EditBug:10091 Type field dropdown is inconsistent and EDITOR entries vanish

• EditBug:10091 Type field dropdown is inconsistent and EDITOR entries vanish OPEN From edit-pub when you do an [Add Title] the type field included EDITOR among the options. This type is not available if you just do an edit-pub and look at an existing content record. I had added contents to an anthology which happens to have two introductions. Usually for fields like the Type I hit the first letter and then look meaning on the first introduction I hit E, got ESSAY, and moved on to the second introduction where I hit E and did not look up meaning I did not notice it was on EDITOR instead of the assumed ESSAY. I entered the remaining titles, saved the publication and noticed the second introduction was missing. I still had the browser window open and so hit –back- so I could see if in fact I had entered the inro. Yep, but… in the Type field it says ANTHOLOGY. Hmm, that seems like an odd typo/mistake and so I hit –forward- to see the original XML blob where I see <cType>EDITOR</cType> which explained to me how I made the error.

I fiddled with the pubs Type field to get the missing title record to display without luck and eventually dealt with it via a title-search and from there doing an edit-title and changing the type.

The bug report would be that the type field dropdown contents are inconsistent. I’ll leave to you to decide if EDITOR should be added or removed. There may be a second bug in that the system allows you to enter EDITOR records but it’s then not clear where they get used in ISFDB. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:13, 20 Jan 2007 (CST)

Well, the logic works like this: There is no need for an EDITOR option on new publications, as it is automatically generated for magazines and shouldn't be used for other types of pubs (and in fact it was specifically removed as an option for new pubs as it generated confusion and served no useful purpose). I've left it on editpub because I actually use it quite a bit. Not every magazine has an EDITOR title record - these records were generated by hand in ISFDB1, so they didn't exist for the conversion to ISFDB2 (this forgetfullness is the primary reason that the records are now autogenerated).

We could do a database update, and insert EDITOR records for all magazines that don't currently have one, but that would still leave us with the case where it would be possible to delete an errant record (through rmtitles), but unable to add a record that was mistakenly deleted (or had its type changed).

I think the things that's missing is that one can change an existing title from an EDITOR to something else, but not the reverse (as indicated above). Alvonruff 05:52, 24 Jan 2007 (CST)

Would some run-time validation help? For example, suppose "Submit" on Edit Pub gives you an error and asks you to hit -back- and fix the problem if you choose EDITOR for a non-magazine pub type? Or could you change the drop down list for content items, triggered by a change to the pub type? That would be a little messier, since you'd have to deal with existing EDITOR content when you switch the pub type. The submit-time validation could also do the reverse -- if you change a magazine to a non-magazine, it might require you to do something with the now meaningless EDITOR record.

Some similar validation could also be done on Edit Title submit, couldn't it? Check if the title is included in any MAGAZINE pubs; if not, deny EDITOR title type. You probably can't prevent an EDITOR type from being changed to something else, though, since that could be required to fix errors in data entry, such as Marc described. 07:45, 25 Jan 2007 (CST)

Going back is problematic as new titles/authors are inserted by the javascript routines, and are often lost when the browser goes back a page (completely browser specific). I do plan on having a new page which replaces the XML output (which is probably not useful for the masses), and display the data in the way seen in the moderator's screens. At the top of that page could be a warnings area, and the user would have to update based on the warnings, and be given a resubmit. After no warnings/errors, the finalize button would show up. This may take a while.

As far as the EDITOR records go, perhaps the easier short-term fix is to let EDITOR show up in the pulldown - for MAGAZINES only. An maybe only if there is no existing EDITOR record. Alvonruff 12:14, 25 Jan 2007 (CST)

Are EDITOR records only used to populate the "Magazine Editor" section of author bibliographies? I did some testing and it looks like I can add EDITOR records to the contents of any publication they never show up in the publication display, publication edit pages, nor in remove-titles (remove-titles on a magazine causes what I believe is a spurious warning “WARNING: Unable to local (sic) the title reference for this publication.”). The EDITOR records seem to be a background thing that can only be located via search.

The original thing I brought up was that ISFDB was inconsistent in that EDITOR was not in the drop-down for new-pub. I now understand why that’s the case and Al’s suggestion on have it only available for Magazine publications seems like a safe “not too much work” option. Marc Kupper 12:28, 25 Jan 2007 (CST)