[Seth M. Borland]

Hi everyone! I was wanting to know if it was possible for the sword comparison feature to get some new additions to the roster? I have seen the same stuff for a long while now and would appreciate it if more could be put into expanding the inventory to include more brands, manufacturers, sword and other weapon forms: particularly smallswords, two handed swords other than claymores and the bihanders/flammenschwerts, and more classical Greek/Roman stuff with maybe some bronze weapons thrown in since I've seen those manufactured on some sites. Thanks in advance for your replies!

Seth

[Gabriel Lebec]

Hi Seth,

Thanks for the interest. Nathan can reply if he disagrees or has anything he wants to add, but I'm pretty sure I can answer this one for you. The sword comparison tool is indeed pretty out of date and we'd all like to see it populated with newer items, but it takes a lot of time and effort on Nathan's part to program them in. Some time ago he mentioned to me that he felt "burned out" on it. Considering how much of his free time he already spends on this site, and how low a priority this tool has become (you'll note it no longer gets any obvious billing on the menu), I doubt we'll be seeing anything soon.

It's on the massive To Do list. Maybe someday.

[Chad Arnow]

To elaborate on what Gabriel said, it's a massive undertaking. Each weapons needs to have stats collected and a decent, straight-on full-length shot. Stats wouldn't be terribly tough to get but would take some time as manufacturers aren't always renowned for timeliness (assuming they're willing to help out at all). We could get stats from owners of items, but there are more items than what our readers own and collecting and compiling that data takes time. It's tough to get high-quality photographs from many makers (check their websites). We'd need to rely on makers and their customers for photos as we can't personally examine and photograph everything out there, despite the fact that we'd love to. So getting a photo of an item could be a challenge. From there, the photo has to be put on a consistent background and corrected for lighting and coloring issues in the original photo. The photo has to be sized so the weapon is the correct height. That takes time. Then the photo needs to uploaded to the site and all the stats and links put into the database.

It's a huge project that is tough to place on the shoulders of one man.

Nathan has envisioned building a massive database of swords and photos with users inputting info on items they own. The comparison tool would be integrated as a part of that project, giving people access to stats from multiple copies of the same item and having everything available that people are willing to input.

However, it goes without saying that coding the back end and a user interface would be even more time consuming than updating the current tool (though the data collected would be of more value). Of course, there would have to be a system and people in place to verify that no phony data or bad data was being entered. We have a tough enough time finding people to author reviews and articles in pre-defined formats that I think finding people to do all the entry and verification would be difficult. And that assumes Nathan has the time to do all the necessary coding to make that happen (which I'm pretty sure he doesn't).

To wrap it up, we'd all love to see the comparison tool get updated. However, it's an issue of having dozens or even hundreds of hours available to do the work. Remember also that when Nathan is working here, he's working for free. Also remember that Nathan has a job and a life that require his time and efforts, too.