FFDB - An experiment

If I am to design the FFDB, I will need your input. Lots of it.

Ideally, the design should be done openly on a wiki, where everyone can say whatever they like about the goals, methods and parentage of the team members.

But, I can't afford decent hosting for a wiki at present and the development team consists of only one member, so we'll do without one.

I will post thoughts, ideas and samples here and you will reply with criticism.

The thing is basically about fics. What should it know about a fic?

1. author(s) – are cooperations separate authors or should a story have a list of authors?
2. title – utf-8 string
3. is it complete? – boolean
4. number of published chapters – numeric. if = 1 and fic is complete, special case of cookie/ficlet, no table of content required.
5. expected/required reader maturity rating – one of: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X
6. explicit warnings – for objectionable and or unsafe (work/school-wise) stuff like: slash (separate for femme-slash?), underage sex (what's the age of consent in Potterland? Leaving Hogwarts?), mild fetishism, violence (BDSM? Rape?), bestiality, incest.
   These can be anything from verygraphic to barely mentioned or even implied. Should there be a rating/scale?
7. genre – <list of genres>
8. spoilers for books <list of books>
9. main characters <list of character> – should original characters exists separately or be grouped together under the label OFC (OMC)?
10. ships <list of ships, i.e. character groups> – should there be a list of ships?
11. word count – numeric. SUM(word count of each chapter)
12. first publish date – date. MIN(publish date of each chapter)
13. last update date – date. MAX(publish date of each chapter)
14. canon-compliant up to which book? – book or numeric?. this can differ between chapters, how to treat it for the entire fic? (max, min, average)
15. language quality – this can differ between chapters, how to treat it for the entire fic? (max, min, average?)
16. edited by <list of authors, personas or real people or combination thereof?> – this can differ between chapters, how to treat it for the entire fic? (union on lists?)
17. is it part of series? – a series and item number
18. was it written for a contest/challenge of some kind? If so, which place did it take? – challenge/contest id, possibly numeric place
19. archived at:
    here, should it just be a list of URLs or do I handle major archive sites in special ways? Like:
    1. SQ fic id
    2. FA-member URL
    3. Y!G name
    4. FFN id
    5. Checkmated id
    6. Lots of other sites ids or URLs
    This can be a list of dual thingiescontaining archive site id and specific fic id, handled by some business logicwith a reg-exp specific for each archive-site.
20. Other stuff I forgot

About people:

I think there should be a separation between fandom personas and IRL persons. We are all slightly different people when online, even those of us who do not actively re-invent themselves. Fandom personas have fame, LJs,f-lists, fangirls, mod duties, published works, reviews. IRL persons have names, ages, genders, home addresses (a not necessarily complete collection of: continent, country, province, town, street, home), private emails, ICQ UINs, AIM, MSN and Y!M screen names, social software ids (Orkut anyone?), marital statuses, children, birthdays, and social security numbers (kidding!).

What data should there be stored, and what should be available to mods and the general public, about each? Should the connections between persons and personas (any better terms, please?) be straightforward 1:1 or is it possible that multiple persons make up a persona (collectively working?), or that some person has virtual split-personality disorder? Can/Should the FFDB be aware of such cases?

How to see if it's right:

Think about search. Imagine what you would want to search for, any whether this data model has a chance to find it for you, if such a thing exists and the entire fandom was indeed included in the repository.

For example, a query:

Find emails of persons (for flaming purposes, probably) who have personas who are authors of fics that are: Rated NC-17, include bestiality AND incest AND underage sex, of Plot What Plot genre, contain no spoilers, whose main characters include Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley and Giant Squid, ships include Ron/Ginny, word count is over 50K, have apparently not been proofread ever (probably because the content is too arousing to read over-and-over again), are completely AU, and archived exclusively at the Quill.

We all hope this always returns “none found”, but I wouldn't include it in the test cases. ;)

I know there is no way you have understood everything, because I have not tryed to explain. But I want you to get involved, so you are hereby asked to ask questions. By your comments I'll see if there is any interest. If so, we may have some progress with this thing. Just watching/reading will not get you anything, because there'll be nothing to watch - I won't do any thing. I'm really good at it.