Worldwide Virtual Stamp Collection

Imagine if there one website where collectors contributed their completed Steiner pages to create a worldwide reference collection.

Maybe it already exists!

Don, could stampsmarter host something like this?

Dr Chang did something akin to this with his own material.

http://www.worldstampalbum.com/main.aspx

Quite an impressive collection there.

There still is the challenge of 'completed' pages.

Yes, it is an impressive collection.

I would think the most complete page available would be used until a complete one is available.

You'd be restricted doing it on a communal basis because people don't use the same pages.

Yes, this could be a Community Project in Stamp Smarter. I would be willing to establish the database, upload/edit forms, and public webpages to present the pages. The public webpages would not be in the Stein design/layout but rather dynamically generated based upon the stamps loaded into the database. The public webpages would, of course, support searching/filtering/lookup capabilities.

With the hosting and software taken care of, the project would need a few people to be 'Admins' and 'Editors'. 'Editors' would be people who have accounts which could add/edit the stamp images and stamp data. 'Admins' would be people who could also delete stamps and manage those who are 'Editors'.
Don

Edit; To emulate every single Steiner webpage means that there would need to be a single webpage for every Steiner page. That would require hundreds of thousands of webpages to be coded. This would take an army of coders/developers and beyond anything I would tackle by myself.

Just seeing Dr. Cheng's bookcase is fun to look at :) I like how the pages are presented. Very true about completed pages. The off white color of the specialty pages is pleasing. Would bright white be as nice?

It remembers me of Catawiki. It was run by extremely dominant people who used a CD and other than that had no idea about the stamps. I stopped contributing. Constant bickering. Eventually, the catalogue split off from the auction site. Now it is Last Dodo. Still the same mess. A lot of garbage and nonsense posted.

It iis a prime example of a good idea can degenerate.

You might consider the following:
* Will you keep to the pure American (and Scott-followers) 'semi postals' that is considered an absolute nonsense category in Europe.
* Will you keep series together or will you keep to issue dates.
* Will you add - as Steiner does - Scott numbers, or will you add other numbers? Much of the world does not know Scott numbers.
* Will you allow damaged stamps. What will you do with 'better' examples. What constitutes a better example.
* Will you add varieties.
* Will you add specialised items.
* Will you add postal history
* Will you allow stock pictures.

A lot to consider. It can be a very good project. But it can also become a big disaster.

I have done over 25 similar online community projects and am quite familiar with the pros and cons. The biggest challenge is finding people who are willing to do more than offer opinions and will actually put in the time and effort; I would not consider starting a project like this unless there was this kind of commitment.

And I also already dealt with many of the DB, data entry, and other 'crowd source' challenges so I do not really have many concerns about those. (I would not be offering my help if I didn't think it feasible.)
Don

For Germany up to 1945, a lot of the basic (IOW, non-specialized) data is already done on the German Wikipedia here.

This thread started out asking about showing a compendium of completed Steiner pages. That's completely different than creating another database of stamp images.

Unless I'm misreading the OP.

A DB of existing Steiner pages would be the same DB/software architecture but the inclusion 'policies' would be infinitely more complex (unfeasible?). Since that approach seemed nightmarish to me, I offered a stamp-level solution instead.
Don

There's something about a completed page.

(Assuming Steiner and Scott played along) I'd assume angore was thinking of a way to upload a pdf of a person's completed page(s), which would join in with the other participants' completed pages, eventually coming close to a "complete" Steiner.

Limiting the effort to Steiner pages solves a couple of NSK's questions, but there are a number of other issues raised that would need to be resolved, too.

I'm not a Steiner user, so I don't find this project essential. I understand why Steiner users might find this interesting.

The better option all round.
The only problem I see with a stamp level option,
is numeration of the stamps.

No semi Postals, No Air etc...count me out.

"What color is GB #2?"

That's silly, the colour of the image under GB2

That's why (In my opinion) keeping a spreadsheet is labour intensive
Images speak volumes.