Three Kingdoms Media (In Progress/Incomplete)

[Mikhail]

So, I've created an entry. I haven't put it into the actual article yet, but I want to see how it is and what the general opinion is.

Koutetsu Sangokushi

Aired: April 2007 - September 2007 (25 Episodes)
Running Time: 30 Minutes
Network: TV Tokyo
Websites: http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/koutetsu-sangokushi/
Genre: Action, adventure, historical
Plot Synopsis: In a land ravaged by war, Rikuson Hakugen, a mysterious wanderer enters the service of the nation of Go where he makes it his mission to retrieve an ancient artifact to fulfill his family's legacy. Unbeknownst to himself, his fate and the fates of everyone he knows is being shaped by a figure close to him.
Notes: Characters and places are referred in their Japanese forms. However, the overall settings and characters are still based on the Three Kingdoms era. For example, Lu Xun is referred to Rikuson Hakugen while Gi, Go and Shoku are Wei, Wu and Shu respectively.
Screenshots:

[James]

I personally think that is a great start.

I'm already seeing the value of an opinion piece. There are some great movies out there, and some crap movies too. The greatest value would come of actually listing the media as you've done above, but opinion is definitely something we want to come back to. We can do it inline, in a main article, or through actual user-submitted reviews? Any are possible. Or we could have a single user review which has been considered by others who have seen the program, thus ensuring that it reflects community opinion to an extent (and thus is valuable information to the viewer).

[Butters]

I don't see anything wrong with it. I do have a question for clarity's sake though. I was just wondering if the "Plot Synopsis" was something official from the maker of the media (e.g. what's written on the back of the DVD box) or if it was an original blurb.

As for reviews, personally, I suggest having a featured writer who does a somewhat elaborate and strictly professional review, where there will be screenshots, etc, to show it off. Then, you could have user submitted reviews that would be put to a less stringent standard that would go up as a list of links under the featured review.

[James]

The plot synopsis can be whatever serves the viewers best. If a company written synopsis is worded properly (not overly clouded with market speak) then that is great, and it is covered by 'fair use' law (not that a company would take issue with you using it anyway). If not, we can modify the company synopsis, or write our own.

As for a review, what you suggest is best.
We are limited only by what people are willing to contribute.

Edit: Screenshots: We need large screenshots which people can open and explore (when possible). We will obviously be using thumnails for the published article, but when we decide on screenshots to use that is something we should keep in mind. We have leeway of course for any inline screenshot use, but for screenshots used to showcase the animé/movie we definitely want nice large screenshots whenever possible.

[Mikhail]

I don't see anything wrong with it. I do have a question for clarity's sake though. I was just wondering if the "Plot Synopsis" was something official from the maker of the media (e.g. what's written on the back of the DVD box) or if it was an original blurb.

Yeah, sorry. I should have made it clear. It was my creation. I WOULD put the synopsis from the creator itself if anyone could find the actual words and whatnot. The problem with this is that since most of this media are in a language that is not english, a proper translation would be required and even though we have some incredible translators here, it is still not the "official" thing. The closest thing I can find is from the animenewsnetwork website, but I'm not sure if that's a created piece or an actual "official" piece. If it was a created piece, then we can't really use it, etc.

For reviews, I would suggest maybe just a small rating system. Anyone who visits the website could provide their own score and how they liked the show. You could also maybe have a small comment system. Having a featured reviewer is a little bit harder to pull off (in my opinion) since it would most likely take some time to create a good and thorough review. As we have seen throughout the community (not trying to offend anyone here), it is pretty passive unless it is something very "important". By having a small comment/rating, it will make reviews quick and it'll have a score.

[James]

Hmm... it might be easy to create a system where a person can add a review from their account. Some back-end coding will definitely be required as I am only now beginning to explore what accounts can do (if anyone wants to support development of that they should have a look at the new Community Census thread in SGYYS—it is a KMA project I've been considering, and some elements developed for it would be useful in creating a review system for the site). With a good system in place it won't be too tough to expand it; the real work is in getting it together in the first place.

As long as we have a real-world description we can present the official (or as close as we can get to official) synopsis (and that might actually be the ideal way to do it).

It might also be nice to see if anyone has created some good PHP software for managing a project like this. I'll have a look as time goes on. If we did find something great, it would be easy to port our work into it. Otherwise this will work just fine. Any section with good content is better than nothing.

Oh, and feel free to steal from this as you see fit:
Great Conquest: Romance of the Three Kingdoms

[Butters]

Well, in regard to a featured review, at least in my idea, it wouldn't be necessary to have a featured review before introducing the media subject to the public. They would be things people could undertake over time.

[James]

Well, in regard to a featured review, at least in my idea, it wouldn't be necessary to have a featured review before introducing the media subject to the public. They would be things people could undertake over time.

Yeah. In fact, for this to be published all we really need to put together is a collection of the different movies/series available with basic information (kind of like what was outlined above). Ultimately that would serve as the index page and it would be through that page that people could open up dedicated pages for any given entry. Those dedicated pages would contain much more information. Once enough dedicated pages are up the summary page could be scaled down.

This sort of project is perfect for this articles system as it can scale according to the amount of content contributed.

(And your suggestion of having a well-written professional review, complete with pictures and what-not, would definitely be marvelous. That would be of greater value to readers than almost anything else we could come up with—they'll want to decide if this is a movie they should bother watching.)

I would say the best starting point would be to create a comprehensive list of all the media associated with the Three Kingdoms (that we can come up with) so a good summary page could be created.

[Butters]

Is there any sort of standardized form we can or should use in listing these pieces of media? It looks like we could make some massive database at this point of this stuff. I'm peeling off title after title and I doubt I'll ever be finished.

(EDIT) You know, I have a crazy idea. What about setting up a form page? Even though I think it was the general idea to do this anyway with the article system, if there was a page set up where people could just put in the relevant information about the media piece (basically, like what Mikhail has up there in the entry about Koutetsu Sangokushi), it would make things a whole lot simpler and more standardized.

[James]

Is there any sort of standardized form we can or should use in listing these pieces of media? It looks like we could make some massive database at this point of this stuff. I'm peeling off title after title and I doubt I'll ever be finished.

For now a general brief entry for each media would be suitable (sort of like what Mikhail and I discussed a page or two back). Anything beyond that can be added as appropriate. And yeah, there is no 'end' to this unless we make one. That's not something I would worry about, though. This is the sort of thing you take one bite out of at a time and as soon as you've had a chance to chew it through, you decide if you want more.

(EDIT) You know, I have a crazy idea. What about setting up a form page? Even though I think it was the general idea to do this anyway with the article system, if there was a page set up where people could just put in the relevant information about the media piece (basically, like what Mikhail has up there in the entry about Koutetsu Sangokushi), it would make things a whole lot simpler and more standardized.

We've got the development project, and it is form driven... but articles is probably the best way to handle this specific project. We could get information from viewers with a form -- allow people to submit new media through the website -- but that would be a possibility we could take advantage of after we finished putting something online. Note that the idea of articles (this project) is not for one person to enter content which isn't changed, but rather for a group of people to work on content collectively to make it greater than what a single person might accomplish alone (kind of like Wikipedia, but with more care taken to select the right people for editing).