1.1 Genesis
Editor’s Note: BuckeyePlanet was ‘opened’ on May 11th, 2003. The following letter/post was written by the site founder (Clarity) shortly after BuckeyePlanet became a living breathing entity. It details the main points in the creation of BuckeyePlanet and its’ main goals.
What this is, what it will be. Some Q's answered.
What this is, what it will be. Some Q's answered.
For about 2 years, perhaps a little longer, I've had a picture in the back of my head of a resource that I want as an
OSU fan. I get a lot out of the existing communities, and really what I wanted was something to compliment the news, info and opinion you can get from Bucknuts, BSB/Rivals and the O-Zone.
BuckeyePlanet aims to fill two needs. Perhaps they're important to me (and some likeminded people) alone, perhaps it's something everyone will love. Only time will tell.
First and foremost, we intend to put online a statistical resource unlike any available for any I-A program. At least as it is envisioned, a tool that would allow you to queue data based on any argument you wish to present. Want to know how our RBs have fared all-time against Big 12 schools? Or who wore #13 and how they did during games in November? Or what our all time PF and PA are against Big Ten schools? The point here is that I want a tool that would effectively be a reporter's (and a fan's for that matter) wet dream. All available historical data entered and completely open to manipulation. The questions are (1) how much data is openly available, and how much does the university have, and (2) how close to that vision from a programming/back-end approach can we meet? That's all being looked into, and to some degree being worked on. Worst case scenario is that we have in some sort of semi-dynamic format, all the stats fit to present. Either way, it's something that's not out there, at least not the degree I want.
Secondly, I like player opinion and perspective. As nice as it is to hear what a Mark Rea, John Porentas or Dave Biddle thinks (and I respect them all and what they bring to the table), I really want to know what this player or that player has to say on a different subject. We already have interest from a few guys on the football and basketball teams, and we're in the process of touching base with the university NCAA compliance office to make absolute certain that their voluntary and uncompensated participation won't be a problem. We will also make an effort to touch base with the coaching staff about the same issue, either directly, or through the interested players. Either way you look at it, as a fan, I get excited about the prospect of player "diaries" or articles. Opinion and perspective from the people who actually take the field.
About 18 months ago, I started talking with a few other folks on Bucknuts about this, and found a few people equally interested and excited about a project like this. Not much moved on it because of an unfortunate event my server suffered, coupled with external obligations many of us had. But a month or two ago now, things picked up again, and here we are. The forum is up and running because that's easy, and it gives us the foundation to build the rest around. The rest will come, I can't say when for sure, because some of that (programming for example – anyone with free time good at web programming?) is out of my hands. But it will come.
I don't have any grand plans for the site, I just really want access to the tools. I don't have any grand plans for the forums, I just felt like I wouldn't hate to have another place to talk that afforded a slightly different philosophy and approach than some of the venues already out there. It's very important in my opinion to point out that in no way is this site being pointed in a direction where it means to compete with what's already out there, rather it's meant to complement all of that, and offer a whole new angle.
I consider this a community project of sorts, so anyone interested in participating in any way you can imagine (from programming to simply helping build and moderate one of the forum communities), I'd love to hear from you.
Those who have been "in the loop" with my thoughts on this for some time now. Thanks for all the patience, we're going to see this through.
Linear Mode
