I've decided to just share my thought process with everyone on some of the future plans for the site. I will be adding the ability to add soundtracks and cast & crew to the site. The difficulty comes with database structure. Once the database has been created the rest is pretty simple.

To avoid confusion I'll keep things simple. Generally in a database everything is stored in tables.

This is a basic example of a simple database for movies.

The databases for OtakuElite are very similar to this. Except we use a database structure that is a bit more flexible since we have to include movies, TV Shows, OAVs, Shorts, etc.

Sadly, music is a tad bit more complex. But the idea I have for doing this is a little ingenious. The plan will be to allow you to go in to add individual songs! After you add a song you will be able to link that song to EITHER bands or artists!

Generally I"ll be treating a band as a group of artist. Now of course members will change in bands. It happens all the time. Someone leaves, dies, or new people come in. Bands are constantly changing just like the cast and crew of any production. Yet each person deserves credit right?

So this is the basic idea! (Leet ascii skills)

           ________ [Band]
          /
[Song] 
         \________ [Artist]

What will happen is you will be able to create a song and select either a band or artist to add. So what does this mean to you? An entry will look something like:

Soundtrack:
Shinji Jam (Joe Smoe, The RaRaRa Jamz)

Each entry will be nice and organized and you can list everyone involved in the song. Easy wouldn't you say?

Now of course The RaRaRa Jamz will be a group of artist. So maybe down the road I could do something like...

Shinji Jam (Joe Smoe, The RaRaRa Jamz [+])

Shinji Jam (Joe Smoe, The RaRaRa Jamz [Frank Stevens, Sally Sue]) 

Pretty neat huh? 

Now I could go crazy and say which band members did which song. That's WAY too much information for most users. So I'm making the decision to stop it at Artists/Bands. There is no reason to get more involved. If for some really off the wall reason I get to the point where the site is so huge I'm thinking, let's add it, I can do it easily.

Would just require another database table for Song-Artist-Band. In DB code that's a Many to Many to Many table which is rarely used. I have yet to need one myself. 

Sadly, my journey doesn't end here since I have to figure out how to do the person database at the same time! I'll save that for another time. For now just know that these plans are in the works! So keep supporting the site!

Thanks as always!

Your webmaster,

Nyo