Difference between revisions of "Stabilizing Bibliographic Data"

Revision as of 12:21, 27 May 2006

This page is a proposed guideline for how the data in the ISFDB database progresses towards a stable state. For a discussion of these guidelines, see the talk pages; updates to this page should be restricted to modifications and improvements to the guidelines.

Definition of terms. The following terms are used in these guidelines.

Editor. Any user who submits a modification to the ISFDB data.
Moderator. Any user with privilege to choose to accept or reject data submissions.

Overview

The data in the ISFDB is of two types. First, there are individual ‘’’publications’’’. “Publication” is the ISFDB term for a physical, published entity. It can be a book, a magazine, or an eBook; a chapbook, or perhaps even a fanzine. However, it is an object that can be obtained and examined, and the information verified.

Second, there are relations between publications. There are authors, who may have written many books; sometimes authors use different names on different works, while there may also be two authors with the same name. Works have titles, which can vary; they can be revised, or completely rewritten. Stories can be parts of series. Stories, novels, magazines and authors can win awards. All of this data is verifiable, but in a weaker sense than for publications, which can after all be physically examined. There are degrees of certainty for this data. Is “Masters of the Vortex” really part of the Lensman series? Is “Sunken Universe” the same story as “Surface Tension”?

These two types of data are what the ISFDB wants to record. The ISFDB is now open to editing by users, which means that all of the data can be modified. All modified data must be validated first by moderators, of whom there are currently four. However, it is clear that the goal of the ISFDB is not endless modification of the records, which is likely to be the case for Wikipedia, for example; instead the goal is that when a record is “correct”, it should be stable and should never change again, unless perhaps new attributes are added to the database. “Correct” here is clearly defined for “publications”, and will generally be clear for authors, titles, pseudonyms and so on; it may be a subject for debate on occasion. It is still true, however, that once a consensus is reached that data is correct, it should not change again.

This guideline defines how this is achieved.

Enhancements required to support these guidelines

Two enhancements to the ISFDB are required to support these guidelines: a "correctness flag" on the publication record, and a link on the edit and moderation screens to a Wiki page for each publication.

Correctness flag

A verification flag has been proposed for the ISFDB and is in the roadmap for June. This guideline assumes the existence of a similar flag, called the correctness flag, on the publication record. Setting the flag indicates that there is reason to believe the data is correct. This guideline addresses when the flag should be set, and how edits to a record should be handled when the flag is set and when it is not set.

It may be desirable at some stage to use the correctness flag in displaying ISFDB data, to help readers to assess reliability. Such uses are outside the scope of this guideline.

Publication wiki page

Each publication will have a wiki page. The title will be taken from the publication's tag. For example, The 1952 Avon edition of James Blish's Jack of Eagles has a tag of JCKOEG1952. The Wiki page for discussion of this publication would then be Publication:JCKOEG1952. This is not easy to interpret, but unfortunately text based on the title or author would not be sufficiently specific. The contents of the page will be notes on what sources editors have used for the data entered for this publication, and also notes on what verifications have been done against other bibliographic sources. It is unnecessary to record that, for example, a given publication matches the entry in Tuck. The goal of the ISFDB is not to perform and track a validation of other bibliographies. However, any discrepancies with major bibliographic sources should certainly be recorded here; this will be useful for bibliographic researchers and, more importantly for the ISFDB, is information a moderator may need to know to resolve conflicting edits.

A link to the publication Wiki page should appear in the ISFDB in three places: when displaying the publication; in the edit screen for the publication; and in the moderate screen for the publication.

Creating and modifying publication records

When you create a new publication record, where possible you should use an actual copy of the publication. If you do, also check "Correct", as this is the best possible verification. When you have submitted the record, please also follow the displayed link to the publications Wiki page and add a note there saying something like "Entered from actual copy", and sign your name using four tildes: ~~~~.

If you are creating a record by using a bibliographic resource, such as Currey, Tuck, or Reginald, you may also enter the correctness flag. If you are using a resource that does not supply some of the bibliographic data, please do not check "Correct". For example, the Nicholls/Clute Encyclopedia, while very reliable, does not generally give publisher or price for edition information, and data entered from this source should not be marked correct.

It is preferable not to create a publication record at all if you do not have some bibliographic source to work from. If you know (from memory), for example, that there was a variant edition of In Viriconium by M. John Harrison published in the US with the title The Floating Gods, please don't create a publication of that name unless you can find some documentary reference to it. In a situation like this it would be better to edit the Author:M. John Harrison page and add a note that this title is missing. Even better would be to try to locate a description of the book on the web. Resources such as Ebay and second hand book aggregator listings can be used to locate book descriptions for publication data entry, so long as these are not marked correct.

If you do decide for whatever reason to add a publication without a source, please do not set the correctness flag.

When moderating, if a record does not have the correctness flag set, then any reasonable-looking change should be permitted. A moderator is not obliged to verify every record; if they have a copy to hand or a bibliographic reference, they are free to check it, but because of the likely volume of records to be moderated it is not realistic to expect this to happen very often.

If a submission sets the correctness flag, the moderator should check the Wiki page for that publication. If there is no information there about why the flag is being set, then the moderator should consider rejecting the change. If they wish to check against bibliographic sources they have access to they can do so, and they should update the Wiki page themselves in that case.

Issues with editing existing records

If a submission edits a record that was already marked correct, then the moderator should again check the Wiki page to see if a justification is given. If the edit simply adds data that was omitted before -- such as the name of the artist -- then it is OK to accept the edit without any entry on the Wiki page. If the submission modifies data, and there is no justification given, it should be rejected unless the moderator has the ability to check the data. In that case a Wiki page entry should be made. If the submission is supported by information on the Wiki page indicating what the source was for the data the moderator must determine whether to allow the change. Generally the change should be permitted if the reasons is documented; subsequent Wiki discussion can address any issues with conflicting sources or variant editions.

If a submission turns off the correctness flag, the moderator should permit this if the record is obviously deficient in some way -- missing important data, such as publisher or price, for example. If there is no obvious problem, the change should be rejected unless there is supporting information on the Wiki page for the publication.

Other record types

The same principles apply to other record types. However, correctness flags cannot be set for these other record types. They may be introduced at some future stage, but the publication data, being both easy to verify and clearly primary data, is the only data for which this guideline is proposed.

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 This guideline defines how this is achieved.
-==Verifying, discussing and recording correct data==
+==Enhancements required to support these guidelines==
-The discussion here is provided in terms of publications, since that is the data for which correctness is easiest to ascertain.  A short note after this section comments on the differences from these notes for other data, such as authors, pseudonyms, titles and variant titles.
+Two enhancements to the ISFDB are required to support these guidelines: a "correctness flag" on the publication record, and a link on the edit and moderation screens to a Wiki page for each publication.
-Ideally one always has a publication in hand when the data is entered.  In practice this is not always done; and sometimes it is very difficult, e.g. for rare editions.  Hence the data is entered from bibliographic sources such as Tuck, Reginald, Nicholls or Currey.  This is secondhand attribution and is occasionally incorrect in itself.
+===Correctness flag===
+A verification flag has been proposed for the ISFDB and is in the roadmap for June.  This guideline assumes the existence of a similar flag, called the correctness flag, on the publication record.  Setting the flag indicates that there is reason to believe the data is correct.  This guideline addresses when the flag should be set, and how edits to a record should be handled when the flag is set and when it is not set.
-It is also worth noting that occasionally there are printing variations within a given edition.
+It may be desirable at some stage to use the correctness flag in displaying ISFDB data, to help readers to assess reliability.  Such uses are outside the scope of this guideline.
+===Publication wiki page===
+Each publication will have a wiki page.  The title will be taken from the publication's tag.  For example, The 1952 Avon edition of James Blish's ''Jack of Eagles'' has a tag of JCKOEG1952.  The Wiki page for discussion of this publication would then be [[Publication:JCKOEG1952]].  This is not easy to interpret, but unfortunately text based on the title or author would not be sufficiently specific.  The contents of the page will be notes on what sources editors have used for the data entered for this publication, and also notes on what verifications have been done against other bibliographic sources.  It is unnecessary to record that, for example, a given publication matches the entry in Tuck.  The goal of the ISFDB is not to perform and track a validation of other bibliographies.  However, any discrepancies with major bibliographic sources should certainly be recorded here; this will be useful for bibliographic researchers and, more importantly for the ISFDB, is information a moderator may need to know to resolve conflicting edits.
+A link to the publication Wiki page should appear in the ISFDB in three places: when displaying the publication; in the edit screen for the publication; and in the moderate screen for the publication.
+==Creating and modifying publication records==
+When you create a new publication record, where possible you should use an actual copy of the publication.  If you do, also check "Correct", as this is the best possible verification. When you have submitted the record, please also follow the displayed link to the publications Wiki page and add a note there saying something like "Entered from actual copy", and sign your name using four tildes: <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>.
+If you are creating a record by using a bibliographic resource, such as Currey, Tuck, or Reginald, you may also enter the correctness flag.  If you are using a resource that does not supply some of the bibliographic data, please do not check "Correct".  For example, the Nicholls/Clute Encyclopedia, while very reliable, does not generally give publisher or price for edition information, and data entered from this source should not be marked correct.
+It is preferable not to create a publication record at all if you do not have some bibliographic source to work from.  If you know (from memory), for example, that there was a variant edition of ''In Viriconium'' by M. John Harrison published in the US with the title ''The Floating Gods'', please don't create a publication of that name unless you can find some documentary reference to it.  In a situation like this it would be better to edit the [[Author:M. John Harrison]] page and add a note that this title is missing.  Even better would be to try to locate a description of the book on the web.  Resources such as Ebay and second hand book aggregator listings can be used to locate book descriptions for publication data entry, so long as these are not marked correct.
+If you do decide for whatever reason to add a publication without a source, please do not set the correctness flag.
-When a publication is updated by any editor, by default the only validation a moderator will provide is a sanity check.  If the change looks reasonable the moderator will let it pass.  If the moderator has a copy to check they may, but the volume will probably not permit this in general.
+When moderating, if a record does not have the correctness flag set, then any reasonable-looking change should be permitted.  A moderator is not obliged to verify every record; if they have a copy to hand or a bibliographic reference, they are free to check it, but because of the likely volume of records to be moderated it is not realistic to expect this to happen very often.
-If the change is definitely wrong, it will be rejected.  More often the correctness cannot be determined and the moderator will have to make a judgement as to whether the data update is to be permitted.  Each publication has a wiki page (the title of which is taken from the publication id, since that’s the most stable data), which is available from the moderator screen, and which records any notes on history of changes to the record.  A change can be accepted and a note made; or rejected and a note made.  Editors with rejected changes can read the notes to determine why a change was rejected, and the issue can be debated and settled on that page.  This will guide moderators in accepting changes.
+If a submission sets the correctness flag, the moderator should check the Wiki page for that publication.  If there is no information there about why the flag is being set, then the moderator should consider rejecting the change.  If they wish to check against bibliographic sources they have access to they can do so, and they should update the Wiki page themselves in that case.
-A moderator can also choose to mark a publication as correct.  This is a flag on the publication record itself.  A publication flagged as correct should generally not be updated, though this will be at the discretion of the moderator.  The flag is settable only by moderators.  Any change to a correct publication should always include a note on the publication’s wiki page explaining the change.
+===Issues with editing existing records===
+If a submission edits a record that was already marked correct, then the moderator should again check the Wiki page to see if a justification is given.  If the edit simply adds data that was omitted before -- such as the name of the artist -- then it is OK to accept the edit without any entry on the Wiki page.  If the submission modifies data, and there is no justification given, it should be rejected unless the moderator has the ability to check the data.  In that case a Wiki page entry should be made.  If the submission is supported by information on the Wiki page indicating what the source was for the data the moderator must determine whether to allow the change.  Generally the change should be permitted if the reasons is documented; subsequent Wiki discussion can address any issues with conflicting sources or variant editions.
-It may be desirable at some stage to use the correctness flag in displaying ISFDB data, to help readers to assess reliability.  Such uses are outside the scope of this guideline.
+If a submission turns off the correctness flag, the moderator should permit this if the record is obviously deficient in some way -- missing important data, such as publisher or price, for example.  If there is no obvious problem, the change should be rejected unless there is supporting information on the Wiki page for the publication.
 ==Other record types==
-The same principles apply to other record types.  However, correctness flags cannot be set for these other record types.  They may be introduced at some future stage, but the publication data, being both easy to verify and clearly primary data, is the only data which has this verification at present.
+The same principles apply to other record types.  However, correctness flags cannot be set for these other record types.  They may be introduced at some future stage, but the publication data, being both easy to verify and clearly primary data, is the only data for which this guideline is proposed.