N-Scale Rewards Program Off to Strong Start

[gdmichaels]

Hi Folks,

The N Scale Database recently crossed 10,000 items and this is great! But, by our estimate, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 total items have been produced since 1960. Maybe more once you count European and Japanese models. I read somewhere that N Scale is more popular than HO in Japan.

We have a long way to go to be complete....

So in order to get more data added we will launch the TroveStar Rewards Program for N-scale Trains and give away N Scale items to our contributors.

We will be handing out the good stuff. The give-aways will include rolling stock from MTL (weathered) and Atlas, engines from Kato and (we hope) an A-A centipede set from Broadway Limited.

So dig out your old N Scale catalogs and sharpen your Googling skills if you would like to list your favorite models and earn a free (yes, shipping is also free as long as you are in the USA) N Scale item. Complete rules to follow soon. If you have not yet visited the database, check it out here:

http://www.trovestar.com/generic/group.php?Collection=4

Our official launch date is Thursday, March 31, 2016. That's when we will post Program details and instructions on how to add a train entry to our n-scale database. Participate and earn free trains/train sets! bit.ly/1LFklpB


Stay tuned!

[peteski]

Hey George - good to see you on The Railwire!  Someone already gave a down vote on your post (no idea why).  I'll fix that for you. 

Your database will be a great resource.

[OldEastRR]

You are aware of this website? It's been around for quite a few years.

http://www.spookshow.net/trainstuff.html

I'm wondering about redundancy.

[ChristianJDavis1]

Maybe more once you count European and Japanese models. I read somewhere that N Scale is more popular than HO in Japan.

You are most certainly correct in this regard. Due to space constraints in Japan, N scale is much more popular than HO scale. This results in the HO models being very expensive in comparison with their N scale counterparts (not good for me, as I model Japanese HO). I had a lengthy discussion on this topic with the Japanese Kato representative at iHobby.

As far as Japanese N scale goes, if you do plan on adding it, I can help with some of the more obscure ones, such as brass models (I do not have many of them, but know of their existence). The ones I do have at the moment have not been modified.

In general, is there any specific items you are looking for, or is it just a free-for-all as far as submitting content? As stated previously, @spookshow 's database is a good collection of many of the American Prototypes, but he does not cover very many foreign prototypes.

[Sokramiketes]

You are aware of this website? It's been around for quite a few years.

http://www.spookshow.net/trainstuff.html

I'm wondering about redundancy.

He's obviously aware, as most of Spookshow is copied over to this site...

[gdmichaels]

With regards to Spookshow's work, that most excellent site is focused on reviews of engines.  We have excerpted and given credit for that information for reference purposes.  In fact we hope to steer more traffic to his site by providing links wherever it makes sense.

The purpose of the TroveStar N Scale database is to catalog what exists in terms of product numbers, road names and reporting marks.  So if you collect Frisco, you can find all items made for the Frisco road by all vendors.

We see the two systems as complimentary as Spookshow's work is focused on categorizing and reviewing body styles but doesn't list out each individual car or engine for the models it covers.  There is a need for this type of information so we are trying to provide it.

As for the data entry, it will be a bit of a free-for-all.  We recommend to anyone participating that they try to stick to a few body styles that they are familiar with so they don't create redundancies with other folks.  We already have a handful of contributors and generally I try to give them nudges in different directions so as to avoid overlap.

[John]

I wish I had time .. but I need to build my model railroad at some time .. good idea though

[VonRyan]

With regards to Spookshow's work, that most excellent site is focused on reviews of engines.  We have excerpted and given credit for that information for reference purposes.  In fact we hope to steer more traffic to his site by providing links wherever it makes sense.

The purpose of the TroveStar N Scale database is to catalog what exists in terms of product numbers, road names and reporting marks.  So if you collect Frisco, you can find all items made for the Frisco road by all vendors.

We see the two systems as complimentary as Spookshow's work is focused on categorizing and reviewing body styles but doesn't list out each individual car or engine for the models it covers.  There is a need for this type of information so we are trying to provide it.

As for the data entry, it will be a bit of a free-for-all.  We recommend to anyone participating that they try to stick to a few body styles that they are familiar with so they don't create redundancies with other folks.  We already have a handful of contributors and generally I try to give them nudges in different directions so as to avoid overlap.

I don't like the sounds of "no overlap". That means that there are more opportunities for mistakes... Heaven forbid someone like @ChristianJDavis1 go on the site, make an entry with completely inaccurate information, and anyone else who makes an entry correcting the info gets told off for making "overlapping" entries.

If a site such as this doesn't focus on important things like body-styles, details, and overall accuracy of the model(s), then what's the point? Not much of a database unless you're purely a collector who just buys stuff for the sake of buying it.

[ChristianJDavis1]

I don't like the sounds of "no overlap". That means that there are more opportunities for mistakes... Heaven forbid someone like @ChristianJDavis1 go on the site, make an entry with completely inaccurate information, and anyone else who makes an entry correcting the info gets told off for making "overlapping" entries.

If a site such as this doesn't focus on important things like body-styles, details, and overall accuracy of the model(s), then what's the point? Not much of a database unless you're purely a collector who just buys stuff for the sake of buying it.

I do agree with the fact that overlap is good in some sense, especially if someone does give inaccurate information. Then again, I would hope there is some level of fact-checking to ensure that these things do not happen (unless it is a simple reading/typing error, which is somewhat understandable). Not really sure why I would be the one giving out inaccurate information, though...

[gdmichaels]

To partially answer Jon and Christian's implied questions of "Why do this?", I wrote a quick blog article which can be found here:

http://www.trovestar.com/general/blog/blog.php?Article=13

I will be soon writing a second article about Overlap.

[gdmichaels]

I cranked out a second blog entry on data overlap. 

http://www.trovestar.com/general/blog/blog.php?Article=14

Hopefully this will help answer some of the above questions.

As this relates to the promotion, more than one person can claim "credit" for the same entry provided each person contributes valuable data to an entry.  I was merely suggesting that to avoid having to perform excessive searching to see if an entry already exists you might wish to ask us "Hey is anyone working on Aurora/Trix Postage Stamp trains already?  I own a lot of them and I would like to work on filling out that section."  We have no problem if eight people want to work on Postage Stamp trains, but it might be a little frustrating.  Just imagine if you were all writing wiki articles about the presidents of the US.  Wouldn't you wish to focus your efforts on presidents that nobody else is researching?

As for details on the quality of each body style.  Each body style has a "review" linked to it which can be edited by users.  This review can follow many different patterns.  It can be a link to spookshow or to a forum article.  It can contain text directly entered by the users, or a hybrid where an excerpt is used in combination to a link to an outside source.  Also feel free to append your own opinion to whatever is there.  Something of the form "A review was done by Spookshow <here>, Model Railroad Magazine <here> but personally I think this engine sucks - Joe User".  If you are going to append to the review, just be sure to say who you are as a courtesy to other users.

[ChristianJDavis1]

I cranked out a second blog entry on data overlap. 

http://www.trovestar.com/general/blog/blog.php?Article=14

Hopefully this will help answer some of the above questions.

As this relates to the promotion, more than one person can claim "credit" for the same entry provided each person contributes valuable data to an entry.  I was merely suggesting that to avoid having to perform excessive searching to see if an entry already exists you might wish to ask us "Hey is anyone working on Aurora/Trix Postage Stamp trains already?  I own a lot of them and I would like to work on filling out that section."  We have no problem if eight people want to work on Postage Stamp trains, but it might be a little frustrating.  Just imagine if you were all writing wiki articles about the presidents of the US.  Wouldn't you wish to focus your efforts on presidents that nobody else is researching?

As for details on the quality of each body style.  Each body style has a "review" linked to it which can be edited by users.  This review can follow many different patterns.  It can be a link to spookshow or to a forum article.  It can contain text directly entered by the users, or a hybrid where an excerpt is used in combination to a link to an outside source.  Also feel free to append your own opinion to whatever is there.  Something of the form "A review was done by Spookshow <here>, Model Railroad Magazine <here> but personally I think this engine sucks - Joe User".  If you are going to append to the review, just be sure to say who you are as a courtesy to other users.

That makes sense and clears up a lot of the questions I had. Thank you for the clarification. One question I still did not really get (but may have missed), is if this covers only North American prototypes, or are foreign prototypes also allowed?

[gdmichaels]

I actually would like other folks' feedback on this question.

My first thought was yes, foreign stuff would be welcome.  Many of my local club members (Northeast NTRAK: www.northeastntrak.org) collect European and Japanese models and consider them to be part of a single collection rather than two distinct collections.  That would be the primary argument for one single database.

The argument the other way would be that most North American collectors (95% I believe I read) only collect North American models and Europeans and Japanese act the same way with their collections.  Furthermore the attributes of Foreign collections can be a little different.  Primarily they have a large focus on "Era" which we do not.  That being said, it is trivial to add a new "Era" pull-down attribute to the database which can be left blank for North American models to make the system more friendly to Euro models.

I am very eager to hear people's opinions.

George

[eric220]

Took a quick test drive, and I must say that's an ambitious project you've taken on. One bit of feedback: it's very frustrating to me to get back a list of returns where every individual part number has an identical entry. For instance, if I'm looking at BLI centipedes, there are dozens of entries in the database because each road number offered has a discrete entry. That makes long lists virtually unmanageable, because they get flooded with redundant data. Is there a way to return summarized results that could drilled down into with a click? For instance, in a search for PRR diesels, just return a single line for BLI centipedes that could be clicked on to get a full listing of schemes, road numbers, and individual part numbers.

[gdmichaels]

Took a quick test drive, and I must say that's an ambitious project you've taken on. One bit of feedback: it's very frustrating to me to get back a list of returns where every individual part number has an identical entry. For instance, if I'm looking at BLI centipedes, there are dozens of entries in the database because each road number offered has a discrete entry. That makes long lists virtually unmanageable, because they get flooded with redundant data. Is there a way to return summarized results that could drilled down into with a click? For instance, in a search for PRR diesels, just return a single line for BLI centipedes that could be clicked on to get a full listing of schemes, road numbers, and individual part numbers.

That is a most excellent idea.  There is a dozen different ways to do that, so give me some time to think about how to pull it off.  This type of function would work best when someone is researching a road name.  If you scan the BPRR the list is very manageable.  Similarly if you scan for PRR Centipedes it is not so bad, but if you do a general PRR scan, you get a LOT of results (similar to ATSF I guess).  So you would like a single entry for each body style available for the road name, right?  Would be best with a count as well.  Meaning that there are 6 centipedes, 20 PS-2 Hoppers, 14 Heavyweight Baggage Cars, 1 GG1, etc for the PRR.  Probably list the manufacturer as well.

Might be a little tough to pull off, but the database can sure handle it.  I would just run a GROUP BY on the body style.  Coding it into the GUI is where it gets tricky.

The feedback is much appreciated.  Thanks for taking the test drive!