So why are people putting charts in REVERSE chrono order again?
 

I'm seeing a lot of boxes in reverse Chronological order, i.e. most recent first and then going backwards in time.

If there was some sort of consensus or VOTE by the other Mods, then I'm all for it.

BUT....

I made a point in the past that this doesn't make sense to me. When scholarly pages (and imfdb IS for movie/gun buffs and scholars in a way) mention the appearance of items (like the advent of the siege machine or gun powder) they START at the very FIRST appearance of that item. They don't start with the most recent and work backwards.

When car historians talk about the FORD MUSTANG, they don't list info about the latest model before they talk about the model's FIRST appearance on the car scene.

When I first made the Steyr AUG page, I noted that the first verifiable instance of seeing it in a movie/TV show was ~1983. Now I'm actively looking for ANY film BEFORE 1983 where it appears just to see if I can nail down the actual FIRST TIME that gun appears in cinema. I think THAT is more interesting than knowing what movies it appeared in .. THIS YEAR.

Just a question, which hasn't been addressed yet. :) Thanks.

Well the point is so people can find the newest most popular movies first, and then scroll down farther to find the older movies. You can still see what is documented as the first movie, it's just at the bottom of the list and not the top.

That doesn't seem particularly rational: the newest movies aren't always the most popular, for a start.

I didn't think it up, I just do it because everyone else does. :o

There was a consensus to put the latest movie at the top of the chart. It was even set up that way when originally laid out. If you look at the credits in IMDB the most recent film is at the top. That's the way it should be on all layouts.

When I get back Sunday I will bring it up and some other items to all the Admins as there is still as standardization issue.

The reason why IMDB does it is because IMDB is focus on the people, i.e. actors or crew, so people want to see what the latest thing they've done is. But when I research the history of an inanimate object like a CAR or a GUN, I don't often want to see the Latest thing it's been seen in. The research materials always starts at the chronological beginning and then moves forward.

That's the difference between living people and inanimate object. We all have an interest in 'What are they doing NOW?" when it comes to people's careers. Whereas I never ask the question "what is it doing now?" when I'm curious about the M1911A1......;)

Most people want to see the latest event first. We have to remember that this project is for the world to see and not our own little deal. That is the reason it was decided to place it in that order.

I know that working on other wikis it is easier to list the newer items last but it highlights the latest shows the way we are doing it by have them at the top of the list. We all need to get on to be on the same page with this. Also I believe there are more pages with reverse than not so which do we want.

Let's get together on this. :D

I don't think they do, actually. People are just as likely to want to see any given weapon on the list, since they might want to look up any given movie on the list. I don't like having them in what I see as reverse order either, I'd have to say.

Sorry, I respectfully disagree with that statement :) I re-assert my position that it is true, while tracking people's Careers, you want to see the most recent event.

It's the classic "What have you done lately?" just like a resume.

BUT .... When I'm doing historical research (which is what I do A LOT) especially in the non-weapons aspect of my job, I always find out when it first appeared BEFORE i find out when it last appeared.

Case in point- while working on ANOTHER prohibition movie, I discovered through research that the Chicago Police Uniforms in the 1987 Film 'The Untouchables" were anachronistic, and would not be adopted until six years AFTER the setting of the film. They would have been wearing the old NYPD style double breasted tunic with the five pointed star, versus the military coat with Sam Brown belt and the six pointed star that appears in the movie. Knowing when the uniform was discontinued would be less helpful than knowing when it was adopted.

Again, I will accede to the vote of the majority of the MODs. But I don't buy that 'everyone wants to see it a certain way' ;)

Historians don't list eras or trends or items in reverse chronological order. It depends if the MODS want IMFDB to be a scholarly historical site or a pop culture trends/Career tracking site like IMDB, because IMDB really focused on tracking what is POPULAR with the masses at the moment. (which is why they have that stupid Starmeter tracking system)

:D

It isn't a huge deal either way really, if you want to see where it all began, you could read from the bottom up or vice versa.

I understand what you are saying, but think about this. How many not-well-know gangster movies from the 1920s-30s-40s-50s would have to be scrolled through on the M1911 page before people found more well known movies? Could this possibly turn off some users?

One thing to bring up, aren't we considered the IMDb of firearms? Wouldn't following how they work make us more of a sister site to them? Just wondering.

Agreed, that's kind of a lame argument in favor of the reverse chronological order.

...I think that's kind of a narrow way of looking at it. IMFDB is both a historical site and a pop culture site. And so, I think, is IMDB, in its own way. The reason why I personally think that a reverse chronological order makes sense, for almost ANY type of database site, is because when it gets updated, most people will find it easier to add to the top of a list rather than scroll to the bottom. This may not seem like a huge issue for guns that have only appeared in a handful of films (that we've documented), but it would seem a bit unwieldy for guns that have appeared in hundreds of movies (i.e. the Beretta 92F or 1911).

This is one of those things that makes me wish IMFDB was a true "DB" like IMDB (instead of a Wiki) - everything could be standardized, and there might even be options to display data in either form of chronological order. But I suppose there's no sense gripping - it is what it is.

Also, I admit that the reverse-chronological order was decided somewhat arbitrarily. I am the one who first suggested it, and several of the other Admins went along with it, so I figured we were in agreement. But obviously, if there is a consensus in favor of your position, then I too will concede to democratic processes. That's what it's good for talk about this so that we know we're on the same page. :)

Thanks :) What initially bothered me was that I (and some others) didn't like the reverse chrono order, but when I brought it up, those concerns were pretty much ignored and everyone just assumed that Reverse chrono was the way to go. Which is why I pressed it again and asked for folks to (at the least) state their case and vote on it. :)

Because IMDB does it in reverse Chrono, I'm not going to be heart broken if the majority votes against Chronological order. It's not that important in the grand scheme of things (thought as a 'historian' I'm also used to things being a certain way, but I can adjust ;) ), but it's good to have these discussions EARLY in the process. I'm sure IMDB had it's own board room discussions as to the best way to present their data.

But when you get down to it, the people who's chief concern is how 'easy' it is will just add entries at the top or bottom regardless of any date order whatsoever and let someone else fix it for them. Unless we arrive at a state where we've covered every gun appearance in every movie currently in existence, most of the additions are likely to belong in the middle of the tables anyway.

One day it would be nice if we ran like IMDB. Only the administrators (or any good users turned into administrators by that point) could edit the pages, and if people wanted to make additions, they note so in the discussion section of the page.

That way it is like on IMDB when you add info and it has to be cleared by the Admins before it is placed on the site.

The only thing I can't figure out about this situation is how we'd be able to accept any more good users or admins. from that point on, since they wouldn't have the same editing privaliges anymore.

Well, I'd guess you'd have the forums to find out who were the really constructive users; the ones who made well-researched suggestions, found out obscure trivia and so on versus the ones who told us that we're gay for not having pages on Halo and Gears of War.

Me personally,
I don't want to be an Admin per say but it would be great to be able to play garbageman from time to time and remove the really unformatted trash pages. you know the ones that are just lists of gun names and no real effort. Heck I think it's time to do another full database sweep of the pages.

Well Administrators just have greater privaliges than regular users, it's not like you are given any greater workload. It just allows you to delete pages, ban users, delete images, protect pages, and work on Sysop Only pages.

It's a sweet gig, but we wield it responsibly to benefit the site to the best of our abilities. You earn the status when you prove to be a trust-worthy user, as these privalages in the wrong hands could spell disaster for the site. *Dunh, duhn duh!*

I'm pretty sure Bunni is the only Mod who works on keeping the site running, since he pays for it and keeps the server running. We don't do that (at least I don't)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7gIpuIVE3k

Couldn't resist.

Also, something to consider: should we add precise dates to the tables for movie and videogame releases to make it easier to organise multiple entries in the same year? At the moment, anyone wishing to add a new entry the same year as an existing one would have to manually check on the dates themselves, which can be extremely annoying if there's a lot of entries that year. Adding a three-letter month name and a one or two-digit date would probably be best, since XX / XX / XXXX dates are a potential source of confusion; if I remember rightly, in the US it's MM / DD / YYYY, while in the UK it's DD / MM / YYYY, which could mean dates ending up in completely the wrong place. "Jan DD, YYYY" is the best format for avoiding that.

Yes, but I've pointed out to other users, especially those in other countries who seem to think that we have to be ALL to EVERYONE around the world .... that this is a U.S. based website. They should conform to U.S. standards and don't whine about it. I'm so glad that IMFDB uses the ENGLISH title as the sorting factor, not the original language title like IMDB. IMDB is big enough to fancy itself to be the U.N. of movie databases. But IMFDB is NOT IMDB.

For one thing, I am glad that IMFDB lists Jackie Chan's movie title "Police Story 3: Super Cop" .... rather than "Ging chat goo si 3: Chiu kup ging chat" like IMDB does. I don't know about you but I don't instinctive type in GING CHAT GOO when I search for a Jackie Chan movie! :D (of course the only exception is that if the movie was NEVER released with an English language title).....

"Garbage Day! Bwh-hahahah!"

I laugh hard every time I watch that scene. Apparently a garbage can doesn't make good body armor. :D

Well yes, but it's not the fact that it's a US standard I have a problem with, it's that unless the day is higher than the 12th a new user won't be able to tell it's supposed to be a US standard straight away. Three letters rather than two digits removes any potential for confusion.

We should stamp "MADE IN AMERICA" on the main page.

Or maybe this image:

http://i32.tinypic.com/hv40w3.jpg

:D:D:D

I dunno, it seems to me as though the anonymous users who normally are hit-or-miss in regards to format conventions do seem to make the effort to keep the films chronological.

Actually, IMDB has sometimes made changes regardless of how the users, or even many of the admins, felt. See the new format of the front page? The reason for this is that some users complained that, with all the ads and whatnot, the front page was taking too long to load, so it was streamlined. But some others complained that it doesn't look as nice. I'm not sure what kind of decision-making was done, but I gather a lot of people still seem pretty unhappy with it, looking at their boards.

I know this is a old thread, but i oppose the idea of not letting anonymous users from editing. A lot of them make good edits. We just have to not let them create pages. That is all.

Some of them make good edits, a lot of them add wrong information, screw up formating, spam, troll, etc, etc...

Well, looking at Wikipedia, most of the Anonymous users are like that. However, since our site is really small, most of our edits come from Anon users. So if we don't let them edit, we will lose a lot of content.

Well the main basis of the completed site is made by the 10 or so admins/super users, and the uncompleted half is built mostly by anonymous users just passing through. On occassion we get a good edit by an anonymous user, but would it be so damn hard to make a user name if you are dedicated enough to help out?

Anonymous users cannot upload images, so they can't complete pages properly. There editing is limited to minor text, so they can barely help our needs. They aren't a necessity to the site, and anyone who is can just log in.

I agree. Log In, make a user name. What's so hard about that? We should require a login and a user name to make changes. The good is well outweighed by the tons and tons and tons of BAD.....

And I have to say that at this point, I'm starting to come around to this mindset myself.

To be fair, I dunno how many other Wikis are like this, but if they have the kinds of issues we've had, it's hard to imagine they wouldn't at least entertain the thought of making editing for registered users only.

I agree with the suggestion of restricting anonymous editing. It'll cut down on headaches for us.
I regularly edit on a lot of video game Wikis (Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty---mainly any one with a lot of guns) and they have their most popular articles locked so that only registered users can edit.

I tend to lock any page I work on, because it is seriously always messed up eventually. I recently had to fix The Marine because I didn't lock it. They changed the unknown pistol article to say M1911A1, except they knew nothing about the image links, so they put in the wrong image link and the image was removed entirely. I had to undo three good edits just to reach the crappy ones, then sort back through and bring the good edits back.

It's a pain, and I don't have the patience for the trial and error crap. You'd think if they screwed up so bad, they'd preview their work first and not just save the piss-poor changes.

I think completed articles should just be locked entirely; if someone has something to discuss, they can bring it up on the talk page and the page unlocked if they're onto something, but we're not like Wikipedia here; there aren't suddenly going to be more guns in a movie, so once we've to everything photographed and ID'd, pretty much any edit is going to at best be minor fixes and more likely be either vandalism or adding incorrect information and urban myths.

Well Vangelis, that would be just too far. What if the Page has been screencapped every gun documented but it is missing descriptions and captions? What then?

Then just semi-protect it as we do now, since it isn't complete yet. But I think a genuinely, totally finished article [ie checked by multiple editors, all captions, spelling and grammar spot-on, pictures clear and of good size, etc] could be locked entirely, since almost any given edit could only reduce how informative it is.

Well there are some articles i want to edit but it's locked completely.

Like what? Only some really special pages are locked for SysOp only, but as far as I know, none of the public access pages are blocked.

Some of the pages which have been targeted repeatedly by vandals have been locked because the MODS don't want to have to UNDO vandalism over and over again. And those pages are usually complete. Now if any member gets their panties up in a bunch over that page, with new or corrected info, they can drop a line to a mod.

I didn't know some pages were Mod only access. I don't mind, being one, I just wasn't aware of them.