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Contents

The Trouble with Tycho What is a novel?

Inital problem

I was massaging Simak the other day and had to re-arrange The Trouble with Tycho since apparently somebody had merged a SERIAL record with a NOVEL record, which affected Marc's verified publication Bring Back Yesterday / The Trouble With Tycho. It looks OK now, but we still have two separate records for The Trouble with Tycho. One of them is a NOVEL and is used in book reprints and the other is a novella and is used in magazine publications. As far as I can tell, the text is the same in both cases -- Double Your Pleasure and Clute/Nicholls seem to agree -- it's just very close to the border line between the two categories, with some reprints taking as little as 77 pages and others taking as many as 115 pages. Assuming that the text is the same, it looks like we have only two choices: make it a NOVEL, in which case its magazine appearances will become Serials, or make it a novella and merge the two records. For what it's worth, Contento lists it as a novella, but I suspect that we are better off with it as a NOVEL since it would be more visible that way. What do you think? Ahasuerus 01:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I have checked the master backup file and the last couple of merges that affected The Trouble with Tycho were in early 2007. I am sure we have gotten better since then :) Ahasuerus 01:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Early 2007? Maybe around the 2nd of March, when I verified my two copies of the novel? It's probably me that messed it up then. :-/ Still, as I wasn't even proposed as a moderator till the 24th of March, I claim it wasn't a solo cock-up, I had moderator collusion! What idiot let me loose after a mistake like that? Oh, lots of you...
It seems I've only one copy now, so I've improved that: I adjusted the other based on my recollection of a book probably long gone now (maybe I swapped it, or maybe my cleaner has misfiled it). Still, I've been a bad boy and shall now go to bed without any supper and will recheck my Simaks tomorrow. In the meantime, please add lots of notes to each version so Moderators (even ones more sober than me) don't get confused. BLongley 21:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
BTW, have we agreed on capitalisation of "with" or "With" recently? BLongley 21:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Not according to Help:Screen:NewNovel, I am afraid. And don't worry, Bill, it wasn't you who mis-merged the Tychos, although we can't be sure which one of the three editors (including yours truly) did it because our audit trail for title merges is incomplete. Hopefully, our auditing capabilities will be improved when Al finishes his "history" project so that we can better identify patterns of questionable submissions and follow up with the submitting/approving editors/moderators. So much has changed over the last couple of years that it's entirely possible that some editors/moderators are using a slightly out of date set of rules. Ahasuerus 01:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I fixed the "With" - thanks. I think we've had this discussion about what to do with those stories that are both novels and novellas. In this case I would make the shortfiction title the "story" and the novel title a "wrapper" meaning the standalone novel publications would include the shortfiction. The novel title would only reference the standalone publications and you would look at the shortfiction to see all the places it was used. We'd need to add a note to the novel's title record. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:39, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
That looks like a vote for "with", Marc - in which case we'd better update Help. (I wouldn't mind adding a few more to the list, as 'Is' looks wrong to me too.) BLongley 17:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
If we are going to modify the capitalization rules for one word I would strongly suggest consulting some style manuals and making our overall standard consistent with those manuals. --swfritter 17:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Good point, and yes, we should deal with as many words as possible in one go rather than argue each individually. Do you have a preferred manual in mind? Some quick Googling suggests that not many deal with "title case". R. M. Ritter's "Oxford Manual of Style" (2002), suggests capitalising "the first word and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, but generally not articles, conjunctions and short prepositions" - which mostly supports our current list of "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to" - but if "from" is in, "with" should be too, for instance. (No support for my dislike of "Is" though, but maybe if we read the full thing it would expand a bit more.) BLongley 20:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Of course, whoever updates Help also has the wonderful project of changing all of the existing data. Otherwise the lexical matches for book reviews and serials will no longer work if the data is entered inconsistently.--swfritter 17:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
It won't be changing ALL of the existing data as most of the debatable words are inconsistent here anyway (people are following the rules they THINK are there rather than the ones that ARE), and I think we can make most changes on a case-by-case basis. (We already do, or am I the only one using "Similar Title Mode" in merges?) The Review lexical matching has gone now, and Serial lexical matching has always been broken anyway, and is Number 2 on Al's To Do list. BLongley 20:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
It is kind of nice when there is an auto-link to a review rather than having to do a manual because of a case mismatch. I would describe serial matching as mangled rather than broken. Inconsistent capitalization might make it harder to auto-match titles when it is fixed and the titles are reconciled. Probably need to address this issue independently so everyone knows it is under discussion.--swfritter 17:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of First Proposed Solution

I am afraid I am having trouble visualizing Marc's proposed solution to the novel/novella problem. Could you please change the Tychos in accordance with your proposal so that we could see what the end result would look like? Thanks! Ahasuerus 03:05, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  • The NOVEL title record that references the two standalone publications. The publications under this are a little ugly as the contents show both a novel and shortfiction.
  • The SHORTFICTION title record links to all appearances of the story.
Now that I'm looking at it the most awkward aspect are the two novels that have two title records and also the Ace double that has a novel on one side and a shortfiction on the other.
Maybe it'll work better if we consider the "nature of the work" - when a story is published standalone, as part of an Ace double, or in an omnibus then it's a "novel" but it it's in a magazine, anthology, or collection it's a shortfiction?
Another thought for a rule is if a story is ever published in novel format (standalone, or 1/2 of a double) that we have a single title record of type NOVEL for it. There is no shortfiction listing. If a short only appears in chapbooks, magazines, anthologies, and collections then it remains a shortfiction though may be novella or even novel length. I personally like this as then we only would have one title record per story (not counting variant titles) and when you are looking at a publication listing for a magazine or anthology and you see "novel" in the contents you'll know that story has been published in novel format. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
My feeling is that we should stick strictly to the word-count limits for what makes a novel. If a work of 30,000 words has been published separately, that is a chapbook, not a novel. If two such works are bound together in a double, that is a collection or anthology, not an omnibus, and in either case, the only title record should be a shortfiction one. Contrariwise, if a work of 55,000 words has been included in an anthology or collection, so what, many anthologies include full novels. The sole title record should be for a novel. In any case, i strongly dislike having two different title records for the same work. Furthermore, it is sufficiently common that a work of shortfiction is expanded into a true novel with the same title that having two title records makes it look as if that had happened when it had not. This is not a good idea. -DES Talk 16:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't like strict word count limits as the word count is often unknown and the definitions for translating a count into vi, nt, na, nv are at times subjective. That's why I proposed a simpler to externally verify system of if a story's title has appeared on the front cover of a novel or double then the title record would be of type novel but if the story has only appeared in magazines, collections, anthologies, or chapbooks then it would be of type shortfiction. Chapbook would have to be clarified as staple bound and even a very skinny perfect bound book would still qualify the title record to be of type NOVEL through its length field can still be used to explain it's really a novella or shorter. One gray zone would be if the title appears on the cover of what could be classified as either an omnibus or collection. I suspect those would be handled case-by-case and that we'd figure out the word count to see if this should be a shortfiction or novel.
I am in agreement with DES in that I don't like that I created both a novel and shortfiction title record for The Trouble with Tycho as they are the same work. I want to see if others have solutions on if and how these should be merged. BTW - this thread started out with a comment about a merge of type SERIAL with NOVEL. I checked an old backup from May-2007 and we used to have a type SERIAL record for The Trouble with Tycho (complete novel) that was only used by the Amazing Stories, October 1960 magazine appearance. There was also a type NOVEL record that was used by the anthology, Ace double (omnibus), and standalone novel publications. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't really like that the same work may have a title record as SERIAL, and another as NOVEL, but I do see some reasons for it, and it is true that in many cases the serialized work gets revised or expanded for separate publication (or the serial version was in fact cut). I understand that better handling for serials is near the top of the ToDo list, so I will trust that the results will be improved when that is accomplished.
I don't think that word-count is all that hard to approximate, at least not for anyone with a physical copy: count a few lines to get average words per line, count lines on one or two pages to get lines per page, count pages and multiply out. There will be an error factor, but it will be close enough for our purposes. of course, any work where there is a Gutenberg or other e-text available can yield an exact word count quite easily, and I often do this. And the divisions into ss, nt, and nv may be arbitrary, but they are not subjective, although estimates of word count, particularly if made from page count alone, are somewhat error-prone.
It might be a good idea if for a few representative texts of specific sizes by particular publishers, actual counts were made and saved on a wiki-page somewhere, so that we knew, say, that an Ace pb of the 1960s had typically XX words per page, while a Baen pb of the 1990s had YY words per page. Actual counts can be fairly easily be made by scanning and OCRing, for which i have the software, as do others.
We can change the current word-count-based standard if we choose, but we will then be at odds with the award listings and more at odds with some of the standard references. Your standard would also mean that if we find a new publication of a 30,000 word work as a stand-alone, previously anthology/collection publications would be converted from a novella into a novel. It would also mean that a new publication could retroactively change the type of existing publications. But if that is acceptable to all, we can adopt such a change. But I do think that whatever standard we adopt, having both a NOVEL and a SHORTFICTION title record for the same work is simply an error. it will include confusion. It will mean that a person wanting the answer to the question "Where can i find work X" will often need to look in two places, and pending software improvements, there will be no link except possibly a note between them. It may also reduce the ease of answering "When was work X first published" and 'How many different works did Author Y write". Whatever standard there is for separating novels form short-fiction, let it be applied as consistently as possible, and retain "Ow work, one title record" insofar as possible (not counting vts, which are so displayed as to make it clear that they are the same work). -DES Talk 21:04, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to change word-count categorisations, all I want is to avoid my smaller paperbacks disappearing into a CHAPBOOK category that removes them from where I look for separate book publications, and labels them as ephemeral pamphlets and suchlike, or kid's books (depending on whether you look up CHAPBOOK or CHAPTER BOOK on Wikipedia, or had your own views even before Wikipedia arrived). Has anyone actually checked as to whether "The Trouble with Tycho" actually IS the same work in both forms? I started reading a NOVEL version at the hospital today, before I got rudely interrupted by blood-tests, but I wasn't counting the words as I went along. It actually felt as if it had been cut-down (major scene-jumps) so I can understand that the NOVEL might have been trimmed for magazine publication, and not properly restored for the stand-alone publications. It may be we're all talking about the same words, maybe not, but it seems people are making assumptions about whether it's one work or two already. BLongley 21:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we need better display of chap(ter)books if we continue the current system (as I think we should), and i trust that we will get it in time. I have read a good deal of Simak, but not this work, and I'm sure I don't have any of the pubs it is listed as appearing in. In the fist psot of this thread, Ahasuerus said "Assuming that the text is the same..." and the rest of the discussion has pretty much accepted that assumption. If there actually are two versions, of significantly different length, then of course there should be two title records, but i see no particular evidence for that in the bibliography or this discussion. It might well have been drastically cut from the workign draft for magazine publication, but who is to say that the "full" version was ever publiahed, if this did happen. In any case, whatever the case for this work, there are works both above and below 40k words that have been printed both as elements of collections and/or anthologies, and as separate publications. If all such are to be listed as novels, regardless of length, then we are going to have a lot more novels included in collections and anthologies, not that we don't have some now. -DES Talk 22:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
DES wrote "I don't really like that the same work may have a title record as SERIAL, and another as NOVEL" - Actually, there is a rather subtle "reason" for that two records for the same story which that for some reason bibliographers care about the first book publication date. Template:TitleFields:Date reflects this with "record the first book publication date." Thus the SERIAL record is there to capture the magazine publication date and the other record, such as SHORTFICTION, captures the first book publication date. It gets complicated when a magazine is reprinted as a book... If I were the Ruler of the Universe and all Dimensions/Times I'd only capture the first publication date regardless of its format until I wised up to as to why bibliographers care about the first book publication date.
I believe we all would be happy if there was a title record type that would behave like both a NOVEL and SHORTFICTION depending on where it's displayed. The reason we are having this discussion is that for efficiency ISFDB uses title records to define both works (stories) and publication formats (novel, anthology, etc.) A type NOVEL serves to both define that publications exist with that title on the cover and the story they contain. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Second phase of Discussion, with details on the original example

(unindent)I think I have 4 publications with this title, let me see if I can spot check them... Ahasuerus 01:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have all 4 pubs right here. The Thrilling version is a photographic reprint of the original Amazing publication, so they are naturally identical and the word count is around 26,000, so clearly a novella and not a novel. The two Ace reprints -- one a double and the other one a triple-decker (the one and only!) -- appear to be identical as well since, after all, they were both Ace editions of the same text, but the text is slightly different vis a vis the magazine version. "27" became "twenty-seven", "O.K." became "okay" and a few obvious grammar errors ("they" instead of "he" etc) were apparently corrected when the first Ace edition was put together. Other than that, the texts appear to be very similar and the word count is around 28,000, which is close enough given the imprecise way we measure these things. Still, clearly a novella. Ahasuerus 02:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
And for extra credit, I have also found the 1976 reprint, the one with 115 pages. It has 115 pages all right (he said unconsciously imitating a Simak character), but they cheated by adding blank pages between chapters and generally leaving as much black space as possible, so my (once again imprecise) word count is about 29,000. Case closed, your honor! :) Ahasuerus 02:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Even though the story does not change from publication to publication that means we need four title records for this story. :-)
  1. type SERIAL for the initial magazine publication and Thrilling reprint.
  2. type SHORTFICTION Novella for the Ace Science Fiction Reader triple-decker anthology
  3. type NOVEL for the two standalone Ace publications and the dos-a-dos omnibus format.
  4. type NOVEL variant title for to handle the Clifford Simak credit when published as 1/2 of the dos-a-dos. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
If the Title type were NOVEL, then, as per Help, we would need two SERIAL Titles, one for each appearance:
  • Magazines: Serial installments of a work are always given the date of the magazine in which they appear even if the work has been published previously in book or serial form. Novel length works (40,000+ words) printed as a single installment in a magazine are treated as serials and given the date of the issue in which they appear; the Title Type is "Serial" and the text "(Complete Novel)", preceded by a space, is appended to the title. [emphasis added]
However, since this is a novella (word count less than 30,000), we don't need any SERIAL or NOVEL Titles. We just need two SHORTFICTION Title records, one for "Clifford D. Simak" and one for "Clifford Simak".
Having said that, the preceding discussion raises various interesting issues which we have touched upon in the past, but are yet to find a satisfactory solution for. I'll try to comment on them tonight. Ahasuerus 13:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
In reply to Marc Kupper's comments about the reason for the existence of the SERIAL type, i do understand them, and I don't advocate changing that, but it is IMO less than ideal. In regard to his comments about the four title records needed, I strongly disagree. I would not have any title records of type NOVEL, nor of type SERIAL. (I note that the magazine publications are now listed as shortfiction not SERIAL.) I would have only one title record, of type SHORTFICTION and length novella (plus one vt novella record for the Clifford Simak credit), and the standalone and double ACE publications would be publications of that novella. (In short, I agree with Ahasuerus above.) If I came across this with both a novel and a novella record for the same work (provided that I could in fact determine that it was the same work) in the absence of this discussion, i wouldn't hesitate to merge them into a single novella record. The ACE double would probably be listed as Anthologies. As a temporary hack to avoid the problems with chap(ter)books, I would be willing to list the ace standalone publications as collections with only one item in their contents. I don't like that, but I like it better than listing a 26,000-29,000 word work as a "novel", and much better than having two different title records for what is essentially one work. That is IMO simply not acceptable. -DES Talk 14:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The "temporary" hack we have been using is that we use multiple title records. One benefit of this "hack" is that when someone goes to Clifford_D._Simak sees The Trouble with Tycho (1961) in the Novels, and clicks, that then are only shown the type NOVEL publications. I believe this is what the average person is expecting to see. I added a "temporary" hack to that title record in that there is a note explaining that the same story is available as a shortfiction work in other forms of packaging. As an experiment I did a hack where I included the shortfiction in the two NOVEL publications so that when you view that title record you get to see all the forms in which the story has appeared. While I like the title record's display I don't like how the two NOVEL publications are displayed.
Using COLLECTION to define a novel that contains a single SHORTFICTION seems like an interesting idea but I would not want to move in that direction at all as Trouble with Tycho is sold and packaged as a novel. It would look plain bizarre to claim it's a collection and to me is a worse evil than multiple title records as it's so flat in your face wrong to someone viewing a bibliography. I'd rather have a billion linked title records in the background but the goal is to make them invisible to both people viewing ISFDB and ideally to the regular editors. Marc Kupper (talk) 17:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think I missed the discussion where the "temporary hack" of using multiple title records was proposed. Would you happen to remember where it was posted? At first glance the approach appears to have more downside than upsides -- and doesn't seem to be what the average person is expecting to see -- but perhaps I am missing some important arguments. Ahasuerus 18:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I also don't recall any discussion of this, outside of this thread, and I don't see anywhere where there was a consensus on this so-called "solution" Note that these aren't "linked" title records as there is no software support for such linking, there are simply entries in the notes field.My preferred solution would be to list the separate publications of "Trouble with Tycho" as chap(ter)books, the collection solution was only a stop gap until we have better chapbook support for those like Bill who object to such publications being listed as chap(ter)books, as this removes the pubs from the main author biblio pages and leaves the titles only under the shortfiction section. But I think that whether such pubs are listed as chapbooks or collections, they should not be listed as novels, and in ANY case there should not be multiple title records, even if "linked" for a singe work. Sooner than that, i would list them all as NOVEL type records. -DES Talk 19:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
You say "The 'temporary' hack we have been using..." Where else has this "hack" been used? How many such cases are there to clean up? -DES Talk 19:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the original "temporary hack" is actually nothing of the sort - people just enter normal book-size books with only one title in as "NOVEL" naturally. The "CHAPBOOK" categorization when it turns out it's too short by current definitions is the "hack", IMO - it's an ISFDB workaround I don't like because of the loss of visibility of Books, and the name is misleading as well. I agree we need to separate NOVEL (content-length definition) from NOVEL (book with only one fiction entry in) - CHAPBOOK is not the answer even if we get better display, as Wikipedia:Chapbooks and Wikipedia:Chapter_book do NOT cover "Books that were published as novels but are nowadays considered too short". It's the other end of the spectrum from classifying books as Omnibuses just because they're so LONG that they get published in smaller sections, e.g. Some of Peter Hamilton's works. Do we demand that Magazines below a certain size get called "COMIC" and smaller ones still get called CHAPBOOK? No. I don't mind if we add a SHORTNOVEL type or suchlike, but lumping proper books into CHAPBOOK category is annoying and should be stopped as a "temporary hack" until we get what we need. I'm fine with two titles for now - add notes/links between them when proven the same text (or near enough - 26k to 29k in this case seems near enough) but let's not go for unsatisfactory workarounds for now. BLongley 20:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
My wife says my jokes are terrible at times and that's an example of one... ISFDB as it stands today is the "temporary hack." In other words, we have a certain structure and have developed ways to map the specfict book universe into that structure. One of the rituals we adopted to perform this magical mapping uses multiple title records. I would LOVE to have a single title record that represents a single work but the way ISFDB deals with things, which is rather elegant in itself, pretty much requires the use of multiple title records. There's a lot of stuff in this thread - I need to read it over... Marc Kupper (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Third Phase of Discussion

(Unindent) the name should be changed in any case, as "Chapterbook" is clearly wrong, and chapbook is at least arguably wrong. if you want to change it to "SHORTNOVEL" or even add a new "SHORTNOVEL" type, and reserve "CHAPBOOK" only for very short works -- say no more than 24 pages, or some such limit -- I would support you. I would favor doing that as soon as possible, and also making whatever changes to the display logic are practical to display "short novels" as a separate section in the author pages. (I understand the performance issues, but I suspect they can be dealt with.) But the title type should not be NOVEL; it should be SHORTFICTION, and there should in no case be multiple title records for the same work (SERIALs excepted). I won't merge this particular title, because it is under discussion, but if I encounter others of the same sort, I would merge them without hesitation, as that is what our current documentation calls for. -DES Talk 22:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Who knew that Chap(ter)books would be so controversial? And they say that bibliographers are a placid lot! :) More seriously, I think it would be useful to take a step back and review the underlying causes of this controversy. I'll try to write something up later tonight. Ahasuerus 22:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
There have been complaints from Bill about our use of the chap(ter)book publication type for a while, and IMO he has a point. I don't agree with his solution, but the problem is, at this point, real. Taking a step back is probably a good idea, and so would be moving this discussion for one about this one book to one about the overall standard that we will use. -DES Talk 22:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Mark said above: "One benefit of this "hack" is that when someone goes to Clifford D. Simak, sees The Trouble with Tycho (1961) in the Novels, and clicks, that then are only shown the type NOVEL publications. I believe this is what the average person is expecting to see." That is not what I would expect to see, and i don't think it is what most users would expect to see. When i click on a title in the "novels" section, i expect to see all the places that work was published, whether in a standalone set of covers, or in an omnibus, or in an anthology. Many large anthologies include complete works of 60k words or more, which were previously published separately -- "novels" by anyone's standards here. I would expect to see those publications when I display the bibliography for a "novel". Hmm, how hard would it be to allow publications of type NOVEL to have as their sole content a title of type SHORTFICTION? That might solve the problem, if it were possible. -DES Talk 22:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think Marc (it's not "Mark") is viewing it forwards, and people that want to find the "novel" will accept it being part of a later Omnibus or Collection or Anthology. Viewing it backwards is better dealt with here already, we can have links back via "Complete Novel" or other Serial links. But I for one don't want to find I can buy 2, 3 or 4 magazines to get the "novel" - I want to find the BOOK. "Allow publications of type NOVEL to have as their sole content a title of type SHORTFICTION" IS the answer I think, even if we have to redefine NOVEL publication type. BLongley 23:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what solution it is you think I'm suggesting - SHORTNOVEL is the latest, renaming CHAPBOOK is another, "don't mess with things till we can agree" is another - I'm not being prescriptive here, I'm just pointing out that there IS a problem, not only for we editors but for others coming here trying to find "that Book called something like..." who won't find a Book as we've classified it as something that won't show as a book. Please, DES, do NOT "merge them without hesitation, as that is what our current documentation calls for" - the whole area is under discussion, our current practices are not always documented in help anyway (as most editors can't even find the relevant entries, they're ISFDB experts not Wiki ones). If it's not a contentious subject that's going to mess with verified pubs, fix it: when it IS contentious, stop it and talk. Let's all step back before I start throwing OMNIBUSES (that may not be, but are big and heavy) at people that want to reclassify novels (that may not be, but could still give you a nasty paper-cut). BLongley 22:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Issues and Multiple Solutions

(posted after edit conflict)First off, I have corrected my misspelling of Marc's name and I apologize for the error.

Secondly i see your point, the matter is under discussion. Let it stand that had this discussion not started I would have felt it perfectly proper to do such merges, butt I will now refrain pending the results of this discussion. I hop others will refrain from creating duplicate title records for the same work where these do not currently exist.

Thirdly I agree that there is a current problem. I think that one important aspect of solution would be that someone looking at a record of a work should see all the various places that it has been published. We don't know and shouldn't assume which places any given user will more easily find, and we don't know whether a user's purpose is to find a copy of the work, or to determine thinks like when or how often a work was published. We should support all of these uses. I also think that someone looking on an author's biblio page should, as Bill has mentioned on several occasions, see all works that have been independently published with some clear indication of this fact.

I see several possibilities for a solution:

  1. Allow novel type publications to have as their contents single works of short fiction. This would allow a work of say 30k words to have a single title record of type SHORTFICTION, but allow the separate publications of such works to be listed on author biblio pages among the novels
  2. Change the name of the current CHAPTERBOOK type to SHORTNOVEL, and change the display logic so that shortnovels are either displayed among the novels, or in their own clearly marked section.
  3. Have both a SHORTNOVEL type (as just above) and a CHAPBOOK type, the latter restricted to short, staple or comb-bound publications, or other ephemera. This would need a display change for SHRTNOVELs, as above. Existing chapterbooks could be either type by default, as there are only about 650, they could be considered individually and changed as needed.
  4. Change our standard for novel, and rule that any work that has been published in a standalone set of covers (perhaps with some restrictions on page count or whatever) be called a novel. But in that case, such a work should be called a novels in all its publications, whether in anthologies, collections, or magazines (where it may be a serial.

All but the last of these require software changes, but IMO the last is the least desirable, I have no strong preference among the first three. Pending software changes, (if we are not going to adopt the fourth choice) I would favor either calling single publications of works of less than novel length chap(ter)books or collections, with a note that they will be corrected when software changes have been made, and perhaps a tag or something to make them easy to find for such later correction. Or adopting choice 4 temporarily, again with a note or tag for later correction. Even as a temporary expedient, i don't like the multiple-title-record solution.

Have I correctly identified the issues here, if perhaps not the solutions? -DES Talk 00:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Have I correctly identified the issues here, if perhaps not the solutions I believe "yes" and a #5 comes to mind which would be like #4 in that we have a single record for NOVEL and that the display logic for a publication's contents would be modified to look at the length field. If the title record is of type NOVEL there is a recognizable code there (vi, nt, na) then to display it as of that type rather than as "novel." The existing display logic already hides the contents section if there is a single title record and it matches the publication type. Thus the display of a novel with a single novel title (nearly all books) will not change even though the title has a length code. One sticky area is omnibus publications and if we want them to override the displayed type using the length. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
That could work, for the user (but not the editor) it would function rather like my #2 or #3, if I understand it correctly. I have no idea which would be technically easier. It would leave for editors the question of when to use a novel with length code and when to use a shortfiction type, and the possibility of retroactive changes as new pubs are discovered and entered, but I could live with that, i think. -DES Talk 00:54, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
#2, 3, and 5 all share the editor problem in that at times there will be promotion from SHORTFICTION to another type. Both #2 and #3 share a problem in that they involve changes to the author display and that's a house of cards. Let me think about how #1 can be coded as that would allow the record to remain as SHORTFICTION. Part the problem for #1 is that I happen to have a publication where an author wrote a fiction and then expanded it into a novel of the same title. Both stories are in the publication meaning it would look exactly like one of those novels that only has a shortfiction. FWIW - I see no reason to develop temporary expedients. We've been dealing with the title record issue for a number of years and so a few more months or even years will not hurt much. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:16, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Neither proposal #2 nor #3, as I intended them, would ever involve "promotion" (change) of a record form a SHORTFICTION to a different type (unless we discovered an error, as will happen of course). My proposed SHORTNOVEL type would be a publication type, but not a title type. Works of less than 40k words would all be of type SHORTFICTION under both proposals #2 and #3, but when published separately those publications would be assigned to a SHORTNOVEL publication, which would be allowed and normally expected to contain only a single title record of type SHORTFICTION. All three are variants on the same idea. In all three proposals, all texts with length less than 40k words would be represented by title records of type SHORTFICTION. In all three proposals, when such works are separately published, they would be contained in a publication type which would be displayed separately from the shortfiction display. in #1 this would be the existing NOVEL type. In #2 this would be the existing CHAPTERBOOK type, renamed and better displayed. In #3 this would be a new SHORTNOVEL type, leaving the existing CHAPTERBOOK type (renamed to CHAPBOOK) to be used for very short and/or very cheaply bound publications, more the meaning that Wikipedia assigns to "chapbook". Things like convention programs that contain stories would fit here (I own at least one of these myself), as would short volumes of SF poetry and the like. -DES Talk 20:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

6. Use SHORTFICTION to define stories

A solution that's similar to #5 would be to rename SHORTFICTION to FICTION and that the storylen value of NV would be for novel length works. The title type NOVEL would instead be used to define publication types of NOVEL. Currently NOVEL is overloaded and it simultaneously defines/describes a story and that it's published in standalone book format. This change would essentially double the number of title records in the system. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Why would there be a separate title type to define how something is published? Surely that is what the publication type is for? If you want to no longer use the title type to distinguish between novels and shorter fictions (which makes some sense) fine, but then there is no reason to have a second title record for such works, simply a length code. (By the way, since "nv" is currently used for "Novella", why not use "nl" for "novel", or else first convert all existing novellas to code "na" or some such) To aid is efficiency of display, each title record would also contain a (hidden) field independant_pubs_count. Each time a publication is added of a NOVEL type, this count would be incremented, and each time such a pub was deleted, or so edited that it no longer contained the title, or was no longer solo (for example changed to an omnibus or collection) then the count would be decremented. As long as the count was non-zero, the title would be displayed in the novels section (or some section outside of "short fiction") no matter what its length code is. Obviously there would need to be an initial script to set the count for existing records, run once at conversion. -DES Talk 20:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I might add that currently NOVEL is both the name of a type that some title records have, and the name of a type that some publication records have. The two types are quite separate, the similarity of names is solely a human convenience, they might better be called NOVEL_T and NOVEL_P. You are proposing, if I understand you correctly, to do away with NOVEL_T but not with NOVEL_P. Such a change should not in any way change the number of title records in the system. Currently every work has a title record, and every publication of that work has a pub record, and this would still be true. -DES Talk 20:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

What Does the Help now Call For?

I would merge them without hesitation, as that is what our current documentation calls for DES - where does the documentation call for merging or getting rid of title records? Marc Kupper (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's see:
  • Help:How to merge titles says "If you see an author (or artist, or editor) has a work listed twice in the ISFDB, then the two works can probably be merged." and "merges require that the author and title field both match identically.".
    This establishes that merges are proper when there are two or more records for a single work. VTs are explictlyu excepted, no other exceptions are stated
    "work" in that context can be viewed as publication type. For example, a collection, novel, and shortfiction are all different works even though they may have exactly the same title and author. If two titles are 100% identical except perhaps in the storylen then yes, they are likely safe to merge. In no event was an "always merge these" case listed. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    It seems to me that "work" means "text" in this context. When a novella is expanded or extended into a novel, as often happens, there are two different works because there are two different texts, with significantly different content, and often with drastically different word counts. But merely labeling the same text in two different ways does not make it two different works. If two title records describe the same text, however the descriptions may differ (different notes, different title types, or whatever) they still refer to the same work, and IMO they stull ought to be merged, with the single special case of SERIAL types. -DES Talk 20:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Help:Screen:EditPub says: "SHORTFICTION. Any form of fiction other than a novel should be given this entry type. A novel is defined as work of over 40,000 words; this cannot easily be determined by looking at a publication, so typically you should enter SHORTFICTION for anything you are not certain is a novel. Note that frequently a magazine will describe a story as a complete novel, even though it may be substantially below the 40,000 word mark. The description in the magazine should not be relied upon for this distinction."
    This establishes the ISFDB definition of novel, and explictly says that unless it has cleary been reached, a SHORTFICTION type should be used. It also establsihed that printed calssifications of a work as a novel are not to be relied on.
    Yes, and that's why I proposed a rules change in that if a story title is the title of a publication then it's a novel rather than relying on the word count. Per that help a 60,000 word story would have a type novel record even if it's never published in that format. That story would show up in the novels section of the author bibliographies. Clearly that's wrong and so people enter these works as type SHORTFICTION with length NV. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    As I understand it, a work of 60,000 words published only in a "complete works" collection, would none the less be eligible for a "best novel" Hugo or nebula. I don't think it would be wrong to list such a work among the novels, to me "novel" does not equate to 'separately published work" in all cases. In any case, i was answering the question what the helped called for now. Obviously if we were to adopt the principle that anything published separately is a novel, then this section of the help, among others, would need to be altered. -DES Talk 20:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Help:Screen:Title says "Publications. All publications of the work are listed."
    This establishes the principle of a single title record for a given work, as otherwise the statement could not be true.
    That depends on how you define "work" - If you look at as a publication type then it would be correct that you would click on a type NOVEL title and it would display all publication instances of that work, the novel. That why I added a note to the The Trouble with Tycho type NOVEL title record explaining that the story is available in other publication formats and provided a link to the shortfiction title record which at the moment is set up more like the FICTION(nv) record I proposed as #6 in that it references all publications that include the story. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    AS above i look on a "work" as a "text". Two publications are of the same work if a textual comparision finds no significant differences between them, whatever records the ISFDB may have created, correctly or incorrectly, to describe them.
Those (some of which are repeted on other help screens or pages) are more or less what I meant. -DES Talk 00:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Overall, I agree with you in that there should be a title record that allows someone to view all publications of a story. At present many stories that were published in magazines as "Complete Novel" are split between two or more title records. I also believe that if someone is drilling down from an author bibliography in the novels area they they would mainly be looking for instances of that publication rather than all magazines, collections, and anthologies that also contain the story. There should be an easy to see/use indicator that says "This story was also published as part of a magazine, anthology, or collection. Click here to view a complete list of publications that the story appears in." We might as well throw in a preference setting to enable showing all publications by default. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I will post my ruminations about the root causes of this conundrum tomorrow, but for now let me just point out that early in the game the term "Work" was used to describe what we now call a "Title". The (perfectly good, I thought) reason was to avoid awkward constructs like "the title of this Title is...", but "Title" stuck while "Work" didn't and it's too late to change it now. We probably want to change all Help pages to reflect the change in the usage while making sure that Help still says what we want it to say. Ahasuerus 03:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
The terminology can be whatever people prefer, i don't really care. All though the above I was using "work" to mean not any ISFDB record, but the text as the author wrote it, or more exactly as it was published. (And I think the current help makes most sense if read that way, also.) If we call the ISFDB record a "work record" then perhaps we should call the writing to which it refers a "text". In any case what I am saying is that for any given text, there ought to be exactly one title or work record in the ISFDB, with the unfortunate but required exceptions of SERIAL records (justified by the frequency with which the serialized text is different from the separately published text, and by the bibliographic standard that the date of serial publication does not count for a text also separately published) and the VT record (needed to record differences in title and author credits, and pesud relationships) -DES Talk 20:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

The 30,000 ft view

Let me take another couple of steps back. One of the earliest (i.e. 1995) decisions that was made re: ISFDB design was to separate texts (aka Titles aka "works") from their physical appearances (aka Publications). This separation is rooted in the fact that the essential text ("the characters in the text", if you will) of "Nightfall" remains the same regardless of whether it appears in a magazine, an anthology, a chapbook or a single author collection. The assumption here is that our users are interested, first and foremost, in texts and that is the view that the Summary Bibliography page provides for each Author. Once you have found the text that you are interested in, you can then click on the link and see what physical publications it has appeared it.

The only current semi-exception to this basic rule are Serials, which get a separate Title record even though the actual text may be the same as what was later printed in a book. This is done for two reasons:

  • Novel length texts are often substantially changed for book publication; and
  • Most collectors (and genre bibliographers, who are often collectors themselves) are primarily interested in first editions and do not consider magazine publications "true first editions" because they are often ephemeral

The first bullet point is consistent with our overall paradigm since it's based on (potential) differences between texts, but the second bullet point is where our paradigm of "a text is a text is a text" and "all Publications of a text are equal for our purposes" begins to break down. We clearly have a number of users (as exemplified by Bill) who are primarily interested in book publications of texts and want all texts that have appeared as standalone books to have higher visibility on the Summary Bibliography page and elsewhere. That this preference is widespread is attested to by the fact that other established genre bibliographers like Clute and Tuck treat short fiction that has appeared as chapbooks differently.

There are numerous ways of making our software do what Clute and Tuck do, but I think the first thing to decide is whether we want to change our overall approach and, if so, to what extent.

Another issue that has repeatedly come up has to do with the criteria that we use to separate different fiction categories from each other. Currently, we use a very simple and inflexible categorization system, which is based on an objective criterion, i. e. the number of words in the text. Of course, counting the words is only possible when you have access to the publication, but once you have done it, there can be no disagreement whether the text in question is a Novel or a Novella, which at first glance is a Good Thing.

Unfortunately, this lack of flexibility sometimes leads to situations where we violate the Principle of Least Astonishment. For example, a faithful application of our rules would change many YA books to Novellas (or even Novelets!), which is presumably not what our users expect. Similarly, many older novels like The Trouble with Tycho -- which were first serialized in the 1940s-1960s and appeared as standalones in the 1950s-1970s -- would become Novellas which is again probably not what our users expect.

I'd like to emphasize that these are two separate issues, which we need to keep them in mind when devising a solution to the current problems. The "chapbook" problem would still exist even if we had a universally agreed upon way of categorizing Novels and Novellas. After all, Bill and many other users would still want to see novellas published as chapbooks appear separately from the mass of Shortfiction entries even if we all agreed that they are novellas and not novels. Conversely, even if we had a way of displaying chapbooks the way Bill would like them to appear, we would still have issues with categorizing Novels vs. Novellas.

Let me leave a note for Al and see what he thinks about this since it's a fundamental design issue... Ahasuerus 23:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting New Resource

I stumbled across Random House's Smart Archive, Public Access site today while looking up some Del Rey Discovery titles. I'm not sure how useful it's going to be overall - quick tests suggest the content CAN go back 10 years, show exact publication date, price, etc: not all records do give that much detail though. But for the more recent titles we have, it should be at least a nice sanity check. Beware - it does allow you to do big searches like "every Bantam Book before 2000" and such can take some time. BLongley 19:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks useful, although I am getting a lot of duplicate records depending on the type of the search. Still, very much worth playing with, thanks! Ahasuerus 21:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
P.S. And the Wizards of the Coast archive looks particularly interesting... Ahasuerus 21:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I took a casual scan but was unable to locate any of my publications. I did fine one of my daughter's but we have a 4th printing at $6.50 while the database only mentioned $6.99. The covers are scanned images meaning there are dust specs, creases, etc. I'd say it's yet another database but not one I would use as a gold standard for sourcing ISFDB content. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
True, it's also slow and not very bibliographer-friendly, but I hope it may help with vaporware and other biblio-beasts :) Ahasuerus 23:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

What about podcasts?

There are several bodcasts which contain original or "reprinted" science fiction and/or fantasy in audio form. For example http://escapepod.org/ and http://podcastle.org/ Should those be included to the database? They publish some classic sf (Asimov's Nightfall has been in escapepod, among others well known stories), and that kind publication might also be of some interest. Tpi 06:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I would think thse might have the same ephemerality problem as webziens. If that is not so, no reason not to consider them a format of auto books, just as "Audio (CD)" and "Audio (DAT)" etc are, IMO. -DES Talk 20:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I doubt there's a lot of support for inclusion as most of us are still happy working on paper-based products: a few download electronic text editions of things: I can't say I know of any moderator working on audio especially. I can't say there's much reason for exclusion either, if it's SF, but I personally would leave such submissions to somebody else to approve, and I can't think of anyone that would check with a specialist eye. When testing the boundaries, it always helps if there's a moderator supporting such entries. But maybe we're just missing moderators that like such? Is there a candidate? We haven't had a new Moderator for a while now. BLongley 22:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I have entered a few audiobooks, when I happened across them, largely in online library catalogs while looking for other things by the same author. I am surely not a specialist. But if anyone wants to enter such, and has been reliable on paper-based pubs, great. -DES Talk 15:33, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Childhood's End

I do not get a search result for the novel. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Apostrophes have always been a pain since there are numerous kinds behind the scenes, which our software valiantly -- and sometimes successfully -- tries to convert to one common type. This Novel Title probably dates back to 1995 and has undergone a number of transformations and conversions along the way, making it an Official Elder Horror. I had to change the spelling to "Childhoods End" and then back to "Childhood's End" (a time honored hack) and now everything looks fine. Thanks for catching it! Ahasuerus 13:23, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Reminder for Magazine Dates: Hyphen instead of "/" for bimonthly issues

From Help: "A hyphen should be used between two months used for a bimonthly issue."--swfritter 18:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

A Whiff of Madness ISBN?

User:Bluesman is questioning whether the ISBN is present on this verified pub. He says that he can not find an ISBN on his copy. Amazon and ISBNdb.com list an ISBN, and the ISBN-based links work to go to various vendors for what seems to be the proper edition. Howewver, neither OCLC nor Melvyl - the Catalog of the University of California Libraries list an ISBN in their records for this work, while Library of Congress Online Catalog does not list it at all. User:Dragoondelight (the secondary verifier, the primary is User:Scott Latham who is unavailable) says there is no ISBN on his copy. It appears that the ISBN "works" but was not listed on the actual printed book. Should we include it in our pub record? Perhaps along with a note that the ISBN is not found on the actual book? Any advice? -DES Talk 21:01, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

A 1976 (US) paperback is likely using an SBN instead of an ISBN. Let me check my copy tonight... Ahasuerus 21:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
DAW books from this time period have no ISBN#. The ISBN# on this book has been derived from their cat# UY1250(the 250 is extracted) and worked backwards from there. Hope this helps.Kraang 23:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
If it "works" - as in "some of the links Al has given us link somewhere useful" or "Google provides useful results"- I'd keep that. But what's actually recorded ON THE BOOK needs recording too. BLongley 23:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
The annoying thing for me is that I'm pretty sure I've GOT that, or have seen it at least, based on cover picture: but I can't find it at the moment. BLongley
Take a look at User talk:Dragoondelight#A Whiff of Madness to see what he says he saees on the copy he has. -DES Talk 00:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a copy but this publication will have
  • UY1250 on the front cover
  • 451-UY1250-125 on the spine
There is no ISBN but the ISBN 0879972505 / 0-87997-250-5 can be derived from this. Scott Latham should have made a note of this when he verified the publication. Don Erikson has a copy and we could ask him about verifying this. I went ahead with updating the publication notes. I believe every single DAW book has an "ISBN" entry on Amazon though DAW did not print ISBN on their publications from 1972 through October 1976. Starting in November 1976 they printed the ISBN on the spine. However, DAW was quite aware of ISBNs as early as mid-1974 because as they counted sequentially through the catalog numbers they always skipped those numbers where the ISBN checksum would have been "X". They continued this practice of skipping "X" up through the end of 1999. It's been my guess that their computers could not handle a non-numeric ISBN and that as part of Y2K they upgraded to a system that could. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:39, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I have checked my copy and it's the same "First printing August 1976" as everyone else's. I have changed the Note field to read "451-UY1250-125" instead of "451-UY1250-124" and the Title date from 1976-00-00 to 1976-08-00, but otherwise everything looks fine. Ahasuerus 21:56, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Improper revert of help page edit

In this edit User:Marc Kupper reverted my recent edit to a template that forms part of multiple help pages. He did this without first discussing the matter in any way. My edit was in response to the discussion at Rules and standards discussions#First publication date. In that thread Marc himself said "the rules should get clarified". The response by User:Mhhutchins said that the current help was in fact quite clear. I agreed, Moreover, i think that the specific rule, (that "date of first book publication" is used over "date of first publication anywhere" only for book-length works which use a SERIAL type title record for magazine appearances) is widely followed in the ISFDB's practice.

But even if the rule is less clear-cut than I had supposed, or there was an actual debate in progress, simply reverting an obviously well-intended edit (not vandalism, not obvious error) without prior discussion, indeed without even subsequent discussion except for the edit summery, seems to me to be highly impolite.

Discussion on the substantive rule should probably stay at Rules and standards discussions#First publication date, at least IMO. But discussion on the etiquette of reverts is a separate matter. -DES Talk 04:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I now see that while I was drafting the above, Marc did post to the Rules and standards discussions thread on this subject, although his post there does not mention the revert and does not seem to me to make it clear why he thought a revert was required. But he did re-enter discussions not long after the revert itself, I am pleased to note. -DES Talk 04:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a tricky area and I am not sure I can do it justice at 1:50am EST. In the past we would often discuss something to death, never come to a decision and let Help stay in limbo. That was a Bad Thing (tm), but on the other hand it's possible to start making changes to Help too soon before consensus has been reached. It's probably safer to wait for the discussion to wind down before changing Help. On the other hand, it's probably also safer to post a message on the editor's Talk page instead of reverting his changes. That way we will all keep our blood pressure within reasonable limits -- dead editors are rarely very productive :) Ahasuerus 05:51, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Since I am now aware that there is a significant dispute on the matter, I am surely not going to change the help back until we have soemthing clsoer to a consensus. I thought I was merely clarifing the existign wording that all agreed on, not making any substantive change. Had anyone said "Wait, i don't agree with that" I would have self-reverted. Perahps i do things too quickly when it seems to me that the Right thingTM is clear. But I do try to be open to discussion. -DES Talk 06:45, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I tend to wait a week before making any changes that affect everyone: it only seems fair, as we have editors that can only work here weekdays (internet access from work only?), and some that only work weekends (only time they get to do personal stuff?). Of course, as I find it difficult to even FIND the bits of help I want to change, I'm probably not very aggressive in fixing things. (I suspect all our agreements about Ace Doubles still have not been added to help, for instance.) But for those of us still watching All "Recent Changes" as best we can, Changes should be explained, and Reverts even more so. BLongley 22:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, had I thought there was a significant dispute here, i would have acted more slowly. I truly thought that I was merely clarifing existuing consensus that had been unclearly expressed, not "making changes" in any substantive sense at all. Inded I have still to hear of anyone who actually says that they disagree with the substance of my edit. But i will now wait for someone else to restore it, when and if there is celar agreement on the matter. -DES Talk 23:52, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, I think it was a perfectly acceptable clarification and I'm not really sure what Marc's concerns are, we've been doing it this way for as long as I've been here despite apparently unclear help. But sometimes when you get into a tricky exception you forget what the current practices really are and concentrate on the words in the help. BLongley 18:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry - a time blob slid into my office and enshrouded me - I think I'm back - the reversion had a comment "Please wait until the rules discussion is completed" and I thought that was sufficient. I have not checked over at the rules discussion to see if it's "complete" yet but it was my understanding we agree to change the rules on the rules page and then make the changes/clarification in the help. DES - I happen to agree with your position and the clarification you added was great. But, I also believe both of us are wrong and will head over to the rules page to see if light had been shed on the issue. I was planning on giving it a week or two as I wanted to see if Ahasuerus and Al chip in as they'd know more about the title dating and then we'd update the help, probably by undoing my undo. Marc Kupper (talk) 06:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh my - there's a huge thread over there and the blob is back. I may have time tomorrow evening. Marc Kupper (talk) 07:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Richard Laymon - A Good and Secret Place

I wondered why we didn't have contents for this award winner. I Googled for it, and found that some guy called Sergey Brin has it on his "My favorite books" list. Apparently he isn't at Stanford anymore though, does anyone know what happened to him, and can we ask him if it's really "A Good, Secret Place"? it seems to be a really expensive limited edition book, I'd have had to have made a fortune in the dot.com boom to buy a copy for myself to check... ;-) BLongley 21:36, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Hm, Mein Kampf and Man Superior to Woman (and a bunch of duplicates) suggest that it may not be Sergey Brin's list of favorite books per se but perhaps some kind of catalog. And sure enough, his Stanford Web page says "Extracting Patterns and Relations from the World Wide Web by Sergey Brin: We demonstrate a technique for extracting relations from the WWW based on the duality of patterns and relations. We experiment with it by extracting a relations of [books]. WebDB Workshop at EDBT '98." Wonder where he found the two Alexander Blade stories in 1998, though. The ISFDB, perhaps? :) Ahasuerus 16:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Trouble with review links, a bug?

There's some trouble with the displaying of certain reviews. Check this pub out to see what I mean. It's obviously connected with the fact that there are variant reviews involved. Both of the unlinked pubs under review are missing authorship as well as a link to the pub. I could try to link the pub to the pub's title record, but there already exists a link on the pub's title page to one of the variants of the review, and I'm afraid that I'd create another link which would be displayed on the pub's title record page. (I've seen these on a few occasions, two links to the same review, caused by variant reviews.) Is this a known bug, and can it be fixed, or is it something we have to live with? If I had to choose I'd prefer the review in the original pub contain links, or, at the very least, show the authorship of the pub under review. MHHutchins 03:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Strange. Here's a pub that's contrary to what I stated above: reviews with variants that are displayed correctly. What gives? MHHutchins 04:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
It looks to me like the author's of the books being reviewed have not been entered. Even once they have been entered I would imagine the review links would have to be done manually.--swfritter 15:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I just checked and it appears you're right. But I'm positive that they had to have been entered at one time. Otherwise why would only the ones with variant reviewers not have authors? I'll go ahead and add the authors for this one and see how it displays. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I added the missing author credits, but did not link the reviews, otherwise there would be two links to the same review from the pub's title record. MHHutchins 15:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that this shows that when we do a vaient (as by) review, we must be careful to link the "parent" reveiw, (the one with the cannonical name of the reviewer), not the "child" reveiw. I fon't know if one can unlink the child review and then link the parent, but that would IMO fix the problem -- can we unlike reviews with the 0 method? -DES Talk 15:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the zero trick works with reveiws. I switched which review was linked, and things now look correct to me. Actually I had to link the "child" review, not the "parent" to make things work correctly. -DES Talk 16:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
We've encountered the missing author problem on reviews before but weren't sure if it was serious enough to need an automated script. BLongley 18:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

"Jaime Murray" or "Jamie Murray"

We have a couple of Title records for each form; anyone happen to know which one is correct? Ahasuerus 21:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

All of the covers are for books by P. N. Elrod, so I went to her website, where she raves about "Jamie" with a link to his website. Just call me Sherlock. And here's a gallery of his work including two of the covers. MHHutchins 23:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Fixed -- thank you, Mr. Holmes! The next puzzle has to do with Brian Patrick Murray and Brian Murray, two artists who were both active in 1986-1987. Coincidence or conspiracy?.. Ahasuerus 23:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
All of Brian Patrick Murray's work is in WOTF II, and all of Brian Murray's work is in WOTF III. I'd lay money that it's the same person. And I swear, it's just a coincidence that I entered the contents from both of those anthologies. MHHutchins 02:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

George Leonard/George H. Leonard

As this site suggests that "Beyond Control" was written by a George J. Leonard and makes no mention of any George H. Leonard works we know of, I think Clute and Nicholls are wrong in combining the two. I also can't pin down why some sites say Hughes Cooper is a pseudonym of George H. Leonard. Does anyone know anything about these authors? BLongley 13:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Reginald (1975-1991 version) shows "Beyond Control" as written by George H. Leonard, and has a section trailing the entry for "as Hughes Cooper" (he lists "Sexmax" (1969). The H. stands for Hugh. His entry for Beyond Control: 
 28205 Beyond Control. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.; London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1975, 165 p., cloth novel.
Reginald Volume 1 also shows Hughes Cooper as a pseudonym of George H. Leonard. No entries on George J. Leonard. Alvonruff 11:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Mini reviews?

I have been doing some issues of Whispers, as I have time (lots of stuff to enter in each issue). Most issues have a book review column, which I handle normally, but most also have a "news" column, in which the editor discusses the then current state of the horror/fantasy market, and mentions recent publications (mostly books, some magazines and review mags) that he thinks will be of interest to his readers, usually with a brief comment on quality (1-2 sentences). Should/can these be entered as reviews? The thing is, often they have details about the pub that we don't currently have, and entering them as reviews is not a bad way to make sure that info is entered. Also, when a specific issue of a magazine is mentioned, how do we (and should we) enter that as a review? See this issue for a pub I'm almost but not quite through entering. -DES Talk 22:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I've come across a similar situation in the Books Received columns of Locus. Sometimes the comments on books go beyond description to the point of being mini-reviews, and occasionally the comments are credited to an individual. I've noted this in the pub notes for example here, but am somewhat guilty about not creating individual records. It may be a subjective matter, but if there were some firm guidelines about length, I'd feel less guilty. I may be compulsive about entering EVERYTHING, but when it comes to 20-30 individual records for one-two sentences of commentary, well that's where I draw the line! As for reviews of magazines, that issue's never been settled. For several years now, Locus has been reviewing magazine issues in its "Short Fiction" review columns. I've not reached that point in my indexing, but we'll have to face it eventually. MHHutchins 02:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Both of you draw the line at some point and that's fine with me. I've run into something similar and what I did was to add a publication note explaining there the content of the column. I'd say that a one or two sentence review, or even a single paragraph, does not merit addition to ISFDB. As it is, we could propose a new record type, MENTION, which could be used to record these or the REVIEW record could get expended to have a field that states how long it is. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


Nominating Clarkmci for moderatorship

Ref: Moderator Qualifications#Becoming a moderator for the nomination process.

Nomination statement

I nominate Clarkmci (talk • contribs) for moderatorship; he has accepted the nomination [1]. Clarkmci has over 3300 submissions and has a good knowledge of all aspects of the database. I believe Clarkmci would be a valuable addition to the moderators ranks and his location in Australia(assumed) would be an asset to the ISFDB. I believe that he is qualified.

Support

  1. Support, as nominator.Kraang 11:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support. I have worked with Clarkmci on many occasions and agree that his knowledge of the application and communication skills make him qualified. Ahasuerus 13:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support. I have approved a good many of his submissions, with very few problems. I have had occasional interactions with him when a problem did arise, and he seems more than sufficiently knowledgeable and easy to work with. I looked back though his talk page and see no indications of recurring problems that would interfere with his being a good moderator. Of course, it will give me less to do in approving his edits :) -DES Talk 15:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support. He seems clear on his edits and is becoming more proactively communicative. Hopefully moderatorisation will encourage him to help with sorting out the Australian publishers. BLongley 09:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support, knowing that an overwhelming majority of his submissions were quite decent, and with the hope (after looking over his talk page) that moderatorship will lead him to become more communicative. MHHutchins 02:24, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support, I had to look at the talk page as I could not recall the last time I needed to query him about a submission. It turns out it's only happened a couple of times and both were really minor. Marc Kupper (talk) 05:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

Comments/Neutral

Outcome

Nomination is successful, moderator flag set on the account. Congratulations! :)

You may want to review Help:Screen:Moderator, which describes the Moderator page, and please don't hesitate to ask if in doubt! Ahasuerus 03:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Bookmarklet: Other ISBNs

I see you have a Worldcat link for publications. It takes you into the Worldcat entry for that ISBN. Then you can enter the maze of twisty editions, all alike. I prefer to find all editions quickly. If you do too, this bookmarklet might be useful. When you are editing one publication with an ISBN, this will open a new window with all the other ISBNs for this title. Then you can look at how many there actually are and run away screaming.

javascript:isbn=document.getElementById('data').pub_isbn.value.replace(/-/g,);url='http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/isbn/'+isbn+'?method=getEditions&format=xml';window.open(url);void(null);

This works with Firefox. I have not tested with other browsers. Data Thief 10:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Who Goes There?

Title record 860248 says it's Who Goes There? by Don A. Stuart. I suspect this got edited as part of pub-contents at one time and that it should be John W. Campbell, Jr. The trouble is that even old database backups from May 2008 show Don A. Stuart and publications have been verified meaning some would have verified John W. Campbell, Jr. and others Don A. Stuart. I'm thinking the fix is to change the record to Don A. Stuart John W. Campbell, Jr. and then to re-verify.

Toward Infinity] Verified by Mhhutchins on 2007-05-27 18:08:40
Towards Infinity Verified by BLongley on 2008-01-13 18:10:58
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A Verified by Mhhutchins on 2007-08-15 12:37:20
Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Novellas, Book 1 Verified by Brin1 on 2007-04-10 14:23:25
The Science Fiction Roll of Honor Verified by Mhhutchins on 2007-08-15 13:05:19
The Best of John W. Campbell Verified by BLongley on 2007-02-27 16:05:21
Adventures in Time and Space Verified by Mhhutchins on 2007-11-07 08:49:48
They Came from Outer Space Verified by Mhhutchins on 2007-08-15 11:54:06
The Future in Question Verified by Mhhutchins on 2008-02-06 19:47:34
The Mammoth Book of Short Science Fiction Novels Verified by Brin1 on 2007-04-12 01:36:24
The Mammoth Book of Short Science Fiction Novels Verified by BLongley on 2007-07-26 16:28:10
Worlds of Fear Verified by CoachPaul on 2008-05-29 20:07:18
Between Time and Terror Verified by CoachPaul on 2007-03-27 20:45:41
Marc Kupper (talk) 05:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I've checked my three, and they all indicate the record should be John W. Campbell, Jr. The main giveaway is in Towards Infinity: 
Who Goes There? • (1938) • novella by Don A. Stuart  [as by Don A. Stuart ]
I've done some strange things, but never deliberately made a record a variant of itself. Fortunately there's no "No Jr." variants in there.BLongley 12:45, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Do we want to correct the database for the lack of "No Jr."'s? I noticed last night that I have many campbell items without the Jr. (including verified items that list the Jr.). kpulliam 14:48, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, they should be corrected. Also the Dean Koontz's with no 'R', the Robert Heinlein's with no 'A', the Arthur C. Clarke's with a 'Sir' and several others where there's a small difference that people didn't notice or ignored or didn't know the 'title page or first page of story' rule. BLongley 15:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, I just wasted 30 minutes of my life correcting those six verified pubs. I've done no merges for those titles, because I'm afraid they'll get merged with the "Don A. Stuart [as by Don A. Stuart]" titles. Someone must have approved a variant or merge of "Who Goes There?" with itself. (or as Bill says below someone change a content record, our ever-present nemesis). I know Marc was working on a submission [2008-08-17 19:53:15 1022233 - PubUpdate Kpulliam Marc Kupper Reel Future] which changed content records that I personally would have rejected with an explanation to the editor. Until someone figures out how to straighten out this mess, please don't merge the newly created title records for the six pubs I've verified. Thanks. MHHutchins 17:06, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I think you wasted 29 of those, it seems pretty clear that it was the canonical John W. Campbell, Jr. record that got changed (as the only ones that way now are the ones you just created), and one title-edit can change it back. That would presumably mean a contents-change, rather than a merge, slipped through. BLongley 20:39, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
So do you think if we change this record's author from "Don A. Stuart" to "John W. Campbell, Jr." that it'll be straightened out? They all appear in the pubs as "Don A. Stuart [as by Don A. Stuart]". I'm afraid to make the change as I don't want to have to change it all back if it's an error! MHHutchins 20:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes: it's only one record that changes, and that can be changed back just as easily, so I've done it. The records credited to Don A. Stuart should now all look like: 
Who Goes There? • (1938) • novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.  [as by Don A. Stuart ]
and if they were credited to John W. Campbell, Jr. anyway they'll now look like this: 
Who Goes There? • (1938) • novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.
If anyone else has added/removed contents to fix it in the meantime, those new records can now be merged back. The one oddity left in the Verified pubs is in Coachpaul's "Worlds of Fear" - that's a "No Jr." version that has NOT been set up as a proper variant. BLongley 23:50, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and your The Science Fiction Roll of Honor - another "No Jr" not set-up as variant. But that only needs doing once. BLongley 23:54, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I've merged my verified pubs back into their respective title records, and created a variant for "No Jr". Thanks. MHHutchins 00:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)