Author Types

[Thorf]

For the Authors table, we need a complete list of the roles that each person performs on each product. This is the Author Types table, which will be referenced as a drop-down list on each Author entry.

Two years ago I compiled this list from all the OD&D and AD&D Mystara products:

1. Author ("By")
2. Rules Compilation and Development
3. Compiled by
4. Design / Designer
5. Designed and written by
6. Original Design
7. Original Concept and Design
8. Original Concepts
9. Additional design, development and editing
10. Design Coordinator
11. Monsters Created by
12. Adventure Design
13. Revision / Revised by
14. Revision/Development
15. Development / Developer
16. Development and Editing
17. Additional Material
18. Storyline
19. Production & Design
20. Editorial Coordinator
21. Developer & Editor
22. Editor/Developer
23. Additional Design & Editing
24. Editor / Edited by
25. Editing
26. Assistant Editor
27. Editorial Assistance
28. Copyeditor
29. Second Edition
30. Editing and Project Coordination
31. Project Coordinator
32. Project Manager
33. Product Manager
34. Coordinator / Coordination
35. Art Coordinator / Art Coordination
36. Art Director
37. Box Art / Box Cover Artist
38. Front Cover Art
39. Back Cover Art
40. Cover Artist / Cover Art / Cover by / Cover Illustration / Cover Painting
41. Cover Design Concept
42. Cover Design
43. Interior Artist / Internal Art / Interior Illustrations
44. Art / Artist / Artwork
45. Illustrations
46. Additional Art
47. Cartography Supervisor
48. Border Design
49. Cartographer / Cartography
50. Interior Cartography
51. Maps
52. Cartography & Design
53. Cartography and Seals
54. Poster Map Art and Cartography
55. Playing Map
56. Playing Pieces
57. Graphics Coordinator / Graphics Coordination
58. Graphic Designer / Graphic Design
59. Tile Artists / Poster Map Art
60. Tile Artist/Figure Designer
61. Figures Designer / 3D Standups
62. Poster Map Art
63. Poster Map Art & Stand-up Character Art
64. Stand-up Character Art
65. Colour Deck Plans
66. Interior Maps
67. Photographer
68. Electronic Prepress Coordinator
69. Typesetting / Typesetter
70. Typographer / Typography
71. Keyliner / Keyline / Keylining
72. Text Keylining
73. Map Keylining
74. Page Design
75. Border Graphics
76. Decorative Borders
77. Illuminated Letters
78. Design/Production
79. Production
80. Production/Layout
81. Layout
82. Editing and Production
83. Editing/Continuity
84. Paper Sculptor
85. Original Compilation
86. Original Maps
87. Product Design
88. Additional Design
89. Additional Monster Design
90. Additional Interior Graphics
91. Index
92. Useful Feedback
93. Technical Advisor
94. Continuity Advisor
95. Proofreading
96. Skyship Designs and Creative Assistance
97. Creative Assistance
98. Design Review
99. Playtesting / Playtesters / Thanks to Playtesters
100. Dedication ("For")
101. Thanks to
102. Many thanks to / Much thanks
103. Sincere thanks to
104. Special thanks to
105. Extra special thanks to
106. Invaluable Assistance
107. Able Assistance
108. Inspiration
109. Acknowledgement
110. Encouragement
111. Producer
112. Interactive Director
113. Original Score

If I remember right, the order is roughly the same as the order they are usually listed in the credits of each product - although depending on the product the order is sometimes different. You can also see that I tried to group them into categories, so that all of the variations remain close to each other.

A few of the credits were so similar that I merged them, with a slash separating the different variations of the job title. It might be sensible to further merge some of these, or even to establish overall categories to which these titles can be assigned as sub-categories. That would facilitate searching a bit better. For example, Artist, Illustrator, Cover Artist, and so on could all be sub-categories of "Artist". Since some titles include two areas (e.g. Production & Design, Developer & Editor), we would need to be able to add one job title to multiple categories, but I don't think that would cause any problems.

Note that I have not researched magazine credits (although most if not all article credits are already provided for in this list), nor products outside the Mystara range. We will probably want to expand the lists to include other AD&D products for reference purposes, including 1st, 2nd, 3rd and eventually 4th editions.

Also note that "Author Types" deals only with job titles; all other aspects are covered in different tables.

[Thorf]

Now, the reason that I'm posting this is that I want to work out the main categories that we need to describe job titles for all sources - to be used for both published works as well as fan-created works (which will also be entered into the database, including the relevant Vaults URL).

Currently my idea for this list is:

1. Author - any writer, designer, developer, creator, including leads and assistants
2. Editor - any editor, revision editor
3. Project Manager - any overall coordinator, manager, product manager
4. Art Director - any art director, art coordinator, etc. who deals with art but generally doesn't create it themselves
5. Artist - any cover artist, box artist, interior artist, illustrator
6. Cartographer - including cartographer, mapmaker, cartography supervisor
7. Graphic Designer - a very wide category including border designer, border graphic designer, decorative border designer, seal designer, poster map art designer (where it's not cartography), tile artist, figure designer, 3D standup designer, stand-up character artist, deck plan artist, illuminated letter designer, or any other artist who does not fit under "Artist". Also includes typographer, electronic prepress coordinator, typesetter, keyliner, page design, producer, layout designer,
8. Photographer
9. Indexer
10. Advisor - includes feedback credits, any kind of advisor credit, creative or any other type of assistance, design review,
11. Proofreader
12. Playtester
13. Dedicated to
14. Thanks to - includes any and all variations on thanks to, many thanks to, special thanks to, and also inspired by, encouragement, acknowledgement, etc.
15. Musician
16. Multimedia - anything to do with producing or directing music, software, DVD menus, etc.

Problems: Where does Paper Sculptor fit? In Artist or Graphic Designer? How about Continuity - perhaps in Editor?

Does this make sense to you? Does it seem obvious where all the official credits fit in? Did I put anything in the wrong place? Do the overall credits alone make sense enough for defining credits on both published works and fan-created works? Could we merge some of these together and streamline the list, or do you think I merged too many together already (for example in the case of Graphic Designer)?

Any comments or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

[Andaire]

How should we deal with anonymous authors?
Do you have an entry for the "thanks to"?
Does any of this has a link to the copyrights, creative commons, or other rights or lack thereof, of the source?

[Plaag]

Maybe separate artists into: Cover Artist, Interior Artists, Back Cover Artist

It makes sense in the condensed version though how you have it.

ShaneG.

[Thorf]

How should we deal with anonymous authors?

Good question. Are there any? I guess there probably are some in stuff at the Vaults.

I'd say we will probably just have an author called "Anonymous" in the database. That should deal with it well enough.

Do you have an entry for the "thanks to"?

Yep - it's in the list above. They get referenced like any other "author", even if all they did was get thanked.

Does any of this has a link to the copyrights, creative commons, or other rights or lack thereof, of the source?

No, but you're right, perhaps we should add a copyright field to the main source table. Any ideas for what copyright statuses we would need to have? Perhaps Copyrighted, Public Domain, and then a selection of Creative Commons licenses?

Maybe separate artists into: Cover Artist, Interior Artists, Back Cover Artist

It makes sense in the condensed version though how you have it.

Strangely enough there are no back cover art credits that I know of (although there may be some outside of Mystara products). In any case, I understand what you're getting at, but do you think it's useful to split the artists up like that rather than having an overall category? I can sort of see how it would be nice to group cover artists together and interior artists together, but doing so would mean that there are two separate artist categories.

[Plaag]

Would be nice, but condensing as much as possible would make things easier. Easier maybe better

ShaneG.

[Thorf]

My reason for condensing things is really this: the sub-titles are for official sources, which have very specific credits, while the short list of titles is much more useful for fan-made things, where there are usually fewer roles and they're far less specific. By introducing the condensed list as an intermediary, we effectively keep the official titles specific while also redefining them to be more general, in line with the fan credits.

Phew... It's all a bit complicated, isn't it. When it comes down to it, we can also use the sub-titles for fan products too, so I don't think we need to worry about condensing too much.