Prufrock wrote:Hi Dave,

I hope that you are able to build the database you want to.  I, also, wish I had the expertise you're looking for.  Unfortunately I do not.  The folks here just tolerate me.

martin

  me too!

The best way to get accurate pre 1990 information is scan ebay for Troll and Toad auctions. Their descriptions and stock pictures are right on! Just kidding, best of luck. I'm curious as to what you have on Keep on the Borderlands. No need to post it here, I'll check some time.

Cheers!

mbassoc2003 wrote:or is it a Wikipedia type of 'just type any old shit and we'll deal with it by committee' type of affair.

Not quite.

For writer contributions we used to use an old but very reliable Ouija Board but the crack developers down at BGG Headquarters have come up with a new random name generator that we can plug common phonemes and syllables into.  GY, GAX, AR, NE, SON, etc.  Names come out much more accurate now - such as the designer of the AD&D 1e Player's Handbook: Zeb Gy Arsutherland.

Page counts use a d100 except for the older saddle-stapled modules. We were told by a well meaning Acaeum member that many classic modules had 32 pages or fewer. We have requisitioned an old Vegas roulette wheel for these modules and so our page count is MUCH closer than it ever has been!

For year of publication we have recently instituted a sophisticated validation check that ensures the user did not type a year prior to 1860. While our knowledge is limited, we fully understand that white box D&D was invented at some point during the American Civil War.

When a person learns to ask intelligent questions intelligently, they will receive intelligent answers.

--
Dave Bernazzani
meeplemaster@gmail.com

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:While I wouldn't appreciate the tone in which the suggestion is phrased either, wavemotion, I think this is a good one. As long as you're using volunteers to enter the information, you might as well enlist the help of volunteers to identify problems. A "complaint" or "this entry has a problem" button linked to a quick little form to send a short description of the issue to someone who gives a damn, might speed up the process of correcting sloppy or totally inaccurate entries. For example, I would NEVER (really) take the time to add or correct an entry myself, but if I happened upon an entry on your site through a google search, I may very well take the 10 seconds to press one button, type in "wrong publication year, should be 19XX" and move on.

First, please call me Dave. The username is just the one I use here, there and eveywhere and tends not to be already taken.

Let me try to explain our approval process on initial entry and our correction process. I'll warn you that this is a user generated site - as such it does not, nor will it ever conform to the rigid standards that exist here on the Acaeum. We are not trying to duplicate the authenticity, accuracy or exacting detail of the Acaeum. For the tiny fraction of items in our database which are pre-1990 D&D we are trying to have accurate printing information and scans of each so that members (the vast majority of whom are players first and collectors second or third) can track thier collections down to the printing and discuss the games (not the minute details, history, rarity or valuation which are important to Acaeum members).

No entry can be entered into the system until someone is registered. No corrections can be made until someone is registered. This gives us some audit trail as to the entry and changes that take place.

All initial entries go into an approval queue. Per our Guide to Data Entry:

http://rpg.geekdo.com/wiki/page/Guide_to_Data_Entry

Most of our fields are required (some are optional - like book weight... and ISBN10/ISBN-13 is optional only because we've found some products - especially older ones - don't seem to have one).  The guide above is fairly exacting on what we are allowing for the initial submission. All descriptions must be attributed with the preference being for "From the Back of the Book:" or "From the Introduction:" or "Publisher Blurb:".  We make sure that it is attached, hierarchically, in what appears to be the correct place (that is, something like Faiths & Avatars should be linked to the AD&D 2nd Edition parent RPG, not 1e).

In the queue, the volunteer admin crew will check the entry for obvious mistakes. A series code but no series name (B2 - Keep on the Borderlands but the user forgot to enter the B-Basic series).  A 4e book that doesn't have 20+ designers/editors/artists, etc. While in the pending queue we can converse (via geekmail) to the submitter and the RPG Geek Consortium to ask questions on the entry. Admittedly, this is nowhere near the level of checking and double checking and data accumulation that is done by the Acaeum. That's not the direction we've taken. We want entries in the database so designers can talk about their games, players can talk about the games they are playing, interested folks can discover new games they might like, etc. Were the 'Geek a collectors database and forum, our goals and vision would be different.

Some entries are easy and require very little sanity check. In many cases the designer/author of the work is making the entry (BGG and now RPG Geek are fortunate enough to have thousands of authors, article writers and publishers who take responsibility for their own listings).

We've stocked the consortium with people who have knowledge of a particular area - so in discussions the White Wolf guys tend to be active on White Wolf entries, etc.

Substandard entries are rejected and we work with the submitter to improve the process and make sure they take the time to open their book from their collection to enter the right information. Users who abuse the upload system with poor entries are banned from this practice for some number of days (escalating up to a permanent ban which is rarely necessary).

Once the entry looks solid, we approve the entry and it goes into the system as a public entry. From there, new versions (printings, bindings, etc) can be entered by attaching them to this newly created item. Versions must go through the same initial approval process. The versions can come immediately, days or years after the initial item creation. Our rules are that the person should have first hand knowledge and the books to scan themselves - so the entry is built up piecemeal over time.

Once the book is approved, the user is asked to upload scans (front and back) at no more than 150dpi (and no less than 50dpi to help avoid web-culls). The images are validated for size, check to see if there are watermarks, etc. Users caught violating the scanning upload rules are banned for some period of time.

When people come along and notice an issue with the entry (publication date wrong, wrong product code, page count wrong, binding wrong for this edition, etc) they hit a little pencil icon in the upper right hand side of the entry - this pencil icon is labeled "Submit Corrections". The user is allowed to graphically pick any field, enter in the new information along with a clear admin note and enter it into the correction queue. We go through the queue daily and as needed we contact the submitter who often provides us with a scan of the title page for the proof of correction - though in the case of a designer or publisher of the work we take them at their word. When Monte Cook submits a correction for Ptolus, we accept his word without a lot of fanfare.  Corrections can be approved in total or with line-item veto (that is, if we discover that the person entered three corrections but one was clearly in error we can X that one correction out and approve the rest).  The submitter is informed of the corrective actions taken. All corrections are dealt with within 48 hours - unless there is additional research to be done in which case the user is given a note saying that we are doing our best to work on the issue.  

I realize that as a user-driven community that we will come under scrutiny from more exacting sites as the Acaeum. We have made the decision to be a user-driven community - that will not change. To think that every site should be just like the Acaeum is, frankly, myopic. What we are trying to do is lay down and publish a set of rules that can be understood by content submitters and have a process for sanity check and corrections which allows us to build up a database which allows discussion, comments, reviews and interactions by the user community who builds said-database. As I'm the one going through the approval queue on a daily basis, I can assure you that my intentions are totally above board. It's one of the reasons I decided to come here and ask for help knowing that the welcome carpet was unlikely to be smooth.

-Dave

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:While I wouldn't appreciate the tone in which the suggestion is phrased either, wavemotion, I think this is a good one. As long as you're using volunteers to enter the information, you might as well enlist the help of volunteers to identify problems. A "complaint" or "this entry has a problem" button linked to a quick little form to send a short description of the issue to someone who gives a damn, might speed up the process of correcting sloppy or totally inaccurate entries. For example, I would NEVER (really) take the time to add or correct an entry myself, but if I happened upon an entry on your site through a google search, I may very well take the 10 seconds to press one button, type in "wrong publication year, should be 19XX" and move on.

I have a question of my own (and no, I'm not being a smartass - really!). I didn't see a correction button for The Acaeum data. The first book I pulled off my shelf was my well worn Dungeon Masters Guide. I tried to figure out what edition it was - and it doesn't match any of editions listed here:

http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/dmg.html

It matches everything about the Sixth Edition except the title page. According to the Acaeum's data:

Sixth (Dec 1979) (Revised Edition)
   * Title page now says "Revised Printing — December, 1979".

My title page says "Revised Edition — December, 1979".

Now it's possible I have a Seventh printing (I'm a terrible judge of paper color) - but those title pages are supposed to be the same as the Sixth.

Seems I got me a rare!!!



-Dave

PS - Will mbassoc remove and delete the information within, say, 48 hours?  

PPS - Just kidding.

EDIT: I've fired off a message to FoulFoot.

I believe you have spotted a typo.  Please send a message to FoulFoot so he cam correct that one word in the next update; it should be Edition not Printing.

TheHistorian wrote:I believe you have spotted a typo.  Please send a message to FoulFoot so he cam correct that one word in the next update; it should be Edition not Printing.

WHAT!!!! There's a mistake on the Acaeum web-site???   I'm shocked and embarrassed.     

wavemotion wrote:
Heh! I did think it was a little ironic after being told "10 years" "600 hours per book" and "checked and rechecked ad nauseum" that the first book I pull off my shelf couldn't be properly identified.

Anyway, mistakes happen and I hope I didn't come off as poking fun (other than in the jovial spirit that we are all bound up as brothers in our similar nutty hobbies). Mistakes are why I'm here - in an effort to improve what will be a very visible dataset. I've helped fix a single entry for people to identify their sixth edition DMGs. I only ask for six or seven of the best of you to help with my project of getting edition names and matching scans (nothing more) into our database

-Dave

Yeah, I was being silly myself.  I just do that because I'm so ignorant relative to most of the members here.  It really is impressive the level of detail and scholarship given to this hobby.  I am grateful for their friendship and shared passion.

That little   ? I like mine really salty.