I would like to have a discussion, and maybe make some hard-and-fast ground rules (or at least some stronger guidelines) concerning Captions on Change Requests. Specifically, concerning the ratios on variants, and how the captions should be written.

Usually, around Wednesday or Thursday, I try and go through the new releases, and add any missing ratios to the entries. I have access to a Diamond acct., and I'm able to do a search on the releases, and get accurate (or as accurate as Diamond's website says) information.

Most of the time, it's ARTIST 1:XX COVER. Sometimes, there's a descriptive note. ARTIST 1:XX VIRGIN COVER. And, as with most of the current DC books, if there's a standard cover and a 1:25 sketch cover by the same artist, the standard has been:

Standard Cover
1:25 Wraparound Sketch Cover

They're being entered into the system initially as of late as Wraparound 1:25 Sketch Cover. I changed one yesterday, approved by Crackerjack, and today, when I went to see if the credits and such were filled in, I saw it changed back.

And, looking through at least the Aquaman title, I see that ALL of the 1:25 variants are being changed back. They're being approved, by at least 2 different approvers, and changed after the fact.

I don't care, either way. I'm just trying to keep things the same for every issue. Obviously, there's some confusion or difference of opinion, because they're being changed, and changed again.

Can we get some discussion amongst us? Can the Approver changing things back speak up, so we can have some idea of what's going on? I don't want to step on toes and continue changing these things, having them approved, only to have someone else have to go back and change them BACK and third time. Ya know?

So you'd like it to be

Wraparound Sketch Cover 1:25

That seems valid. I'd like to see what others have to say, but I could definitely understand your point. A descriptor is much more important than a ratio.

To be honest, I'm pretty indifferent. We already put notes about limited print runs (ie 1/500) at the end of captions, so I have no problem putting the rations at the end as well.

I agree that if I were saying the caption, I'd move the ration up in order of grammar, but that should have no bearing on where it is when written in the caption.

Question: If we agree to put the ratios at the end like we do with the limited print run numbers, will that cause confusion with either a) captions that look different scattered throughout the database, or b) the average user not knowing the difference between / and : in the captions?

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"But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who do you harm." ~Jesus (Matthew 5:44)

I'm not sure if this is in the guidelines or not, and I can't believe I'm supporting something batman007 said, but here's the ratio guideline as it was spelled out to me (quoting from memory):

As long as I've been here this is how we've handled ratios (and I do fix captions when I see them out of order). If it's not spelled out in the guidelines we need to correct that.

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Megalomaniac Extraordinaire

I actually support SwiftMann's version. (OMG ... we agree on something. The world MUST be ending in December... :D)

Maybe a change to the guidelines?

What Scott quoted is what I've been following, but what happens in instances like I've mentioned, where the artist name is NOT being used in the caption.

Cover A: Standard Cover

Cover B(1): 1:25 Wraparound Sketch Cover

Cover B(2): Wraparound 1:25 Sketch Cover

I've been changing the new 52 DC Covers to B(1), and someone has been going through and changing them BACK to B(2).

I don't want to waste my time (or the Approver's time) with CRs that are going to be undone afterward.

I personally don't care one way or the other, but no matter what is in the caption I think the ratio at the beginning is super ugly.

I think the DC ones are different where there is no artist being added and there are 2 descriptions being used (Wraparound and Sketch or Black and White).

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All New X-Men, Angel & Faith, Aquaman, Avengers, Avenging Spider-Man, Batman, Batman: Arkham Unhinged, Batman: L'il Gotham, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9, Daredevil, Earth 2, East of West, Flash, Ghostbusters, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Justice League, Justice League Dark, Justice League of America, Mega Man, Morbius, New Avengers, Savage Wolverine, Scarlet Spider, Scooby-Doo: Where Are You?, Superior Spider-Man, Teen Titans, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT Color Classics, Transformers: Regeneration One, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, Uncanny Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, Venom, Wolverine & the X-Men

Alpha Big Time, Jirni, TMNT Villain MicroSeries

All Spider-Man and TMNT Appearances and Variants

For everyone who has no idea what a ratio is, What's a Ratio anyway? In terms of models ships and cars if you tell me this books is a 1/10 or 1/25 I would expect to get a comic book 1 twenty-fifth the size of a regular comic book which would be really helpful if I wanted to select comics that would take less room to store but not so easy on the eyes to read although if they can read that grain of rice I'll figure a way to read tiny X books.

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Bamf!!! Photobucket Pages

It doesn't faze me at all to have the ratio as the first thing. I happen to prefer the consistent layout of the Caption using the example from the Guidelines. If there isn't an artist listed OR the artist for all the covers is the same, drop it.

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Thank you for your opinion. Just because you're uninformed about ratios and how a DATABASE should contain as much accurate, pertinent information about a comic doesn't mean we're going to throw away valid, useful information.

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It's important info because it explains the scarcity of a particular issue.