so what is the point of a bodybuilding reference site
- everyone wants to be remembered. these athletes worked hard to compete, and would like their hard work acknowledged
- many fans have a favorite time for bodybuilding, have a favorite bodybuilder of the past. this helps them discover new things about them
- some new bodybuilder may break out upon the national/international scene. the database may show how they got there.
- my database is a true relational database, meaning it is cross reference. Look up all the years of a contest, or look up all the contests of an individual. Click on a contest, see everyone who participated, click on an individual in that contest, see all the other contests they've been in, click on one of those contests, see who they competed against. Official websites of the orgs allow you to see results of recent contests, but no cross referencing, and certainly no referencing of competing orgs.
Some things that have come about in part because of my website:
- people are more honest about their contest history. In the very early days, I got a few emails from people (such as hiring managers) saying "this guy claims on his resume he was Mr America, but you don't list him. what do you think?" Many people (personal trainers, etc) would claim they won some contest, when in fact they won their class.
- orgs have pretty much given up on "banning athletes for appearing in other orgs". yes the database made it easier to find such org cross-overs, but that made it hard to selectively enforce, as the banned athlete could say "well you let this guy compete". and if they actually did ban all such athletes, they'd run out of top athletes.
One thing I don't do with my database is include all the results of some event. My site is a bodybuilding database. I don't include non-bodybuilding divisions. That includes bikini, model search, fitness, etc. Basically if you don't do a double bicep pose, I don't include it in the database. I also don't include novice and junior when junior means in between novice and open. I also don't include the lower teen divisions when they have multiple teen age classes.
Things I'd like to do with the database:
more contests. I'm missing huge amounts. I'm pretty sure I'll never find any more AAU results, as all those organizers and officials are dead, and any results they might have archived in their basements got thrown out.
Of current contests, I'm missing huge sections of the US. Some state NPC orgs were really good at posting results on their website, but are doing it less and less. States like Florida never posted their state level stuff online.
If I had the time and money, I would continue with my vintage magazine table of contents database. It currently has the table of contents for every magazine I own from the 1930s into 1970s. You can search it by athlete, author, and title. but in the 70s the mags became too colorful, and OCR readers don't work well on them.
If I had lots of time and money, I'd scan every page of every mag I own into pdf files. That way you could flip through a 1947 Ironman online.
Anyone want to sponsor these projects?
