Help:Creative Work Assistant

From AwardAnnals

The Creative Work Assistant (CWhelper) is a tool that collects the material for a creative work (CW) page from various sources and creates the wikitext in a standard format that is ready for editing. While a CW page can easily be created by copying an existing one and editing the information in contains, using CWhelper provides several benefits:

• It searches the sites of Amazon US and UK, and Barnes & Noble to provide all the information on one page.
• The cover art for all editions found in the US and UK are collected and displayed so that choosing the most appropriate one is easy. Uploads are done from server to server, so it is unnecessary to download the image to your computer and then upload it.
• Genres from Amazon are similarly collected so that you may choose which genres to apply. This is especially helpful when adding an unfamiliar CW.
• The CW “title” and “sort title” are used several times on a CW page. They need be typed only once in CWhelper and both will be appropriately applied.
• Adding a new creator requires both a new page and a new category. Both can be generated with a single click in CWhelper.
• Reviews and synopses are converted to wikitext, retaining bold and italics and stripping unwanted HTML tags.
• Using CWhelper provides reminders to include commonly overlooked information such as genres and related works.

Step 1: CW search

The first step is to ensure that the CW does not already exist. Type the name of the title into the fields “page”, “title”, and “sort title”, and click “Check page”. If a CW with a title matching any of these fields, a warning will be displayed in the status box. If the status box displays “Okay”, you can be reasonably certain that the CW has not already been added to the site.

Note that the database is searched for CW with exactly the same title that you type. The photo shows The Hours as an example of a work that is already defined on three different pages, but had I typed “Hours” without “The” in the title box, the warning would have failed.

If the CW already exists, then there is no need to go further. Click the “Reset” button and move on to the next CW.

If the CW is new, type title keywords and the author's last name into the field provided, and click “Go”. This will return search results from affiliated booksellers that will allow you to fill in the other fields and collect descriptions and reviews for later editing.

Step 2: Clicking on search results

The search results will provide buttons and hyperlinks that will add things to the fields at the top of the CWhelper.

Creator: There may be several authors listed, and clicking any of the names add it to the list of creators near the top of the page. Clicking it again will remove it. The blue hyperlinks indicate names that already have a page (existing authors). Red names will eventually require a page and category to be created.

There may be too many names listed. Check the cover of the book to see which names should be listed. There is no need to include the author of the preface, the illustrator, or the translator unless their names appear on the cover, or there is some other valid reason (perhaps it was the illustrations or the translation that won an award).

Publishers: Clicking a publisher name replaces the publisher field. There can be only one publisher selected, though there may be many listed in the search results. If the award mentions a publisher, use that one.

Reviews: There are three distinct types of text on a CW page. The short description goes in the infobox, appears on the honor roll listings, and is ideally 600 to 800 characters in length. The publisher description is the first to appear on the CW page and can be any length. Usually these two descriptions are identical, though one may need to be shortened. Paperback books usually have a short description suitable for the honor roll listings, while the hardcover editions have extended synopses.

Simply look through the descriptions and click the “Set short description” and/or “Set publisher text” buttons to set these two areas of the CW page. Be careful that the text you choose actually appears comes from the publisher, and not from Amazon’s editors.

The third type of text is a selection of reviews from the editors at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Awards Annals has permission to display these reviews so long as the page has a link to the respective website where the CW may be purchased. You may select several of these reviews.

Be sure to read over all of these texts when the page is created, editing and cleaning up the format where necessary. If a bold heading such as “From Our Editors” was included in the review, delete it—it is redundant. The reviewers name should be in italics following each review.

Images: Look over the images provided and choose the one that is most attractive or appropriate. Choose the large size when possible—MediaWiki will create scaled versions as necessary.

When you click the “upload” button, the “image” field at the top of CWhelper is filled in with an appropriate file name taken from the CW title, and a new window opens where you can complete the upload process. The fields are pre-filled, but feel free to add or edit information.

Genres: All of the genre information from Amazon is collected into a mostly uninformative list. At the very least, select a genre appropriate to the award that the CW has won. Select all genres that apply, except for “Fiction”

Every book, it seems, belongs somewhere in Amazon’s “Literature & Fiction” genre, but please do not add books to Award Annals “Fiction” genre unless it is considered Literary Fiction. If the book may be found at the bookstore under “Science Fiction” or “Children’s”, please use these genres.

Step 3: Creator pages

The list of creators should now be complete, but you can add to it by typing a name in the field and clicking the “Add” button. Once the list is complete, you must create a page and a category for each red name.

Clicking on a red name will open two windows: one will be to create a page for the creator, and the other will be to create the “Category: Works by _____”. Both of these will have minimal information on them. If you have any extra information on the creator, add it to the creator page in place of “Information about the author”. A link to the creator’s official website is an excellent addition.

Save both of these pages and return to CWhelper.

Step 4: Finish

Click the “Check page” button for a final check of the fields. If successful, click “Create page”. This will open a normal “edit” window with all of the wikitext in place.

You will almost always need to delete the “needs templates” at the top of the page. If you are missing a photo or a description, leave the appropriate template in. These templates not only identify what is needed on the page, but they add the page to a category such as Category:Creative works needing description.

You will usually delete the entire “Related works” section unless you know that the work is related to another, such as an associated film or soundtrack. Sequels may also be added here.

Preview and examine the page, looking for unwanted HTML tags or other problems.

Type an edit summary indicating why you are adding this page. Simply typing the name of the award is sufficient.

Click the “Save” button. Go back to CWhelper and click the “Reset” button to clear all the fields and search results.