(update 02-06) Possible premium/dream features for the site.

[Carl]

The new site will have everything the current site has and more in terms of discography and lyrics publically available, and always will (we will be dropping some of the lesser used sections such as multimedia etc).  I've been having ideas for further functionality, but they'd take some significant time to pull off,  e.g. time out of my personal life, paid work, and other side projects.  Aaron has always been opposed to monetizing the site, but a paid premium/supporter membership might be a nice way of recouping server costs and a fraction of development time without having to resort to scalper banner ads (which isn't an option!).

This isn't something we've really talked about in detail or are even sure we'd be doing, but it could allow us to really expand what the site could be. Let me know if there are any additional "dream" functionalities you'd like to have on the site / how much you'd be willing to chip in to support their being built via a membership.

[Aaron]

Now's your time to make wish lists. 

Things already tackled, and things that were on my wishlists...

* More information on a release, including more information about how it happened, quotes from the band about the release where possible.  Everything is brought up to date. 
* Fact checking.  There's been some errors in the past.  I've not been borrowing from wiki, or online sources, but going back to original sources where possible, such as chart information, release dates, and so on. 
* Personelle.  We've been carefully noting who has worked on which release.  It should in the future allow you to search by person.  Want to see what albums Flood worked on?  Want to see how many releases Sinead O'Connor has been involved with?  It should be possible but may fall under added features depending on how much work is involved.
* Live releases - every live release is being recorded with the release date, the venue, the city.  We should be able to provide additional information when you are tracking down live stuff.  How about a list of officially released live materials sorted by date?  By location?  :-)
* More attention paid to song differences.  We've heard that you want to know where the edits are even if they are small, or just fade ins and fade outs on live material.  We've done a lot of investigation into this and have really fixed up the by songs list with this in mind.
* Want to know what the newest entries are?  I'm hoping the system may be able to pull that for us to allow people to browse what the newest items in lyrics / discography / catalog / songs are. 
* Better photos.  I won't suggest everything is new and exciting.  We're keeping a large amount of the current images.  But we have with the help of several contributors been able to source new images for some of the rarer releases, and have been incorporating those where they are replacing a lesser quality scan.  Going forward as we add images to the discography we'll also be increasing the size, but this will come with time.
* A way to open the discography to contributors to improve posting time about new releases, and to allow more people to contribute. 

[Carl]

Maybe split that up into what has been done / what hasn't? Aaron can you edit the poll (I think you should) feel free to add options to it. I've taken a stab at it.

High res scans would be a huge one - I think u2w currently defaults on 545px for images which is horribly low given retina tablets and laptops, let alone normal computing devices (the old site was geared for when the world was still using 800*600). That a TON of rescanning to do though!

I imagine that once the new site is launched and any major bugs have been ironed out I'll try and launch a kickstarter with some of the popular/easier ones set for a modest amount and then have stretch goals for further functionality.  When @U2 relaunched they had a little drive for $1.5k they spent on a team to help with some functionality - we'll still be doing it all ourselves / the site will always be complete and free, but there's a limit to how much time I can dump into this as it takes away from other aspects of my life.

[Aaron]

Whoops.  Thought I had split them up to things we've worked on and things I'm still hoping for...although some of the later comments under "Done" are wishlists, the basis to do them is already built in.  Personelle are all listed in the new site, but is it possible to generate a list?!

DONE:
* More information on a release, including more information about how it happened, quotes from the band about the release where possible.  Everything is brought up to date. 
* Fact checking.  There's been some errors in the past.  I've not been borrowing from wiki, or online sources, but going back to original sources where possible, such as chart information, release dates, and so on. 
* Personelle.  We've been carefully noting who has worked on which release.  It should in the future allow you to search by person.  Want to see what albums Flood worked on?  Want to see how many releases Sinead O'Connor has been involved with?  It should be possible but may fall under added features depending on how much work is involved.
* Live releases - every live release is being recorded with the release date, the venue, the city.  We should be able to provide additional information when you are tracking down live stuff.  How about a list of officially released live materials sorted by date?  By location?  :-)
* More attention paid to song differences.  We've heard that you want to know where the edits are even if they are small, or just fade ins and fade outs on live material.  We've done a lot of investigation into this and have really fixed up the by songs list with this in mind.

WISHLIST:
* Want to know what the newest entries are?  I'm hoping the system may be able to pull that for us to allow people to browse what the newest items in lyrics / discography / catalog / songs are. 
* Better photos.  I won't suggest everything is new and exciting.  We're keeping a large amount of the current images.  But we have with the help of several contributors been able to source new images for some of the rarer releases, and have been incorporating those where they are replacing a lesser quality scan.  Going forward as we add images to the discography we'll also be increasing the size, but this will come with time.
* A way to open the discography to contributors to improve posting time about new releases, and to allow more people to contribute.

[Carl]

Yeah, we can generate a list and then have a page that lists all discography entries they're associated with (reverse relationship lookup).  One of the benefits of having them as their own content type / channel.  I kinda love how this thread is us thinking out loud. :p

W1 - that's extremely simple. We had something similar with wordpress before it blew up.
W2 - lots of time.
W3 - that's possible - the permissions tweaking is pretty simple but I'm not sure about people making inline edits to be moderated (I assume it'd use the built in versioning). It might take some time.

re: the live releases - with all the fields there it should be pretty easy to make a section on them, but it's not something I've mapped out. I'd probably leave the execution of that for post-launch.

[MartinTexas]

My proposition for new optins/features:

#1 - Video/DVD releases tracks should be listed in discography in BY SONG section - they all are also music tracks! Videos (officiall clips & Live concerts footage) often have different versions of songs so it would be nice to see this differences in discography, and maybe some list/section of official videos, 
#2 - complete lyric sections of videos,
#3 - searching in lyrics - for words and sentences - nice option for finding some verses in this most complete database of lyrics 

[Carl]

Thanks for the input.

#1 this is an Aaron question.
#2 you mean music videos etc? We have complete lyrics for VHS/DVD releases (up to when I stopped updating on this site, though they're in the new database thanks to Slaneman).
#3 this is something we'll have on the new site. on this one the lyrics are in a quick and dirty custom php/mysql setup I made, and site searching is a little archaic.

[slaneman]

All good points, MartinTexas---

I've added over 300 new song lyrics and tried to include all unique versions found on video...or any official unique version not on the current site for that matter. For example, the closing song on the Rattle and Hum movie, All I Want is You, is a unique version because of a slightly diff lyric, etc. so I added it.

All the missing songs from the live shows have been added, whether from audio or video releases. I'm up to Edge's Picks at this point as far as U2 releases go. We'll eventually have every lyric for any song any member of U2 was involved with...   ach du lieber

[Aaron]

On the by song lists, I spoke with Carl last night and I think it will be possible to have a "By Song" list that displays audio only, video only, or both.  It requires a little added data to the lyrics files to make it all work but we should be able to do that before the launch without too much trouble.  I've always wanted a "By Song" list for the videos.  Being able to combine both or separate audio / video adds some nice functionality.

And i'll attest to the fact that not only are the lyrics for all the videos being addressed, but we are being careful to not lump things together if there's differences in length or editing.  If a live song fades at the start and end it will be considered a separate edit.  We're being pretty thorough in that respect.

[santiago2u]

::: I love to see other countries' stickers on Lps, Cassettes, Cds, singles, etc.

If there's a thumbnail for the sticker available, it would be great!

There's a Depeche Mode site, and a Madonna too, that features highest prices paid in auctions at eBay. Useful for collectors. Also, a "WANT" and "SELL" feature among members; these features  could be navigated with a charge, paypal, I don't know, like an extra...I would pay. 

[Aaron]

I'm doing stickers where I have them.    There's many in the discography now in the singles section.  I'm only going to expand on that.

[MartinTexas]

#2 you mean music videos etc? We have complete lyrics for VHS/DVD releases

Hi! I mean all videos - also this one that weren't released on VHS/DVD, but are official videos. Like OOTS, Gloria or A Celebration.

[Aaron]

All of the music videos are being mentioned in their respective discography entry.  If you go into the entry for "Window in the Skies" you will find a paragraph discussing the video releases for the single and the various ones filmed, including variations, and on what releases you might be able to find the videos.  That will cover off the majority of the videos as most have been related to singles. 

They will also be worked into the Videography "By Song" listing in some manner hopefully. 

The focus right now is getting the discography launched, so we haven't explored the full videography as of yet.