cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14934313

Hello Lemmings.

I will be attempting to make a federated anime tracker this summer, but I am not quite sure what features people would want and how I would get the details for animes, mangas, etc.

For the latter: What I thought was to either scrape other anime websites continuosly in the background, but this most likely is against the ToS of every anime tracking website, such as AniList or MAL. (I actually asked anidb.net for special access to their DB because apparently you can request access to it, but I’ve been left on read by the two staff members) My second idea was to make it an anime tracker website where animes are only user-submitted. And the user submissions would be approved by assigned moderators. However, I think this would be quite inconvenient. I’d like to get your opinions and/or ideas for this.

For the former: So if you have any requests or suggestions, please drop it down in the comments section.

Thanks in advance.

  • Margot Robbie@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    8 months ago

    To me, the biggest advantage of a federated tracker like this is the ability to self host without relying on any centralized service, so in no particular order

    1. A community maintained repository based database system, so when someone initiate an instance of your tracker, it starts off completely empty, and then the admin can pull from a “seasonal anime” repo for the tracker to track seasonal animes, an “anime movie” repo, a “j-drama” repo " a “Hollywood movies” repo or any combination of the above, or pull from an URL for a custom tracking list.

    2. Local/global average rating/rating distribution.

    3. Some kind of upvote system for reviews to discourage short, low effort reviews that plagued Letterbox. Lemmy’s “active/hot” sorting algorithm is pretty good and you may be able to use just that.

    4. User created lists and also the ability to share them publicly or privately.

    • asudox@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      Unfortunately, this tracker will need to rely on centralized databases such as MAL, anidb and anilist as I can’t really seem to find an easy way to curate new animes without them.

      1. I am not very sure about this point honestly, as previously discussed in this thread, having a database that is only maintained by the community has its own disadvantages that definitely outweight its advantages. For example, you would need constant moderator approval, which is slow.

      2. I am not sure what you mean by the ability to share them privately. Do you mean like whitelisting certain people that can view your animelist? Like how MAL has a friends only thing?

      • Margot Robbie@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        8 months ago

        1. Ok, I assume you are familiar with uBlock Origin right? In uBlock, you can select from any combination of first and third party filter lists, or make custom filters, as long as they follow the same format. There is no one central authority that approves every filter list constantly, and the uBlock maintainer are only responsible for their own filter lists. Does that make sense?

        2. Yes, like sharing a particular list only with certain people that you choose.

        • asudox@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          8 months ago
          1. I see. That probably could be a solution. Thanks, that gave me an alternative way of doing things. I’ll consider this while making this project and see how I can do it.
          2. Yeah, that definitely will be a feature. No worries!

          As for point 3 and 4, they most likely will be implemented as well.

          Honestly, your repo idea could even make this project not only an anime tracker but basically a tracker for every audiovisual content without much effort.

  • The Spectre@lemmy.mlMEnglish
    4·
    7 months ago

    To me the coolest features would be

    1. It tells me when new episodes come out
    2. It recommends me new anime based on my history
    • asudox@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago
      1. I’ll see what I can do.
      2. I actually already have an anime recommendation system, but it’s for MAL. And it only works if you already have a bunch of different animelists. I might have to make another one, or have the recommendations be user-submitted like in MAL.
        • asudox@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          7 months ago

          Yeah, I’ve set a minimum limit for animelists. Your animelist appears to be smaller than 50 so it won’t be processed. This is not because it can’t, but because I manually set it so that anime newbies don’t get bad quality recommendations. It has something to do with how the algorithm works.

          • The Spectre@lemmy.mlMEnglish
            2·
            7 months ago

            Oh I see. Yeah, I never bothered inputting many since the website doesn’t give me any recommendations based on my data so I just ended up inputting everything on the TV Time app.

  • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    You can probably fork bookwyrm or another related platform. Might help you out to get started on the activity hub integration and functionality.

    • asudox@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      That won’t do. Bookwyrm is written in Python, while mine will be written in Rust. I also just planned things out and seems like this federated anime tracker will have to wait a few years or release itself as a generic audiovisual content tracker. The thing is, I can’t seem to find a source for the animes and mangas, I might consider scraping but it’s somewhat risky and takes a lot of time. I considered making an open source database for all anime related things. This federated anime tracker then would get dumps of that database daily and work that way. I only found vndb which gave dumps of their database, but MyAnimeList, AniList, aniDB etc don’t seem to give dumps of their databases.

      • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        Whatever you want GL! It’s just a starting point. They used Django/python but whatever makes you happy.

        Most of these kinds of projects die on the vine so I was hoping by starting from something that already exists its more likely to succeed.

  • asceticism@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    Sounds cool good luck with the project! Imo scrapers are hard to get to work well or might still miss stuff. I would give people the chance to submit their own snow information, maybe limit it to their profile until moderation approval then put it out on the general list. Also I’m assuming you would have all the normal tracker stuff but I know the ability to log when I have watched something or rewatched something would be important to me. Like the actual dates. The SO and I like to review our show history and talke about it.