CTDB: Beta Max

The CTDB is in Beta.

What does that mean? Well, compared to the beautiful, fully-functioning, densely-populated, user-generated amalgam of awesome in my mind, it's not much. But it does mean we've jumped some important hurdles.

• The basic framework is up. The primary elements - Plays, Artists, Venues, Companies - and the things which link them - Roles and Jobs, Productions - are playing pretty well together. Well enough for us to show you a sneak peek and to invite a few more people to come in and try and break it so we can make it better.
• We've got support from lone artists and those representing organizations - sort of the pledge and super-delegates of the theatre world. The project is independent - entirely organized by text messages, phonecalls, emails, and the occasional late-night post-show powwow - but we're trying to ensure the success of this thing by talking to all the folks who might have a stake or be a potential partner in sharing this data. We're in pretty regular contact with PerformInk and the League, and we're reaching out to folks who may help our quest for historical data.
• Most importantly, we've committed. Nick and I both feel very strongly about the importance of this project (we see it as mission driven, and have a mission statement to articulate this). While we're both just a couple of artists trying to reach beyond our grasp - and despite Nick's crazy freelancing schedule and my juggling a day job and multiple productions - we've both made getting this up and running a priority.
  

Bu there's a risk. The big danger here in going public is that everyone wants their data to be right - right away.

Data is obviously the raison d'etre of the CTDB, but it's actually not our foremost concern right now. We're still trying to build the structure so that it supports the data it will eventually house. It's like putting up a set of shelves. You can't start piling books and tchotchkes on them before they are completely done and secured to the wall.

But you need to have some idea of what you're going to put on the shelves when you're building them - what works for your set of decorative paper dolls will not work for your 26-volume Encyclopedia Brittanica. What you'd feel comfortable putting your Nerf collection on may not inspire the same confidence when you're looking for a place to put grandpa's ashes. And so forth.

So this Beta Phase is where we are asking folks to tell us what stuff they want to put on the shelves, so we can look at what we've built and make changes - make it sturdier, build special ledges for special items (I'm really stretching the metaphor here, but you get the idea). We're also putting a few more things on shelves we've already built to see if it holds up.

What does this mean for you? Well, we want you to get excited: we're building this for all of us, and we want you to jump in, look around, imagine the possibilities, comment on the forums with your ideas for what you want out of the CTDB. What you want to do with the data affects how we build the behind the scenes stuff, so the earlier we know, the better.

What we aren't able to do right now is accommodate the very understandable desire people have when they see their name or company with incomplete information out in the world - we want to get our information right, right now! We're not there yet (Hell, look at my page - I helped build the damned thing, and all I have is three show credits and a badly-sized headshot!), but we will be soon. In a few months we plan to roll out the user-input interface so that everybody can log-in and update whatever they need to. Think of the information in the CTDB today as placeholders - and think about the possibilities of what's to come!

And if you're someone who perhaps has a lot of free time behind a computer, and has the patience to deal with something that's still developing and not the most user-friendly, we're looking for a few more people to help us load data and test the system. To be clear - we really need people who want to put in as much as a few hours a week over the next few weeks and months (on your schedule, of course) into the project. If you're that person, email me.