ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard/Archive 23

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Canonical name change: Joseph N./Joe Gores

Joseph N. Gores should have the canonical name Joe Gores. --Vasha 15:40, 3 January 2018 (EST)

Author name correction: Mandem

The artist Mandem should be spelled MANDEM (it's a collective, not a person). --Vasha 19:30, 3 January 2018 (EST)

It's not an acronym, though, so I don't see why we need to have it in all caps. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:37, 3 January 2018 (EST)

Actually, I think it is an acronym. At any rate, it is spelled in all caps in every publication. --Vasha 20:21, 3 January 2018 (EST)

An acronym of what, though? It's not their names as far as I can tell. I can't find anything that shows it's an acronym. As for it being in all caps in all publications you've seen, if you look under "Case" on Template:TitleFields:Author, it specifically states that "Case should be regularized." Unless it can be shown it is an actual acronym, it shouldn't be in all caps. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 3 January 2018 (EST)

It's probably so rare that failure to address it in the "Case" section of the help is an oversight, but I believe that when an author explicitly chooses an atypical capitalization for his or her name, we should use that instead of the publication's capitalization or our own standard. The intent behind that piece of the help is that variants should not be created based on capitalization differences, so case should be normalized. The clear precedent/example of that is e. e. cummings. Such a treatment is not far removed from our handling of normalization of initials. In this particular situation, it's pretty clear they use MANDEM in all caps. --MartyD 07:19, 7 January 2018 (EST)

Can the software even tell the difference (currently) between "Mandem" and "MANDEM"? I don't think it can. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:46, 8 January 2018 (EST)

The way the software currently works, you can only have one version on file. For example, once "e. e. cummings" is in the database, all subsequent records are forced to use the lowercase version of his name regardless of whether they are entered as "E. E. Cummings" or "e. e. cummings". You can change the canonical name to a "differently cased" version if you do it in 2 steps, e.g. change "e. e. cummings" to "e. e. cummings1", then change it to "E. E. Cummings". The same rules apply to publishers, series, awards, pub series, etc. Ahasuerus 20:02, 16 January 2018 (EST)

Another author name correction

Jodi Renee Lester should be Jodi Renée Lester. --Vasha 18:27, 7 January 2018 (EST)

Don't forget to change Jodi Renée Lester and MANDEM. --Vasha 20:44, 20 January 2018 (EST)

Asimov's Science Fiction, January-February 2018

Well, I did it again. I just submitted the contents the latest Asimov's and made a few typos. If accepted I will then correct these, add the book reviews, and a cover image. MLB 19:53, 7 January 2018 (EST)

ASIN/ISBN reconciliation - 2018-01-13

Fixer has identified and submitted 10 new e-book publications whose ISBNs are apparently the same as their paperback analogs'. We may need to do additional digging to determine whether these ISBNs were re-used or whether there was a data entry error within the Amazon system. Ahasuerus 16:03, 13 January 2018 (EST)

Die Asimov-Chronik: Robot ist verloren

Hello, please delete the old version of the cover. Thanks Henna 11:13, 16 January 2018 (EST)

I do not see any leftover versions - did another moderator already delete it or am I not seeing it? Annie 12:41, 16 January 2018 (EST)

Such data is accessible here. Hauck 13:31, 16 January 2018 (EST)

Thanks. How to remove the Metadata from the cover? Thanks again Henna 17:46, 16 January 2018 (EST)

You need to do that before uploading. The Mediawiki software reads in the metadata from the image file. Most image editing programs have a way to do it. In Windows 10, you can also right click on an image file, select Properties, click the Details tab, click "Remove Properties and Personal Information", and click okay on the next window. It will create a copy with all camera metadata removed. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2018 (EST)

Thanks for your help. I removed the metadata from the covers and uploaded these again.

Please once more remove the old covers. Thanks again Henna 06:57, 17 January 2018 (EST)

Done. Stonecreek 08:02, 17 January 2018 (EST)

Thanks! Henna 15:13, 17 January 2018 (EST)

Correction to award page

The link to the web page for the Shadows award should be https://australasianhorror.wordpress.com/australian-shadows-awards/ --Vasha 18:19, 21 January 2018 (EST)

Fixed. Thanks for finding the new one! Annie 20:23, 21 January 2018 (EST)

Adventure pulp reprints

Fixer has identified and submitted a number of adventure pulp reprints. Please note that some of them may need to be rejected since they do not contain any speculative elements. Ahasuerus 14:48, 23 January 2018 (EST)

Stray publication

Why is this listed as a stray publication here? It has a container title here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:06, 24 January 2018 (EST)

Because the title record was varianted to a record by uncredited. I flipped that so it will actually show on Young's summary page. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:23, 24 January 2018 (EST)

That makes sense. Thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:25, 24 January 2018 (EST)

New Profile?

Hi, I bring up an issue that has become more and more annoying in the last few months:

It takes a (very) long time until (my) edits are approved by a reviewing moderator. I remember when I started to contribute to the ISFDB in 2015 the waiting time was a few minutes, exceptionally a few hours. Now this has turned completely: to wait just a few minutes have become an exception (at the moment I am waiting for approval for more than ten hours).

This is not a complaint! I am sure there a good reasons for it.

My proposal to improve the situation is to install an "experienced" or "trustable" ISFDB user for persons who have contributed to the ISFDB for a long period without doing serious mistakes (like me, I hope). Such experienced users have extended authorizations: more than a common (or new) user but less than a moderator. It will be sufficient if this user is authorized to approve his own new and old edits; or even better: to change all content without primary and secondary verification (except verified by his resp. her own, of course). This option will ease my own work and also the work of the reviewers substantially. Additionally, it will restore the fun to add new content and will be a motivation to add more content.

Thank you for discussing this proposal! Boskar 03:15, 29 January 2018 (EST)

One of the main reasons for the delays is the massive amount of submissions that are not of a primary rank (but one sees that only when looking at the submission): things like adding or moving secondary links. But there are now many more editors active than before. Stonecreek 05:54, 29 January 2018 (EST)

There have been times when the editor/moderator ratio became noticeably low. In a couple of cases we addressed this issue by making certain editors moderators with the understanding that they would limit their approvals to their own edits. If the ratio is getting low again, we could try the same approach assuming that we have editors who are ready for self-approval. And, of course, we could always review our list of most active editors to see if some of them are ready to become moderators. Ahasuerus 17:45, 29 January 2018 (EST)

Biomassbob and Vasha are way overdue.--Rkihara 11:55, 30 January 2018 (EST)

No, I don't think so. I might agree to self-moderate, though. --Vasha 13:08, 30 January 2018 (EST)

What time zone are you in? It's possible there are no moderators working on things around the time you normally submit. I used to run into that between about 3pm and 11pm Mountain Time. It seemed that no one was working on things during that time. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:57, 29 January 2018 (EST)

I will try not to clog up the queue with too many minor edits. It isn't the small things that take long, though. When I submit completely new publications, they've been sitting waiting for up to three days lately. --Vasha 23:05, 29 January 2018 (EST)

It might be helpful if the number of all pending submissions would be made available to non-moderators, maybe additionally grouped by submission type, so that non-moderators can see if the submission they want to create will have to wait for 3 or 300 submissions to be approved before. This would of course only be a very rough indicator for the time it may take until the submission an editor wants to create will have been approved. Nevertheless, non-moderators get a hint about what's going on and can decide to defer the creation of new submissions. Jens Hitspacebar 09:36, 30 January 2018 (EST)

It's certainly doable, but we would have to tweak the report logic to ignore:

held submissions
submissions by moderators
robotic submissions

Breaking the stats down by submission type is possible, but non-trivial because the submission table doesn't store submission type codes in an easy to retrieve format (bizarre but true!) Also, certain types of submissions like PubUpdate may be either trivial or time-consuming to moderate depending on what has been changed. Ahasuerus 15:22, 30 January 2018 (EST)

A simple "count(*) from all pending submissions" will do, I think. The number is a very rough approximation in the sense of how much time the queue will need to get approved (e.g. checking submissions for collections need more time than for title updates), and this could be emphasized by printing it as "approx. 300 pending submissions" or so. I think there's no need to filter out the three kinds of submissions you mentioned because of this approximation. If we think this number is helpful information the I think a good place for it would be on top of the submission forms (inside or below the green help section). Jens Hitspacebar 15:46, 30 January 2018 (EST)

Well, sometimes a moderator may create a few dozen submissions and leave them overnight. Between that and a dozen held submissions and a few dozen robotic submissions, the queue size may look intimidating even though the number of relevant submissions may be small. Let me see what I can do... Ahasuerus 16:01, 30 January 2018 (EST)

OK, "My Pending Edits" has been updated -- see my post on the Community Portal. If everything looks good and the information appears to be helpful, we can add it to the top of all edit forms. Ahasuerus 17:42, 30 January 2018 (EST)

I don't think that a rough estimation about the delay is a significant improvement of the situation. The only improvement would be a reduction of the delay for the submitters. But this seems not to be practicable. I will have to cope with the bad situation. Thank you for having discussed my proposal! Boskar 01:47, 2 February 2018 (EST)

Re: the practicability of changing the software to flag certain editors as "experienced" in order to give them certain additional abilities. Yes, it's possible, but we'd need to define the exact nature of the extended abilities before we could estimate how time-consuming it would be to change the software. Ahasuerus 08:34, 2 February 2018 (EST)

Fixer -- UK-based e-AddPubs

Fixer has identified and is about to start submitting 156 UK-based e-AddPubs. Unfortunately, due to recent Amazon changes, Fixer's UK-based submissions are no longer as complete as US-based submissions. In many/most cases the price field and/or the "Image URL" field are blank. Sometimes the "Pages" field is blank as well. Approving moderators may need to follow the link in the "Note to Moderator" field to find the missing data. Ahasuerus 11:03, 31 January 2018 (EST)

145 e-AddPubs have been submitted. Ahasuerus 11:25, 31 January 2018 (EST)

P.S. Also, this batch of submissions does not have ASINs, although I may be able to tweak Fixer to add them in the future. Ahasuerus 11:52, 31 January 2018 (EST)

Jim Burns

I find a death date 2 June 2016 on this page, but I'm happy to say that I can't find on the internet that he died. Do I overlook something or is this rumour of his death completely unfounded? Horzel 07:07, 2 February 2018 (EST)

It was a mix-up: it was James H. Burns who died on 2016-06-02, not Jim Burns. The record has been corrected -- thanks for identifying the problem! Ahasuerus 07:40, 2 February 2018 (EST)

author name correction

Please change the artist Antoni Garces to "Antoni Garcés," also Garces to "Garcés." All verifiers have been consulted and a note has been made on the one publication that doesn't have the diacritic. --Vasha 11:52, 4 February 2018 (EST)

Done. Hauck 11:57, 4 February 2018 (EST)

Collector cards

I am in possession of several sets of collector cards. I noticed some sets had been entered, some fully describing each card, other a selection and some just the existence. I figures I could fill in gaps, but wondered about a couple in particular - they are Conan images, but as I go through them I see that they are all taken from comic covers. I know we don't do comics, but should I continue with these? Doug H 13:01, 5 February 2018 (EST)

Submitted this anyway. I notice that one author (Ovi) was misspelled (Ovl) but would rather fix than re-submit. Thanks. Doug H 19:40, 5 February 2018 (EST)

Author name correction: G.Kay Bishop

G. Kay Bishop should be "G.Kay Bishop." However eccentric, that is truly how they spell their name, and it appears that way in all publications. Please fix; and also, have there been any more thoughts on how to handle non-standard punctuation (or spacing!) of author names? --Vasha 23:02, 22 February 2018 (EST)

Arcturus Publishing

Fixer has identified and submitted approximately 20 new ISBNs (mostly hardcover reprints of classic books) by Arcturus Publishing. The data is not perfect due to certain recently added Amazon UK limitations. Some data elements, notable prices, may not be present and will need to be checked against Amazon UK. Ahasuerus 16:17, 24 February 2018 (EST)

Edit Title Type Help

The other day I noticed that Help:Screen:EditTitle says things like:

OMNIBUS. Do not use; the omnibus content type is created automatically by the ISFDB when an omnibus publication is entered. It is not displayed with the publication and never needs to be entered manually.

The underlying problem is that some Wiki templates used by the EditTitle Help page are shared with the Contents sections of the New/EditPub Help pages. Since the functionality is different, the Help text needs to be different as well. Template:TitleFields:TitleType (quoted above) is particularly egregious, but other templates are problematic as well.

I guess the first question to answer is whether it's feasible to make the affected templates generic so that they could be used by EditTitle as well as by New/Edit Pub. If it's not feasible, then we will need to create new templates for EditTitle. Ahasuerus 13:39, 25 February 2018 (EST)

If it's all cases where that screen is transcluded to other help pages (vs. directly linked from the database), a parameter can be used to display different text. See Template:TitleFields:Date for an example of one that does that (though I believe its use case is obsolete and so could actually be removed at this point). -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:07, 1 March 2018 (EST)

Ferrel D. Moore

I just completed an update on the author Ferrel D. Moore and despite a growing body of work he did write one suspense thriller The Tesla Factor. According to his website and Amazon he has several new novels coming out this year. So, has he earned the right to have his lone transgression listed on his page as non-genre? MLB 18:05, 1 March 2018 (EST)

Author corrections - 2018-03-16

Two more author name corrections, a bit trickier. 1. Azorin is Azorín in Spanish (including the publication I just added); I have no way of checking how the name is printed in the English and Romanian publications. 2. Angel Torres Quesada is properly Ángel Torres Quesada. It's true that a number of book covers show the name without an accent over the A, but that's because accents on capital letters are sometimes omitted for stylistic reasons. --Vasha 12:23, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

Adding an Introduction an author wrote to his record

Hi, I am new at this and am trying to add the Introduction "In the Night-Garden of Dowling Delights" (pages 11-14) that Danel Olson wrote for _The Night Shop: Tales for the Lonely Hours_ by Terry Dowling (hardback, Cemetery Dance, 2017, ISBN 978-1-58767-532-4). I see how to edit/correct works under "essays" that are already at Danel Olson's bibliography, but I do not see what to click to add essays like this Introduction. Could somebody help? Thanks, Seekbeauty

Hello, you should go to the publication record that correspond to the book where is the text to add. Then use the "edit This Pub" link on the left of the screen (under "Editing Tools"). A new screen will open where you'll be able to enter the introduction by clicking on the "Add Title" button that is located in the "Regular Titles" section. Remember to select the ESSAY type and disambiguate it if its title is generic (along the lines of Introduction (The Night Shop: Tales for the Lonely Hours)). Hauck 11:36, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

Moderation process complaint

Earlier this month I received an e-mail complaint about our moderation process. After reviewing recent discussions with new editors, it looks like the vast majority of them are fine, but there are times when we do not follow what is stated in Moderator Qualifications:

A moderator will often have to explain to an editor why an edit is incorrect or needs to be changed in some way. Doing this in a supportive and friendly way is critical to making the ISFDB a successful cooperative venture. Moderators should be able to manage these communications without offending editors, particularly newcomers.

Granted, occasionally we get contributors who can be difficult to deal with for various reasons. However, I'd like to emphasize that we need to communicate with all editors in a supportive manner as described above. If an editor becomes abusive (thankfully, it has only happened a few times in the last 12 years), please post on the Moderator Noticeboard and disciplinary action will be taken based on our blocking policy.

As a great philosopher once said, "With great power comes great responsibility" :-) Ahasuerus 12:49, 12 April 2018 (EDT)

Meghan McCarron

There are two author records for Meghan McCarron, except one is misspelled. The correct entry is here; the incorrect entry is here. The only proof I have is that I have the ebook Feeling Very Strange, and could send a screenshot which shows the correct-name attribution. Could these be merged, please? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by XtinaS (talk • contribs) .

As Feeling Very Strange is verified by an active editor, I will point that editor to this discussion. We credit per the publication so need to double check if it is a typo in the database (likely since you say the ebook uses Meghan) or it is that way in the publication (not unheard of for publishers to make corrections between different formats). Thanks for pointing this out. By the way, when adding a new topic, please use the "+" at the top of a wiki page which will allow you to add a new heading. You should also sign your posts by clicking the signature button (next to last above the edit window) or typing --~~~~. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:37, 25 April 2018 (EDT)

Just a typo, fixed. --~ Bill, Bluesman 12:32, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

The Hacker and the Ants

I have a copy of Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and the Ants that was verified by an inactive user. My copy is printed in Canada, there is no reference in the existing entry to printing location. My plan is to submit a transient verification and add a note to the existing publication stating the situation. ../Doug H 10:45, 26 April 2018 (EDT)

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume IV

I have a copy verified by an inactive user. Cannot find any reference to it being published in 1989 instead of 1988. Maybe not such a big deal, still bothers me tho. --Spacecow 05:14, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

What does your book say with regard to dates? Locus says Jun '88, so if the book says nothing, we could certainly use that and cite Locus as the source. --MartyD 07:06, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

Locus says Jun 1988 for the US (Bridge) edition. The link (and this question) is for the New Era (UK) edition... In Locus, the New Era is under it and says (Dec ’90, reprint). Looking at the history of the series, the New Era ones are later than the US ones - sometimes by a few years. Either this specific PV was really bad with his dates or they were entering later printings or something else is up here... Annie 12:41, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

I cannot find any year except for a "Copyright © 1988 by Bridge Publications, Inc", which... refers to the Bridge edition? and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the New Era edition? --Spacecow 17:22, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

So why do you think it is actually a 1988 edition? Copyright statements for first editions are not exactly meaningful for reprint dates. WorldCat does not give a date (the ©1988 is just the copyright), Locus puts it all the way into late 1990. ISFDB seems to be the only source for a 1989 date (and noone seems to have a 1988 one). Looking at the series as a whole, I cannot find anyone giving an early date. Even Interzone's received books does not list it until March 1991 (as received in late Nov 1990) - which may not mean that much but with all the other data available, I am not even sure that this book made it out during 1989 at all (let alone 1988).

Are there any advertisements and/or notices in that book to help us try to date it? I hope that someone from the other side of the pond will also chime in but as the things stand, a date of 1988 sounds almost impossible. I do not think that any of the early volumes had their New Era editions in the same year as the Bridge editions (but I may be wrong). Feel free to edit the Notes to add all that information about the date if you want to :) Annie 18:16, 30 April 2018 (EDT)

I wasn't really speaking for it being a 1988 edition, more questioning it being a 1989 edition. I did as Annie said and looked through the advertisements at the end of the book and there is one interesting one speaking of "L. Ron Hubbard's Illustrators of the Future Contest" which at the bottom has a "Copyright © 1990 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All rights reserved" - does that imply both 1988 and 1989 is impossible? Thanks for the constructive feedback. I am still very new to this and I realise you guys are far better than me at hunting down stuff like this. I wasn't even aware of Locus. --Spacecow 15:34, 1 May 2018 (EDT)

Your initial message was talking about it being a 1988 edition - thus me asking why :)

Now, technically that © 1990 in an advertisement may mean a very late 1989 printing (if it is for a planned but not yet out book or something like that) but considering the rest of the data we seem to uncover, it points to a proper 1990 (or later) printing for me. If you decide to reset the date to 1990, I am not going to object. The month may be in question (Locus says December, Interzone got the book in November (but we go by publishing date and not by when the book may have been actually out) - I'd say that it still can be December but in any case 1990-00-00 is still better than what we have; or you can do 1990-12-00 and add a note explaining the credit (Locus1), we will be all set). What do you think? Annie 16:04, 1 May 2018 (EDT)

I agree. The combination of the 1990 on the ad and Locus' Dec 1990 is sufficient for a 1990-12-00 citing Locus as the source (and I'd include a note about the copyright date on the ad). --MartyD 18:27, 1 May 2018 (EDT)

Crimson Fairy Tale submission

In this submission, the warnings pointed out that 13 digit ISBN and pre-2005 date. There is no indication of printing on the copyright page, so I when I submit the image I will update the date to 0000-00-00 and add a note regarding the date in the Notes. ../Doug H 11:10, 1 May 2018 (EDT)

Need a volunteer

I will be away for a week starting tomorrow night and it seems like the 5 holds I have won't get resolved before that (I had been staying away from anything that looked prolonged this week but these turned out to be longer than I expected). Any moderator that is willing to take over so they do not need to wait until next Sunday for me to come back? Or I can just release them of course and let someone else just handle but thought I would ask first Annie 22:58, 3 May 2018 (EDT)

If you and I can coordinate, I can take them. I have another one on hold for verifier-checking, too. A few more talk pages to monitor will fit right in. I'm in U.S. Eastern time and am at work as I write this. I can check back in +2.5 hours (~ noon) and again later this afternoon (say +7.5 hours, around 17:00). Or let me know another specific time (but I might not see your note until +2.5 hours). --MartyD 09:43, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

I am around for the next hour or so so ping me when you are here and I will release them for you. And I will be around later as well :) Thanks Marty! Annie 12:02, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

Have a good vacation. Hope you enjoy. --Vasha 18:01, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

10 pm, Annie. And I do hope you enjoy your vacation, too. :-) --MartyD 18:26, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

10 pm it is then. And thanks both - I am planning to.:) Annie 18:40, 4 May 2018 (EDT)

Artist Terry Maloney / Jose Rubios / Jarr

I've been pointed to documentation that New Worlds/Nova Publications cover artists Terry Maloney and Jose Rubios are one and the same, specifically:

Mike Ashley's Transformations: The Story of the Science-fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 has an entry on Terry Maloney where the link is made;
Phil Stephensen-Payne here (see under "TERRY");
As a contemporary reference, in Science Fantasy #43 (1960), in an article on 'The First Decade' of the magazine, Kenneth Johns (Ken Bulmer and John Newman) says: "... Jose Rubios, the name used on fantasy work by New Worlds cover artist Terry.";
Also, in a completely irrelevant if oddly coincidental detail, there's a Spanish heavy metal band called Jose Rubio's Nova Era, not that I'm suggesting this as a bibliographic source. ;)

Also that Terry Maloney and the artist Jarr are similarly connected:

again, Mike Ashley and PSP as above,
that Kenneth Johns piece talks about "an intriguing painting by the new team signing themselves "Jarr"" but doesn't identify who that "team" might be.

Based on this information I propose making Jose Rubios a pseudonym of Maloney, but I'll exercise caution about doing the same for 'Jarr' unless other editors have more knowledge to share. Input appreciated! PeteYoung 20:06, 10 May 2018 (EDT)

Our standard for pseudonym disclosure is "publicly available sources". Ashley, Stephensen-Payne and Science Fantasy all count as publicly available sources, so we can use them safely. The pseudonym is also mentioned in Strange Highways: Reading Science Fantasy, 1950-1967 by John Boston and ‎Damien Broderick.

For Jarr, I would suggest adding a note to the author record with the Science Fantasy tidbit. Boston and Broderick are not sure who the members of the "team" were either. Ahasuerus 20:51, 10 May 2018 (EDT)

Interesting. You noticed that Jarr ~ JR ~ Jose Rubios ? But then, Jarr might be Sydney Jordan and Jose Rubios (J and R). Horzel 17:04, 10 June 2018 (EDT)

Fixer's AddPubs - 2018-05-16

Fixer has submitted a few dozen AddPubs for April 2018. Almost all of them are indie books, which means that the publisher name will often be blank in the submission. Please check Look Inside before approving them. TIA. Ahasuerus 21:53, 16 May 2018 (EDT)

Martin J. Gidron vs. Martin Berman-Gorvine

Looking for a volunteer moderator to change Martin J. Gidron's canonical name to Martin Berman-Gorvine and swap his VTs. Ahasuerus 10:42, 21 May 2018 (EDT)

I will change it. It is one of the easy ones so should not take that long. Annie 12:34, 21 May 2018 (EDT)

Done. I left the awards where they were (they go to the title they are awarded to, not to whatever parent it may have). All data and titles are shifted. Annie 12:47, 21 May 2018 (EDT)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 12:52, 21 May 2018 (EDT)

Magazine cover date reminder

Three times in the past few months I've found newly-added magazine using Amazon's publication date instead of the cover date. It's a mistake that the moderator(s) who approved those submissions could have spotted--so, just a reminder to be watching for that. --Vasha 14:23, 21 May 2018 (EDT)

{Contento1} and other linking templates

Please see my last hour's submission (for reference only) Cancelled/Rejected #3830699.

Concerning {Contento1}, there must be some clerical error (mine, or in our documentation of linking templates) or coding error. --Pwendt|talk 15:49, 22 May 2018 (EDT)
(oops, provide adequate link) --Pwendt|talk 17:21, 22 May 2018 (EDT)

It is just {{Contento}}. (see this one Looks like a help page error :) Annie 17:25, 22 May 2018 (EDT)

Can't edit 'Valley of the Pretenders'

re: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?252999 I uploaded image VLLFPRTNDR1942.jpg and tried to add image URL to the chapbook record, but when submit the edit get 'Error: Invalid Publication Type.' even though I didn't edit the pub type. To confirm, I tried submitting an edit with absolutely no changes, but got same error. The Pub Type, 'Chapbook', looks OK to me. Any ideas? Thx. Markwood 22:36, 31 May 2018 (EDT)

I created a submission with no edits a minute ago and it went through without any issues. Could you please try a full page reload (usually Control-F5), when on the Edit Pub page? Ahasuerus 23:09, 31 May 2018 (EDT)

I recently started listing the ebook version of this book, but because the contents are woefully incomplete I didn't notice it. I would like to delete its contents, and then when I done listing all 120 stories from the ebook and then just import the contents to the softcover, without having to retype everything. Good idea, bad idea? MLB 21:55, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

100 Word Horrors: An Anthology of Horror Drabbles

I recently started listing the ebook version of 100 Word Horrors, but because the contents are woefully incomplete I didn't notice it. I would like to delete its contents, and then when I done listing all 120 stories from the ebook and then just import the contents to the softcover, without having to retype everything. Good idea, bad idea? MLB 21:58, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

You do not need to remove them - as long as they are merged successfully, they won’t get reimported when you import from the ebook. But if you would rather not worry about the merges(you may need to worry about delete in this case though), go ahead and do what you are proposing - just make sure you add a moderator note explaining what you are doing on all submissions. The only problem will be if one of the authors have no other titles and you do the delete before the adding - we will lose the data from the author page.

What I would do in your shoes is to add the ones in the ebook, do the merges and then import to bring in the missing titles. But up to you. Annie 22:15, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

If I was you I would not delete anything. Merging will combine all information from both records, and also show any differences in case you need to recheck anything. Note that when you are viewing the publication record you can click "Check for duplicate titles" in the left-hand menu and it will give you all the duplicates in the book at once. --Vasha 22:45, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

Or find a friendly moderator to do the merges. :) Annie 22:48, 1 June 2018 (EDT)

The Nightmare Reader Volume One

I'd like to change the cover artist of this from Ian Miller to Alan Lee. Alan Lee is credited here (just cancel the shockwave download). I have no idea where the Ian Miller credit comes from, it's not Ian Miller's style. Horzel 16:25, 10 June 2018 (EDT)

Need merge not variant? (One-eye)

As I understand our guidelines the variant "Little One-eye", etc T2040785, should be merged into the parent title. The two titles do not show up in the Check for duplicates, probably because I am missing something or because the variant relationship interferes with that. --Pwendt|talk 21:36, 11 June 2018 (EDT)

Was this taken care of already? (the link is dead) Annie 14:55, 12 June 2018 (EDT)

Response to Data Blanking

It saddens me to have to ask this, but I need to request a response to a moderator who has taken it upon himself to blank data added by others. The data in question is catalog numbers from secondary sources (Reginald, Bleiler, etc.). The editor in question objected to my and others addition of such data back in 2015. At that time, I started an R&S discussion which ultimately suggested a compromise of adding this data below the {{BREAK}} tag. There was no consensus to prohibit this data. Now, that editor has taken it upon himself to delete this data when he finds it. Upon discovering that an edit of mine had been blanked, I began a a new discussion again asking whether such data should be disallowed. After waiting a week in which there was but one response, and again no consensus to prohibit the data, I left a note on this moderator's talk page notifying him of my intention to restore the data. I also suggested that if he still felt the data should be prohibited that he get a consensus to that effect from the community before blanking any more data. Unfortunately, he ignored my advice and has blanked data on at least three publications ([1], [2] and [3]). I don't know why he feels his judgement supersedes policy and consensus. Our Blocking Policy specifically calls out data blanking as one of the behaviors that is considered vandalism and results in a block. I don't think the intent of the data blanking is vandalism, but I do think that disagreements with consensus cannot be handled by editors ignoring the consensus. Especially when doing so results in the destruction of the edits of others. It's not that I want this editor blocked, but he needs to be convinced that he can't delete data merely because he doesn't like it. I've tried handling this through discussion which clearly hasn't worked. I'd like to ask the other moderators and especially the administrators to step in and help resolve this. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:49, 13 June 2018 (EDT)

I see two aspects here. The first one is substantive, i.e. whether these numbers and IDs should be kept. Personally, I don't feel strongly about them, but I agree that in certain cases they can be of value. Some of them have a meaning beyond a simple sequential number. For example, Reginald adds special characters to his IDs under certain circumstances: "15841A" for a retitled version of "15841" and so on.

Ideally, we would move these IDs to a separate field. Unfortunately, the recently added External ID field is not a good match because it was specifically tailored to link to external Web side, which doesn't apply in these types of cases. Perhaps at some point we'll create a different field for them.

The second aspect is procedural. Whatever our personal opinions of the value of certain bibliographical elements are, it's very important to be extra careful when deleting any kind of data that other editors feel strongly about. Very few things make people as upset as the destruction of the fruits of their labor. If we let this happen on a regular basis, contributors will simply stop contributing and the project will become dormant. We don't want that to happen, so we need to make sure that previously entered data is not deleted unless we have very solid policy reasons to zap it. Ahasuerus 22:28, 13 June 2018 (EDT)

I second this second. I have no opinion about where these specific examples fall on the spectrum of clutter to high-value, but I do think we should not be deleting anything human-entered and factually correct unless policy says the data is out/not to be captured, the data is redundant, or policy explicitly permits the deletion (as is the case with certain author data). Moderators should not do it, and moderators should not accept non-moderator submissions that do it. --MartyD 11:32, 15 June 2018 (EDT)

I agree with Marty and Ahasuerus. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:55, 15 June 2018 (EDT)

I obviously agree here as well (as I was the person that responded in the other thread). I am not particularly attached to these numbers but if someone bothers to add them, deleting them is just uncalled for. It actually always made me wonder why the secondary verifications are just radio-boxes and do not have a field next to them for IDs, notes and what's not - we have the real estate there, it will be out of the way and it will be a lot more useful that seeing that someone "verified" something for some editors). Annie 17:02, 15 June 2018 (EDT)

The main problem is our secondary verification sources vary quite a bit. Some, e.g. Reginald and Bleier, have stable IDs. Some, e.g. Locus 1, have unstable URLs which change over time. Some, e.g. Tuck and the Clutes, do not have IDs. (Not to mention that the Clutes do not include publication details except for "US/UK/etc".) Ahasuerus 10:10, 21 June 2018 (EDT)

I don't like removing data - if it is not offensive, illegal, out of policy or an advertisement and someone bothers to add it to the book, then it is important for them - we do not control the format of notes or the contents of them and there is always the good old BREAK if the things get too long. And in this case we had judged that these sources are important enough (so we have secondary verifications for them) so having some information (page numbers, IDs and so on) so a new editor can find them easily in the book sounds like a good idea to me. Annie 17:02, 15 June 2018 (EDT)

I'm going to re-add the data that was blanked and and leave a note referencing this discussion. Hopefully that will be the enough to stop it from being deleted again. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 06:58, 20 June 2018 (EDT)

Deletion of Non-genre titles

On a related subject to the last discussion... Currently there is no real agreement as to whether to include all stories in an anthology that's only partly genre contents. See Including nongenre titles in partial contents for an inconclusive discussion. I'm not going to reopen that discussion here, because the issues are multiple and if we wanted to treat "genre" anthologies differently from "non-genre" ones, there'd be a whole lot of hard-to-classify ones. What I did want to comment on was the fact that, due to differing opinions on this subject, there are anthologies currently in the database which some people would want to include all the contents of, and other people not. And there are cases where contents have been deleted even though it isn't at all clear that policy supports doing so. (An example I can reference is Tricks and Treats, whose complete contents I had verified; I later found that all non-genre contents had been deleted, without notifying me.)

I'm certainly not opposed to deleting non-genre titles, and I've done a lot of it. I try to be a good citizen and not just consult verifiers, but also consult people who added unverified anthologies if I know who they are; and if the situation is doubtful, post a query on the boards. In the past, I thought that it was standard practice to not include any nongenre titles that weren't by "above the threshold" authors, even if published in an otherwise genre anthology. I still don't put them in when adding new anthologies, but in the past I also deleted some that were in existing publications--I stopped doing that when I learned that it's not clear whether or not that's standard policy, and I apologize to the people whose work I deleted then. My point is that I hope other people will also be conservative about removing content until (if ever) we have clear guidelines. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 17:34, 20 June 2018 (EDT)

Editing submitted notes for clarity

I'd like to revisit the issue of Notes clarity which I raised a few months ago.

Ours is a multilingual project which uses English in Notes and Synopsis fields. Given the nature of what we do here, we can't expect flawless grammar in Notes, but we can try to aim for precision and clarity. Some submissions that I have seen over the last year were clearly well intentioned, but the results were almost incomprehensible.

I would like to encourage all moderators to review submitted Notes for clarity. If you find that they are wordy, imprecise or opaque, please don't hesitate to ask the submitter for clarification, break up long sentences, edit for clarity, etc. We don't want to hurt our editors' egos unnecessarily, but if we were to let our Notes become so tangled that they couldn't be readily parsed, it would be even worse. Ahasuerus 23:28, 20 June 2018 (EDT)

I completely agree, notes should be structured and understandable, but apparently some mods disagree.--Wolfram.winkler 04:04, 3 July 2018 (EDT)

Clarity and "being structured" are two different things though - and in a lot of cases strictly structured notes end up being a mess (by having too many irrelevant fields and/or requiring too much clarifications). Every editor has their own style and that's one of the strengths of the project. Enforcing a certain way to write the notes is just a bad idea. Ensuring that someone that does not use the same template can understand them is important (and what we are talking about here); enforcing or requiring a structure is counterproductive. Annie 13:48, 3 July 2018 (EDT)

I try to make all of mine understandable. I think all notes should be as clear as possible. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:40, 3 July 2018 (EDT)

Structured and understandable belong together. I wish everyone (mod) would be so tolerant to allow an own style, but that's not the case.--Wolfram.winkler 04:40, 6 July 2018 (EDT)

It would be helpful to give an example of an incomprehensible note.--Wolfram.winkler 03:43, 12 July 2018 (EDT)