Indexing

Introduction to Indexing

Indexing is the primary way of contributing data to the GCD. For each comic, an indexer records at minimum the issue's number, date, price and page count as well as the types, titles and credits for each story and cover. A wealth of additional information, including character appearances, genres and plot synopses, may optionally be entered.

Important Note: Contributors cannot copy existing, published indexes without the permission of the copyright holder. Copyright laws and good manners prohibit such actions. If you have obtained permission, you must note the source of the material in your index. Cover scans from other sources (web sites or compilation CD's) are not allowed unless you have obtained their permisssion. Cover scans with watermarks are never allowed. All efforts should be made to scan your own covers. Check with [1] if in doubt.

Indexing is generally done through our Online Indexing system of web forms at http://www.comics.org/admin/ An older method, known as Offline Indexing, involves text files (a.k.a. "Flat Files") and is still supported. New users are encouraged to use the web forms, at least until a newer, less error-prone offline indexing tool can be developed.

The rest of this page assumes you are using the Online Indexing system. See Indexing Offline if you are not.

How do I get started as an indexer?

First you need an Online Indexing account. Email gcd-contact with the following information:

• Your real name
• Your Nationality (especially if not American)
• Your (current) e-mail address
• Your user name (if you want to create your own, otherwise it will be generated for you)
• Your password (if you want to create your own, otherwise it will be generated for you)
• Your interests (not necessary, but we like to know a bit about you so we can pair you up with an editor with similar interests if possible)

Do not use a sensitive password as the system is not designed for high security.

The GCD Reservations Coordinator will then set you up on the system and contact you with all information needed to get started.

How do I learn how to index?

The most up-to-date documentation is the Formatting Documentation on this wiki. There are some older documents outside this wiki that we are currently unable to update which may disagree with it, but the wiki documentation always wins. However, the formatting docs are a bit dry, so...

There is a short tutorial to guide you through the basics. Unfortunately, it's one of those slightly out of date documents. For example, the Tutorial tells you to leave a field blank if it doesn't apply (like color on the cover in the example), but the proper thing to do is type "none" (without the quotes).

How do I create my first index?

• Log in at http://www.comics.org/admin, using the Username and Password you obtained from the Reservations Coordinator (see above).
• Find out if the comic is available for indexing by searching the database using the search form on the Online Indexing screen (not the regular GCD search form).
• If the series you want to index is not listed in the database or if the issues are shown in white when you check the "See index matrix" link, then they should be available for you to make a reservation.
  • See How to Report a Missing Series if the series is not in the database.
• Reserve the issues you need using the "Reserve New Books" button.
• Index the comic, following the directions in the Tutorial and Formatting Documentation. Then hit the "Submit Index" button at the bottom of the screen.
• Usually first time indexers will be contacted by one of the Editors at the GCD to help along with some of our more specific formatting. We require the data to be in one format so that it is easily searchable, please don't be put off by some of the seemingly strange things we require to be done, once you've done it a couple of times it becomes old hat!

What happens after I submit my index?

After you submit the index, an editor will check the data for errors and proper formatting, and then approve the index (usually within a week). If there is a problem, you will usually be contacted by e-mail for comment. (Minor errors, such as typos, may be fixed by the editor without contacting you.) Do not be discouraged if you get a list of stuff to be corrected back. The editors can be a picky bunch, and they have to be. We need the data in the database to be consistent for future uses and for searching. After it is approved, you should check your index. After the index has been approved, use the GCD search form at: http://www.comics.org/ and check your index to see if any errors got missed. If there are any errors, please file a report at http://maelstrom.walton.uark.edu/errors.

What are common errors for people's first indexes?

• Missing the "Edit Issue Data" screen, which is where the price, date and keydate are entered is likely the most common mistake.
• Mis-entering (or misunderstanding) the Keydate is also common.
• Not putting ?s on data which is not known is common.
  • All creator fields (except 'script' for covers and 'editor' for sequences other than the first cover) must have a name, "?" or "none" (without the quotes).
• Not using [] and () correctly.
  • [] is for alternate names, such as character secret identities, writer/artist pen names or studio names. Pen names are noted like this: [as Jane Doe] while character names do not use "as".
  • () is for explanatory notes, such as the fact that this is the introduction of a character, or that one artist credited for pencils drew only the first half of the book, while the other artist drew the second half.
  • [] is also generally used for information not present in the comic, such as a made-up story title.
• Using unapproved genres. See the Official Genres List
• Using commas instead of semi-colons to separate data.
• Missing page counts for one or more sequences.
  • Don't forget to put the page count of the whole book in the first cover record, and only the first cover record.

The details for this are covered on the Formatting Documentation page.

What's up with all these crazy rules anyway?

Currently, most of the fields in the database are free-form text. In the future, we will change this so that they are more structured, and then the system will handle a lot of the formatting automatically. For instance, right now you must put a semi-colon between multiple pencilers for a story, and that all gets stuffed in one field and displayed with the punctuation you used. In the future, each penciler will be a separate credit, and you will not need to worry about what sort of punctuation to put between them- the system will add it automatically. For now please bear with our rules, as following them will help us move to an improve system more quickly!