INTERACTION

I'd like to announce a research project of mine that uses Interzone stories as one use case: http://skipforward.opendfki.de/wiki/UseCaseInterzone

Skipforward is a distributed recommendation system that supports formalizing opinions about item features. For the Interzone use case, items are stories printed in the Interzone magazine, and their features are genre information, reviews, and a selection of tropes extracted from TVTropes.org. Every user of the system is free to add new items and statements about existing items to the system. Naturally, opinions may differ between users. Skipforward correlates statements of different users and bases its recommendations on that.

What's in it for Interzone readers?

You can...

* write and browse story reviews
* assign tropes to stories TV Tropes-style ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... ForeverWar )
* discuss trope annotations
* find similar stories based on trope annotations (as seen on Item pages)
* find stories based on their general review ratings, with ratings by people who agree with you weighted higher (Amazon recommendation style)
* find stories fitting to some specific trope profile (e.g., fast-paced stories involving time machines - see Search)
* find users with similar taste concerning a specific feature type (as seen on Feature Type pages)
* annotate stories quickly using annotation recommendations (i.e., requests for feature type statements that improve other recommendations - as seen on Item pages)

Note the system is open source and you can easily download a dump of the data you entered in the system. Skipforward is a research prototype and as such work in progress.

More information including a screencast can be found on the following page:
http://skipforward.opendfki.de/wiki/UseCaseInterzone

So far I added all stories starting with Interzone 216 to the database.

I'm just leaving for Fantasycon MK so I'll have a look after. Thanks all the same.

I've had a look at your screencast video now MK and it looks pretty cool. Do you want other people to add stories? Authors could add their own for instance but leave the reviews to others. I'll add a post on our facebook page as well when I have a chance.

Are you developing the Skipforward system using Interzone as an example or are there lots other entries for music and books etc I'm not aware of?

For my work, it'd be cool to have about 10 Interzone readers (as always, the more the better) helping with adding/annotating Interzone stories, but people that add any other books they read are welcome as well.

Concerning other item types - in theory, I could import most information of TVTropes.org (~20.000 movies/games/...), but the system will not handle that amount of data well. I'll see what I can do though as this would be quite a feat.
At the moment, apart from the Interzone stories, Skipforward has information about a few books I read, and a quite large board game database a colleague of mine built some time ago (see for example http://tinyurl.com/42m8g3x ).

Any takers MK?

I added reviews and some annotations for Interzone 236, I'll try to be quicker with Interzone 237 as soon as it has arrived .

I'm still looking for other Interzone readers to help with adding reviews and annotations, both for Interzone stories and other SciFi/fantasy books.

The Skipforward web interface has been updated (reviews are more prominent; there are "I like this" buttons for Items that adjust saved searches accordingly). Some more updates are planned (custom RSS feeds for Reviews, etc.).

I've posted an item about this on the TTA website. For TTA authors it may present a good publicity opportunity. I'm not asking authors to rate their own stories but if you enter the data others may add their own comments good or bad.
Readers can enter stories as well or comment on those already there.
Post any problems you find here so the developers can see them and try to fix them.
You can contact the developers via me or via an e mail on the Skipforward webite. Roy

Thanks a lot for the news item! I'll set up a common account for authors.

Some updates re Skipforward: All stories up to the last issue have been added. There have been a lot of minor changes (UI improvements etc.) as well as major changes (there is additional functionality for recommending possibly applicable tropes for new stories now - be aware this requires write permissions so it's not visible from the read-only demo account).

Oh, did I mention that all Skipforward data is available via Linked Data APIs as well? So Interzone is now part of the Linked Data Cloud, along with the BBC, Wikipedia/DBpedia, Flickr, Audioscrobbler, etc.!

Where is Strossy when you need him?

Malte has set up a common account for Interzone authors. If you want access you can e mail me roy (at) ttapress (dot) com and I'll send details. Malte also wrote 'I'll try adding automated "create user" functionality which might lower the perceived barrier to using SkipForward a bit.'

Anyone looked at this, had try yet.