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michal
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Strange question?
May 28th, 2013 at 3:17pm
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Hi guys and gals of the rockhound lounge.

My name is Michal and I am a newbie rockhound as well as a web developer. I have been helped immensely by all the information selflessly shared online and I decided I want to give back to the community. I'd like to build a free website or app and my question to all of you is: If you could create the perfect website/app for rockhounding what would it look like? What would it be able to do? What features would you like to see?

Thanks in advance for any answers, take care!
  
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dan
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #1 - May 28th, 2013 at 5:16pm
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Michal,
You may be reinventing the wheel.  There are several websites that are used internationally by rockhounders, and geologists.  Mindat comes to mind but there are others besids it.  Before some of you complain that Mindat is wrong, just realize I am pointing out a site that is commonly used.
  
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #2 - May 28th, 2013 at 6:21pm
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Hi Dan. If people complain that Mindat is wrong, that means there's room for improvement. No use reinventing the wheel, but you can always improve it if people find problems with it.
  
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #3 - May 28th, 2013 at 11:40pm
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Perhaps a mineral identification app.  Perhaps one that asks you questions about the mineral until no more can be answered and then it generates a list of possible candidates with visible examples.  Obviously, the more questions that can be answered the smaller the candidate list should become.  I haven't even searched for a mineral id app, so there may already be one out there.
  
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michal
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #4 - May 29th, 2013 at 12:58am
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Hi Scott, that's a really good idea! I checked, and there appears to be one, but judging by the reviews it is terrible.
  
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michal
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #5 - May 30th, 2013 at 5:14pm
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Scott LaBorde wrote on May 28th, 2013 at 11:40pm:
Perhaps a mineral identification app.  Perhaps one that asks you questions about the mineral until no more can be answered and then it generates a list of possible candidates with visible examples.  Obviously, the more questions that can be answered the smaller the candidate list should become.  I haven't even searched for a mineral id app, so there may already be one out there.



Here, I made a rough mock up.

You are presented with some questions and as you answer them the number of possible rocks gets fewer and fewer, until only one (or very few possibilities) remain.
http://i.imgur.com/1ZD5901.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HULiCoL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Fb3H7ag.jpg

Any suggestions, questions or comments?
  
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Raleigh Rockhound
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #6 - May 30th, 2013 at 9:48pm
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Using color as your first step in identification my lead to some issues, many minerals can come in a variety of colors making identification based on color difficult. In my opinion the steps should be as follows.

1)  Metallic or non-metallic luster
2)  Mafic or Felsic
3)  Hardness (Glass is a 5, determine if it is harder or softer)
4)  Cleavage
5)  Reaction to HCl
6)  Streak test


There are already several websites dedicated to walking people through the steps of identifying minerals, are you developing a phone app?  I saw some suggestions of other people on reddit and an interactive map with dig sites, reviews, and confirmed minerals would be cool.
  
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Re: Strange question?
Reply #7 - May 30th, 2013 at 10:18pm
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Raleigh Rockhound wrote on May 30th, 2013 at 9:48pm:
Using color as your first step in identification my lead to some issues, many minerals can come in a variety of colors making identification based on color difficult. In my opinion the steps should be as follows.

1)  Metallic or non-metallic luster
2)  Mafic or Felsic
3)  Hardness (Glass is a 5, determine if it is harder or softer)
4)  Cleavage
5)  Reaction to HCl
6)  Streak test


There are already several websites dedicated to walking people through the steps of identifying minerals, are you developing a phone app?  I saw some suggestions of other people on reddit and an interactive map with dig sites, reviews, and confirmed minerals would be cool. 


Thank you for those steps! I was going off of the suggestions on reddit when I started with a color, but then again, this is just a rough mock up.

Could you by any chance point me to some of those websites, I found a couple but they weren't very well done. I can do both a website or an app, but my main objective is to make them easy to navigate and understand especially for a newbie like myself.

I saw the suggestion for an interactive map on reddit and I might still do it, I might create a complete package, but the suggestion for an identification tool was the most upvoted one and I wanna focus on one thing at a time.

Thanks again for your help, and let me know if you got any other suggestions.
  
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