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Gun friendly/un-friendly business directory

h2ojunkie

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Sep 8, 2007
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Like many of you, I like to speak with my wallet to help support our rights.

I support those businesses that are gun friendly, and I don't support those that are not gun friendly.

I was thinking it would be a cool idea to build a website/database that everyone could list businesses that are either gun friendly, or gun un-friendly. This way everyone would know what businesses to support, and which to avoid.

We could even use this information to show businesses how many customers they are losing because of their anti-gun policies, and maybe help change some of their minds with our wallets as a group.

Instead of just having another gun forum (we have plenty of those already), I was thinking maybe something where anyone could list a business in an organized directory, and their pro/anti status. Make it searchable by zip code, or city/state so everyone could find places near where you live.

And then have a system in place where users could get alerts of new business listing in their area and sign petitions that they will no longer support those anti-gun establishments. We could then forward those petitions on to the businesses along with some general information showing how law abiding gun owners are not a threat.

Who knows, maybe if we make it easy to organize our voices as one we can make a difference.

What do you guys think? Good idea, silly idea, waste of time?
 

david.ross

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May 24, 2008
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Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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yale wrote:

I don't recommending a site unless said site allows others to download the data.

1) what if the site just "disappears"
2) what if they play the "subscription game"
3) what if they start infesting the page with float over flash ads

I thought about making a directory site with a nice google maps.

A reliable site for finding friendly/un-friendly businesses still doesn't exist.
 

h2ojunkie

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I've owned lots of different websites (and still do).

Smaller sites are never a problem. When you get into large sites, ads are just a reality to keep the site online. Large sites cost thousands of dollars a month just in hosting costs. That doesn't even account for development and software costs.

However, something like a business directory is pretty simple and very low on server resources and really wouldn't cost much to keep on line.

Heck, the reason I even thought of doing one was I have more than enough resources on my current servers to put it up and essentially would cost nothing.

But, like yale said. There's no real point re-inventing the wheel.

Personally, I had invisioned something much more detailed that the site he listed. But there's no point building it if it's going to go un-used since there's already a site out there.
 

TFred

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Joined
Oct 13, 2008
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Most historic town in, Virginia, USA
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insane.kangaroo wrote:
yale wrote:
I don't recommending a site unless said site allows others to download the data.

1) what if the site just "disappears"
2) what if they play the "subscription game"
3) what if they start infesting the page with float over flash ads

I thought about making a directory site with a nice google maps.

A reliable site for finding friendly/un-friendly businesses still doesn't exist.
? You throw out three rather arbitrary and perhaps even completely unreasonable "what-if" possibilities about the future of a particular web page which completely does what it says it does, and because of that, you say that it doesn't exist? Wow, it must be nice to be the king of "Insane Kangaroo Web Land!"

Sure, it's not the greatest web site in the world, but it's worth a ton more than you pay for it!

:?

TFred
 

david.ross

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Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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TFred wrote:
? You throw out three rather arbitrary and perhaps even completely unreasonable "what-if" possibilities about the future of a particular web page which completely does what it says it does, and because of that, you say that it doesn't exist? Wow, it must be nice to be the king of "Insane Kangaroo Web Land!"
They're not unreasonable. Small sites appear, small sites disappear, this is the internet. All it takes is, "I don't want to do this anymore" and the site goes poof. Have you spent any time inputting stuff in? all the time wasted. Oh well.
 

TFred

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Oct 13, 2008
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Location
Most historic town in, Virginia, USA
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insane.kangaroo wrote:
TFred wrote:
? You throw out three rather arbitrary and perhaps even completely unreasonable "what-if" possibilities about the future of a particular web page which completely does what it says it does, and because of that, you say that it doesn't exist? Wow, it must be nice to be the king of "Insane Kangaroo Web Land!"
They're not unreasonable. Small sites appear, small sites disappear, this is the internet. All it takes is, "I don't want to do this anymore" and the site goes poof. Have you spent any time inputting stuff in? all the time wasted. Oh well.
I see your point, but that could be the case for any site, big or small. I have several unrelated web sites myself, which are very helpful to a lot of folks. They are a fairly small niche. I have occasionally considered their CONOPS (ha ha continuation of operation) if I ever decide to give them up. (Which is not likely, btw, but still these thoughts do come up). I think and would like to hope that if someone cared enough to start a web site like that, then they would at least hand it over to someone who also cared about the same sorts of interests to keep it going, should the original author decide to stop.

But that is no guarantee. I don't think any of them come with that.

TFred
 

bnkrazy

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
404
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
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insane.kangaroo wrote:
I don't recommending a site unless said site allows others to download the data.

1) what if the site just "disappears"
2) what if they play the "subscription game"
3) what if they start infesting the page with float over flash ads

I thought about making a directory site with a nice google maps.

A reliable site for finding friendly/un-friendly businesses still doesn't exist.
Sorry for being late to the party, but I haven't been in this section of the forum in a while.

I run the friendorfoe site, and while I'm sorry that it doesn't meet your requirements, others are quite happy that it exists. Regarding your worries, it won't disappear anytime soon. I'm in the web hosting / software development business, and this site is small beans compared to other sites I host.

I don't plan on ever charging for access, as this is my way of giving back to the community. I had offers from folks to build an iPhone app to access the data, which would be cool, but they wanted to charge for the app, so for now, there will be no iPhone app. Instead, I'll put together a mobile version when I get some time.

I hate ads. There is no plan to add them. Like I said, I don't even know this site exists as far as traffic and storage is concerned, so no need to worry about funding for it. If ads ever do appear, they will be unobtrusive and all proceeds will go to OCDO/VCDL/NRA etc.

Regarding downloading the data, I don't suppose you trust many sites, because I haven't seen that practice very often. Regardless, I do plan on adding another view of the data in an Excel like grid. You could search for a state/region and then get a list of all the establishments and their rating. Exporting to Excel will also be an option. Finding the time to work on it is the only issue.

Hope this clarifies the goals of the site.

Thanks again to all those that support and use it!

Chris
 

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Like many of you, I like to speak with my wallet to help support our rights.

I support those businesses that are gun friendly, and I don't support those that are not gun friendly.

I was thinking it would be a cool idea to build a website/database that everyone could list businesses that are either gun friendly, or gun un-friendly. This way everyone would know what businesses to support, and which to avoid.

We could even use this information to show businesses how many customers they are losing because of their anti-gun policies, and maybe help change some of their minds with our wallets as a group.

Instead of just having another gun forum (we have plenty of those already), I was thinking maybe something where anyone could list a business in an organized directory, and their pro/anti status. Make it searchable by zip code, or city/state so everyone could find places near where you live.

And then have a system in place where users could get alerts of new business listing in their area and sign petitions that they will no longer support those anti-gun establishments. We could then forward those petitions on to the businesses along with some general information showing how law abiding gun owners are not a threat.

Who knows, maybe if we make it easy to organize our voices as one we can make a difference.

What do you guys think? Good idea, silly idea, waste of time?

I think it's a great idea, with the following caveats:

Back in the 1980s, I cut my newly-minted collegiate sheepskin on database design and development, then periodically kept my feet wet throughout my military career. My pride and joy was bulding a student/instructor database for a moderately-sized military school. The design requirements were fairly simple, with about 40 fields distributed in six modules, and half a dozen data entry screens and another half a dozen output formats, but it still took me three months from start to finish, and another four months to automate some of the manual processes and work out all the bugs.

Conceptually, your idea is much simpler, but unless the developer incorporates some serious data screening (such as mandatory zip code entry and confirmation of location, while disabling direct entry of the city), as well as duplicate detection and confirmation (same business name in the same zip code), then you'll wind up with a lot of errors. If someone can't explain the difference between domain key normal form and boyce-codd normal form, they're not qualified to ensure such errors wouldn't be created.

As a database designer, I wouldn't undertake this endeavor for less than $12,000. although if I had free access to a website tied to a MySQL back end, I might just do it for free in order to gain more experience as well as add to my portfolio.
 
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