Forum:Duty roster for books & magazines

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Don't remember where I saw it, but there is a duty roster on someone's user page for each episode, showing what needs episode summaries, etc. What about a similar list for Trek-related reference books and magazines? Most of the films had an Official Collectible Magazine. There are also a slew of behind-the-scenes anecdotes in unofficial reference books. A roster would facilitate getting this data incorporated into Memory Alpha in a systematic fashion. -- Connor Cabal 00:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

If you've got a list of magazines and/or books, feel free to start it yourself.  :) -- Sulfur 00:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You might be talking about this "automated" duty roster or its more manual counterpart. The problem I see with implementing such a thing for the materials you suggest is in trying to obtain a list to begin with. The episodes are easy, because they're a known quantity. There are a finite amount, and drawing up a list is relatively easy. But for publications — outside, perhaps, the "officially non-canon" Pocket novel range — I'm not sure how you'd go about building a reliably complete list. You could attempt by putting the words "Star Trek" into an amazon.com search box, I guess, but for the real ephemera of 20-40 years ago, I think you'd have a harder task. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 00:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a novel duty roster as well, but nothing for reference books and magazines. We probably should stick to officially approved works, because allowing unapproved fan-made reference works would be basically allowing in fan-fiction. Our magazine sections are really limited and should be improved. A finite list could easily be made.--Tim Thomason 01:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The manual list was the one I'd seen before, though I much prefer the automated version. Looks like the novels have a roster; while that's a great thing, maybe incorporating automation would be even better.

We've a bunch of stuff to start off with in Category:Magazines and Category:Reference books. What I'm envisioning is: 1) articles on each of these works providing basic info on what they are and why they are notable, and 2) (and this is a BIG one) assimilating exclusive data into the wiki. I'm NOT talking about fan-fiction; I'm talking about insights from interviews; things that have never been reprinted (writers' intents, unproduced episode ideas, production anecdotes). By including unofficial sources, like this, we'd benefit from having NPOV warts-and-all behind-the-scenes background info.

Rather than limiting the focus on all the Communicator issues or somesuch, I figured many of us already have old magazines in our collections we could populate a roster with, as well as occasional glances at auctions for obscure (like this) publications.

A duty roster would enable us to say "This resource has been combed and incorporated into Memory Alpha." My intention in bringing this up in the forum instead of jumping right into it on a user page is to benefit from the Collective's perspectives on how/whether to attempt and structure such a thing. :) -- Connor Cabal 03:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Just started the page here. -- Connor Cabal 00:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)