I agree with Andrea. I find the annotations that folks provide on this listserv to be the most helpful part. If we allowed a wide range of dances in the database, but then opened it up for commentary, sort of like Yelp or Amazon or other user reviews, I think we'd get a lot of useful intel on each dance.
On Dec 10, 2013, at 7:16 PM, Andrea Nettleton <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers <>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<> Delia Clark PO Box 45 Taftsville, VT 05073 802-457-2075 [email protected]
