Well, if I had to think about it seriously I would have a lot more ideas, and more fully developed than this, but I just thought about it randomly.

Today I was just thinking, I wish I knew information like around what volume Excel Saga deviates from the manga, or ends where the manga kept going (so I can try to persuade my local anime-etc. club to use funds on that volume onwards). I bet there may be some person who knows that info or can look it up quickly, but just hasn't noticed that they should add it in to the Anime Start / End information entry. So I decided that a place where people could post requests for information to be added to the database would be cool, like a list of information they want added which is collected in a topic, a bit like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles .

But then I thought, you know, the perfect people to do that are the 40 people reading Excel Saga, and I bet at least half of them have read past where the anime leaves off. If there were a feature where you could ask them to do that, I'm sure one would oblige. But a mass PM would be quite obtrusive. Perhaps a feature which integrates all the unfulfilled requests for information with people's series stats to provide people with a list of possible information they could fill out to help the database. For instance, like a week or so back when the release page said, "We have a new chat!" instead it would say, "Please use your experience as a reader to help improve our database! You can help provide us with unique information based on the different series you've read." Then it would take them to a page where a script goes through each of the unanswered requests, like for instance if it's on their reading list but there's no description for it, and has little boxes with individual requests on them, like "Your complete list indicates you've read Accent. Could you write up a plot summary for it?" and then it takes them directly to the page where they can edit it, whether they've requested to be able to edit stuff in general or not. Series they gave high ratings would be up higher on the list, since they'd be more likely to contribute to information about something they loved. Once someone filled out the information, it would be taken off the request list (it could be put back up there later if what was provided was found lacking). Actually, this wouldn't just have to only be to get people to provide information where it was requested, it could just be for any series that needs more information provided about it.

Well, actually, now that I think about it, series descriptions is the only thing that knowing people's reading/complete lists helps with. They may not have watched the anime, though I know it's extremely likely in the case of Excel Saga, and knowing the year of publication or series title kanji could be a bit beyond most people's immediate capabilities (actually, a random non-reader like me could probably look up that stuff. I mean, I do now). Hopefully this is all food for thought, though. At the very least, maybe someone else could post in this topic their own ideas on issues like the ones I've brought up, and this topic wouldn't have been pointless if none of what I've suggested seems at all appealing. I know, why don't we start a contest which is announced in big red letters on the main page of the forum, which states: "Contest! Come post your ideas to improve the site! Winner gets their name in the field of releases.html every 256th page load for the period of exactly one month!" It might just be that I care too much about manga, by the way.

For your long suggestion: Well, it's up to Manick, but imo, that sounds kinda hard to do, and also a bit spammish on the users.
But I personally like a bit your idea on a request for information thread or a little system, that any kind soul could browse through and see if he/she can help.

On the particular subject of excel saga... I suggest that you read the wikipedia article on the subject. You'd see that the director Shinichi "Nabeshin" Watanabe kinda made whatever he wanted to do in the anime, and mostly didn't respect the manga's storyline. So we could say that very few elements from the manga and the anime are the same. So I say that in this case, the Anime Start / End information is useless.

I kinda like this idea too. Or similarly, a central post/list-thing that shows series with very little information (in wiki-terms, I guess they'd be stubs), so that those of us who like to fill in those gaps can find areas that need attention.
Is it even possible to do something like that though?

I read the first 2 volumes of Excel Saga and it seemed like it was following the storyline basically right on. I definitely suspect there are episodes which were at least almost totally anime-only, and I don't know how much material comes from the manga later in the series or if the end has any part in the manga (I'm guess no, yeah...), but some sort of indication of about how far into the manga some of the anime's material is taken could be cool to know. Like how xxxHolic's anime end chapter is v6, but adds the fact that there's one episode from v7.

I just had another thought btw: for getting people to add series description information, a person could be prompted with something like "This series lacks an introductory plot description; click here if you'd like to help us out and add one!" when someone adds or moves a series to their complete list which doesn't have a series description.