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Pin Database alternative? What do you think?

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Pin Database alternative? What do you think?
starry_solo said:
Pretty sure whoever originally created the text for the description (if not taken directly from odpt.com) owns the copyright to it. But you'd need/want an IP attorney to tell you that.
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Thats true, just like my example with the pictures I've given to PP... But you might have to prove the original author did the copy/paste. If someone copies a description written by a PP mod, that could cause a problem. 🙂
 
ethanwa said:
Good point imp, that is a tough one. But let's assume that's not an issue for now and focus on what would make a good site.

As far as some ideas that I think would be great for a new site:

- No payment. 100% free forever. ALL features.

- Large images sizes for clean, clear photos. No more cropping files and under 10K size.

- Clean website design. Simple controls for searching, adding, wanting items, trading items, making collections to share, etc. Main homepage is simple: Search bar, Login/Create User, Last 15 pins added, and Advanced Options.

- Anyone can edit a pin. A moderator would need to approve an edit if the pin wasn't yours. This means people can upload better pictures and descriptions.

- Easy to use trade request system. See a pin you like and see someone else who has it? Tap "Ask for a trade" button and the rest is done from our end. The user will allow/deny giving out his email if he wants to talk trading. Simple notification system on the site and automated e-mail system for alerts.

- Each pin has a direct link to an eBay search to see if the item is for sale.

- Pin-to-pin linking, so you can quickly see pins in a similar set (like a four-pin Mickey Through The Years set).

- Pins can (if specified) have a link directly to disneypinforum.com if there is a thread about that particular pin (such as spotting a fake of the exact pin, for exmaple)
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This sounds like what I was hoping pinpics would become instead of what we got. This would be awesome. But I also think members should be able to donate to the fees associated with running the site.

I think the best thing Pinpics old site had going for it was the ease in which we were able to use it. It didn't matter if you were computer literate or not. That and the compare lists feature. I use that all the time.

As far as descriptions go, how hard is it to look at the pin and write a new description? As also mentioned, pinpics through it's members copied a lot of descriptions from Disney.

While it would take a while to get the number of pins that are in Pinpics database, remember they didn't get that many over night either.
 
It can't hurt to have another database. I'm sure if it's easy to use there will be many people willing to contribute. And really, for something like this, you'd need to get help from a lot of people. What would really be helpful are pin groups, both public and private. No matter how good a search engine is, it's going to pull up some pins we're not looking for. The public group categories, if well maintained, will be invaluable. Having the ability to keep private groups will help us immensely to organize our collections. I would also love to have the ability to search for Non-Disney pins as well, such as: ESPN, Rainforest Café, Looney Tunes, DC Comics, Peanuts, Universal, Knott's, Harry Potter, TV, etc. I'm not sure if anyone else wants those, but I do. 🙂
 
I am semi-retired (think lots of free time) and would be happy to help with descriptions, pictures, etc. I think an alternate site would be a good idea. Competition is a good thing.
 
I support all ideas and I'm in no way taking a side or another, but I would like to add this input.

If many of the dislikes with the current PP site deal with format and search function, will an alternate be an adequate substitute?

Let's say an alternate gets on its feet and begins to compile a database. Does the alternate get a large enough database to compete with PP, how long will this take? What other bugs/issues does this new site have? Will it have search issues? What if down the road, server and other maintenance costs cause the alternate to start charging for extra services? Will they get a large enough membership to have enough traders? Are traders going to log all 100, 500, 2000, etc pins of their collections/wants/trades on both sites?

You run it to 2 events that really make or break the relevancy of either site.
1) PP is able to fix the items that are currently driving people away.
2) Other site is able to get a large enough database and membership and fix any potential issues to adequately compete with PP.
 
Honestly, I'd be fine with not having a trading assistant on an alternative site. I would really just like a place to see high quality photos and descriptions, including detailed scrapper/fake warnings and what to look for. Comparison photos of real vs. fake/scrapper would also be great. I know lots of people would like a trading assistant so there will likely be some issues to work out. However, I don't think it will be any worse than Pin Pics. Given how many request go unanswered, having a smaller, but active, group may be helpful.
 
wdwjuan said:
You run it to 2 events that really make or break the relevancy of either site.
1) PP is able to fix the items that are currently driving people away.
2) Other site is able to get a large enough database and membership and fix any potential issues to adequately compete with PP.
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Well, there definitely seem to be a fair amount of people that are simply ready to give up PinPics all together once the old site officially disappears (and may have already)...

So, at that point, any site that works (easily) is better than no site, so that's a definite positive improvement. 🙂

For the people that are ready to just leave PP, a new site that really focuses on keeping new release pins up-to-date will be really useful. It seems most activity in this hobby continually focuses on the newest stuff, so that would need to rigorously maintained. Getting the old stuff caught up is important, but shouldn't ever come at the cost of not keeping the new stuff current.

I think that would be enough to get a good number of people interested.

The one thing that I think PP could do to really get people to stay is to simply keep the old version of the site active (and insure that the database used for both sites is identical). I'm still using PP as long as gallery.pinpics.com works. When that goes away, I'm probably done. Of course, I collect only one thing which is easy for me track myself, so I'm probably an exception...
 
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I know it would be crazy work, but I would love if the numbering system for the pins represented the chronological order in which they were released.
 
I would contribute to a new database. I'd love to contribute pics and descriptions. In fact, I call dibs on adding Muppets pins and Darkwing Duck pins.
 
Give them some competition so that one person can't have all the pin power..also need an ability to customize the sorting of your own collection and better searxh functions

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk
 
I'm all for any additional databases, simply because more resources are always better. I would always use Pinpics, but different sites might have different strengths, so that I would use multiple sites for research and trading.

I do think that the numbering system should try to be chronological, but that would be very difficult when you're starting a database from scratch. It would require a more complex numbering system than just 1, 2, 3..., so that pins could be 'inserted', but that could become really convoluted over time.
 
I would be willing to help on the money side of things, but as long as the site doesn't try to grade pins I am all for it.

Competition is always good and most of the info is public knowledge anyways.
 
imp said:
I'm all for any additional databases, simply because more resources are always better. I would always use Pinpics, but different sites might have different strengths, so that I would use multiple sites for research and trading.

I do think that the numbering system should try to be chronological, but that would be very difficult when you're starting a database from scratch. It would require a more complex numbering system than just 1, 2, 3..., so that pins could be 'inserted', but that could become really convoluted over time.
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It would make for bigger numbers, but you could use the date and then a number. Like 20131114_001 for a pin released today. That way if a pin is missed down the line, or someone adds a pin that doesn't come out for a month, they would still be in date order.

That would mean you would _have_ to know the release date to put it in the database (or have a dummy number like 99999999, but then would you want it to change if you learned what the date was?).

It may not be too important for the number if we can sort searches by release date...
 
I, too, would love an alternative. But, as others have said, building the database would be a bear. You could get those of us that are specialists to help with certain characters (like I could easily do Duffy and Jessica), but characters like Tinker Bell or the Fab 5 would be monsters...

Things I have always wanted in Pinpics:

-A search function within an individual's Pinpics account.
So if I'm looking at WDWPINTRADER's trades, and want to look for their Tinker Bell trades, I can type in that keyword to search within their Pinpics ID. I'd also love to be able to sort my own stuff, so if I wanted to print only my Jessica pins, I could sort then print that way. Speaking of which...

-Better/easier printing options

-Tagging system

-Like you said, a better opening page. I want to be able to get to either "My Pinpics" or a profile page that has all my links within one click.

-A simple, but stylish Profile page. Allows easier access to "My Pinpics", e-mail and contact info, maybe somewhere to talk about how you like to trade. You could even throw up a note if you're taking a break from trading so fellow traders will know. Also, PMing.

-Perhaps a sub-system or sub-gallery for APs and PPs, just so we're not looking at the same pin a gazillion times over

-A priority ranking would be nice- like, marking a pin as high, medium, or low priority for you, and maybe Grail. I think the new Pinpics has something like this, but I haven't been on the new site, so I'm not sure how it works. I have mixed feelings about this- it can help show people's priorities, which I've had issues with before...but it's also not super important in the actual functionality of a site like Pinpics. And some traders would abuse it, I think...

I think there were probably other things...if I can think of them, I'll drop them in here. 🙂
 
Abyssinian28 said:
I, too, would love an alternative. But, as others have said, building the database would be a bear. You could get those of us that are specialists to help with certain characters (like I could easily do Duffy and Jessica), but characters like Tinker Bell or the Fab 5 would be monsters...

Things I have always wanted in Pinpics:

-A search function within an individual's Pinpics account.
So if I'm looking at WDWPINTRADER's trades, and want to look for their Tinker Bell trades, I can type in that keyword to search within their Pinpics ID. I'd also love to be able to sort my own stuff, so if I wanted to print only my Jessica pins, I could sort then print that way. Speaking of which...
Click to expand...

Just FYI: You can actually do this on the new Pinpics site.
 
It would be good for the pin to have a field for the movie that the characters are from. So, I could search "Bambi" and get all of the characters (Flower, Thumper, etc.) or "Pooh" and get Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl (do you know how hard it is to find pins for a character named "Flower", "Rabbit" or "Owl"??).

Also, the old Pinpics search was kind of weird in that if I search for "Am" (as in Si and Am from Lady and the Tramp), I get EVERY pin with the word "AMerica", "AMerican", "enAMel", etc. in the description. Makes it hard to find Si and Am pins!!
 
A new database sounds great. I love the old pinpics site. Dislike the new one and won't use it.
 
I think this would be a great idea! 😀 If you ended up doing something like this, I would be happy to help gather information and take/find others to take photos of pins in my spare time! 🙂
 
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