cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14934313

Hello Lemmings.

I will be attempting to make a federated anime tracker this summer, but I am not quite sure what features people would want and how I would get the details for animes, mangas, etc.

For the latter: What I thought was to either scrape other anime websites continuosly in the background, but this most likely is against the ToS of every anime tracking website, such as AniList or MAL. (I actually asked anidb.net for special access to their DB because apparently you can request access to it, but I’ve been left on read by the two staff members) My second idea was to make it an anime tracker website where animes are only user-submitted. And the user submissions would be approved by assigned moderators. However, I think this would be quite inconvenient. I’d like to get your opinions and/or ideas for this.

For the former: So if you have any requests or suggestions, please drop it down in the comments section.

Thanks in advance.

  • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    You can probably fork bookwyrm or another related platform. Might help you out to get started on the activity hub integration and functionality.

    • asudox@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      That won’t do. Bookwyrm is written in Python, while mine will be written in Rust. I also just planned things out and seems like this federated anime tracker will have to wait a few years or release itself as a generic audiovisual content tracker. The thing is, I can’t seem to find a source for the animes and mangas, I might consider scraping but it’s somewhat risky and takes a lot of time. I considered making an open source database for all anime related things. This federated anime tracker then would get dumps of that database daily and work that way. I only found vndb which gave dumps of their database, but MyAnimeList, AniList, aniDB etc don’t seem to give dumps of their databases.

      • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Whatever you want GL! It’s just a starting point. They used Django/python but whatever makes you happy.

        Most of these kinds of projects die on the vine so I was hoping by starting from something that already exists its more likely to succeed.

  • Margot Robbie@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    To me, the biggest advantage of a federated tracker like this is the ability to self host without relying on any centralized service, so in no particular order

    1. A community maintained repository based database system, so when someone initiate an instance of your tracker, it starts off completely empty, and then the admin can pull from a “seasonal anime” repo for the tracker to track seasonal animes, an “anime movie” repo, a “j-drama” repo " a “Hollywood movies” repo or any combination of the above, or pull from an URL for a custom tracking list.

    2. Local/global average rating/rating distribution.

    3. Some kind of upvote system for reviews to discourage short, low effort reviews that plagued Letterbox. Lemmy’s “active/hot” sorting algorithm is pretty good and you may be able to use just that.

    4. User created lists and also the ability to share them publicly or privately.

    • asudox@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Unfortunately, this tracker will need to rely on centralized databases such as MAL, anidb and anilist as I can’t really seem to find an easy way to curate new animes without them.

      1. I am not very sure about this point honestly, as previously discussed in this thread, having a database that is only maintained by the community has its own disadvantages that definitely outweight its advantages. For example, you would need constant moderator approval, which is slow.

      2. I am not sure what you mean by the ability to share them privately. Do you mean like whitelisting certain people that can view your animelist? Like how MAL has a friends only thing?