Hi -
Over the past month or so, Marvel has been working on a draft microdata schema for comics for the W3C (the web's governing standards body) and schema.org (a consortium of search engines working on the semantic web). Microdata is a way of inserting semantic information into HTML, so that the specific data points can be available for search engines and other aggregators without obstructing the presentation of pages. The goal of the specification is to make comics easier to find on the web and to encourage cool new application development with comic data. The success of this initiative depends on widespread adoption, so right now we're reaching out to publishers, retailers, creators and fans to get feedback on the spec, and we'd love to get comics.org’s perspective on it. Once the spec is finalized and adopted by the W3C and schema.org, we plan to evangelize its use in order to help both print and digital comics become more consistent and discoverable across the web.
The draft spec is housed at http://www.w3.org/wiki/PeriodicalsComics and ongoing discussion can be found here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/. There's nothing in the spec that's going to be very new to anyone who has dealt with comic data.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly or join in the discussion over email.
- peter
Peter Olson | VP, Web and Application Development | Marvel Entertainment | e: pol...@marvel.com | ph: 212-576-4028
******************************************************************************
Nothing contained in this e-mail shall (a) be considered a legally binding agreement, amendment or modification of any agreement with Marvel, each of which requires a fully executed agreement to be received by Marvel or (b) be deemed approval of any product, packaging, advertising or promotion material, which may only come from Marvel's Legal Department.
******************************************************************************
THINK GREEN - SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT!
- Don Milne
On 2/7/2012 7:35 PM, Olson, Peter wrote:
>
> Hi -
>
> Over the past month or so, Marvel has been working on a draft
> microdata schema for comics for the W3C (the web's governing standards
> body) and schema.org (a consortium of search engines working on the
> semantic web). Microdata is a way of inserting semantic information
> into HTML, so that the specific data points can be available for
> search engines and other aggregators without obstructing the
> presentation of pages. The goal of the specification is to make comics
> easier to find on the web and to encourage cool new application
> development with comic data. The success of this initiative depends on
> widespread adoption, so right now we're reaching out to publishers,
> retailers, creators and fans to get feedback on the spec, and we'd
> love to getcomics.org�sperspective on it. Once the spec is finalized
> and adopted by the W3C and schema.org, we plan to evangelize its use
> in order to help both print and digital comics become more consistent
> and discoverable across the web.
>
> The draft spec is housed
> at_http://www.w3.org/wiki/PeriodicalsComics_and ongoing discussion can
> be found here:_http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/_.
Hi -
Over the past month or so, Marvel has been working on a draft microdata schema for comics for the W3C (the web's governing standards body) and schema.org (a consortium of search engines working on the semantic web). Microdata is a way of inserting semantic information into HTML, so that the specific data points can be available for search engines and other aggregators without obstructing the presentation of pages. The goal of the specification is to make comics easier to find on the web and to encourage cool new application development with comic data. The success of this initiative depends on widespread adoption, so right now we're reaching out to publishers, retailers, creators and fans to get feedback on the spec, and we'd love to get comics.org’s perspective on it. Once the spec is finalized and adopted by the W3C and schema.org, we plan to evangelize its use in order to help both print and digital comics become more consistent and discoverable across the web.
The draft spec is housed at http://www.w3.org/wiki/PeriodicalsComics and ongoing discussion can be found here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/. There's nothing in the spec that's going to be very new to anyone who has dealt with comic data.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly or join in the discussion over email.
- peter
Peter Olson | VP, Web and Application Development | Marvel Entertainment | e: pol...@marvel.com | ph: 212-576-4028
******************************************************************************
Nothing contained in this e-mail shall (a) be considered a legally binding agreement, amendment or modification of any agreement with Marvel, each of which requires a fully executed agreement to be received by Marvel or (b) be deemed approval of any product, packaging, advertising or promotion material, which may only come from Marvel's Legal Department.
******************************************************************************
THINK GREEN - SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT!
--
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To unsubscribe send email to gcd-contact...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-contact
Hi Lionel -
They're defined on schma.org - http://www.schema.org/CreativeWork and http://www.schema.org/Book. There's not a centralized place for storing and discussing these unfortunately. The current discussion on the thread is that Perodical Series is better modeled as a child of the "Intangible" schema, so that might move.
-peter
Gave it a short read. Interesting idea and proposal.
Some thoughts and comments for discussion.
One problem I see is the distinction between periodocal series and
Graphic novel. At comics.org we had similar discussions that this is a
somewhat US-perspective and doesn't really cover for example European
album series which have aspects of both, a series and a book. Periodical
has two meanings, the substantive describes the physical object
(magazine, journal), the adjective describes the repeating and regular
aspect of publishing.
Not sure what the proposal is intended to cover in the end, but it has
to be understood that in this form (and this distinction of periodical
series vs. graphic novels) it covers only some aspects of international
comics. We at comics.org haven't really found THE solution for this but
are making steps in that direction. If a comic can be both, part of a
series and a graphic novel (this e.g. concerns book fields like ISBN)
the problem wouldn't be there. Does it need to be 'periodical series' or
can it just be 'series' ?
I see why one wants to have the Diamond code in there, but this only
applies to US comics and only in the last 20 (?) years. I doubt that it
can be in an international standard (as I understand the aim of
schema.org to be).
Similar is publisherId, these exist for books as well, but are not
present in the schema for books (probably because nowadays ISBNs will
that role). These numbers can only be known by the publisher, so I am
not sure if these can be used in the end.
The last two comments are trying to take an outside view.
Jochen
Am 08.02.2012 01:57, schrieb Lionel English:
> Forwarded from the contact list
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *Olson, Peter* <pol...@marvel.com <mailto:pol...@marvel.com>>
> Date: Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 4:35 PM
> Subject: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
> To: con...@comics.org <mailto:con...@comics.org>
>
>
> __
>
> Hi -
>
> Over the past month or so, Marvel has been working on a draft microdata
> schema for comics for the W3C (the web's governing standards body) and
> schema.org <http://schema.org/> (a consortium of search engines working
> on the semantic web). Microdata is a way of inserting semantic
> information into HTML, so that the specific data points can be available
> for search engines and other aggregators without obstructing the
> presentation of pages. The goal of the specification is to make comics
> easier to find on the web and to encourage cool new application
> development with comic data. The success of this initiative depends on
> widespread adoption, so right now we're reaching out to publishers,
> retailers, creators and fans to get feedback on the spec, and we'd love
> to getcomics.org <http://comics.org/>�sperspective on it. Once the spec
> is finalized and adopted by the W3C and schema.org <http://schema.org/>,
> we plan to evangelize its use in order to help both print and digital
> comics become more consistent and discoverable across the web.
>
> The draft spec is housed at_http://www.w3.org/wiki/PeriodicalsComics_and
> ongoing discussion can be found
> here:_http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/_. There's
> nothing in the spec that's going to be very new to anyone who has dealt
> with comic data.
>
> If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly or join
> in the discussion over email.
>
> - peter
>
> Peter Olson | VP, Web and Application Development | Marvel Entertainment
> | e: pol...@marvel.com <mailto:pol...@marvel.com> | ph: 212-576-4028
> <tel:212-576-4028>
>
> ******************************************************************************
>
> Nothing contained in this e-mail shall (a) be considered a legally
> binding agreement, amendment or modification of any agreement with
> Marvel, each of which requires a fully executed agreement to be received
> by Marvel or (b) be deemed approval of any product, packaging,
> advertising or promotion material, which may only come from Marvel's
> Legal Department.
>
> ******************************************************************************
>
> THINK GREEN - SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT!
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> GCD-Contact mailing list - gcd-c...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-c...@googlegroups.com>
> To unsubscribe send email to gcd-contact...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-contact%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-contact
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English
> San Diego, CA
> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
>
> --
> GCD-Tech mailing list - gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe send email to gcd-tech+u...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> to getcomics.org <http://comics.org/>’sperspective on it. Once the spec
That is indeed the case. Obviously the more complete the tags are the better, but no guns are being held to anyone’s head to completely tag entities on the web.
-peter
From: "Olson, Peter" <pol...@marvel.com>
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2012 11:19 AM
Subject: RE: [gcd-tech] Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
Hi Henry & Lionel –
We thought very hard about adding stories to this schema but ultimately decided against including them. (We use the series > issue > story model internally - indeed we adopted it after guidance from you guys some years ago. It’s integral to how our comic data model works at Marvel.)
The main reason we decided against including stories (and housing creator and character assignments therein) is ease of implementation. In order to be most effective, the schema needs to be adopted widely and in order to get wide adoption it needs to be easy to understand and implement. Most retailer and fan sites don’t really think about comics as granularly as our groups do. Retailers and fans don’t encounter loose comic stories (the same way that particle physicists don’t encounter loose quarks) – they’re dealing with issues. Fans are writing about them and retailers are selling them in print and digital formats. It’s unlikely, I think, that a fan or retailer (or even many publishers) will go to the length of teasing out the collection of stories in an issue and then attribute creation credits to them. (Additionally, a lot of the schema.org direction is about modeling saleable products - loose stories aren’t for sale). Ultimately we decided it’s best to aggregate talent assignments at the issue level, even if that doesn’t perfectly match the “standard model” for comics as we understand them.
In any case even if the spec is adopted, is likely to be iterative and we can maybe introduce stories to the spec at a later date.
Re some of your other points –
See my other email about the distributor code – It can be any distributor (with Diamond being the obvious candidate in the US) or no distributor. In a lot of cases many of the identifiers for comics aren’t going to be present at all. Not every data point enumerated here has to be present for every comic on the web.
Volume – I’ll change volume from a number to a string in the spec. Your qualms are EXACTLY why we use the start year as the volume on marvel.com. No one f$%&-ing knows which volume number is which.
Creator roles – Editor is part of the Creative Work schema, as are a number of other roles. The schema.org design pattern kind of stipulates that each creative work type has a pre-defined set of creative roles. It’s problematic when other creative types arise but it’s kind of their call.
Anthologies – under this schema, creative credits will be aggregated at the issue level (for reasons outlined above).
Comic strips – I feel like comic strips are kind of their own beast. Even though they share some elements of storytelling with comic books, they are a distinct art form and are distributed and enumerated quite differently than comic books. I agree they probably deserve their own spec distinct from comic issues – and I’m probably not very qualified to write it. Maybe someone on your side can pick up the baton.
“Which issue number” – that type of question is a bit beyond the scope of what we can do with the schema. The schema only gives a structure to fill in – it doesn’t stipulate what should occupy any data point
Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2012 4:35 PM
- Don Milne
On 2/8/2012 7:35 PM, Olson, Peter wrote:
>
> Hi Henry & Lionel �
>
> We thought very hard about adding stories to this schema but
> ultimately decided against including them. (We use the series > issue
> > story model internally - indeed we adopted it after guidance from
> you guys some years ago. It�s integral to how our comic data model
> works at Marvel.)
>
> The main reason we decided against including stories (and housing
> creator and character assignments therein) is ease of implementation.
> In order to be most effective, the schema needs to be adopted widely
> and in order to get wide adoption it needs to be easy to understand
> and implement. Most retailer and fan sites don�t really think about
> comics as granularly as our groups do. Retailers and fans don�t
> encounter loose comic stories (the same way that particle physicists
> don�t encounter loose quarks) � they�re dealing with issues. Fans are
> writing about them and retailers are selling them in print and digital
> formats. It�s unlikely, I think, that a fan or retailer (or even many
> publishers) will go to the length of teasing out the collection of
> stories in an issue and then attribute creation credits to them.
> (Additionally, a lot of the schema.org direction is about modeling
> saleable products - loose stories aren�t for sale). Ultimately we
> decided it�s best to aggregate talent assignments at the issue level,
> even if that doesn�t perfectly match the �standard model� for comics
> as we understand them.
>
> In any case even if the spec is adopted, is likely to be iterative and
> we can maybe introduce stories to the spec at a later date.
>
> Re some of your other points �
>
> See my other email about the distributor code � It can be any
> distributor (with Diamond being the obvious candidate in the US) or no
> distributor. In a lot of cases many of the identifiers for comics
> aren�t going to be present at all. Not every data point enumerated
> here has to be present for every comic on the web.
>
> Volume � I�ll change volume from a number to a string in the spec.
> Your qualms are EXACTLY why we use the start year as the volume on
> marvel.com. No one f$%&-ing knows which volume number is which.
>
> Creator roles � Editor is part of the Creative Work schema, as are a
> number of other roles. The schema.org design pattern kind of
> stipulates that each creative work type has a pre-defined set of
> creative roles. It�s problematic when other creative types arise but
> it�s kind of their call.
>
> Anthologies � under this schema, creative credits will be aggregated
> at the issue level (for reasons outlined above).
>
> Comic strips � I feel like comic strips are kind of their own beast.
> Even though they share some elements of storytelling with comic books,
> they are a distinct art form and are distributed and enumerated quite
> differently than comic books. I agree they probably deserve their own
> spec distinct from comic issues � and I�m probably not very qualified
> to write it. Maybe someone on your side can pick up the baton.
>
> �Which issue number� � that type of question is a bit beyond the scope
> of what we can do with the schema. The schema only gives a structure
> to fill in � it doesn�t stipulate what should occupy any data point
>
> -peter
>
> *From:*gcd-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com]
> *On Behalf Of *Lionel English
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 08, 2012 6:02 PM
> *To:* gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* Re: [gcd-tech] Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*"Olson, Peter" <pol...@marvel.com <mailto:pol...@marvel.com>>
> *To:* gcd-...@googlegroups.com <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 8, 2012 11:19 AM
> *Subject:* RE: [gcd-tech] Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
>
> That is indeed the case. Obviously the more complete the tags are
> the better, but no guns are being held to anyone�s head to
> completely tag entities on the web.
>
> -peter
>
> *From:*gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
> [mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Lionel English
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 08, 2012 2:09 PM
> *To:* gcd-...@googlegroups.com <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [gcd-tech] Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
>
> I have another question about the schema, btw: do the schema
> attributes represent attributes an object *must* have, or that it
> *may* have? I'm guessing the latter, as presumably the schema
> offers standardized ways you *may* tag content on the web, but of
> course there's nothing forcing you to tag anything at all. But I'd
> just like to confirm that.
>
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Lionel English
> <lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>> wrote:
>
> Per my invitation, Peter has joined the tech list. He also
> suggests that those of us who are interested consider posting
> comments to the w3.org <http://w3.org/> discussion board mentioned
> in his original post.
>
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 1:26 AM, Jochen G. <gcd...@garcke.de
> <mailto:gcd...@garcke.de>> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Gave it a short read. Interesting idea and proposal.
>
> Some thoughts and comments for discussion.
>
> One problem I see is the distinction between periodocal series and
> Graphic novel. At comics.org <http://comics.org/> we had similar
> discussions that this is a
> somewhat US-perspective and doesn't really cover for example European
> album series which have aspects of both, a series and a book.
> Periodical
> has two meanings, the substantive describes the physical object
> (magazine, journal), the adjective describes the repeating and regular
> aspect of publishing.
>
> Not sure what the proposal is intended to cover in the end, but it has
> to be understood that in this form (and this distinction of periodical
> series vs. graphic novels) it covers only some aspects of
> international
> comics. We at comics.org <http://comics.org/> haven't really found
> THE solution for this but
> are making steps in that direction. If a comic can be both, part of a
> series and a graphic novel (this e.g. concerns book fields like ISBN)
> the problem wouldn't be there. Does it need to be 'periodical
> series' or
> can it just be 'series' ?
>
> I see why one wants to have the Diamond code in there, but this only
> applies to US comics and only in the last 20 (?) years. I doubt
> that it
> can be in an international standard (as I understand the aim of
> schema.org <http://schema.org/> to be).
>
> Similar is publisherId, these exist for books as well, but are not
> present in the schema for books (probably because nowadays ISBNs will
> that role). These numbers can only be known by the publisher, so I am
> not sure if these can be used in the end.
>
> The last two comments are trying to take an outside view.
>
> Jochen
>
> Am 08.02.2012 01:57, schrieb Lionel English:
>
> > Forwarded from the contact list
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> > From: *Olson, Peter* <pol...@marvel.com
> <mailto:pol...@marvel.com> <mailto:pol...@marvel.com
> <mailto:pol...@marvel.com>>>
> > Date: Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 4:35 PM
> > Subject: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
>
> > To: con...@comics.org <mailto:con...@comics.org>
> <mailto:con...@comics.org <mailto:con...@comics.org>>
> >
> >
> > __
>
> >
> > Hi -
> >
> > Over the past month or so, Marvel has been working on a draft
> microdata
> > schema for comics for the W3C (the web's governing standards
> body) and
>
> > schema.org <http://schema.org/> <http://schema.org/> (a
> consortium of search engines working
>
> > on the semantic web). Microdata is a way of inserting semantic
> > information into HTML, so that the specific data points can be
> available
> > for search engines and other aggregators without obstructing the
> > presentation of pages. The goal of the specification is to make
> comics
> > easier to find on the web and to encourage cool new application
> > development with comic data. The success of this initiative
> depends on
> > widespread adoption, so right now we're reaching out to publishers,
> > retailers, creators and fans to get feedback on the spec, and
> we'd love
>
> > to getcomics.org <http://getcomics.org/>
> <http://comics.org/>�sperspective on it. Once the spec
> > is finalized and adopted by the W3C and schema.org
> <http://schema.org/> <http://schema.org/>,
>
> > we plan to evangelize its use in order to help both print and
> digital
> > comics become more consistent and discoverable across the web.
> >
>
> > The draft spec is housed
> at_http://www.w3.org/wiki/PeriodicalsComics_and
>
> > ongoing discussion can be found
>
> > here:_http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/_. There's
>
> > nothing in the spec that's going to be very new to anyone who
> has dealt
> > with comic data.
> >
> > If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly
> or join
> > in the discussion over email.
> >
> > - peter
> >
> > Peter Olson | VP, Web and Application Development | Marvel
> Entertainment
>
> > | e: pol...@marvel.com <mailto:pol...@marvel.com>
> <mailto:pol...@marvel.com <mailto:pol...@marvel.com>> | ph:
> 212-576-4028
> > <tel:212-576-4028>
>
> >
> >
> ******************************************************************************
> >
> > Nothing contained in this e-mail shall (a) be considered a legally
> > binding agreement, amendment or modification of any agreement with
> > Marvel, each of which requires a fully executed agreement to be
> received
> > by Marvel or (b) be deemed approval of any product, packaging,
> > advertising or promotion material, which may only come from Marvel's
> > Legal Department.
> >
> >
> ******************************************************************************
> >
> > THINK GREEN - SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > GCD-Contact mailing list - gcd-c...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-c...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > <mailto:gcd-c...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-c...@googlegroups.com>>
>
> > To unsubscribe send email to
> gcd-contact...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-contact%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > <mailto:gcd-contact%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-contact%252Buns...@googlegroups.com>>
>
> > For more options, visit this group at
> > http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-contact
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Lionel English
> > San Diego, CA
>
> > lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
> <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>>
>
> >
> > --
> > GCD-Tech mailing list - gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > To unsubscribe send email to
> gcd-tech+u...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-tech%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
>
> > For more options, visit this group at
>
> > http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-tech
>
>
> --
> GCD-Tech mailing list - gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
>
> To unsubscribe send email to gcd-tech+u...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-tech%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-tech
>
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English
>
> San Diego, CA
> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English
>
> San Diego, CA
> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
>
> --
> GCD-Tech mailing list - gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
> To unsubscribe send email to gcd-tech+u...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-tech+u...@googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-tech
>
> --
> GCD-Tech mailing list - gcd-...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
> To unsubscribe send email to gcd-tech+u...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:gcd-tech%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-tech
>
> --
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English
>
> San Diego, CA
> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
>
> --
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> <mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com>
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Hey Henry -
Editor is enumerated as part of the Creative Work schema, so it's implicitly part of the comic schema (you can see it in the sample code that I included). I'm not sure what the schema.org/W3C policy is around 3rd party ID systems - I'll see what they say about comics.org IDs.
- peter
__________________
Peter Olson
VP, Web and Application Development
Marvel Entertainment
212-576-4028
pol...@marvel.com
Nothing contained in this e-mail shall (a) be considered a legally binding agreement, amendment or modification of any agreement with Marvel, each of which requires a fully executed agreement to be received by Marvel or (b) be deemed approval of any product, packaging, advertising or promotion material, which can only come from Marvel's Legal Department.
-----Original Message-----
From: gcd-...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Henry Andrews
Sent: Wed 2/8/2012 8:47 PM
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [gcd-tech] Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
Thanks for the replies, Peter. In particular, the direction of describing "salable units" is helpful in giving an overal framework for what is and isn't important in this initial effort. Likewise the notion that the schema doesn't try to enforce what is put in each field is helpful- when you get right down to it, that enforcement is the main preoccupation of the GCD. We usually either agree on the fields but not the exact contents, or agree on the broad principle of a set of fields but can't work out specific fields that capture the exact data that we want.
So, revising my earlier feedback:
* Issue numbers- as you note, the "which source" concern goes away. But I think it makes it even more important that it be a string rather than a number, so folks can put in unusual numbers. I don't even have to go far to come up with examples- Marvel ran dual-numbered issues for a while before they returned their post-Heroes Reborn series back to the numbering they would have had if not interrupted. DC's recent brief revival of Adventure Comics was dual numbered on both the cover and the indicia.
* Publishers- The difficulties are probably sidestepped in terms of schema definition, although when you get to older U.S. comics from more obscure publishers the usefulness of this field may be dubious given the varied (and often hotly contested) opinions as to who the "real" publisher of any given issue is. I suppose that's more of a content quality issue than a schema definition issue, although I guess you could make it a multi-valued field and then all of the possible publishers could be added. Come to think of it, you'll need to handle joint DC/Marvel and similar publications as well (we don't handle those well currently either). Hmm.. Are the books with DC/Vertigo on the DC or Vertigo? I guess that gets back into policing content, so it's not your concern. (can you tell that publication history is one of my primary interests?)
* Credits- I would definitely hope for an editor role. Some people might want to see, for instance, whether a given Silver Age DC title was edited by Julius Schwartz or not. Beyond that, if you're stuck with a fixed set you're stuck with a fixed set, and this is a reasonable set.
On the topic of distribution, I think there's some confusion (although your reply remains valid and useful). In earlier times there was no (visible or known) distribution code, but there sometimes was a distribution mark indicating who did the distribution (A.N.C., I.N.D., P.D.C., the Atlas globe, etc.) However, I'm not sure this would be of interest for your purposes. It's of interest to researchers, but doesn't apply much to current commercial concerns- even most collectors don't pay attention to it.
Looking at your open issues, I would advise against enumerating comic book formats. While there are several common ones, there are endless variations, especially globally. If you do attempt it, I advise including a catch-all for things that don't fit.
I would also advise treating comic strips as a separate but related project. The credits largely apply to both, but the unit of publication is so different- you want to go strip by strip, not newspaper by newspaper. The biggest problem is handling reprints of strips in comic books, but if you are not tracking reprints then you can more easily punt this.
Finally, since I don't have a formal position in the GCD these days, I feel free enough to be gauche and suggest our own issue id as a field. An increasing number of commercial sites are using GCD data, and it could also be viewed as a way to access extended information beyond the scope of the schema.org project, which is pretty much what commercial sites use it for now. But I would not consider it a slight if this suggestion were ignored :-)
thanks,
-henry
>________________________________
> From: "Olson, Peter" <pol...@marvel.com>
>To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
>Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2012 4:35 PM
>Subject: RE: [gcd-tech] Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
>
>
>Hi Henry & Lionel -
>
>We thought very hard about adding stories to this schema but ultimately decided against including them. (We use the series > issue > story model internally - indeed we adopted it after guidance from you guys some years ago. It's integral to how our comic data model works at Marvel.)
>
>The main reason we decided against including stories (and housing creator and character assignments therein) is ease of implementation. In order to be most effective, the schema needs to be adopted widely and in order to get wide adoption it needs to be easy to understand and implement. Most retailer and fan sites don't really think about comics as granularly as our groups do. Retailers and fans don't encounter loose comic stories (the same way that particle physicists don't encounter loose quarks) - they're dealing with issues. Fans are writing about them and retailers are selling them in print and digital formats. It's unlikely, I think, that a fan or retailer (or even many publishers) will go to the length of teasing out the collection of stories in an issue and then attribute creation credits to them. (Additionally, a lot of the schema.org direction is about modeling saleable products - loose stories aren't for sale).
Ultimately we decided it's best to aggregate talent assignments at the issue level, even if that doesn't perfectly match the "standard model" for comics as we understand them.
>
>In any case even if the spec is adopted, is likely to be iterative and we can maybe introduce stories to the spec at a later date.
>
>Re some of your other points -
>See my other email about the distributor code - It can be any distributor (with Diamond being the obvious candidate in the US) or no distributor. In a lot of cases many of the identifiers for comics aren't going to be present at all. Not every data point enumerated here has to be present for every comic on the web.
>Volume - I'll change volume from a number to a string in the spec. Your qualms are EXACTLY why we use the start year as the volume on marvel.com. No one f$%&-ing knows which volume number is which.
>Creator roles - Editor is part of the Creative Work schema, as are a number of other roles. The schema.org design pattern kind of stipulates that each creative work type has a pre-defined set of creative roles. It's problematic when other creative types arise but it's kind of their call.
>Anthologies - under this schema, creative credits will be aggregated at the issue level (for reasons outlined above).
>Comic strips - I feel like comic strips are kind of their own beast. Even though they share some elements of storytelling with comic books, they are a distinct art form and are distributed and enumerated quite differently than comic books. I agree they probably deserve their own spec distinct from comic issues - and I'm probably not very qualified to write it. Maybe someone on your side can pick up the baton.
>"Which issue number" - that type of question is a bit beyond the scope of what we can do with the schema. The schema only gives a structure to fill in - it doesn't stipulate what should occupy any data point
I noticed page count was missing and it should be there as of the last iteration I did last night. All schemas can attributes with multiple values – I don’t know of a use case when there’s multiple publishers but the schema would theoretically allow it.
Price is handled through the Product/Offer schemas (for currently on-sale books). There might be some value to having an original printed price as well, but I don’t know if that adds confusion or not.
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I think that there is likely to be some modest traffic benefit to your site if you do add the markup. It does make a lot of sense to me to add the comics.org ID to the schema (and obviously it’ll be an easier sell to add that if you use the markup on your pages).
I’ll try to amend the spec to handle multiple distributors – your arguments make a lot of sense there. I know in the specific case of comixology they display the diamond code for most books on their site as well as their own IDs.
-peter
From: gcd-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:gcd-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lionel English
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2012 5:12 PM
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
******************************************************************************
Is there any intentions to try to make this schema an international standard?
Cheers,
Andrés
2012/2/14 Olson, Peter <pol...@marvel.com>:
--
Andres Jimenez
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 7:20 AM
Subject: RE: [gcd-tech] Re: Fwd: [gcd-contact] Comic Web Schema
Let me know if you need any help in that regard. We were able to mock up the markup (say that 10 times fast) on Marvel.com pretty quickly. The idea again is that this is easy to implement.
-peter
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 10:38 AM
From: Lionel English <lio...@beanmar.net>
To: gcd-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 1:44 PM
But thank goodness you do, or my personal tracking systems would be unusable!
Hey guys –
Just an update (sorry I’ve been a little slow in keeping you up-to-date in this). I’ve made a few updates to the schema based on yours and other people’s comments. Regarding the comics.org internal ID, some of the schema.org members had a good suggestion. Basically there’s a method to extend data points in the schema (http://www.w3.org/wiki/PeriodicalsComics#Local_ID_Spaces) in order to reference local ID spaces. This would allow your ID (or internal publisher IDs or distributor IDs) to be referenced when needed by web site owners without having to formally specify it within the schema. Basically this provides a lot of flexibility to reference different IDs without cluttering up the property definitions or giving a privileged position to any one organization.
The schema has been moved to candidate status as well, so thanks for all your help so far.
-peter
Even a push in the right direction is appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeff
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