Workflow

[Lionel English]

Oh, yes, good call!

 

The strip project will follow the current GCD workflow, which is as follows for those who aren't familiar with it:

 

* Users create user accounts.  We will share accounts with the comic book database (i.e. you won't need separate logins for the two projects (or future projects)).

* Users will log in to the site.  They can create new objects (strip, creator, syndicate, newspaper, etc), or select and reserve an existing object for editing.

* When an indexer is ready, they "submit" their changes.

* Editors monitor the pending submission queue, and select changes for review.

* Upon review, a change may be approved, in which case it becomes live and is pushed to the production site where users may see it.  Or it may be sent back to the indexer with questions or with corrections indicated.  So everything is peer reviewed before it is pushed live to the outside world.  The editing process includes a few extra fields used for communication between indexer and editor that will not normally be visible to end users unless they review a given records change history.

* An indexer may retract a change for further changes before an editor looks at it.  This has the effect of removing it from the pending approval queue and putting it back in the indexers work queue.
* Any existing record on the live site may be selected by an indexer for additional edits.  So data will continually be going through a process of review and revise (the editor system generally works to prevent a give item from being changed back and forth continually).

 

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Merlin Haas <mvh...@elpaso.net> wrote:

OK, just as a reminder, our initial goal here is to come up with a requirements doc that can be passed on to our tech team, so they can begin analyzing, modeling, and prototyping an actual database.  So far I think we're making pretty good progress.

We've identified a large but fairly well-defined scope:  newspaper comics, national and local, for all locales, including small press alternative papers and college/university newspapers.

We have a decent collection of data elements we want to index, below.  Please let me know if we discussed anything else, data wise, that's not included below.

I don't know if we discussed it, but we need a "Notes" field somewhere. Or maybe there should be a "comments" field for each data group you listed for sources, etc.
Am I correct in assuming  that the general structure is planned to be the same as the GCD as far as editing and submitting for approval?

best -- Merlin Haas

What we've most recently been discussing is functionality--how do you want to interact with the database?  How do you want to be able to index things?  What do you want to be able to search for?  How do you want large search results presented?  Are there other things we should look at?  Many of those questions might have multiple answers.

I'm hoping to wrap up this initial discussion phase by the end of next week--if discussion gets hot and heavy I'll keep it going longer, but if not I'll wrap it up next weekend and post the requirements document to the gcd-tech list where the programmers live.  When that happens, I'll post a link back to this list of the relevant thread on that list (which has public archives--you don't need to subscribe (but can if you want) to follow what's going on). After that, I'll leave this list open, and you can discuss whatever you want while we're waiting, and I'll be sure to update everyone -- via this list -- when the tech team has questions for us to consider, or when they're ready for some beta-testing.  When we reach the beta-testing phase, this list will shift focus to beta-testing discussions--what's working, what isn't, what could be done better.

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 10:23 PM, Lionel English <<mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>lio...@beanmar.net> wrote:

I'm trying to stay away from implementation discussions, 'cause our programmers asked so nicely :-), but I can't help thinking of things in data groupings, and so I'm going to reorganize my thoughts along those lines to see what new ideas shake out.

== Data ==

Strip meta data  -- general information about the strip.  Name of the strip. Alternate names.  Dates begun and concluded.  Creator(s). Premise.  Genre.  Links to preceding and/or succeeding strips, if any.  Frequency.  Format(s).  Newspaper or magazine.

Strip owners -- syndicate or other entities who control distribution.  Names.  Address(es).  Dates.  Key personnel (and tenures and positions).  Links to previous and/or next incarnations.

Ownership -- links between strips and strip owners indicating duration of relationship.  Strip.  Owner.  Begin and end dates.

Subscribers -- papers or magazines in which a strip appears. Publication name.  Publisher.  Location/distribution area.  Links to previous and/or next incarnations.

Issues -- issues of above.  Date and/or vol/issue number.

Installments or episodes -- individual strips.  Date and/or serial number.  Installment title.  Credits.  Characters.  Synopsis or identifying caption or dialog.  Keywords.

Publication -- occurrences of installments in issues.

Story/Continuity -- aggregates of installments that tell extended stories.  Story name.  Synopsis.  Keywords.  Characters.

Characters -- people who appear in a strip.  Name(s).  First appearance.  Brief description.  Strip(s) and story(ies) associated with.

Creators -- people who produce strips.  Name(s).  Birth, death dates.  Brief bio.  Links to work.


== Functionality ==

Must be able to enter/edit/search for all of the above.

Must be able to work on data in bulk--create installments in bulk by specifying beginning and ending dates and frequency.  Select installments by data range to add/edit credits in bulk.  Etc.

--
Lionel English
San Diego, CA

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

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Lionel English
San Diego, CA

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

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lio...@beanmar.net