All the offers to help out are much appreciated ...
Exactly right on the Wikipedia idea .. Its a huge success with many people editing and contributing .. so worth copying success.
In early talks about OpenChecklist the Wikipedia model was discussed a few times. Some of the guys from Sports Card Sherriff got impatient and launched a standard wikipedia site but rebranded to "Sportscardpedia"
www.sportscardpedia.orgexcept for a few die hards, it hasn't taken off at all - and some think there is little content on OpenChecklist
The current design is: (with a few concepts to borrow from Wikipedia)
All checklist type data in OpenChecklist (anything = Manufacturer/Brand/Player/Set/Card/Team/Card-Player-Team Links/ and images) can be modified by anyone via the web -
some users will be "trusted" and their updates will immediately go in (with a history to back out if an error is made) updates from everyone else have to be accepted or rejected by OpenChecklist admins... a group sort of like the team of board moderators on this site will be created to do this.
For larger sets, there should be the ability to import a spreadsheet of text file (as long as the fields delimited are in the right order) to count as an update.
with the functionality and dedicated the holes start filling in .. and the site will grow in directions the audience will want it to.
now .. if only I can win the lottery, quit the day job and find time to program in the features. I have been derailed by winter flu season the last few weeks and been sleeping a lot - can't concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes ... but my health is turning around .. so keep posted and keep up the feedback.
-Jim