Validation of catalogue modification requests

Écrit le 19 juin 2013 • Dernière modification : 5 juillet 2019
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This is a working document for the validation process of new coins requests and catalogue modifications. It is intended for the catalogue administrators and the country referees of Numista. It may also be of some interest for all the members who want to participate to the catalogue, in order to understand how to submit requests that will be easily and quickly validated.

Validation of new coin requests

Which fields should be completed?

Although only the title is the only mandatory field when creating a new coin, this is not enough and the new page should be as complete as possible.

If the member owns the coin he added, he certainly can enter the diameter, the shape, the orientation, a quick description, the lettering, the pictures and the type of edge. We require those fields to be filled if the member can do it.

Information like the country, the KM# number, the face value and the currency is necessary information for correct identification in Numista catalogue. It is very important to enter that data.

Above mentioned fields are a minimum, which should be given as far as possible. Of course it would be much appreciated to have the other fields completed. Nice descriptions and historical anecdotes about the coin are a plus.

What to do during the validation process?

Check for double entry
The first thing to do is to check that the submitted coin is not already registered in the catalogue.

Verification
Try to verify the information as far as you can. Try to used various sources, since even the best books and websites are not error free.
If you can't verify the information, check at least if it is plausible. You can ask the member who submitted the coin for more explanations.

Completion
If the submitted information is not complete or is erroneous, ask the member to correct it. As long as the coin is not validated, he can edit it freely without prior validation. Validate and publish the coin when all the modifications are done.

If you have access to some documentation about the coin, feel free to add more information by yourself. For instance, it is recommended to list all the issuing years if the submitted list is not exhaustive.

Respect of the Guidelines for editing the catalogue
Special attention should be given to the verification of the conformity to the Guidelines for editing the catalogue. Try to explain clearly the possible aspects that don't respect the guidelines in an educational way. You may correct some of them by yourself. For instance, title correction is often needed.


Existing coin page modification

Similarly to new coin validation, your role consists in
  • verifying the information, using multiple sources and asking for more explanations if needed.
  • verifying the conformity to the Guidelines for editing the catalogue.

In addition, for information verification, you can also contact the other members who own that coin through the intermediary of your tutor. Hence you can check if a date really exists or check the size or the weight for instance.

In case you reject the modification, you are required to explain your choice.

You may choose to accept only parts of the requested modifications.

Picture replacement

You should accept requests to add a new picture instead of the existing picture if the new picture looks better. This may be due to a better grade coin or to a better picture quality (no blur, higher resolution, better contrast, more natural aspect). You are encouraged to open both the current and the new picture in full size for better comparison.

Avoid the replacement of a picture from a Numista user by a picture from another website, even if the website gave permission, except if the current picture is of low quality. Similarly, you should accept new pictures from Numista members in replacement of pictures from other websites, if the member picture quality is equivalent or almost equivalent to the current picture.

In all cases, you should check the conformity to copyright rules and reject pictures the author of which did not give explicit permission, or copied from websites which did not give their permission to Numista. You can check if the picture has already been published on the Internet using tools like Google Images or TinEye.

Year modifications

You should be very careful when considering year modification requests, since other Numista members may have entered the year in their personal collection. So it is very important to not affect their collection.
As a consequence, you should accept a modification request only if it adds information but doesn't change the information. For instance you should systematically reject to change a year to another. Reject also mint mark change or comments change specifying a variant, if the modification results in designing a different issue. In this case you should not modify an existing date but create a new one.
If a modification affecting the identity of an issue seems legitimate, for instance if a year does not exist, contact your tutor in the Numista team.

For the same reasons, you can't delete years. If a deletion is needed, contact your tutor, who will do it for you.


Note: If you don't have a tutor, you can contact the catalogue administrator of your choice, or contact them through the forum section dedicated to the catalogue.