Topic: Suggestion for new "Area" of the board?

[Frank]

Hello there,
I have posted a suggestion in the topic "Story Alterations" and would like to ask if it is possible to facilitate this project here (an Archie Story database).

There are many reasons we could all use this and I would also like to share this out to the other big comic databases.

Here is what I am looking for:

1) A Forum area called "Archie Story Database"
2) Then, I would create a new thread for EVERY Archie comic ever published!
3) Then, people can fill-in information about that specific issue (I'll create a template of sorts as a "sample"

Ideally, I would love to see a consistent sorting of the threads in the topic.  So, for example, at the moment the last posted comment moves the thread to the top of the sorted list.  I would love to see the threads if this sub-topic (Archie Story Database) to be sorted Alpha-numerically.  No matter when any new information is added.  Is this even possible?  Is this even desirable?

I plan to do this on my own - but as they say - many hands make light work and I only have a few thousand Archie comics myself - so that would limit my contribution.

Over time, this could become a very, very awesome resource!

[Frank]

Here would be an example of the fields we could complete:

Story Title
Creative Team (each role individually noted)
Cover Price
Characters appearing in the story
Page count of the story
Special Notes

I think there could also be a lot more, but you get the idea.

I know that the wiki and Great Comics Database are also options - but I thought that this might be fun for us Archie Fan Forum Folks (AFcubed?) to do.  Mostly because we are more likely to A)care and B) look for little differences like story alterations.

[Frank]

Here's a sample:

Topic Title:  Jughead #329
60cents
August 1983
Published 4 times a year

Jughead in "Love Me Tender"
Story: Frank Doyle
Pencil: Dan DeCarlo Jr.
Ink: Jim DeCarlo
Lettering: Bill Yoshida
Coloring: Barry Grossman
Art Director: Victor Gorelick
Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater
Characters:  Jughead, Dilbert, Wanda
6 pages

Sabrina in "Which Witch" (short 3 panel gag)
uncredited
Characters: Sabrina, Hilda, Esmeralda

Jughead in: "Rassle Hassle"
uncredited
5 pages
Characters: Jughead,Emmy Lou, Archie, Moose, Swenson, Coach(?), Mr. Weatherbee
*not sure of the coaches full character name

Jughead in: "The Ace of Space"
uncredited
Characters: Jughead, Archie, Dilton, Reggie, East-Siders, Kid Invincible, Alien
5 pages

Jughead in: "Run Fun"
uncredited
Characters: Jughead, Hot Dog, Betty
6 Pages

[nocutename]

For what it's worth, here's my thoughts. 

1) I did the indexing for the Katy Keene's in GCD and it was a lot of work for just the few stories in those issues.  Digests have tons of stories which seems like an extraordinary amount of work.
2) I am not a fan of having free formed text as it is impossible to search and is normally poorly formatted for readability.
3) Given the huge labor involved, I would rather see the data stored properly.  For me, that means inputting it into the database.

[Oldiesmann]

I agree that the forum really isn't the best place for that - we don't have specific fields for information (title, issue number, when it was released, who did cover art, etc.), and it would be fairly difficult to keep up with that many topics.

Eventually I would like to have all of this information in the wiki. I've found a way to add properties to articles, which in turn will allow us to get a lot of great info about issues and stories.

For instance, an article on a specific issue would have properties for cover artist, year published, number of pages and which stories appear in the issue. An article on a particular story would have properties for credits (inker, writer, colorist, etc.) and which characters appear in the story. This would let us get all sorts of information - even ridiculous things like "Harry Lucey stories from 1950 with Jughead in them". I still need to figure out all the details with this, but hopefully I'll have some things together in the coming months and we can start documenting this.

[Frank]

A database would certainly be the best solution.  I am just thinking of a work-around that would allow many people to participate.  If every board member input just 10-30 stories - it would be a lot of cool information.

I haven't looked at the GCBDB - so maybe that is really the way to go.

[nocutename]

Extending the directory with attributes or properties sounds like a better way to go.  I remember you were looking into getting that add-on.  Let us know when it is in place.

[Oldiesmann]

I should have it in place in the near future. I just need to take the time to learn the system (it's fairly complex) and get the new features set up.