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Method Database Idea

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May 27, 2015
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With all the wonderful methods that people come up with all the time, I think that it would be super convenient to have some sort of database, or website, to keep track of all the methods.

Throughout the last couple of weeks, I have been coming up with ideas in how this website would be constructed. Here are some of them:

  • Able to submit methods
  • Picture and small description of each step
  • Links to other pages about the method
  • Links to AlgDB.net for algorithm subsets
  • Verification system, mostly to get rid of spam
  • Put alg count and move count as values
  • Tag system, to find methods for specific things (such as speedsolving, or fewest moves solving)
  • Be able to sort by alg count or move count
  • Support for very many puzzles

I think it would be interesting if the database was very closely tied to AlgDB.net. The current layout of AlgDB.net would be very similar to what I want for this idea. I also think that the small infrastructure would be very cool. For example, you could be looking at CFOP on the method database, and see that PLL is the last step. You then can click on the PLL subset to be brought to AlgDB.net and find all PLL algorithms. Once you are there, you can find every single method which uses PLL as a subset, and have a link to them on my method database. I think that this would be awesome.

Please post any comments or critiques that you have.

I also don't really have a name for this yet, but I think that something like MethodDB.net could be used haha. Please post name ideas you may have.
 

TDM

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I don't think this would be better than the current thread/wiki we have now. We'd still get people "inventing" the same methods again and again, and unlike on algdb identifying repeats without manual checking would be impossible. People are sometimes comletely unaware of movecounts or number of algs required for their method as well, and so letting them submit their own numbers for that may not be ideal.

So sorry, although it's a nice idea in theory, I doubt it will work.
 

shadowslice e

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This is a great idea but i think there would need to be a team of moderators to go through each of the methods and sort them on perhaps a weekly basis, categorising each as a new method or a variant (they could also delete duplicates but would need maybe 3 mods to agree before this can happen). Also, it may be an idea to impose a voting system on each of the methods so the best ones float to the top (like the system they have on reddit) although a section with established methods (ie roux, CFOP, ZZ, ZB and petrus) may need to be created as well.

I would be willing to go through the methods and move variants around fairly regularly.

Just my two cents on the topic. It would be great if you incorporate some of them.

What does everyone else think?
 
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TDM said:
I don't think this would be better than the current thread/wiki we have now.
I'm not trying to replace the current thread. I don't want my database to simply be where people post their ideas, that's the purpose of the forum. I was thinking of having my database be more for methods which have been refined and are generally accepted.

About the wiki, I think that creating a new page on the wiki is much more difficult than how I want submitting methods to work in my idea.

TDM said:
We'd still get people "inventing" the same methods again and again, and unlike on algdb identifying repeats without manual checking would be impossible.
There will definitely be a verification system, where we would make sure the method submitted is not copying methods already on the database.

TDM said:
People are sometimes comletely unaware of movecounts or number of algs required for their method as well, and so letting them submit their own numbers for that may not be ideal.
That is perfectly valid, but again, this database is not a place to submit random ideas. I hope that by the time people are submitting their developed ideas to this database, they have a pretty good idea of movecount and number of algs. And there could always be a way to change those values if they are refined.

TDM said:
So sorry, although it's a nice idea in theory, I doubt it will work.
Well, I definitely hope it does work.

shadowslice e said:
This is a great idea but i think there would need to be a team of moderators to go through each of the methods and sort them on perhaps a weekly basis, categorising each as a new method or a variant (they could also delete duplicates but would need maybe 3 mods to agree before this can happen).
I do think that a team of moderators is necessary, however, I think that the tags system will be sufficient on sorting them. For example, an example of a tag could be "Corners First". All of the methods with that tag are then grouped together. Deleting duplicates won't be required, because a method won't be accepted if it's already on the database.

shadowslice e said:
Also, it may be an idea to impose a voting system on each of the methods so the best ones float to the top (like the system they have on reddit) although a section with established methods (ie roux, CFOP, ZZ, ZB and petrus) may need to be created as well.
I actually thought about a voting system, I just forgot to put that in the original post. Another idea I just had is that, similar to AlgDB.net, everyone could set which method they use, and then "most popular method" is another thing people can sort by. This would replace the need for a seperate section for established methods.

shadowslice e said:
I would be willing to go through the methods and move variants around fairly regularly.

Just my two cents on the topic. It would be great if you incorporate some of them.
Awesome, thanks!
 

TDM

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I'm not trying to replace the current thread. I don't want my database to simply be where people post their ideas, that's the purpose of the forum. I was thinking of having my database be more for methods which have been refined and are generally accepted.

About the wiki, I think that creating a new page on the wiki is much more difficult than how I want submitting methods to work in my idea.

That is perfectly valid, but again, this database is not a place to submit random ideas. I hope that by the time people are submitting their developed ideas to this database, they have a pretty good idea of movecount and number of algs. And there could always be a way to change those values if they are refined.
So would not everyone be able to submit? Because if you're only restricting it to a few submitters then that's not what I thought you were talking about at all, so my bad. However even then, this would be fairly similar to the wiki - although anyone is free to make an account there, most people don't, so only the well thought-out and popular methods are on it. But if you are going to make it as open to submit on as algdb, then although you may hope that people will have thought things through, they probably won't have done.

There will definitely be a verification system, where we would make sure the method submitted is not copying methods already on the database.
Yeah, but that sentence was just saying that it would be harder than on algdb. There, you can automatically check algs for repeats and valid moves, whereas that won't be possible for a whole method. I know it would need to be verified, but it's just a bit more work. :)
 

DTCuber

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I think this is a great idea, but it would require a lot of moderation to actually be feasible. I would love to see what you come up with!
 
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stoic said:
Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world".

Nice idea.

Do it.
I unfortunately do not have the programming knowledge to create something like this, I will need some serious help. I plan on spending a lot of time mastering HTML/CSS, but it will take a very long time to have enough knowledge to do something like this. I'll do my best though :D.

TDM said:
So would not everyone be able to submit? Because if you're only restricting it to a few submitters then that's not what I thought you were talking about at all, so my bad. However even then, this would be fairly similar to the wiki - although anyone is free to make an account there, most people don't, so only the well thought-out and popular methods are on it. But if you are going to make it as open to submit on as algdb, then although you may hope that people will have thought things through, they probably won't have done.
Everyone's able to submit, I just think it'd be a better system if people put their ideas in the forum thread, get feedback, refine the method, then submit it. There would be better methods on the site that way.

TDM said:
Yeah, but that sentence was just saying that it would be harder than on algdb. There, you can automatically check algs for repeats and valid moves, whereas that won't be possible for a whole method. I know it would need to be verified, but it's just a bit more work.
Yup, it's a little more work. I'm perfectly willing to do it though.

DTCuber said:
I think this is a great idea, but it would require a lot of moderation to actually be feasible. I would love to see what you come up with!
Thanks!
 
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Over the last several weeks, I have built up my knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript/JQuery/Bootstrat to the point where I think I'm able to create this. My next step is to get a really good idea of how I want this site to look, I'll update my progress in this thread I guess, so I can get feedback.
 

shadowslice e

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Over the last several weeks, I have built up my knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript/JQuery/Bootstrat to the point where I think I'm able to create this. My next step is to get a really good idea of how I want this site to look, I'll update my progress in this thread I guess, so I can get feedback.

Yay! :) I was wondering what happened to this thread. Nice to see you're still working on it!

Keep up the good work! :)
 

gyroninja

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Over the last several weeks, I have built up my knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript/JQuery/Bootstrat to the point where I think I'm able to create this. My next step is to get a really good idea of how I want this site to look, I'll update my progress in this thread I guess, so I can get feedback.

Try to make a mock up in photoshop / gimp so you can plan how you want your site too look and then implement it. Of course you can just start with a rough looking site at first just to get it functional.
 
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Small Update

So I've been both busy with school work, and lazy, so I haven't done much work on this until now. I drew up some rough plans of how I want the general placement of things to be. Here are the 2 pages I've done so far.

Methods Page.jpg
Substeps Page.jpg

I'll go over what everything does:

On both sites, the header is the same, and it will be like that the entire site. MethodDB.net is not a final name, I just needed to put something in there. Clicking on that will bring you to the home page. Clicking on "Methods" will bring down a dropdown with a lot of puzzles. Something very similar to pressing the "Alg Sets" button in AlgDB. The "Users" button will bring you to a page that displays a list of everyone who has made an account. I will be drawing this page out soon. The "Register" and "Log In" buttons will only show up if you are not logged in. They will bring you to a page where you can create an account, or log into your account. When you are logged, instead of having "Register" and "Log In" buttons, you will have a "Submit Method" button and a "My Profile Page". I need to draw out the page where you submit a method. Clicking on the "My Profile Page" button brings you to a page where you can look at the methods that you voted up/down, look at the methods you submitted, set which methods you use for each puzzle, or log out.

The footer will also be constant the entire site. As you can probably tell, it is empty. I'm not quite sure what I want here, I'll probably end up having general support links, or maybe pages to other cubing resources, I'm not quite sure yet.

Now to get on with the actual content of the sites. The two pages I have designed are really both part of the same site, and you can change between them by pressing either "Subsets" or "Methods" in the top right of the page. At the top, you see the puzzle of the methods you're viewing.

In the methods page, you can see that the name of the method is above the top left of the method "box". If you click on the name of the method, you will be brought to a page that contains more info about the method, including links to example solves and stuff like that. In the method "box", there is an image of the first step of the method, so for example, with CFOP there would be a picture of a cross. Next to that, you get a list of the subsets. You can click on the name of a certain substep to be brought to a page of that subset. This page would contain info about the substep, including a list of all the methods with that substep. After that, you see the movecount and alg count of that method. Right below that, you see the tags that method has been associated with. For example, here I have CFOP with the "Speedsolving" tag and the "OH" tag. If I had Old Pochmann as a method, it would have a "BLD" tag. Then, using the "Tags" dropdown at the top of the page, you can make it so you only view methods with certain tags, so if you wanted to see all the methods for FMC solving, you would check the FMC tag box. The last thing in the method "box" is a "Vote Up" button and a "Vote Down" button. If you are logged in and press one of these buttons, the number will go up by one. If you are not logged in, you will be brought to a page where you can log in or register. And that's it for this page!

The substeps page is relatively simple compared to that. You see the name of the subset of the substep right above the top left of the boxes. In the boxes, there is a picture of the subset, a short description of the substep, the movecount, and the alg count. If you click on the name of the substep, you get brought to the same substep page described above.

Please, I really want everyone reading this to critique me on this, be brutal :). Also, don't pay attention to the exact colors or the general sloppiness, I'm more interested in how things are plased and the general ecostructure of the site.

Thank you so much for reading!
 
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