Which would you rather have, KLOV fixes, or forum fixes?

joemagiera

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Which would you rather have, KLOV fixes, or forum fixes?

I have been reading with interest all the work Greg M (and presumably other admins) on the work he/they are doing in updating and upgrading and setting rules for the forums.

This is not a knock on Greg at all, I much appreciate his efforts. But my thought is that if he's willing to spend this much time in this area, I'd rather see updates and upgrades to KLOV itself. Like being able to submit a picture on a game, whether it be a CP or full game or PCB or whatever, and actually have it show up in KLOV immediately, kind of like how the pinball database website is administered. Or make corrections to an entry and see them accepted in a reasonable period of time and not just see things submitted just go off in a black hole of cyber-space. Really, I've seen people post on corrections to KLOV entries, and Greg was the one to fix them. Why does he have to fix them, why can't we just submit them and have them fixed? There is no way Greg will be able to keep up with all the requests of error fixes.

So, does anyone else have thoughts? Where would you prefer to see Greg and other admins spend their efforts? I for one could care less if someone changes their user name, but I just read this morning about Greg contemplating rules for this. What a waste.

If people feel otherwise and I'm in the minority, that's fine, I'll STFU. But if people have a view, let's let Greg hear it and maybe he'll put his efforts more towards what the majority really want fixed first, rather than what he thinks needs to be fixed first.

Again, this isn't a knock on Greg, just hoping/trying to let him know that the majority of people here might rather he spend his efforts on fixes updates and upgrades to other areas first.

My #1 request/preference? To have KLOV searchable the way it used to be many, many years ago. You used to be able to search on almost any aspect of a video game. You could search by joystick type, track ball type, monitor type, or any other number of other fields or combination. I used the functionality many, many times, and I miss it a lot since it's been gone. I was told it was lost due to "progress". Making it harder (if not impossible) to get targeted information doesn't sound like progress to me. If the new type of data base doesn't support this type of thing, maybe we shouldn't have switched to it.

Just my "random thought" for this morning.
 
If you read his UPDATE thread in the announcement forum, you'll see that he plans on concentrating on VAPS for a while. I agree, we NEED the ability to upload photos... and it would be BITCHEN if VAPS linked those uploaded photos with KLOV, so when you go in to a game, you can click a button to see all the different photos from all the different people who have that game in VAPS. THAT would be bitchen.
 
would it be possible to have klov set up like in a wiki format? i think that would rock

+100000 a wiki system would be perfect for it. That way people could submit their changes, and all he has to do is look at them and say "yeah that looks right click ok DONE". Its also a lot cleaner and more modern way to handle that type of information.
 
BYOAC has an arcade controls wiki... someone should build an arcade database wiki and we all could contribute. The problem with that, of course, is that you have to find a good number of dedicated folks to monitor and moderate the wiki.

I wonder how difficult it would be to modify the data in KLOV to be used in a wiki? I wonder if Greg will even read this thread? I also wonder how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?


The world may never know...
 
I also wonder how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

That's easy Frizz- Three.

mrowl.jpg
 
I'd offered a long time ago to help out with updating of images etc but never heard anything back.
 
dude, you're totally right on this. Way too much updates, forum changes, etc going on here. Which doesn't bother me too much, 'cause I never read that boring stuff. But man oh man, the johnny-on-the-spot updating on KLOV would be nice. They still haven't updated stuff I submitted last year.
 
+100000 a wiki system would be perfect for it. That way people could submit their changes, and all he has to do is look at them and say "yeah that looks right click ok DONE". Its also a lot cleaner and more modern way to handle that type of information.

I would probably be willing to set up a wiki. HOWEVER, do we really need yet ANOTHER database of games? It seems like it has already been done several times and they eventually get neglected. Has anyone used ggdb.com a lot? It seems like there is a lot of information there, but light on pictures.
 
ggdb is pretty good, but they need more on the info side. there's some good knowledge on there, but they could use some more info... but quite honestly, why not post a forum of collections and then maybe a sub forum of specific games, and each thread would be tied to only one game. that would get specific pics and info and be fairly simple to use as well.
 
KLOV needs an overhaul, there's way more work on the content side than a couple of folks could handle... moving it to a wiki system should be the obvious choice. Bring on a handful of editors to keep an eye on updates, and let the community go nuts.

Arcade-history.com should be an example of the sort of content each listing could have.... here's their page on TRON, for example:
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=tron&page=detail&id=2979
 
+1 on the Wiki.

There are a bunch of games /w pics of conversion cabs. Others /w incorrect info. For example there are alot of JAMMA games that are also JVS. A wiki could also branch off to system hardware types as well like cart based (CPSII and Neo-Geo MVS) searches via tags.

I see a Taito Egret II was added. With a wiki many of us can add in the info of Japanese Cabs as well. Since they too are getting more and more common.
 
The system we implemented when we took over KLOV was a wiki system. It is a moderated system. The big problem is the amazing level of crap that gets submitted into the queue. It is literally a full time job if done by one person. I'm looking at several changes actually away from a wiki system to something slightly more like a simple vote system. It works better for what is a database of data (more so than an encyclopedia in many ways). You would be amazed at how many hundreds if not thousands of submissions we get for adding manufacturers that are already in the system...

On of my posts in the annoucements section stated that major work on it was coming soon. The idea was for VAPS and the forums to be handled first, then start approaching the data.

VAPS got a nice clean up, and other than a few minor things (like making it easier to find/add game entries) will be pretty stable for a while.

Ditto with the forums. A few more changes (and finalizing rules) are in order and then I'm hoping that it will be stable for a while.

Then I'm going to start attacking KLOV part by part. The goal isn't in trying to get through the backlog of submissions... the goal is to allow as many people as possible to help in the process. The existing system has a great backend for submission moderation, but is really geared for people doing a lot of it...
 
There are a lot of things on the to do list, and it is impossible to attack them in an order that would fit everyone's pleasing.

I think few would want to go back to the old 5-year old forum technology we were running in February. Many have appreciated the updates not only to the forums, but to VAPS, etc.

While you might prefer improvements to the main site first, there are quite a number of people that would prefer I finish dealing with the forums first (ie: finalize rules of conduct, deal with people that attack other people, state a specific set of guidelines for the restoration forum, etc.).

There is also a natural order that things in general have to be dealt with from a technology perspective. Before I can work on the main sites submission system directly I have to clean up, fix, optimize, and understand everything that plugs into it. Otherwise data will get trashed when we mess with the core site by modules that plug into it. In other words, forums, VAPS, etc. first.

Now the search functions you wish we had are a pretty harmless addition since they don't update anything. We have slowly added to the functions as we moved from php/mysql versions 3.x to versions 5.x, and the new features combined with faster servers provided the opportunity to add even more functionality.

If you look at the post in the announcements section today, you will see that likely everything you missed and more in search is online now.


I have been reading with interest all the work Greg M (and presumably other admins) on the work he/they are doing in updating and upgrading and setting rules for the forums.

...

My #1 request/preference? To have KLOV searchable the way it used to be many, many years ago. You used to be able to search on almost any aspect of a video game. You could search by joystick type, track ball type, monitor type, or any other number of other fields or combination. I used the functionality many, many times, and I miss it a lot since it's been gone. I was told it was lost due to "progress". Making it harder (if not impossible) to get targeted information doesn't sound like progress to me. If the new type of data base doesn't support this type of thing, maybe we shouldn't have switched to it.

Just my "random thought" for this morning.
 
As soon as KLOV goes Wiki they looses thier copyright, maby thats the reason why the dont want to go that way?
But i must say, if they go wiki, there will be alot of people updating, and if any crap is spottet it´s removed... so..
 
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