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Let me be clear about something. Nobody here said they wouldn't approve Flagweaver's change requests because they didn't like him or because of his less-than-polite responses.

He clearly said "If you don't have the book, THEN DON'T APPROVE IT!" Most of us don't read Dynamite books. Thus ... if he doesn't want people who read/have the book to approve them, they're gonna sit in the queue indefinitely.

Now. While we strive to have covers in a "correct order," the fact is that Dynamite does not label their books. They have a collage of all the variant covers in the back of their books, but NONE OF THEM say "A" "B" "C" etc. They may have a percentage "25%" but they are NOT labeled.

That used to be true, but based on the image Flagwaver posted it looks like they've started lettering them.

Ah! You're right! I'll bet it's because we didn't have them labeled right. Alex Ross' ego was offended that he might not be the A variant every time, so they had to start labeling them. :)

Don't spend it all in one place.
At 'part time' rates that comes down to less than 3 cents an hour.
Those worthless slackass half-assin' approvers sure are a bunch of high rollin' big shots...

Saying that you strive to make the database as accurate as possible is somewhat disingenuous. Last week I submitted two title corrections and both were rejected without any reason given. That means that the title indicia, the publisher, Overstreet, ComicbookDB, Mike's Amazing World of Comics, The Grand Comic Book Database, Collectorz and a host of non-CCL affiliated stores all have it wrong and the CCL database is the only one who lists it correctly. Forgive me, but I trust all those others before I trust some anonymous approver.

Then when I point out that variant covers are incorrect and inquire how to provide the correct ones, I am told that that is not how it is done, that the system isn't broke and doesn't need fixing and that it is a pain to do, especially since it for a crap publisher with a small readership. Some offer to help, and for that I thank you, but how long before you get tired of being corrected and let things continue as before because there are still many errors in the database? EVERY book I have from Dynamite has ALL their variants in the back, so it is not a new thing. Naturally, it then devolves into the "we do it for free blah blah blah" mantra, though I doubt anyone holds a gun to your head. And, quite frankly, even if you do it for free, don't get upset when you are called out for beng lazy because correcting your mistakes is to much of a pain and inconvenience. Free doesn't, or shouldn't, equal laziness.

I help maintain my company's database, so having the correct information is important to me and I am constantly having to deal with bad data. If I pay for a service like CCL, I expect the information presented to be as accurate as possible, not just what some small group of people think is important enough to be accurate. I don't care if the title is the crappiest ever published and only one person reads it, the information should be as accurate as possible. That is not being "slavish," it being correct.

Last week was the first time I ever submitted any change requests for this site. Two were accepted, two were rejected for no reason and my attempt to help improve CCL was met with derision. I've been on CCL for two and a half years and I really like it, but recent experience has soured that because I thought I was getting an accurate database, not one filled with errors and dependent upon the inclinations of a small group of people.

You can read the comments on your rejected change requests, I believe you can find them in the "recently completed" section here:

http://www.comiccollectorlive.com/Change/Titles.aspx?action=2

It appears Swifty was questioning whether the hyphen was in the indicia in the first place, then rejected a day later after no response.

Every approver (and member) here wants the database as accurate as possible, if you read it any other way you simply aren't paying attention. If you are familiar with dealing with bad data, then you also know how important it is to have the data verified.

The database is not dependent on a small group of people, the database is verified by a small group of people and dependent on the community. If you can be a productive part of that, then all the better.

Allow me, if I may, to speak specifically to the issue of Dynamite covers that Flagwaver has raised.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am the one who usually enters all of the Dynamite issues into the database. I do this before the issues are actually released. For this week's issues, I had the issues in the database by Monday night. I do this for two reasons: 1) I want sellers to be able to list these issues for sale as soon as possible on Wednesdays, and 2) I want collects who purchases these issues to be able to add them to their collections as soon as possible. Before I started doing this there were weeks where Dynamite issues didn't get into the database until days after their release... sometimes not making it in to the DB until more than a week after they hit shelves.

Since I'm adding issues before their release, I don't have access to the back page of those issues to verify the cover orders (and as has been noted in other posts in this thread, Dynamite chooses not to label their covers with letters like IDW, Image, or Aspen do). Since I don't buy many Dynamite titles (I do pick up a few), I still don't have access to the back pages to verify the order. As I mentioned earlier, I am very willing to rearrange the order of covers when a change request is submitted or when someone contacts me with a PM (as are most of the other Approvers - none of whom are anonymous - they can all be found here).

If you, or anyone else, took my comments about about being a volunteer as an excuse to be lazy or half-assed in my work, I sincerely hope that you'll reconsider that. I take great pride in what I do here. I mentioned the Approvers' volunteer status simply to point out that we're all doing this because we care. Nor have I ever denigrated Dynamite, its titles, or its readers in this thread. Flagwaver, you have my invitation to work directly with me to help make sure that each Dynamite title has its covers in the correct order. Feel free to send me a PM as often as you'd like on this topic and I will be happy to help. The same goes for anyone else who happens to be reading this thread. I will treat your requests to respect and seriousness. I hereby give you permission to hold me accountable to this. The only thing I ask in response is respect in return and verifiable information on which to base an approval or rejection of a CR.

And to speak specifically to the issue of title change rejections...




The reason given in both rejections (I just checked, they are there) was, "A hyphen should only be added if it's actually in the indicia, not just to lump it together with other All-Star books."

There has been a tendency of several submitters to change punctuation to make the titles list "better" in the database for their own reasons even when a company uses "All Star" instead of "All-Star" in the actual indicia. The comment was made in both titles and rejected, perhaps a bit quickly (less than 24 hours) because this is a common, yet inaccurate, reason people submit changes like this.

If they were valid changes, please feel free to resubmit, but leave comments when you submit changes. Making changes with no comment (ie - reason/basis for the change) is going to make submitters far more skeptical of the change.

As a sidebar - You shouldn't trust any of those sites mentioned any more than this one. Time and time again, CCL approvers (not saying we're not wrong at times too) have found significant inaccuracies with each of those sites (well, I have no idea what Mike's Amazing World of Comics is, but the rest). Collectorz and Overstreet in particularly are highly error prone. comicbookdb does a decent job of keeping up with issues, but titles aren't necessarily always based on indicia and many times they are just guessing at creators (cover artists in particular). The same is true of comics.org, although they have some great info for older book, they seem to be missing mountains of smaller press books and most newer books.

Why? I know for a fact that both the Grand Comic Book Database and ComicbookDB are edited by ... gasp! ... random, anonymous people.

I believe I was the first to mention that, and I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. I wasn't insinuating that we didn't want to or wouldn't do it, but that it isn't as easy as people think. Most people think all we need to do is switch the cover scans, but that would affect sellers and collectors who entered their books based on the scan. Here is what is needed to get this fixed: Let's assume that there are 4 different covers A, B, C & D and that we have them wrong. Cover C is actually A, A is B, B is C and D is correct as we have it. First we have to move A to E and wait for that to be approved. Then we move C to A and wait for it to be approved. Next we move B to the now open C again waiting for approval and finally we move E (the original A) to the now open B location and once it is approved everything will be in the proper order. I think it is pretty obvious that this really can't be done by anyone other than an Approver because we can self approve these moves as we make them and don't need to wait for someone else to do the approving. The more variants that need moved the more complicated things get and the longer it takes. That is what I meant by saying it's a pain to do. I hope that clears things up a bit and I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused. There are a lot of things that Approvers do behind the scenes that members don't see or understand, but they are all done for the betterment of this site and the data.