Site revamp - potential new way to organize drawings

[Colosseum]

You've basically nailed the submission page I was thinking of. I haven't had time to create mocks of the other views but will try to do so either tonight or later this weekend.

I'd like to create an example image of the drawing submission form (like heuhen made), the category views, the individual part detail page, and an "approver" window that has a list of submissions waiting to be checked and approved by a content approver (super user) group.

[Gollevainen]

thats a really nice mockup Heuhen and I adjoin colo with saying it sort of presents the "ultimate" dream we have for the Bucket. It would leave the time consuming uploading to the artists and just the quality controll to the admn. ...which is always nice

[Charybdis]

Very glad to see this. Great ideas!

[citizen lambda]

the idea is good.

What could be done is make an upload page. Where the artist that are uploading a drawing, have to write in all information in different boxes, and add in different information, and add a direct link to the drawing.

That looks even more interesting. A "professional" upload page like that would certainly help standardize the file and the meta-data, while reducing the workload on the mods.
I used to use such an interface at work based on MS Sharepoint, maybe someone better versed in web design know if equivalent freeware web packages or applications are available?
The version I have in mind not only has a "hold" status for check, but also a "rework" function where mods/checkers can send submissions back with comments for modification. Ideally, all these workflow steps can be logged to keep track of submission and validation dates, versions and submitters.

[Novice]

I personally find the idea very good, a thing which will help the site a lot. I'm all for it. I don't have much knowledge of computing, but I think the upload page, as submitted by Heuhen would help enormously.

[Hood]

These are all good ideas. I like the look of Heuhen's upload page, certainly something like that would be required if we add more information to our drawings. This seems a sensible move, a picture is worth a 1000 words but sometimes you need to explain what's being shown, especially for never-were drawings that folks may not have heard of before.

I'd prefer more info entered by the artist than a link to Wikipedia, just because that source can be flaky (though I suspect most major classes and individual combat ships have a wiki page now).

[apdsmith]

This looks interesting, however, I do have a query ... would it be worth having separate "classes" types - for Cold War stuff, the NATO classes don't strictly speaking map through to the Warsaw Pact stuff, so trying to allocate Soviet designs within the NATO designations would seem to be asking for a lack of clarity. Similarly, the classes change depending on the date of the ship ... not sure if having a giant list of classes would solve the problem or trying to specify different lists selectable by country and time would work better.

[heuhen]

This looks interesting, however, I do have a query ... would it be worth having separate "classes" types - for Cold War stuff, the NATO classes don't strictly speaking map through to the Warsaw Pact stuff, so trying to allocate Soviet designs within the NATO designations would seem to be asking for a lack of clarity. Similarly, the classes change depending on the date of the ship ... not sure if having a giant list of classes would solve the problem or trying to specify different lists selectable by country and time would work better.

then you just type in the class name, simple.

[eswube]

Motto:
Better is the enemy of good enough
Italian aphorism, later attributed to, among others, Voltaire and adm. Sergei Gorshkov.

Few of my thoughts, divided into two groups: those about the features of this revamp idea and those more about any revamp attempts.

1) Thoughts on Colosseums proposal.
First of all, I consider this idea, in itself, a very good one, and I'd like to thank Colo for putting this forward.

As for the contents of the "mockup":
-category (battleships etc.) - I wonder if that revamped organization would consist also of simple "list of all files" - like by default it looks currently?
Categorization is tricky issue and frankly while in the "drawing information" (below the drawing) very detailed category (MSI, CVS CLGN) would be sensible, I wonder if in the heading (and therefore understood as a grouping of files) wouldn't just a simpler category be useful (like capital ships or mine-warfare ships)?
-class vs. ship - at least in some folders (most notably Russian, but not only) many drawings are supposed to represent a class or sub-class, rather than particular ship. That makes me wonder if, say, Pr.1241.1 and Pr.1241.2 (and so on) would be - in this mockup - treated as separate classes or as separate ships?
-personally I find the part USS, HMS, ORP, SMS, ARA etc.etc. redundant. But that's just my opinion.
-available view(s) - given the established practice of making top and left-side views sort-of-mandatory only for carriers, and treated just as (rare) bonus for other types, is it really practical?

Re: Acelanceloet's comment:
-I hope that by engine You mean just things like CODAG, COGAS etc. not S2W reactor... etc.?
-If that suggestion of having the searchable parts (armament, sensors) were to be linked with sheets with pictures of these parts, then it implies the need for "official" sheets - and so far Gollevainen has resisted idea of any "official sheets" (though I believe in the past he also resisted idea of nation-specific parts sheets at all ).
-pre-existing list of classes and one-offs - I guess that such vessels could be simply categorized in some catch-all groups like "other specialized warships", "other auxiliaries" or something like that.

Re: Heuhen's Upload Page
-IMHO having two separate windows for Real-Designs and Never-Built Designs is redundant. I think it would be simpler just to click either category. After all, the pictures would be submitted one at a time anyway. And some of these data is again repeated in Drawing information.
Another thing - if the upload would be done only (and I guess it's only reasonable option) for "logged-on" members, then "author" window in drawing information creates to me a small issue - for the uploader the name could be filled automatically (by virtue of logon), but when there are more authors (usually meaning use of some older drawing as base) then typing it by hand could lead to unintentional mistyping etc.

Re: Apdsmith comment:
Soviet classification would have to be kept simply for the relevant folder. But that would mean the need for proper enforcement of rules - but that applies to everything else as well.

2) General thoughts
While In the first part I was generally on "yes", here I'll be more on "no?" - though perhaps better expression of my mood would be "LOL?"
(In other words: time to get downgraded from "Elite member" status and banned for Crimen laesae maiestatis )
Whereas for the new drawings artists would have to enter all the "new" data when uploading, at least some of it would have to be done for all older drawings as well (and I imagine most work would have to be done with "parts").
Who do you expect to do that?
Three years ago a team of volunteers (which I was part of) made an effort to clean-up the Archive. But over time the "mess" has crept up into the archive again. (Leaving aside that folders of Denmark and Finland - both Real-life and Never-Were - were actually never cleaned-up. When some time after the "big clean-up" I offered to do that, I heard from Gollevainen that I must not because he wants to do the Finnish ones and Thiel wants to do the Danish ones. It was nearly three years ago and they are still in the same state as they were then. )
And I can say (though it's not just my opinion) that it's rather disheartening. (another thing is that month ago I mailed Gollevainen about archive - though mostly FD one - and still got no reply - not even "you're boring, go f... yourself" )
So now I imagine that our Dear Leadership would again ask volunteers to do the job and have them (the volunteers) hope that their effort won't start going down the drain soon after because Admins won't enforce their own rules.
Also, in general that idea of revamp would introduce many more "rules to follow" (meaning: brackets to fill - properly).
So who's going to enforce these rules, execute all the change etc. etc. if already much smaller set of rules isn't really enforced?

P.S. And no, I'm not saying "I'd do it better" or "we need other Admins". I'm saying: "It's most likely too ambitious. Maybe better stick to keeping properly what's already in place, as there already issues even with that".

[heuhen]

Here in Norway we have an in between the line saying.

"Is it ambitious, then we do it. Never back down from a challenge!"

Re: Heuhen's Upload Page
-IMHO having two separate windows for Real-Designs and Never-Built Designs is redundant. I think it would be simpler just to click either category. After all, the pictures would be submitted one at a time anyway. And some of these data is again repeated in Drawing information.

well it is working as you say it would work. you first click on the type of category you want to post it in as, rest will come down as either a drop-down window or a new page. Any Extra information is Optional extra. The only importan things to put in for the member is:

- the direct link to the drawing.
- artist name
- date posted/added
- date updated
- ship name
- country
- Type of ship.

any extra information are optional and anyone that want to add more information to an drawing in the archive could do so.

Another thing - if the upload would be done only (and I guess it's only reasonable option) for "logged-on" members, then "author" window in drawing information creates to me a small issue - for the uploaded the name could be filled automatically (by virtue of logon), but when there are more authors (usually meaning use of some older drawing as base) then typing it by hand could lead to unintentional mistyping etc.

- that's where the quality controller comes in. when you load something up. it will not appear automatically in the archive 10 seconds after, it will be loaded up to an closed archive, where a few controller members (normal trusted members) and admin will have a look at it, see if there is any missing or wrong, if not the accept it, and it will load it self up to the archive. If not... they can send a PM back to the member that posted it with "Why" information.

the only difference you will have from today, is an new page where you load up the drawings just like now. but here the file can have any stupid name, because the system looks only at what name you write in the box. with this, you remove all the frustrating work admin have to do, back to your self. all admin and controller people have to do is, click the button: "Okay" or "Nope" with there "why" information.


Anyway, I posted it just to help the talk. how it will look like in the end. Is up to you people, the members. you have to come with the ideas. But if members want to be "The old have always worked..." nah I have nothing to say.


But Shipbucket could have been so more, but at the moment it is just... look a drawing, upload it to the archive. Then a visitors come in and see the drawing... "what is that... drawing representing, I am not going to google the internet for information".

We as an artist, we do our homework, we fine all information and pictures from various places, but we don not share any of it to an visitor some are in the archive looking for something...

Shipbucket could have been a more informative side, by just doing small simple changes. like create an upload page for us artist, where we can add in all our finding(information)



But it's important during a discussion that someone is a "dick" so we can see both side