Empress day, the past, the present and the future

Day 4,769, 06:23 • Published in Japan Belgium • by sto kila bazuki

Hello there

As you might be aware or you might not be aware empress day event has been running for quite a while, in fact it has been running for over 10 years. Me and Nanashi kept the event alive for something like 5 years. During event's long run quite a lot things have changed. This small change will likely bring good things for the event.
I can proudly present that the event has its own website now. empressday.epizy.com
Now here I will talk about the problems that is trying to solve and the problems that will appear.

First I guess I'll start with empress day wall. During the event's long run it has grown quite a lot, enough that at one point it required for the image to be split in two. Well at certain point the image(s) will grow so much that we will have trouble with uploading the file itself to hosting site, file is so big that there is delay when the image is being downloaded (might not even download, time out on cases with slow internet) and the fact that the image(s) will occupy the majority of the article, making it long to scroll down to the comments or overshadowing other details in the article. Having it elsewhere allows for the article to be less cluttered and for dynamic update of the entries (unlike current, static). Besides empress wall now there is also royal ambassador wall, since graphics are created for them also why not use them. I think it is neat feature to check former winners.
Being in this format also allows for users to check if some characters were already nominated in the past by using CTRL+F.
Graphics for empress wall used to be compressed to certain resolution and then further compressed by erepublik for viewing. Now you can enjoy them in their full glory. Well if you visited the site you also might have noticed some weird images, I really wanted to keep them for nostalgic reasons and to reduce the time it takes to get the database populated.


It takes a lot of time create the graphics for quite a lot of entries, will explain below why I had to create the graphics again. Each and every image that was salvaged from old article has its own unique charm, it portrays the style of the one that created it and the time when it was created. It is like finding a time capsule.
Currently what exists on the internet may look like is eternal but not really, a lot resources and services disappear day by day and what was once on the internet may disappear one day. Well that is what exactly happened to some graphics from the events. Besides being to display them elsewhere I also actively back up the graphics now on multiple services. If anything for image hosting we can say that imgur is doing solid job throughout these years, however images are still being backed up just in case. Site being hosted on free hosting service atm means that is also in danger of disappearing one day. So when I finish with most of the stuff I'll place the entire project on github (excluding hosting and management specific details). Allowing it for the web content to be easily migrated if needed.
Google drive backups: Empress |Royal Ambassador
Does the site plan to replace current way of nomination and voting? Absolutely not. I see this not as a way to replace something but a great way to archive the event. For now it includes the character, date, graphics and (result) article where the characters were featured. Also provides Nanashi (or someone else who will host the event) way to find and reuse old graphics for royal ambassador. The site is dynamic so one can update its content virtually from any place and of course using the site itself (management pages are hidden from viewers and are only visible to those that are given management accounts).
Near-future plans are: implementation of better character search, character profile displaying the events they have won (only for characters that has won in the past), merging character search and character list, filling "about" page with history of the event and graphical rework of the site including mobile friendly version. For now I don't plan on running ads on the site however if means that it will get future proof hosting I will reconsider.
By the next event I should be finished with creating the graphics for all entries. For a while I wont update the empress wall image and if happens for the site to be success then empress wall image will be dropped and we will move on to the web version of empress wall.