HELP WANTED: Magazine interviews

[Einar Saukas]

Among the data imported from Martijn's WoS years ago, there were over 400 "unidentified" references to magazine interviews. I mean, these references don't clearly identify the author that was interviewed, therefore they cannot be shown in the author's page.

These "unidentified" interviews are listed in this online spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Now is there anyone willing to help filling the blanks? This task doesn't require any technical background, just attention to detail and motivation... For each row in the spreadsheet, this task basically consists of the following steps:

• Open the link from column ISSUE_LINK, locate the corresponding page, then click on the page number to open it.
• Compare the interview contents with column FEATURES. If there's any mismatch, please mention it in column NOTE.
• Find the corresponding author page in SpectrumComputing, then copy the link to column LABEL1. If there's more than 1 author in the same interview, you can also use columns LABEL2, LABEL3, etc.

If you would like to volunteer, please let me know so I can enable editing permission for you. Even if you only have time to process a dozen rows from the spreadsheet, it will help a lot. Thanks!


PS: Also please watch out for different authors with similar names, for instance there are several Mark Jones!

[blueowl0708]

I'm up for helping!

[Einar Saukas]

Thank you!!!

I sent you a PM.

[Stefan]

If you would like to volunteer, please let me know so I can enable editing permission for you. Even if you only have time to process a dozen rows from the spreadsheet, it will help a lot. Thanks!

Sign me up.

[Einar Saukas]

Thank you!!!

I sent you a PM.

[Stefan]

There are quite a few (102) duplicate links in the sheet (for example id 184 and 185, 84 and 85, 190 and 191 and a lot more) - maybe purge these first? Or is something else contained in the record that is not being shown?

[blueowl0708]

Done a few (PM'd) Let me know if that's what you're after and will pick up some more later.

[Einar Saukas]

There are quite a few (102) duplicate links in the sheet (for example id 184 and 185, 84 and 85, 190 and 191 and a lot more) - maybe purge these first? Or is something else contained in the record that is not being shown?

Sorry, I didn't notice these duplicates!

Whenever there's a duplicate, it's because one of them have some text in column FEATURE, the other doesn't. In this case, please only fill the row that contains text in column FEATURE. I will later remove all duplicates with FEATURE blank.

[Einar Saukas]

There are quite a few (102) duplicate links in the sheet (for example id 184 and 185, 84 and 85, 190 and 191 and a lot more) - maybe purge these first? Or is something else contained in the record that is not being shown?

Sorry, I didn't notice these duplicates!

Whenever there's a duplicate, it's because one of them have some text in column FEATURE, the other doesn't. In this case, please only fill the row that contains text in column FEATURE. I will later remove all duplicates with FEATURE blank.

OK, I have just removed all duplicated rows from the spreadsheet.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Stefan]

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] What is the point of having links from magazine articles to people who have no associated products? It's zxdb - not wikipedia.

[Einar Saukas]

@Einar Saukas What is the point of having links from magazine articles to people who have no associated products? It's zxdb - not wikipedia.

These are people that were already in Martijn's WoS (I didn't add them myself!) because they are somehow involved with Spectrum products.

For instance, David Braben and Ian Bell are not credited for Elite but they should have been credited under the role "Game Design/Concept". This game page at MobyGames agrees with me.

Douglas Adams never authored any Spectrum game, but he should be credited for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Although this is not a Spectrum game, it actually works on a Spectrum +3 using ZXZVM, thus the reason it's cataloged in ZXDB.

I will add this information in the next ZXDB update.

[8BitAG]

There are loads of interviews there with employees of companies that aren't necessarily authors or programmers of games. Quite often they're about specific products or games, in which case I presume they will show up as magazine references under those games anyway. But linking employees to companies does seem to be quite a useful idea (but perhaps a whole project in itself).

Douglas Adams never authored any Spectrum game, but he should be credited for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Although this is not a Spectrum game, it actually works on a Spectrum +3 using ZXZVM, thus the reason it's cataloged in ZXDB.

ZXZVM is a brilliant bit of work but I'm not sure how I feel about Hitchhiker's Guide being in a Spectrum database. All those Infocom text adventures were technically playable on the Spectrum +3 anyway, using Locomotive's CP/M Plus, but it feels really odd that an unauthorised version which is little more than an interpreter on a disk with the game code, can count as a game and get a proper entry.

There are no end of Z-machine games that you could similarly slap onto a disk with ZXZVM should anyone be so inclined. Not to mention CP/M games, that you could technically make a standalone bootable +3 disk for. That would flood the database with entries. Where do you draw the line?

(This is more me exploring where the line is for this time of submission and what the scope of ZXDB actually is..... I would agree. It is very useful to have easy access to those games)

[Stefan]

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] I'm running into quite a few interviews of company executives that were not involved in the actual development of any software. I've added links to the company they belong to. But... I am seeing that these interviews are already linked to the company involved. For now I've marked added a note 'Record already exists'.

Thoughts?

[Einar Saukas]

@Einar Saukas I'm running into quite a few interviews of company executives that were not involved in the actual development of any software. I've added links to the company they belong to. But... I am seeing that these interviews are already linked to the company involved. For now I've marked added a note 'Record already exists'.

Thoughts?

Agreed!

[Einar Saukas]

There are loads of interviews there with employees of companies that aren't necessarily authors or programmers of games. Quite often they're about specific products or games, in which case I presume they will show up as magazine references under those games anyway.

If it's an interview with a non-employee about a specific game, you can just put a link to this game in column "ENTRY" of the spreadsheet.

Or if you notice the same interview was already listed as magazine reference for this game, you can just add a note about it. Either way is fine! I can automatically eliminate any duplicates later.

Douglas Adams never authored any Spectrum game, but he should be credited for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Although this is not a Spectrum game, it actually works on a Spectrum +3 using ZXZVM, thus the reason it's cataloged in ZXDB.

ZXZVM is a brilliant bit of work but I'm not sure how I feel about Hitchhiker's Guide being in a Spectrum database. All those Infocom text adventures were technically playable on the Spectrum +3 anyway, using Locomotive's CP/M Plus

Too late! These entries have always been in the database, since before ZXDB was created:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... =^Infocom$

but it feels really odd that an unauthorised version which is little more than an interpreter on a disk with the game code, can count as a game and get a proper entry.

These are not entries about unauthorized disks. They are entries about games originally created for other platforms, that also work on the Spectrum +3. I think that's a good enough reason to store information about these games in the archive.

There are no end of Z-machine games that you could similarly slap onto a disk with ZXZVM should anyone be so inclined. Not to mention CP/M games, that you could technically make a standalone bootable +3 disk for. That would flood the database with entries. Where do you draw the line?

(This is more me exploring where the line is for this time of submission and what the scope of ZXDB actually is..... I would agree. It is very useful to have easy access to those games)

I think it would be actually useful adding to ZXDB all games that we have confirmed to work on the Spectrum +3 using either ZXZVM or CP/M. I would like to start a new thread to discuss this subject.

[8BitAG]

I think it would be actually useful adding to ZXDB all games that we have confirmed to work on the Spectrum +3 using either ZXZVM or CP/M. I would like to start a new thread to discuss this subject.

That's literally hundreds, if not thousands, of games, utilities and other programs. That would really affect the scope of ZXDB. There aren't enough volunteers to deal with the current edits regarding Spectrum & Sinclair-specific titles as it is.

[Einar Saukas]

I think it would be actually useful adding to ZXDB all games that we have confirmed to work on the Spectrum +3 using either ZXZVM or CP/M. I would like to start a new thread to discuss this subject.

That's literally hundreds, if not thousands, of games, utilities and other programs. That would really affect the scope of ZXDB. There aren't enough volunteers to deal with the current edits regarding Spectrum & Sinclair-specific titles as it is.

Good point. I will just keep the titles already imported from Martijn's WoS but avoid adding new ones.

[Einar Saukas]

Back on subject...

Most previously "unidentified" magazine interviews have been updated in ZXDB. Many thanks to [mention]blueowl0708[/mention] and [mention]Stefan[/mention] for their help!

There are about a hundred interviews remaining to be identified in the spreadsheet. Can anybody help?

[Stefan]

I've looked at the last few interviews - over to you [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] for processing.

[Einar Saukas]

Thank you!!!