I need your help developing a Global Trip Report Database

[Kinslayer]

Hi Guys

I'm busy working on something which I thought might be of interest to Psychonaut users and the global community as a whole. It's an embeddable and multi-language trip report system, utilizing a lot of Web 2.0 technology which I felt is lacking in a lot of other trip report systems.

There's also a focus on letting the user maintain a complete and easily searchable log of all their trips, and they get to decide whether or not they want each entry to be 'public' (and hence open to viewing, rating and commenting by other people). Searches and indexing throughout the site work on substances and tags, which works a lot more effectively than just a google search for similar things. e.g. one could easily compare entries marked with 'entity' from different substances, or see which tags are most commonly used when two or more different substances are combined.

The project is not for general public use at this time. What I'm looking for now is for feedback, suggestions, ideas, and most importantly submission of "real" data (now there's mostly just the junk data i used to initially test the sight and I feel I've reached as far as I can go in adding cool stuff until I have more real data to work with). The time line is ideally 2 months of this "alpha" period, then a long running beta until the end of the year. Submissions of additional languages and requests to embed on your site (I hope one day Psychonaut.com ) should ideally wait at least until the beta period.

Anyway, you can see the site embedded in a mediawiki installation here:
http://www.entheogenwiki.org/wiki/Trip_Reports

And here's an example of how the live search works for your personal trip log (you need to sign up to try it yourself, which I recommend you doing ). (ignore the poor content and tags, which of course could be more useful like 'aliens', 'ego_loss', 'mystical', 'difficult', etc...)

Voir la pièce jointe 4348

Anyway, please let me have some feedback... I've been working on this for over 1.5 years now, as my time has allowed, and would love to see if I've taken it in the right direction. I hope for this to be the youtube of trip reports, offering you recommending viewings according to your tastes, etc, etc. And ultimately, to implement a proprietary semantic learning algorithm from a friend in biomedical informatics, to try and find previously unnoticed connections between various factors and results... but for this I'll need a lot of data

 

[Sprax]

Hi Slayer

Thought I'd contribute with a few comments. I like the idea but imo the execution is lacking.

1) I don't like the word "entheogen" given it implies a religous context. While many see such a context, many don't. I for one think psychedelics are fascinating from a scientific perspective and in some sense they have a spiritual dimention to them, but they don't bring me closer to god - at least not yet. Suggestion: use "psychedelic", since it's more neutral.

2) The design is far too messy. The site needs a coherent structure.

3) Not so sure about the psychedelic imagery, scares people who aren't already initiated.

4) Some of those images have been taken from the web, eh?

 

[Guest]

5) Why do you want to create a website about TR from scratch when something as good as Erowid is already out there? Your tag-idea is fine, but why not ask the Erowid staff about implementing such a system into their own website? They're always looking for help.

 

[Sprax]

Good point Tiax.

You can get a copy of the Erowid website if you need something to work with. Just ask them nicely.

 

[Kinslayer]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the quick feedback.

1) I don't like the word "entheogen" given it implies a religous context. While many see such a context, many don't. I for one think psychedelics are fascinating from a scientific perspective and in some sense they have a spiritual dimention to them, but they don't bring me closer to god - at least not yet. Suggestion: use "psychedelic", since it's more neutral.

You can ignore all the EntheogenWiki stuff... it's a seperate website. There the intention really is to have a spiritual context. But anyways, let's focus specifically on the Trip Report system, which could appear inside any website (and I guess eventually could be skinnable by the referring website). The most neutral word I could think of was 'Additive', which isn't great but does cover e.g. chemicals, plants, fungi, etc. Not everything has to be psychedelic.

2) The design is far too messy. The site needs a coherent structure.

That's fair feedback... do you have any suggestions though? Again, I'm still busy developing the site, so a lot of things are still messy and unfinished... would love to have more user feedback to improve usability.

3) Not so sure about the psychedelic imagery, scares people who aren't already initiated.

Ultimately it will be skinnable by the hosting site... I guess I could provide some toned down themes

4) Some of those images have been taken from the web, eh?

Yeah, there are credits for the background pic in the graphs in the about page (still unfinished). Otherwise yeah the icons are mostly stuff I plucked from the web and added the glow. I hope by the final launch we can have some original artwork, although I do like the background graph pic and it's in the public domain.

5) Why do you want to create a website about TR from scratch when something as good as Erowid is already out there? Your tag-idea is fine, but why not ask the Erowid staff about implementing such a system into their own website? They're always looking for help.

Well, while I do think tags would be a great addition to Erowid, I think the two systems have different goals. Erowid is looking for stuff for publication... you submit your report and a few months later their review team puts it up if it's what they're looking for. The main differences in my mind are:

a) Reports go up instantly and are rated and commented on by everyone. This of course has both advantages and disadvantages.

b) Since reports can also be private, it's great to keep a total log of all your own experiences, that is quickly searchable. You could also go back in the future, do more editing, and publish if you want. But it's great to have everything all in one place.

I do think I'm focusing on unmet needs, because, if Erowid answered everyone, then why do so many other sites (including this one) have their own trip report section/forum, etc?

Erowid is more publication focused, whereas I'm looking at something more user and community focused. It might even be fun (still not sure if it's a good idea or not) to see which site's users are submitting the most and/or the highest rated trip reports, and encourage some friendly competition but definitely something youtube'ish which could offer personalized recommendations, etc.

Anyways, thanks for all the constructive feedback, it's exactly what I'm looking for. Ideas and suggestions are more than welcome. Sorry for the long post

P.S. I guess maybe I wasn't clear enough in my original post. When I said the system was embeddable, I meant in other websites. It's designed so that 2 mins of work gives the site's users complete access to the system, without the need to login or register again. Usernames by default are displayed as e.g. Kinslayer@Psychonaut, depending on their individual privacy settings.

 

[BrainEater]

so you sort of want to googlearize that function??

 

[_Avatar_]

I personally don't like the Trip Report phenomenon.

The trip reports that stand out are usually those where people have very externalized trips: going to amusement parks, to parties and so on, or where one or more participants panicked or went nuts. Other trip reports that stand out are lengthy ones, written by people who have too much time on their hands.

Internet trip reports rarely discuss private or personal issues. Most trip reports I've seen are on the level of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: wild and amusing, but lacking emotional, psychological and spiritual depth.

It happens that people start writing (or recording) their trip reports while still undergoing the experience. Though everyone is free to do what they want, I don't think this should be encouraged.

I think it's fine and even valuable to write down certain insights the evening or day after a trip (and a sitter might want to take notes while the person is still tripping), but it must be done for long term retention and integration of the experience, not to amuse an audience.

But that's just my opinion.