New Issue: Blank Entries

[spid]

I just wanted to give every one a heads up for something you may see in the future. If a contributor has a history of entering in new issues with no creator information entered in the new issue may be deleted. The contributor will receive an email reminding them of the site policy before any deletion of issues will occur. The idea behind this is not meant to discourage any one from contributing to the site to the site as a whole. This also does not mean every character, synopsis, or note field has to be filled when you initially create a new entry. This is only meant to encourage the basic information be entered in when a new issue, TPB, etc is created.


Here is a reminder of the FAQ which addresses this topic.

Please make your listings as complete as possible. If you are adding an issue to the database, please take the time to fill out as many of the available fields as possible. If you have an older book with no credited creators, please use the placeholder (Unknown Creator) rather than leaving the field blank. If the book is colored in black and white or graytones, please use (Story is monochromatic) or (Graytones)


If you have any questions or comment please let myself or any other moderator know.

[spid]

This is not meant as a heavy handed thing. This is primarily to identify users who chronically enter bad data. The next step would be to contact them, and if there is no response or they have a bad email linked to proceed forward. If some one was busy when they try to enter in an issue or two that is one thing. It is another thing altogether when 9/10 entries some one puts in are blank.

[spid]

I am going to bumped this thread up to remind everyone to complete as possible when you enter in a new issue. This is implies to trade entries as well. Some of you may have received emails from myself or another moderator in the past. If you have received an email in the past, and you notice your entry is missing this is the reason why.

Thanks.

[spid]

Only uploading a thumbnail is not against the site's policy. That being said the same people who normally do this are also people who do not have an email address for us to contact them. What is against policy is to upload an image with a watermark on it which I am replacing with the new cover uploaded image.

[spid]

I am bumping this to remind everyone to be as complete as possible when entering new issues. While your not in danger of getting your entry deleted if you just put in two or three creator entries it sort of goes against the spirit by doing the minimum or just copying the basic information off a company's coming soon list.

[übernot]

spid: Thanks for bumping this thread. I spend a good deal of time scanning covers due to missing large images. Thankfully, I haven't been seeing too many watermarked images for recent Marvel covers, but rest assured I will replace them when I find them and I have the issue in question.

(You mean there's Marvel comics you don't own? Oh, believe me, it's a sore spot, and I continue to work on the problem.)

I can appreciate contributors adding issues and are unable to scan covers. I know I do not fill out entries with complete synopses or character listings for new books because I usually haven't read them by the time I am scanning the covers. But, it's frustrating to see either no large image or the thumbnail used as the large image. Sometimes I'll rescan covers if I don't like the quality or size of the large cover scan, but that's just me being picky.

If we had that report to show issues missing large cover images, that would help.

Also, I think the one piece of issue data that gets skipped most frequently (aside from associate/managing/chief editors being added along with the precisely named "editor") is the page count. One of the easiest things to get. Usually, on a staple-bound book, you only need to count the pages up until the staple and multiply by 2. Yes, TPBs and other squarebound books don't offer such simple counting methods, but c'mon and give it a try. Make a game out of it: pretend you're Count Von Count and count the pages with your kids or something.

1! 2! 3! 4! 4 comics book pages! Ah ah ah!

Yep, übernot finally got his forum account back and already he's ranting.

[Uthor]

One of the easiest things to get. Usually, on a staple-bound book, you only need to count the pages up until the staple and multiply by 2.

You count all the pages?! Count until you hit the staple and multiply by 4. Takes half the time!

[übernot]

Sorry, I should have written "count by twos until you hit the staple, then multiple by 2". Same difference, although I don't want to exclude those people who haven't mastered their times tables through 4.

[Soda]

Missing covers don't bother me that much (adding the thumbnail as a large image - especially on obscure stuff I've never heard of - does a little bit) but what DOES bother me is that prick that creates an issue and then only adds writer(s), penciller(s) and cover artist(s). Nothing more. Personally I think that's assholish behaviour.
Yes, you want to be the one to add the new issue to get the +1 credit but it's not THAT difficult to at least add all the creators involved in said comic book. I usually immidiately add all the covers as well. The only thing were I have to get back later on are the characters.
Personally I think those users should be (temporarily) banned from adding new issues to get that they are doing something wrong here. Because it's a lot of work to complete those entries.

And it's also a little bit annoying that I'm the only one adding all the reprinted stories from "Heroes" and "A Moment of Silence" for the latest Marvel issues (Im not buying a lot of Marvel these days so I can't add them to all of them).

BTW: Currently I'm updating the rather old "Marvel Comic Presents" series. It's really "nice" that half of the creators (and not only the editors) are (were) missing - either all of them or the one who entered those issues only entered the creators he was a fan of (John Byrne, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee). I'm up to issue #60 and I think I had to add creator to at least 12 issues by now. Hmpf!

[spid]

I am going to bump this thread again as a reminder not to enter in blank entries.

[spid]

I thought this thread could use another bump.

[spid]

With the history down I thought I would give this thread a bump.

[mikebo]

Bumping the thread again. Seeing a lot of blank issues added lately.

[Ukiah]

I saw a title to a comic the other day but which had no issues under it, I'm assuming this falls under the same problem. Ugh, wish I had written down the name of that title... it was through random searching :/

In regards to the person above who was annoyed when other creators are left out, I'm assuming you mean when those lines are left blank rather than (creator is unknown). A number of comics I've added don't have all the creator information listed (yeah, I don't know why either) so it's not always that they're purposely excluding to acknowledge all the creators - another might be that the person isn't listed and they don't have time when they're uploading the issue to create an entry for that person and plan to get back to it (or just forget).

I'm sure giving people a heads up on what they're missing is often enough to get them to fill in that missing data next time they log in, though I'm also sure there are contributors out there who just want to be the first to submit a new issue title before anyone else and it's the title and cover submissions which gets recorded in your profile.

[spid]

Blank titles are not treated the same. Creator Unknown is fine we just do not want empty entries clogging up the system. I have started emailing people the links to the blank entries. I typically give people 24 hours to either respond to the email or correct the entries.