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October Status Update For Retromags


Phillyman

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  • Retromags Curator

Sorry I fell off the map for a while, it feels like only yesterday I was putting in 3-4 hours a day on getting Retromags 2.0 up and running. I won't bore you with all the details, but I got burned out and just fell off track with getting things done around here. I have a to-do list of items that need attention for the databases to be opened to the public. Today I will share with you what is done and what still needs work.

As many of you can see, we still have a mess around here. The Old Download Manager is still accessible, but all the download links have been removed. I have been keeping that section of the website up for the sole reason of redirecting users to the new Magazine Database which is the successor to the old system. You may have noticed that the Magazine Download Section is also still up. That section of the forums was created to provide a quick fix to anyone that wanted to grab magazines via Newsgroups, while we were working on the new Magazine Database.

If you look at the numbers between the systems....

  • Old Download Manager = 1132 Files
  • Magazine Download Section = 947 Files
  • Magazine Database = 495 Files


You can see that I have about 83% of the files needed, in my possession. That 83% (or 947 files) have also been uploaded to Newsgroups for anyone to download. One of the issues at hand is, what are the files I am still missing? That is one of the many puzzles I am currently dealing with and hope to solve soon. Once I know which files I am missing, then I can touch base with you guys and see if anyone can send me them.

On October 25th 2013, I will remove the Old Download Manager! I will also delete the Magazine Download Section, and roll the topics into another section!

I need to do this to start cleaning up the mess that is preventing us from getting back to scanning! In the end, the 947 files that I have are already available via Newsgroups and Rapidshare. The time consuming part is taking those links, and creating records in the Magazine Database. You may ask, Why is it taking soo long?

Well the time consuming part is that the Old Download Manager was a clusterfuck. Plain and simple! This is some of what I am dealing with....

  • Items that were submitted in the wrong category
  • Duplicate entries
  • Items with very little information on where they came from, or what they are

So rather than pull my hair out by taking on all 1132 magazines at once, I have decided to tackle the USA section first. Now keep in mind that the USA section is the largest section of our Old Download Manager.....FOUR times larger than the next largest section (UK). The USA section has 782 magazines out of the system wide total of 1132. Yesterday I extracted all 1132 titles from the Old Download Manager, and then separated them out....just like they are on the website.

  • USA Publications = 782 Files
  • UK Publications = 187 Files
  • International Publications = 88 Files
  • Flyers and Promotional Books = 37 Files
  • Player Guides & Strategy Books = 38 Files

So after I had an Excel spreadsheet with all 1132 files separated out by what section they were in. The next thing I did was to extract all the magazines in our Magazine Database (that had download links). So as of right now, the USA section of the Magazine Database has 495 download links, which I compared to the 782 files that it should have. Now I know exactly what needs to be added to the USA section of the Magazine Database, so that all the USA releases are available!

With 495 out of 782 files already moved over, we are 63% of the way done with the USA section. I know 63% doesn't sound like a big number, but I found another 215 magazines that can be moved over to USA section of the Magazine Database.....which would bring us up to 93% complete on the transfer of the USA section between systems!

So what are the 215 Magazines that are about to be moved over?

  • STart = 42 magazines
  • PSM = 4 magazines
  • Atarian = 3 magazines
  • PC Games = 5 magazines
  • Video Games The Ultimate Gaming Magazine = 27 magazines
  • Analog = 70 magazines
  • Color Computer = 11 magazines
  • Rainbow = 18 magazines
  • Dangerous Games/GameShark = 24 magazines
  • Sync = 5 magazines
  • PSX = 1 magazine
  • GameOn! = 1 magazine
  • 3DO Club News = 1 magazine
  • Blip = 2 magazines
  • Odyssey Adventure = 1 magazine

The actual importing of the download links to the Magazine Database won't take very long. The time consuming part is that many of those publications do not currently exist in the Magazine Database. So I need to gather information on each of those publications.....such as......

  • How many issues overall does each of those publications have?
  • What is the numbering scheme for each of those publications?
  • What is the date for each issue?

See before I can move those 4 issues of PSM into the new database, I need to figure out how many issue of PSM actually exist, and what the months and years are for each issue. That way I know that if the cover of an issue says PSM Vol 2, Issue 4, that it would be the 10th issue in the database. I expect the USA section to be the worst section for this process. Basically my roadblock right now is gathering information on those publications.

So if anyone wants to help speed up how fast I get the download links restored. I could use some help figuring out some of the above publications.

There are two aspects where I could use help at the moment.....

  • Figuring out how many issues of a certain publication exist
  • Putting together spreadsheets of month/year to import into the Magazine Database

Number 1 will take research on the internet to find sources of information, or will take someone who has a complete or near complete set of the publications above.

Number 2 will also take research, but will also take someone to transcribe that information into Excel spreadsheets. What do these spreadsheets look like? Something like this....

kv1b.jpg

The following magazines need to have spreadsheets like that created.....

  • 3DO Club News
  • Ahoy!
  • Amiga World
  • Antic
  • Atari Explorer
  • Computer Game Review
  • Computer Gaming World
  • Cyber Sports
  • GameFan
  • EGM2
  • Electronic Entertainment
  • Electronic Fun With Computers and Games
  • Electronic Game Player
  • Electronic Games (1981)
  • Electronic Games (1992)
  • Electronic Gaming Retail News
  • Enter
  • Game Developer
  • Game Players
  • Game Players Nintendo Guide
  • Game Players Sega Guide
  • GameNow
  • GamePro
  • Gamers Republic
  • Games for Windows
  • Girls of Gaming
  • GMR
  • Hardcore Gamer
  • High End
  • Incite PC Gaming
  • Joystik
  • Mega Play
  • MegaFan
  • Next Generation
  • Nintendo Power Advance
  • PC Gamer
  • Play
  • PSX
  • S.W.A.T. Pro
  • Sega Visions
  • Super Gaming
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Video Games and Computer Entertainment
  • Xbox Nation

Edit - A strike thru means I just created an index for that magazine!

I know the list may look daunting, but much of the information is already out there....it just takes a long time for 1 person to transcribe that information into a format that can be imported into the new Magazine Database. Our old wiki is still able to be referenced by going to the Wayback machine. So the date information on "S.W.A.T. Pro" is still available at this link.....

http://web.archive.org/web/20100728062625/http://wiki.retromags.com/wiki/S.W.A.T.Pro

Same for GMR....

http://web.archive.org/web/20100728063106/http://wiki.retromags.com/wiki/GMR

and for things that the Retromags wiki never had.....we can still reference Magweasel's old wiki.....

http://web.archive.org/web/20080701193718/http://www.magweasel.com/wiki/Main_Page

Again, this is all just very time consuming for one person to handle. So if anyone can lend a hand with creating spreadsheets, or finding information on certain publications.....we can get the download links restored and get back to scanning magazines! :)

-Phillyman

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  • Retromags Curator

Just a quick update on the date information!

Out of a total of 3481 magazines in the USA section of our new Magazine Database......

1047 records already have dates added to them

1181 records are about to have dates imported into them

1253 records still need spreadsheets created for importing

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  • Retromags Curator

More Database Records!!!! :Yahooo:

Last night I added 577 new records to the USA section of the Magazine Database! This now gives us a place to move more download links over to the new system. Which ones?

  • Analog
  • Game On!
  • Official Dreamcast Magazine
  • Official U.S. Playstation Magazine
  • Official Xbox Magazine
  • PSM
  • Pure Nintendo
  • STart
  • Video Games
  • VideoGames: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine

So now comes the fun part of importing the download links into each of those sections (which is the easy part). Look for around 150 download links to be restored tonight! It is always a great day when you can restore 13% of the links that have been missing!

-Phillyman

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  • Retromags Curator

Great work so far, Philly! :)

*huggles*

Areala

Thanks, we are almost to the point where I can open up the USA section of the Magazine Database to the public for editing. Then I can turn my attention to the UK section, which has more records....but less download links. I need to find 150 or so more records that I can match up with covers in the Gallery.....to get the cover ratio up to 50% completed for the USA section.

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  • Retromags Curator

UPDATE

As you may have noticed, I disabled the Old Download Manager and deleted the Magazine Download Section on the forums.Everyone should be going to our new Magazine Database....

www.retromags.com/magazines

I am making great progress at the moment! Out of the 4,066 USA records.....

  • 100% have Next Issue and Previous Issue buttons
  • 100% have Publication Links
  • 100% have Issue Numbers
  • 1863 out of 4066 have Cover Images
  • 3640 out of 4066 have a Year field populated
  • 3656 out of 4066 have a Month field populated

Right now all attention is being turned to finding any more covers in our Gallery that can be matched up with records in the Database. I am also working on matching up any more Rapidshare links with records in our database. I feel the end is near...... :help:

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  • Retromags Curator

Philly, will the database allow users to "browse" between magazines when they undergo a title change? Like, is it programmed to know that EMG2 became Expert Gamer with issue 50 and then GameNOW with issue 90? :)

*huggles*
Areala

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  • Retromags Curator

Yes, I will set up magazines to jump from one to another.....soo....

Nintendo Fun Club > Nintendo Power

Game Players > Ultra Game Players > Game Buyer

Sega Challenge > Team Sega Newsletter > Sega Visions

Basically I just set the "Next Issue" field to be the next magazine that comes in order....even if it is a different name. :)

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  • Retromags Curator

One more question and then I'm done. I saw the index for Play magazine is incomplete, and I have a number of issues from the incomplete part of the index. Is there a way for me to add the Month and Year to the index manually, or should I compile up a spreadsheet for you of what I have and PM/email it over so you can import it? :)

*huggles*
Areala

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  • Retromags Curator

Earlier today I mass imported publishers to about 95% of the USA records in the Magazine Database. At the moment there may be some incorrect listings, for magazines that went thru multiple publishers.....I still need to go back and fix up things. I already fixed Nintendo Power, as that was a very easy one.....we all know when Future took over for Nintendo of America.

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  • Retromags Curator

One more question and then I'm done. I saw the index for Play magazine is incomplete, and I have a number of issues from the incomplete part of the index. Is there a way for me to add the Month and Year to the index manually, or should I compile up a spreadsheet for you of what I have and PM/email it over so you can import it? :)

*huggles*

Areala

Sure, I am not sure how i missed that....but if you have the month and year for issues 61 forward....feel free to send them to me and I will import them :)

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