Random Ideas

[Windrunner he/him]

So I just had a couple site ideas today, and I just wanted to put them out there to see if they're any good or not. I would like to preface with the fact that I'm not a computer coding guy. I have no idea how difficult it would be to make these into reality.

Ok, my first idea is a countdown clock for Brandon's book releases. I've seen them on other sites before, and they seem fairly common and easy to make. This wouldn't be a constant thing, only when we have an actual release date for a book. All I know is that seeing a clock slowly tick down until a book is released always made me even more excited for the release (If that's even possible ). I think the biggest problem with this would be location, I don't see a place that it would fit in well. I've always seen them on sidebars before, and that doesn't appear to be how the main page is formatted.

My other idea is the one I'm more uncertain of. I think it would be kind of neat if we could do a cosmere random fact generator. I've also seen these around and they've always seemed to be a lot of fun. This idea would be more complicated then the countdown clock though. I don't know how difficult it would be to build this. There's also the problem of getting enough random facts to use. Also, I'm not sure if we could find enough random facts that people would actually be interested in. If no one ever uses it, it would just be a waste of time. I guess it would really depend on interest in it. What does everyone think about this? Unfeasible or what?

[Joe ST he/him]

If there were space for widgets and such-like, and we had a table of facts stored somewhere, it would be fairly easy to implement either or both of those.

The best place for the countdown clocks might actually be in the news item related to the release, and/or maybe a thread on the forums (or a page on the site) dedicated to all the release-dates. I hear that there might be a 'library' section coming to the site possibly in the future, so it might be a good idea to put the release dates on those pages too, prior to the arrival of the book.

The facts thing could be a bookmarklet or another site which offers a javascript widget. I like the idea of a daily fact(oid)

[Zas678 he/him]

Oh trust me, there's tons of random Brandon facts out there.

Like these ones:

How many books did Brandon write before Elantris was sold?

How many Brandon Sanderson books had Harriet read before deciding "He's the one"?

Then there's tons of little details/tiny reveals that Brandon's made.

Like this one:

What's another name for Clod? (in Warbreaker)

Arsteel

What does the x in Aon Mea represent?

Where does the notion of a "safehand" come from?

What book is the Shattered Plains originally from?

That's off the top of my head. I bet I could pick up a lot more if I did a little research.

[Windrunner he/him]

That's true. I've heard you guys did some pretty tough trivia in the past so I guess it wouldn't be that hard to do. How feasible are these things, and do you think there'd be community interest?

[Chaos he/him]

A countdown clock will be very doable when our site refresh hits in May/June. There will be some perfect spots for a countdown clock. Additionally I intend to use our Calendar feature more so we have all of Brandon's events there.

The trivia generator would take more coding, but also possible. I still have my list of trivia questions from the Alloy of Law release

[Kurkistan he/him]

Also, it would be nice if someone could alter the code on the login page so that the cursor starts out in the username box. Right now you have to tab 20 times or use the mouse in order to enter your username.

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

The problem with a fact generator is that some facts are also spoilers. That could be dealt with, of course, but it's something to keep in mind.

Also, a quote generator would be awesome as well. There are some spoilers in those too, but there would be fewer.

EDIT: Also, I'm in full support of the countdown clock. Countdown clocks are awesome!

Edited April 20, 2012 by Sir Read-a-Lot