confocaloid wrote: July 4th, 2024, 4:02 pm
If someone decides to make a commitment to creating and maintaining a database or a collection of some specific type of objects or components, then such a collection or database would certainly deserve a dedicated thread.
Right -- exactly! If you or I or somebody provides a good model for creating and maintaining a database for shifters, then maybe that will attract a volunteer that wants to do something for the community but doesn't know where to start, or doesn't know how to write the required Lua script.
Once things are set up, people can post new small shifters on the thread, and the volunteer maintainer can update the first post every now and then, to reflect recent contributions to the thread.
confocaloid wrote: July 4th, 2024, 4:02 pmMost existing stamp collections aren't maintained like that, though, and could all perfectly well go in a single forum thread.
I pretty much agree with that, but for a rather silly technical reason: it just doesn't seem like there are lots of existing stamp collections that are in desperate need of one single big combined thread to throw them into.
The problem that I'm seeing is that high-quality, carefully updated stamp collections mostly don't exist at all, even though we collectively want them to exist -- as Tawal has described recently:
Tawal wrote: June 10th, 2024, 7:29 pmI'm still surprised that today there are no properly classified collections with the necessary information.
I've already found (they've been pointed out to me) some of them, but they're either not up to date or lack information.
For example, the H-to-Gn collection lacks information such as RT, a classification of edge shooters, transparent lane etc.
But where is the Gx-to-G collection? etc ?
That's why I suggested dedicating threads to each collection (with its own rules) and one thread listing all these collections.
In addition, an official maintainer of the collection would be welcome in my opinion.
So a good question is this: is there any way we can we encourage people to take on a little bit of work, to commit to maintaining a collection -- for a year or two or three, let's say, and for just one particular collection?
I'd be willing to build a model for what a useful and yet easily maintainable form might be for a script-generated shifter database.
If a volunteer pops up who wants to commit to maintaining it once it's set up, then that's great! If not, then we don't have to create the separate thread -- unless we want to create it on speculation, so to speak, and see if
that attracts volunteers -- no particular harm in trying the experiment!
It seems like Tawal paints a good picture of how we all collectively wish that pattern collections worked. What can we do to take a step or two closer to achieving that?
Tawal also mentioned
Tawal wrote: June 10th, 2024, 7:29 pmIf someone could create a LifeWiki's page listing all currently known collections, that would be a good start.
That does seem like a good plan! The LifeWiki seems like a better place for this list than yet another forum thread. I can start working on compiling a list along those lines. Possibly some of the "latest and greatest" actual stamp collections might end up on the LifeWiki as well, as
hkoenig suggested today -- maybe with just a link to a LifeWiki page from the first post in a forum collection thread.
The list will contain, not just threads that contain actual stamp collections, but collection threads of any kind. Even if no actual stamp collection has been attempted yet, it seems worth documenting the fact that a specific type of information is being collected, one post at a time, in a particular location.
These are the threads where, if you find a new object of type X, the obvious thing to do is to go and post the new object on the Thread for Xes (
if you know about the thread! -- but a LifeWiki list of collection threads could maybe help a little bit with that.)
Possibly the list could also serve as something of a "sign-up sheet", where people state an interest in maintaining a particular collection -- and give an end date beyond which the maintenance responsibility goes back to the community at large.
