One item on your SWDb 3.0 list that we haven’t touched yet is re-doing the books pages in the database. I could really use some help with this, so for those really interested in improving how literature on the spaghetti western can be found and accessed, please speak up.
Some thoughts:
coverage: we still miss a lot of books, I believe
connecting books to movie pages and vice versa, if the connections are really clear
high quality book covers
unified design and layout for all book pages (we should look into what we learned from the new film pages to make these also work well on mobile screens)
books in all languages
author info
reviews of books (such as quotes from forum members etc - how will visitors know which books are good unless they dive into amazon reviews)
I think it looks good Seb.
What I have realised in looking this over more widely though is how few book reviews we have on the site. Something we need to concentrate on I think. I will certainly try and step up more in this department.
yes that is true. Even some mini-review quotes of SWDb members would be a start, to add to some books, like “this is the go-to book for spaghetti western location hunters - Phil H, random kid”
Back from holiday and I am offering some help for the book pages.
I took a look at the book page and indeed it is “messy” so to say. Some thoughts:
There is a sub category magazines but this only list one magazine. I think there are more magazines listed in the book list
I see “Spaghetti Western” by Scott Morse listed. This is a comic book with a small reference to Spaghetti westerns. Maybe this could also be a sub category (comic books) but then a big amount of work for other comic books would have to be implemented (if I look at my own collection). Do we want that?
i see the introduction to the books (10 essential books) is part of the book list. That should be more highlitghted IMO, in the introduction part of the page for example
Maybe the reviews of the books could also be be a separate category to split these from the book list itself, making the list more clear. At the book page a reference to the reviews can be placed
I think the usage of capitals in book titles makes the list uneven
From the notes I made of the podcasts I can compare the books that are discussed. From the first episode I added the books that were discussed and not in the database. Tom has quite a collection and I can check what is missing from his “bookshelf”
Reference to the " Westerns… All’Italiana!" issues is missing, at least I could not find them
Yes that would be great. I realize we have a lot of gaps. When doing so, you could also put the links from the podcast archive to these book titles (which will remain “red” links until we created the pages)
It is a comic book about 2 bank robbers dressed up as cowboys.
Apart from the title the link is very thin. I think it can be removed or we should implement all comic books with spaghetti western links. Like Durango with all kinds of reference to Leone, different actors and movies
I think we should only list books, comic books or other material if it fits any of these:
they are about the spaghetti western (non-fiction)
contain interviews or article about the spaghetti western or their making, or people who made them
novelizations of spaghetti westerns or spin-off/spin-out tie-ins so to speak
SW-inspired novels or comic books released to cash in on the SW craze that were released AT THAT TIME
other criteria we could think of?
This sounds harsh but if we list every damn book or comic that has a SW connection or theme then we will turn into some kind of book club We still have the forum to discuss anzthing, or we could create one article page where we summarize various books we have come across, or comics, that are SW-inspired
Working on that part.
Can I edit a page header? I would like to modify the 2 review headers that start with “Book review” and place it at the end in order to standardize.
When I hit the edit button I can not access the page header.
yes there is a way, the little drop down next to edit also lets you “move” the entire page to a new one with a different title. make sure you select the option to leave a redirect in place
yeah that is one of those cases I think where there’s hardly a good reason to have this in the database… maybe we can outsource the review into the magazine section of the forum instead…
i see the introduction to the books (10 essential books) is part of the book list. That should be more highlitghted IMO, in the introduction part of the page for example
We still have the forum to discuss anzthing, or we could create one article page where we summarize various books we have come across, or comics, that are SW-inspired