Is The Iron Maiden Commentary not updated anymore?

I wonder if the wiki page could be the front page ... or use one of the plugins to display a random song on the front page. I would think it would be a traffic generator for sure ... and a valuable resource for Iron Maiden fans

Posting news seems fairly pointless as that is easy to get on google news, any other news site, and the official site.

Something like this would actually be pretty unique content and there are lots of cool things that could be done with it.

For example, if we could put lyrics, we could take all those lyrics and put them in a word cloud and get common words/themes from songs ... do percentages of live shows taken by certain songs, do some cool stuff with the live albums, post key shows that were bootlegged , links to old interviews from the interview thread, etc etc etc.

Plus perhaps delve into solo/non-Maiden stuff.

I would think all that would really drive traffic from people interested in Maiden. The good thing is a lot of the content is already in the forum, this is just putting it in an organized way The interview thread is great, but having the No Prayer era interviews all in one spot, for example, would be really cool.

Edit: if you decide to go this route, I am more than happy to help in any way you need ... one the database side, I do this stuff for a living :)

Double Edit: Dates are also valuable ... for a this date in Maiden history .. someone joined/left the band and album/single was released/Maiden played a show on 'X" tour in 'Y' city ... link to setlist and supporting acts .. and maybe the t-shirt(s)
 
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bearfan said:
I disagree a bit, there is already a ton on Wikipeda, but it is lacking a bit and not completely accurate.

Add to that, Wiki is a better format ... with all the plugins, we could keep a rolling and up to date song ranking .. view history of edits, past versions, etc.

There is also not a Wikipedia page for each song



Something like this would be cool

Song Name (linked to album and vice versa)

Content

Generic description of song

Lyrics would be cool, but possible publishing problems

Links to interviews about that song

Live history of the song (linked to tours)

Solos

Commentary (lyrics)
Similar to IMC

Commentary (music)

Stuff like Dave sounded like he used an 'x' pedal, etc

Voting

----

Start with the songs and leave fillers for the albums and tours from now

But even on the albums/tours .. there is a lot more info out there .. much of it on the forum already that is not on Wikipedia
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That sounds like a lot of work to achieve things of which several are already achieved on this forum. Here we rate, here we link to interviews, and very important: here we interact about all these issues. Doing it here is a very direct way of doing that. If someone wants to copy all the (ongoing) content to a wiki... won't that be a sea of madness? ;--)
 
In addition to having a plethora of links and information, the forum also has a wealth of good writers and savvy tech people. As LC said, there has been some discussion about upgrading the forum going on. This discussion can and should be part of that. I'm curious to see who is interested in contributing, and what skills they have to offer.

I am of little use on the tech end of the things, but creating and organizing content is right on my wheelhouse
 
I have seen forums that have wiki embedded in them

A good example would be the interviews thread ... great thread, tons of good info, but just by the nature of threads, really disorganized. It should be possible to have a master link of interviews tagged to eras and at the top level of that thread and leave the thread for the actual discussion.

A good way too look at this is to keep structured data (links, votes, tour dates, played live for songs) in a structured format like wiki and non structured information (like discussion) in the threads. Then augment the structured data with structured comment ... like IMC type data.

It ends up organizing the forum and making a really valuable resource for forum members and non forum member Maiden fans.

I think like a lot of fans of a longstanding band, I go through eras ... if I find myself in a Seventh Son mood for example, it would be really cool to have all that stuff in one location from statistical information to commentary, to interviews, etc.
 
One of the goals I want is to drive people to the forum, so while I can definitely see the content being a bit different than a front page news site, I still want to see that as part of the front end - with people pushed to the forum to comment. Same with the individual song pages, interview pages in the wiki...push to the forum.

As bearfan has said, this sounds like we need a librarian to handle it. If only we had a librarian. Ideally, he'd be Dutch, the most pedantic people.
 
LooseCannon said:
If only we had a librarian. Ideally, he'd be Dutch, the most pedantic people.
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LooseCannon said:
As bearfan has said, this sounds like we need a librarian to handle it
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Now I'll demonstrate how government procurement tenders are written in Croatia;

1. Must be a librarian
2. Must be from the Netherlands
3. Must like Sea Of Madness
4. Must not like Russia (cyka blyat!)
5. Must be very pedantic
6. Must be a senior member of maidenfans.com
7. Must have a masters academic degree, 10 years of experience in the field and be below 30 years of age

Jokes on my country aside, we should keep the content on the forum itself, maybe in a more stricter formatting, with proper posting/writing guidelines. Maybe there's a place for an editor (Foro ofc, if he wants/can put time in it), who should receive submissions.

In any case, maybe a big ass post containing a sitemap (or a 'forum map') detailing what can be found where would suffice.
 
The Mid-Distance Runner said:
Graphics and artwork on the front page would be ideal too. Nothing better than a regularly updated Eddie to make the site interesting to all comers.
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IMHO redundant. This forum does not need to catch people's attention. It's way up on google searches and it's the biggest Maiden knowledge base ever, even without the Commentary, which is marvelous and extensive, and flawed. It mostly represents opinion of a single person, here we have discussions on everything. I actually hate when I click on "home" up above, and I get back to the maidenfans.com index page which looks like 10 year old dead web project.

A very old main site, and a forum regularly visited by spammers is the sign of dead/dying community. Because when maintenance stops, software flaws are uncovered with time and spammers exploit them. Of course this is not the case here, but if you think about making the site interesting on the first visit, revamp the main page, or at least have a clear piece of information there saying that all activity is on the BBS.
 
What I am suggesting might me a bit naive but what the hell: how about a format with the wiki info on the left and the discussion about the song/ablum/tour on the right, with one scroll bar for each?
 
Zare said:
A very old main site, and a forum regularly visited by spammers is the sign of dead/dying community. Because when maintenance stops, software flaws are uncovered with time and spammers exploit them. Of course this is not the case here, but if you think about making the site interesting on the first visit, revamp the main page, or at least have a clear piece of information there saying that all activity is on the BBS.
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Perhaps moving everything to another host, updated webpage or whatever could also be an idea (since it seems no one knows how to make this site safe and eliminate the software flaws) and somehow connect that with the Wiki?
 
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Flattering and humourous, guys!

I'm afraid I am already too often here (with two young children), so I am not sure if I could do a single task. Or should. Perhaps collaboration is better and if things need to be reviewed or selected we can try to help each other out. Bearfan already made a good set-up and we can see to how far we wish to stretch that. What are the elements (requirements) we need (to add), in which priority do we want to make and link them. Content, creativity, technique, priorities, resources and (caught somewhere in) time is what we need most I guess.
 
I don't think we would need someone with great formatting experience to oversee everything, but more to lead and direct the forum volunteers.

This is starting to get a life of its own - I almost want to create a subforum for it, and maybe make it private except for members of the forum redesign team. Of course, I do not have those exalted powers.
 
I'd like to participate. Maybe we could open a Maidenfans Wikia and just link it to the main page of Maidenfans (which needs to be redesigned too). It's free. There already is an Iron Maiden Wikia but it's just a copy of stuff from their Wikipedia page. We could just call this one Maidenfans Wikia.
 
LooseCannon said:
This is starting to get a life of its own - I almost want to create a subforum for it, and maybe make it private except for members of the forum redesign team. Of course, I do not have those exalted powers.
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Good idea. Why make it private though? I think most here, even if they're not very tech savvy, would like to follow the development. Also if you make it private you might miss a lot of good input from members who didn't necessarily "sign up" to participate...
 
SixesAlltheway said:
Good idea. Why make it private though? I think most here, even if they're not very tech savvy, would like to follow the development. Also if you make it private you might miss a lot of good input from members who didn't necessarily "sign up" to participate...
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We can do that too.
 
Night Prowler said:
I'd like to participate. Maybe we could open a Maidenfans Wikia and just link it to the main page of Maidenfans (which needs to be redesigned too). It's free. There already is an Iron Maiden Wikia but it's just a copy of stuff from their Wikipedia page. We could just call this one Maidenfans Wikia.
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Who owns the content?
Does wiki on Wikia have any sane export options?

Explanation; my bunch from college days hosted a BBS for internal bullshittery. First it was running as some obscure script on something akin to Geocities, then after becoming active enough, they used forumer.com to host their phpBB. After a while of growth, they decided to go away from forumer, and I offered one of my servers + board installation + admin stuff. And then the slap - forumer doesn't allow database export and all content belongs to them if they want it. The forum effectively died after some time.

So if you are willing to 'outsource' your infrastructure be ready for all the details, there's always a catch somewhere. If it's free, you're the product.

Black Bart said:
What I am suggesting might me a bit naive but what the hell: how about a format with the wiki info on the left and the discussion about the song/ablum/tour on the right, with one scroll bar for each?
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If you're community driven and do not have paid personnel I'd advise against any custom solutions, because the guy doing it won't be here forever and his replacement will have to work with something non-standard.
Good approach would be to browse XenForo plugins and see what we may find useful. If it costs, it won't cost a lot, and we can memberfund it.
 
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