I guess most of you are aware of the infamous NSM website upgrade which I've (supposedly) been working on for a few years now. But in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me clarify:
The NSM website itself is seriously outdated and needs some kind of upgrade, both in the server side of things (e.g. database improvements) and just features in general. As I'm the guy responsible for doing that in addition to being unable to finish any kind of large projects, the said updates haven't really been coming along. Once I'm done with studies this semester, I should be able to give this yet another try.
However, before I rush headfirst into the coding aspects of this, I should really plan the whole thing. In addition, I'd like to hear your opinions (as crowdsourcing seems to be the popular thing nowadays) on what kind of features you'd like to see on the site. I'll be creating a couple of topics for different areas of planning. What I'd like you to do is to post some new ideas and also discuss ideas which have already been posted.
This topic is for the actual features and functionality of the site, meaning ideas about the actual functionality of the site. I'll post some ideas below to get things started.
- The big one: Improved upload system. Removing the need for the submission topics where people have to post their arrangements. Instead they can use an upload form to add their arrangements to the queue, where uploaders can easily approve or reject them.
- Same for requests. The ability for arrangers to fulfill a request by submitting an arrangement. Maybe even an option for "being worked on" to let the user who made the request / other arrangers know that the request is being fulfilled.
- Sheet archive improvements. This is also something I'd like to see improved. At least something like browsing by series/console/arranger. Also search function, obviously. The ability to rate sheets would also be a possibility.
- To power all the previous features: Forum integration. Allowing you to use your forum account on the main site as well, to access these features.
- One feature I've been thinking about is the ability to link your YouTube videos of you playing to the arrangements. This would give people viewing the sheet another way to listen to it while also letting people promote their YouTube videos here.
I guess those are the main features I've been thinking of so far. Many of them also need to be refined further, for example the sheet archive structure is an important one.
But with that, let's get planning!