Well, it seems that in the process of writing the other two questions, I came upon a third. While the first two deal predominantly with the competition-side elements, such as the data collection types and methods, this deals more with the “server-side” elements of the web interface and such.
Without further adue, Question #3: What do you want to see available on the FSN website? How do you want to be able to access the data that is collected? How can FSN best provide access to this data to as many teams as possible, as soon as possible? I’m not looking for technical implementation here, but rather your opinions on the interface, how to use it, and how to make it widely available.
take soap 108’s team search, but take it a step further and make it so that you can search by a certain aspect. for instance for this year you could make it so that you could search for a stacker or a pusher, that along with the team. Or add in the awards so scouts would know what teams to scout.
Data should be retrieved by any site who can use the XML transport and display it in their own manner. I feel that the site should not have any direct way of viewing the information. There should be XML code that will display a team’s info based on what is in the url, like: /xml/team_info?team=6
Then that would deliver XML info to the site that requests it. Sites like Soap would display information as they do now… The network should integrate seamlessly into any FIRST team’s website that has the capability. The FSN site shouldn’t directly make available any site info on the site… and leave that up to each individual team.
I told myself I wouldn’t respond to my own question, but this seems to call for a response. So, here’s my two cents: I think FSN needs to have a central viewing system. Teams should still be able to grab XML from the FSN server and display data on their website, but someone going to the main FSN site should be able to get data there, not just links to teams that are hosting the data. What I think it really comes down to is a decision between having a distributed, loosely affiliated network, and having a centralized system that is shared out to other teams. I think the second option is the most efficient, and we have the resources to implement a central server, so we should.
So, what I propose is a compromise. The FSN site should have its own viewing area. To make this easily accessible to everyone, without having to search for an FSN host site, this is a must. However, any team that wishes to put FSN data on their site should be able to pull down an XML feed, and then display it as they see fit. As I see it, it’s the best of both worlds. We don’t need to spread FSN out just for the sake of distributing the traffic or bringing visitors to partner teams’ sites, but there is definite merit in allowing teams to easily use the FSN data.
I say have both. Display it on the site, and give other sites the ability to install something (or the documentation to write their own) to show the data.
You have to read all 3 of my posts to get an idea of what I was going for. I think it would be ok to view data on the site, maybe only for designated members to make sure things are ok? I just really feel that a central site will take away many things that makes a site good… (ie Soap) sure they can still display info (and they have videos) but why would anyone end up venturing to their site to check data when they can go to FSN.
I’m looking to get people to become more aware of other teams out there. Such a way of displaying info on a site, or via Palm, PC… etc… could make more teams become well known. For example, there would never had been so many visitors to CD this season if FIRST had not directly referred to them… if FIRST would refer to the FSN as the place to go… people will go… but when they see they have to go to other sites maybe they will… maybe they will check out that site… and they will become more popular and well known as CD is.
I have been thinking about this for a few months now, but feel like I really suck at communicating what I’m thinking… so if you are confused just ask… I will try to articulate.
Make the data available on the FSN site and include search, sort, etc functionality. This way you aren’t relying on other teams to create a website to display the data. But of course make the data publically available. If you want this to truely be an open network that serves FIRST as a whole you need to give everyone easy access to the raw data. Then teams can create their own database or PC tools to parse the data at competitions. Hopefully they’ll follow the lead of Jack et al and make their tools (and source) available for everyone. Also, if teams make pages that display the data, include links to the pages. Some of us may like their implementation better than the official one.
I think to make this truely open that i would have to agree with the idea of having it both on the FSN site and also having a raw feed for other teams to access or giving other teams acess to the database itself for searching and that sort of thing.
Also there should be some way to have access to the data offline. IE download things out of the database and have them in a format that could forexample be read with access, excell, or filemaker giving teams without interenet access at competition access to the database, or if thye wanted to they could download it in their hotel rooms the night before and then have it ready for competition the next day.
I also still think it would be cool if we could set up little mini databases at competitions that all the teams who wanted to could tap into and that could possibly access the same info that FIRST has as far as match scores and such go, that way the information at competition could be as current and uptodate as possible.
Nothing says that we can’t have one main FSN viewpage and still let teams make their own mini-DBs.
If Jack was so kind as to create a MySql account with only SELECT permissions, any team that wanted could log-in and directly pull whatever they wanted to for their own database. Then each’s teams programmers could do as they would.
While writing this post, I had the idea of writing a DLL that would allow data from Windows programs and PocketPCs to be easily integrated into the main DBs or team’s sub-DB. I’ll play with this for a while, and see where it goes.
Considering my idea with the DLL last night, I realized it was stupid. The public MySql account should allow simple data retrieval, either through a MySql client or a ODBC link.
Data input could be handled through a PHP script and XML upload, allowing for validation and security.
Please excuse yet another of my stupid ideas. It’s doable, but why?