18 replies to this topic

[randomdisplay123]

I've trolled through the forums for almost a year now trying to piece together all of the scattered information on hundreds of substances. From reported effects, both anecdotal and experimental, chemical pathways, and most importantly sources. 

I would like to put together some sort of database to get all of this information organized. Other than the Reddit list, I have not seen anything like this yet, but please let me know if it exists. Jesse over at SmartDrugSmarts recently published an Iphone application that does something similar to this, but I would like to take it much further. 

 

I was considering about a wiki primarily dedicated to nootropic chemicals (the scope doesn't need to end there) but i'm open to other forms of documentation if anyone has alternative ides.  

 

Overall, im looking to see if there would be any interest in this development, and if so I can get the means together and a formal game plan.

 

If anyone would like to see this let me know in the comments. I would like to hear hopes, dreams, and concerns about such a project.

If you think it is even worth while or that you might use it, let me know!

[ceridwen]

It would certainly make things a lot simpler

[Major Legend]

I would question the motive of the host, any website with traffic can be monetised, how do we know we are not contributing to someone's income stream?

Sorry not saying you are, but it would be something that would cross my mind.

Edited by Major Legend, 17 December 2014 - 03:31 AM.

[randomdisplay123]

What no way, I'v posted a whole... one post... ever.. how dare you question my motives! 

 

That is a completely understandable concern I hadn't thought of, Id keep ads of off it for that exact reason. Maybe I would be providing offline copies so others can put it up if I were to be found corrupt? 

 

[SuperStack]

I would question the motive of the host, any website with traffic can be monetised, how do we know we are not contributing to someone's income stream?

Sorry not saying you are, but it would be something that would cross my mind.

Regardless of its contributing to an income stream or not, it's handy if made accessible to the general public. This site isn't free to run and it's managed by an income of advertisements, and even has a membership program you can pay for.

What kind of point are you trying to make? Information isn't free.

[Mind]

LongeCity would like to host a supps/noos interactive database. It has been discussed a bit here and here. So far all we got out of it was the stacks feature. The problem is that everyone wants a handy reference that collates all of the data in these forums, but we can't find any volunteers. Hand curating a good database would take significant $$$.

[randomdisplay123]

I probably should have searched for exact words I used in my post title, but I assumed I would have found that throughout my general browsing.

My apologies, I will contribute to that discussion rather than staring a new one here, unless you see value in a secondary one. Can/should we delete this thread? 

[Major Legend]

I think we should look at examine.com as an example >

 

+ Some points:

 

1. It's also hard seeing as there are so many new or experimental chemicals mentioned here, the information people are finding are constantly new quicky rendering a database outdated, unless people were deligent enough to update it all the time - this is may be hard without some form of monetary compensation, or promise of it I think. It depends on the depth of the database I guess.

 

2. Alot of these chemicals people are not even exactly sure whether they will turn out to be nootropic or not, most of the racetams are just anecdotal in effects and there isn't confirmed clinical trials, you also have variance between the experiences and effects person to person.

 

3. examine.com is awebsite where their end goal is obviously monetization, nobody is going to bother building a comprehensive database like that without some sort of financial end goal, not saying its impossible, but again examine.com is the only good example I can think of, for this kind of database.

 

4. For normal supplements and even some nootropics, examine.com is already a perfect site for these purposes, and it will be hard to top it as an information archive, it is also an incredibly well engineered/designed website, that obviously had some money and time spent on it.

 

5. Hosting it within longecity would solve my concerns for monetization, as long as due credit is given.

 

Edited by Major Legend, 18 December 2014 - 01:11 AM.

[SuperStack]

Honestly, I probably have too much free time on my hands, but if we could get this thread kicked off with ideas as far as what people would like a basic noot database article to look like; take piracetam and use it as an example, I wouldn't want to copy/paste the wiki. But I would be willing to do the footwork, typing up articles for someone to copy/paste into the website. If a few members of the longecity staff wouldn't mind tossing back and forth some ideas with me to lay out the grunt work I'd be more then happy to kick the project off.

I just don't have programming experience so I can't really help there. But another idea would be creating a wiki within longecity. I could type up, and lay down the basics, but allow the users to touch up and help out with it. Maybe once they pass a certain post limit have it moderator approved by someone who knows what they're on about. The footwork wouldn't even be that big of a payload with the wiki format.

[randomdisplay123]

After reading the other threads, I found the biggest thing we need is some goals. 

 

It sounds like we already covered authenticity by hosting it with Longecity, and it looks like there is plenty of interest in such a project. 

After looking over examine.com I found it very useful and close to what I would like to see, I personally would like to see something more digestible and summarized. While I was able to get through the articles, it takes me a long time to work through the terminology and I am overwhelmed with the extra stuff I don't really care about. For example, reading over the Piracetam article, I really don't care about its use to relive breath holding spells. We need to then pin down what our scope is.

 

In regards to SuperStack, My biggest concern about this project in general is the first 50 pages, so any amount that you are will to contribute would be incredibly helpful! Fortunately I don't think we will need much in the way of programming experience and anything we do need, I will probably be able to hammer out. Otherwise, by preventing the general population from updating the database (assuming a wiki at this point) we would lose too many people who would help our cause. So I like the idea of a post limit and/or moderator approval, I think we can apply that to unapproved edits. If you have passed the post limit, and/or been approved by a mod to be trustworthy enough to submit valuable content, you can post without a review process. Otherwise when someone submits an edit, that edit needs to be approved by A:a mod, B:2 members who are authorized for unapproved edits, C:10 non member people. Just some ideas on how to keep the data valuable. 

 

Major Legend is correct about how often our information changes on substances. While this is a concern, it is one that faces every wiki, ultimately if the community want this bad enough, they will be responsible to keep it up to date, any new information they come across, maybe through a discussion in the forums needs to be added to the database, we need to promote adding it and make it extremely easy to add. For example, right in the forums we could put a "Add to wiki" button that allows them to copy paste info and sources in without leaving the page they are on. Overall it comes down to marketing and convince. 

 

Overall I think we will need to start a pilot program of a standard wiki on a separate page to provide a proof of concept. This will allow us to test functionality, figure out what we need, then we can come to Longcity with a more fleshed out proposal and some content to start with. To ensure I don't run off with any data, I will copy the entire project to a public space so anyone can pick it up in the future. 

 

Some key points that need to be covered are:

 

1. What do we intend this to be used for?
2. Who is our target audience?
   1. People with MD
   2. People with no medical background
   3. People trying to build stacks
3. What kind of info do we want on such a system?
   1.  What is the scope of the info we want?
      1. longevity only
      2. nootropic only
      3. Both
      4. Others I didn't think of
   2. Do we want anecdotal or only research based evidence?
      1. We would need to very clearly mark anecdotal evidence.

4. What do we want different from the existing systems (such as examine.com)

Some secondary points once we have our goals pinned down:

1. Is a wiki the best model for our goals?
2. How can we make it really easy to update?
3. How do we advertise that we need help keeping it up to date?

4. How do we prevent biased updates?

 

Solved:

 

Authenticity of the source: published on longecity

 

[Flex]

LongeCity would like to host a supps/noos interactive database. It has been discussed a bit here and here. So far all we got out of it was the stacks feature. The problem is that everyone wants a handy reference that collates all of the data in these forums, but we can't find any volunteers. Hand curating a good database would take significant $$$.

 

Just asking, whats about to pay people to do it e.g. 10-20 bucks for a certain achievement/ammount.

I will try to volunteer as much as possible, but I´m quiet busy.
 

Edited by Flex, 18 December 2014 - 07:23 PM.

[Major Legend]

To solve the up to date issue we could just have last updated date on, and have a warning if a page hasn't been updated too long. 

 

I think you can just copy examine.com and give rating based on how much research there is, but we shouldn't keep it too restrictive

 

i'm not sure if anecdotal research would be a good idea, since somebody who is selling something might just talk it up, I prefer science. (maybe we can put a note saying if people want to find anecdotal research they should just search the forums) - its better to keep the database clean and devoid of personal interests I think, afterall we mostly want to know if a substance has any sort of clinical efficacy or potential, rats or humans, in vivo or in vitro, either way I think its better to stick to the facts.

 

The only way I can see anecdotal research working is to put in a section called "human experience" and a moderator is allowed to write an "editors review" of what the subjective effects might be from reading forum posts, otherwise I think it will become messy and a bit like erowid.

Edited by Major Legend, 18 December 2014 - 11:39 PM.

[Mind]

If we want to include examine.com data, we can have our wiki link to each substance at examine.com. Then add our own unique community-based knowledge for additional value.

 

Just reference, LongeCity did offer a little over $1,000 last year on Freelancer to get this thing started. That range of money could probably be made available again.

[SuperStack]

If we want to include examine.com data, we can have our wiki link to each substance at examine.com. Then add our own unique community-based knowledge for additional value.

Just reference, LongeCity did offer a little over $1,000 last year on Freelancer to get this thing started. That range of money could probably be made available again.

Wait just to verify, are we going to kickstart this in a wiki format? I'd like to know what I m walking into, I know we've spoke in PM mind and I've already started that. Id like to begin discussing what format the community would like to see.

I'm not just looking for a ramshackle database here Mind, I have enough free time on my hands to knock this out of the park and hit a homerun. I'd just like to see what the staff of longecity has in mind.

If you can direct me toward a specific format that the site would like to use then I can see what I need to type up more easily. If you can give me a webpage for an example, then that will be what I go off of.

Edited by SuperStack, 20 December 2014 - 12:51 AM.

[randomdisplay123]

Before deciding the data structure, ie. a wiki, We need to know the format of our knowledge. Before knowing the format we need to know what people want on there. 

 

I really like the idea of linking to examine and supplementing it with Longecity content, then making the examine information more readable for our user base. How should we go about determining what information everyone wants? Should we poll it or just get the opinions of people on the couple of threads that are discussing this? Once we have that it will be easy to whip up an example. Ill go about building an example of what I would like to see today then you guys can critique it but I really think we should get a wider range opinion. I too want to see us hit a home run with this, but I think we need to swing a couple of times first. I always assume any project will take at least 3 revisions. "If you ever release a piece of software that you deem worthy, you waited too long." -App dev tutor at some hack-a-thon

[Mind]

Before deciding the data structure, ie. a wiki, We need to know the format of our knowledge. Before knowing the format we need to know what people want on there. 

 

I really like the idea of linking to examine and supplementing it with Longecity content, then making the examine information more readable for our user base. How should we go about determining what information everyone wants? Should we poll it or just get the opinions of people on the couple of threads that are discussing this? Once we have that it will be easy to whip up an example. Ill go about building an example of what I would like to see today then you guys can critique it but I really think we should get a wider range opinion. I too want to see us hit a home run with this, but I think we need to swing a couple of times first. I always assume any project will take at least 3 revisions. "If you ever release a piece of software that you deem worthy, you waited too long." -App dev tutor at some hack-a-thon

 

A mock-up would be great. It doesn't have to be functional. Just a visual, so people can get an idea of the possibilities.

[SuperStack]

I agree with mind, out first step should be a mock up. Chono, would you do that or did you want both of us to do one simple we could compare ideas?

[randomdisplay123]

I'm working on one, But I'v realized i suck at graphic design, Ill have it up a bit after Christmas probably, wont have much time to work on it till then.

[NewNoot]

I'm working on one, But I'v realized i suck at graphic design, Ill have it up a bit after Christmas probably, wont have much time to work on it till then.

and what was the outcome of your little project?