I've long dreamed of the Elite's ranking system evolving into a mature platform with a framework that allowed for the addition of new games as "apps", essentially, subject to the design requirements of the game and its scoring structure (and subject to preferences of the developers). This may be a bit too advanced for the near future, but I think we can go pretty far with Google Docs or Excel Online.... if a game's records followed a certain schema, that would open up possibilities for front-end design guys to create a public, web-facing interface for otherwise-informal spreadsheets that have been the basis of record keeping for many small games for years. In the more advanced scenario, where we standardize the Elite's database for multi-game support, data transform logic/code could be created in order to take data from the spreadsheets, run it through any processing we might want, and generate SQL queries or CSV import files to pass the data into the master database (responsible for content on game.the-elite.net or the-elite.net/game).
But I think the key is starting small -- getting all those high scores spreadsheets in one place, standardized (as much as possible), and made visible on the public web is key. Also critical is continuing to attract the most *competitive* and records-obsessed speedrunners to the Elite. I think that embodies our "brand" the best and I hope ppl here agree it's a big part of what makes us different. Even during boom-times it's felt like the Elite was a word-of-mouth community and that perceived exclusivity has been to our benefit.
If someone created a Google spreadsheet with lists and brainstorm notes on this, would others join? My first curiosity is how many rankings spreadsheets, static pages, or broken pages are out there and what is there association with the Elite? (note: I say "someone" and not "I" because I have not been a reliable project participant and that's obvious to most...). I've thrown out some big concepts in this post but just wanting to share a vision + some rough conceptual blueprints... That's really just part 1.
This is the part where I apologize for the dead home page and the (temporary) offline status of content previously hosted on
www.the-elite.net (our last host). I have been very unreliable and the Elite has gotten the worst of my neglect. As some of you know, my life has been a bit crazy since early 2014... well, 3 months ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (a.k.a. manic depression) which paired with my existing diagnosis of existing attention deficit disorder (two different doctors pinned me squarely on that), I'm a interesting person... i.e., unpredictable, and at my worst, unreliable. But it seems things are finally coming together (thanks to new meds + a renewed sense of control over my life). I have been yearning to return to the Elite but stayed away out of embarrassment (mainly for balking on many commitments I've made, in particular to Scott, who should be canonized before this is all over btw).
Part 2 coming soon
(Hint: open forum on investment funds for the Elite -- if I gave $2k for dev, would the community match it 2:1?)
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