User talk:Chavey/Archive/2010

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This page is an archive of the User_talk:Chavey page. Please do not change the archived discussions below.


Welcome!

Hello, Chavey/Archive/2010, 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!Kraang 00:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Jim Lawrence

Welcome Chavey. I approved your updated to the author Jim Lawrence's data record but then changed the legal name from "James Duncan Lawrence" to "Lawrence, James Duncan" per Help:Screen:AuthorData.

Also, you had entered the birth date as "1918." ISFDB needs this formatted as 1918-00-00.

Is this the same author that wrote many of the Tom Swift stories? --Marc Kupper|talk 05:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I've updated the date of birth for Lawrence to 22 October 1918, added the place of birth, and death date based on this biography. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting those beginner errors on the legal name and birth date. And yes, this is the guy who wrote all those Tom Swift stories, which ISFDB incorrectly attributes to Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.

Tor Doubles

Neither of the publications you submitted edits for are an Omnibus. Please see [this Help Page] under Pub Type for the definitions. Since neither of the stories in either publication are of Novel length the pubs are properly designated as Anthologies. As for adding to the title records a note that they are Tor Doubles, it isn't necessary as that note is already existing at the publication record level. Also, if some other publisher re-printed the same double under a different imprint the note would no longer be true, as there can be only one title record regardless of how many times a title gets printed. --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

: Amazing Science Fiction, November 1972, notifying verifiers

Thanks for finding the artist attribution error in this pub. I might note that it is good form to inform the verifiers of pub changes and perhaps even better form to notify active editors when you find an error and allow them to do the update. That way they are justly punished for their errors by being forced to dig through their collections to verify the data. Thanks.--swfritter 18:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I'm a beginner, and I'll try to remember that. May I ask, how should I handle the following "correction". A cover of an issue of Galaxy has an artist's signature on the cover, which is not noted as such. Well, that's not really an error, because many copies of that issue were printed somewhat off-register, so that the artist's signature doesn't appear. This error occurs in the scanned cover included on ISFDB. I presume I should submit an alternate scan, but how would I note this? And how do I notify the verifiers of this "pseudo error"? Thanks Chavey 04:03, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
The quickest way to access and editor's talk page from a verified pub is to click on their link in verification status. This will lead to their main page. Under This Page click on Post a Comment. You can edit notes field for the pub and state the information about the "error". Generally, but not always, you can determine whether an editor is still active by noting whether they have replied to any messages recently. For documentation purposes it is still a good idea to notify the editor of changes made or proposed. Go ahead and make the change if you do not hear from them. See Help for information on uploading images.--swfritter 12:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Tiptree's Star Songs of an Old Primate

You want to add a note to the first printing that the "Second printing specifies February 1979". Did you mean that the second printing states that it's date is February 1979 or that the first printing should be dated February 1979"? It appears that you wish to add a second printing to this title. If so, create a new record by cloning the first printing and make any changes based on the book in hand if you're in possession of the second printing. (See How to Clone). Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Since I've not received a response to my inquiry, I've rejected the submission. If you intended to record information for a second printing of this title, please clone the first printing (link to instructions above.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I haven't quite figured out how to "respond" to inquiries. I've decided that I need to spend some time reading the various aspects of the documentation before I attempt to contribute to the DB. And I have to start by figuring out how the documentation works, e.g. since some of it is self-contradictory, or scattered across various non-obvious locations. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chavey (talk • contribs) .
Yes, the help pages could be confusing and sometimes ambiguous. If you need assistance, you can ask at the help desk. There's a link above in the Welcome section about how to edit these wiki pages. Mhhutchins 18:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Pub. Series vs. Title Series

Hi. I approved your submission of The Phantom and Barnabas Collins, and I had to make one change to it. I'm sorry, this is very confusing, but the "Pub. Series" info you see when adding or editing a publication is for an individual publisher's set of books (usually not directly related by content). Something like Ballantine Adult Fantasy or ACE Doubles. The other kind of series, where each story is related to the other stories -- independent of publisher(s) -- is what the ISFDB calls a "Title Series". That cannot be provided when entering or editing a publication. Instead, it has to be added to the title (e.g., on The Phantom and Barnabas Collins), which you can get to by clicking on the link labeled "Title Reference" when you're viewing the publication's details.

So in this case, "Dark Shadows" is a Title Series. I moved "Dark Shadows" and "10" from the publication to the title, putting it into this title series. I hope that makes sense. Thanks for the contribution! --MartyD 23:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Saw your response on my talk page. I figured I'd respond here to keep everything together (it's usually best to reply in place to comments -- the people who leave them should be watching for your response). Here's the recipe you would have followed to add The Phantom and Barnabas Collins and have it end up in the title series:
  1. Add the New Novel as you did (not specifying anything for Pub. Series)
  2. Once that addition was approved, search for the TITLE (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1143568)
  3. Use "Edit Title Data" while sitting on that page.
  4. In the screen that comes up, you can enter the (title) series info.
If you click on that link in step #2 and do Edit Title Data from the menu at the left, you'll see the series info that I moved there. I hope that helps. --MartyD 01:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

"Born to Exile" by Phyllis Eisenstein

I saw your note on User:Rtrace. FYI, User pages are used by users to describe themselves or their work here. User talk pages are used to communicate with people. i therefore moved your note to User talk:Rtrace, where he will be more likely to see it. However, I then looked up the works in question. The item in the "fiction series" section is for Born to Exile a novel. There is also an entry for a collection with the same title, probably containing a short story by this same title which was expanded into the novel. (The Wikipedia article says that parts of the novel were first published in F&SF). The collection entry is incomplete, and needs contents and publication details. If you have a copy of the collection, I can help you enter them. I do not own this collection myself. -DES Talk 22:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC) (Please repond on User talk:Rtrace to keep the discussion in one place. i have copied this msg there. -DES Talk 22:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC))

Fleet of Atlantis

The page count on the hardcover came from [here]. Did a quick check when you submitted and should have informed you of the source. Apologies! --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Great! I had cloned the paperback, and in reviewing it I thought I had made a mistake by not deleting the page count from the paperback. I didn't want to end up claiming data that I didn't actually know. Chavey
The BLIC is a great resource, even their minimal records are quite good and they often will have records for multiple editions of the same title. [Home page]. If using an ISBN to search, always remove any hyphens. Every once in awhile their automated server will ask for a user number. I just reload the main page and continue. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I like using the BLIC also, for many of the same reasons. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to search on their 'system number" which is their number identifying a specific record in their db/ If there is a way to do that I wash someone would tell me. It would make BLIC verification reasonable, IMO. -DES Talk 02:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
You have to use the Advanced Search and then in the drop-down is the option to use the system number. --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Ah, thank you. No buildable URL I suppose. Still that may make a BLIC verification type worth adding. I'll think about it. -DES Talk 03:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Chris Martindale / T. Chris Martindale

How certain are you that the writer of a single franchised fantasy novel in the eighties is the same author who wrote the horror novels in the nineties? Any primary or secondary source for the information? Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Submission rejected due to no response. Please resubmit if you feel this was rejected in error. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins
Hmm, I thought I had responded, but I guess not. The only evidence I have is that The web site for FictionDB claims that they are the same author. Usually that site is pretty good, but I've been unable to find any other evidence to support their conclusion. Chavey 22:05, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Once I got past all of the ads, which seems to be the main purpose for fictiondb.com, there is very little evidence they're the same author, and that the listing for Duel of the Masters as by "T. Chris Martindale" may be their mistaken merge of the names. (It was published as by "Chris Martindale".) We'll keep them separate until further evidence arises. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:43, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


Ipomoea / The Brass Dragon

I accepted the updated submission for this pub, but I don't believe the number on the spine should be considered the SBN. It appears to be a publisher's catalog number, and would not convert to an ISBN if a checksum digit were added (that's usually the test of whether a number is an SBN.) Ace's publisher ID is 441 and that would have to be part of it to be an converted from an SBN to an ISBN. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

the -060 is almost surely a price code, since the cover price is $0.60. That leaves the catalog number as "020-37250" If this were an SBN, the ISBN would be "0020372507" which seems not to be an ISBN for any published book. -DES Talk 22:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that it isn't a SBN. We could put the full catalog number in the Catalog ID field, if desired. The covers have simply "37250" which is what we used in the Catalog ID field prior to publication series. Now that we can track the abbreviated number there, we could use the expanded number from the spine. Or, we could just leave it in the notes. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 23:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
"-60" is definitely the price in cents, a common practice at the time. "#37250" seems like the best choice for the Catalog ID. Ahasuerus 03:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Cary Neeper

Your proposed author data update to Cary Neeper included a link to the author image http://www.caryneeper.com/images/Caryglassesoff-210.jpg. However the site http://www.caryneeper.com/ carries a copyright notice and no indication of permission to link to or reuse images from the site. As ISFDB:Image linking permissions says, we don't image-link to sites without explicit or clear implicit permission. For a book cover, I would suggest uploading a copy of the image to our own site. But the legal rules which make this ok for book covers do not apply in the same way to more general images, and I don't see a good case for fair use here.

I am accordingly going to approve the submission, but edit the author record to remove the image link. it can be restored if you get permission to hot-link to it, or it can be uploaded here if you get permission to copy it or can make a plausible case for Fair use. ---DES Talk 06:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like the right decision to me. I'll be more careful to check for copyright permissions in the future. Chavey 00:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. For book covers, sticking to the whitelist in ISFDB:Image linking permissions usually works. Author photos are trickier, unfortunately. When an author has a wikipedia page, they may have a freely licensed photo. Thanks for your contributions. -DES Talk 13:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Biographies

When you create or edit a Bio page, please start it with {{BioHeader}}. This will put our standard header for biographies on the page. Thank you. -DES Talk 02:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Dang, I did it once, and then forgot to do it today. Thanks for the reminder. I'm still a newby. Chavey 02:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
No problem that's how we learn here, and people still remind me when i forget things. -DES Talk 02:56, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding a link in a notefield

I approved your edit to 2150 A.D.. You tried to add a link to this site to the title's synopsis, but there's a difference between linking in the ISFDB-wiki and in the database. You should have used <a HREF="link">text</a>, where link is the internet adress and text is the text you want to show. Want to try again? --Willem H. 18:09, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks much for the help! I made the relevant correction. Chavey 21:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Approved. Better like this. --Willem H. 06:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Sources for biographies

When noting sources for Bio pages, there is no need to use a separate Author page. Instead, use the {{Note}} and {{Ref}} templates (adapted and simplified from Wikipedia) to provide footnotes. They way to use them is:

  1. Each source note (or other footnote) should be in a separate paragraph, starting with {{Note|<nn>}}, where <nn> represents the note number, starting at 1 and going up to as many notes as are needed.
  2. In the body of the biography, where reference is made to the contents of a note, insert {{Ref|<nn>}} where <nn> represents the number of the corresponding note.

See Help:Contents/Purpose#Sources and the template pages linked above for more details.

I have edited some of your recently create Bio pages to use this form, including Bio:Wendayne Ackerman‎, Bio:Frances Acton‎, and Bio:Francis A. Adams. ---DES Talk 17:09, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks much, that makes a lot of sense. What about listing sources of the other biographical data, such as true names, birth/death dates, etc? I have three other Author pages I created that I used for those purposes: Author:Tulis Abrojal, Author:Jeanne Adriel, and Author:Agricola. Do they belong there, or should they go elsewhere? (And can you delete the empty Author pages left over from those three Bio corrections?) Chavey 03:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Sources for any info in a biography page can be documented via the same mechanism. Documenting sources is really a good idea that we should do more often. When we do it, it is better that the documentation go on the same page as the info, using the ref/note method. This can apply to any page -- when we list info on a Publisher page, say, or a Series page, we can document the source in this same way.
Author:Tulis Abrojal could use the note/ref method, but given that it is essentially a single giant note, and is not documenting any other wiki page as I understand it, there seems no need to. If soemone were to create Bio:Tulis Abrojal, then maybe this would be moved there as a note. Author:Jeanne Adriel also seems fine to me. So does Author:Agricola. None of these is serving as a note to any other wiki page. If more info were added to either, the sources might usefully move down into a note.
Thanks. -DES Talk 15:16, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Deletes done. -DES Talk 15:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Marghanita Laski

You can do the merge, see my response on ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard#Marghanita Laski; My bad. Thanks. -DES Talk 15:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Catalog numbers

I accepted the submission updating this pub but want to make sure that the number you placed in the ISBN/Catalog No. field is actually a valid number. Most hardcover books don't have catalog numbers so I'd like to know how this number appears in the book itself. Also, if we determine it actually is a catalog number, we need to place the number sign (#) before it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I mentioned in the publication note that this number appears on the back cover (of the dust jacket). More specifically, the back cover contains a review of the book itself with a little additional information about the book, followed by the number 3414 at the bottom left of the back DJ cover. To convince me that this was a catalog number, the back inside flap of the dust jacket advertised a description of another book by the publisher, followed by a number like "3401". I'm not where the book is right now, so this may not be the exact number of the book being advertised, but it was clearly close enough to 3414 to imply pretty strongly that these were some form of catalog numbers. Let me know if you need any more detail. I added the "#" symbol to the publication data, but of course that will need to be approved as well.
Sounds good to me. Submission accepted. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

picture of Karin Boye

Hi. There was a problem with your Karin Boye submission. The author image ("upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Karin_Boye%2C_1940s.gif") was not a full URL (missing the "http://" on the front) and so was not working right. Also, I am fairly sure we are not allowed to link images hosted on wikimedia. So I removed the link as entered. If reusing it here is permitted, you should download it to your computer, then upload it into this Wiki (see "Upload file" at the lower left). Once uploaded, use the link from the ISFDB's Wiki on the author's page. See Help:How_to_upload_images_to_the_ISFDB_wiki for many helpful details. --MartyD 00:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

You're right! I just re-read the guidelines, and we're not supposed to link to them; but because they're copyright free, we can download them and load them to ISFDB. I'll do that with her picture a bit later.

Yesterday Knocks merge

I posted this question on the help desk about whether these two are too different to merge. --MartyD 01:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

p.s. The answer was "no, not in this case", and I approved your merge. --MartyD 10:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Bonanno pseudonym submission

Hi. In reviewing your proposed pseudonym relationship, I discovered that Margaret Wender Bonanno existed only due to a misspelling of her name in a single review. I corrected the spelling in that review, which caused the misspelled name to be deleted and the need/opportunity for the pseudonym relationship to go away. So I ended up rejecting your submission as no longer needed. Thanks for catching it. --MartyD 10:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The Dream of a Warringtonian

Your proposed change to The Dream of a Warringtonian would change the publisher to "2/6". Did you mean for that to be the price? If so, please cancel and resubmit. Thanks. --MartyD 00:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Oops! That was a silly one. And that's why we have moderators who check our submissions :-) Chavey 02:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm holding the followup submission because you want to change the publisher as well. That's how Reginald records the publisher's name as well as this OCLC record. Do you have a copy of the book in order to confirm the change you wish to make in the record? Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm confused. When I look at the record for the book, it shows "Sunrise" Publishing; but when I went to edit the title data for that book, to add the price, the line for the publisher was empty. So I was trying to add in that same publisher. I wasn't trying to replace a previous listing; I thought I was filling in a missing field. I do not have a copy of the original book -- my data was coming from the June 16, 1900 issue of "Literature", as scanned by Google books. Anyway, I've cancelled that submission, and will re-submit just the price.
Ah, now I see. It's the old quotation mark bug rearing its ugly head again. It was fixed in the author field (I think), but I suppose no one ever thought that a publisher would use quotation marks in their name. Mhhutchins 06:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for that explanation! At least now I understand the source. That may be why, intuitively, when I first entered the publisher (into what I thought was a blank field) I omitted the quotations :-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chavey (talk • contribs) .
The defect has been recreated on the development sever and a Bug report has been created. Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:01, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"Rafe Bernard"

Re: the proposed pseudonym link between "Rafe Bernard" and Keith Laumer, here is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Army of the Undead by-lined Rafe Bernard (1967) is often mistakenly attributed to Laumer because it is the 3rd entry in the Pyramid Books Invaders novel series as published in the US, but in fact Bernard (a name which may be a pseudonym, but not for Laumer) was one of the two British authors commissioned by Corgi Books in the UK to pen original novels based on the TV show (the other was Peter Leslie). The book appeared as the third title in Corgi's UK line as The Halo Highway. Evidence seems to indicate a reciprocal reprint deal Pyramid worked out with Corgi for use of a single title, since only the Bernard book, but not the Peter Leslie ones, saw print in the States; while only Laumer's first Invaders title, but not his second, saw print in the UK. Bernard's by-line exists on one other science fiction title, The Wheel in the Sky published as a UK hardcover in 1954 and as a UK paperback by Ward Lock in 1955. (Verification can be found in Kurt Peer's book TV Tie-Ins (1967, Neptune Publishing and later TV Books) and in the Rafe Bernard book itself, written in stilted, purple, overwrought prose that bears not even slight resemblance to Laumer's style, plus the British author's inadequate handling of American rhythms and colloquialism, which were a hallmark of Laumer's prose. Additionally, Bernard's The Wheel in the Sky, never cited as a Laumer title, can be found listed at antiquarian book sites like alibris.)

It sounds reasonable, but it would be nice to have a more solid source. Would you happen to know of one? Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The most definitive site that claims the pseudonym is correct appears to be The Keith Laumer Website. I've linked to the biography page there, where at the bottom it claims the pseudonym. The author of the site appears to be a fairly good friend of Laumer's, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's correct on this point. The site creator, "Jim", doesn't seem to mention what his full name is. The author of the counter-argument above appears to be "David Spencer", possibly the David Spencer included in ISFDB. He makes his argument on the Keith Laumer website as well as in Wikipedia, in the Forum there. His posting to the forum was made in December of last year. There is one response from another Laumer fan who agrees with his analysis. The site creator has not responded to that forum topic. I don't know where to go from here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chavey (talk • contribs) .
I think the safest thing to do would be not to set up a pseudonym, but rather add a Title level note explaining that some sources attribute this book to Laumer while other sources deny it. Do you think it will work? Ahasuerus 06:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
I think that's the right solution. David Spencer's argument seems reasonably strong, at least strong enough to prevent our perpetuating a possible error.Chavey 07:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Done! Ahasuerus 19:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

L. P. M.: The End of the Great War

Your submission would have deleted the pub entirely. There's only one pub record [1] that's tied to this title record. As you see the author of the pub record doesn't match the author of the title record. This creates a "stray pub" under the pub record's author's summary page. Once you've determined how the pub is actually titled, you can submit an update for either the pub record or the title record (whichever is not correct). Then we determine which one is the canonical author's name, which should be easy because it's the only pub under either name. Whatever name we determine the book was published under will become the canonical name, and the other one will disappear, because there is no longer a title associated with it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, you've convinced me not to try to deal with stray publications. Anyway, the Google scan of the book clearly shows that it's attributed to "J. Stewart Barney -- and that name appears on the cover, the title page, and the copyright page. So I've submitted a correction to the title record to change that author's name to "J. Stewart Barney". Chavey 00:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
That one submission was all that was necessary to get rid of the "stray publication". See, you're an expert at removing "strays". Now where's that dog that's been hanging around here lately? Mhhutchins 02:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Author Updates

When the author was born in the US, please use the following format: "City, State, USA" (making sure the state is not abbreviated). Thanks for the updates. Mhhutchins 15:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

OK! I revisited the 128 author updates I've made so far, and corrected that format on 21 such records (whether the error was mine or not). (MartyD seems to have approved most of those already.)
I'd already corrected those submissions that I moderated. Mhhutchins 18:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Question: How do we handle the UK? I've seen "London, England", "London, England, UK", "Edinborough, Scotland, UK", and (especially when it's by itself) "United Kingdom". What's the preferred formatting for that?
I use the abbreviation "UK" for all countries in the United Kingdom. I'm not sure if there's a preferred format. Mhhutchins 18:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer to leave the country as Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland. The first three could either be considered "Great Britain" as well, or all four are also "United Kingdom", but that tends to upset the nationalists. I would use "Great Britain" or "United Kingdom" only if I couldn't narrow it down further. BLongley 17:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
I believe the last time we had this discussion, the consensus was to enter the city/country of birth as they were officially known when the author was born. Thus, the city where Stanislaw Lem was born is listed as "Lwów, Poland" because that's what it was known as in 1921. If Lem had been born ten years earlier, we would have entered it as "Lemberg, Austro-Hungarian Empire" ("Austrian Empire" prior to 1867). If he had been born in 1940, it would have been "Lviv, Ukraine, USSR", etc.
Having said that, I don't think we need to use the country's formal name if it's not widely used. Thus "Australia" is better than "Commonwealth of Australia", "Russia" (post-1991) is better than "Russian Federation", etc. Ahasuerus 19:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

proposed D. Moreau Barringer edits

Hi. I think some of the information in your proposed edits to D. Moreau Barringer is not correct. The Wikipedia article you propose linking to (and likewise the website) is for someone born 1860, died 1929. Yet your proposed birth date is 1900. And the only book by this author is published in 1956 and seems unlikely to be posthumously published (although I could certainly be wrong about that). What information do you have that links the author to this geologist? Thanks. --MartyD 17:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I got confused between D. Moreau Barringer (1860-1929) and D. Moreau Barringer, Jr. (1900-1962). (And to confuse things more, the grandfather was also a Daniel Barringer.) Daniel Moreau Barringer, Sr. discovered the first confirmed meteor crater; and Daniel Moreau Barringer, Jr. discovered the second. Because of the strong connection between the geology of the book and the work of the Barringer family, I'm pretty convinced that Daniel Moreau Barringer, JR is the author of the book in question. But both of those web pages are about the father. (Well, the non-Wikipedia page has one sentence on the son, but that's not enough.) There's no online verification of this authorship, other than the implication described above. I did find where I can get an obituary of the son, by Inter-Library Loan. And I can probably write to their mining company (still in business). So let's wait until I can get more verification on this. I'll cancel the edit.

D. A. Barker

Hi Chavey, is the legal name "Baker"[2] without the "r"? Thanks!Kraang 01:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

No, that was my typo. It is "Barker" (as listed on the English site "Science Fiction and Fantasy Bibliography" website). I've submitted a correction; thanks for catching that!

England Swings SF

Your edit of this pub wants to add a booknumber (#20670) and a note (Spine has the number "441 20670 0125", (not an ISBN).) These are the numbers on the Ace paperback, are they really on the Doubleday hardcover too? I'm holding the edit for now, awaiting your response. --Willem H. 18:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

No, that's an error on my part. Those are the numbers on the paperback edition. I've cancelled the edit. Thanks for catching it. Chavey 18:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

New Worlds 9

You added a note (The title on the cover is "New Worlds Nine", but the title inside, and on the copyright page, is "New Worlds 9".) to the title record of New Worlds 9. I don't think this was necessary. This kind of note reflects on a specific publication, in this case the only pub, that already has the same note. --Willem H. 18:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. When there's only one publication, I sometimes get confused between the title record and the publication record. Can you rewind the edit, or should one of us erase that note? Chavey 18:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
It's easy for me to do. I only approved the edit to be able to show the result. Keep up the good work! --Willem H. 18:58, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
It's easy to get confused at first, but think of it this way: a Publication level note is about the physical item while a Title level note is about the text itself. Ahasuerus 23:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I see that you are a mathematician/computer scientist! In that case think of Publications as instantiations of Titles :-) It's not always that simple because some pubs, e.g. magazines, contain multiple titles, but it's a start. Ahasuerus 23:47, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Yeesh, you're better qualified than almost all of us to fix our software! Carry on editing and we'll have you (re)programming shortly. BLongley 23:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
Oh please no! I'm so far behind in my programming for the WisCon convention programming ... ! (I'm supposed to be setting up a Simulated Annealing program back end to decide how to assign panelist volunteers to panels, and panels to time slots/rooms. And helping with the online registration component. And ...). But I do appreciate the comment on pubs as instantiations of titles. That helps. Chavey 03:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Necromancer Nine

I'm holding a submission updating this pub which would remove an image (recently uploaded by the pub's primary verifier Willem H.), and replace it with an image which does not exist in the database. The URL you gave for the replacement image was http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/c/ce/NCRMNCRNND1983.jpg. I'm flummoxed. Maybe it was synchronous submissions by you and Willem that resulted in this situation. I'll ask Willem to join the discussion. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that Willem deleted the image file for the URL above. I'm going to bow out of the situation and let you two continue. Mhhutchins 17:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
As of 14:44 today, the picture for the edition with ISBN #0-441-56852-1 was a photo where you could see the ISBN number "0-441-56853-X", and there was no picture for the edition with ISBN #0-441-56853-X. So I copied the image URL from the 56852-1 edition into the record for the 56853-X edition, and then I posted to ISFDB:Verification_requests asking whether we should use the same picture for both editions (with a note on the ISBN). 2 hours later, Willem H. saw that request and corrected the image posting he had made before. That made my edit submission redundant, and confusing. Willem has corrected the problem, and I am cancelling my edit submission. Chavey 18:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. As I explained here, the whole mess was my fault, so I cleaned it up. It was a good spot by the way! Thanks for that :-) --Willem H. 18:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Heir of Sea and Fire publisher/imprint

Hi. I approved your Heir of Sea and Fire submission. Would you check how the "Futura" and "Orbit" are presented? I noticed we have only a couple of books treating Futura as the imprint and Orbit as the publisher, while we have quite a few treating Orbit as the imprint and Futura as the publisher. Thanks. --MartyD 10:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Back cover: "Futura Publications / An Orbit book". Orbit insignia on the front cover. Copyright page: "An Orbit book" at the top, followed by "First published by Futura Publications in 1979". So revisiting the description of publisher on the "NewPubs" page, I realize that I've entered those in the wrong format, and have submitted a correction.

Portal to E'ewere artist

Hi. I see your proposed addition of two cover artists, Goldberg and Karl, to Portal to E'ewere, but your note talks about Karl's initials being on the drawings at the beginning of each chapter. Did you mean for both to be cover artists, or did you mean for Karl to be the interior art artist? Thanks. --MartyD 10:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

That was a mistake on my part. I did not understand that the "Artist" field referred only to the Cover Artist. Karl is responsible only for the interior art. I'm still not sure how to do an attribution for an internal artist. Do we just put that in the "Note" field? Or under what circumstances do we list that as an additional "Content" item? Chavey 12:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
No problem, I will approve the submission and fix it up. The way we do a general interior art credit is to make a "Content" item and use the same title as the publication's title, leaving the page number empty, and setting the type to INTERIORART (and the "author" for that content is the artist). To credit specific drawings, you give page number(s); if they have titles or captions you can use those instead of the publication's title, and if they do not you use the publication's title followed by [1], [2], etc. to distinguish one from another -- we would only do this for major drawings, never for minor illustrations decorating pages. In a collection or other multi-work publication, we use the same technique, but we would use the associated work's title --if the drawing is illustrating a specific story or poem -- instead of the publication's title for an otherwise untitled drawing. --MartyD 16:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
For the case here, what you did is what I would suggest: record details about the appearance and credit of the interior artwork in the notes and create a single general credit. --MartyD 16:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Native Tongue

I rejected the submission, adding a note to the 5th printing about the 6th. Instead, cloned the 5th and used the data you gave to create [this] record. Each printing gets a separate record, regardless of how identical it may be to previous printings. This way you can verify the 6th on its own. I did notice that the record for the 5th did not state which country [US or Canada] it was printed in. That also could be added to the record for the 6th printing. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:40, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. If I were king of the world, I would combine all printings in which there were no differences in any data into a single record. But I can understand the point about separate verification, and am certainly willing to adapt my personal preferences to the established standards. Chavey 19:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Neat Sheets: The Poetry of James Tiptree, Jr.

Hi Chavey. We only created the editor for anthologies, for collections[3] the editor is created in the note section. Thanks!Kraang 01:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Got it! Thanks. Chavey 02:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Pagination

I've noticed that you're going back and adding unnumbered pages to your verified pubs. This is not really necessary, unless you're adding data that is printed on unnumbered pages. We assume that the page count given is the last numbered page in the book and all other pages contain data that doesn't need recording. Unless you really feel the information is important... That's up to you, of course. Mhhutchins 19:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The page rules at Help:Screen:EditPub#Pages seemed to imply that I was supposed to add those pages; although admittedly it uses the word "may". The impression I had from other discussion I found in the rules archives seemed to say that this was the preferred way of listing pages, e.g. including all the ads, and the copyright/frontispiece/title pages. So it seemed that if I was going to verify a book, that I should try to abide by that standard. Was I wrong? Chavey 05:56, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
The help page should not imply that unnumbered pages are supposed to be added. It states "may" so that the more meticulous editors have that option. It doesn't specifically state that they should be counted, only how they are to be counted if you choose to do so. I personally feel that nothing is gained by counting pages which have no pertinent material. That's why I stated above that it's up to you to decide. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
So if I'd like to be a "more meticulous editor", then I should continue counting those pages? :-) But thanks for letting me know that I have that choice. I've only been doing this with books that weren't verified, as I was verifying them. Since I was looking at all the pages anyway, it felt reasonable to record them. But it seems (even to me) that counting completely blank pages at the end of a novel is getting a little too OCD. Chavey 13:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Mike, after thinking about it some more, I've concluded that I was wrong and I should follow your advice. Looking at some of the pubs I verified, they just look ugly having that extra pagination data. But under what circumstances do you include those pages? For example, it seems like it would be worthwhile if there were additional "Content" items on those pages (maps, art, 'About the Author'), and possibly if there was one of those contentious ad-style "extract from ..." at the end of the book. But what's your policy? [I'll copy this to your talk page later, if you don't see it here.] Thanks, Chavey 07:44, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
If there is any content (art, map, foreword, etc.) that appears on unnumbered pages for which I will create a record, I will always add pages to the page count field to account for those works. I personally do not add promotional excerpts, but if you choose to do so it would be a good idea to adjust the page count field. Mhhutchins 14:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Adding interior art data

I'm holding a submission to add interior art data for The Witching Hour. Unless you wish to create a record for each piece, your single record should have the title of the work illustrated and not be paginated. So "The Witching Hour (Art) / Patricia Hardin / 1991-10-00 / iv, v, 1 / INTERIORART" would be "The Witching Hour / Patricia Hardin / 1991-10-00 / [no pages] / INTERIORART". If you want to record each piece, there should be individual records added with the second title given as "The Witching Hour [2]" and so forth. In this case you would give the page number. If the work appears on an unnumbered page you should give the page number as "[iv]" if it appears on the fourth unnumbered page at the beginning of the book, or "[966]" if it appears on the page following the last numbered page "965". Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:28, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I accepted the submission so please make any necessary adjustment to the record. Mhhutchins 19:29, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Done. Thanks! Chavey 05:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Added gutter code

I added the gutter code for your verified [4] and for a reprint of same.Don Erikson 18:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Cosmos: The Science of Everything

Hi. I approved your changes removing Editors of Cosmos from the individual publications, but I think I didn't look at it closely enough. Did you discuss this magazine with anyone? It looks to me like this is a non-genre magazine and SHOULD have "Editors of Cosmos" as an editor record. I see it's not set up in the Wiki as either kind of magazine, and it's too hard for me to figure out where the title records came from originally, so I'm hoping you know something about them. Thanks. --MartyD 12:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

It is, in general, a non-genre (science) magazine which usually publishes one SF short story. So if there is a policy that such journals should include Editors of ... as one of the editors, then I can certainly support adding that back in. The reason I was suggesting this drop was that all of these were being reported as "Stray Publications". The publication was listed as having three editors. But the content listings showed each as connecting (first) to a title item which had only the two person names as editors. The change you approved has eliminated those as Stray Publications. That, at least, should be a good thing. But if the policy suggests that we should include "Editors of Cosmos", then we would need to add them back to both the Publication Record and to the Title Record (I think). Chavey 14:16, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, you are right. I've asked on the Moderator noticeboard to see if I can find out why the titles don't have the "Editors of..." that is seems they should have. If it properly belongs, I will put it on all of the titles and pubs. But for now at least they do match. --MartyD 16:20, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The Last Bookstore In America

I approved this new pub (see here), but changed the publisher from "www.lastbookstoreinamerica.com" to "Amy Stewart" (Amazon.com has this as a self published novel), and removed the link to this website from the title (this is only used for wikipedia articles, see this helptext). I did add the author's website and wikipedia entry here. Thanks, --Willem H. 11:13, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, those are good changes. Chavey 16:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The Acolyte issues from 1945

Hi. I approved these submissions, but you'll need to go merge the titles and fix each publication's title to include "Spring 1945", etc. Let me know if you you need help. Thanks. --MartyD 11:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I looked at some other models for titles of magazines, and believe I have fixed the titles correctly. I'm not sure what merging I'm supposed to do. I did create links from the fanzine page to the individual issues. Is there another step I'm missing? Chavey 07:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
If you go to either editor's summary page (e.g., Francis T. Laney, you will see three instances of The Acolyte. These should be merged and the result renamed The Acolyte - 1945 and also placed in a series, "The Acolyte". The final result will look like what you see here: Julie Ann Dawson. --MartyD 13:10, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Step 1 approved. Do you want to practice the rest? BLongley 16:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Hopefully, that's now accomplished (pending edit approval). Chavey 16:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

"True" ghost stories

Hi. I approved your submission, but I would treat the "true" ghost stories in Tales of Piracy, Crime and Ghosts as shortfiction, not as nongenre. Ghost stories are genre, and we don't really try to distinguish ones that are supposedly true stories from ones that are admitted to be totally fictitious.

The second section of the anthology is classified as "False Ghosts and Merry Adventures". And it seems obvious from the titles that the first three of those stories are "False Ghosts", but I can't tell whether the next two (The Hams and the Quaker and The Fortune Teller at Bristol Fair) are actually "False Ghosts" or are some other type of "Merry Adventure". So I'll change the first three and then try to research the other two, e.g. maybe they're at Gutenberg. Chavey 17:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
That didn't take long. The Hams and the Quaker is listed in Bleiler, and the web site "A Guide to Supernatural Fiction" lists both of these stories, while omitting the stories in the other two sections. So I'll change them to SHORTFICTION as well. Chavey 17:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Also, NONGENRE is one of the "container" titles. We don't have a category for non-genre short-fiction content - so we mostly leave it out if it's non-genre, or note it on the shortfiction title. BLongley 18:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
So would I simply omit the stories in that collection that were non-genre? Chavey 22:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Or just list them in notes. Biggest example I've done is probably this where I missed out 600 pages as pure detection and/or mystery. The rest seemed worth recording to some extent. BLongley 23:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok, done. Chavey 06:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Cancelled publications

In most cases, deleting a cancelled publication would be the right thing to do, but in the case of The James Tiptree Award Anthology 4, it is better to keep the title record and the pub record, and give the dates for each as 8888-00-00. The title will be displayed as "unpublished". This method allows the user to know that a book in a series or popular title was scheduled but the publication was cancelled. Someone searching by title or ISBN immediately knows that it was cancelled and won't try to create a new record based on out-of-date information. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:15, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a nice feature! I didn't know about it. I wonder if I should put in the planned contents? I was talking to the editor yesterday, and I could probably get them, but I don't know if that information would be useful. Your point about warning others not to re-enter this book wouldn't apply to the contents, so maybe that would just be useless data. (And, of course, the editor might not want that data released.) Chavey 20:03, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's a very good feature, one that most databases never even considered. And yes, you can still enter the contents. The pub will show up on the list each story's publication, but as unpublished. Check out the most famous unpublished book in science fiction history, and then how it appears on one of the stories' title page here. Mhhutchins 20:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
It's a feature most database management systems cannot support - as anyone that (like me) that has tried to import our MySQL data into another RDBMS has discovered. The "8888-00-00" is non-intuitive, and even those of us that do recall it try "8888-88-88" instead at times, which doesn't work. I suspect only Al will recall why it was chosen. BLongley 21:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
As I recall, ISFDB-2 used MySQL's built-in dates at first (i.e. 2005-early 2006), but then we discovered that the version of MySQL that we were using didn't support dates prior to 1000 AD. Instead of living with this limitation, Al changed all date fields to strings and created a date handling system of his own. Since he was designing it from the ground up, he was able to add more functionality than what's typically available, including 8888-00-00 (unpublished) and 9999-00-00 (forthcoming).
We don't use 9999-00-00 much any more since we typically know the projected publication date for each forthcoming book. And we don't, then chances are that the book is in limbo anyway, e.g. see Bill Baldwin's The Turning Tide . Ahasuerus 23:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Mike's famous example also shows what happens when people reclaim their rights and publish it elsewhere. BLongley 21:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Also look at how a story from that anthology that has never been published looks on its author's summary page: Edgar Pangborn's The Life and the Clay. Mhhutchins 20:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

JHB variant of J.H.B.

I don't think we should make "JHB" into a pseudonym. It's not actually a credited artist, being a record of an artist's signature. Making this into a pseudonym would lend credence to making other signatures into pseudonyms. When we know who the signature belongs to, we can change change the records to the artist's canonical name. This would be easier without it being a pseudonym along with the accompanying variants, which creates duplicate records which will have to be deleted once the artist's canonical name is determined. I've place the submission on hold. If you feel strongly that we should make a signature into a pseudonym, you can bring it up on the Rules and Standards discussion page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:06, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Then in that case we should delete both "JHB" and "J. H. B.", i.e. delete the cover attributions from the 5 books that point to those as cover artists? Or, if I correctly interpret your response at your talk page, would you prefer if everything pointed to "JHB" instead of "J. H. B."? Chavey 22:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, everything should be credited to JHB as the artist's initial. We can add a note to the author's bio page that his identity is unknown, and that once it's been established, the records will be easily merged. You can merge the two authors' records by doing an advanced search under the Author Search form. Enter both names and bullet the "or" choice. Then check the boxes to merge all records, using the next page to reconcile the differences. This is a handy tool, but we have to be very careful to use it only under special circumstances. Once records are merged, the records can only be reverted manually, one at a time. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:57, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
The artist has been identified to be J. H. Breslow. I've changed my verified record and left notes on the other verifier's pages. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:46, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Chavey, you've left notes here that make me think you have a list of the relevant books. I think we're now clear it's probably not "H. J. Bruck" so Marc Kupper might be usefully informed of our latest view. And it's also not likely to be "Harry (R.) Bennett" so the Ace Image Library might appreciate an update on our research. BLongley 21:38, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
I constructed a list of every pub that listed "JHB" or "J. H. B." as the cover artist, or (more importantly) that included a comment to that effect in their notes. I had changed all of them (with notes to verifiers) that I was linking their cover artist to "J. H. B." You have corrected all of those that had been linked to JHB. There are three more titles, and 5 more publications, that still link to "J. H. B." Do you want to fix them to "Breslow", or should I? Chavey 23:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate pub record for Norton's Horn Crown

I can see no difference between the submission to add a new pub and the one already in the databse. Also the note says "Shares the ISBN # of the hc edition". The only hardcover edition was the SFBC printing and it has no ISBN. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:11, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. For some reason, I had read the first record as being a hc preceding the SFBC. I've cancelled the submission. Chavey 22:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Occasionally, the SFBC edition is the first hardcover edition, perhaps the best reason to collect them, which makes me wonder why some collectors look down their noses at the SFBC. (Now SFBC reprints of trade hardcovers, that I understand. They are never collectible.) Mhhutchins 23:01, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Seeds of Change

Have your submission to change the date of [this] from 1984 to 1981-10. Was that a typo? Amazon is not the most reliable source for dates at the best of times, but both .com and .UK have the date as October 1985. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

That was a typo. I intended to change it to 1985-10. I might note that I found, on eBay, a copy that was listed there, and on Amazon, as the 1984 version of the book, but with a different ISBN that the one listed here as being published in 1984, so I'm inclined to believe that 1985 date. Chavey 02:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'll accept it and change the date to 1985-10. If you've found another that dates to 1984, with different ISBN do enter a new record. OCLC probably has a record for it as well. Think I counted about 30 there, most from other countries, but several were from 1984. --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I had already added that edition, and someone approved it. I also ordered it from the eBay seller, so I'll verify the data about in a week or so when the book shows up. Chavey 03:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Longitude

I'm afraid ISFDB doesn't order co-authors, so your change "William J. H. Andrewes+Dava Sobel" to "Dava Sobel+William J. H. Andrewes" was ineffective. BLongley 16:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Destiny Kills

Added a cover image and expanded the notes a little for [this]. Don't be squeamish about deleting references to Amazon in the notes. That's just left there by the Moderator who accepted the Fixer/Dissembler submission to let the verifying editor(s) know the data may be suspect [being robot-derived from a somewhat unreliable site]. For instance, here the copyright page has the date as November, while Amazon had an October date. Book data rules, with rare exceptions [sometimes the publication gets delayed and the date in the book is just plain wrong, but that requires secondary references]. If you're verifying, state what the book says. Happy editing! --~ Bill, Bluesman 04:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The Neon Halo

Have your submission for a new pub for this title on hold. It was never a selection of the US SFBC, but the Secker & Warburg trade edition may have been offered to the SFBC (UK) members. It does not show up on the [SFBC (UK)'s] website as an official selection. Does your source offer any more data? There are several copies for sale on [AbeBooks] that do mention the SFBC (UK) but it may just have been the trade with an SFBC jacket.... --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The reference, as you include it above, says "The Extras - these were titles issued as optional extras for purchase by SFBC members. THE NEON HALO was definitely the first, according to the SFBC newsletter SCIENCE FICTION NEWS for January 1960."
So it would certainly be consistent with that statement if they were simply offering the Secker & Warburg copy to their members. If you think that's what was happening, please go ahead & cancel the submission. Chavey 22:34, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I didn't read far enough! Was just checking the main selections. In that case the record should be there, though I'll change the publisher to SFBC (UK). The submission as I saw it did not have the SFBC (UK) website address as there was a missing "> in the html coding. Fixed that after accepting the submission. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for catching that. Since submissions don't have a "Show preview", I occasionally get an html encoding bug. Chavey 22:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Me too, but I get to hide mine!! ;-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Morgan Rockefeller's Will

In case a moderator looks here wondering what I'm up to:
I incorrectly handled the three publications of "Morgan Rockefeller's Will" by merging them all together. So now the author listing for Francis H. Clarke doesn't show this book as also by Frank H. Clarke, as it should. I assume that I need to unmerge the three books, have the two books by Frank H. Clarke still be merged, and then make that merged title a "variant" of the original. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm hoping I've got that figure out. Chavey 04:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No problem, all fixed now. The way to fix a Title record which has mismatched pubs under it is by using the "Unmerge" option in the navigation bar. Unfortunately, it's not a terribly intuitive option... Ahasuerus 08:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Wu Ch’êng-ên and Monkey

A couple of notes about Wu Ch’êng-ên's Monkey titles. Generally, an introduction is entered as "Introduction (Monkey)" rather than "Introduction (to Monkey)". I can't think of any particular reason why we do it one way rather than the other, just the way it has evolved, I suppose.

As far as the publisher Chinese Classics in English goes, I wonder if it may be some publisher's "publication series"?

Also, this edition was primary-verified by User:Unapersson a few years ago, so I have left him a message. He rarely visits ISFDB these days (small children will do it to you), but hopefully some day he will find the time to reconcile his collection with all the notes that other editors have been leaving on his Talk page.

By the way, are you using secondary sources for this title or do you happen to have access to various editions? If it's the former, it's usually better to indicate where the data came from. It's amazing how often secondary sources contradict each other... Ahasuerus 08:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm using all secondary sources for these versions, but have been trying to reconcile those sources and using only those where I have at least 3 references to the same edition (albeit, sometimes its three vendors claiming to be selling the same edition through Amazon). I just discovered an error in the date of the earliest edition though, and have submitted a correction. I've also been trying to ensure that I can find at least one copy with a picture. So, for example, the "Chinese Classics in English" edition does have that name prominently displayed on the cover, while other editions do not. I suspect that this is likely the case of a publishing house printing two editions simultaneously -- one aimed at academia and one aimed at a general audience.
I hadn't noticed that I had entered the wrong "title" for the Intro, and I'll try to fix that. I suspect that every edition has the same intro -- it was used in the original 1942 edition, and in many later ones. But I've only listed it as existing in editions that explicitly mention it. (If these ever get verified, maybe the verifier will fix that up :-)
I had tried not to change much in the verified copy, but you're right -- I should have notified him about locating the date on his copy. There was enough data on the Amazon (UK) site to pin down which one was the one he had, based on internal printing numbers of one edition that allowed me to look inside at the copyright page. (The fact that I could do that on a couple of editions helped much in validating some of the data.)
I'll go back and add in the citations that I used for the various editions in their notes -- but that's going to take me a bit to get back to. I have final exam grading week coming up :-) Chavey 09:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 
By the way, thanks for taking the time to help on this. With something this ancient (1590!), it seems worth trying to get it right. I just realized that we have a copy of the 1st edition in the library at my College, so I can verify that first edition. And I suspect some of the Asian Studies professors own other editions, so I can probably verify a few others later. Chavey 09:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I approved your modifications to this edition, but I changed the title of the interiorart record to "Monkey". For untitled interiorart, we use the main work's title, with a type of interiorart, not a title of "Interior Art". If there are multiple untitled instances that we want to record individually (with page numbers), we append " [n]" for the second and subsequent instances. --MartyD 12:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Likewise for your verified 5th printing. I did not do any merging. --MartyD 12:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

P. J. F. ?

Have your submission to add the above to the author of [this] pub on hold. What is "P. J. F."? Checked the Amazon "Look-Inside" feature for the book and see nothing like this anywhere on the copyright page. --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what it stands for, but it's the name he uses on the title page (but not the copyright page). In the Amazon reader, go to the page just prior to the copyright page and you'll see what I mean. My understanding is that when there's a conflict between the different places where the author's name appears, that we're supposed to go with the one on the title page. There's already a pseudonym for that variant of his name in the system, so he's apparently used it before. You can see it in the Tor version of Nevernever as well. But next time I see him, I'm going to have to ask him what that stands for! 04:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Please do! :-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Will tells me it stands for "Pre-Joycean Fellowship". He expands that to say "It was a joke, modeled after the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Basically, we didn't like the division of fiction and literature, and we used James Joyce as the dividing point." He also referred me to the Wikipedia article Pre-Joycean Fellowship, which lists 8 SF authors that claim to be member of the P.J.F., at least some using this as a "joke" title. So should we include it? In the ISFDB are 61 "M.D."s, 66 "Ph.D."s, 1 "K. B. E." (Guess who?), 5 "Esq.", and various other Name Suffixes. "Esq." is probably the most comparable name suffix, since nowadays it's pretty much a made-up title, but we include that when people use it in their names. And of course we include "Jr." even for a few authors where there was never a "Sr.". So my suggestion would be to include it, and list in bibliographic notes for such names what it means. Should we ask "Rules and Standards"? Chavey 20:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
It was used for his appearance in my verified pub. I chose to record it as stated and created a pseudonym and variant for it. Mhhutchins 21:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

People of the Moon - link

Had to reject the submission adding a link to the title record as it didn't go to a page that has anything to do with this novel. Incorrect copy/paste? Led to a Google page but the novel depicted was NOT this one. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I just resubmitted, hopefully using the correct URL. I checked it by pasting it into a blank browser page, and checked it here to verify that it works in these contests. Hopefully, this one works. Chavey 03:05, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Went to the same place as the previous link, so I followed it through the search for two more pages and got to [here] which seems to be the correct one? --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Nope, that's not the spot. The place to get to should be here. And that should be an internal page for "Nature" that begins with "Our Book Shelf" and has a review of "People of the Moon". I wonder what's going wrong? Chavey 03:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
All I see is the volume of Nature, no page links. Below that Related Books, then contents but nothing with a link and no page {there's only eight] that mentions the novel and then a map. Would what you are seeing be something that one has to be logged into the site to see? --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:29, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't logged into anything. And just to be sure, I deleted all cookies, then went to that URL, and got the same page. I made a copy of that page, and most of it is posted on my web site. Chavey 03:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Now that I can see. Maybe it's just a browser thing? I have a MAC and sometimes Safari is 'particular' about what it displays. Of course that would kind of make the link in a title record less then totally useful... I really don't know why that doesn't display with the link used. --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I have a Mac too, but I'm using Firefox. Could you please check if the links that I put into the biographical & bibliographical records for Carter Tremlett Carter actually lead you to proper locations? I've afraid that if the link here doesn't work, that the ones I put there might not either. Of course, that might just be a Safari thing. I can go check on a Windows machine upstairs as well. Chavey 04:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
The "Ad" link doesn't go to an ad, the other link works fine. --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:24, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Wonder if you could copy the page and then upload it the same way we do an image? That might violate copyright, though... --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I checked, and there's nothing on that page limiting its copyright. And since the article if from 1904, it's believable that they can't exert a copyright over it now. Plus, they let me download a PDF copy of it using their tools, and without any copyright notification there, so I suspect I could do that. Chavey 03:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
We always have the "Bibliographic Comments" Wiki page to use directly from the pub record? --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I've typed up the review, and will submit that instead. It's much simpler for a user as well. Chavey 04:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Novelizations

FYI, there is a somewhat obscure way to indicate that a title is a novelization. If you enter "nvz" in the "Storylen" field, it will appear as "novelization" on the title page. It's a bit of a hack and really needs to be moved to its own field (and turned into a link to IMDB), but it won't happen right away... Ahasuerus 05:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I agree that it seems to be a bit of a hack, e.g. the "StoryLen" field is associated with a pub, while "novelization" really seems to be a property of the title. But I'll try to remember that. Chavey 14:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
"Storylen" is rather badly overloaded at the moment, e.g. we also use it to enter Omnibus data ("/1,2,4" etc) and "jvn" for "juvenile". There is a Feature Request to add a field for the "novelization of" URL and another field for "filmed as" URL(s). There is another Feature Request to add a drop-down list for "target audience age" to match what's available in most library catalogs ("0-4","4-8","9-12","YA"), which will eliminate the "jvn" hack. And, of course, we need to move the Omnibus data to a separate field. Once that happens, we will be able to convert Storylen to a drop-down list in Title Edit. Oh, and also add more sub-types for "Shortfiction" and create sub-types for Essays and perhaps other Title types. No rest for the wicked... or at least bibliographically inclined :-) Ahasuerus 14:43, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Good luck! Always good to know that all information, and all documentation, has to hit a moving target :-) Chavey 15:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Kay Cicellis

The submission to add to the author record can't be accepted by the DB as there is no record to overwrite! As soon as I accepted the change to the Bantam pb record that author record vanished as there are now no pubs linked to it. A new author record has been created [here]. I copied over the data you had submitted. Just an FYI! Sometimes you just have to wait for one submission to be accepted before a next step, though without seeing this example I probably wouldn't have seen that coming either. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that up. I realized partway through that correcting the spelling of the name at the same time in both the pub record and the author record might, or might not, work. I moved the Bio page that I wrote from Kay Cecellis to Kay Cicellis, and deleted the contents of the former page. As best as I can tell, though, that still leaves the former page existing, but with no text. I don't know if that's the sort of thing that will fix itself, or whether someone should actually delete that empty page. Chavey 19:07, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Author records will self-delete if there are no pubs attached, Wiki pages won't. I deleted it. --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
That's what I thought. Thanks. Chavey 19:36, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

legal names

Hi. I accepted your edit to J. M. Chaney, but I removed the "Rev." from the legal name. According to Help:Screen:AuthorData, neither titles nor suffixes (the ", Jr." in this case) should be used, although I don't understand the restriction on suffixes and am going to ask about it. So I left the "Jr." in there for now, but I may end up removing it as well. --MartyD 13:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll add the honorific to the author bio instead. Chavey 14:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Wilhelm's The Abyss

I don't have the book, but I'd bet money that the Mercury Press copyright refers to the appearance of "Stranger in the House" in F&SF 2/68, published by Mercury Press (copyright in 1967 because that's when it appeared on the newsstands, usually a couple of months before cover date.) Mhhutchins 22:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

That has to be it. The relevant part of the copyright page in "The Abyss" says:

PRINTING HISTORY
Mercury Press edition published 1967
Doubleday edition published 1971
Bantam edition published November 1973

So I think it's understandable to have confused the Mercury edition with a book publication, and of course "Stranger in the House" is only one of the novellas in this collection. But I think that you must be correct, and I will update the title record for "The Abyss" to reflect this. Chavey 22:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Lady In the Mist

In case a moderator wonders what I'm up to:
The book "Lady in the Mist" was listed as by "T. Charles". Amazon and other sites list it as by "Teresa Charles", and I found a photo of the cover where that name is clear, so I changed the name. However, more research shows that this is a pseudonym used by a husband-wife couple, Irene & Charles Swatridge. So I think that what I have to do is: (i) create variants of the title under both their names; (ii) when those are approved, specify that Teresa Charles is a pseudonym for Irene, then specify Teresa is a pseudonym for Charles; (iii) then merge the 3 title records. I'll be reading up on the process while waiting for the variants to be approved :-{) Chavey 06:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

"Theresa Charles"

According to Ace Potpourri Image Library, "Theresa Charles" was a joint pseudonym used by Irene Maude Swatridge and Charles John Swatridge. Ahasuerus 06:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Right. And that's what I'm trying to set up (see the previous section). I hope I'm doing this right: I created variants under both of those "true names", then I'll tell the system that "Teresa Charles" is a pseudonym for each, then I'll merge the three titles. Will that do it? Chavey 06:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Not quite. What you want to do is pull up the current title record, select "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" in the navbar, then change Author1 from "Theresa Charles" to "Irene Maude Swatridge", then click on "Add Author" and enter Charles John Swatridge as a co-author in Author2.
Thanks for the hand-holding. This part is submitted (and the others cancelled). Chavey 06:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Sure thing! I have approved the submission, so we can now proceed with setting up pseudonyms -- note that there is a "Stray Publication" record on the Summary page because of the mismatch between Publications and Titles. All you have to do on the pseudonym side is access "Theresa Charles"'s page, click on "Make/Remove a Pseudonym" and enter "Irene Maude Swatridge" in the "Parent Name" field. Once the record is submitted, repeat the process for "Irene Maude Swatridge". That should do it! Ahasuerus 07:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
This will take care of the Title record, but then we will have to handle pseudonyms separately. Although in many cases pseudonyms are closely related to variant titles (e.g. all "Richard Bachman" books were written by Stephen King), we also have to support more obscure cases, e.g. "house names" like "Victor Appleton II" and "Alexander Blade", so we have to set up a pseudonym relationship for every author. We'll get to it once the VT is taken care of :-) Ahasuerus 06:43, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks again! It worked just like it's supposed to :-)   I added a biography page for Irene Maude Swatridge, although I don't have enough about Charles to do the same for him. Chavey 20:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Carr's Leviathan's Deep

I added a cover image to your verified record of the book club edition of this title, assuming it should be identical to my verified trade edition. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that's the cover. One of these days I'll get around to scanning my books, but that saves me one! Chavey 21:17, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

"An Inquiry Concerning..."

Hi. I've placed your proposed title change for "An Inquiry Concerning..." on hold. First of all, I see your note about the full title's being in the copyright info and TOC, but we use the title as it appears on the title page for the piece. So how is it there? Second, we already have an entry for the full title, so if the title page uses the short version, then that short-version record should be made a variant of the full-version record; if the title page uses the full version, then the two records should be merged instead. Let me know what the title page says -- I can accept your edit and change the title back if necessary so that you don't have to re-enter the note. Thanks. --MartyD 14:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The title page has the same long title. I suspect if it's this way on both British editions and this US edition, it's probably the same on all three US editions. Unfortunately, the hc edition doesn't have a verifier, and the only verifier for the 1st pb printing (Scott Latham) hasn't posted on his talk page in 3 years. So should we change them all? Or just this one? Chavey 15:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm thinking we will change it everywhere. I will search around a little bit and see if I can find any other clear indications anywhere before doing anything. I may not have much time before Sunday, though, so apologies for the delay. --MartyD 12:04, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
The Contento database lists it with the short title, which is very likely where we got it from it the first place. There are lots of other places that list it that way, but very likely many are derivative of Contento. One place that has the long title for the Simon & Schuster 1st edition (along with a photo, indicating he had the book) is BestSF.net Chavey 16:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

To Mars with Tesla ...

[OCLC] seems to have a multitude of records with varying titles. --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

But no records under "To Mars with Tesla", which is the way we have (& Bleiler, apparently) had it listed. So it seems we were wrong, and this title should be changed? Chavey 16:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
I would think so, but note the discrepancy with Bleiler [that still remains a Verification source, and there isn't one of them that doesn't have some errors]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories

According to our friends at Locus, the HarperTrophy edition of A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley was originally priced at $4.50 while your verification copy is $5.99. I wonder if yours may be an unstated second printing? Does the book have a number line or any other clues, perchance? Ahasuerus 00:10, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

There's no indication of it being a second printing. I can find nothing other than the price to distinguish it from the edition currently described. The copyright page ends with the two lines:
  • Trophy ISBN 0-06-44604-0
  • First Harper Trophy Edition, 1995
There are a variety of individual copyrights, up through 1995, but no other printing information on the copyright page, or anywhere else in the book. So either it's an "anonymous" second printing, or Locus err'd. I just checked Amazon, and they have a "Look Inside" edition, which is identical to mine, but the back cover has a price of $5.95. It also has an identical copyright page, with the same "apparent first edition" claim as above. So I suspect that means we have at least three different printings of the same book, distinguishable only by the cover price. Chavey 03:21, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
My thoughts precisely! Some publishers do not specify printings and the only way to tell them apart is by price. Sometimes we are able to determine the date of publication by checking Locus' and other reviewers' "books received" pages, but much of the time all we can do is write something like "Later printing. The same as the first printing reported by Locus except that the price is $5.99 rather than $4.50".
I am not sure it's much of a consolation, but this is not the worst case scenario. Some publishers, e.g. Ace back in the 1970s/1980s, would (seemingly) arbitrarily declare a subsequent printing a "first printing" and restart the numbering scheme. That's why our Notes occasionally say things like "Stated third printing, but in reality at least the fifth printing based on other records." Ahasuerus 04:31, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Based on the discussion above, I have created an undated clone of the collection and rejected the original submission. Do you want to move your primary verification to the new pub record? Ahasuerus 10:30, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Will do. And I'll add the (unverified) $5.95 printing from Amazon. Then I'll finish wrapping presents :-) Chavey 12:08, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! Ahasuerus 03:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Catalog IDs

Just a note that catalog IDs like "LBYS-1013" currently start with the pound sign (#) to distinguish them from ISBNs. This convention will disappear once they are given a field of their own, but we need the pound sign for now so that we could easily write an automated conversion that will populate the new field. Ahasuerus 03:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I was used to that with things that started with a digit, but I didn't realize it was needed for other types of catalog numbers. That change will be necessary in my submission for "Bobby and Betty Go to the Moon" also. Chavey 03:31, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Done! Ahasuerus 06:33, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Pre-decimal British pricing

I changed the submitted price of "5/0" to "5/-" (the ISFDB standard) for this pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

What is the source for the price in this record? A user might mistakenly believe it came from Bleiler, who doesn't give prices. Mhhutchins 00:53, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
The source for the pricing in Babylon Electrified is a Chapman & Hall ad in the back of Sketches of Hindoo life, by Devendra Nath Das. The source for pricing in Under the Edge of the Earth is British books in print, V. 8, Whitaker & Sons, 1920, p. 114. I've submitted updates to the "Notes" for both publications. Chavey 05:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Synopsis or Note field

I moved the translation credit from the Synopsis field to the Note field (in this title record as it seems to be more title specific. Eventually this will be changed once we've created a translator role field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Babylon Electrified

You'll need to unmerge the two pubs by "Albert Bleunard" under this title record, merge them, change the author's name in the title record to "Albert Bleunard", then make the title record a variant of the "A. Bleunard" title record. And eventually, you'll have to make the English title record a variant of the original French title La Babylone électrique. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Tango in the Ninth Circle

I placed your submission to merge this title with this one on hold, first because generally it's not a good idea to merge a collection with a chapbook. Second, there are two publications under the titles you want to merge, the collection and the chapterbook. They look identical to me, so I think it's better to delete the first (has less data, and some fields look wrong). What do you think? --Willem H. 21:50, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense. I thought that the Merge process would give me more options than it did to select the fields with the most data. These "two" books are pretty clearly the same book, that different people entered in different ways, and I thought "Merge"-ing them was the right way to correct that. But as I think about it, I now realize that this must still leave the system with 2 records, while deleting 1 (and fixing the other) will give us just the one we should have. So I'll do that instead. Thanks, Chavey 22:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Approved. Result is here. --Willem H. 22:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
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