus eliminating another valuable resource (the sellers' knowledge and participation in the project as a whole).
Gareth wrote:[*]objective - having any 'review' or large opinion-based content would make each item quite controversial. (You may not think it, but listings would quickly devolve into wars on whether the deck is good, or bad. - Obviously links to outside reviews should be encouraged).[/list]
Yes, so-called "Wiki Wars" would insue. Objective content is not only controversial, but would inevitably lead to inconsistencies in the database (the editor of the entry on Deck A
loves some aspect of the hobby (Custom courts/thin borders/whatever), while the editor of the entry about Deck B
hates it, so one deck gets praised for the very thing the other gets criticised for, etc.)
