Upcoming anime database (wiki)

[Slice of Life]

Linking to Myanimelist and the wikipedia should definitely be recommended too. As for blogs, I'm not strictly against linking to them as long as they provide useful (English) information that cannot be found in the standard sources yet. Which might happen in the early stages of planning. What I don't want is that people mistake the link list for some kind of fan site directory.

Mentioning the studio was in my original proposal but I took it out as you can see. At the moment. I'm opting for a minimal approach (what, when, where to look for further information) because I fear we might be opening a can of worms here. First the studio, then somebody wants the genres to be listed, then the target demographics, the director, etc. First, this defies the idea of this being just an overview. Second, somebody has to actually fill the information it. And second, this might trigger a death spiral: many empty fields -> people conclude that the project is dead -> more empty fields.

I'm not even sure if this project isn't already stillborn as it is. I already feel guilty that GHDpro puts so much work into this before we had more discussion. "I think this is a good idea" =/= "I will add information". And don't look at me, I already said in my opening post that in some seasons, I simply don't have the time. Whenever I complile a list, I will add it of course.

For images, see arguments above. Although it would certainly look nice if it works out. But it takes even more energy to add an image than to simply type in the studio. If we do this I'd suggest such a structure

My avatars stand for the actual images, of course. Would look better with borders.

And of course the logo must be a Kairin logo.

[GHDpro]

Whew, it took some effort, but I think I got the vBulletin integration nailed!

You should now be able to login with your AnimeSuki forum login, and when you look at the preferences, your email address should automatically be filled in.

There are a few things I'd like you to test/look out for though. First, make sure the wiki user id (as shown in preferences) is the same as your forum user id (as is used in the URL of your "member" page, which you can get to by clicking on your username in "Welcome, User" text near the upper-right corner).

Second, MediaWiki has some specific restrictions regarding usernames. It'll be interesting to see users login who have:
- Spaces in their username
- Underscores in their username
- Special characters in their username (especially those which aren't allowed in URLs)

Especially users with usernames as described above, try to login and create your own info page (click on your username, next to "my talk", then click "create page", write something and try to save it).

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

I'm not even sure if this project isn't already stillborn as it is. I already feel guilty that GHDpro puts so much work into this before we had more discussion. "I think this is a good idea" =/= "I will add information". And don't look at me, I already said in my opening post that in some seasons, I simply don't have the time. Whenever I complile a list, I will add it of course.

Well I already indicated there could be other uses for the wiki. But it might be best to help in the beginning in order to create the kind of information resource you envisioned. After a pattern has been set you can relax and let others take over.

[KholdStare]

I for one will help in some way to update the Wiki, especially since the criteria you wanted doesn't require a lot of digging. However, will this only deal with upcoming anime or will we try to enter all anime that existed in the wiki?

[felix]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

First, make sure the wiki user id (as shown in preferences) is the same as your forum user id (as is used in the URL of your "member" page, which you can get to by clicking on your username in "Welcome, User" text near the upper-right corner).

Checked, works fine

MediaWiki basic features seem to work fine too.

Good job, and thankyou!

ps. Either use a grayscale version of the animasuki favicon or add a little mark to it, its confusing having both forum and wiki tabs. ^^;;

[Slice of Life]

http://wiki.animesuki.com/wiki/Anime_fall_2009_season

That's how my minimal solution would look like. Yes, it's heavily inspired by you-know-what. Maybe somebody wants to add a different arangement for comparison?

[GHDpro]

It's a little late here, so I'll continue working tomorrow.

I'll have a try at a list layout too. One thing I'd like to try is to make it look a bit more like the torrent listings in terms of style. Plus I still need to enable uploads to allow images.

Also, I think we should probably make heavy use of templates for links. For example instead of pasting http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl...anime&aid=6652, you'd enter {{anidb|a6652}}. This saves space, and will be really useful in case sites change URLs or go down permanently (let's hope not).

One thing I've been wondering... should each anime series get it's own wiki page? For the most part, I can't see a convincing reason why, except for categories. You can add anime series in tons of categories, such as one per genre [[Category:Adventure_(genre)]] or [[Category:Licenses_from_2009]] or [[Category::Anime_by_Studio_Bones]] or [[Category:OVA]] etc, etc.

The only downside would be that each wiki page for anime series would be like a stub with very little info except for links to other sites. Basically not much more than what's on top of the series pages for torrent listings right now.

[Ichihara Asako]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

http://wiki.animesuki.com/wiki/Anime_fall_2009_season

That's how my minimal solution would look like. Yes, it's heavily inspired by you-know-what. Maybe somebody wants to add a different arangement for comparison?

My main gripe with that is the dates. Is it possible to have some sort of date flag internally, so users can view it in their preferred date format? American dating is silly.

I'd rather more information at a glance, though. Just a title does absolutely nothing for me unless it's a known franchise. I want more details, a brief summary (maybe 2-3 lines max, not large paragraphs) and perhaps genre/content tags, though limit them to just a few so we don't end up with huge clouds on some series.

[GHDpro]

Uploads are now enabled. Be aware that I will also nuke all uploaded files when I reset the database before going live (which, considering the progress, could be any day now) so keep a copy of any image you want to keep.

This is my idea of a series listing (temporary on a different page):
http://wiki.animesuki.com/wiki/Upcoming_anime

Note: refresh the page with CTRL-F5 (or clear your cache) to refresh the CSS on the page, as most of the table styling is in the skin ..... which reminds me... it may look ugly in other skins.... hmm.

@Ichihara Asako
As you can specify a date format in the preferences, I'd figure there must be some way to customize dates to users. Though if full pages are cached (and that's likely) for speedy rendering, this may not be possible.

[Ichihara Asako]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

This is my idea of a series listing (temporary on a different page):
http://wiki.animesuki.com/wiki/Upcoming_anime

I like this layout a lot more. Thumbnail, title, English title, type/epcount, desc, links. Excellent. Still need MAL and Wiki links, though. And I'd still like to see an entry for genre/content tags (eg. seinen, mecha, sudden girlfriend etc).

And if you set dates to a logical format like dd/mm/yy or yyyy/mm/dd it'll be fine, it's just mm/dd is illogical.

[Slice of Life]

Bug report of sorts:

Originally Posted by wiki

Database error
From AnimeSuki Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

(SQL query hidden)

from within function "AuthPlugin_vBulletin::initUser". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry '53598' for key 1 (localhost)".

It might be that I'm still officially logged in from another IP. An autologout like in the forum would be a good idea.

I still think that this bloated version contains too much information and might even deter users from adding material. But I don't religiously stick to the minimal version and I'm fine with trying out the current one. I only have one major and one minor worry:

1. (major) How short is this "short" description supposed to be? I'm afraid it might turn into walls of text in some cases, and biased text at that. I also don't want to scroll for hours just two find out which 2 or 3 anime have been added since last week. Everything > 300 characters should go to the wiki page or the forum.

2. (minor) I'd rename the link "forum" into "anime" and add the information somewhere on top that this refers to animesuki. That way one can simply also link to "manga" or "prequel" for example, instead of using a lengthy "manga thread in the forum" or something like that. But alternatively, one could put these related links into the description. I also see that the "forum" links go to the unaired subforum which I assume is for demonstration purposes and not supposed to be the default. It would be a bad idea to make it the default because it gives no visual hint that the entry is provisional and it downright invites people to make anime threads that might already exist.

[GHDpro]

- Regarding the DB error: I've made a small change that should hopefully prevent this error from happening. Please let me know if it happens again.

- Regarding description: my intention was for the description to be short, very short - preferably just 1 line, and 2-3 lines max.

- As for the "Forum" link, yes the target was just an example. Should there be no forum page to link to, that section should be empty.

I've altered the Kimba entry in the list to a different format - which do you like best? Personally I still prefer the latter format.

[Ichihara Asako]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

I've altered the Kimba entry in the list to a different format - which do you like best? Personally I still prefer the latter format.

Too much whitespace for the forum link, I think. Forum will only ever have one link, where as "links" should always have five or more? (Official site anidb, ANN, MAL, Wiki... maybe animeplanet?)

Also I like the desc. I agree with 1 line for a very brief summary, not a full synopsis, but I like it visible at a glance so I can look through a season for things that may interest me, if the line is descriptive enough.

[GHDpro]

I've modified the second entry some more to give an example of the kind of descriptions I'm thinking about. In this case, I gave no real info about the story, but more factional info about what the series is based on. The links once again are examples btw.

I've also thought about whether we should mention either fansubs or license information in these listings. I think you really can't avoid at least mentioning some info. I propose either an icon or some color coding (for the background color of the series title) to distinguish between:
- Anime that hasn't been licensed nor fansubbed (color: Neutral - current color & no icon)
- Fansubbed anime (color: light green and/or link to Site, as demonstrated in Battle Spirits entry)
- Licensed anime for TV/DVD/BD (color: light red or disc [cd/dvd] icon)
- Licensed anime for Streaming (color: light blue or pc icon)

If an anime is licensed for streaming the link to it should be included in the info links (something like "Streaming"). I do not propose the names of any licensor, nor any further fansub info other than a link to the site, to be mentioned.

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

- Regarding the DB error: I've made a small change that should hopefully prevent this error from happening. Please let me know if it happens again.

- Regarding description: my intention was for the description to be short, very short - preferably just 1 line, and 2-3 lines max.

- As for the "Forum" link, yes the target was just an example. Should there be no forum page to link to, that section should be empty.

I've altered the Kimba entry in the list to a different format - which do you like best? Personally I still prefer the latter format.

No, I'm still getting the same error.

I'd say use the second (Battle Spirits) version and simply write "Forum links:" in front of the forum links. The other links are self-explaining. Yet another alternative would be using more abbreviated labels that are explained on top of the page, like "Forum(M)" for the manga thread or something like that.

[GHDpro]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

No, I'm still getting the same error.

Ugh, okay, I've made another change that should really prevent this bug now... hopefully.

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

I'd say use the second (Battle Spirits) version and simply write "Forum links:" in front of the forum links. The other links are self-explaining. Yet another alternative would be using more abbreviated labels that are explained on top of the page, like "Forum(M)" for the manga thread or something like that.

I think putting the links to non-anime discussion threads (game, manga, prequel) into the description is a better idea.

[Ichihara Asako]

I like the new second option much more, yes. This is very good.

Also you mentioned earlier quicklinks to like anidb, ANN, MAL etc; they all use numbers for their series, so this would be a good option. Just do like {anidb|6978} and {mal|6901} etc is an excellent idea; not sure if you can parse it further so all they have to do is ANN:#### or MAL:#### etc. But keeping it as simplified as that would be nice.

[Slice of Life]

Yes it works, and OK, I'm fine with putting links into the description. As soon as the wiki is up and running for real and I find the time, I'll start adding some anime with basic info and we'll see how the collective mind of animesuki will flesh that out.

[GHDpro]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Yes it works

Except it didn't. If you had checked the preferences page you would have noticed your user id was different than before, and creating a new account each time you login with your username spelled with different case ("slice of life" vs "Slice of Life") wasn't supposed to happen.

I've now made another change that tries to rewrite your username back to what it was on the forum. Once again, it'll be interesting to see what will happen with user accounts with strange characters in their name. For example, it's technically possible to have one user named "Slice of Life" and another as "Slice_of_Life" as vBulletin threads them as different usernames. But in MediaWiki, they're both the same as it converts underscores to spaces.

Anyway, I'll reset the wiki sometime tonight and will initialize it with the anime listing we've decided upon.

[GHDpro]

The wiki has now been reset and is live BUT please wait until I've created some initial pages first, thanks.

I'll post again when it's okay for you to make your own edits to the major page (fall 2009 season etc).

[GHDpro]

Okay done

Go ahead and expand the list I'll expand it myself too, but not today (worked enough on the wiki already).

Visit the main page first for notes regarding editing. If you have never edited Wikipedia before this page may also be useful.