User:Fixer

Fixer is a robot account, which is used to create submissions via the new Web API. It is currently owned by User:Ahasuerus. Fixer 13:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixer Queues as of 2014-03-14
Legend: n-p - new (unprioritized) paper books, n-e - new ebooks, 1-p - queue 1 (high priority) paper books, 1-e - queue 1 ebooks

Mon       2014                   2013                   2012 n-p n-e  1-p  1-e|   n-p  n-e   1-p  1-e|   n-p   n-e   1-p   1-e| - NON  11    0    0    0|     2    0     4    0|   358     0     0     0| Jan  0 2304   64  206|     0 1699     6    1|   678  1281    33     3| Feb  0 1209   32   52|     0 1672     3    3|     9  1329   163     5| Mar  0  377    0  193|     0 1833     8    1|  1346  1551     5     0| Apr  0  291    0    8|     0 1983    13    0|  1145  1459     3     0| May 683 262   29    8|     0 1732     3    2|  1187  1582     4     1| Jun 530 179   25    9|     1 1693    10    2|  1082  1524     1     0| Jul 617 195   28   22|     0 1752    17    4|   923  1863     3     0| Aug 483 139   16    6|     0 1610    12    6|  1202  1718     7     2| Sep 435  97    7   16|     0 1747    43    1|  1371  1875     8     0| Oct 333  78    6    0|     0 2132   169    6|     0  2071   373     5| Nov 138  41    4    0|     0 2652    64    8|     0  1623   211     5| Dec 46   18    2    0|     0 3152   105   11|     0  1869   201     5|

Note: Queues 2 and 3 contain lower priority ISBNs and are not shown here.

How Fixer Works as of 2014
I (User:Ahasuerus) am constantly improving Fixer, so things are fluid, but here is how Fixer works as of early 2014:


 * 1) Fixer queries Amazon.com and Amazon UK for new SF books, where "new" means "since Fixer was last run". Note that the data that Amazon sends back is not always the same as the data displayed on its Web pages, e.g. Fixer doesn't have access to cover artists.
 * 2) If the ISBN of a newly captured book has been previously submitted to ISFDB or suspended/rejected, then the ISBN is ignored. Otherwise Fixer adds the ISBN's data to its main "queue".
 * 3) Fixer tries to determine whether to use the US data or the UK data for each ISBN. For example, if Amazon.com says that the publisher is "Baen" and Amazon UK says that the publisher is "Unknown", then Fixer uses the US record. If the data is incomplete or the publisher is active on both sides of the Atlantic, manual intervention is required.
 * 4) Fixer determines whether the ISBN should be automatically suspended. This is currently done for any ISBNs starting with 2-9 (non-English pubs), any audio, CD and MP3 books, and, lately, for any books published by the better known vanity publishers. The data in the "suspended" queue is not deleted, but it is considered very low priority.
 * 5) Fixer examines all captured records and separates "high priority" ISBNs from "low priority" ISBNs. High priority ISBNs are associated with major publishers or with authors who have records in ISFDB.
 * 6) The robot maintainer (Ahasuerus as of 2014) reviews the "high priority" list and then the "low priority" list. Comic books, non-genre books, calendars and so on are manually rejected. Books for very young children and other borderline ISBNs are manually suspended. Everything else is assigned to queues 1, 2 or 3. Queue 1 is the highest priority queue where ISBNs associated with major publishers and established authors go. Queue 2 is for self-published and other "minor" authors whose other books are already cataloged in ISFDB. Queue 3 is the lowest priority queue and mostly contains books by self-published authors not in ISFDB. Each queue is further subdivided into a "paper" sub-queue and an "ebook" sub-queue based on the book's binding.
 * 7) Once all captured ISBNs have been assigned to queues, the robot maintainer creates batches of 10-20 submissions based on what's in queue 1. Some submissions are created on behalf of Fixer and any moderator can approve them. Other submissions are created using the maintainer's account.

Next steps:


 * Amazon CA -- in progress.
 * Australian sources -- some 20,000 records have been captured, but I still need to parse them before Fixer can create submissions.
 * Library catalogs -- a number of major catalogs have been captured, but the data will require a lot of massaging before it is ready to be submitted. Suffice it to say that there are well over a thousand meaningful fields in the most popular standard for catalog records. Although not all of them are required for our purposes, many need to be included in Moderator Notes since they may facilitate the decision making process at approval time. (And then there are catalogs with non-standard formats or no formatting at all, but that's a whole different headache.)


 * Ahasuerus 00:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Publishers processed

 * Pyr - done (5)
 * Roc - done (50)
 * Baen - done (70)
 * Ace - done (80)
 * Tor - done (450?)
 * Del Rey - done (396)
 * Tandem - done (but not Tandem-somethingelse)
 * Gollancz - Amazon UK only

Amazon and friends

 * Check books published by "Telos" in 2009 and 2010
 * Capture Amazon CA
 * 2 sources for AU data
 * Combine US/UK/CA/AU records and upgrade the logic to submit the resulting composite records intelligently
 * Upgrade notes/modnotes
 * Add support for "creators", e.g. Role="Editor" and Role="Illustrator"
 * Create a request for the response group that includes illustrators
 * Listmania
 * Redo Authors
 * Reformat Subjects, RejectReasons and SuspendReasons

Other

 * Correct _S* and _A* URLs
 * Move non-genre authors to Biblioholics
 * Grab LOCIS, Melvyl, the British Library, etc using subject headings
 * Scan Locus Online's ISBNs
 * Merge duplicate titles
 * Add EDITOR Titles to Magazines that are missing them

Done

 * Books/magazines with ISBNs published prior to 1966 are now auto-suspended
 * Authors with no spaces between the initials, e.g. "H.G. Wells", now have a space added (i.e. "H. G. Wells") at submission creation time
 * Amazon US records are now marked as submitted when their related Amazon UK record is submitted and v.v.
 * If there is more than one pre-existing book length Title (with the same Authors) on file, auto-merge is no longer attempted
 * Books marked as "westerns" are now automatically rejected
 * Books scheduled to appear in 2010 and October-December 2009 are now automatically suspended
 * Books marked as "Abandoned" by Amazon UK are now automatically suspended
 * Books with "Manga" in the title are now automatically suspended
 * Merged the two eligibility checks so 999 and 555 ISBNs are always suspended
 * Fixer now uses ISBN-13 for books published in 2008 and later
 * Made the author field mandatory. It now uses "uncredited" instead of leaving it blank.
 * Amazon-provided formats (e.g. "Large Print") are now added to Notes. "Bargain Price" is ignored.
 * Added a big warning when the book is marked "Import" by Amazon.com
 * Rejected all maps, "*.exe"s, calendars and NTSC
 * Fixer will now use "MP3 Audio" and "CD" as the binding if no other binding information is available
 * Fixed apostrophe/quotes
 * Removed "General" and "General AAS" browse nodes from the mod notes
 * Changed the logic to automatically merge Amazon's accent-less records for "China Miéville" and similar authors
 * Implemented automatic merging with pre-existing titles

Known UK Publishers

 * Aldine
 * Allen & Unwin
 * Allen Lane
 * Allison & Busby
 * Armada
 * Armada Lions
 * Arrow
 * BBC
 * Badger
 * Beccon Publications
 * Big Finish
 * Bodley Head
 * Boxtree
 * Brown Watson
 * Cape
 * Cassell
 * Century Hutchinson
 * Chatto & Windus
 * Collins
 * Corgi
 * Coronet
 * Dobson
 * Eyre & Spottiswoode
 * Eyre Methuen
 * Faber
 * Fontana
 * Four Square
 * Futura
 * George Allen & Unwin
 * Gollancz
 * Grafton
 * Granada
 * Hamlyn
 * Hart-Davis
 * Heinemann
 * Hodder & Stoughton
 * Hodder Headline
 * Howard and Wyndham
 * Hutchinson
 * J. M. Dent
 * John Spencer
 * Jonathan Cape
 * Legend
 * Lions
 * Magnet
 * Mammoth
 * Mandarin
 * Mayflower
 * Mayflower-Dell
 * Methuen
 * Michael Joseph
 * Millennium
 * NEL
 * New English Library
 * Orbit
 * Orion
 * Paladin
 * Pan
 * Panther
 * Panther Granada
 * Peacock
 * Penguin
 * Picador
 * Piccolo
 * Puffin
 * Quartet Books
 * Rupert Hart-Davis
 * Scion
 * Sidgwick & Jackson
 * Sphere
 * Star
 * Tandem
 * Target
 * Telos
 * The Science Fiction Foundation
 * The Women's Press
 * Titan
 * Triad
 * Triad Grafton
 * Triad Granada
 * Triad Panther
 * Unwin Hyman
 * VGSF
 * Venture SF
 * Virago
 * Virgin
 * Vista
 * Voyager
 * W. H. Allen Star
 * W. H. Allen
 * Weidenfeld & Nicolson
 * William Kimber

You have to be careful with some: e.g. "Pan" alone is probably British, but "Pan Macmillan" is global.