User talk:Anniemod/Archive1

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This is an Archive page. Please do not post here -- post in my main talk page instead.

Welcome!

Hello, Anniemod/Archive1, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Hauck 12:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Астронавти

Hello, I've approved your submission for this title but made a few changes to conform to our standards: 1) the author's name is (to this day) to be left in its transliterated form so I reverted it to "Stanislaw Lem", 2) the currency code (or symbol) should be placed before the amount (see here), I've also changed "лв " to "Lev", 3) information about the translator should principaly go at title level so I've duplicated it, 4) the essay Станислав Лем (биографични бележки) must be credited to (simply) "uncredited" (see here for exceptions to this rule) and it'll be nice to add its transliterated form. As it seems that you own the book, it will be interesting that you become its "Primary Verifier" (use the "Verify This Pub" link), this will indicate to other users that the data has been physically checked by one contributor and which one (in this case, you'll also be able to precise its binding/format (see here)) and eventually add a cover scan. The result is here. Thanks for contributing. Hauck 13:16, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about the mistakes - I will add the transliterated form for the essay. I read a few things but apparently missed how to do some of the things. I do not have the book in front of me - it is back in Bulgaria - I just had the data for it on a key card so fixed the record. If/when I get to the book again or get someone to pull it and look up the rest for me, I will Verify it as well anniemod 18:27, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
No problem, it's not that easy to make your first submission. Carry on, we're eager to welcome new contributors particularly on geographical area where our covering is scarce. Hauck 19:55, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Would have been more useful if I had done that before I moved to the States (minus my books) :) Although I saw a couple of other areas where I have the books here and they are not verified and completed in the site. anniemod 20:44, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Transliteration of "ъ"

Hi, and welcome! I have a question for you about transliteration of ъ as used in Bulgarian. I noticed in Време във времето you gave a single transliteration, using "a" -- "vav" -- but in Буквите Пъблишинг, you left the "'" transliteration and added two others, using both "a" and "u". This seems inconsistent to me. Also, I believe the standard transliteration of what I know as the Russian hard sign, ъ, is " (and soft sign,ь, is '), but I learned that in my Russian classes long ago. I do not know if this extends to Bulgarian, but I did find this page, and it seems to support my memory. I guess I am trying to ask if the transliterations using "a" and "u" are correct and, if so, whether additional ones should be given for във. Thanks, and thank you for contributing. --MartyD 01:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello. The official Bulgarian rule is that ъ is transliterated as 'a'( and here is the current law that says so: [1] :) I know it is in Bulgarian but the table in the middle and the examples should be pretty obvious (and Wiki even have a handy comparison table: link which also leads to the UN system: link and here it is in English link. People tend to disagree a lot but I prefer to use the official country rules. The ' was already there - I hate removing content added by someone else so I left it there for now... The case of Буквите Пъблишинг is special in another way as well-- because Пъблишинг is a transliteration in Bulgarian of the English word so when it gets transliterated back it can either go the standard way (so 'a' or go back to its original "u"). If one of them need to go, I would remove the "'" spelling (it is Russian, not Bulgarian) but both 'a' and 'u' are valid here. Now - if I had it my way, I would be using "y" actually (that is how I learned to type once upon a time) but that is not a real option anymore (ъ and й can never stand in the same position so using the same letter for both would not have caused the issues that using 'a' but as it is the standard rule, I stick to it. Most names will also follow these rules (personal names) unless if someone specially requested the old French spelling or another spelling. anniemod 01:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Title В телата си разпръснати върнете се is another where "a" was used, and its corresponding Publication В телата си разпръснати върнете се uses "a" and "ŭ". --MartyD 01:35, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Same for the "ŭ" as for the "'". I hate destroying people's work so I left it there and added the proper one. anniemod 01:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)

Unfortunately, modern Slavic languages use a number of Cyrillic letters differently. The Bulgarian version of "ъ" has a long and complicated history, e.g. see this Wikipedia article about "Yus". Modern transliteration systems use ″, ǎ, ŭ, u, or a, presumably just to make bibliographers' lives more interesting :) Ahasuerus 01:50, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Tell me about it - my legal name was written one way in Latin script when I was a child (and had my first passport which I never used at the end) and in a different way when I actually needed a passport to travel (I do not have ъ in the name but I do have Й :). Which is why I tend to do what the the current official rules are - like them or not, these are the rules. If another decision is taken here, I am fine with it as well. This is why I stopped today with most of the titles with "ъ" still to finish.anniemod 01:57, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Following official rules is certainly the correct approach! And I know well that multiple acceptable transliterations are possible. Thank you for answering my questions. --MartyD 02:07, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for asking :) I had been trying to thread very lightly and not to do things that make no sense. Transliteration is always a funny topic. I wonder if I should put a transliteration guide for Bulgarian somewhere that can be referenced... (on the other hand there does not seem to be too many Bulgarian speakers that frequent these shores. anniemod 16:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
P.S. As Hauck mentioned earlier, our software still requires that author names should be entered using Latin transliterations. All other record typess (publications, titles, publishers, etc) have already been changed to support both the native version and the transliterated version(s), but authors remain outstanding. I hope to make the necessary software changes in the next 4-6 weeks, so if you have a non-trivial number of Cyrillic books that you plan to enter, you may want to wait until then. Thanks again for contributing! Ahasuerus 01:50, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
I am kinda used to it - the fact that anything is writable in Bulgarian is a nice surprise as it is. Unfortunately I am not in Bulgaria anymore so most of my Bulgarian edits will be just edits - most of the books I actually have here are in English. So no hurry - I will get to the BG ones during a vacation when I am there but won't be soon. anniemod 01:57, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Абсурдистан

Hello, I've approved your submission for this pub but can you please transliterate the artist's name? Thanks. Hauck 19:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

What is the current policy in such cases? Add a transliterated name only? Add the actual name in brackets? Something else? And talking about that - the name of the author on the book itself is spelled in Bulgarian. I know that we cannot put it like that but where can I put the Bulgarian name? Anniemod 20:00, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
The name of the artist must be in roman (?) at title and publication level. The "real" name should go here at author level (I've added it).
Transliteration added. I could not do it before because there was no page for that artist yet so I could not get to the page to add transliteration (or is there a trick to allow me to before the addition is approved? Anniemod 20:01, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
No trick alas. The "real" name may only be added after the first submission is accepted. Hauck 20:28, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Thought so. And thanks for fixing the one above (though it needs fixing (you added the illustrator name and not the author name there - sorry if I confused you. Anniemod 22:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The Life of Elves

Hello, I've approved your submission for this pub. I've just changed the artist's to simply Donald Iain Smith (Getty is likely only the agency) and deleted the credit to the designer that was already present. Hauck 10:22, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll remember for next time. I looked at it, decided to leave it at the end (as it is on the copyright page) - easier to be removed if not needed than to have a non-complete record if it needed to stay there. Anniemod 11:41, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Вокруг света № 11

Hi. I am going to accept your changes to Vokrug Sveta and its title, but I am going to insert the month into both. I found this, which shows the Ноябрь on the cover. As a rule, we want the month and year in the entry, especially if present on (or in) the magazine. The issue number is used when some or all of the date is missing. See the Magazines and Missing or variant dates bullets of Help:Screen:EditPub#Title. The help does not anticipate non-English months, but I think it will work out fine. The series grid should end up showing "№ 11, Ноябрь" in the Nov column of the 1972 row. (We will see!). --MartyD 00:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

It looks like it worked. :-) I added Noyabr' as the transliteration of Ноябрь. If that is not best, or if there should be other ones, please let me know or submit corrections. Thanks. --MartyD 00:41, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Sorry about that. Will remember to always add the month - the usual citation for the magazine goes only with year and number (no month) and my mind slipped that it is different here. My bad. I am still getting used to some of the rules :) Thanks for the patience. The transliteration is fine. I was trying to fix the name that was in Latin character - that one had never styled itself with Latin characters - not in the 70s and 80s anyway :) Anniemod 02:20, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Marianna Majewska

Hello. I had cancelled one of your submissions by mistake, but restored it afterwards. However, it won't appear in your list of edits. Sorry about that ! Linguist 14:10, 19 July 2016 (UTC).

No worries. Chances are that I may have submitted it twice or something - I am working on the Polish titles and hitting circles now and then. I am trying not to double anything but it is bound to happen :) Anniemod 14:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Gespräch über die beiden Science Fiction-Hörspiele "Gibt es Sie, Mr. Johns?" von Stanisław Lem und "Olympia Männertrost" von Rosemarie Voges

The submission as created would change the title of this verified interview. Did you, by chance, mean to add "Gespräch über die beiden Science Fiction-Hörspiele "Gibt es Sie, Mr. Johns?" von Stanislaw Lem und "Olympia Männertrost" von Rosemarie Voges" as a transliterated title instead? Ahasuerus 03:08, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Oops. Yes - it should have been transliterated. Sorry Anniemod 03:09, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Cancelled it and resubmitted properly. Sorry - I tend to look at the screen after I submit for this type of stupid mistakes but that one I missed. Anniemod 03:14, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I did the same thing the day I added this field :-) Ahasuerus 03:17, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Tisuću i Jedna Noć; Arapske Priče

I have approved the addition of a transliterated title to this record, but I am a bit dubious about the subtitle, "Arapske Priče". I wonder what it may be in reference to. Any ideas? Ahasuerus 03:34, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Croatian -- Arapske is Arab, Arabian; priče is tales, stories, fables (priča I think is the singular but do not hold me to that). The whole title reads: Thousand and One Nights: Arabian tales (if you speak Russian, you would recognize the first word - Slavic root so a lot of the languages use it (Bulgaria does not). In quite a lot of the Balkan languages Bs migrate into Ps and Ds to Ts and Vs to Fs (and vice versa depending on the vowels around it). And ske/ski is a commin suffix for adjectives.
And no - I do not really speak Croatian - I can understand a lot in pretty much any Slavic language (more in some, less in others - Czech is giving me headache most days but I can get myself oriented and find information if I really need it) - at one time or another I had read a story or two in pretty much any of them (with more or less of help of a dictionary).
After you asked and I typed all of the above, I did a quick check through sources for example and and here to make sure than I am not dealing with false cousins as well - happens often. But with context, it is a lot more likely to get it right. Now that ended up a long explanation. Comparative linguistics is one of my hobbies :) Anniemod 04:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Oh, right, "priče" means "tales"/"stories" in Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian. I did check Google Translate, but then I misread what it said. Sorry, didn't mean to waste your time; I must be getting tired. Ahasuerus 04:18, 21 July 2016 (UTC
Talking about languages is never a waste of time :) Anniemod 04:19, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I was quite fond of Romance and Slavic languages back in the day, but, to paraphrase A. N. L. Munby, "Cataloging SF is a full-time occupation, and one wouldn't get far if one took time off for frivolities like reading" :-\ Ahasuerus 04:45, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Transliteration on Hold

I've put a hold on your transliteration of the publisher name, Seibundō Shinkōsha. Japanese is written in Kana, and Kanji, and if a name or title is in latin characters, it has already been transliterated.--Rkihara 04:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

That is pretty much all I know about Japanese :). However - these are not standard Latin-1 characters and search won't be able to find it if someone looks for it without the upper part (or such is my understanding). Adding the transliteration would enable those searches. If that is not a desired effect and it is not needed, then sure, no need to add one Anniemod 04:26, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I think the first thing to do is to find the name of this publisher in Kanji. According to their Web site, it's "株式会社誠文堂新光社" (assuming I am reading it right.) Once we change the publisher's name to 株式会社誠文堂新光社, we should be able to add "Seibundō Shinkōsha" and "Seibundo Shinkosha" as transliterated names, which should hopefully do the trick. Ahasuerus 04:33, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
That also works - feel free to reject my edit and someone can change the name and move the transliteration and add the second one. :) I was just trying to convince the search to be able to find it. Anniemod 04:36, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I didn't have any problem searching for it, as characters with macrons are part of the standard Latin-1 character set. I can see that searching might be a problem for someone who doesn't know how to access the diacritics, or doesn't know Modified Hepburn romanization. I've been entering my transliterations using single vowels with macrons instead of doubled vowels, Seibundō, instead of Seibundou, Seibundoo, or Seibundo. This means there can be four transliterations, not counting variations due to the parsing of words, and the rendering of double-consonants. Japanese searches by transliteration will always be difficult without fuzzy search capability.--Rkihara 05:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

M. I. Galʹter

FYI, this publisher's case is similar to the Seibundō Shinkōsha case above. The reason that M. I. Galʹter was flagged by our nightly processing is that it published a Yiddish book in 1884 and Yiddish is not normally written in a Latin-based script. According to Barry Dov Walfish's "Bibliographia Karaitica", "М. И. Гальтер" was a Warsaw-based publisher who published Yiddish books in the 1880s-1900s. I have updated the record and everything should be OK now. Ahasuerus 05:14, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Figured that would be the case for that one after we had the other discussion. I will look through the ones I edited last few days and see if there are more cases like that and ask the Mods to fix them for me (cannot change the name on my own after all). Thanks. Sorry for making more work for everyone. Anniemod 05:18, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

2061. Harmadik űrodisszeia

Hello, I've put your submission on hold as, apart from tranliterating the the title, you intended to change its language to "english" (a by-product of your default settings likely). Can you confirm? Hauck 06:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

To Hungarian actually - to match the book language (The change to English is automatic when you submit one of those that are old enough to not have a language set when added as it seems). Can you change it to Hungarian or do you want me to cancel and resubmit? Anniemod 06:46, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Same for Morel találmánya / Láthatatlan városok. I'm going to correct the first one. Hauck 06:51, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Resubmitted that one. Anniemod 06:53, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Seven Miles Down

I have your edit to make Seven Miles Down a translation of "Profondeur 11000 mètres" on hold. What is your source for the French edition being published first? From what I can find, it was originally published in English (Dietz was an English language writer) and later translated to French. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:18, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

I think we need Linguist in here. I tried to change the language of the French guy to English - as his only relevant work he had was in English originally from what I had found. He rejected with the note that the work was actually originally in French and with the title. I just submitted that. Cannot find a proof one way or another. Probably should have left it alone.mIf you want to reject it, that's fine - we will keep digging :) Anniemod 23:23, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
I'll ping Linguist. As for Piccard, his language would stay French even with the work being published in English first. His working language was French. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:31, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
As far as I know, both versions were published the same year, i.e. 1961, by Arthaud in France and by Putnam in the USA. As Worldcat never mentions any translator in its dozen records of the 1961 French edition, and as Piccard's language is French, it seems doubtful that the book was entirely translated from the English — not the part Piccard wrote, anyway. It is true that we only have indirect evidence here, but note also that 1) Robert S. Dietz is not mentioned as co-author on Piccard's Wikipedia page in French, and 2) no mention of this book is made on Dietz's WP page in English. We don't really know the extent of Dietz's participation in the writing of the book — which could be minimal as his name doesn't even appear on the cover of the French version, although his participation is confirmed by WorldCat. All in all, if the English version is partially translated from the French, and the French one partially from the English, I am not sure what the modus operandi is. Personally, I would be in favour of considering Piccard's part as more important, and therefore the English edition a translation from the French one. But we can only be certain with the book in hand. Linguist 10:02, 25 July 2016 (UTC).
More importantly, this book ([here) about batyscaphes should not be included in the db, I've transformed the REVIEW into an ESSAY. Hauck 13:17, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
I prefer that solution. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:46, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
So this one here should get the same treatment? Anniemod 14:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
If we follow the same logic, I think so. Linguist 14:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC).
Done. There are probably lots of similar cases as, at first, a nongenre nonfiction title was included if it was reviewed in a genre magazine. Hauck 14:31, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Even if the only work that is relevant for us was originally written (not published but written)? I am just asking for other cases -- there is a lot of authors out there that had worked in more than one language. Then I misread the rules on that. Thanks! Anniemod 23:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand the question (re: written vs. published). The author language field is for the author's primary language in general. For authors that are bilingual, it is their more frequently used language. In both cases, I'm not aware of anything that says we would artificially limit it to the records we have in the database. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
Not the DB here but the works that are relevant to the field - if someone is bi-lingual and most of their works are in Serbian for example but all their speculative work is in Russian, then the language still remain Serbian then? Anniemod 23:59, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
That is my interpretation. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:04, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
This is the way I see it too. Linguist 10:02, 25 July 2016 (UTC).
Keep in mind that the "Working language" field is only used by the Summary page logic when it needs to decide whether to display a title's language. It's just a convenience thing. Ahasuerus 02:10, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
I just should stop overthinking it :) Anniemod 14:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Language for texts by english authors

Hello, I see that you're setting the language to "english" for a lot of titles by english authors (I'm moderating them). IMHO, this is perhaps a vast and superfluous task as it may be possible that we update "en masse" the whole lot. It may be more pertinent (time-wise) to update the authors themselves and wait for a future automated procedure (maybe Ahasuerus can tell us if it's possible/likely). Hauck 08:11, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I am chasing the non-English amongst them. I had been updating authors and figured I need to check the titles -- and once I had them open, it was a click away. I suspect you are right though - I would stop setting the titles language except where it makes sense (author has one that is not English). :) Anniemod 08:15, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
It's also because of the fact that I'm now a bit overwhelmed by submissions and cleanup reports ;-(. Hauck 08:44, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, not intentional. Switched to only fixing author's languages unless if a work is not in English. Anniemod 08:47, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
No problem, there's sometimes a bottleneck at moderator level as we recently lost our most active moderator. Hauck 09:12, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Hauck, I check the submissions list a couple of times a day, but most of the time you've cleared it out. I think if you eased off gradually, the rest of us would begin to take up a share of the load.--15:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

"Prințesa zilei", by Vladimir Odoevski

You submitted a title record change to delete the following comment from this title record: 

Romanian translation by Monica Bilan of an unidentifed story : Княжна Мими (Knyazhna Mimi "Princess Mimi") or Княжна Зизи (Knyazhna Zizi "Princess Zizi") ?.

Since you had identified the variented title, I understand dropping the last two-thirds of this comment, but I wasn't sure why you would drop the part that identified the translator. So I took the liberty of adding that data back in. Chavey 02:36, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Oops. I thought I left that in place. Sorry. Would have caught it on review and then submitted another change. Thanks for fixing it! Anniemod 02:39, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

"Full Dark, No Stars", by Stephen King

I approved your submission importing titles into this book, but I should note that Amazon claims you are missing another story in the collection, "Under the Weather". If that's there, you should add it manually; if not, you should add a note to that effect. And, if you have them, you should add the page numbers. Chavey 06:10, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I think I imported from the wrong publication. Let me verify tomorrow and will submit an update. Thanks Anniemod 06:37, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Иван Вълчев

With the addition of full support for non-Latin author name, I have started working on cleaning up Cyrillic languages. When you get a chance, could you please take a look at Иван Вълчев's Summary page to make sure that the notorious letter "ъ" was handled correctly in this case? The current record is a mix of what was there originally and what I have added since the last patch, so it's a mixed bag. The "Family Name" field, which is only accessible via "Edit Author", also needs to be checked if we want the Author Directory to work correctly. TIA! Ahasuerus 02:04, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

That one looks fine - keep in mind that some names will have ь which is different from ъ. The AD is supposed to remain in Latin script, correct? I've been a bit away for a few days, will go play with the new reports now :) Anniemod 19:44, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Welcome back! Yes, the author directory will remain Latin-based in the foreseeable future. We may create additional, alphabet-specific, directories at some point, but that's a whole different can of worms. Ahasuerus 20:52, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Димитър Пеев

Would you happen to know if "Experiența a reușit" is a translation of "Опитът успя"?

Also, please keep in mind that, as discussed in patch notes:

... there are cases where simply changing the author's canonical name may not be the right things to do. Typically, it has to do with translated titles. Let's use Reki Kawahara's Summary page as an example. At this time we have 17 Japanese titles and 17 English VTs on file. All of them use "Reki Kawahara" as the author's name. If we change the author record to use "川原礫" as the canonical name, it will affect all 34 titles, including the English VTs, which is clearly wrong. What we want to do instead is change the author name associated with the 17 Japanese titles while keeping the current author name associated with the 17 English VTs. We can make the requisite changes in one of two ways:
  • Change the canonical name to "川原礫", then update all English titles to use "Reki Kawahara"
  • Change the author of all English titles to something like "Reki Kawahara (Latin"), then change the main canonical author name to "川原礫", then change the canonical author name of "Reki Kawahara (Latin") to "Reki Kawahara"
[While working on the new cleanup reports I came to the conclusion that the second method is safer. We also need to remember to adjust any affected publication authors.]

I have used this method to split "Димитър Пеев"'s and "Dimităr Peev"'s titles. Hopefully everything looks OK now! Ahasuerus 01:16, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Second method it is then :) Not sure about the translation - the names match and he does not have so many stories. Anniemod 01:37, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Sounds good, I will set up a VT and add a note about its provisional nature. I am also half way through our Bulgarian titles and hope to be done later tonight. We don't have that many of them, comparatively speaking. Ahasuerus 01:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Done. Ahasuerus 03:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Димитри Иванов

Would you happen to know (or be able to look up) whether Димитри Иванов was really born on 1932-01-01? Some sites use "January 1" as a placeholder when the date of birth is unknown and then their bad data spreads across the internet. Ahasuerus 01:53, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The parts they published from his dossier had the same birthday at the top of it. All Bulgarian sources say the same. Either that is the best kept secret in Bulgaria or it is the correct date. So I cannot be 100% sure but it is more likely that this is date than not. Anniemod 02:07, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Updated, thanks! Ahasuerus 02:09, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Светослав Минков

When you get a chance, could you please review this discussion? It's kind of messy... Ahasuerus 02:22, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I love reading short stories but I really hate cataloging collections. :) I posted - it is even messier than these 2 collections - at least 5 in Bulgarian with different content but the same name and with that being his most important story, any collection abroad would be named like that... Anniemod 03:03, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Robert Silverberg once claimed that he deliberately changed the contents of the 1979 (Sphere) edition of Needle in a Timestack in order to confuse bibliographers :-\ Ahasuerus 03:15, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) I have approved the submissions and deleted the French titles that were basically placeholders. For example, we have two French titles for "Asphalte", one as by "Svetoslav Minkov" and the one as by "Светослав Минков". Only the first title actually exists; the second one is a placeholder waiting to be replaced with "Асфалт" (1940). Going forward, please feel free to edit these placeholder titles directly instead of creating a new variant and then deleting the placeholder title. Ahasuerus 19:27, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I just submitted one that was renaming (with a note to the moderator on what I am doing in case I got it wrong) when I realized what was happening when I was realizing - I was getting ready to submit the deletes when you got them off. :) Takes me a while to find the best way to fix things sometimes. Anniemod 19:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
No worries, you are doing fine! I have been working on this project for more than 20 years and maintaining the software for the last 7+ years and I still get confused on occasion :) Ahasuerus 19:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Sergei Snegov

I am afraid I had to "hard reject" your "remove Pseudonym" submission for this author. It was no longer approvable, presumably due to out of order submission processing. I will move the bio data to the main author record next. We are getting close -- thanks for working on this cleanup report! Ahasuerus 18:05, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Another moderator had been helping and fixing the bit of a mess I had managed to create while I was trying to get all submissions though so I can fix it:) Let me ask the question: what would be the preferred way here: what I just did (rename author on all Russian edition, then use the new entry for canonical and main author OR try to keep the original record for canonical and rename author on the latin ones, ask a moderator to change the canonical and the change the new latin name (SnegovLatin for example) back)? I kinda like my way for the Russians - then all that is needed is to get the data into the new record... (translated authors are different). Thoughts? Anniemod 18:10, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Either way is OK, it's just a question of minimizing the number of edits. If it's a 50-50 split, the way you handled Snegov is probably better: there are fewer moving parts, which makes mistakes less likely. Ahasuerus 18:24, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Without making the wrong pseudonym in the middle of course - I was still trying to decide what to do exactly :) I prefer my way for a different reason as well - even if the process is left midway, we do not have a fictious author to confuse people - it still looks incomplete but at least we do not have a non-existing name for someone that just happens to stumble on top of it. I guess it will need to be a decision on a case by case basis.
I am not sure how much time I will have next few days but will be slowing working through this report (nothing else left for me in the others...) :) Anniemod 18:41, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
When the software change was made five weeks ago, we had over 1,800 Cyrillic titles whose authors needed to be changed/reviewed. This morning we were down to 793. Right now we are at 654. We are getting there :) Ahasuerus 18:44, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I know. I had been looking at the numbers :) They will get fixed - until the next software change that sends us all updating them all one more time :) Anniemod 18:47, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Pierre Benoit

I have approved the submissions changing title authors, but please keep in mind that publication authors need to be changed as well, e.g. see this title record and its associated publications. Ahasuerus 23:38, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

I am working through them in some order - I think I got one of the publications already in. :) Anniemod 23:42, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Got a bit distracted earlier today and forgot where I left it off - so was waiting for all the pending to clear so I do not submit the same again :) Sorry. I think I got them all (or at least once these are done, I can see what else I missed) Anniemod 23:49, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
No worries -- one of the nightly cleanup reports finds title/publication author mismatches.
Of course, in an ideal world all publications would have a "reference title" and inherit that title's authors instead of having a separate set of authors. Alas, early on we made certain design decisions which make it impossible. Oh well, perhaps one of these days we'll revisit this issue... Ahasuerus 00:10, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Where would be the fun in that? Nothing showed up on the report I believe so I think I got them all:) Anniemod 19:24, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Note from Wolland

Hi, i've absent but now i'm back. I've replied to your question. Check here. Thanks.Wolland 09:21, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Welcome back :) Responded in your talk page :) Anniemod 15:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

XXXX english

Hello, just to remind you that the titles by "Valery Brussov English" and "Alexander Kazantsev English" will have to be dealt with (they are showing on our cleanup reports for a few days). Thanks for having a look. Hauck 10:31, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I know. However, I had been waiting for a moderator to change canonical names for the last 2 days: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard#Russian_Cannonical_names . As soon as someone changes these, I can fix the English postfixed authors. Anniemod 13:44, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
I didn't realise that it was a moderator-only task. Hopefully it's now done (note that moderators willing to moderate or do such actions are a small subset of the whole, whence some slowness to respond). Hauck 14:10, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
It got changed a few weeks ago - when the patch allowing non Latin canonical names were allowed. I think it was a precaution so that people cannot change the name and mess up hundreds of records :) I know that only a few of the moderators are helping on those - so I had been patient :) Thanks for getting these - will respond over in the moderator board if anything else is needed. Anniemod 14:13, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, my fault. I should have caught it. Ahasuerus 15:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Unidentified parent titles of translated works

FYI, I have changed the following two titles:

First Word (Omni, August 1987): The date was changed from 0000-00-00 to 1987-08-00 and the language was changed from Russian to English.
Author's Note (Plutonia): The date was changed from 0000-00-00 to 1957-00-00 and the language was changed from Russian to English.

Although it seems likely that these essays were originally written in Russian, we don't know if the original texts ever appeared, much less what their Russian titles and dates of publication were. If and when we find this information, we'll update the records. Ahasuerus 15:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I was not sure what to do with those... just wanted to get them to the correct pages before I forget about them and was planning to do some digging to see if I can find the originals (which is why I set the dates to the 0000 year). So in such cases, leave all as is, just change the author. Will remember this for next time. Sometimes varianting is a bit confusing. Thanks! :) Anniemod 15:40, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Darrell Sweet's cover for "Темное солнце"

Your submission would change the author of this COVERART title from "Darrell Sweet" to "Даррелл Свит". Checking the publication record, I see that it says "Cover Artist not credited. Same art as on US editions." Since the artist is not credited, wouldn't we want to use the original author name? Ahasuerus 16:38, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

It is not credited but we know how the name is written in Russian. It comes down to policies I think - as we know who it is, I would have used the Russian name and put a note that it is not credited if I was adding it. If that is not what the current policy is, feel free to reject the change. Would the same apply if it was a Chinese artist? Or Japanese? How would anyone even see who the artist is if they cannot read the alphabet? :) Anniemod 16:42, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
The biggest issue here is that there are many ways to transliterate names and we don't know which version the publisher might have chosen. Even "Darrell Sweet", which seems reasonably straightforward, can be transliterated differently. For example, this Russian edition of Lord of Chaos credits him as "Даррел Свит". Worse, the standard Russian transliteration of Darrell (Antony) Sweet's name is apparently "Дэрел (Энтони) Свит". Once we start the guessing game, we are back in the murky world of transliterations, which we have just escaped from.
Now, if we used the same standard for artists that we use for writers, we would enter "uncredited" and create a VT, but the rules are different because we didn't want to end up with 100,000+ "uncredited" COVERART titles. Ahasuerus 16:55, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, we've got a clear rule in this case: "CREDIT FROM SECONDARY OR NO CREDIT GOES TO CANONICAL".Hauck 16:58, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
I did not guess in this case - I never do for actual names on records. I had never seen the illustrator credited in a different way than Даррелл Свит (one л here and there but two are more prelevant or eventually Д.К. Свит. See https://fantlab.ru/art180 for example. Or https://vk.com/album-86542610_212612236 . Or http://tolkienists.ru/photo/risunki/darrell_svit_risunki/25 . Or even the obituary: https://fantlab.ru/blogarticle17724 I did not come up with it out of a nowhere - I checked the name in the Russian bibliographies and I had seen it printed that way :) In any way - if it is against the rules, then fine. Anniemod 17:07, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Sounds good. I have changed the name from "Darrell Sweet" to "Darrell K. Sweet", the canonical version, "ignored" it on the cleanup report and rejected the submission. Ahasuerus 17:19, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Will remember to do that next time I find one of those. Anniemod 17:21, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
And then comes the search. I am looking for anything from Свит. Neither Свит, not Svit picks up Sweet (for obvious reasons). And yet, we do have a Russian book that someone may find in a search under the proper name. All of the spelling differences are on the first name - the family name never changes and it is not that close to the English one to make the logical jump if you never saw it written in Latin. Just thinking aloud -- haven't been here long enough to understand some of the finer points of the rules.Anniemod 17:16, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, once we start entering Russian publications which use "Даррелл Свит", "Д. К. Свит", etc, these forms of Sweet's name will be added to the database and become searchable. This particular publication, however, doesn't use a Cyrillic form of Sweet's name (or any form, for that matter), so even a "naive" user would have no reason to search for "Свит". Ahasuerus 17:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Not based on that one book - but anyone reading fantasy probably knows his name. But you are right - it will come under the correct name when a book with it is properly added. Will be more careful with uncredited art going forward. The way things are going, I will know all the special cases before I even start adding my books :) Anniemod 17:34, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp

Hello. I have approved your submission, but don't forget to check the language setting when varianting a translation (you had left it on "German"). Thanks, Linguist 09:18, 3 October 2016 (UTC).

You cannot do it while varianting to an existing title - you need two separate submissions when you variant to an existing title. Once it is approved and I am back online, I usually submit the language change. Anniemod 09:28, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
You can't change the language as part of a "Make Variant of an Existing Title" submission, but you can simultaneously create another submission changing the language of the variant title. Ahasuerus 23:55, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

"Z. Bobîr"

I have been thinking about your "Z. Bobîr" submission for the last 20 minutes. My tentative conclusion is that "З. Бобырь", the Russian translator of hundreds of SF stories, will get her own Author page once we have full support for translators. On the other hand, "Z. Bobîr" -- assuming that the two Romanian source credit her correctly -- only exists as a pseudonym of Димитър Пеев. It's rather unlikely that she translated anything into Romanian, so "Z. Bobîr" will never appear in our database in any other context.

If so, then I think the best way to handle this unusual situation would be to set up "Z. Bobîr" as a "Димитър Пеев" pseudonym. I'll invite Linguist to stop by and share his thoughts. Ahasuerus 23:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

I had been wondering since you discovered the explanation if this should be a pseudonym or a new entry.:) I am not sure if that will be the only translation -- but in the meantime, pseudonyming works for me. If down stream we get more works signed this way (not because she ttanslated into Romanian but because someone translated from her works, we can always reverse. We should somehow note on the pseudonym profile the situation though I think. Anniemod 00:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
As far as translations into Romanian are concerned, "Z. Bobîr" is a unique occurrence (a hapax, for a linguist) on Moshul SF, which is fairly complete up to 1991. So using this name, under this Romanian spelling, as a pseudonym of Димитър Пеев seems quite safe. If any trouble arises later, it should not take long to fix it. Linguist 08:21, 9 October 2016 (UTC).
Sounds good. I have set up VTs/pseudonyms and adjusted notes. Another mystery bites the dust! :-) Ahasuerus 16:05, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
While digging for something else, I found a few mentions of Зинаида Бобырь doing translations out from Bulgarian into Russian around that time. So this connection seems 100% sure at this point - why the Romanians used her name is a different story. :) Anniemod 20:31, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

[The] Strange Case...

Hi. I have one of your submissions on hold. It would change Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde: The Strange Case to Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Given the cover image, I'm curious why no "The" and why "and" instead of "&"? On an audio CD, I suppose there may not be a title page to refer to, and we may be forced to go by the cover for want of anything better. --MartyD 00:57, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not see anything on hold - which one is that one? Chances are, I messed up what I was updating :) Ah, I suspect it is [2] - it still does not say on hold btw - if it is on hold, then that seems like a bug in the new update... Back to the publication - copy/paste error and then submitting without fixing what I pasted - I had been fixing a few and apparently got that one messed up. Will cancel and resubmit (and yes, cover wins in this case) Thanks for catching it! Anniemod 01:05, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

The Tenth Kingdom

I rejected your submission to change "Tenth" to "10th" in The Tenth Kingdom: Do You Believe in Magic?. While it is 10th on the cover, the Look Inside on Amazon shows it is Tenth on the title page, and the title page is our standard. BTW, that title page shows no subtitle at all, so maybe a different edit is in order.... --MartyD 01:04, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I know that title page beats cover and I do remember checking this one because it looked weird. :) I think I was planning to cancel it on my own while investigating some more and got distracted Will look at it again and submit it again in the proper form :) Anniemod 01:07, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Web pages for Airmont Books

I accepted your edits to Airmont Books, but if you look at the result, I don't think there's any benefit to having a link to the wiki page as one of the websites. The link to the wiki page is automatically provided below the website list, and it is much more prominent. See what you think. --MartyD 00:24, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Right, but automatically generated Wiki links will disappear once we complete the "Wiki migration" project :) Ahasuerus 00:45, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
So I am doing it correctly - right? If the content stays in the Wiki page (too long or too complicated to move to the notes field, I add it as one of the links so that when we cleanup the wiki, it survives. And I do not mark it for deletion. If I misunderstood the process (as discussed here, let me know and I will start doing it differently. Anniemod 00:59, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly right! Ahasuerus 01:18, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Quick questions: will the reports exclude the ones that are already moved over to the Candidates for Deletion? Or will they only disappear from the lists after a moderator deletes them? Anniemod 01:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I am afraid the reports are not smart enough to look for Wiki templates. BTW, I hope all the great work you have been doing is not interfering with your day job :) Ahasuerus 01:44, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Oh well - will need to wait for a moderator to delete them then:) Just with my insomnia and my reading time (and the unpacking of my library in the new apartment). :) Anniemod 01:55, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Apologies for the brain lapse on my part. Keep up the good work. :-) --MartyD 01:27, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
No worries at all. :) Anniemod 01:30, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Publishers ISBNs

Here are the publisher-specific ISBN counts for 2006-2015 that we discussed earlier today. They include unprioritized and "priority 1" ISBNs. I have removed a number of self-publishing companies starting with CreateSpace. Some are very likely to have many ineligible book, e.g. "Marvel". I started adding comments to some less well-known publishers, but then I ran out of steam.

  • 984:
    • Marvel [comics]
  • 974:
    • Ellora's Cave [mostly second tier romance, some horror etc]
  • 969:
    • Turtleback Books [library editions of major books]
  • 887:
    • Samhain Publishing [mostly second tier romance, some horror etc]
  • 789:
    • ReadHowYouWant [large print]
  • 750:
    • HarperCollins
  • 670:
    • Stone Arch Books [mostly juveniles, often for the library market]
  • 543:
    • The Echo Library [classic reprints]
  • 486: [classic reprints]
    • Fantasy and Horror Classics
  • 456:
    • Random House
  • 449:
    • DC Comics [comics]
  • 431:
    • Scholastic Paperbacks
  • 416:
    • Whiskey Creek Press
  • 401:
    • Scholastic
  • 397:
    • Paw Prints [library editions]
  • 395:
    • IDW Publishing [graphic novels]
  • 380:
    • Smashwords
  • 344:
    • Pocket Books
  • 333:
    • Dark Horse Comics [comics]
  • 323:
    • Puffin
  • 310:
    • Berkley Books
  • 305:
    • Scholastic Inc.
  • 289:
    • Tor
  • 285:
    • Webster's Digital Services
  • 281:
    • Thorndike Press [large print editions]
  • 272:
    • Grosset & Dunlap
    • San Val [library editions]
    • Wildside Press
  • 266:
    • Perfection Learning [perfectbound books, I think]
  • 257:
    • VIZ Media: SHONEN JUMP [manga and possibly some light novels]
  • 255:
    • Penguin Books
  • 254:
    • Carina Press [romance, digital-first imprint from Harlequin]
  • 252:
    • Wizards of the Coast
  • 243:
    • HarperCollins e-books
  • 238:
    • Signet / New American Library
  • 235:
    • WestBow Press [division of Thomas Nelson]
  • 234:
    • Routledge [academic books]
  • 231:
    • Spotlight
  • 223:
    • Hard Press
  • 221:
    • Dover Publications [the premier US publisher of inexpensive classics]
  • 216:
    • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • 213:
    • Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
  • 206:
    • Permuted Press [mostly horror and post-apocalypse]
  • 201:
    • Linford [mostly large print]
  • 199:
    • Disney Press
  • 197:
    • Candlewick Press
  • 187:
    • Harlequin
  • 180:
    • McFarland & Company
  • 178:
    • Pinnacle Books
    • Vertigo [mostly graphic novels]
  • 169:
    • Baen
    • Del Rey
  • 167:
    • Capstone Press
  • 158:
    • Curiosity Quills Press
    • Oxford University Press
  • 153:
    • Franklin Watts Ltd
  • 151:
    • Bantam
  • 147:
    • Mongoose Publishing
  • 146:
    • Dark Horse [mostly comics]
    • Orchard Books
  • 145:
    • Vintage
  • 144:
    • HarperCollins Children's Books
  • 142:
    • Picture Window Books
  • 140:
    • Center Point Large Print
  • 139:
    • White Wolf Publishing
  • 137:
    • Champagne Books
    • Simon & Schuster
    • The History Press
  • 136:
    • JMS Books LLC
    • Jove Books
    • Oxford University Press, USA
    • Untreed Reads Publishing
  • 133:
    • BOOM! Studios
  • 131:
    • Forgotten Books
  • 129:
    • Open Road Integrated Media [mostly reprints of major 1970-2010 books]
  • 127:
    • Orion
  • 125:
    • Goodman Games
    • PageTurner
  • 123:
    • British Library, Historical Print Editions
    • Gypsy Shadow Publishing
  • 122:
    • Image Comics
    • Raintree Publishers (UK)
  • 120:
    • HarperFestival
  • 119:
    • Kodansha Comics
    • Steck-Vaughn
  • 118:
    • Cambridge University Press
  • 117:
    • Hodder & Stoughton
  • 116:
    • Page Publishing Inc
  • 115:
    • Schiffer Publishing
    • SynergEbooks
    • Yearling
  • 114:
    • Ballantine Books
  • 113:
    • Wheeler Publishing
  • 112:
    • Chronicle Books
    • Harper
  • 111:
    • Grosvenor House Publishing
    • HardPress Publishing
  • 110:
    • Palgrave Macmillan
    • Usborne Publishing Ltd
  • 109:
    • Gollancz / Orion
  • 108:
    • Papercutz
  • 107:
    • Grand Central Publishing
  • 104:
    • ICON Group International, Inc.
    • The Education Center, Inc.
  • 103:
    • Disney/Hyperion Books
    • LEONAUR
    • Purple Sword Publications
    • Ulverscroft Large Print Books
  • 102:
    • Albert Whitman & Company
    • Crimson Romance
    • Wiley
  • 100:
    • Alfred A. Knopf
    • Minotaur Books
  • 99:
    • Hyperion Books
    • Kensington Books
    • RH/Disney
  • 98:
    • Forge
    • Humanoids Inc
    • Pocket Star Books
  • 97:
    • AUK Authors
    • Delacorte Press
  • 96:
    • Athena Press
    • Titan Books
  • 95:
    • Archie Comics
  • 94:
    • DAW Books
    • Editorial Bruno
  • 93:
    • Henry Holt
    • Intl Business Pubns USA
    • Katherine Tegen Books
    • Mirador Publishing
    • Scholastic Press
  • 92:
    • Crow Press
  • 91:
    • Mundania Press
    • St. Martin's Press
  • 90:
    • Astraea Press
    • Bluewood Publishing Ltd
  • 89:
    • VIZ Media LLC [mostly manga and comics]
  • 88:
    • St. Martin's Griffin
  • 87:
    • Farrar, Straus and Giroux
    • HarperTeen
    • Rogue Phoenix Press
  • 84:
    • Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
    • St. Martin's Paperbacks
  • 83:
    • Cornell University Library
  • 82:
    • Graphic Universe TM
    • Liquid Comics
    • Magic Wagon
    • VIZ Media: VIZ Select
  • 81:
    • Greenwillow Books / HarperCollins
    • Melange Books, LLC
    • Riptide Publishing
    • Wild Child Publishing
  • 79:
    • Decadent Publishing
  • 78:
    • Green Ronin Publishing
    • RHCP Digital
    • Titan
  • 77:
    • Tutis Digital Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
    • Zatpix Re-Packaged Edition
  • 76:
    • Ravenous Romance
    • Thomas Nelson
    • Zondervan
  • 75:
    • Classroom Complete Press
    • Dark Horse Books
    • House of Stratus
    • Scholar's Choice
    • Telemachus Press
  • 74:
    • Games Workshop [Warhammer novels]
    • Graphic Universe
    • HarperPerennial Classics
    • Seventh Star Press
    • Sterling Publishing
  • 73:
    • Aladdin
    • Diversion Books
    • Dog Ear Publishing, LLC
  • 72:
    • 47North
    • Phaze Books
    • Trijjonue Books
    • WolfSinger Publications
  • 71:
    • DK CHILDREN
    • For Dummies
    • Little, Brown
  • 70:
    • Atheneum Books for Young Readers
    • Golden Books
    • Osprey Publishing
    • Silhouette
  • 69:
    • Dorling Kindersley
    • G. P. Putnam's Sons
    • ImaJinn Books
    • Llewellyn Publications
    • Orca Book Publishers
    • Simon Spotlight
    • ValdeBooks
    • Brighter Child
    • Gunsmoke Westerns
  • 67:
    • Barron's Educational Series
  • 66:
    • Disney Lucasfilm Press
    • Random House Australia
  • 65:
    • Atria Books
    • SMK Books
    • Sybex
  • 64:
    • New Generation Publishing
  • 63:
    • Apress
    • Balboa Press
    • E-BookTime, LLC
    • Faber and Faber
    • Forever More Publishing
    • McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
    • Packt Publishing
  • 62:
    • Partridge Publishing India
    • Raintree Paperbacks
    • Skyview Books
  • 61:
    • Babelcube Inc.
    • Black Opal Books
    • Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc
    • Kingfisher
  • 60:
    • Book View Café
    • Cedar Fort
    • Course Technology
    • Hodder Children's Books
    • Simon Pulse
  • 59:
    • CosmicBlueCB
    • Rosen Central
    • Simon & Schuster UK
    • VIZ Media: Shonen Sunday
  • 58:
    • Amulet Books
    • Dundurn
    • Orbit
    • Pook Press
    • Robinson
    • Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
  • 57:
    • Black Rose Writing
    • Book Country
    • Boroughs Publishing Group
    • Chelsea House
    • Macmillan Children's Books
    • Mira
    • RosettaBooks
    • Wordsworth Editions
  • 56:
    • Alfred Publishing
    • Bookstand Publishing
    • Circlet Press
    • KidPub Press
    • Obscure Press
    • Raider Publishing International
    • Usborne Books
  • 55:
    • Aeterna
    • Blushing Books Publications
    • Cinebook, Ltd
    • Crabtree Publishing Company
    • Dark Hollows Press, LLC
    • Ladybird Books
    • Oni Press
    • Partridge Publishing Singapore
    • Rosen Publishing Group
    • TWB Press
    • Templar Publishing
    • TheClassics.us
    • Wrox
  • 54:
    • AmazonEncore
    • Beachwalk Press, Inc.
    • Cosimo Classics
    • Dales Large Print
    • Dell
    • Pottermore Ltd
    • Roaring Brook Press
    • Scribner
    • Waking Lion Press
    • Zebra Books / Kensington Publishing Corp.
  • 53:
    • DC
    • DK Publishing
    • Fireborn Publishing
    • Graphic Library
    • Music And Press
    • Pen Press
    • Summerhouse Publishing
  • 52:
    • BURST
    • Barefoot Books
    • Bold Strokes Books [lesbian]
    • Center Point Publishing
    • Intelligent Life Books
    • InterMix
    • Kindle Worlds
    • Red Sage Publishing
  • 51:
    • Adegi Graphics LLC
    • Corgi
    • Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc.
    • LB Kids
    • Night Shade Books
    • Queerteen Press
    • Rising Stars UK Ltd.
    • Turquoise Morning Press
    • Warne
    • Writer's Exchange E-Publishing
  • 50:
    • BalboaPress
    • Bantam Spectra
    • Club Lighthouse Publishing
    • Escape Publishing - Harlequin Enterprises, Australia Pty Ltd
    • Rebellion Publishing Limited
    • Storm Moon Press LLC
    • Strict Publishing International
    • Walker Books (UK)
    • Yen Press
  • Smaller
    • Fairwood Press
    • Tartarus Press
    • PS Publishing

Please let me know if you would like to see more publishers. Ahasuerus 01:43, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of Publisher ISBNs

Let's start somewhere then. :) Anniemod 01:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good! I have created a new section to keep edits more manageable. Ahasuerus 02:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

If you can get me the ISBNs for Night Shade Books (which is almost exclusively genre so that should be almost straightforward an is a good place to start anyway) and one of the Comics ones (Marvel is as good start as any) (as these will be almost all ignores so should be fast enough - if that will be useful - if it will make a lot more work for you, then don't worry, I can hit more likely targets first), I can start working on them. Do you mind posting them here: ISBN List page? Anniemod 01:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Will do! Also, please keep in mind that Fixer's data has been captured over the course of the last 8 years. Sometimes his data, e.g. e-book prices, is better than what is currently available online. Other times it's worse. Once you process a few different publishers, you will start seeing patterns. Some publishers present unique challenges, e.g. some publish two versions of each book: one a manga and the other one a light novel. Etc. Ahasuerus 02:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
See - these are probably the ones I will not touch - I have no clue what a light novel is and I hate manga (except a few special cases). Anniemod 02:20, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Light novels are short and somewhat simplified Japanese novels. They may contain anywhere from a few to a couple dozen illustrations, but they are novels, not manga. There are almost invariably multiple numbered volumes. They have become very popular lately, with many crossovers with manga/anime, English translations, etc.
SF-flavored light novels are eligible for inclusion, but they present certain problems. The biggest one is that some US publishers like Yen On publish two versions of the same series: one for manga readers and one for light novel readers. What's worse is that they frequently use nearly identical covers, so you can't tell whether it's a manga or a light novel unless you look inside. And then, of course, you have to find the original title, but we have editors like Nihonjoe who can help with that. Ahasuerus 02:46, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation :) I think I am going to stay away from these for a bit. Enough others to work on anyway. Anniemod 02:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I may have questions if I am not sure what something needs to be - as you may have noticed, I had not done that many new additions - so chances are that I may have questions. Anniemod 02:20, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

And if you have anything trapped by Fairwood Press, Tartarus Press or PS Publishing, you can get me these as well (any time any of them show up) :) Anniemod 01:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I see 3 Fairwood Press ISBNs. I will post them once I tweak Fixer's output code. Also, please note that Amazon's records for PS Publishing books tend to be unusually low quality. Thankfully, the publisher has a pretty good Web site. Ahasuerus 02:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I know about PS Publishing - they are a favorite publisher of mine (unfortunately I seem to have a lot of favorites).:) Anniemod 02:20, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, Fairwood Press, Tartarus Press and PS Publishing are done. As I mentioned earlier, Fixer's data for PS Publishing is unusually poor, but it's a starting point.
It sounds like Marvel may not be a very good place to start since it will require checking hundreds of ISBNs in order to determine whether the books may be prose novels. It's a lot of work and I suspect that it would be time-consuming if you are not familiar with the comics scene.
I will handle Night Shade Books tomorrow. Ahasuerus 03:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I will work on these 3 tonight then:) Thanks! As for comics - would not have asked if I was not familiar with the scene. I suspect I can eliminate half by just checking against the ISBNs in my "GN + Collected Comics" collection :) But as I said - I can start elsewhere, get back to the big comics guys later. Anniemod 03:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Oh. Sorry about jumping to conclusions! We can certainly try a comics publisher, but we'll need to keep track of the rejected ISBNs so that I could go back and update Fixer's database after the fact. Ahasuerus 03:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
:) I actually laughed here when you assumed it. Not the first time, not the last -- women rarely collect comics (or read them). Or understand anything from programming. Was wondering if I want to just post what I wanted or take a picture of my short boxes (the TPBs are in boxes after the move so harder to take a picture that shows anything) :). Anniemod 04:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Oh no, it's not that. It's just that when you said that you didn't like manga, I assumed that you didn't like all types of graphic material. Ahasuerus 04:26, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
And now I jumped to conclusions. Sorry :) I love European and US style comics; I really cannot see what people see in manga (and anime). Tastes - we all have them I guess. Anniemod 04:36, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
My exposure to manga has been limited, so I can't really venture any guesses. On the anime side, which I am somewhat familiar with, there is an enormous spectrum from "cute kids doing cute things" to very complex multi-layered SF stories. And, of course, with more than 10,000 anime out there, Sturgeon's Law applies in spades. Ahasuerus 16:47, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
It is not the stories, I just do not like the art. It is too... uniform. There a few I would read for the story but the art is very distracting. I do not like abstract art, if it is a tree, make it look like one. So I like styles that are more... realistic. Anniemod 19:12, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I was thinking of starting a new page (Rejected) so you can grab them from there any time you want (and I can move there anything I do not add). Anniemod 04:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea! Ahasuerus 04:26, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Will do. And one of the Tartarus books is here but with the ISBN of another one(on their site both have the same ISBN). I mailed them, will figure out where the error is and fix these two. I might even crawl the site and work through their whole list at some point to clear other things like that. I will probably start a "problematic" list as well so I can keep notes. Anniemod 04:36, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
BTW, once all Wiki-based Series, Publisher and Publication pages have been moved to the database side (or linked from the database side), I plan to add new Author fields for Bibliographic Notes and Biographies. Of course, that will mean more Wiki-based pages to migrate :-) Ahasuerus 03:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Then translators (which will mean moving from notes which is worse) :) I am fine with helping with the housekeeping tasks in the DB. As long as the moderators do not get too tired approving all that is ;) Anniemod 04:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) Oops! The PS Publishing URLs link to Amazon.com rather than to Amazon UK. Sorry about that! I will fix them tomorrow once my brain is functional. Ahasuerus 04:15, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Naah - I can get to Amazon UK on my own - don't worry. As long as I know which books are missing, I am fine finding them. Anniemod 04:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Why suspicious ISBN on Carrie? King. I even have this edition :) Somewhere in the boxes - should find it before New Year (I hope). Anniemod 05:09, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
The reason I thought it might be suspicious was that the record existed on the Amazon.com side, but not on the Amazon UK side. In most cases it indicates a cancelled ISBN which hasn't been removed from one of the databases, but it's not a guarantee.
For some reason Amazon's data for certain publishers is much spottier than average. Over the years I have learned to recognize subtle signs, but it's more of an art than a science. I recommend reading this section on "Moderating Automated Submissions" -- it doesn't cover everything, but it's a start. Ahasuerus 12:51, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Will read that. :) For Carrie - no idea why it is missing in Amazon.co.uk... Being put of print kinda makes it non-urgent to check why but I may send a question to ask them why not.
One note on Tartarus - we do have those books but not these ISBNs - they belong to other books that we are missing. There is a bit of a confusion both in Amazon and on the publisher site. I am working with Ray to get them cleared in his site as well and make sure the proper ISBNs are in the proper places. Anniemod 19:12, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Excellent! Ahasuerus 19:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

(unindent)The Night Shade Books list has been posted. I have also added a "magic word" to the top of the page to ensure that it will always have a "+" displayed up top. Ahasuerus 00:26, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I was wondering how it showed up :) Thanks. Anniemod 02:40, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) The Night Shade books are done (except for 3 that I want to do some more digging to see what they are exactly). Fairwood Press is done. Tartarus is a bit of a mess so will take a while to untangle. PS Publishing is mostly done as well - will be finishing the rest in a bit. When you have a chance, you may want to send over some more ISBNs. Any of the following will be fine:

  • Orbit
  • Tor
  • Baen
  • Del Rey
  • Gollancz / Orion
  • Forge
  • DAW Books

Or any other really - but you ask me to chose a publisher, so here is a list.:) And/or one of the comics guys so I can start getting them off the queue. Thanks! Anniemod 00:32, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Great! Let me see what I can do with Orbit. There appears to be a discrepancy between the numbers that I posted above and what I am seeing in the queue. It could be a bug in Fixer's report, but I'll get you the list one way or another soon. Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:48, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
I do not really mind the numbers - picked these because I know the names and they publish in the genre proper. But if any other publisher is faster to get a list for, it is fine as well. Anniemod 00:53, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
OK then, 170 ISBNs have been posted! Some of them look like cancelled or at least "skeleton" records and may require additional TLC. Also, please keep in mind that we have two publisher records for Orbit: "Orbit" for UK-published books and "Orbit (US)" for US-published books. I believe they are separate operations. Ahasuerus 01:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
Ha, that should keep me busy for a bit. After a quick look - I am seeing a lot of ebooks for books we have (as was with Night Shade) and a few that will need some digging. And they look mostly UK published but will keep an eye for the difference. Thanks! Anniemod 01:24, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
The ones that Fixer thought were US-published are linked to amazon.com and have $ prices. It's possible that Fixer was wrong, of course. Also, some shorter e-books are apparent e-serializations. Here is an example of how we usually handle them. Ahasuerus 01:41, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
Figured that Fixer is helping this way :) Kindle books it is easy to check - the paper ones are usually researchable as well.. :) For the serialization - thanks for the example. I saw Parker's -- same work, two publishers (one for US, one for UK) - was planning to post over at the Help Desk and ask if someone has a handy example. That is crying for a help page though :) Anniemod 01:46, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
True. It's a relatively recent development, so the standard is still somewhat uncertain, but that's what we have been doing for the most part. Feel free to propose an addition to the Help pages! Ahasuerus 02:04, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
I will - as soon as I do a couple of them so I can see what is confusing for me - so I can insist on it making it into the help page :) Anniemod 02:34, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Fixer: Rejected ISBNs

Question: Do you need a reason for the rejections or is this enough Rejected List? Anniemod 19:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

That's a good question. Perhaps recording the rejection reason may be best in case I have follow-up questions, at least for now. For example, "announced but unpublished" ISBNs can be entered into the database using 8888-00-00, which may make sense in certain cases. Ahasuerus 21:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
OK - page changed. How about this? Last column is for tracking what is already ignored (unless if we decide we just delete lines I guess then I will remove it). Or use it so you can ask questions if you have any for me or add more notes or whatever. Anniemod 21:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Looks good, thanks! I'll go ahead and create a script to grab the ISBNs from the "Rejected" page and change their status to "Rejected" in Fixer's database. Ahasuerus 22:23, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Have fun. If any format changes will make it easier to grab, let me know. Anniemod 22:36, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
The script is operational; the 10 rejected ISBNs have been processed. Life is good! Ahasuerus 02:43, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Dates in notes

Things look good so far, but I would recommend using the YYYY-MM-DD standard for dates. Not only does it make things consistent, it also helps avoid transatlantic confusion. Ahasuerus 18:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

That was me being lazy and copying the format from the other field. Will correct that :) Anniemod 19:01, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Page counts and ebooks

Hi. I don't know how clearly this is documented anywhere, but for ebooks that are not paginated (no page numbers), we leave the Pages field blank. If a page count is given (e.g., by Amazon), we record that as "printed page length" in the pub notes. When you clone a print edition to make an ebook edition, it's one of the things you need to remember to change. I will fix any I notice as I approve them, so just something to keep in mind for the future.

If you clone (or import from) something with contents, where the pages are numbered in the print edition you're cloning, but not in the ebook, a handy trick is to keep the page numbers and simply add "|" to the front of each. This preserves the order from the print edition but keeps the numbers invisible. --MartyD 22:18, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, I will keep that in mind. Although I am not redoing the one that are in the queue - I will fix them after they are accepted if it is still there - not redoing all of them again from scratch though. I would argue that any Kindle book from the last at least 4 years have pagination though - which may match a printed edition or not. But that is for a discussion how to handle these. I'll keep it blank for now. :) Anniemod 22:23, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
I think I got the last one I just did (In the Shadow of the Towers: Speculative Fiction in a Post-9/11 World) properly set on both things. Let me know if I am still missing something (if you get a chance to see it). Anniemod 22:45, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
It's like magic! I write notes here, changed submissions matching the notes appear in the queue! :-) Looks good. The invisible page numbers trick is one of my favorites. I only removed the page counts (and added notes). I did not attempt to research the numbering on the contents (I am not suggesting you do so, either -- it would be a lot of work for little value, in my opinion). --MartyD 23:25, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
I find it more productive to change whatever I am doing wrong than to dig my heels in and do whatever I came up as a plan and make more work for everyone. :) If I cannot find the numbering fast enough - a PV one day will need to add. We do only as much as possible, right? I knew about the invisible pages - I've used that in some magazines with multiple elements on the same page - I just did not think of it for this usage. So thanks for the tip :) Anniemod 23:30, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

PS Publishing - 2016

Originally I limited Fixer's dump of the PS Publishing ISBNs to 2006-2015. I have now added another 23 ISBNs for 2016. Hopefully, it won't be too much trouble! Ahasuerus 14:56, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I will work through them as well :) Anniemod 23:31, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Weird Heroes #8

Hi. I admit to moderating without my glasses, but it looks to me like one of the two verified pubs for Weird Heroes, Volume 8 in fact uses a comma (the other one uses a colon). I don't doubt that they're likely the same, but since the pub would have to be edited, too, you should check with Ron (User_talk:Rtrace) to make sure there's no comma used. --MartyD 03:13, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

You are right - somehow I saw them as the same - need to have my glasses checked. Thanks for catching it! If it was changed, it will pop on the pub/title mismatch report for the other one and I would have caught it. Anniemod 03:16, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Keep in mind that the pub-title mismatch report ignores most punctuation characters, so it's not well positioned to catch minor differences. It was coded that way to let us concentrate on major discrepancies first. Now that the major issues have been mostly addressed, we can start tightening up the logic. Ahasuerus 15:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I've forgotten that :) In that case I was converting the 8 -> Eight. Which is consistent for both verified copies. But I did miss the punctuation difference so cancelled it and will think a bit more on how to untangle. It almost looks like we need to tighten not just the script but the rules as well. :) Anniemod 18:04, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Kontaktversuche

When you have a minute, could you please review this discussion? It's about a German anthology of Bulgarian stories. TIA! Ahasuerus 14:11, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Sure. Will look at that tonight - traveling day today. Anniemod 15:57, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Varianting

Hello, as our expert on titles with strange letters in them, can you have a look at this pseudonym that has titles to be varianted. I've found one or two by translating german into english and seeing if it matches, but it's not a very bibliographically-sound method! Thanks. Hauck 08:49, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Only European strange - the Asian strange are unreadable for me :) Absolutely - let me finish my detective work in the German anthology I had been working on (with the Bulgarian authors) and I will get this one sorted out. May be tomorrow though - it is getting a bit late here :) Anniemod 08:53, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, no haste to have as I'm not sure that the cleanup report where they appear is being very much looked at. Hauck 08:57, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
It is a moderator only one (or I would have been all over it as I am all over all that I can see) :) Anniemod 08:58, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
OK, I think I got them all. :) Anniemod 09:16, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Great, thanks. Hauck 10:16, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
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