Apathy Books research poll

[active_apathy]

It's waaay past time I did something about getting apathy_books working properly. So, there's a moderately monstrous poll behind the cut.

It'll go toward defining how posts will work, and it'll help make a post template, and it'll help with tagging entries for users to find. So...

EDIT: Apparently, I did miss something. The questions about formatting of names, subjects, genres and such are for the tags, because it's important that they look the same. For the item itself, things like author/creator name should appear as they do on the item. It's why those three questions follow the one about tagging, but I probably should have made it clearer.

[Poll #932847]

And... yes, the options for question one are essentially just bits of a level two ISBD description of an item. But, that's kind of what it's designed for.

For all the semi-monstrousness of the poll, there's probably things I've missed; please, if you notice something, mention it.

Comments

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

For names, do you prefer...
View Answers
direct order: eg, Neil Gaiman; Jacqueline Carey; Garth Nix
1 (25.0%)
inverted order: eg, Gaiman, Neil; Carey, Jacqueline; Nix, Garth
2 (50.0%)

--OK, for names WHERE? In and index or a table, reversed, but in the title/body of the review, the way it appears on the item, duh.

As for ratings I voted "other", but have no specific suggestions. A different item for each book - 3 cakes for a cook book, 4 bullets for a crime story?

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

However did I miss that? For tags. And possibly memories. And anything else giving access by name - so, really, de facto indexes. I should make a note in the entry. (Or stop trying to bring precoordination to LiveJournal)

And... that could be interesting.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Direct order is for reading, inverted order is for indexing and reference.

And the cakes/bullets/death rays/boobs/narrow 'S' capes/swords/knives/tentacles/etc... I'd call that simply "points" with reviewer flavour added on.

I mean, I recently read a mystery/crime story, fairly (but not predominantly) police procedural... and there was not a single shot fired "on screen" in the whole story - the only shot was off-screen, where an incompetent hunter shot himself in the foot, and it served as a reason for a doctor to go to a specific location, nothing more. One guy's gun got mentioned twice, but never fired. So bullets wouldn't be an appropriate measure for that, while they are for many other crime stories. Etc etc.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Those few questions were meant for tags and memories and such - the things that give access to the posts.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

One rating system I like is the one GameSpot has for games.

They use both a 10-scale (one decimal place) and an integer-only 10-scale for 5 different areas - 4 of which are technical (Graphics, Sound, Gameplay and Value) and one of which (Tilt) is entirely subjective - it's pretty much the "Reviewer's Bias" rating.

Having a sanctioned outlet for reviewer bias, I feel, is a good thing, as it will help keep other parts of the rating unbiased - it avoids the temptation for me to jack up the "Plot" rating on Dresden books, for instance, just because I'm a sucker for vamps and weres.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Except that it really doesn't; in the case of a book, it tends to add more categories of subjective which, on balance, are better served by commenting in text on things you like. Plus, I don't envision reviews as needing to be unique; multiple opinions can be a good thing. (Of course, seventeen million HP posts would irritate me)

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I basically just told you to do everything the way I do it on _fictionbitch_, which is probably not terribly useful or inventive, but hey, there's a reason I do stuff that way, and it's that I like it. :)

I am really sorry about ruining your meme science thing.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

That's fine; there's a reason why I'm asking, and it's mostly because these are things that I do on levels far beyond what a LiveJournal comm needs - I'll show you what I mean by that in a moment, because I'm not sure how it'd work with the comment size limit.

The format for the rest of your text there - abstract, comment on cover, and such - looks all manner of shiny.

And you haven't ruined it; I already knew that particular flaw existed in the meme, but then, it'll appeal to some who don't want to know what kind of shoe they are. And, to start with, there's the other possible bias of people doing it because I want them to. All is well.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Well, I was concerned both about the fact that I was being rude, and also about the fact that I was commenting in a manner you specifically asked us not to (i.e., commenting on the subject of the meme when you wanted meme-propagating comments.)

And HOW did you get your tags to look like they do at right - categorized like that? I MUST KNOW. I COVET.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Once or twice wouldn't make a significant difference, but if everyone did it, then that'd make things bad. It's fine, really, and if you don't stop I'll have to pounce on you and hug you until you feel all absolved.

This post shows you how to do it for Flexible Squares (and, I think probably explains why I have tags that look like 'something:something else'). I'm not sure how it works with other layouts, though.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I may change my whole layout on _fictionbitch_, even though I really like my _fictionbitch_ layout, in order to get the tags to sort like that. It's just too confusing right now, with genres and authors and titles and rankings all mixed in together.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Just glancing over it, with my uneducated and style-cripped eyes... it looks like it would work with any layout that already has a tag table - it merely seems to be a replacement for print_sidebar_tags()

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

So! Let me randomly pick a book... *grabs book from shelf*

If I kidnap your _fictionbitch_ format for a moment, then the bib. details would look like:

Title: Drowned Wednesday
Authors: Garth Nix
Genre: YA, fantasy
Number of pages: 366

As a level 1 ISBD description (what would once have been a really basic catalogue card), it turns into:

Drowned Wednesday / Garth Nix. - Crow's Nest, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin, 2005. - 366 p. - ISBN 1-74114-441-8.

As a level 2 description, it inflates to:

Drowned Wednesday / Garth Nix. - Crow's Nest, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin, 2005. - 366 p. ; 10 cm. - (Keys to the kingdom ; 3}
ISBN 1-74114-441-8

The form I get to meet that in is:

020 __ |a 1741144418
100 1_ |a Nix, Garth, |d 1963-
245 10 |a Drowned Wednesday / |c Garth Nix.
260 __ |a Crows Nest, N.S.W. : |b Allen & Unwin, |c 2005.
300 __ |a 366 p. ; |c 20 cm.
490 1_ |a Keys to the Kingdom ; |v bk. 3
800 1_ |a Nix, Garth, |d 1963- |t Keys to the kingdom ; |v bk. 3.

...which is fairly comfy by standards of some MARC records, but - I think - rather a bit more intricate than LJ would find useful. So, poll, because I can't just use the way I do things. :)

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Overkill for our purposes, definately.

Like, publisher info. You're referencing an Australian publisher. To all of us who live in the center of the universe North America, that information is utterly pointless clutter, because there's almost no way we're going to get our hands on a Crows Nest edition - ours would be published by Scholastic.

But that makes absolutely no difference in a review. Drowned Wednesday is Drowned Wednesday. We're reading, not filing :)

So yes, hence poll

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

That I knew going in. Similarly, subjects won't use LCSH.

That's true, but the imprint - A&U - is still potentially important and the place is too, if you need to write out Harvad/APA citations from information in an LJ comm. But then, I live in a country where ordering overseas editions of things is perfectly normal.

It makes a minimal difference to the review itself, but it can make the item easier to find - though, ISBN does that quite nicely. (And again, the filing will be done through author tags, genre tags and subject tags. And, possibly, series tags.)

So, yes, poll. Because I don't want to catalogue everything that goes through the comm if it gets popular. I think I'll make a template that uses the things with more than three votes; at the moment that's the title, subtitle, authorship, edition, publisher, year of publication, extent, illustrative matter, series title, statement of responsibility relating to series, numbering in series, subseries, subseries numbering, both ISBN formats, terms of availability and misc notes.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

That's 17 fields. Honestly, nobody besides you or other Lib.Sci types is really going to want to fill out that much.

Especially since a lot of those fields are niche ones and will be blank for a majority of entries (like illustrative matter).
Editions don't generally make an appreciable difference, unless they're "revised editions" where the content of the book has significantly changed. Many editions are simply later printings with typos fixed.

I think a lot of those categories could be combined for ease of use.
Publisher and year of publication are obvious... I'd honestly just go with the Imprint rather than the publisher proper, since that's what the book will be labelled with.

In the case of The Lies of Locke Lamora, the US edition is published by Spectra... which is an imprint of Bantam. The UK edition is published by Gollancz SF... an imprint of Orion Books.

They don't say Bantam or Orion on the dust covers though. They will mention them on the copyright page, but I think what's on the cover is much more relevant to community postings than what honestly amounts to a trivia point.
After all, this is about people reading reviews of books, and then wanting their own copies, not about being a library.

The various series fields can also fit on one line, and so forth.

Basically, too many fields will annoy people. Keep it clean.

I think... series tag for any series greater than 3 books. Trilogies are a dime a dozen, if they go beyond that, they're noteworthy enough to warrant such, IMO.

You shouldn't be using LJ as a reference in any kind of paper, unless it's about the net itself, like this one.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Title and subtitle collapse into one field. Authorship fits into one field. Series SR isn't typically useful, but series title and numbering are; similarly, a subseries adds exactly one line when not used. Imprint and year collapse into one field happily.

With all the options (and fields for access), that makes 11 short, simple statements, here enumerated, with notes in (parentheses) and the typical source in [brackets]:

Title : subtitle. [found on title page]
Author(s). [on t.p.]
Genre/subject. [easily divined by reading]
Rating. [useful]
Imprint, year. [on verso of t.p.]
Extent. [number of volumes. number of last page in main sequence.]
Ill. (Basic information: maps, diagrams, photos, portraits, etc. - specifics found in body text) [flip through, have a look.]
Series, number in series. [series t.p.]
Subseries, number in subseries. [series t.p.]
Standard number(s). [typically on verso of t.p., or on back cover]
Notes. (Basic notes: accompanying materials, things like that - again, specifics in text) [not, by any means, complex to figure out]

Blank fields can simply be left out.

Edition is more useful than it probably looks, since the comm will allow for nonfiction works.

Illustrative content is frequently important in nonfiction and in childrens' works.

Where I've said 'publisher' read 'imprint', because it's on the item and it's what can be used to find it: catalogues and databases use what appears on the item. You're reading far too much into the word; don't.

So, for most works, that's six fields, maybe seven. People fill out longer forms for slash, and it makes the information far more accessible: if you're looking through reviews of cookbooks, and you only like ones with photos, it makes life good if you can see at a glance which ones will show you pictures of food.

And... it depends on the series. If an author does everything in trilogies, they probably don't need series tags. If three books in a series are written by different authors, then it's useful to give access by series. If, if, if: they're all special cases. The same goes for subseries. They all need series statements in the entry, though.

LJ may be useful as a reference, as can many Internet resources, depending on your subject. It shouldn't be confused with a scholarly, authoritative source, but there are definitely situations where it can be useful. Similarly, LJ shouldn't be considered authoritative on the 'Net, either. But, this isn't something I'm going to go into in great detail with right now.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

That's looking a lot more compact and managable, I have to say.
I read a lot into it because you were specifically citing both publisher AND imprint in your example - I only read in what was presented :p

Touche on the nonfiction - that makes several fields far more relevant.

I might suggest jiggering the order if fields around a bit in the end - I think series info would be more useful and relevant at the top, close to Title.

I'm divided on where to put Rating. There are reasons for both top and bottom... but even at bottom, the questions become "Before or after ISBN" and "Before or after Notes"?

Actually, I think I just came up with a perfect solution

Author(s).
Title : subtitle.
Series, number in series.
Subseries, number in subseries.
Genre/subject.
Rating.

[BREAK]

Imprint, year.
Extent.
Illus.
Standard number(s).
Notes.

The [BREAK] could very well be an LJ-Cut to the rest of the review.
Or it could be a visual break - an HR or just a paragraph break.
This places the (IMNSHO) "Primary" information in an upper, above the fold block, and then the secondary information in a lower, visually separate block.

This also has the benefit of putting the rating in the "middle", but it appears to be at the "bottom" due to the break in blocks. This also helps the eye naturally find this line of text due to the visual cue.

How does that sound/look?

People fill out longer forms for slash because slashers are crazy, everyone knows that.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

It was pretty much how I always saw it in my head; simple, factual data that rip salient points out of the rest of the text.

And, yes. I thought that having dessert recipes and cat care in the poll examples might've been a giveaway. :p

Having a break might be useful, but I'd like all them all to sit outside the cut. It's not much text, and it's better to have it outside.

Author first is useful, too; I was thinking ISBD, which uses "Title : subtitle / Author" at the start, rather than something more like a catalogue entry, which puts 'main entry' (typically author) at the top.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Personally, as I was typing that up, I found having it visually broken (even by a single blank line) easier to visually digest.

And you think I paid attention to the poll options beyond "Ooo, tickycircle!"? ;)

Author first helps keep the author and title close together, without being separated by the series info (which SHOULD immediately follow Title).

I think we're looking at something more cataloguey here.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

We're looking at a community, but with the added bonus of being able to use it as a kind of database of reviews.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Question about series-subseries... what goes in which slot?

I present as an example, a book I know is close to your heart :)

War of the Twins.

It is part of the Dragonlance series (unnumbered).
It is also part of the Legends series (book 2).

Is it filed as Dragonlance, then Legends (2)?
Or Legends (2), Dragonlance?

Or simply Dragonlance Legends (2)?

The third option makes sense given the text on the cover (Dragonlance Legends, Volume II).

However, similar series present similar questions. Mercedes Lackey and her Velgarth books spring to mind. All the books are part of the "Velgarth series" (Velgarth being the world), but these consist of 6 separate trilogies, two standalones, and a 6 book "series" (Heralds of Valdemar) which appears to consist of a trilogy (Arrows), a duology (Exiles) and a standalone (Take a Thief).

What's the series, what's the subseries?

Your LJ is authoritative on the subject of aerosol necrotizing fasciitis and the socially redeeming applications thereof.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I read the Legends in their omnibus edition. :p

But, that's not exactly useful. So!

Dragonlance is a setting; they'd be a special case of subject, where useful. Dragonlance Legends is a series; it'd file under "Dragonlance Legends ; 3", or something like it.