Episode 57.5 — Minisode 57.5

[wakefresh 689]

I think the "survey monkey" thing is good but I think it'd be better if it was a list of the 10-20, instead of a random 100, most popular movies from the last couple of years that was then reduced to the top 5 which we then chose a winner from. Seeing as how movies can quickly get buried in the forum I think since Shannon has been the mod for the past year it would make sense for her to pick the list, also she could probably find out which movies Paul and company don't want to touch for whatever reasons, that way we're not wasting our time with movies they'll never do.

 

I do think something basic like the survey monkey is perfect for this, just as long you're only able to vote once.

 

I just checked and you are able to vote more than once from the same isp so that would need to get fixed, I'm sure plenty of people would take advantage of that, which is pretty lame. It's like people who cheat to win video games, I just don't get the point of it.

 

 

The original spec from Paul was something that will be able to take suggestions, count their votes and give them a backend to manage all of it. The problem I see is that if you use Survey Monkey is that if people write-in a title, they are not always going to use the canonical form. So you could end up with one vote for "Running Man", another vote for "The Running Man" and another vote for "Runnin' Man". There should be a way to normalize all of the input so that it is standard across the board.

[Shannon 2953]

OK! I will tackle this! I'll email everyone when I get home from work.

[HeyTedBaxter 21]

Regarding the write-in/multiple names issue, would google docs or survey monkey have a way to include the IMDB link in a way that you put in the IMDB link and the movie name comes up?

[haydenmccabe 4]

That's a simply brilliant suggestion HeyTedBaxter, using IMDB as the unique identifier for a film.

 

There's a system available at http://imdbapi.org which allows IMDB to be queried, returning the title (and poster, if available) of films. I'll try throwing a beta of something together today.

 

One significant advantage I see to doing a custom built piece of software - as opposed to an existing survey system - is that it could be made such that it could be presented as a Facebook "Page Tab," allowing users accessing the HDTGM Facebook page to participate directly from that site, while others vote or submit to the same system via another website (although probably not the Earwolf site itself, due to their existing CMS).

 

One question I would ask is if people think it's better to allow one vote per movie per user, or more restrictively, one vote per user. I would suggest the former, as I'm sure many people have a small handful of movies that they would recommend.

[wakefresh 689]

That's a simply brilliant suggestion HeyTedBaxter, using IMDB as the unique identifier for a film.

 

There's a system available at http://imdbapi.org which allows IMDB to be queried, returning the title (and poster, if available) of films. I'll try throwing a beta of something together today.

 

One significant advantage I see to doing a custom built piece of software - as opposed to an existing survey system - is that it could be made such that it could be presented as a Facebook "Page Tab," allowing users accessing the HDTGM Facebook page to participate directly from that site, while others vote or submit to the same system via another website (although probably not the Earwolf site itself, due to their existing CMS).

 

One question I would ask is if people think it's better to allow one vote per movie per user, or more restrictively, one vote per user. I would suggest the former, as I'm sure many people have a small handful of movies that they would recommend.

 

I'm working on something as well, but am using omdbapi instead. imdbapi has a rate limit of 3,000 per hour, but that doesn't hold for omdb. They all return the same information anyway. FYI, hayden, you won't be able to show the poster that comes in the JSON results from either one. It gives a 403 error because your server isn't on the whitelist at the CDN they use.

 

I'm thinking that the correct usage would be one vote per movie.

 

 

In addition to the point made by hayden, it would be nice for Scheer to be able to filter through the votes based on the date, so they can just choose a date range and pick the movie with the highest votes for that week. Or not, if it is something that they don't feel comfortable reviewing, ala the Smurfs.

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

Whatever the final version of the survey is, let's just take the time to make sure we do it right the first time. No need to rush to make something only to have to redesign it.

 

Ofcourse by "we" I mean the people who will actually be doing it, not me.

Edited March 13, 2013 by BagguhMcGuirk

[haydenmccabe 4]

I put together a demo system, and if anybody wants to help me out by trying it, I'd appreciate it.

 

It's available at http://haydenmccabe.com/hdtgm.php

 

As of right now, it works like this:

 

You can look at the list of the films currently in the database, which are listed showing the number of current votes, a button to vote for a film, and a note that says that if you've already voted for it. It tracks unique users by IP address, so if you try to vote for the same movie multiple times on the same IP it shouldn't let you. I'll probably update it so that you can take back your vote, if applicable.

 

If you want to add a film to the list, there's a field at the end where you can put in the IMDB ID number, or the URL of the IMDB page for the film, and it should find and add it. Just go to IMBD, find the movie, copy the address and paste it into the box.

 

It's not pretty, but let's worry about getting it stable and full of features first.

[justinmh05 1968]

This movie bummed me out. It wasn't fun like 'The Room' or 'Birdemic', it was just depressing to see John Rhys Davies, Burt Reynolds, Jason Statham, Ron Pearlman and freaking Ray Liotta signed on to appear in such a piece of trash.

[seanotron 2307]

Wait, why is Road House on there? They already did it.

 

Nice job on this BTW, I like it and it would certainly prevent duplicates.

[choochoo_the_wonder_slut 740]

This movie bummed me out. It wasn't fun like 'The Room' or 'Birdemic', it was just depressing to see John Rhys Davies, Burt Reynolds, Jason Statham, Ron Pearlman and freaking Ray Liotta signed on to appear in such a piece of trash.

 

Statham is the one I don't understand. Dude is a legitimate movie star. Pearlman has his niche and hordes of fans, but Davies and Reynolds will do anything apparently.

 

Did not know Ray Liotta was on an episode of The League last year.. special guest? That would be awesome.

[choochoo_the_wonder_slut 740]

I put together a demo system, and if anybody wants to help me out by trying it, I'd appreciate it.

 

Sweet, nice job!

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

This movie bummed me out. It wasn't fun like 'The Room' or 'Birdemic', it was just depressing to see John Rhys Davies, Burt Reynolds, Jason Statham, Ron Pearlman and freaking Ray Liotta signed on to appear in such a piece of trash.

 

I could not disagree more, I think this movie is one of the greatest bad movies I've ever seen.

 

I also agree that the survey/poll thing looks really good. I also checked to see about voting twice and it was a no go, good job haydenmccabe.

[Shannon 2953]

Hi guys! I've been getting lots of requests to help with the new voting system and I'm trying to figure out the best way to get organized.

 

So, anyone with an idea or a beta site or anything please email me at shannonmarie16 at gmail dot com

 

Thanks! I'm super looking forward to getting something awesome going

[haydenmccabe 4]

Thanks so much for the feedback, all. I added a feature where the movie titles link to their IMDB page, so you can do a little research and be an informed voter. (I had never heard of Mazes and Monsters before.)

 

I generally avoid any forum based system, and those of you who have used one on any other site (or have friended any of my extended family on Facebook) know why; y'all are restoring my faith in humanity.

[VoltonDeluxe 0]

Agree with just about everyone... anyone else seen the gem that is Strigoi? ... eastern europe ... nuff said

[VoltonDeluxe 0]

Also... has the name of this rating system been set in stone yet? ... Serious consideration must be taken when naming...

[Shannon 2953]

Also... has the name of this rating system been set in stone yet? ... Serious consideration must be taken when naming...

 

The current working title is "HDTGM voting" Very clever. Obviously.

 

Feel free to throw out names people who are feeling creative!

 

My vote is How Did This Get Chosen?

[wyldride 285]

Uwe gets names to appear because it's basically free money to phone in a performance. There's no expectation of quality, or making the investor's money back, or any kind of success So when it fails spectacularly, as they always do, no one says, "Oh, that actor can't carry a movie." They say, "Yeah, that Uwe can't make movies."

 

Well, it's that or blackmail -- Maybe voodoo.

[VoltonDeluxe 0]

"#" Cups O' Cheese - the higher the number corrolates to the panic and sickness when "cups o' cheese" are forced into your face and are helpless to fight back the onslaught. ... it was either that or nothing...

[THEPokerWife 3]

After only 3 min into this movie I was already loosing my mind when Pearlman showed up with a pig on a leash... The music they clearly found in the reject bin for the Oscars for being waaaayyy to sappy and over dramatic..... And it's absolutely BONKERS that the acting is even more over the top than the music! AMAZING simply AMAZING.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

I was hoping someone would point out the music. It's like somebody took a quick pass at imitating an action movie score, left it half finished, then another person came along and recorded it, not with a full orchestra, but with a keyboard equipped with string instrument and horn effects.

[thinkswhoheis 0]

So I actually, really quickly, threw this little app-thing together. Will work on it throughout the day but I feel like once I wrap it up, it should be intuitive and scalable.

 

http://byhamilton.com/_hdtgm/

 

Don't go crazy adding things, I'm still ironing out the schema and what not.

[wakefresh 689]

since everyone else is throwing out ideas, here is mine http://whats-on-hdtgm.com/. I think, what they need is something that will be able to take in requests and take votes based on a subset of what Shannon chooses. So, there should be one part that logs requests and another part where they can pull out 5-10 for people to vote on for that week.

 

Remember, building the app is only half the battle....the other half is getting accurate requirements and scope.

[wakefresh 689]

So I actually, really quickly, threw this little app-thing together. Will work on it throughout the day but I feel like once I wrap it up, it should be intuitive and scalable.

 

http://byhamilton.com/_hdtgm/

 

Don't go crazy adding things, I'm still ironing out the schema and what not.

 

 

I like the overall look for this. Bootstrap FTW!

 

The only thing is that you're allowing the user to input the title. Don't trust these people, they're dum dums! Just parse out the IMDB ID through the link. Here's the regular expression I used to get out the id.

 ([a-z]{2}[0-9]+)

 

I don't know what language you're using for the backend, just remember that some will want a delimiter on either side. either a "#" or a "/".

[Wien 401]

What an entrepreneurial fanbase. Paul Scheer could probably get you guys to build a time machine, if he asked nicely.