The PAL records listed on your record page are exactly the same than the ones on the SMK players site. All you have done is to copy/paste them onto your site. Also, the NTSC records are taken from the old world record site which dates from 1996-1997. Also, all the info we can read on your site is the very same than what we can see on any other general gaming site and some of it is even faked.

But anyway, the point is: dont steal stuff from other sites to start from nowhere a "community site" which has nothing really original or different to offer than what we can already see on other sites. Players that want to compare their time trial times simply go to www.geocities.com/smkplayerssite(which has had more than 6 years of champions, history and it has grown up a lot since) and those who are looking for general information about the game go to www.mario-kart.net.

I guess you spent a decent amount of time on making the site and thats too bad but honestly, the only thing that is really from you is the design. The rest was stolen from either mario-kart.net(even the shortcuts pictures and explanations I think) and www.geocities.com/smkplayerssite with as only notice a little credit page at the very bottom of your page.

Now, if you want to start a real community page(organise local meetings or contests and stuff), that might be more interesting. You could work in cooperation with other players from netherlands who are on the SMK players site and maybe build something somewhat similar to what they have done in France.

But PLEASE, get off the records list from your site. That is not YOUR database as you state on your intro page. And try aswell to write your own tips and tricks pages if you really wish to keep them instead of copying exactly what is on mario-kart.net(or on whatever other site).

Cheers  

PS: Super Famicom and NTSC work exactly the same speed wise(both 60Hz). There is no need to seperate them for time trial records.

Wow, I'm truly astounded to see Dirk and Daan Wegener back after all those years. Where have you been all that time?
Dirk was one of the first people to create a SMK time trial records page, back in 1996 (or even earlier?).

However, I'm a little unhappy to see this situation that Dirk has spent all that time on creating a great php database. But he copied the records of Sami's SMK players site straight into his database.
So, now his site is just doing the same thing as Sami's site. Only the layout, and the updating method are different.
I think it's a bad thing to have 2 time trial sites showing the same records. Sami's site already had complete time trial records listings for both PAL and NTSC. Creating a new time trials site with the same purpose is pointless. And it's unfair to Sami, since he collected and updated all those thousands of times all by himself between 1997 and 2003. It's unacceptable to steal those times to create a new rivaling website by yourself. People shouldn't try to beat eachothers websites for time trialing communities. All time trial records should just be on one main website. So it's clear which times are the world records at how high you're ranked in the world exactly.
Wouldn't it be better to work together? Maybe merge the sites (combine Dirk's php system, and Sami's news updates, POW stuff and other time trial related pages to one big website? Or use Dirk's site as a sub-community for dutch players? Dirk, I hope you can talk to Sami and find a good solution for this.

- Michael Liem

Michael is 100% right.



For some long time now, I've been thinking of the creation of a dynamic database for the SMK Players Site.



Clearly this would ease sami's work as maintainer (especially if the players update their times directly) and this would provide the capability to produce lots of great stats.... For example, the standards ranking could be computed automatically for the players, hence you could have more than one standards system running concurrently, e.g one with boosts, one without them, or simply harder standards (or also to have an overview of what changing standards who give as a result)



The only work then is to agree on which times to use to fix the boundaries for each ranking, then PHP/SQL computes it all for you ....



Definitely, Dirk + Sami should try to work together ...

Ya, and plus, having anyone able to update their own times to the site will mean no more PRs submission to yahoogroups which will take out a lot of interest, especially into watching players improvements and will simply make the site looks like a big database location.

But I still think we can use automatized formula, java script or whatever to our advantage so that we can include more stats on the site, make updates quicker and more efficient(less typos or SR scores errors).

And although having a disponible times updater open to the whole public is in my opinion a very bad idea, we could still let a very few players access it maybe to help Sami updating some parts or stats on the site...

To Dirk,

It's great to see you back. This is truly a blast from the past! I'm glad to see that you're bringing back your site. It would be neat to see some "snapshots" of the old site for nostalgic purposes. If I look around my ancient e-mails, I might even be able to find the original times I submitted back in 1996. Hopefully you and Sami can work out all the details regarding current times. I know you have the right intentions but overlooked the impact of copying material. Just out of curiosity, do you still have the old "bonus" photos I sent with my original KB1 and VL2 times? Ah, those bring back memories.

To those who don't know Dirk,

Dirk had one of the greatest SMK time trial sites in its time. Sure, there were other sites too (Matt Leech's site, Martin Bowman's site, Jared Rose's site, and others), but Dirk's site more consistently had the best time trial times listed. There were also tips, shortcuts, and other things that were rarely seen elsewhere. And of course, there was the great SNES page too. His site helped bring competition to new levels, and I am very thankful for that. Without his site, some of us wouldn't be here today.

Yes, it would be a lot of work to set up, and still if yahoogroups is kept and the new system, players would need to submit records twice maybe?

Anyway as i said i am fine with the way i am updating now.. But for starters as we all seem to agree we shouldnt duplicate the sites. And yeah if Dirk can dig up any old pages he has and start on a Dutch karters site as i mentioned before then we can get something original up here. Like the French community for example; the main site(SMK players site) and the French site are different but they co-exist. They interact by having players visit each others sites, and have had French karters recruited to the main site. This is the sort of thing that www.supermariokart.nl could do with karters from the Netherlands. Maybe if Dirk is interested he could start a Toad/Koopa site for Dutch karters only on the www.supermariokart.nl site aswell. Not copy the main koopa/toad site, but make a categorised recruiting post (in this case, Karters from the Netherlands).

Anyway, im just repeating myself here over and over. Sorry i cant post too much at the moment, i have exams all next week so im very busy with revision right now..

Sami

I completely agree with "guest" (what's your name, guest?)
An automated database in its pure form, like the goldeneye and perfect dark elite, or even worse: the time splitters 2 elite, have their disadvantages. Less player interaction, no more interesting PR reports, no method of viewing players activity and player progress, it becomes easier for cheaters to input false times, etc.

However, there are methods to get rid of those disadvantages:
- Have the automated database generate activity logs that show a list of all active players with their updated PRs for each update. And make that automatically generated activity log viewable to the general public (by posting it on the mainpage for example), so everyone can read and discuss it.
- At each update, let a webmaster (Sami) view all submissions and approve them before the database actually updates the times pages.
- Keep a yahoogroup, or other messageboard, to talk about your PRs or make comments on the PRs posted in the activity log.

Those were examples of methods to decrease the disadvantages of an automatic database.

And now to the advantages of an automatic database:
- Updating the page will take only 5 minutes
- If the times are entered correctly, all times and stats pages will be error free
- The database can easily create more stat pages: like total times, average finish, SR scores for 3lap, fastlap, number of world records etc. With some programming experience one can even create a matchups viewer like the one at the MK64 site.
- if someone wants to do it, the database can also save its own history, and show if a player moved up or down compared to a week ago on the ranking pages, and by how many places. And it might even create a table/graph showing progress of players over time.
- With all those stuff being generated automatically within a few seconds, there's loads of time left to spend on other things: POW awards, news updates, video pages, strategy pages, etc.

I think you should give new methods a serious thought Sami. Not just stick to an old method just because "it works fine". Maybe a new method works even better. And then you should think of using that new method, unless you see real disadvantages.
But it's not too easy to implement this stuff yet. The current geocities doesn't support php for example, so that would mean the site should move. And it also depends heavily on what Dirk will think about it. But you should at least give it some serious thought, maybe after your exams.

cool to see the history of smk back here  

about dirk's site, I think his intention was to register all times, even for players who submit only one time (for example MC1  )

about the whole site, I think a new system as they have done for f-zero would be cool (also for putting all mk games together)
but of course this would need a VERY BIG starting work!  

if i can be of any help there in the future....



______sébastien

Oeps, that should be http://dirkson.shacknet.nu/snes/ N-Joy the memories and shiver

Anyway, I didn't realize that importing the times from Sami's site would have such a big impact. It all started as a project for fun to create a database with SMK TT records. After ginving up the "SNES the best system ever"-site and picking up SMK again I thought it would be nice to use my PHP/MySQL "skills" to do something again for the/a community. Bring karters together.

I did offer Sami to team up but he likes the way he's working and I should respect that. I don't even consider going into competition with him! Importing the times was just a method to test my database.

I still do see the benefits of a database drive website, but there's still lot's of work to do I'll certainly have a look a some of the tips given above. And maybe even will Sami see the benefits of a site that puts, records, tips, forum and karter profiles all in one place

In the mean time I'll keep an eye on this forum.

A big that you to everyone who gave respect to my old SNES site and helped me to get rid of my name as a cheap thief on this forum.

As for David Wonn I do think the pictures are there! I allso do have some old "proof" pictures. So everyone have look