Rather than limit which dances get on the database and how, why not allow reviews of said dances. If it had a clunky moment for one dancer, tends to get saw toothed, or has other issues, it might get fewer stars and an explanation. Choreographers could choose to pull or amend a dance so reviewed, and callers could decide for themselves whether the reviews will apply in their situation. The folk process works better the more information and dances are out there, not by artificially limiting, based on some committees personal tastes and particular filters regarding appropriateness. There might be some requirement that a dance needs to have been successfully danced by at least two or three communities to qualify or something so every person who thinks they can write doesn't post a bunch of useless dances. I think making it be more work for CDSS to put a dance up impedes the project unnecessarily. I do, however, like the idea of having links to choreographers' websites, and maybe even a caller's companion-sequel search engine, so one could look for say, an biter mediate dance with a hey and a mad robin, and come up with all the dances in the database which fulfill the request. My two cents, Andrea
Sent from my iPad > On Dec 10, 2013, at 5:18 PM, Michael Fuerst <[email protected]> wrote: > > I just read the results of the CDSS caller's survey. > (http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/documents/how-to/CDSS_Contra_Task_Force_survey_report_05dec2013.pdf) > > One of the resulting suggestions was for CDSS to set up a dance depository. > Here are my thoughts on this. > > > Considering the 1000's of contra (and other formation) dances that have > written, of varying quality and difficulty, I have reservations about a > single global contra database. Such a database detracts from the folk > process. And who is to say which dances are worthy of placement in such a > database? > > HOWEVER (part 1) ..... > > CDSS should have a depository of dances, somewhat like the one on the "Contra > Dances by" section of Cary Ravitz's page http://ravitz.us/dance/ > While Cary's page links to dance author's pages, the CDSS page should get > copies of each author's dances, formatted however that author formatted them > (e.g. .rtf, .pdf or .html), with the CDSS page containing links to these > copies. Authors should be able to send an updated file to CDSS up to say 3 > times a year. This will preserve the author's dances when s/he terminates > his/her web site. These links could include .pdfs of out-of-proint dance > book. > The folk process in some sense is maintained by people having to peruse these > various author pages in order to find dances. A discussion board, maybe > even the current Shared Weight forum, would be the place for for callers to > discuss these dances. > > HOWEVER (part 2) optional .... > > The Caller's Companion (http://callerscompanion.com/) provides a good model > of how an on-line database might work. Many aspects of this program will > work as a model for an on-line dance database. So in addition to the pages > susuggested in HOWEVER (part 1), CDSS could also set up an on-line database > and intially populate it with at most 200-300 dances, selected by CDSS staff > or a committee, of various difficulties and formations. Any CDSS member, > and only CDSS members, should be allowed to add a dance to this database of > remove a dance s/he inserted. Dances on a page from HOWEVER (part 1) may > well end up in this database. > > Michael Fuerst 802 N Broadway Urbana IL 61801 217-239-5844 > Links to photos of many of my drawings and paintings are at > www.ArtComesFuerst.com > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
