I aleays thought the old pages looked fine but then I never access the site via phone which I know many do now so I guess the page lay out does need to change as a result.
I echo Billās idea for a star rating system, whether it winds up being from a small user group or not. Definitely not showing IMDB rating though. They mean nothing. Our own, ideally 1-10 system, would be good I think. If such a thing were possible.
But ours would mean even less considering the number of people weād have that would be voting 
Maybe we could also go about it another way: we agree on a set of categories from āpredicateā to ātrashā and then bulk assign all the spaghetti westerns to these categories
Maybe so, but at least our voters would be fans of the genre (presumably) and would be voting in relation to other Spaghettis rather than every other film they like. Iād rather know what one person thinks who has seen a bunch of spags than 100 for whom itās the first one theyāve seen.
Of course there is also the argument that our Top 20 and Alt Top 20 already serves this purpose.
I really like how they did the ratings on this finnish site. Thereās first the rating from the one who wrote the review of the film and then the ratings of the other editors (with the average value) and also the readerās rating. But you have to be registered member of the site to vote for readerās rating so that will reduce the trolling votes. Maybe something like this could be done if we could form a āofficial swdb juryā of around dozen members for voting.
But then again, maybe thereās already enough rating with top20 etc.
http://www.elitisti.net/arvostelu/2004/12/000568/il_grande_silenzio_1968_suuri_hiljaisuus.html
I like the idea of user ratings. We could also do this in the form of forum polls I guess, maybe it would be easier to implement, since it would then be tied to your forum account. We initially had forum polls, they were quite nifty and we could potentially bring them back, I wouldnāt be against the idea.
While I understand the necessity to modernize the layout of SWDb pages, could we maintain the old order of pagesā content i.e. DVD releases at the top, Pictures/Trailers/Reviews sections in the middle and the forum link at the bottom of each content list? Iāve gotten used to the old layout and it actually makes a lot of sense and makes it easier for me to browse the database. The general visual design of the Garringo page is nice, but the way all sections have been scattered around is somewhat confusing. I can see myself getting used to the new layout I guess, I still prefer the old one though.
BTW, could we start some kind of general SWDb maintenance thread in which all forum members can point to certain issues in the database such as some pages being insufficiently developed, faulty forum links and that kind of deal so that others capable of modifying the database can fix these things?
Iāve recently gotten around to refurbishing Pictures sections, fixing old forum links and that sort of thing. Such friendly tips would help me immensely and others would find it helpful too I imagine.
Canāt we just refer to Stantonās Top 20 database and put, say, the top 100 moviesā chart positions right there on their SWDB page, a bit like how we already state that āThis movie is in the SWDB top 20ā but more specific to each moviesā chart position and widened to the top 100 pics (obviously theyād all have to be looked through and updated where necessary every time Stanton updates his database)? Seeing that a movie is ranked by the most knowledgeable forum on the subject 8th, or 19th, or 26th or whatever out of all spags ever made kind of tells its own story, doesnāt it?
they were never gone. You can start a poll anywhere in the forum
Yes! Absolutely, I like the idea.
Check if one of the topics in the bureau might already serve the purpose, but feel free to just start one likeā¦ how should we name this āGeneral SWDb updates, corrections and maintenanceā? Should be something cooler 
Yes and no. Our Top 100 is full of great spags, however, once you leave our Top 100 and move down the list, things start to get pretty spotty and dicey. Besides, the list doesnāt mention a lot of good spags that deserve some attention too despite not being Top 20 material. It surely makes sense for the more well-known entries, but user ratings would make a lot more sense specifically in case of lesser-known outings and this is also where IMDb ratings tend to fail miserably and start to get really random IMHO: itās because of the low number of votes skewing the ratings in all kinds of unpredictable ways. In such instances, I choose to browse our forum in order to gauge what sort of movie Iām in for.
IMDb has popularity rankings or something like it, it would make some more sense, but that has its downsides too I guess.
Iām aware of that. Itās just that I believe that at the beginning of the 2010s, there were more polls with a 5-star rating system tied specifically to filmās dedicated threads. Those are gone and they were quite nice.
Yeah, it definitely needs a more conspicuous name so that it can stand out from other topics, Iāll think of something in a minute. We can also use it as a sort of sketchbook for our overall thoughts, general user feedback, spitballing ideas and that sort of stuff. It would be helpful if the thread was either permanently pinned on SWDbās main page or at the top of our forumās main page.
For instance, we could perhaps dedicate one small window on the SWDb main page (perhaps somewhere at the bottom of it), asking visitors to notify the staff of possible issues with the database. We could link the forum thread after a short preface in the likes of āAny trouble browsing the database? Any broken links? Any thoughts as to how youād improve the browsing experience? Join our forums and share your thoughts and findingsā. One could also leave some links to filmsā pages there, asking for more development and quick fixes and whatnot, yada yada yada. It would be both for forum users as well as people working on the database.
I would even go a step further and put such a note on every page on the SWDb, a bit like the newsletter banner at the bottom of all the pages on the GCDb
Makes even more sense. Working on a thread right now.
Itād would make the site even more interactive and it would encourage more people to participate in the development, which would in turn make things easier for everybody I imagine. Sometimes, itās not even a question of time, itās more about being aware of what issues are at the moment and these can be sometimes hard to pick out. Maybe we could even have some kind of contact form that allows unregistered users of the database to inform the staff of possible issues with the site.
Yes my plan for the upcoming database upgrade (under the hood) is to also put the contact form back, even though it is a pain in the ass to make those spam proof.
Yeah, thatās a major PITA. If there was a way to sift out spam, maybe all SWDb members could then get notified of any issues through the contact form and then it would make refining and correcting the database very swift and easy I imagine.
Gracias amigo
I am mulling a complete redesign/relaunch of the SWDb to drastically improve the way it can be used by anyone more intuitively. I may just try it out at some point, but I still havenāt implemented the new search, which is actually more crucial. Sorry about that, but just havenāt been touched by the hacker-museā¦ might be something for my winter vacation
So I didā¦ and I am making some progress. Unfortunately the new search will still take a while longer, I looked into it and it exceeds my tech skills, so might have to either dig deeper or hire someone to do it. Now, the good news is that with the redesign the end result wonāt look drastically different, itāll be more refined in a lot of the details and possibly be more future proof. The bad news is that it will trigger site wide overhauls of movie pages, reviews and other content. But then again, that was way overdue anyhowā¦
I will post a before and after screenshot shortly just as a teaser.
So I am aware itās been a while since a lot of people care about the ins and outs of the database (which is great, because for the most part itās there and it works), but still, I am never satisfied, and at least I hope some of you can chime in with some feedback.
If you scroll up some to December 2019, I have toyed around a bit with making the movie pages better. And they really need to become better.
So hereās a screenshot of something I put together today. What you donāt see here is further down (reviews), the rest is just displayed a bit more intuitively maybe, instead of a long menu beneath the poster that most people donāt look at:
I think the poster could even be a bit bigger and the little box āI called it file, could be the āwantedā-handbill of the movieā maybe more compact and possibly getting a light gray shadeā¦
Further down on the page I am trying some things out as to standardized icons for external film sites
Seb, is editing still disabled in the Db or is it just me? I notice no one has an edit for a couple of days except you. Iāve taken care of my cache.
It is, will re enable in an hour or so. It was a precaution
