Frequently Asked Questions
Table of contents:
What is Melative?
Melative is a web-application/service which focuses on media (and media contexts). It provides an interface for users to catalog their experiences, interact with titles, and find other users with similar interests. For developers, the API allows a simplistic, RESTful interface to meta-information resources on media-titles, creators, and more.
There are many (possibly too many) features and interaction possibilities built into the API, and we are striving to provide interesting new ways in which users may express themselves when it comes to the media they enjoy. Some of the current features include:
- Associations - or categorized URL sharing or bookmarking on titles
- Tags - organized tagging of titles
- Experience - logging states of interaction with titles
- Reflections - or organized journal or notes on titles
- Relativity - a dynamic rating system for titles of a given media
- Recommendations - about a title
- Suggestions - of titles from users, to users, or on other titles
- The Stream - a contextual-microblog/activity stream about media, creator, or character contexts.
Why would I use Melative?
Melative can index every form of media, therefore it is one, single place, in which a user can catalog, reflect, and discover titles from every major media faction (see blog). Also, the features such as Reflections, Associations, Tags, Recommendations, Suggestions, and dynamic rating make interaction with media much more comprehensive.
Though the feature-set is not extremely large, it is a progressive development and suggestions are highly welcome.
What are the available user levels on Melative?
Aside from administrative user levels, there are 3 levels: user, editor, moderator. Verified users are first in the system as default, but this does not allow inserting new media. Editors and Moderators are able to insert media and modify meta-data, such as Details, Production, Description, etc. such that the variation will be immediately visible.
If you would like to help by being an Editor or Moderator, please e-mail support@melative.com.
My user level does not seem to have changed?
If you have recently been given a user-level change, it is necessary to logout and re-login before the change will take effect.
How do I add a title?
Inserting a new title requires a minimum of 2 fields, Type and Title. Currently, you must be above the default user level to add new titles. If you navigate to a title page which does not exist, there will be information on how to add the title, so long as the user-level allows.
When adding a new title, please be sure to check for synonymous titles in the database, and if an alias exists, please create an alias, rather than a new title. If you need assistance with this, reply to @RyanA in the stream.
What is Experience?
Experience is the user's catalog of titles in which they have 'experienced' in some way or another. The current experience states are:
- complete
- planned
- current - among titles currently being experienced
- started
- paused
- resumed
- hold
- subscribed - for blog, periodical types
- wishlisted
- marathon
- backlog
- dropped
- unknown
Why would I use Experience?
Experience is the method of adding titles to your library. Technically, all features may be used without logging experience, but the experience library ties them together in an aggregate view.
How do I add titles to my Experience, or catalog?
The most straight-forward method is to intially set an experience state on a title's page. Afterwards, experience may be changed from the /experience dashboard.
The most fluid method of adding experience, is by talking about a title in the stream, what we call textual scrobbling. Use the 'Show Help' section and 'Find Title' to get the formatting correct.
What are Reflections?
Reflections are similar to blogs and journals, but taken with a mini approach. Unlike general blogs, melative reflections are directed at specific pieces of media. A reflection can be as large as a review or as small as a thought, it is all about how you feel...
What do 'basis' and 'range' mean?
Basis and range are generalized fields which allow titles from any given media to be pieced or iterated. Basis is the type of section, for books it could be chapters, for television series, episodes, etc. Range is the index of the Basis, meaning the given episode or chapter number, it could also be a text field such as a DVD section title of a film (possibly the scene).
The combination of basis-range is internally known as a 'segment'. Nearly every type of media has segmentation (tracks, episodes, acts, arcs, seasons, etc), so we feel it is a good way to break-down experience just a little further.
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