Thanks for the quick responses, each of you. I appreciate the time taken out for consideration. Looking at both the lack of demand as well as the possibility that other magazine archival sites may have better infrastructure for this proposal, maybe it's best not to do it here at RetroMags.
In regard to what kitsunebi77 and MigJmz have said about the grim reality of things, I agree that this reduces the importance of tagging/filters. It's unfortunate. One could argue that since the magazine-on-paper generation has mostly come and gone (and likely never to return), we may lose some comprehensive indexing but at least it'll never happen again in the future. I think there is some historic importance to be had on this era of gaming - and magazines in general - but it just didn't survive once newer-age activities replaced magazines so swiftly. The total nuance involved makes it hard to justify doing more when there are so few volunteers, people are stealing without credit, and advanced services usually cost money. End short version!
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I don't fear pragmatism. So long as it isn't being used as negative propaganda, there's a place for it and it's just a matter of balancing out the costs and the benefits.Come at me!
Well, not only is there the issue of a volunteer shortage, but also the niche benefit. I could argue that even a single archivist benefitting from such an endeavor is "worth it," but that doesn't mean low-efficiency is something to be okay with. Not that everything is about mass majorities, but typically one wouldn't build a bridge that is almost never used. So the historical value is the last big question, I think.
I think this is a bit too absolutionist. Yes, you have a specific focus area (magazines). However, as with many things, these magazines are intersectional. The medium is magazines but the content, in this case, largely revolves around video game content. I do agree that redundancy is in many cases annoying and wasteful of our development time, but supplemental data isn't a bad thing in this case. Unless another website/platform/service is better-equipped to create these tags and filters I'm proposing, which is another issue in and of itself. In any case, if these tags and filters aren't feasible in your observation - and to an extent, mine - then I would suggest wiping the VG database to clean up the apparent focus of the group's efforts. Like clearing an empty forum board or chat channel in a server.
From initial research, I've found magazine archival efforts from several entities. Sometimes a single individual with a ton of mags, often a group. The first thought here is scan redundancy, reducing double-work as much as possible. However, my leading concern is actually that some entities are not networking with other groups who have the same/similar goals. This increases the scan redundancy potential, and creates a situation akin to the traditional Pokémon video game version splits. Group A has magazines C, D, E, F, G, and H, while Group B has magazines C, D, E, H, I, J, and K. Group Z has random copies from each, so in the end you have three differently-incomplete collections instead of a unified comprehensive set.
I guess what I'm trying to say is.. Unless all these groups including RetroMags are all pooling their resources into a massive compilation site serving a united cause, there's going to have to be some redundancy on each group's part. People are, usually, inefficient by nature about such things and slow to collaborate on a global scale. There's also the default perspective of being an end-user. I am sad that you aren't getting more support, believe me, but I find that the alternative to doing niche stuff is to do non-niche stuff that doesn't need my support anyway. In that sense it's more important to do weird, costly work at the risk of not being in the mainstream. God I sound weird to myself saying that, but, I hope it comes across well.
I... sort-of agree. One thing I work with is wikis, including one that is currently quite incomplete. It is not useful overall, for sure, but I think it is reductive to call it pointless. Every volunteer project can take some time. RetroMags surely has taken years to accrue its current collection. Was it pointless when it only had a few issues archived? Sure. However, each and every little bit of progress is credit to why you have the current collection today. In my case, there are things the Legend of Dragoon community knows about solely because myself and a select few others bothered researching and tinkering for many years. So, I think this is just a thing where your realistic response was a bit emotionally charged. Baby steps are often the most valuable steps, I find, and caring only about the end-result can reduce the value of the "journey" portion of the work involved. I guess from my perspective, when futile increments are all we have, it makes all the difference. Even if inefficiently.
I'm not saying that justifies the tags entirely, but, I found this to be an intriguing though experiment. I hope that's okay by you. Overall it seems like researching magazine archival itself has to come first, and then see if any additional unity can be gained beyond what exists already (I have read that some RetroMags material is used for documentation purposes at MobyGames website). Budgeting for it now would be both daunting to justify as well as premature. Thanks again for all of your input!
