fixing titles on this site is hard work.

sometimes i have probs myself

Join the Listal Cleanup Crew, bub. Myself and a few others (who wish to remain anonymous) have octo-handedly plowed through pages and pages of dupes (Duplicate Query) and junk (Junk Query), edited titles and platforms, added pictures and descriptions, fixed items YOU own for YOUR benefit, and all because we still have faith in what this godblessed fascism is about!

I suppose we could work on books. Those are even worse than the games section.

I took the logo off my post. I'm pretty sure Prelude would have banned me if only for another MS Paint offering.

For series, I'm thinking right now they can go in parenthesis at the end of the title. Eventually series will be their own item field. The number in a series of books can be after the series without a comma but rather a number sign. For example, "(The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill #27)". When the number in the series is incorporated in the title it'll take a little decision-making. "Book the First - A Series of Unfortunate Events; The Bad Beginning"? I think not!

Oi oi. This is a good idea because I've been fixing the titles of some of my manga too but there isn't a formula to how I've been doing it. I've just been making it so all of the books of the same series appear together and not out of order...

Edit: Some suggestions on how to fix titles?
I have this one series called The Five Star Stories. However some volumes will show up as "Five Star Stories" or "The Five Star Stories" so if you were to look for them they wouldn't all be in the same spot. I have fixed it (for the volumes I have currently) so that it says "Five Star Stories vol. #"

I've just noticed something funny. Sometimes when a title gets passed the tenth volume, it ends up in front of the the first volume. But not always. Just think that's funny that it happens with some but not others. Even though I'm using the same numbering scheme for all of them. guh.

Additionally I think it's important to keep the volume number in the titles so I'd like the titles to be sorted as "Title vol. #"
It's important to have a space after the period and before the # if the volume is a single digit and especially if the series has multiple volumes over ten since then you'd get the dilemma of having the ones listed as out of order (if you were to sort them alphabetically). Also sometimes some volumes will actually have the title listed TWICE once normally and then once again after the volume number (if it's given). Usually in a parenthesis. For example I've been lazy and some of my Eva books are listed as follows:
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Volume 10 (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
It's a bit repititive I think so I would then change it to be
Neon Genesis Evangelion Vol.10
Which I should probably do right now but I'm too busy with life in general.
Edit: The above comment was a lie since a few minutes after posting I fixed it.
However that's how I think the manga ought to be sorted out. It gets really tricky with second editions too. But I think this is a good way.
"Neon Genesis Evangelion: Special Collector's Edition Vol. 1" for the first edition and
"Neon Genesis Evangelion Vol. 1 (2nd Ed)" for the 2nd edition. But this is only if the second edition is noticelably different enough to warrant a different entry. In this case one is flipped (1st) and the other isn't (2nd). And the real collector's have the 2nd edition anyway...

Also I've noticed that some manga have different authors that what it supposed to be listed. I've fixed this so that the correct author names are give and changed the normalized the romanization so that duplicate authors are avoided. Also sometimes the translators or other such people not listed on the cover will be listed in the author's section. That I also fix.

And I might as well add this while I'm at it. The DVDs give alot of trouble, particurlary with the anime ones *shock gasp* The directors aren't always listed and if they are it's random people who obviously aren't the director. Unfortunately I can't edit that particular information for DVDs. As a result you have something like this www.listal.com/dvd/last-exile-first-move where the director is listed but the romanization is off the wall (plus clicking the link doesn't actually lead you any where...) and you also have the ADR director and script writer listed. Plus none of the Japanese VA's are listed... It's all just generally a mess.

Edit again: Might as well add this too. For movie titles, especially foreign ones would you guys think it be best to have where it says the original title, you know the part in parenthesis and lighter text color?, to have it in the original alphabet of said country the movie was created or the romanization? I myself have been using the original alphabet by copying and pasting from IMDB, but what ya'll think about it?

But that's just me. I don't know how you guys have been doing it but it's good we are discussing this now instead of later when we get in a horrible vicious cycle of changing something someone already supposedly fixed.

If we're bragging about cleanups..you can call me the janitor ;).

No one was bragging (I think). But if you want the award for most unrewarded work done at Listal, by all means. Maybe we ought to add a little gold star that says "Janitor" Maybe it can be brown. To symbolize it's hard out here for a janitor.
Listal Cleanup Crew. We clean up what no one else will. Additionally we have no lives, rights, and we lack an organized union of skilled labor. But fear not fellow cleaners, our time will come when we will seize the opposition by the horns and grasp the long awaited workers union benefits we all sought to gain.

Edit again: Might as well add this too. For movie titles, especially foreign ones would you guys think it be best to have where it says the original title, you know the part in parenthesis and lighter text color?, to have it in the original alphabet of said country the movie was created or the romanization? I myself have been using the original alphabet by copying and pasting from IMDB, but what ya'll think about it?

I think ideally we should have the original alphabet (of said country the movie was created) in the original title field, and the romanization in an additional field for aka's (which we don't have). Generally, we need more title fields for all items. And simple universally applied rules.

I think ideally we should have the original alphabet (of said country the movie was created) in the original title field, and the romanization in an additional field for aka's (which we don't have). Generally, we need more title fields for all items. And simple universally applied rules.

I thought that the title in English goes first and then the original title in parenthesis. Listal is a predominantly English speaking place...

Title (English) and then you get your Title (As Released)
For me I put the title as released in the US in the English part and then I put the title in the original alphabet in (As Released). The romanizations are nice but I don't see them as important...

What did I say? I'm too lazy to check. Here:
English title in the Title (English) field
Original title (in russian alphabet or Chinese characters, say) in title as released field
Romanized title in AKA field (which we don't have at the moment)

There's some reason for having romanized titles as well: it's usually the IMDB title for example (of course you can just click the link...) and it's nice to know what the title is even if you can't read the characters.

Generally though we need a field for all kinds of aka's. I don't like how US titles for UK films are handled for example. US title is not the international title (and shouldn't be the main title), but it isn't original (as released) title either. Some non-Anglo films can have several popular English AKA's, are you supposed to put them all in one field? Sometimes I've done that.

Well so far the films I've been editing have the same US title as for the UK so I haven't really run in that problem but I figure it'd be okay because Listal is in english and most people speak English in the US and the UK. Those other fields would be great additions in the future but it bothers me to see a bunch of text in the title section. Maybe in the description you can add the romanizations but then that leads to the problem of someone searching for the romanizations and not being able to find it with Listal's searching capabilities. So once again I'm back at square one.

Maybe we can implement a more uniform system of editing titles.

Perhaps something like Title: #
If the book has a title for that volume then I suppose you can add at in parenthesis
Title # (name for volume)
Pretty much what you are doing. I haven't been using commas or colons but I might be implementing the comma since I like the look of it more than the colon. But I don't understand all the text you have for the battle angel alita one.
Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, Vol.9: Angel's Duty (Gunnm: Last Order)
Is the last parenthesis part really necessary? I think it'd be fine just as
Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, Vol. 9 (Angel's Duty)
Oh and you might want to get rid of the period at the end of that address.

Secondary titles are generally in a pain in the butt. I usually end having to carry my books from my room on the other side of the house so I can find the titles since it's just easier to find them that way instead of online...

I really just don't get the redunancy
Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, Vol.9 (Gunnm: Last Order)
Must you put last order... twice? And I still don't understand what Gunnm means. I mean we already know what series it is and what volume it is, anything else is superfluous.

And for the series with manga numbers over ten I'm still debating on how to do that so it looks both nice and it doesn't like end up appaering out of order.
"vol. #" would then have to make you put "vol.##" for the double digits. But then making it "vol. #" and then vol. ##" just puts too much space... but then it occured to me by looking at other books that putting zeroes work fine too.
"vol. 0#" and then vol. ##
What have you been doing silent killer? I believe you did mention having a problem with this earlier.

Is Tom still going to merge all the book entries? If you can focus on editions rather than books themselves, one of these future site updates will do the rest. That's kind of similar to what we're doing in the games section. We obviously won't need "(PAL)" at the end of a game's title when the United Listal plan reaches realization, but it helps for now.

To be honest, the Games section's chaotic state is nothing compared to Books. It's a runner-up without doubt, but a distant one nonetheless.

I agree. I'd love to help out too but considering how long I've been on Listal, you guys probably wouldn't let me help...

For one thing, you need more points. It's no one's position to prejudge who can help the cleanup or not though. When I was first editing games I received an e-mail or six of correction from Prelude. For instance, I edited the title for the PAL version of Mario Kart so it'd be in the 'duplicate' query. Just a week or two ago List Maker and I had a discussion about what to do with Sega Game Gear games, in response to me editing games with the platform 'Game Gear' into 'Sega Game Gear' (not a real platform on Listal). If you edit what you can that's still a contribution. Even us of the LCC make an occasional mistake.

Listal's a website that thrives off the contributions its members give. Its ultimate purpose is to connect people through the things they love, so it makes sense that there's an all-encompassing feeling that the community is working together to reach a common goal despite differences. If there's a problem with the website, Tom coding things is only half the solution. A mother may give birth, but it's the baby's job to live.

I understand that it is the sequel but I would think putting last order would be just fine. The Gunnm part just really really bothers me. It's not anywhere on the cover and it's not the name of the individual volume (I think). But I don't own any Battle Angel Alita books (yet) so I really shouldn't complain.

Have we yet agreed on the formula for manga titles yet? I like things to be uniform and it really ticks me off to see someone messing up something I supposedly already fixed. But then again that's just me.
Title, vol. # (volume title)
Is that good? And if it's a sequel series
Title: the sequel, vol. #
Then again, that's just me.

That's what I was thinking. :P

As long as the both of us are doing this the manga books will be looking better in no time. Provided no one sabotage our efforts.

EDIT: We might as well do this on the anime DVDs (and other DVDs too!) while we're at it. But I think it mostly applies to anime since most TV shows aren't released like anime. Hahahaha...