Probably a very basic question but wanted to check in with the TWW experts....

Let's say I want to have a database of places to go in Los Angeles (please note this is not what I want but it's a comparable example)...I'm going to want people to be able to add places as well as to search for them. In the simplest of examples, each place would HAVE to the following information when entered: zip code, cross streets, street name, type of place (ie, park, statue, whatever). I'd want people to be able to add a place if it doesn't already exist in the database and if it DOES exist, they would be able to 'vote' in the sense that they would recommend it. I wouldn't require people to have a login user name etc (I'm trying to make this as simple as possible) but would want to track ip addresses in an attempt to not have people recommend the same place more than once (obviously there are ways around this but I'm not worrying about that).

So my question is, would it be best to have one table with the zip and street info etc and make all those columns searchable or would I have a separate table for the zip, cross streets, type of place and then have a joined table in there?

4/7/2010 3:25:22 PM

1 table for the place and it's meta data.

1 table for users

1 table for votes (user ID + place ID)

4/7/2010 4:10:45 PM

users meaning ip addresses?

4/7/2010 4:41:08 PM

Quote :

"I wouldn't require people to have a login user name etc (I'm trying to make this as simple as possible) but would want to track ip addresses in an attempt to not have people recommend the same place more than once"

^You're the one who associated users with IP addresses ... but yes.

Note that this will cause problems for people inside of huge companies that only look like 1 IP address to the internet.

4/7/2010 4:47:32 PM

well I'm just trying to come up with a way for people to be able to make use of the site without having to go through the usual username/password BS. What other way could I do it?

4/7/2010 4:58:13 PM

^ you don't really have many options...you could require a phone number or email address (or something else that is unique), but there's not much you can do about fake entries if you're not going to bother to verify anything...even something as simple as this is more than you want to do

your best bet is to just let anyone do it who wants to...just employ a captcha or word puzzle (ex. what is 2+2?) for verification

[Edited on April 7, 2010 at 5:02 PM. Reason : .]

4/7/2010 5:01:27 PM

yeah...that would certainly slow people down...hmmmmmmmm

I mean I've done one before where it requires an email address which automatically becomes the username... then it would be:

1 table for the place and it's meta data.

1 table for users and password

1 table for votes (user ID + place ID)

4/7/2010 5:11:38 PM

you could use something like facebook connect ... let them login with a site they already have registered on, and then facebook will send you back their facebook user id (an integer value) ...

Then, you could just store the vote and tie it to that userID ... (not to mention some other great features of facebook connect that you could use at some point down the road).

I would say that either a facebook connect, or some google connect feature would be the way I would recommend doing it if you dont want them to have to register with your site specifically.

4/7/2010 11:29:44 PM

^ good suggestion...i hadn't thought of that since i've never done it, but just for the first time on monday had cause to log into my google account in order to use a website that did that

cool stuff

4/8/2010 7:53:06 AM

If it was me I would run a Joomla install with Community Builder (this takes care of database issues, user tracking, login/logout via facbook, and a host of other features/problems) and then plug that in with WebMapPlus for the mapping. Fast Forms can you all the information you need submitted into the system then you can approve or remove at will from the backend.

Lots of setup, but once completed it's really low maintenance. Joomla takes care of upgrades to modules and everything basically on it's own (really on it's own if you can setup a few CRON jobs.)

You can also run full backups as idiot repellent.

4/8/2010 11:05:51 AM