Database/file mistakes & problems I've noticed

[kitsunebi]

3 hours ago, retrochain said:

When checking to see if my remaining small collection of magazines has already been preserved, I noticed the GamePro discrepancy and almost came to the conclusion my issue of GamePro had not been scanned yet - as 94 shows a different cover. Only on scrolling back up the page and catching a glimpse of the familiar cover alerted me that the issue numbers are off, and I came to the forum to see if anybody else had pointed this out. The explanation is satisfactory, but I feel like moving the entries 10 issues forward and adding dummie entries for the unpublished issues with an explanation of what happened on GamePro's part would be better for anyone looking to donate their magazines to the cause.

We were discussing this very thing the other day.  Don't worry - plans are being made to fix things to make it less confusing for everyone.

https://www.retromags.com/forums/topic/2223-phillymans-work-in-progress/?do=findComment&comment=52723

 

[Phillyman]

This morning I fixed up the latter half of GamePro magazine. Now from issue 91 until the end is numbered correctly. I am searching the GamePro magazines for any recognition of "issue numbers" so far I came across this.

So to me it looks like GamePro wanted to call dibs on being the first magazine to hit 100 issues and inflated their numbers with other published works

Edit: Yup, By inflating their issue count GamePro was able to claim to be the first video game magazine to hit 100 issues in January 1997, without inflating their numbers Nintendo Power would have reached issue 100 first in September 1997 and Electronic Gaming Monthly would have reached it in November 1997

 

[kitsunebi]

5 hours ago, Phillyman said:

So to me it looks like GamePro wanted to call dibs on being the first magazine to hit 100 issues and inflated their numbers with other published works

 

Now THAT'S the kind of alternative-fact self-aggrandizement that an entire country could rally behind.

GamePro 2020

[Phillyman]

22 minutes ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Now THAT'S the kind of alternative-fact self-aggrandizement that an entire country could rally behind.

GamePro 2020

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I mean common, fast forward 50 issues from here and they still are carrying on this charade in issue 150! I counted the covers manually!!!!!

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[E-Day]

On ‎2017‎-‎09‎-‎06 at 6:38 PM, Phillyman said:

I mean common, fast forward 50 issues from here and they still are carrying on this charade in issue 150! I counted the covers manually!!!!!

 

I'm convinced that their one-offs like 16-Bit Video Gaming, their Celebrity Gamer issue, CD-ROM Video Gaming, Video Game Greatest Hits July-August 1991 and so on are counted, and because they aren't proper issues, they didn't want to show them.

Anyhow, I think we need an entry in the database for issue 81-90. Phillyman's post can be the description for it. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend 

[kitsunebi]

I think we should leave it as it is.  Posting a new topic wondering where the missing GamePros are without doing a search for the 15 other topics that answer their question is a rite of passage for newbs. 

[E-Day]

It's also annoying. And it would help those who are just researching and not joining the site. We are putting all this work into have a database filled with information, I think having an entry for the ghost issues would make the database more thorough.

[kitsunebi]

Facetiousness.  It's what I do.  Y so srs?

I don't disagree, and if it were any mag other than Gamepro, I'd have done it myself already (me and Gamepro aren't on speaking terms.)  Although out of curiosity I would have liked to see how long it would actually take before someone asked about it.  Now that we've fixed the glaring problem of having the issue numbers on our site be completely different from the issue numbers printed on the mag, I think we've already eliminated the biggest source of confusion.

[E-Day]

I didn't realize you were being a pest in that post

[kitsunebi]

Admittedly, what bothered me most about Gamepro was the way we purposefully misnamed all of the issues, and that has been fixed.  Now the only fault lies at the feet of a bunch of editors and "writers" so professional they never even used their real names, so it doesn't really surprise me that they would do something so stupid.

However, being responsible for the Japanese potion of the site has taught me to treat all such things with a certain amount of whimsy and irreverence.  What the hell do I care if Gamepro skipped some issues in their numbering system?  Famitsu has been doing that several times per year for 30 years now (although they technically don't skip the numbers, they just skip issues and give certain issues two numbers to make up for it.)  Other mags spread their numbering system amongst several different titles from the same publisher so that the numbers become meaningless ("Let's see, I have issue 8, 23, 42, 51,75...yep that's every single issue published with this title!)  And at least one title I know of existed (for a while) concurrently under both its own numbering system as well as the numbering system of the mag it spun off of.

[E-Day]

I added the entry in the database for issue 81-90. I didn't quote Phillyman in the description, but I did link to his post.

I liked that GamePro used pseudonyms. It added to the fun nature of the magazine. I didn't realize at the time that it was to cover up that they were a small staff and that writers had multiple pseudonyms. But even if I knew that I still would have liked it. Then I probably would have tried to figure out which names were the same person.

 

 

[kitsunebi]

2 hours ago, E-Day said:

I added the entry in the database for issue 81-90. I didn't quote Phillyman in the description, but I did link to his post.

I liked that GamePro used pseudonyms. It added to the fun nature of the magazine. I didn't realize at the time that it was to cover up that they were a small staff and that writers had multiple pseudonyms. But even if I knew that I still would have liked it. Then I probably would have tried to figure out which names were the same person.

I think my problem with GamePro stems from the fact that I didn't ever pick up an issue until the late 90s, by which time I was in college and too old to appreciate the idea of a magazine being run by a bunch of anonymous cartoon characters.  If I'd read GamePro in elementary school I probably would have liked it better.

Btw, you may want to change the sorting field on your entry so that it actually appears in the 81st issue spot as opposed to the very first spot like it is now.  That "Winter Quarterly Issue" needs to be moved as well, either to the end or to the GamePro Specials category.

[E-Day]

I was in Grade 8 when I started reading it.

I can't find where to change the sorting field for individual entries. However, I did update the magazine table index on the publication page to reflect the corrected numbering. I think all that's left is the gallery.

[kitsunebi]

7 hours ago, E-Day said:

I can't find where to change the sorting field for individual entries. However, I did update the magazine table index on the publication page to reflect the corrected numbering. I think all that's left is the Gallery.

It's the field called "sorting" located directly above the "month" field when editing an individual entry.

Btw, it looks like you've already renamed the gallery images.  But it looks like you went into the "edit details" page of each image to do so, which is incredibly time-consuming.  In  the future, you can just click and hold on each image name from the gallery list page, and it will allow it to be renamed right there.  MUCH faster.

[E-Day]

Sorting is fixed, though now I realized I haveto go through the entries and fix their sorting numbers. Maybe there is a way to fix them in some automated manner.

It doesn't take that long for me to change the gallery image names. Holding on the title takes a second per entry. The way I am doing it now, I will open three or four rows of images in new tabs, then do ctrl+tab to go to the next tab, open the edit window, ctrl+tab to the next one , open the edit window, and so on. then I go back to the first tab, change the number, save and ctrl+tab to the next one, and repeat. It's tedious but quick. I will give your method a try though. I didn't have th gallery displaying the entries as a list. If I had, maybe  wold have figured it out because I know of that functionality in the forums.

[Areala]

On 10/6/2017 at 8:56 PM, E-Day said:

I'm convinced that their one-offs like 16-Bit Video Gaming, their Celebrity Gamer issue, CD-ROM Video Gaming, Video Game Greatest Hits July-August 1991 and so on are counted, and because they aren't proper issues, they didn't want to show them.

Anyhow, I think we need an entry in the database for issue 81-90. Phillyman's post can be the description for it. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend 

So I've been combing through my back issues, and I've finally found an official statement from GamePro on the matter!

In the letter column for issue 154 (July 2001), page 18, they printed this letter:

Quote

150 - 10 = 150

I just recently received your 150th anniversary issue [March]. I saw on page 52 and 53 that you made a creative two-page diagram showing all the magazine covers you've ever published. This was a very cool spread indeed, so I, for some reason, began counting the issues on the two pages one by one. When I got to the end, however, I was surprised to find that I'd counted only 140 issues. If this was your 150th issue, there would naturally be 150 issues on those two pages. I have counted again and again. I am fairly good with math and so I don't think that I made a mistake in counting. Where are your other 10 issues?

Nick Caputo -- Springfield, OH

The response:

Quote

Nick, you stickler for detail, you. Surely you peeped the little note on the lower-left side of page 52 that says, "Note: Not all covers shown." Those other 10 covers are special issues of GamePro that we put out in the old days--stuff like Celebrity Video Gaming, 16-Bit Video Gaming, The Adventures of GamePro and other skeletons we don't like to exhibit. Thanks for pouring salt on the re-opened wounds.

So there we have it, finally, confirmed in black and white from the editors themselves: the missing 10 numbers do correlate to the various one-offs, specials, and short-lived spin-offs published by GamePro in the past, and there the matter can finally rest because E-Day has been right all along!

Gawd, what a horrible thought...

In any case, I've updated the blurb on the GamePro Issues 81 - 90 entry in the database with this explanation, and hopefully this is the last we'll need to worry about it.

*huggles*
Areala

[E-Day]

4 hours ago, Areala said:

 

So there we have it, finally, confirmed in black and white from the editors themselves: the missing 10 numbers do correlate to the various one-offs, specials, and short-lived spin-offs published by GamePro in the past, and there the matter can finally rest because E-Day has been right all along!

Gawd, what a horrible thought...

Ha! And I am certain I knew this somehow because of something EGM printed in their magazine around the time GamePro started printing issue numbers on the cover criticizing them for this move. And they are not wrong. I don't think they should be counted in the main issue count. But that is what they did so we have to reflect that.

Now, what are those 10 issues?

The Adventures of GamePro Issue 1 (June 1990)
The Adventures of GamePro Issue 2 (January 1991)
The Adventures of GamePro Issue 3 (August 1991)
GamePro Presents Handheld Video Games (Spring 1991)
GamePro Presents Handheld Video Games (October/November 1991)
GamePro's 16-Bit Video Gaming (February 1992)
GamePro's 16-Bit Video Gaming (May 1992)
GamePro's 16-Bit CD-ROM Video Gaming (January 1993)
Video Game Greatest Hits (July/August 1991)
GamePro's Celebrity Video Gamers (August/September 1991)

These all appeared well before they fudged the issue numbers, so I am guessing it has to be these ten, especially since they mention The Adventures of GamePro in their response. I guess that means that The Cutting Edge which has a cover date of Spring 1996 is not part of the 10 and was put out after the decision to change the issue count.

The funny thing is they never changed the issue count in their masthead fine print. The Volume/Issue count between between March and April 1996 keep going sequentially.

Anyhow, I think it's safe to include that list of 10 issues on the database entry for issues 81-90. I think we have all the covers, so I will put something together with all 10 covers to replace what we are using now.

[E-Day]

New cover image for that database entry has been created and the list of the 10 special issues added to the blurb on this matter. It's finally nice to have this conundrum sorted and finalized.