The Upgrade
 

Is there anyone who doesn't understand the upgrade or doesn't want it?

Still trying to figure it out. So if someone doesn't write a summary for a gun, IMFDB will automatically do it? How does that work?

I'd contribute my money, but right now IMFDB is only a passing interest for me. It's not like my IMFDB pages will get me a well-paying job or anything like that. And I already contributed to two kickstarter campaigns recently, one of which failed despite how much I was banking on it, so I'm a little leery of crowd-funding right now.

The update is to make the wiki more user-friendly, right? I'm fine with the system as-is right now--are you sure that an easier system won't attract even more spammers and people without a clue?

Spammers haven't really been a problem since we started making new users request accounts. And a half-assed page will still be a half-assed page, I don't think there's any reason to be less lenient.

MPM, the code will automatically output a simple summary saying something along the lines of "John Smith (Brad Pitt) uses a Mossberg 500". This is just an example and is unpolished. This isn't the big feature though. The big part, and the most important part, is that the tables will automatically update. You no longer have to edit actor pages or gun pages to list the occurrences of the weapons. THIS is the biggest feature.

There are two things that are an issue here. The first is spammers. As funkychinaman said, spam has gone down dramatically because of new systems that we have put in place. We are now screening all users. There will still be spam of course. That is just the nature of an open source website such as a wiki, but this upgrade will not increase the amount of spam.

The second thing here is people without a clue. In my opinion, i think that this is going to open the site up to a wider audience. There are a lot of people out there who know a lot about guns, but do not understand how to edit the website. This upgrade will make it easier for them to help out. Again, there will always be people who identify things wrong. (Can anyone here say they have never mis-identified something? I know I get corrected ALL the time.) That is just the nature of the site. I feel that this upgrade will make it easier to fix those errors though. When we did our survey back in March, the biggest complaint that we got was that the site was too hard to edit. There are people who see a mistake and want to fix it, but do not know how. This will make it a lot easier.

At the end of the day, this is not a panacea. There will still be issues. The only way for a wiki to succeed is for people to contribute and edit.

If you have more questions or comments, please post them!

Thanks for the clarification, Zackmann. Sadly, as I am not a US Citizen, a great many of the awards for participation are barred to me even if I had the funds to donate to those levels. I'd certainly love to rub elbows with people like MPM if I could donate that much, but that kind of spare cash isn't something I'd have lying around even in the best of circumstances.

Regardless of the outcome of the campaign, I will continue as I have done previously--making detailed pages that are accurate and informative to the best of my ability. As long as I am able, you won't find a "lack of effort" template on my pages.

First of all thank you for your support. I have said it before and will say it again, this site is nothing without our fans and contributors.

Second, if there is a certain reward you would like but cannot get because of the international restriction, please let me know! (support@imfdb.org) The reason we barred most of the items from over seas is because we didn't want to have to account for international shipping. You will notice with the imfdb branded items, we listed them twice. Once for domestic shipping, and once for international shipping. The goods that were donated, we didn't do this with because we have a limited number of each item. That being said, if there is an item you want, we can work with you to get it to you. Basically we will just ask you to add some extra money to the purchase to cover the cost of shipping the item. Talk to me first and we will work it out.

Bottom line, lets see if we can't find a way to get you the item you want!

Thanks again!
-Z