User talk:Ir'revrykal

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Hello, Ir'revrykal, 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:

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Anthologies and collections

Hello,

In ISFDB, we separate the two based on authors:

  • One author (or the same team of authors in each story): collection
  • Multiple authors - anthology.

So this is a collection for us - as all stories are written by the same author, regardless of how external parties call it. Let me know if you have any questions. Annie 10:44, 1 March 2022 (EST)

Understood. Thank you. --Ir'revrykal 11:20, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Thanks for the update though - I did add the link to the book (as you dug it out anyway) :) Annie 11:23, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Re: Trial by Blood, this title is a collection in itself (i.e. a collection of several short stories by the same author) that is in turn part of other collections/omnibuses, such as Flesh Tearers and Sons of Sanguinius. I wanted to change the publication type of Trial by Blood so I could add/import the short stories it contains. --Ir'revrykal 14:09, 1 March 2022 (EST)
So there is no short story called "Trial by Blood"? Annie 14:31, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Correct. That's what I wanted to change. The collection uses a frame story titled "The Trial of Gabriel Seth"; perhaps this is the cause of the confusion in the original record. See the content preview of Sons of Sanguinius here (Amazon) and the entry for Trial by Blood at Goodreads (click "more"). --Ir'revrykal 14:40, 1 March 2022 (EST)
That's a bit more complicated - you cannot have a collection inside of another collection. So we have two options:
  • Turn the publication into an omnibus and this title a collection and add the missing stories into the omnibus. That requires that collection to have been published on its own though technically speaking (We have some leeway though - but if you are looking for a way to indicate that these belong into the collection, that won't happen UNLESS there is a publication of that collection individually). Which I am not sure had happened?
  • Just remove that entry altogether/change it to the first of the stories that we are missing and add the missing stories; then once improved import the same stories to the other book. You can add a note in the publications notes explaining that these are inside of the same frame story (or whatever the situation is).
Let me know what you want to do and if you want to try (I can answer any questions on how)? I'd go with option 2 if the collection was never published on its own but... Annie 14:58, 1 March 2022 (EST)
The collection Trial by Blood has been published individually as a hardcover (ISBN 9781849709286). Black Library seems to be fond of republishing entire anthologies/collections in their omnibuses... unfortunately. This being the case, and if I understand you correctly, that means option #1 is likely the most precise choice. Here is my suggestion (although my understanding of ISFDB is admittedly limited, so do let me know if something isn't quite right):
  • Delete the shortfiction Trial by Blood (no such short story exists).
  • Re-create Trial by Blood as a collection, adding/importing all the short stories in the process.
  • Import the new collection to the Sons of Sanguinius omnibus.
Would that work? --Ir'revrykal 15:10, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Yep, as it exists on its own, Option 1 above is the better way. Your plan is ok except that you will need to do the import in 2 steps - the collection title itself will not get added when importing the contents. :) So let's work on that. Submit the missing collection first and convert the collection we started with into an omnibus and remove the story that does not exist (using Remove Title). These can go in parallel. Once these are approved, you can do the double import - once to import the collection title (via Option 2 on the Import screen) and once to import the stories under it (Option 1) into the titles which contain that collection. Annie 15:15, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Alright, I've submitted the hardcover publication of Trial by Blood (ebook version to follow). I've hit one snag in that I cannot update the publication type of Flesh Tearers to omnibus (since it does not contain a "a NOVEL, ANTHOLOGY, COLLECTION, or NONFICTION" yet, I suppose). --Ir'revrykal 16:16, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Oh yes - forgot about that, sorry - one of our protection checks. I will look at the submission as soon as I finish what I am doing now. Annie 16:20, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Approved. One question though. You have the date as "2014-11-01". Your only source has it as "November 14th 2014" aka 2014-11-14. You either need to add a new source for that date OR to explain the discrepancy in your notes. I can see that the ebook is from 2014-11-07. That would mean that the TITLES need to carry that date but the hardcover book should be following your source. Let me know if that makes sense. Also - in cases like that, it is a better idea to start with the earliest format. Then the stories will carry its date - so you do not need to redate. Annie 16:31, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Right. That's my bad, I simply misunderstood the Goodreads date information (I do wonder where they got the date for "first published" from, though). I'll change it to the 14th. And your point re: title dating is noted and understood. :) --Ir'revrykal 16:36, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Amazon - GR gets data from Amazon (one of their sources anyway). Then people fix them when they are wrong and/or need updates. While they have some suspect dates, I almost never catch them with mistakes when they have exact dates. Annie 16:46, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Also, would the short stories not automatically have their dates updated once I imported them to the ebook publication? --Ir'revrykal 16:37, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Nope. Once the title record is created, a date needs to be changed manually on the title record (same applies for a title or author on this record). Part of the reason is so that we do not annihilate the correct dates of something based on a typo somewhere (for example if someone misdated a book and import stuff into it). So the editor is responsible to make sure that their dates are consistent - we call that importing back in time - and if you do not pay attention to it, someone will be here to explain the problem. A small trick - while the stories are in ONLY one publication - like these new stories, you can edit their dates with Edit Publication - just add in the moderator notes that you are re-dating for an earlier edition. Then you can CLONE (no need to import if the other one does not exist) the book for the other format - and all stories will come with you.
One more small thing: we keep all ebooks together - so the ISBN and the ASIN will go on the same record (GR uses two records for that) - as they are the same book in different formats - you need difference in cover/contents/date or something like that to have a separate record. For most books you end up with one ebook carrying the ISBN and the ASIN. Annie 16:46, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Right. In the future I'll make sure to create the earliest publication first. For now, though, I should probably import the remaining short stories to the hardcover publication before I clone it—that way I don't have to import twice. I agree that keeping ebook versions together is a clean solution, and I'll add both the ISBN and ASIN to the ebook publication that I clone. --Ir'revrykal 16:54, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Oh yes, finish the one book, THEN clone - it makes your life a lot easier - when you clone, the page number/order comes with you as well - you can change those on the clone but you have the option to get them come with you. And you can add both GR IDs there as well :) And you can submit PublicationEdit to change the dates. Everyone misses that once in a blue moon (or more often). Once you clone (or import the stories elsewhere), the redate will need to be done one story at a time. :) Let me know if I can assist further. Annie 16:58, 1 March 2022 (EST)

Adding preexisting stories

When we already have the stories in the DB, you can import them instead of adding them. When you add, you create new entries - which need to be merged later (I did that in "The Uriel Ventris Chronicles: Volume Two". The Import menu is on the left menu on each publication.

One more trick: when you know the order of stories/novels, you can use piped numbering to order them without specifying pages. See how I did it here :) Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for updating these. If you are Warhammer 40,000/ Warhammer fan, there is quite a lot of work to be done on that series if you are in the mood to work on them :) Annie 11:32, 1 March 2022 (EST)

Both useful tips. I will try the import function next time. I've been compiling information on Warhammer releases for my own personal research, leaning heavily on ISFDB in particular. I noticed a few errors here and there, hence my registering an account. I will most definitely be continuing to make small adjustments as I keep learning the ropes. Thank you for your help. --Ir'revrykal 11:46, 1 March 2022 (EST)
Any and all help is greatly appreciated. It is a volunteer run project and mistakes happen no matter how careful we are. :) Annie 12:01, 1 March 2022 (EST)

Fear of the Dark

Hello,

The link to the story goes better with the story record (so I moved it there). Not sure which of the subseries the story belongs to so I will leave you to add it where it belongs. The end result of the book is here. Thanks for adding it. Annie 11:37, 1 March 2022 (EST)

I see. Sorry about that, I am still figuring out the order in which information is added. --Ir'revrykal 11:42, 1 March 2022 (EST)
No worries at all - there was no way to put it on the story until the story was added anyway - so this was more of a "just so you know where it went and why I moved it" :) Annie 11:59, 1 March 2022 (EST)

Dating

Hello again,

When you see yellow warnings like these about dates, it is a good idea to actually submit the 3 required edits to fix these immediately after the import/export, setting the date correctly. adding a moderator note explaining why you need to reset the dates. See how I did it here for example. Please note that the fix won't fix the warnings even post approval (this is one of the few cases where we don't reconcile the existing DB to the data in an approved submission) but if they are not cleared, they will pop up on a report and someone will need to finish the work for you later. :) Thanks! Annie 15:49, 2 March 2022 (EST)

Oh, alright. I figured I should wait for the edit to be approved first. I'll just fix these immediately in the future. Thank you. --Ir'revrykal 16:02, 2 March 2022 (EST)
These can go in parallel :) You should not be doing two edits in parallel on the same object (so no two PubEdit on the same publication, touching the same fields (and sometimes even when they don't so if you need to do that, cancel the older submission and made all changes in a single one) but two imports or an import an an edit on the same publication or an import of a title and an edit on the same title and so on are safe. Annie 16:05, 2 March 2022 (EST)

Trial by Blood

Hello,

I had to do a few edits - see how it looks now - see if any stories need to be added somewhere in those 3 books. Basically: an omnibus can contain a collection (but you need to add BOTH the collection AND the contents of the collection manually) but you cannot have two layers of it - so you cannot have Omnibus A containing Omnibus B which contains Collection C (which is what you had here). In this case you import C into A and B and add into A whatever else is inside of B. Let me know if something does not make sense. :) Annie 00:41, 4 March 2022 (EST)

Sorry for taking a while to get back to you, I had a hectic weekend. That does indeed make sense. I feel like I picked a bit of a complicated case for my initial contributions to the wiki. :) But that's fine, I've learned a lot. Thank you again. --Ir'revrykal 08:39, 6 March 2022 (EST)
No worries. :) And the DB can get a bit complicated sometimes. :) Annie 16:14, 6 March 2022 (EST)

Honour and Wrath

There are two things about this one which need clearing before I can approve:

  • The only source listed in the Notes is Amazon UK. The date there is as stated. If you are changing the date you MUST add a note explaining the provenance of the new date, not just a moderator note.
  • More importantly, this is a verified book. The courtesy policy is to notify a PV if we are changing their data. Wjmvanruth is not very active but they are around so please post on their page and notify them on the change - no need to wait for a response in this case I think but the notification itself is mandatory for a major field change.

As we cannot edit a pending submission, it may be better if you cancel your own submission, notify the PV and resubmit with a proper note inside of the Notes (and a link to the source of that change in the moderator note if there is one available somewhere). Hope this makes sense and let me know if you have any questions. Annie 11:28, 7 March 2022 (EST)

Sure thing. I've notified Wjmvanruth, canceled my submission, and re-submitted. I was not entirely what format the publication note should take, but hopefully this does the trick. --Ir'revrykal 16:16, 7 March 2022 (EST)
That's one case where we may want to keep the two ebooks separate - because of the date difference. I've updated the note for now but let me think a bit on that - arguably there is a difference between the free(?) 2014 book and the officially published 2016 one. Or maybe not. :) Annie 16:46, 7 March 2022 (EST)
It wasn't free—these Black Library advent calendars work like a limited subscription series where they release a new short story (or in some cases, entire novels) every day in December (sometimes several in one day). I don't think there is a need to differentiate the two; the Kindle version should be identical apart from the date. The later Kindle release is likely because Black Library took a long time to add their content catalog to Amazon. This will be the case for every single advent calendar short story (several dozens), and likely for most of Black Library's earlier ebooks as well. --Ir'revrykal 17:13, 7 March 2022 (EST)
Probably. Which is why I did not go for a clone directly. If it was a printed book, the date is enough to differentiate. As long as the notes explain the dates and their provenance, we can always split them at a later time if a decision is made. :) Annie 17:19, 7 March 2022 (EST)

Enyalius, In Memoriam

A little housekeeping with this one:

  • "In" is not capitalized unless it is the first word of a title or subtitle. See the Case section.
  • Fixed the note about the dates - when you list two sources and they disagree about something, that needs to be noted into the notes.
  • I suspect you are not in the States so you see prices with the tax included. $4.22 will be $3.99 seen from the States where list prices are before tax usually (don't ask) -- so I changed it. That's not THAT important in the long run but it will keep the publisher prices consistent. It can be a pain when you are adding from abroad though :(
  • There are 16 different Amazons out there so specify which one you are using. As you used a $ price, I changed it to Amazon.com.

Let me know if you have any questions/concerns :) Annie 17:30, 7 March 2022 (EST)

Understood on all points. --Ir'revrykal 18:27, 7 March 2022 (EST)
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