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Post by Matthew Kurth on Dec 5, 2012 1:18:55 GMT
Clearly, the number one issue faced as a fandom when it comes to recovery is that of awareness. This is played out by the way that posters come back time and again here with the notion of collectors who don't know they possess the only copy of a given episode.
This got me to thinking tonight: Let's say I have an uncle who's moving to a nursing home and I've been charged with cleaning out his attic. Let's also say he's a film collector and a sci-fi buff and I'm not. I find boxes of film cans/reels which have labels on them.
In this situation, the very first thing I'm likely to do is pull out my smartphone and throw a couple of titles into Google to see what comes up.
If I type in 'Power of the Daleks' it takes me right to the Wikipedia article about it. This isn't too bad, although I have to read half the article before I learn that the story is missing.
But if I type in 'Five Hundred Eyes', the second and third hits lead to the Loose Cannon reconstruction. If I'm a non-fan, I'm going to see those links and erroneously conclude that everyone and their brother must already have this since it's up on YouTube.
With that in mind, I think there is an area of opportunity here. Are there things that could be done to improve search engine optimization for the missing episode titles?
Ideally, if I typed in 'Small Prophet Quick Return' one of the top hits would have a simple and attention-grabbing description within Google like: This is a missing episode of Doctor Who.
Speaking of Wikipedia, do all the Hartnell serials have articles for each episode title which redirects to the main story page? If not, might that be beneficial? Again, if I'm not a fan I'm not going to see 'Four Hundred Dawns' and think "Oh, I should look up 'Galaxy 4!'"
Anyway, I'm just trying to brainstorm along a path I haven't seen a lot of discussion about which might cut through the clutter for anyone who finds material and isn't going to do more than a minute or two of research, because no amount of advertisement is likely to reach them at the moment when it matters.
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Post by Brad Phipps on Dec 5, 2012 7:42:33 GMT
You would probably have to strike a deal with Google etc to have something prominent show up on a search. Otherwise it just goes for dominance (usually Wikipedia .
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Post by Matthew Kurth on Dec 5, 2012 14:50:39 GMT
You would probably have to strike a deal with Google etc to have something prominent show up on a search. Could this be a possible use of funds rather than finders' bounties -- donations used to buy sponsored links? That wasn't quite what I was originally thinking, but just to kick the idea around... Otherwise it just goes for dominance (usually Wikipedia). Well, dominance is one part of it but I've always understood that another component is also relevancy -- proper usage of keywords and meta tags in the linked article which helps to identify the content to the search engine. If a DailyMotion video has a higher page rank than Wikipedia for individual episode titles, this suggests to me that other articles don't feature said titles with enough prominence. This may be harder to influence with places like Wikipedia since it's more than just DW, but perhaps purpose-made sites like the Doctor Who Guide or BroaDWcast could be tweaked somehow to improve their relevancy to these searches.
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Post by Greg H on Dec 5, 2012 15:42:32 GMT
It is a good point. SEO is a science in itself and one in which the goal posts are regularly moved. Effective SEO would indeed be a good way to get more publicity for the cause, although it does take some degree of knowledge to make it an effective strategy.
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Post by Mark Vanderlinde-Abernathy on Dec 5, 2012 17:46:09 GMT
I've posed the question on the Doctor Who Missing Episodes wiki talkpage about possibly editing the first sentence of every incomplete serial with a phrase that will pop out in a Google results. I'm hoping that editors agree to put in something like "Power of the Daleks is a currently missing serial of the fourth season .... blah blah blah"
That way when someone Googles or goes directly to the wikipage and they have a canister in their hand ... they know right off the bat it's missing.
P.S. I realize wikipedia is a "edit yourself" encyclopedia. But I don't want to edit the pages of 27 serials and have them all reverted because the wikipedia folks didn't like it. Hence why I'm posing the question in their talk pages first.
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Post by Dave Green on Dec 5, 2012 19:11:59 GMT
Paying into a fund for google ad-words or something simular is a good idea but would eat a lot of money. I think the edit Wikipedia pages is a better one as Wikipedia is a trusted source for a lot of people. Good ideas tho!
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Post by Mark Vanderlinde-Abernathy on Dec 5, 2012 20:37:20 GMT
On that note, the Tardis Wiki pages also show up pretty high in Google lists. If there's an attempt to edit those pages as well so that the first paragraph (even the first line) made a mention it would be wonderful.
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Post by Greg H on Dec 5, 2012 21:10:50 GMT
I do believe that different search engines handle web pages differently in terms of analysis and rankings so anyone attempting SEO on who related pages might want to research this factor for good measure and to yield the maximum benefit.
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Post by Dave Green on Dec 13, 2012 6:07:18 GMT
Thinking about this a bit more. If someone had discovered a lot of film cans they knew nothing about, they would most likely put the text on the can into Google for more info. Whilst we've already spoken about searching on titles, would they not also search on the other codes e.g. BBC Enterprises code or production code etc. Is there such a site that lists information likely to be displayed on each missing film can? Having just Google image searched "doctor who film can". I can see a can with the details "ABC Television", "Dr Who", "Assassin At Pekin", Cat No "B-271-2c" etc. Surely if someone had discovered this can they might be entering "abc dr who Assassin at pekin b-271-2c" into the search box. Having just entered that search, nothing stands out that this can is missing from the BBC. Now I do understand that if there's not such a site (I can't find one) then gathering such information could be a nightmare. Having said that, this forum has a lot of skilled people on it, capable of gathering this information. One for Brad or Jon perhaps? On a final note, is it worth it? I think so, as discussed above, if entering such information allows someone to come across a site which starts with "This is missing from the BBC, please contact ..." I think more finds may be possible. OK, one more note Would it be high up on the Google listings? I also think it would as Google tries to provide search results that are most relevant to what's entered. Obviously if the owner entered "Assassin At Pekin" then this site would not be featured at all in the results, but that's a job for editing Wikipedia as meantioned in another thread. Over to you ...
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Post by Jon Preddle on Dec 13, 2012 7:19:40 GMT
Having just Google image searched "doctor who film can". I can see a can with the details "ABC Television", "Dr Who", "Assassin At Pekin", Cat No "B-271-2c" etc. Surely if someone had discovered this can they might be entering "abc dr who Assassin at pekin b-271-2c" into the search box. Having just entered that search, nothing stands out that this can is missing from the BBC. The problem with this idea -- although a good one! -- is that there was no uniformity to the way the BBC marked and labelled their film cans over the years; as it happens, the B271-20 example you mention is the NZBC catalogue number, which is meaningless outside New Zealand! And there was no uniformity to the NZ labels either! And each of the other foreign countries that once had DW would have had their own way of labelling the cans. The only sure thing that the labels (that of the BBC or a foreign TV station) will have on them is "Dr Who", the episode name, or story title and episode number, possibly the BBC production code, with the duration in minutes and seconds (which are often at a slight variance to the "official" durations you see published in guide books, etc) and the length in feet (usually 900+). (The Ice Warriors labels were uploaded to a thread here a few months back, but here's another link to them: gallifreybase.com/w/index.php/The_Ice_Warriors ...) Compiling a google searchable data base capturing this data would be very difficult.
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Post by George D on Dec 13, 2012 13:38:50 GMT
In this internet age I think its vital to have the wikis (and any other pages possible) starting with comment about the status and who to contact if you have one. Even if it is doesnt show up on the first page if it shows up on Googles first page its an important step in the right direction.
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Post by Dave Green on Dec 14, 2012 11:51:32 GMT
Compiling a google searchable data base capturing this data would be very difficult. I completely agree, having said that a database could be compiled using the cans already recovered as indicators for what others are likely to have on them. It's a long shot but if someone had access to employee details at the time and could work out what film engineers were likely to do which duplicates from each company, then by looking at existing cans we could see what structure each engineer normally uses. Very long shot I know but there is a lot of information out there if we can only find what's relevant.
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Post by Steven Sigel on Dec 14, 2012 15:17:48 GMT
Pet Peeve -- a film can is just that, a CAN for holding a reel (or spool) of film (aka a film print). We need to find the actual prints, not the cans....
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Post by Mark Vanderlinde-Abernathy on Dec 15, 2012 3:47:27 GMT
I have edited the first line and paragraph of wikipages for serials Marco Polo through Power of the Daleks.
Example:
The Myth Makers is the completely missing second serial of the third season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who [...] Although audio recordings and clips of the story exist, no episodes of this serial are known to have survived.
The Daleks' Master Plan is the partly missing third serial of the third season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. [...] Only three of the twelve episodes are held in the BBC archives; nine remain missing.
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Post by Mark Vanderlinde-Abernathy on Dec 15, 2012 3:48:48 GMT
How to get Google, which often puts these pages at the top of their search, to read the new paragraphs is something I'll look into.
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