Adding magazines to the database?

[kitsunebi]

I'm toying with the idea of adding some issues to the database (after discovering that my home scanner provides much better results than the one I had used on my one and only previous scan). However, adding issues or titles to the database doesn't seem to be an option available to me. Before I waste time scanning anything, is there some procedure I'm unaware of, or is the ability to add new listings available only to staff members?

[Phillyman]

Hey Kitsunebi77,

What were you thinking of adding to the database? At the moment only E-day and I can add new items to the magazine database. Basically it is because we need to log into the back end of this software and create a category first, then create all the issues. Usually the process goes like this.....

1) Someone says "hey you are missing X" and gives us some info on the magazine.

2) E-Day or I create a magazine database category, a gallery category for covers, a publication record and if needed a download section if they are being scanned.

3) We do some basic research and try to get an idea of how many issues that magazine had, and the dates of the issues

4) E-day or I create all the records

When you guys see the records in the magazine database, I think you maybe see 7-8 fields that can be edited, but in reality there are about 30-40 fields that are on each record. So that is why we currently create the records, as it would just be too complicated if we asked you guys to fill out 40 fields for each record added to the system. I wrote a program that does it all for me, but that program requires access to the SQL database to drop all the information in with SQL queries.

[kitsunebi]

Well, at the moment it's all hypothetical based on whether or not I make the time to do the scan, but I figured if there was any way I could contribute to the site during the year-long wait until I can access my American mags again, it would be with scans of Japanese mags (not sure how much interest there would be, but...)

Marktrade recently did a beautiful scan of a Famitsu from 1997. I'm assuming it was uploaded to the Internet Archive because adding it here is currently not possible. I know he's said he has some more that he will be scanning soon, so if the title were added to the database, they could be featured here. I've recently gotten a bunch of Famitsu as well, but in my case, I'd only be able to provide covers, as they're too new to be allowed as full scans. (Which doesn't mean I can't/won't acquire older ones when opportunity strikes). Of course, at over 1400 issues, a Famitsu database entry might be more trouble than it's worth.

For the moment, though, the mag I was thinking of adding is a different Japanese mag - a precursor to Famitsu called Family Computer Magazine, which started in 1985, and ran until at least 1995 (not sure exactly). I just bought an issue from 1991, and I've got my eye on several more issues. Before I go spending too much money (and time with scanning), I just wanted to make sure it would be possible to share them here (I could just upload them ANYWHERE, I suppose, but I'd rather contribute here if possible). Perhaps once I've finished a scan you could consider adding it to the database?

[Phillyman]

We have nothing against non English magazines. I personally would love to expand our international sections. Even if you don't read a lick of Japanese or Russian, the covers are still interesting and you can enjoy the artwork. Our only rule on uploading magazines is our cut off dates and Game Informer and GameFan are not allowed.

[marktrade]

If a magazine is published regularly and we know the date of the first issue, then it should be a straightforward process to add it to the database. Unfortunately game magazines don't always start out as regular publications. If we just guess or add issues with incomplete data, then we can wind up with problems like we just had with Game Player's or like we do now with Tips & Tricks, where the numbering in the database is off from the official numbering and it looks like we have database entries for issues that may not even exist.

The official numbering can be confusingly irregular anyway, so maybe these kinds of challenges are unavoidable and are part of the research process.

It should be straightforward enough to add Weekly Famitsu, because by the time it was officially published with that name it had a regular weekly schedule and has maintained that schedule ever since. The English Wikipedia says Weekly Famitsu started with issue 369 but the Japanese page says 368. I'm more inclined to believe the Japanese page, but if it becomes a problem later down the road than it should be easy enough to fix.

So, Phillyman, in theory you should be able to start Weekly Famitsu with issue 368 dated January 5th 1996 and increment each entry by seven days all the way to today and it should hold up. That's approaching a thousand database entries, though, and that's not even including the previous decade's 367 issues when it was known under different names or the many Famitsu spinoffs or monthly Famitsu.

You could probably also create entries for when it was known as "Weekly Famicom News" which started with issue 135 dated July 19th 1991 and ran until issue 367 before it was changed to "Weekly Famitsu" with 368. If you look at the Wikipedia pages again you'll find contradictory information on when exactly these name changes happened and the dates of the issues. I think some of that confusion comes from the date printed on the issue and the date when the issue actually hit newsstands.

I've come up with these values with the issue numbers stated on Japanese Wikipedia and the dates corresponding the seven-day increments that match up with the issues I have in my possession. So, I can look at issue 455 dated Sep 5 1997 on cover which I just scanned and tell you that the issue 623 was 168 weeks later and was dated Nov 24 2000 which matches up exactly. So issue 135 should have been dated July 19th 1991 and so on.

[kitsunebi]

I'm currently scanning a reprint of the first issue of Famitsu (Famicom Tsūshin) from June 20, 1986.

I didn't realize when I bought it, but the reprint is much smaller than the original magazine. As such, some of the Japanese text is quite small. Luckily, once a scan is blown up on a large screen it becomes easier to read than the real thing, but there is still going to be some quality issues with the text, I'm afraid.

That said, it's

a) unlikely that a great number of retromags.com readers can read Japanese fluently

and

b ) EXTREMELY unlikely that anyone here will ever part with the hundreds of dollars it would require to obtain an original non-reprint of this issue

...so I think this is gonna have to do for now.

I scan slowly - just some pages here and there when I have the time. So it'll be a little while before I'm done. But Phillyman/E-day - if you add Famitsu to the database, I promise this issue WILL get finished. I've also got a bunch of issues from 1991-1993 I would like to scan if I find the time, and a bunch of recent issues as well that I could at least provide the covers for.

Btw, I'm putting the issue of Family Computer Magazine I mentioned earlier on hold until I get this issue finished, as it seems like a more seminal magazine to get archived.

[kitsunebi]

Well, the reprint of Famitsu #1 is completely scanned and about 20% edited. I was wondering if it might be possible, due to the sheer number of issues, to make an exception for Famitsu in the database where only the issues that have a scan/cover scan/contents entry be given an entry in the database. That way, there won't be dozens of pages of blank entries to cycle through. Although I could pretty quickly provide covers for 70 or so issues, as far as full scans go, for a while it'll just be issue 1 and 455 (which marktrade uploaded), and having nearly 1400 "not available" entries would make noticing the existence of those or anything else pretty difficult. Thoughts?