Creating A New Faq...

[Phillyman]

I am going to redo the Frequently Asked Questions thread, to update the changes to this site. Is there anything you guys want answered or explained? Any part of the site confusing or you dont know how to do something?

Feel free to ask

[kbf_private_joker]

I think something that still gets confusing is our statuses on different magazines. Now that that membership has expanded to a large number (not sure of actual figures, but I see lots of new memberships daily), I think we need a better system for keeping track of magazine progress. The wikis are nice, but the problem is that they are separated into different pages: acquired, working on, and finished. IE: If there was some way of instantly knowing whether an issue for May 1992 for EGM was either missing, bought, acquired, being scanned, scanned, edited, or completed, it would be awesome. Part of the reason we can get away with not being too organized now is that we have few (under 10 I think) people doing all the buying, scanning, and uploading. I have no problems with the workload, but once more people want to get involved, they have to hunt and figure out where things are. It also makes it difficult to see if an Ebay auction is worth getting because of all the hunting to see if the magazine has already been acquired and in the scanning process.

Seems like we need some sort of task system where we can have a section for each magazine and different statuses. I think that would make it easier to keep track of things overall.

Maybe I am trying to get too organized, but having to go and edit the wikis each time gets a little tedious. I know there are free systems out there that aren't too difficult to set up. I would even volunteer to oversee the task list and make sure it gets updated regularly.

-Noah

[meppi]

Maybe I am trying to get too organized

-Noah

Not at all. That's actually a very good idea.

The only problem is that I have no Idea how we could set something up that lets us instantly change the status of certain issues from (looking for, aquired, scanning, editing, raw released, full released) and possibly some other things.

The optimal setting would be something like a switchboard where you have a table like we have now on the wiki, but instead of having to go into the code and change it manually, we could simply click on one of the magazines and change it's status by selecting from a drop down window or something.

Like I said, I have no idea how to start up something like that.

[E-Day]

You'd need a database and a nice PHP backend. I have no idea how to do that stuff, but I know someone who does. I am not sure if he has time or desire to undertake such a project, but I know he has the ability to do it. He basically did the game database at sega16bit.com, where admins have a PHP backend to add, edit or delete games. Everything is dropdown menus, check boxes and textfields.

I don't know if he's willing to do it, or how work it is, but I can always ask for you guys.

[kbf_private_joker]

I use something called FlySpray at work, which is basically a bug tracker, but we also use it as a tasklist. It would mean instantly having something to work with and only requires about 15-30 min of time to install. I could help set it up as I have done it twice already for work-related stuff. Some people might be confused with it though.

The system is free and located at http://flyspray.org.

It is Mysql + php.

A sample screenshot can be found here: http://www.flyspray.org/_detail/themes:cle...amp;cache=cache

[Phillyman]

I use something called FlySpray at work, which is basically a bug tracker, but we also use it as a tasklist. It would mean instantly having something to work with and only requires about 15-30 min of time to install. I could help set it up as I have done it twice already for work-related stuff. Some people might be confused with it though.

The system is free and located at http://flyspray.org.

It is Mysql + php.

A sample screenshot can be found here: http://www.flyspray.org/_detail/themes:cle...amp;cache=cache

Here is something else....

http://www.taskfreak.com/

We want it to be customizable and easy for users to understand. I am not opposed to finding a solution

[kbf_private_joker]

Here is something else....

http://www.taskfreak.com/

We want it to be customizable and easy for users to understand. I am not opposed to finding a solution

Taskfreak looks like something that is fairly simple and easy to use! Then we can just create a project for each magazine. We would just have to outline what each percentage complete stands for.

[Yukon Jack]

'hangs his head slightly for posting to an old thread'

Is this still is the works? I read this a while back but haven't seen anything new about it.

I think it a great idea, BTW.

[Scops]

Probably really obvious, but as it's for an FAQ, thought I'd might as well ask. Somewhere I remember reading you wanted magazines more than five years out of print. I don't see that stipulation mentioned anywhere else (just 5 year old magazines period).

Just to clarify, you mean the issue itself must be out of print for five years, right, not the entire magazine? Specifically, PSM no longer exists under that title, but I heard it turned into Playstation: The Official Magazine, which is still running.

Just wanted to be sure because I've got a number of PSM and PC Games/PC Gamer magazines from the the late-90's and I did not want to start working on them if you'd ignore the submissions. And I thought others might have that question, too.

As for the database issue, I vote* for getting someone to cobble together a mySQL-php setup. It'll be easy to add on to, and you'll be able to track the status of each magazine and sort by as many different attributes as you can come up with. Imagine, say, being able to search by the game featured on the cover, and pull up every magazine that did a cover story on Quake, or Starcraft, etc. You could even be able to track progress by the page, which I think could be handy, because I've probably got as many magazines with tears and missing pages as I do intact ones.

(Man, forums have gotten really fancy since I posted on one last. I tried to do the italics in HTML at first)

*-yes, I'm aware that this is my first post, you have no idea who I am, and therefore couldn't care less how I vote.

[Phillyman]

Hmmm good point on the 5 year mark, I would say this.....

Right now it is June 27th 2008, As long as you are scanning a magazine that is not July 2003 to the Present. That would be my definition of 5 years. Now that is assuming that the publisher is no longer selling back issues of the magazine you are scanning also.

Now as far as magazines no longer being produced period, Still go by the 5 year rule. Nothing beyond June 2003 at this point......as its not really RETRO per say

[Flood7585]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but include the fact that you need to download a viewer (like ComicRack) in order to see the downloads. I just signed up and wasn't sure about how to open it up at first, but luckily I was able to find a thread/post that had the "how-to" in it. Maybe just stick that info somewhere "more visible".

[Phillyman]

New FAQ is up, and still working on it, but hope to have it done soon.....continue with any discussions on how I can improve this FAQ to make the site easier to understand...

http://www.retromags.com/forums/Retromags-...d-09-t2992.html

[MELIKE]

Probably missing something really obvious but when i originally signed up i was given the choice of what type of membership i wanted - but i wasnt quite sure on exactly what i wanted to do at that stage. Now im happy to donate a fee per year or what have you but i cant quite figure out what to do or if i paypal 10$ or whatever over it'll upgrade my membership status?

Looking at the faq it just says to be a premium member you just need to donate - so i guess i'll just donate and see what happens..

Oops..never mind..just foudn the subscriptions option ..heh heh..whoops.