I have no good idea why I’m posting this, since it’ll only serve to remind me of things I still haven’t gotten around to and might not. However, maybe typing some of this stuff while help me define my ideas a little better.
Since I’m going to be out of town the rest of the week (note things highlighted in red and put the pieces together – I like having the late games on Saturday because it means no 4 AM wakeup like I’ll be doing tomorrow, but that means I’ll be dealing with annoying bandwagon fans about the time IWA-MS kicks off in Highland), it’s not like I’m going to work on it much the rest of this week.
But, anyway. Maybe ideas? Or at least I’ll sort out my ideas a little better.
1) Recaps indexed in PHP, allowing live updating links between recaps for greater continuity.
Basically, when you read an old ROH recap by Joe, I want you to get a link to the last ROH recap before it, the next ROH recap in order, the latest ROH recap, and all the same things for Joe’s recaps.
This is stuff I could do on my own, but not without spending more time on stuff for each article (which perhaps I should do on other things) and with a good deal of screwing up links in the process.
I’d also automate the index pages, cutting down on me putting in bad links and saving me some update time.
One phase of this is entering all the recaps into a database structure, which is time consuming and not very interesting, but the kind of stuff I’ve got no problem doing while watching TV. At some point, I’ll need to build a secure form to do individual recaps; my data dumps are working fine because I’m doing them in bunches, but that’s not the best way to do it on a daily basis.
I’d like to modify the indexes to allow me to insert specialized columns that don’t fit the normal system (like keeping the Best of 2004 articles in the index), but that’s something I should be able to build to.
2) TV Show/Match Database.
The idea is you’d be able to search thru my lists (taking the indexes and the lucha stuff) for matches/shows based on wrestlers, titles, gimmicks, whatever. Instead of scanning the list and hoping you catch everything, this would do it all for you.
You could do a search for Paul London, and you’d get back results (show name, air date, link to a recap) of all Paul London matches listed.
You could do a search for Paul London and Akio, and it’d pull up a list of shows where they were both on.
You could do a search for Paul London vs Akio matches, and it’d pull up just those. Or Cruiserweight Matches including Spike Dudley, or a list of all DDQ finishes on RAW in the last three years. (I’m not even sure exactly how I’d do this, but I’m setting up the database so it’s a possibility.)
I haven’t figured if this would be more than just a cool tool hardcore and bored people will be using, plus the odd person trying to figure out when a match was, but it seems like a good idea.
This is a lot – a whole lot – of data entry and I think even in the best case scenario, I’d put a beta up with all the results from Velocity or CMLL – which is actually the sample data going in right now, because I think it’d have more use there – and let people search thru it and maybe even submit data to be posted.
I’m really not more than 10% done with this on the lucha. And figuring out the best way to attack the entry is frustrating me.
It should be noted I’ve never actually completed something like this. What I really need to get a good PHP book.
The hidden upside for the database is condensing the same information spilled over multiple places – the title histories and the indexes – can all just be run off of this data. The downside is I don’t want to bother with those things till I’m done, since I’ll be redoing my own work, yet I don’t even have a endpoint in sight.
That’s it? There’s something else I can’t remember it right now.
There’s a limit on how much time I like to spend on these web related tasks . What I really need to do is start carting around the practice Access databases I’ve been working on to places where I might have some downtime and internet access, so I can salvage some of that time instead of writing long meandering pieces.
And a more defined plan. That’d be good.