Who's Who integration

[Donald Dale Milne]

The Who's Who integration committee did not propose any changes to
the attached document when I submitted it as our final report several
weeks ago. Therefore, I'm now submitting it to the Board for adoption.
Taking a cue from Tony, I won't make a motion to adopt yet, so we can
all look it over. Several of you were active in the discussions that
led to this, so if anyone else has questions, we can respond.

In addition to the data fields to record in our proposed creator
table(s), as noted in the report, I believe the Board will separately
need to address the following questions regarding integrating the Who's Who:
1. Determining criteria for the GCD_Official_Name. To begin with, we
could use their name in the current Who's Who, if available.
2. Determining a GCD Language Of Record. A single language should be
chosen, so that names known to be written in multiple languages can be
properly represented.
3. Determining whether we want to add a Latinized transcription of a
name, on the display side, to aid in pronunciation or searching.
4. Determining whether and how the GCD might sponsor creator
questionnaires. Much of the Who's Who is driven by what the creators
reported to Jerry in the questionnaires he sent out. This might also be
a good source for us to use.
5. Determining whether and how the GCD might create and maintain a
bibliography database, comprised of entries of sources of information on
creators. Some of this data could be seeded from the Source data we will
record for various information noted above.
6. Determining rules about what would and would not be allowed for
Sample_Scans of art.

- Don Milne
(thanking Tony for reminding me that I needed to submit this)

[Lionel English]

I realize that many people's attention is on the genre document right now, thanks to the discussions on main.  Have people had an opportunity to review the work of Don's committee as well?  Any thoughts?

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[Alexandros Diamantidis]

* Lionel English [2012-04-20 09:53]:

> I realize that many people's attention is on the genre document right now,
> thanks to the discussions on main. Have people had an opportunity to
> review the work of Don's committee as well? Any thoughts?

I did go through the final document earlier this week and took a few
notes, but didn't follow up because I wanted to take a look through the
committee mailing list in case some of my questions were answered there.
All in all, I think the committee did an excellent job, and the report
should be implementable pretty much as given, although it will take some
careful work, first in the area of UI design (allowing access to all
options without overwhelming the indexers), and second in the area of
change tracking for many-to-many relations, for which I don't think we
currently have much support - although I still want to review Jochen's
keywords implementation, which might help here.

Here's what I wanted to ask so far:

First of all, this covers only how we're going to record creators (and
convert the Who's Who data to our future creator schema), right? That
is, we still need a model about how we're going to link creators to
sequences, to record the actual story credits. The document states (at
#57) that creator roles are recorded at the story sequence level, but
for optimum use of the new creator data, the way we record roles will
need refinement and expansion.

Second, about the various date source fields, do we really need separate
sources for each component (year, month, day)? I can't see the use of
more than a single source field (possibly repeated more than once) for
each date type (birth, death).

Third, instead of just a Who's Who link, provide any number of web links
to various well-defined kinds of sites. Off the top of my head, I think
links to official sites, personal creator blogs, and Wikipedia articles
should be uncontroversial and nice to have.

Fourth, it might be better to generalize the image fields, so that we
can have any number of images each with an associated type: photo,
self-portrait, portrait by other artist, art sample, signature sample.
I think both photo and self-portrait could co-exist - having both seems
to me preferable than keeping only the one or the other. And we might
keep art and signature samples from various periods or features of
each creator.

I think it would be better if we just have guidelines about what kind of
scans and photos we allow, not strict rules - if the submitter can
convince an editor that there's merit in having a specific image, so be
it - we accept it even if we have an image of that kind already.

As for the other points raised by Don:

> 1. Determining criteria for the GCD_Official_Name. To begin with, we could
> use their name in the current Who's Who, if available.

Yes. But for those not in the Who's Who, I don't know. Perhaps the most
frequent form of their name in current use? So, this name might change
over time. Given that all localized versions of the GCD site currently
use the Latin alphabet, it seems like the GCD_Official_Name will need to
be in latin transliteration at least for the forseeable future.

> 3. Determining whether we want to add a Latinized transcription of a name,
> on the display side, to aid in pronunciation or searching.

This can't be automated for some languages/scripts - specifically
Japanese, where some names are written the same but read differently
for different people bearing them.

> 4. Determining whether and how the GCD might sponsor creator
> questionnaires. Much of the Who's Who is driven by what the creators
> reported to Jerry in the questionnaires he sent out. This might also be a
> good source for us to use.

Yes. This might be started in an unofficial manner: GCD members who know
some creator personally can ask them for the information we want to record,
as well as what else teh GCD should be recording about them. After this
is successfully pursued, we can start sending refined and more official
questionnaires to other creators.

> 5. Determining whether and how the GCD might create and maintain a
> bibliography database, comprised of entries of sources of information on
> creators. Some of this data could be seeded from the Source data we will
> record for various information noted above.

We want to do a bibliography/scholarly work/fan-publication-about-comics
list at some point, right?

Thanks,
Alexandros

[Lionel English]

On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Alexandros Diamantidis <ad...@hellug.gr> wrote:

First of all, this covers only how we're going to record creators (and
convert the Who's Who data to our future creator schema), right? That
is, we still need a model about how we're going to link creators to
sequences, to record the actual story credits. The document states (at
#57) that creator roles are recorded at the story sequence level, but
for optimum use of the new creator data, the way we record roles will
need refinement and expansion.

Yes, we'll eventually need a credits structure that will act as a join table between the creator records and story records.  I don't think there's any hurry to tackle that for a while though.  Probably not until some months after the creator table has actually been built.  So even after the creator table is built, we will probably still be recording credits in the old text fields for a while.

 

Second, about the various date source fields, do we really need separate
sources for each component (year, month, day)? I can't see the use of
more than a single source field (possibly repeated more than once) for
each date type (birth, death).

One source note per date type probably is sufficient; unless I'm not recalling something.

 

Third, instead of just a Who's Who link, provide any number of web links
to various well-defined kinds of sites. Off the top of my head, I think
links to official sites, personal creator blogs, and Wikipedia articles
should be uncontroversial and nice to have.

I agree on "official" sites, such as a blog site.  I'll pass on other sites--I'd like to think that wikipedia would eventually cite us as an authority site ;-)

 

Fourth, it might be better to generalize the image fields, so that we
can have any number of images each with an associated type: photo,
self-portrait, portrait by other artist, art sample, signature sample.
I think both photo and self-portrait could co-exist - having both seems
to me preferable than keeping only the one or the other. And we might
keep art and signature samples from various periods or features of
each creator.

I think it would be better if we just have guidelines about what kind of
scans and photos we allow, not strict rules - if the submitter can
convince an editor that there's merit in having a specific image, so be
it - we accept it even if we have an image of that kind already.

There are copyright concerns involved, so we definitely do want to draft some guidelines that will keep us within fair use provisions.

 

> 5. Determining whether and how the GCD might create and maintain a
> bibliography database, comprised of entries of sources of information on
> creators. Some of this data could be seeded from the Source data we will
> record for various information noted above.

We want to do a bibliography/scholarly work/fan-publication-about-comics
list at some point, right?

Yes we do.  I think it should be considered independently of the creator table; and I think it will eventually require a lot of cross linking to creators, publishers, issues/stories, characters, etc.

[Donald Dale Milne]

replies after questions - Don

On 4/20/2012 6:58 PM, Alexandros Diamantidis wrote:
> * Lionel English [2012-04-20 09:53]:
>> I realize that many people's attention is on the genre document right now,
>> thanks to the discussions on main. Have people had an opportunity to
>> review the work of Don's committee as well? Any thoughts?
> I did go through the final document earlier this week and took a few
> notes, but didn't follow up because I wanted to take a look through the
> committee mailing list in case some of my questions were answered there.
> All in all, I think the committee did an excellent job, and the report
> should be implementable pretty much as given, although it will take some
> careful work, first in the area of UI design (allowing access to all
> options without overwhelming the indexers), and second in the area of
> change tracking for many-to-many relations, for which I don't think we
> currently have much support - although I still want to review Jochen's
> keywords implementation, which might help here.
>
> Here's what I wanted to ask so far:
>
> First of all, this covers only how we're going to record creators (and
> convert the Who's Who data to our future creator schema), right? That
> is, we still need a model about how we're going to link creators to
> sequences, to record the actual story credits. The document states (at
> #57) that creator roles are recorded at the story sequence level, but
> for optimum use of the new creator data, the way we record roles will
> need refinement and expansion.

Yes, a model of how many tables, what each table needs to hold, and how
to link them still needs to be created. The thought was that technical
implementation will be left to the tech team and that this was a
requirements document.

> Second, about the various date source fields, do we really need separate
> sources for each component (year, month, day)? I can't see the use of
> more than a single source field (possibly repeated more than once) for
> each date type (birth, death).

We did not explicitly discuss how many source fields were needed. If a
single field can work to capture the data required, then that would be
OK. It is possible that each component of a date may come from a
different source, though probably unlikely. (Any source detailed enough
to list the day probably also lists the year.)

> Third, instead of just a Who's Who link, provide any number of web links
> to various well-defined kinds of sites. Off the top of my head, I think
> links to official sites, personal creator blogs, and Wikipedia articles
> should be uncontroversial and nice to have.

While links to other sources may be useful, they could also be difficult
to maintain. Also, I believe we're trying to be the authority, so we
might rather have others link to us. This seems a question unrelated to
the data conversion and best left for another time.

> Fourth, it might be better to generalize the image fields, so that we
> can have any number of images each with an associated type: photo,
> self-portrait, portrait by other artist, art sample, signature sample.
> I think both photo and self-portrait could co-exist - having both seems
> to me preferable than keeping only the one or the other. And we might
> keep art and signature samples from various periods or features of
> each creator.

There are two types of images listed in the recommendations, a portrait
and sample work scans. There is no reason these cannot be held in a
single table with an attribute to allow their proper display and query.
The storing of signatures did not come up in the discussions, but now
that it has I would agree that they should be included.

> I think it would be better if we just have guidelines about what kind of
> scans and photos we allow, not strict rules - if the submitter can
> convince an editor that there's merit in having a specific image, so be
> it - we accept it even if we have an image of that kind already.
>
> As for the other points raised by Don:

I'll pass on comments for the remainder, as the intention was for the
Board to take these up individually after deciding on the requirements
document.

[Alexandros Diamantidis]

* Donald Dale Milne [2012-04-21 08:11]:

> Yes, a model of how many tables, what each table needs to hold, and how
> to link them still needs to be created. The thought was that technical
> implementation will be left to the tech team and that this was a
> requirements document.

OK, that's fine, although that's not strictly a tech task, it needs some
policy/formatting decisions. But as Lionel said, let's first convert the
Who's Who so that it can be maintained and updated and then work out how
to link it to our indexes.

> It is possible that each component of a date may come from a different
> source, though probably unlikely. (Any source detailed enough to list
> the day probably also lists the year.)

That was exactly my thought.

> While links to other sources may be useful, they could also be difficult
> to maintain. Also, I believe we're trying to be the authority, so we
> might rather have others link to us. This seems a question unrelated to
> the data conversion and best left for another time.

Right, data conversion is the first priority, and we can start there.
It's easy to expand in the future bit by bit.

> There is no reason these cannot be held in a single table with an
> attribute to allow their proper display and query.

Right, that's a tech decision.

> The storing of signatures did not come up in the discussions, but now
> that it has I would agree that they should be included.

Right, they'll be very useful for our purpose.

Thanks!

Alexandros

[Lionel English]

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Alexandros Diamantidis <ad...@hellug.gr> wrote:
> * Donald Dale Milne [2012-04-21 08:11]:
>> Yes, a model of how many tables, what each table needs to hold, and how
>> to link them still needs to be created.  The thought was that technical
>> implementation will be left to the tech team and that this was a
>> requirements document.
>
> OK, that's fine, although that's not strictly a tech task, it needs some
> policy/formatting decisions. But as Lionel said, let's first convert the
> Who's Who so that it can be maintained and updated and then work out how
> to link it to our indexes.

At first, the creator tables will stand more or less alone, so the
tech team is free to develop the details as they see fit.

After it's up and running, then we can tackle the task of integrating
it with the comic book tables and the new strips database.

>> While links to other sources may be useful, they could also be difficult
>> to maintain.  Also, I believe we're trying to be the authority, so we
>> might rather have others link to us.  This seems a question unrelated to
>> the data conversion and best left for another time.
>
> Right, data conversion is the first priority, and we can start there.
> It's easy to expand in the future bit by bit.

I forgot that there was one category of outside links that I had
advocated for, and I need to check to see if they made it in: I felt
we should link to other database projects in other media to cover
credits outside the comics field. E.g. IMDb, speculative fiction
database, and what have you. Where appropriate.

[Lionel English]

Reminder:  I don't believe we've voted to adopt any of this committee's recommendations yet.

 

Would anyone care to review the recommendations and then create a motion or a series of motions dealing with said recommendations?  It may be more prudent to make separate motions for each recommendation, so that we can fast-track areas on which there is little disagreement/question, and spend more time on areas that require it.

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Donald Dale Milne <dond...@att.net> wrote:

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[Lionel English]

Tomorrow is Jerry Bails' birthday, which reminded me that this is still an outstanding item.  Anyone want to go over this committee's report and make motions to adopt any of them?

 

Also, I think we had discussed doing a few things with http://www.bailsprojects.com/ to make it clearer that the fate of the site is no longer in question.  I.e. updating the wording on the front and about pages to indicate that the GCD has custody of the project and is/will be maintaining the site, and filing a tech bug to implement an error tracker for the Who's Who.  Anyone want to tackle a motion for any of those items?

[Donald Dale Milne]

I MOVE that the Board adopt the technical requirements
recommendations in the attached committee report of 2/18/2012, to create
creator table(s) within the GCD database. This shall comprise the 72
items under DATA STORAGE, and also the 10 items under Non-comics work
(on pages 4-5).

I will leave for FUTURE motions any consideration of the following
questions raised by the committee report:

1. Determining criteria for the GCD_Official_Name. To begin with, we
could use their name in the current Who's Who, if available.
2. Determining a GCD Language Of Record. A single language should be
chosen, so that names known to be written in multiple languages can be
properly represented.
3. Determining whether we want to add a Latinized transcription of a
name, on the display side, to aid in pronunciation or searching.
4. Determining whether and how the GCD might sponsor creator
questionnaires. Much of the Who's Who is driven by what the creators
reported to Jerry in the questionnaires he sent out. This might also be
a good source for us to use.
5. Determining whether and how the GCD might create and maintain a
bibliography database, comprised of entries of sources of information on
creators. Some of this data could be seeded from the Source data we will
record for various information noted above.
6. Determining rules about what would and would not be allowed for
Sample_Scans of art.

- Don Milne

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> --
> Lionel English
> San Diego, CA

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>
>
>
>
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[Lionel English]

Recognized.  Second?

        <mailto:gcd-board@googlegroups.com>

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        gcd-board+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

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    --     Lionel English
    San Diego, CA
    lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>




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[Merlin Haas]

>Recognized. Second?

I second the motion.

-- Merlin Haas

>
>On Jul 14, 2012 5:04 AM, "Donald Dale Milne"

><http://www.bailsprojects.com/>http://www.bailsprojects.com/ to make

>it clearer that the fate of the site is no longer in question. I.e.
>updating the wording on the front and about pages to indicate that
>the GCD has custody of the project and is/will be maintaining the
>site, and filing a tech bug to implement an error tracker for the
>Who's Who. Anyone want to tackle a motion for any of those items?
>
>On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 4:57 PM, Lionel English

><<mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>lio...@beanmar.net

><mailto:<mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>lio...@beanmar.net>> wrote:
>
> Reminder: I don't believe we've voted to adopt any of this
> committee's recommendations yet.
> Would anyone care to review the recommendations and then create a
> motion or a series of motions dealing with said recommendations?
>It may be more prudent to make separate motions for each
> recommendation, so that we can fast-track areas on which there is
> little disagreement/question, and spend more time on areas that
> require it.
>
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Donald Dale Milne

> <<mailto:dond...@att.net>dond...@att.net

[Lionel English]

Second recognized.  Discussion?

On Jul 14, 2012 10:37 AM, "Merlin Haas" <mvh...@elpaso.net> wrote:

Recognized.  Second?

I second the motion.

-- Merlin Haas

On Jul 14, 2012 5:04 AM, "Donald Dale Milne" <<mailto:dond...@att.net>dondmi...@att.net> wrote:

    I MOVE that the Board adopt the technical requirements recommendations in the attached committee report of 2/18/2012, to create creator table(s) within the GCD database.  This shall comprise the 72 items under DATA STORAGE, and also the 10 items under Non-comics work (on pages 4-5).

    I will leave for FUTURE motions any consideration of the following questions raised by the committee report:
1. Determining criteria for the GCD_Official_Name. To begin with, we could use their name in the current Who's Who, if available.
2. Determining a GCD Language Of Record. A single language should be chosen, so that names known to be written in multiple languages can be properly represented.
3. Determining whether we want to add a Latinized transcription of a name, on the display side, to aid in pronunciation or searching.
4. Determining whether and how the GCD might sponsor creator questionnaires. Much of the Who's Who is driven by what the creators reported to Jerry in the questionnaires he sent out. This might also be a good source for us to use.
5. Determining whether and how the GCD might create and maintain a bibliography database, comprised of entries of sources of information on creators. Some of this data could be seeded from the Source data we will record for various information noted above.
6. Determining rules about what would and would not be allowed for Sample_Scans of art.

- Don Milne

On 6/25/2012 2:27 PM, Lionel English wrote:

Tomorrow is Jerry Bails' birthday, which reminded me that this is still an outstanding item.  Anyone want to go over this committee's report and make motions to adopt any of them?

Also, I think we had discussed doing a few things with <http://www.bailsprojects.com/>http://www.bailsprojects.com/ to make it clearer that the fate of the site is no longer in question.  I.e. updating the wording on the front and about pages to indicate that the GCD has custody of the project and is/will be maintaining the site, and filing a tech bug to implement an error tracker for the Who's Who.  Anyone want to tackle a motion for any of those items?

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 4:57 PM, Lionel English <<mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>lion...@beanmar.net <mailto:<mailto:lionel@beanmar.net>lio...@beanmar.net>> wrote:

    Reminder:  I don't believe we've voted to adopt any of this
    committee's recommendations yet.
    Would anyone care to review the recommendations and then create a
    motion or a series of motions dealing with said recommendations? It may be more prudent to make separate motions for each
    recommendation, so that we can fast-track areas on which there is
    little disagreement/question, and spend more time on areas that
    require it.

    On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Donald Dale Milne

[Lionel English]

Am I correct that I never called for a vote on this?

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Lionel English]

No I didn't.  Lou, can you put a ballot up at your convenience?

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Donald Dale Milne]

Yes, you are correct.

- Don Milne

On 8/15/2012 12:43 AM, Lionel English wrote:
> Am I correct that I never called for a vote on this?
>
> On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Lionel English <shoeb...@gmail.com
> <mailto:shoeb...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Second recognized. Discussion?
>
> On Jul 14, 2012 10:37 AM, "Merlin Haas" <mvh...@elpaso.net

> <mailto:mvh...@elpaso.net>> wrote:
>
> Recognized. Second?
>
>
> I second the motion.
>
> -- Merlin Haas
>
>
> On Jul 14, 2012 5:04 AM, "Donald Dale Milne"
> <<mailto:dond...@att.net

> <mailto:dond...@att.net>>dond...@att.net

> <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>>lio...@beanmar.net
> <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
> <mailto:<mailto:lio...@beanmar.net
> <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>>lio...@beanmar.net

> <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>>> wrote:
>
> Reminder: I don't believe we've voted to adopt any of
> this
> committee's recommendations yet.
> Would anyone care to review the recommendations and
> then create a
> motion or a series of motions dealing with said
> recommendations? It may be more prudent to make separate
> motions for each
> recommendation, so that we can fast-track areas on
> which there is
> little disagreement/question, and spend more time on
> areas that
> require it.
>
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Donald Dale Milne
> <<mailto:dond...@att.net

> <mailto:dond...@att.net>>dond...@att.net
> <mailto:dond...@att.net>
> <mailto:<mailto:dond...@att.net
> <mailto:dond...@att.net>>dond...@att.net

> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>

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>
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English

> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>

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