User talk:Rkihara/Archive 01

User_talk:Rkihara/Archive_01

Welcome!

Hello, Rkihara/Archive 01, 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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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! Marc Kupper (talk) 01:06, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Magazine

Ron, before tackling the magazines I'd recommend practicing a bit with novels as magazines tend to be more demanding from a data entry and verification viewpoint. You can jump right into editing and verification now. Out of curiosity, can you provide a general summary of which magazines you have? Please reply on this page (indenting with a leading :). Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:13, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Amazing Stories, years 1927-2000, 78% complete; Isaac Asimov's SF, 1977-2007, 99% complete; Astounding/Analog, 1931-2000, 93% complete; Fantastic Stories, 1952-1980, 68% complete; Magazine of Fantasy & SF, 1949-2007, 99% complete; Galaxy SF, 1950-1980, 100% complete; Galaxy Novels, 83% complete; Imagination SF, 1950-1958, 63% complete; Planet Stories, 1942-1955, 62% complete; Worlds of IF, 1952-1974, 98% complete. Also Satellite, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Venture, Worlds of Tomorrow, Original SF, and miscellaneous others.Rkihara 01:53, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Double Jeopardy on hold

Great to somebody else interested in doing magazines. I am currently working on doing all of Fantastic. I have all the issues from 1952 to 1970 and intend to acquire the issues I am missing but may need some collaboration with any issues I can't track down. I have placed Double Jeopardy on hold because the data I have indicates that this is actually a collection, specifically this entry Locus Online. Is there something different about the edition you have? You can leave an answer here on your talk page. Again, welcome to ISFDB.--swfritter 12:15, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Thank you for the welcome. I've been thinking of contributing for several years, but didn't have the time until lately. I plan to work with books as Marc suggested, then move on to magazines. The Locus reference cites novelettes in two consecutive issues of Thrilling Wonder Stories, which I think were combined to make the novel. The following is printed on the inner leaf of the dust jacket "This novel has been printed in serial form in Thrilling Wonder Magazine." My book has the same page count and other identifying features as the entry I modified, and the chapters are continuously numbered from 1-18.Rkihara 12:53, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Thanks. I will approve. You may want to update the note section of the book as documentation of which stories were combined and where they originally appeared. Fixups are annoying. A. E. van Vogt is a particular nightmare.--swfritter 15:15, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Of course, van Vogt is probably the inventor of the term!, and we're still learning how to deal with it. :-/ Notes are always good. Sometimes a claimed 'Novel' is purely a collection of related stories in order, and easily separable into those stories, so gets called a collection here as it makes all the links to the relevant stories easy. Sometimes the stories are there, but have interstitial text too. And sometimes the stories HAVE been rewritten enough to make them inseparable and all you can do is say "this novel is based on stories X, Y and Z" in notes.

Ah well, if you want to know what sort of discussions we have see here for an example - don't let that put you off though, Welcome aboard, and leave the awkward bits till later! BLongley 15:39, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy submissions

Thanks for the addition of these pubs. I had to make one change to your submission and that was in the cat/isbn field. The field will only hold a limited number of characters and by using Galaxy Science Fiction Novel No. 17 for example you would lose 17, so I moved this to notes and left just the publication number. This field is for the cat#(#F-338) or the ISBN# only. Other information should be put into notes. Thanks for the submissions :-)Kraang 07:04, 17 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the feedback. I've formatted today's submissions, Galaxy Novels #19 and up per your input. I've been reading through the "help" screens and I can see it's going to a bit of practice before I'm completely up to speed. Rkihara 11:52, 17 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If March 1952 submission

I see you are getting brave. There are a couple of issues about the data as it now exists for this magazine. First - the starting page of the stories - this from the EditPub Help screen: "Interior art as the first page of a story. If a magazine presents a story with artwork on the first page, but no text from the story, that page should still be counted as the first page" The page number for the Twelve Times Zero for instance should be 4 instead of 5. It is fine to enter each page where art exists for a story but it is also OK to make only one interior art entry for a story. I usually enter the only the first page where artwork exists for a story but doing it they way you did it is perfectly fine.

If there is an existing date for a story (like 1952-00-00) it has to be updated manually if you want it to be the same as the date in Magazine title area. Note that the 1952-03-00 date is carried down to the new entries but the previously existing title date fields have not been updated. Also, if you find a date different than the magazine date, do not change that date (for example, a 1942 date in a 1952 magazine. The earlier date indicates that the title is reprinted from an earlier publication. You will be changing data not only in the publication you are working on but in other places too.

I am assuming that these changes were made by you but let me know if they weren't. Magazines are not easy. I will be glad to look at any mag submissions you make if you will let me know what they are. I will try to moderate them if they show up when I am online. It will get easier.--swfritter 18:09, 17 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Sorry for the slow response, I keep getting blocked by ISFDB. I missed the instructions for artwork on the first page of a story. I'll go back and correct my page entries for the illustrations. The help guide is a bit complex so I tend to miss or forget things. I have been careful not to change dates of stories within the contents, since they may indicate an earlier publication. This is why I didn't update the previously entered fields, although 1952-00-00 seems to be a place holder. I've submitted one more issue, IF 05/1952, and will limit my submissions to one or two a day to limit my messes until I have a better feel for things. Thanks! I appreciate the advice.Rkihara 23:48, 17 Aug 2007 (CDT)

There was no problem with your artwork entries, just the page numbers for the stories. There are three different options for artwork. Option 1 - One entry with the same page number as the story. Option 2 - One entry with the same page number as the first piece of artwork. Option 3 - multiple entries with the page number where each piece of artwork occurs. It's alright to change the dates of the stories to the date of the pub if it is the first place they appeared. Even with the blocking your response time is fine, any response within three days is adequate, and your responses are very communicative.--swfritter 08:52, 18 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If, May 1952

I am going to approve tomorrow morning and make some changes. After I am done I will let you know the changes I made. Perhaps we can map out a plan that you will get you totally up to speed in as little time as possible. It may require a little patience but you seem quite motivated and willing to learn. I think it's going to be a pleasure having you on board.--swfritter 18:35, 18 Aug 2007 (CDT)

A Hannes Bok Treasury

Your submission for a new pub of this title is quite similar to an existing pub. Please check and see if that pub just needs to be updated or that yours is an entirely new edition. The only difference I'm seeing is the page count (and the Bradbury foreword.) Also, the editor of a single-artist collection should not be credited in the author field, only the artist should be. Put the editor's credit in the notes field. (This would not apply to a multi-artist collection, in which the editor is credited.) I'm holding your submission until I hear back from you (Reply below to this message). Thanks. Mhhutchins 10:10, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

You're right, I missed that earlier entry. It needs to be updated.Rkihara 12:27, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I'll reject your submission of the new record, and you can update the existing one. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:19, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If May 1952

I've made a number of changes and documented them below. I hope you are not getting frustrated. Every new Editor goes through this process.

Publisher: It looks like all or most of the issues of If include the city so it might be better to leave the address in otherwise all the issues will need to be changed in order to be consistent. This is a free form field so data entered here does not affect data entered elsewhere. I was actually considering the possibility of adding this information to magazines I am editing.

Jungle in the Sky - Titles amended with (Complete Novel) and classified as Serials are designated that way on purpose. This is mostly a display issue compromise which makes sure people looking at the author page know that the work appeared in a magazine rather than as a book. Seemed weird to me to and I did the same thing you did when I first started. I don't think the subject is actually mentioned in Help. That being said - this work does not achieve the 40,000 word barrier that would classify it as a (Complete Novel). Instead it is a novella. Editors often used this ruse of overstating the length of stories in order to make them seem longer. Digests usually have between 400 and 450 words per page. Stories become novelette length at around 18 to 20 pages, novella length at about 40 pages and (Complete Novel) length at about 80 to 90 pages in digest magazines.

I have changed all the dates of preexisting stories to 1952-05-00. These are clearly the first appearances of the story. Updating the month portion will make them sort more accurately in the author bibliographies.

It Takes a Thief - The author is listed as Walter Miller, Jr. and should be so entered in the magazine. Walter Miller, Jr. is considered a pseudonym of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (see his author page). Note: This one was actually a little more complicated since the story was later published under a different title.

"The Beast" - Same situation as the Miller story. John W. Jakes should be treated as a pseudonym of John Jakes. In this case this is the only appearance of the titles in the database so you can safely make the changes in the publication editor mode.

Infinity's Child - 'DeVet' is actually printed here when the canonical name is 'De Vet'. This is one of those fudge factor cases where I, and I think most of the other editors cheat a little bit and use the canonical name so I haven't changed this.

Resurrection Seven - The artwork title was misspelled Resurrection Seveb. I usually copy and paste interior art titles from story titles.

Editorial - The actual title from the title page of the story/essay should be used. In this case the title obviously indicates that is an editorial so it does not need any further modifiers.

Science Briefs - Since this is a continuing column I have added the "(If, May 1952)" for clarification. The general rule is not to modify titles but when there is a duplicate title in a continuing feature it can be done for clarification.

The Postman Cometh - I have also added the "(If, May 1952)" qualifier. The rules for authorship of letter columns - If the responses are signed use the name of the responder. If they are generically signed ('ed., 'The Editor', etc.) use "The Editor" as the author. If the responses are unsigned use 'uncredited'. If they are just letters without responses use 'various' as the author. At this point in time we are not entering the letter writers' names unless they are significant letters by significant people.

The technical title of the magazine is If. Worlds of Science Fiction is just some verbiage printed on the cover. This becomes more confusing much later on when "Worlds of" actually is incorporated into the title.

A great source of information is Mike Ashley's Transformations. This is a history of sf mags in the 50's and 60's and provides incredible amounts of valuable information. It was reading that book that prompted me to get back into collecting and reading magazines from that era.

Once again, you are doing just fine. There is a major learning curve. I am more than willing to spend the time to make you feel comfortable with editing magazine data.--swfritter 10:32, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

That's quite informative and sets out the information in an easy to digest manner. If it was expanded a bit it would make a great example in the FAQ. My entries to the May IF were generally pagination and illustrations. I may have added the letters column and editorial, but I don't remember. I should have checked the previously entered data a little more closely while making changes, though I find that dealing with variations in author's names to be confusing. While I'm on the subject, what about Emsh? He's listed as Emsh, Emshwiller, Ed Emshwiller, and so on, not counting pseudonyms. I've been entering Emsh, as that's how he signed most of his artwork, and leaving other variations encountered in the database alone. I'll study your changes and continue moving forward with IF. Thanks for your time.--Rkihara 12:30, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I generally enter the artist name as it is credited or signed and I think most others do the same. I would imagine there will eventually be a big cleanup. One way to keep track of the changes you make is to do a printscreen of the data entry area. I did so before I approved your submission so that I would know the changes you made. You can also do a text copy and paste of existing data. I will try to set up some sample data for you to work with tomorrow in order that you can learn how to do variant titles and pseudonyms without worrying about trampling live data. The first gap in my collection of If does not occur until 1955 so I can do checks on any data you enter up to that year.--swfritter 13:10, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I've entered IF July 1952, and will try to do two or three more in the sequence today. I'm now printing the files before editing to pdf for reference.--Rkihara 13:34, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I've just realized that I entered the month into the day position in the dates for possibly the July, August and September issues. It's too bad that you can't recall a saved edit before approval.--Rkihara 14:37, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Great - I have put them on Hold temporarily to save the other moderators having to analyze them. I might note that most of the problems with the May issue were not a result of your actions but they are things that needed to be fixed. If you want to limit yourself to adding art and missing data along with fixing significant errors that is just fine. It is not unusual for editors to do intensive but non-comprehensive projects.--swfritter 16:23, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

New If submissions

Approved. Luckily these were more correct when you got to them. All of your additions seem fine. Updated the dates for you. You can leave the dates for new entries blank and they will fill in from the issue date. It wasn't this way when I first started editing. I submitted a whole bunch of stories with a date that ended up being 0000-00-00. Might note that the July issue has an essay credited to Sam Merwin Jr. in the magazine. It is pretty much standard practice (as was done here) to add the comma to make it Sam Merwin, Jr. Same with Ph.D. and Ph. D. - they should be entered as Ph.D. M.D. and M. D. are entered as M.D.--swfritter 17:07, 19 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Adding 1953 issues of If today. I bumped the enter key while typing in the data for May, so there's an extra submission for that month.--Rkihara 10:32, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Been there; done that. I use a program called KeyBoardRemapper http://software.techrepublic.com.com/download.aspx?docid=289108 to disable the Enter key although this is kind of annoying because you need to disable the program so often to do other things. There are certain situations when you can totally lose everything you have entered if you hit the Enter key. I lost one magazine entry with 12 stories, associated artwork, and 12 cartoon entries. It might be a good idea to wait until your partial submission has been accepted before you enter the rest of your data. I am going to reject your initial May submission and approve the following one since it appears to have all the same data plus additions. Looks Like If is a good place to start for you. The data appears to be in decent shape and for the most part requires only artwork and essays to be entered.--swfritter 10:55, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Glad you entered your profile. It has some similarities to mine although I was lucky enough to have a high draft number of 301. I floundered around for a few years after I got my English degree and finally returned to school to get my Computer Science degree and am now retired. I had the core of my collection before I was 25 and have updated my collection during the last year.--swfritter 10:55, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

May through November If

May 1953 - The artwork on the BEP was classified as SHORTFICTION and not INTERIORART. Clarke's 'Jupiter Five' should be a Novelette (not your mistake).

July 1953 - (If, July 1953) not appended to letter column. September 1953 - The editorial is actually signed by Associate Editor Larry T. Shaw (he uses the initials lts).

November 1953 - Editorial once again signed by Shaw. Your first cartoon. I hate them. I would paste the Help section for them here but I don't seem to be able to access the Help screen. Unsigned cartoons do not have to be entered. Signed cartoons should be entered as - Cartoon: "caption in quotes" (see the November changes I made). Cartoons without a caption should be entered as - Cartoon: no caption. I credited the cartoon. Your entry in the notes is an indication that the attribution might not be accurate. You might want to look at the way I have done cartoons in the early issues of Fantastic http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Magazine:Fantastic . Book Reviews - you should make sure the title and author are entered as they actually occur in the database (I usually look up the title and copy and paste to the review) so they will be listed with the books being reviewed. If the title listed in the review is not the same you should document the discrepancy in the notes field for the magazine. After the pub with reviews has been entered you should look up the books being reviewed and make sure the review listing shows up there.

I assume you bypassed the January and March issues because they were verified. Verified pubs are not off limits. In fact I found that in both of these issues the page count had not been corrected and the letter columns had not been entered. If you find obvious errors in a verified pub it is alright to update them and notify the verifier. If you have any questions about the proposed changes you should first notify the verifier. A real problem in this case is that the verifier has not been active for awhile. You will find a long discussion about the verification issue at http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Rules_and_standards_discussions#Verification_Definition

Also it appears that somebody had started a "Personalities in Science Fiction" series from essays in If. A number of potential candidates for the series have not been added. One problem is that most of the essays in the series are about scientists. I am going to leave it to you to determine how you want to deal with this.--swfritter 12:55, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

January 1954 If

Once again the editorial is signed by Larry T. Shaw (lts).--swfritter 14:11, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

A Case of Conscience

If, September 1953. Here's one of those gotchas. Somebody mistakenly merged the novella version of "A Case of Conscience" with the Novel version. See http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2276. I'm not positive but I think when you changed the magazine version, the main title type was changed to shortfiction from novel. Mixed in with all the titles under "A Case of Conscience" are editions of the Novel and appearances of the Novella so this title was screwed up before you did anything to it. I will try to sort it out tomorrow by unmerging the novella entries from the novel entries.--swfritter 18:24, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Wow, and I thought I was getting the hang of it. Sorry about the mess. I'm going to have to look over your corrections, and try not to make repeat errors. I think "Personalities in Science" is a separate series from "Personalities in Science Fiction." I'm inclined to keep listing these, since they would fall into the category of a science article.--Rkihara 18:46, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Not really your error but as you gain experience this sort of entry will create a certain suspicion that will cause you to want to investigate. I didn't recognize the problem immediately. It wasn't until a few hours later that my subconscious figured out.--swfritter 08:51, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Working on If Mar. - Dec. 1954

I've read through your notes and I think I understand your edits, so I'm going to continue on through 1954. I really appreciate the time and effort you're putting into bringing me up to speed. Thanks again.--Rkihara 23:44, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I've submitted March and May 1954. April is one of my two missing issues. I noticed a case of recycled art in the case of the bep for May 1954. A slightly modified version was used for the cover of October 1955. The bep is monochrome, while the cover is in color and the spacecraft has a fin number changed. Is this considered a separate piece of art?--Rkihara 00:22, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Probably the best thing to do is make it a separate work of art an make a notation in the notes field for the magazine.--swfritter 08:55, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If though July 1954

No problems. I updated the April issue. One of the interesting things I found there was an illustration credited to Ed Emsh on the title page of the story but signed by Orban.

I have set up a test pub so that you can learn how to assign a pseudonym http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?224341. What I would like you to do is assign swf pseudo as a pseudonym for swf author. Make sure you put "swf" somewhere in any piece of data you add or modify so that I can track it down and delete it. When you get to this screen http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/mkvariant.cgi?719145 please note that there are two "Submit Data" buttons. The top button applies only to data entered in the top part of the screen and the bottom button applies only to data entered in the bottom part of the screen. You will probably want to work in the bottom part. At some part of the process you should also find yourself at this screen http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/mkpseudo.cgi?98373. To save you some navigation time you will find the appropriate Help screens here: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Help:How_to --swfritter 10:33, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I've submitted the test pub. If I understand it correctly, executing the first example identifies the real or parent author out from multiple names assigned to one title, while the second example screen identifies pseudonyms of the parent.--Rkihara 17:11, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/mkvariant.cgi?719145 defines tells the database that the story was written under a pseudonym by the author whose name you entered in the variant data screen. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/mkpseudo.cgi?98373 tells the database that this a pseudonym the author used - it does not link any stories. If a pseudonym is already listed it should not be added again. See http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?John_Jakes and notice that John W. Jakes is listed twice as a pseudonym. That was an early mistake I made. Unfortuneately, there is no way at this time to remove multiple entries.

You may also want to try to find a way to unlink the pseudonym attribution. You may also want to add a dummy collection with the same story as is listed in the magazine and then merge the two stories and then try to unmerge them. I am going to let you play around on your own with the sample data. I usually learn more by my mistakes and with test data you won't have to worry about trashing any signficant data.--swfritter 17:39, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Fantastic, June 1954 already in database

I put it in there or modified it recently (I can't remember which). Perhaps you are confusing Fantastic with Fantastic Adventures?--swfritter 11:39, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I think I've figured it out. There are two,nearly identical databases in the ISFDB with slightly different titles, one is called "Fantastic" and the other is "Fantastic Science Fiction Stories." I guess they'll have to be merged or one deleted? I was working with "Fantastic Science Fiction Stories."--Rkihara 12:08, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Wow - I thought that both "Fantastic" and "Fantastic Science Fiction Stories" linked to the same lookup table. According to some of the notes it looks like somebody was doing some cleanup work there even before my time. Three of the "Fantastic" entries seem to lead to a single table and the first leads to another table, the one I have been updating. Sorry about that. I should have noticed. I will reject your entry. I might note that you do not have to enter uncredited cartoons. Also with magazines the tags are user assigned because the system is not designed to create consistent magazine tags. Sorry again that you had to do unnecessary work.--swfritter 13:01, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

My assumption was correct and the extraneous entries are gone although I have retained links to the tables on my Home Page just in case. In any case, every once in awhile you will find that a magazine has been added to the database but there is no link to it so you don't know that it exists. Before working on I project I usually go the Bibliography for the magazine editor and see if there are any surprise entries for a magazine. Fantastic is my primary project right now. I have all the issues through 1970 and expect to have the issues I am missing before I enter them.--swfritter 13:15, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Searching for the editor doesn't always work - I've had to enter Editor records on previously missed magazines. And some we didn't entirely miss. Still, it meant I found and created these two magazines entries, hopefully someone will finish them off eventually. Impulse and SF Adventures (UK). But Kyril Bonfiglioli seems to be missing from a few more magazines too... I prefer to work from primary sources though, so if anyone else wants to step up to the job of "rediscovering" magazines I'm happy to let them do it. There are too many problems with how to categorise foreign reprints that I prefer to point them out and let someone else take up the challenge, or at least demand the ability to Clone a magazine, for instance... BLongley 16:43, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

The links to the tables are still active in my browser, even after clearing the cache, etc. I'll stick to "If," since you're doing "Fantastic."--Rkihara 16:16, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If, Jan thru May 1955

The documentation states that it is acceptable to assign the page of the artwork to the first page of the story but I think using the first page where artwork is found makes the data in this issue consistent with the other interior art entries you are making with If.

In the May 1955 issue the date for Easy Does It was not changed to 1955-05-00 and I assumed that this was an oversight so I changed the date from 1955-00-00 to 1955-05-00.--swfritter 12:05, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Question about individual letters

"If" starts a letter column in June 1955, and I noticed a letter within by Charles Fontenay to the editor. The FAQ says that inclusion of individual letters is "debatable," which implies that it is okay in some cases. If including the letter is allowed, how is it entered? Is the writer listed as an author in the letter column, or is he/she listed individually?--Rkihara 12:59, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Well this is one of those Rules and Standards discussions that basically led to nowhere: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Rules_and_standards_discussions#Attribute_Letter_Columns_to_Various.3F

I know I did a couple of them early on by assigning the letter writers as collaborators. Looks really stupid especially if you have four or five names. If you can find a policy hiding in the discussion, let me know. You can start up the discussion again. I now have a fairly definite idea of what should be done but perhaps you have some new ideas and I do not want to influence any original ideas that you might have. Welcome back to the world of committees. You probably had them in your job.--swfritter 13:37, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I'm not sure I've seen ANY Rules and Standards discussions lead anywhere really, but I keep on trying. DO feel free to join us in the discussions, Rkihara. It might save me starting the revolution on my own. ;-) BLongley 14:18, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

As the others state, there aren't any rules (or I've not seen any.) Here's how I chose to enter them in the contents fields of the periodicals:

• Page: Page number that the letter begins
• Title: Entered as "Letter (Periodical Title, Date or Issue #)" [I use the issue number in most cases, but that's a personal preference.)
• Month: Leave blank unless you're correcting a previously entered periodical. Default date is the date of the issue.
• Entry Type: ESSAY
• Author1: Letter writer's name

Go here for a recently added periodical to see how it looks. I'm not saying this is the best way, but it does show up clearly on the Author's Summary page. Mhhutchins 16:34, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Good example! It's got the "these people are famous SF authors and even a letter is bibliographically important", along with the "Who the Heck is THAT?" single-entry-here-because-of-one-letter people. Personally, I can't be bothered to enter every letter-writer unless I think the author is already here for other reasons, but I don't object to that level of data being added, so long as it's (a) not DEMANDED as the level of data-entry required, and (b) doesn't cause problems with an insignificant letter-writer being confused with a significant author, or even a significant artist or reviewer. BLongley 17:11, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Actually, if you take a look at the history of the ISFDB Policy page, there have been changes based on Wiki discussions and previously implemented features. Ditto for Help pages. Unfortunately, the process is not as fast or as efficient as one might wish :(

Things were somewhat better back when Al, our programmer, was around as he would often summarize the results of a discussion and implement new features based on the consensus. Due to Al's extremely limited availability (family and work issues) over the last 6 months, many discussions petered out since we weren't sure whether a software fix would be possible/forthcoming or whether we needed to implement a policy workaround. To use letters as an example, one possible way to address the issue would be to create a new "title type" for letters, but it's all pure speculation until Al comes back in September, collects requirements and tells us how viable a software solution would be. Ahasuerus 16:56, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

A lot of things don't depend on a software solution, and some things do get changed just by someone being slightly aggressive and changing a help page when nobody disagrees enough. It's not the best solution, and I wish we had some sort of voting mechanism to say what we would like to happen. So far only Moderator creation seems to have a formal process. Almost anything that DOESN'T require software changes, or retroactive data changes, should at least have some sort of procedure, probably not as fast as the new Mod process though. Policy changes have longer-reaching implications than single-person authority ones. BLongley 17:11, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I'll expand on that a little more, but as we've got a significant number of active editors and mods talking here (a quorum, maybe? ;-) this really should move back to a more appropriate forum soon. We're acquiring some Frequently Asked Questions from new editors, and probably should pull a few past discussions out of the archives to either a) explain why things aren't going to change, b) why they can't change just yet, c) they could change but not enough people really want it, judging on current discussions (which is why I particularly want to pull out some archives which show there IS enough support) or even d) why some people should be silenced. :-/ We're at a crisis point, IMHO: the Bureaucrats aren't enforcing the original "Laws" (Good!), discussions are encouraged (Good!), but although Moderators and Editors are talking, things aren't changing and I can foresee people quitting when they've done their "acceptable" edits. I'm looking to the new editors to save us from eventual total stagnation. BLongley 17:40, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I like the idea of a "new title" type, maybe the entered data could be hidden at a lower level to reduce clutter and linked back to the "letters column." Writers with similar names to major players would not cause confusion in the main author listing if this listing was decoupled from the main author listing. Later, if the letter writer is verified as an author/editor/etc., then his/her entry could be linked back to the main listing.--Rkihara 17:50, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

(unindent) I have copied Bill's last comment to the Community Portal and added a comment of my own. Ahasuerus 19:45, 23 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I find Mhhutchins solution to be acceptable except that I would use the title of the letter column, "According to You... (Fantastic, June 1954)" as an example. But that is no biggie. For right now, would prefer restricting to artists already in the database. The positive aspect is that we do not have to wait for software changes and it seems that implementing a Letters table might be a long way off. If this "committee" can come up with a consensus then I think we can propose it as a solution. Otherwise, we can wait for possible software solutions. There is plenty of other essential work to be done.--swfritter 08:42, 24 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If I was running the ISFDB as a software project I'd certainly be asking for lots of user comments by now before the next iteration, so I'm encouraged by this talk. I know I'm running into "Authors" that actually aren't authors a lot, but then I've gone hunting for variant authors and have been finding obscure ones that are actually multiple people, sharing a name. How big a problem this is I don't know - my activity makes it LOOK like a big problem at times. So I may be worrying too much about one-off letter-writers, or my suggesting that "crediting previously unknown letter-writers may lead to too many authors" will exclude some notable people. E.g. Mike Glicksohn is here on the basis of 3 letters but seems quite well known elsewhere? I'm FOR capturing more data than we need, rather than missing things entirely, but some of the auto-merging we have may lead to short-term problems. Software changes may stop an author being confused with an artist or a letter-writer - but some people ARE in multiple categories, e.g. Keith Roberts. I'm sure we can come up with some guidelines without needing software changes OR losing data - e.g. "If a letter-writer has no Author entry already, put their contributions in Notes instead". Or maybe a Magazine level comment would be more appropriate: e.g. the "SFWA Journal" letters column probably has everybody that should be included, whereas a reprint magazine that only appeals to the general public should probably have all letter-writers excluded on the grounds that the "notables" will have read originals. Possibly. Discuss. BLongley 14:11, 24 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If we want to institute a methodology now we need to keep it simple. Only two questions need to be answered. How do we format the entries and how do we insure that only significant letters are entered (at least until we have a standard for entering all letters)? I believe Mhhutchins input resolves the first question. As for the second question - I would suggest that we recommend that editors summarize the contents of letters in the notes fields of the letter entry. If a letter is not worth summarizing then it is probably not significant enough to be worth entering. If we want to hold out for something more elaborate then we will have to wait for further guidance.--swfritter 08:44, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

If

Nice job on If, August 1956!

I am afraid changing "uncredited" to "Uncredited" didn't work since the ISFDB data entry logic matches entered author names against what it already has on file and the match is not case sensitive. It then uses the name on file instead of the entered name and "uncredited" was there first :) The only way to change the case of an author's name is via "Author Data". If we were to change "uncredited" to "Uncredited" across the board, we would need to change our Help text, though. Ahasuerus 23:27, 24 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! I wondered why the auto fill and final listing kept showing "uncredited" in lower case. It'll save some time to quit fighting with it.--Rkihara 10:00, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

More practical lessons?

Would you like me to continue posing practical problems for you? You are doing some great work on If but you are not having to deal with pseudonym/variant title information, merges, or Editor records. The primary goal when a quality editor shows up is to move them up to moderator status as soon as there is a consensus about their ability and a willingness on their part. If you want me to continue with the practical problems I am going to expect that you use the Help screens rather than relying on me for practical guidance. Sound good?--swfritter 08:59, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I'm game, but I'm not sure about being a moderator, that sounds like a full time job. I have a large chunk of free time right now since I just retired, but next month I start taking classes in bookbinding, and in October I start working again as a part-time consultant. I'm also spending a lot of time reading the stuff I'm entering <grin>. Charles Fontenay's "Z" which I encountered yesterday is one of the best re-complicated time travel stories that I've ever read, right up there with Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps." I'm surprised that I haven't seen it before, or even heard of it. Maybe its obscurity has to do with it being complicated and conceptually more difficult. I'm still trying to puzzle out the logical implications.

I'll be working on Galaxy and/or F&SF for the next week, before going back again to If.--Rkihara 10:00, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I'm with you on the reading part. I find my head spinning thinking about the bibliographic stuff. I sometimes wake up at nights thinking about rules and standards. My primary reason for doing ISFDB is so that I can read through my collection in an orderly manner. I am currently reading through the 12 sf magazines that came out in December of 1952. What I want to do eventually is write Wikipedia essays. Short fiction essays are starting to appear there now. I would particularly like to document the novels and short stories of Daniel F. Galouye one of those semi-forgotten masters. I have read through all his novels and short stories and find them still quite readable. I actually don't do much moderating of other submissions besides mine. The other moderators primarily wanted to make me a moderator in order to lighten their load. The main reason I spent the time on your submissions is that you are working in the same area as I am. You are substantially reducing the workload for myself and others.--swfritter 11:40, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Daniel F. Galouye was one of my favorites too. I read Dark Universe and Simulacron-3 in my early teens and still think about them today. Simulacron-3 is actually a little chilling since many scientists like Paul Davies are speculating that our universe is a simulation. No proof, but their arguments are both compelling and disturbing.--Rkihara 12:49, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

You are a smart person

I just spent three hours entering the March 1959 issue of Fantastic http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?FANTMAR59. Richard de Mille also has the variant name Richard deMille. One of his stories in Analog was attributed incorrectly to de Mille when it should have been deMille. Two magazines where his stories appear have the name listed differently in the table of contents and the title pages of the story. Further examination revealed that he also wrote stories under the name of Arthur Coster. Those pseudonym attributions had not been assigned so I had to do that. In addition, the story The Girl of Many Bodies, which has the unattributed pseudonym Wilson Kane, previously appeared in the December 1952 issue of Other Worlds under the title The Identity of Sue Tenet by the unattributed pseudonym of Frank Patton. Going to Frank Patton led to straightening up a number of his pseudonym attributions. Linking The Girl of Many Bodies and The Identity of Sue Tenet as variant titles by pseudonymous authors proved so difficult that I just left notes in the appropriate places. How could you avoid a challenge like that?--swfritter 12:04, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I can see that there's satisfaction in finally bringing order to chaos. Are there any certified lists of pseudonyms on the ISFDB, or do you have to search them out in Tuck and other references? I'm kind of a visual guy, I wonder if it would help to chart out pseudonyms in a family tree sort of way, with dates of earliest use, and date of last use (birth and death <g>)? This would be especially informative if two or more authors collaborated under real or pseudonymous names.--Rkihara 12:49, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

A valuable resource is the Locus Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index (1890-2005) CD-ROM at https://secure.locusmag.com/About/CDRomAd.html. It has all the data not only for the magazines in ISFDB but many others. It is HTML-based and does not have interior art or book review entries and is not integrated with book data. It does have a large amount of series and pseudonym information. It costs money but I consider it absolutely essential. ISFDB bibliographic information can be found at http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Sources_of_Bibliographic_Information. There are also a number of online bibligraphies for various authors that usually can be found by typing in the author's name plus the word 'biblography'.--swfritter 13:41, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Changing contents of a collection, anthology or periodical

I am holding your update of Galaxy, February 1951 to let you know that there is a recommended method of how to make corrections in the contents area of a collection, anthology or periodical. If you change the TITLE or AUTHOR fields in any of the content records you will be changing every record in the database for that title. For instance, the Lester del Rey story "And It Comes Out Here" has ten appearances in the database. Your submission would change its title in Galaxy, February 1951 to "...and It Comes Out Here", but that would change its title in the other nine publication records as well. I can personally verify that at least five of these are not "...and It Comes Out Here", but "And It Comes Out Here". Here's a page in the Help guide that shows you how to make corrections in a contents' title.
Because you've added so much new contents to this pub, I'll go ahead and accept it. This saves you from having to retype it all, if it had been rejected for this single (but quite important) reason. I will have to go back and correct the title in the other nine pubs (and create a variant title for this story also.) If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:51, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Sorry about that. I'll read the guide carefully and be more cautious about changing titles and authors.--Rkihara 20:35, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

No problem. There's so much to take in when you first start here on the ISFDB. You're already far ahead of most new editors when it comes to magazines. I don't doubt that within a few weeks your submissions will be of a level that a moderator will only have to make a cursory glance. And who knows, it won't be long before you're approving your own submissions as a moderator. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:02, 25 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Recent Galaxy submissions

December 1952 - I believe the Ashman entry for the 'The Deep' was meant to be interior art. Will leave to you to fix. April 1952 - Jones is already in the database as Jones. This is similar to what happened when you tried to enter "Uncredited". Also there was a novel attributed to "jones". I did an ISBN search in abebooks http://www.abebooks.com/ and determined that the actual author of that book was Claudia Jones. I updated the name in the book pub record so now there is only one 'jones' in the data base. If you wan to uppercase the name, the best way is probably to go jones summary bibliography page use the Author Data option to change the name to Jones. I will leave that to you.

Galaxy October 1952 - You did a good job of not messing up the other entries but if you go to Eric Frank Russell's bibliography page http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Eric%20Frank%20Russell you will note that 'a little oil . . . (1952)' is listed as a variant title of 'A Little Oil' but there is no pub appearance listed for 'a little oil'. There is a pub appearance listed for 'a little oil' right below those two. There is more than one way to fix this but I would probably try to merge the two records for 'a little oil'. Hint - these titles will not show up under dup candidates. Another hint - when you do get to the merge window select the radio buttons for the variant title nt, 56278 for title parent, and the button that allows you to keep the notes. I am going to let you see if you can resolve this but if you stumped let me know.--swfritter 13:17, 27 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I've made the corrections and submitted the merge, though not without some trepidation.--Rkihara 18:22, 27 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Looks good.--swfritter 09:01, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

December 1954 Galaxy

Galaxy's Five Star Shelf is classified as shortfiction. Will let you fix. The really great thing about being a moderator is that nobody knows when you make a mistake. I just got through fixing about 6 places in Fantastic where I made the same error. And nobody knows - until now.--swfritter 12:27, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Or at least not until another editor verifies the same Publications :) Ahasuerus 12:32, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I've fixed it. After a few hours of data entry and checking, I get a little dopey. Speaking of multiply repeated errors. It would be nice to have a batch modify function for a limited number of fields, particularly in the heading where the data changes little from issue to issue. Changing the pagination of a hundred magazines one at a time is really fatiguing.--Rkihara 14:24, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Variant for Star Short Novels

Are you creating the variant based solely on the Galaxy review? If no publication exists title "Star Science Fiction Short Novels" then we should not create a variant. (My research came up with none.) If you want to link the review with the publication change the title of the review. Then add a explanation in the notes of the Galaxy pub page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:06, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Yes I made the variant based on the Galaxy review, I thought it was safer than changing the title in the review. Looking in Tuck, I see that Pohl also edited a series called "Star Science Fiction Stories", and at the end of the list by itself is "Star Short Novels." Maybe Conklin conflated the two titles? I'll go back and change the title in the review as you suggested.--Rkihara 17:56, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

FYI, we have a Magazine page for Star Science Fiction, which explains the relationship between the abortive magazine attempt and the successful anthology series :) Ahasuerus 18:49, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy, Jan 1953 [UK version]

I rejected your deletion of this title, but saw why you thought it was a duplicate with the wrong contents. This is actually the UK version of the magazine. I've changed the title to reflect that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Mhhutchins 21:12, 28 Aug 2007 (CDT)

You're probably right that it's a UK edition, that seems a reasonable delay from the September 1952 US edition which has the same fiction contents. But if so, then we can add the correct coverart (Visco has the British editions, in this case here) and from that the correct British price (1/6). But that leaves us with an incorrect cover artist record for Jack Coggins as the UK edition is apparently by Emsh? Also, we seem to be missing the Editor record to make the UK version easily findable. BLongley 15:19, 29 Aug 2007 (CDT)

However, the US/UK Galaxy cross-reference at Visco also seems to disagree whether it's the September or October 1952 edition in the US that was reprinted as the January 1953 UK one: and I see no reference to the Willy Ley essay(?) mentioned on the cover of it. For that reason, I'm reluctant to make ANY edits apart from notes like this comment here. Presumably someone is working from primary editions here though and can verify one part at least? If so, I'd LOVE to know what the key is to those author pictures on the British cover! BLongley 15:19, 29 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Sorry to point out the complications, feel free to do what I do - i.e. "the best I can" with so little magazine experience, then "holler for help" from the magazine mods! ;-) BLongley 15:19, 29 Aug 2007 (CDT)

FSF entries

Approved by noticed that some of the stories are still classified as shortfiction instead of shortstory. There is no date for the Recommended Reading column for Fall 1950. You might also want to think about putting Vol n, No n data in the notes field although a quick glance shows that most of the earlier issues don't have this data and, of course, FSF gets all fancy and uses roman numerals for the volume number. There seems to be no consistency in the way vol/no data is entered in later issues either. If you can determine a standard you might want to consider making a note to that effect on the link page. Or, of course, you could update all 600 or so issues in the series. Or just leave it to me when I get around to it sometime in the next decade.--swfritter 09:20, 30 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I tried changing shortfiction to shortstory, but this option was not in the drop-down menu, although interestingly enough, if it was classified as a shortstory, I had the option of making it shortfiction. I noticed that a lot of the book reviews were trimmed off, is this a quirk of the ISFDB, or did you edit those? I know they were short and numerous, but they did meet the minimum criteria for inclusion as given in the Editing guides. I could enter the Vol. n, No. n cross-referenced to the Strauss index, or use the spine numbering up to vol. 10. Is it customary to insert Vol. and issue number for all magazines, or just for magazines that are so tagged on the spines or front covers, like Amazing or F&SF?--Rkihara 09:58, 30 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Did not touch anything. I am pretty much in the mode of informing you of things that possibly need to be fixed and I have always informed you when I did make changes. The only reason I made changes earlier was that it was easier to do so for teaching purposes. I do not know why shortstory worked that way or book reviews were trimmed. I know of no lmitation on the number of reviews per issue. There is no stated standard on vol and issue and no requirement that they be entered. I noticed that other people had entered them and did the same. They are a good way of identifying issues. A glance through other issue of F$SF shows that they have not been entered in any consistent manner so it wouldn't hurt to set this issue aside for the time being. We really should have a set standard before updating such a large set of data.--swfritter 14:49, 30 Aug 2007 (CDT)

I went into edit mode on the Fall 1950 issue and dropdowns seemed to work OK. The two dropdowns actually worked independently from each other. I was actually able to put in an essay with the length of novelette. Kind of weird what's happening to you.--swfritter 15:07, 30 Aug 2007 (CDT)

There were funny things happening with the database/server the last couple of days. Sometimes when I'd post I'd get a message saying that the server was unavailable, so I would back button and wait for a 15-30 minutes and try again. I wonder if the review data vanishes by doing this? I may try it on a test submission and see what happens. In several cases whole sets of reviews disappeared, in some, maybe a third to a half of the submissions vanished, which led me to think they'd been edited. I wasn't totally sure that they had been edited, since everyone had been informing me of changes, but I felt that I should ask. I apologize if you were offended. Maybe some of my entry problems are browser/platform related, as I'm running Firefox on a Mac. The volume/issue numbers are printed on the spines of the first six years in Arabic numerals, so I'm inclined to use that for the standard, converting Roman numerals where they appear. If it's better for me to work one publication at a time, let me know. I'm jumping around between magazines, because my digests are stored ~5 years to the box, and boxes of similar years are stored together.--Rkihara 16:44, 30 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Absolutely no offense taken. Moderators can only approve or reject submissions. If they make changes their re-submissions will show up under Recent Edits. I was worried that my last message might be wrongly interpreted. The fate of the world does not depend on the ISFDB - unless this is an Ender's Game scenario. Most of the volume and issue number data has been entered in the format 'Vol nn, Issue nn' with later issues of F&SF also having a whole number. I should throw something out in the Help screens since this has become somewhat of a de facto standard. I once suggested putting the data where Catalog# goes but magazines now have an official number of some sort similar to ISBN's. You might want to put something out on the Community Portal about the Firefox/Mac issue. I use Firefox/XP and my delayed submissions seem to go through OK.--swfritter 10:43, 31 Aug 2007 (CDT)

The editing page seems to be working correctly today. I can now change shortfiction to shortstory, and vice-versa, so something may have been corrupted on my machine. I went back to the first issue of FSF and I'm re-inserting everything that disappeared. I'm putting in Volume and Issue as Vol. nn, No. nn in the comments section, since that's how the spine is marked. If there is some sort of standardization in the works, I'll skip that for now until the format is settled.--Rkihara 11:08, 31 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Looks like everything went through OK. Skipping Vol and Issue number for right now is probably a good idea. The information is of more value in identifying issues of oddball titles where there are multiple magazines with the same titles (two unrelated Science Fiction Adventures), magazines that skip nearly a decade between incarnations (Future)and magazines that change names(Imaginative Tales/SpaceTravel).--swfritter 11:25, 31 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Have started a discussion on Volume and Issue numbers at http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Rules_and_standards_discussions#Volume_Number.2C_Issue_Number.2C_Whole_Number. Nice to know I can still do a little SQL.--swfritter 14:17, 1 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF, February 1951

I checked into the note you added to this pub and discovered that John Coates is the author of the book under review. So I made a change, but added a verification to your note to that effect. Good catch! Mhhutchins 16:09, 31 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Kerning

Just a reminder that we always enter a space between initials, thus it's "A. N. L. Munby" as opposed to "A.N.L. Munby" and "B. A. Botkin" as opposed to "B.A. Botkin" :) Ahasuerus 00:59, 2 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1952

I have approved the changes to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1952, but I was wondering if you may have meant to change the publication date of Bradbury's "The Wilderness" from 1952-00-00 to 1952-11-00 as well? Ahasuerus 14:09, 2 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I should have left a note. "The Wilderness" was apparently a reprint, the acknowledgment in the footer to the story was "Copyright, 1952, by Triangle Publications, Inc."--Rkihara 14:23, 2 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, added :) Ahasuerus 18:33, 2 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF, January 1953

Ordinarily I would not have accepted the update that you submitted for this pub, because you changed the author of "The Perfect Creature" from John Beynon to John Wyndham (along with a lot of new info.) Fortunately all of the current pubs which attribute the authorship to "Beynon" is incorrect, and should have rightly been Wyndham. If I had been forced to reject the pub, all of the new contents that you added would have to be reentered in a new submission.
Remember that when you change the authorship of a story within a pub's contents, you will be changing all other pubs to that same authorship, even if they were published pseudonymously. I have a few steps to perform to get this story back to ISFDB standards. There's a way to change to contents to avoid this. Thanks.

Sorry! Thanks for saving my edit, that sounded like a bit of work to repair. I was under the impression that if a pseudonym was linked to the canonical name, that it would be decoupled, but I guess it's a case of the "hip bone connected to the thigh bone . . .--Rkihara 19:43, 3 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF June 53

Don't forget that cartoons need to be labeled as such. 'Beware of the Robot' should be 'Cartoon: Beware of the Robot'. Since there is no caption using the text from the lawn sign as a title is appropriate. Will let you make modification.--swfritter 09:02, 4 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF July 1953

Good catch on Henry James - This is the entry from the Locus/Contento CD: The Friends of the Friends [“The Way It Came”] • Henry James • nv Chap Book May, 1896. While I've got the issue up a will go ahead and make the change.--swfritter 10:10, 4 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I also got rid of the bogus pseudonym attribution. Apparently Kellenberger used actually did use Henry James as a pseudonym. Guess he didn't there was another writer named Henry James. Must not have had any high school English classes.--swfritter 10:25, 4 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! I might not have caught it if the Great Books group that I belong to hadn't been on a Henry James streak; "The American," "Washington Square," and so on.--Rkihara 10:48, 4 Sep 2007 (CDT)

You were probably going to do some more research on this. Hope I didn't spoil your fun.--swfritter 11:13, 4 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I would have had to make a trip to the library, so you saved me a bit of time. I didn't notice the pseudonym attribution, but the editor's intro left no doubt that it was the real Henry James. I wonder if anyone ever told Kellenberger about his faux paux? It probably raised a few eyebrows among his contemporaries, and provided a bit of amusement.--Rkihara 11:33, 4 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The Victorian Chaise Lounge

I have approved The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1954 submission, but then changed The Victorian Chaise Lounge to The Victorian Chaise Longue since I assumed that the typo was yours and not Boucher's :) Ahasuerus 13:57, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Yes, that was my typo, though it was more like dyslexia on my part (I had to stare at it for a while). Out of curiosity I looked it up and was surprised to find out that that "longue" is the proper term, while "lounge" is considered to be a folk usage. I guess you already knew this.--Rkihara 15:49, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Or maybe he just has some French skills? As various people have said in various ways, "We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary". We don't seem too fussy about keeping the trophies, whereas the French for instance are trying to pretend they didn't steal "Le Weekend" and "La Chewing-Gum". (Maybe they have troubles with the genders?) BLongley 16:12, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I do know the French spelling of the term, but you never know with these crazy writer types, so I pulled up the record in OCLC and checked :) Ahasuerus 00:28, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Changing Bradley's "The Climbing Wave" to novella

I totally agree that this is not a novel and would prefer it to show exactly as you wished to change it, and without the (Complete Novel) designation in the title. But somehow, somewhere, somebody thought this was a good way to connect a story title to it's subsequent publication as a stand-alone book. I don't like it, and think there's got to be a better way... someday... But in the meantime, that's the way it is. I reverted your change of it in this pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 12:29, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

That's okay with me, but what about the "Serial" designation? I'm beginning to see that categorization can be a real slippery subject. I'm reminded of a couple of articles I read about Linnaeus lately, and his categorization of the plant and animal kingdoms.--Rkihara 14:15, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

WHAT subsequent publication as a stand-alone book? I don't see it here... :-/

I too agree stories like this are not novels, but in this case isn't it just one magazine entry we have to disagree with? This doesn't even have a reprint in a "TWO Complete SF novels!" Ace Double or suchlike that wouldn't pass as a collection or omnibus these days. If it was my pub, I'd happily change it and leave a "this was laughably described as a complete novel" comment in the notes. It seems no other editor was brazen enough to say that - there's much longer works that are far more arguable, appearing only as "complete novel" serial and then as half a book, never as a complete book. Don't wimp out on this one, argue the case! BLongley 15:34, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

When I saw the (Complete Novel) designation, I assumed (wrongly) that there had to have been a stand-alone publication or at least an appearance in a double. But I couldn't find one, and can't figure out why an editor would give it that title. So I'm going to take it under my own authority to change the designation to a novella, and take the (Complete Novel) off it. (Wish I could do the same with all the others as well, but that would upset those few who like the designation.) Mhhutchins 16:09, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

"Complete Novel" does seem to appear on magazine entries more often than I'd like, and many entries here are transcribed from references of suchlike: but that's probably what the first publication said. Usually when a Book publication turns up someone can then argue that it's an expanded version of the former "Complete Novel", or that it's the same text and doesn't qualify. But we rarely have editors that own both. (OK, we probably do, but they're concentrating on one side.) We actually seem to be dividing into Magazine-Only and Book-Only editors: I hope the divide isn't so bad that Magazine Eds demand we go by what the publication says, and that Book Eds go by ISFDB categories. (I've already seen one example where Locus gave an award in a different length-category to the one it reviewed it as, I just can't recall what title that was.) Oh well, nobody said editing here was easy. (OK, that's a lie - I keep telling people it is.) Can I claim my work here as "relevant experience" to my "herding cats" Ph.D. attempt? BLongley 17:01, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF July 55

Approved but made the following changes: Since the cartoon has a caption it should have been listed as Cartoon: "O.K.---now pass the bat's blood.". The Lasswitz story was published in 1885 according to the Locus/Contento 'Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index' CD. Good that you took Willy Ley out as an author and made the note. Also removed the title you had marked for deletion. I am not sure that you know this - titles you remove from pubs are not deleted and in this case resulted in an orphan title which I deleted.--swfritter 13:11, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF October 1955

Accepted as submitted - If the Merril story was about 20 pages longer the (Complete Novel) designation might have been correct but your change is correct. You might find the following entry from the Locus CD helpful: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction [v 9 #4, No.53, October 1955] (35¢, 128pp+, digest, cover by Mel Hunter)

   * 3 • Project Nursemaid • Judith Merril • na
   * 75 • Dywyk • Doris P. Buck • vi
   * 78 • By a Fluke • Arthur Porges • ss
   * 84 • Uncle Phil on TV • J. B. Priestley • ss Lilliput Apr-May ’53
   * 104 • The Cricket Ball • Avro Manhattan • vi Lilliput
   * 107 • The Talking Stone [Wendell Urth] • Isaac Asimov • ss
   * 124 • An Appointment for Candlemas • Robert Graves • ss Punch Dec 1 ’54 

I did not do anything beyond accepting the submission.--swfritter 13:24, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF January 1956

It looks like you did not change all the dates. You can change all the dates for new stories to 1956-01-00. The date on magazines is generally the date that the magazine goes off sale so on a technical basis the stories actually first appeared in 1955. The general standard though is to use the date printed on the magazine as the date of the story.--swfritter 13:43, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF 1955-56

A lot of things to note down. I'll consider getting a Locus CD. Was the CD cited for the Merril entry or the more precise pub dates? Also wondering about how to handle Boucher's book reviews. He tends to review a book he likes over and over during the year, not to mention his recap of the year's best. I've been entering only his first reviews and ignoring repeats unless they are substantially longer and more detailed.--Rkihara 14:28, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Listed entries for more precise pub dates and sources for reprints. My first inclination on reviews would be to enter any of them that adhere to the guidelines - which are basically pretty minimal but I think your logic in not automatically adding redundant reviews is a good idea. I would enter the annual recap reviews since they constitute a best of the year list.--swfritter 15:31, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The number of end of year recaps are daunting. One of the lists must have had at least thirty titles, each with a short recommendation. Maybe I could enter the titles in the comments box?--Rkihara 15:52, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF March 1956

Cartoons without a caption should be listed as Cartoon: no caption. I know you are probably getting paranoid ( I still do) about changing titles within a pub but if the title (Like 'Science Screen') only appears in the pub you are editing it is alright to change it within the pub. In fact it is preferable since removing such a title leaves an orphan title which has to be deleted - as I just did. If everyone shares the same paranoia is it actually a paranoia? Since I've got the mag up in the screen I will delete the Beaumont title and change the cartoon entry.--swfritter 12:19, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Definitely paranoid. It seemed to me that single occurrences should be safe, but I decided to err on the safe side. I'll be deleting those orphans when I make a sweep back over what I've entered.--Rkihara 13:02, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I remember what it was like before I was a moderator. Little notes all over the place. I will leave you to destroy your own orphans from now on.--swfritter 15:05, 11 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF, September 1956

I accepted your update of this issue, but noticed that you had zeroed out the date of the Evelyn E. Smith DAXBR BAXBR. My research shows that it was first published in the 1954 anthology Time to Come but the two words are reversed and there's a slash between them. If the F&SF version is as you entered it, we should create a variant. Thanks. Mhhutchins 10:07, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I don't remember zeroing the date out, but I was puzzled about how to enter the title and left it as it was. On both the index and title page, the title was was laid out two-dimensionally like a crossword puzzle, with the two words(?) crossing at the "X." . DAXBR was vertical, while BAXBR was horizontal. I haven't read the story, but I flipped through it and it's filled with crossword puzzle constructions of all kinds; squares, rectangles, parallelograms, and so on. In this database it's the problem of entering a 1-D projection of a 2-D object. 8>)--Rkihara 11:05, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I can see how it might be difficult. I just created a variant and hope that covers it. You might want to add a statement concerning this situation in the note field of the issue. Thanks. Mhhutchins 12:48, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF, October 1956

Your update of this issue zeroed out the date of the John Christopher essay. Was there an earlier publication that's not in the db? Mhhutchins 12:40, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The John Christopher essay was credited to Punch, no publication date. I don't have the resources to track this down.--Rkihara 13:05, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF February 1957

Is there a reason you did not change all the dates? There is another editor who has started changing entries like 'Recommended Reading (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1957)' to 'Recommended Reading (F&SF, February 1957)'. It might be a good idea since sf fans recognize the shorthand. But it would also require an awful lot of work to make the entries consistent. I put his submissions on hold temporarily since I think we should have group input.--swfritter 09:16, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The previously input 1956 dates for February 1957 seemed to be wrong. I felt it better not to change them, since F&SF does a lot of reprinting and does not always give an acknowledgment. I've no objection to using F&SF in place of the full name of the magazine. I entered the full name of the magazine, since it had already been entered that way, including the full spelling of the month. I've also noticed that seemed to be the rule for other magazines. Since F&SF has published about 660 issues to date, that would mean at least 1320 changes if the title block was changed too.--Rkihara 09:49, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF Dec 1956

Venture to the Moon is actually of a series of short-shorts as listed in Locus/Contento CD:

100 • Venture to the Moon • Arthur C. Clarke • gp London Evening Standard May ’56; The Starting Line [“Double-Crossed in Outer Space”], ss London Evening Standard May 23 ’56; Robin Hood, F.R.S. [“Saved! By a Bow and Arrow”], ss London Evening Standard May 24 ’56--swfritter 09:22, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I didn't quite know what to make of this, since the titles appeared to be like chapter headings. Maybe they should be listed individually, rather than grouped under the "Venture to the Moon" heading?--Rkihara 09:55, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I had a similar issue with some Disch stories - two out of three were reprinted individually. I made separate entries for each story and then combined them in a series under the title in the table of contents http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?FANTAUG1963 .--swfritter 10:47, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The "mini-series" approach has been used by other editors as well and it seems to be the best way of handling these tricky situations. A similar approach has been used to associate fixups with the stories that they were based on. Ahasuerus 11:51, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

We've done similar with "Three Enigmas" by Aldiss - search for Series with that title for examples. We've bent the use of "Series" more than that though, with about 15 titles over 10 pages or so. I just can't recall what example that was at the moment. BLongley 16:49, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Martinis 12 to 1

According to the locus CD the story first appeared in the November 1955 issue of Playboy.--swfritter 09:28, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

F&SF March 1957

No reviewer listed for Strangers in the Universe. The kind of mistake I make all the time but since I can moderate my own submissions nobody knows. Probably a good idea to leave out redundant reviews. 'Best of' Lists might be better done with tags. See my user page http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User:Swfritter for a way that I have listed the honorable mentions from the Merril best of anthologies.--swfritter 09:35, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Another bump of the "enter" key, so I'm also short a couple of reviews. I'll fix it today.--Rkihara 09:51, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Boucher has a conversational style of reviewing books, rather than the compartmentalized style that I'm more used to, and as in a conversation, mentioning one thing brings up another. Boucher does the same in his reviews. Sometimes the re-review is short, sometimes they're greatly expanded. I've caught a lot of the redundant reviews when I check for previous entry in the ISFDB. I've made a lot catches from memory, since I'm entering the magazines serially. I'll think about tagging the best of the year, since I'm thinking of tracking a few of these books down to read.--Rkihara 10:13, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Saturnian Celia

Did you make the note for A Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction because you don't own the book or do you intend deleting the note? I own the book club edition and the title is spelled as corrected so there is no discrepancy unless the paperback edition is somehow different.--swfritter 13:25, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I put the note in because I don't own the book. Since you think it's correct, I'll delete the note.--Rkihara 14:23, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

A good source for older collections and anthologies before 1984 is Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, Combined Edition. You can leave a message on ISFDB:Verification requests.--swfritter 17:06, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

If August 1957

Bramble Bush in If August 1957 ended up with a zeroed out date because this entry was in the date field - 1957-00-001957-08-00. I don't know if you are doing a search/paste but every first search and paste I do with Firefox does the same thing. After the first one it works right. Will leave you to fix.--swfritter 13:36, 14 Sep 2007 (CDT)

If, Sept 59

Shouldn't the page count be 132 as originally entered?--swfritter 09:30, 18 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I checked again and the count with covers is 134. There was a change in count from 124 to 134 between Feb and July. There was interesting note from the editor in one of the issues of IF, responding to a reader who wanted the magazine to have a few more pages. The magazine is bound in signatures, so the size of the magazine could only be increased or decreased by printer's standard signature size. The printer they were using had signatures of twenty pages, so that was the minimum page change. I took a look at the Nov 1959 issue, and there were four signatures, which doesn't divide evenly into 130, but a closer look showed 3 signatures of 32 pages and one of 34 pages.--Rkihara 12:08, 18 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Ah yes, but they also changed where the numbering starts. In the February issue the first page is the table of contents. In the September issue the cover is counted as the first page. Notice how 'Summer Guests' starts on page 4. The last page before the bep is 130 so since the cover and fep are already included in the count only 2 pages need to be added to account for the bep and the bc. Sneaky devils.--swfritter 16:17, 18 Sep 2007 (CDT)

That was pretty sneaky. I guess it allowed them to claim a higher page count. I'll change it back.--Rkihara 16:48, 18 Sep 2007 (CDT)

If, March 1963

In the submission to update this pub, you overwrote the record for the essay "This Dream We Have" by Sturgeon with artwork by Finlay for "The Time-Tombs". It looks like you wanted to remove the Sturgeon essay, because there's another record by that title in the same issue by Frederik Pohl. Please keep in mind that you can not overwrite a content record without changing every instance where that title appears in the database. Fortunately in this instance there are no other publications of the Sturgeon essay. I will accept the submission and do the necessary tweaking to get the pub back into shape. In the future just create a new content record and after the submission is accepted, use the "Remove Titles From This Pub" function. Thanks. Mhhutchins 10:47, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Also had to change the "Hue and Cry" piece to ESSAY type instead of SHORTFICTION. Mhhutchins 10:48, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

It wasn't as bad as I first suspected. We were lucky that there were no other records of the Sturgeon essay. Please check the issue and see if it looks OK. Thanks. Mhhutchins 10:51, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

You did the same thing with the July 1963 issue of If. It takes only one more edit to remove any bad contents, and it's good to get into the habit of using the "Remove Contents" function. Don't get into the habit of overwriting because eventually you'll run into a situation where it's going to do damage that may take several more edits to clean up (and that's only if we're lucky enough to catch it in submission.) Mhhutchins 11:12, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

And you did the same thing with the September issue. I'm going to hold it until you wonder why and check out your talk page. I may be somewhat compulsive, but I check my talk page every 15 minutes or so, in between edits. It's a good idea to check it at least once an hour. Hope you don't take this the wrong way, but it's the only form of communication we have. Thanks. Mhhutchins 11:29, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Is this a matter of my having created some confusion for you when discussing modifying entries that only appear once in the database? It is a kind of an unusual entry. Different moderators have different opinions on how to deal with the issue. I left a post on Mhhutchins Talk about the issue.--swfritter 12:01, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

In the words of the late Emily Litella, "Never mind." Mhhutchins 12:13, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

This seems to have been resolved before I could answer. I'm trying to be careful, but I do appreciate the guidance, as Hippocrates said, "First of all, do no harm." I think I should have noted my reasons in the comments, and I will check my talk page more often. I'm also going to post my email address on my page if you need to contact me more quickly.--Rkihara 12:38, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Mhhutchins is a truly trusted moderator. You might want to visit his talk page to see the discussion on this issue. Just a difference of opinion on how to deal with a thorny issue. But at least this has started a discussion that may hopefully make the issue moot in the future. Oh, by the way did you sell that batch of Amazing Stories to me on ebay a couple of months ago because you have duplicates or because the fiction in Amazing at that time was so dreadful? The John Bloodstone byline on any magazine is a definite danger sign.--swfritter 12:47, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I was wondering if I had sold anything to anyone here. I've sold several batches of Amazing over the last ninety days, but I can't find your user name on eBay, so you must be using a different name. In any case, I've been selling batches since I'm being overwhelmed by extras, not because of the stories. I have to agree with you that a lot of the stories Amazing published in various periods were not all that great. My history with Amazing started in the early sixties, and stopped about fifteen years later. Though I continued to collect issues over the years, I've read very few of them before 1960 and after 1977. In contrast, I've read almost every issue of F&SF, Galaxy, and If, and Astounding/Analog between 1947 and 1980, at which time I felt the quality of most stories published in Analog were a waste of time to read. I've started reading an occasional issue of Analog lately after discovering G. David Nordley.--Rkihara 13:39, 22 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I am Skalligrim on ebay. The first sf magazine I bought was the April, 1961 issue of Amazing Stories. The Cele Goldsmith/Norman Lobsenz era was a bright spot in the history of Amazing and Fantastic.--swfritter 12:09, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy submissions Aug-Oct 1956

August - looks like the the Tenn story did not get the Mag date. 'Early Model' by Emsh is attributed as fiction. September - the Cogan story did not get the Mag date. Things you would probably have caught on a second look.--swfritter 11:47, 24 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I was feeling a little fuzzy this morning and had a suspicion that I had flubbed some entries. I was going to go back and check them again (hoping no one noticed). I'll fix the mistakes, after I've had a little more caffeine <grin>.--Rkihara 12:01, 24 Sep 2007 (CDT)

It would seem that everybody is on everybody's watchlist so mistakes are broadcast to the world. I'm curious whether or not you like this ideas for doing some of the extended magazine series. I suggested an idea to Alibrarian and he did this little sample. There had been very little work done on Fantastic and it seemed like a good testing ground for a little innovation. I will have to do a little clean-up work if some of the ideas don't work out.--swfritter 12:47, 24 Sep 2007 (CDT)

That would also make it easier to search through long lists. I've noticed that entries for Emsh already run several pages. Maybe changing text size and going from bold, normal, and italic at each indented level would also help.--Rkihara 00:26, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Anything you can discover in Magazine work that will reduce the size of Editor/Author/Reviewer/Artist's pages will be very useful elsewhere too, so please continue the research! (Mis-)Using certain features of Title-Merging and Series and Serials can lead to some major boosts in usability without waiting for Al. And from the Book-side, I can see we'll need them soon enough... I could often make a page unusable just from entering the previous publications listed in my book. :-/ BLongley 15:55, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy, April 1957

No reviewer for 'How to Make and Use a Telescope'. The accidental Enter key I am assuming. No need to answer - I know you will fix it.--swfritter 13:35, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy July 1958

No reviewer for 'The Immense Journey'. No need to answer. Know you will fix.--swfritter 12:30, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf (Galaxy, Apr 1956)

Don't think this is quite what you had in mind. I don't if your user rights will allow you to see the screen. And I don't know if you can reject it yourself if you can see the screen.--swfritter 12:41, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The link shows "Sysop Permissions Required." I presume I screwed up somehow (maybe related to using auto-fill in Firefox?). It's probably better to reject it. I'll look at it again and try to figure it out.--Rkihara 13:25, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Changing Galaxy to Galaxy Science Fiction

On a technical basis according to Magazines in Help the title of Galaxy should be Galaxy Magazine. The words 'Science Fiction' actually appear nowhere on the February 1959 issue. It looks like you were trying to be consistent with the way titles were done in the 1950's but starting in the 1960's the data is entered correctly as Galaxy Magazine. I have approved all your entries - the ones where you changed the title only were only entered as Galaxy so they were wrong anyway. This is something I should have noticed earlier but it looks like all the data from the 1950's was not according to standards anyway.--swfritter 11:16, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

This does bring up a topic I have been thinking about. We should probably have a canonical title that we use to create unique title data for book reviews, editorials, etc. I think 'Galaxy' works just fine in this case. Despite three or four title changes I have been using 'Fantastic' as the canonical title for Fantastic essays. 'F&SF' would have worked great too but there is a lot of data that would have to be changed.--swfritter 11:32, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I posted a question on the help page about Galaxy before your response here. The magazines that I've been looking at change back and forth from Galaxy Science Fiction (also on ISFDB magazine table listing), Galaxy Magazine, and just Galaxy printed as a title. So should I used Galaxy Magazine on all entries forward, or as printed on the cover/index? Regarding F&SF, was anything there a resolution about that vs the full title? I checked the book reviews and there are only 75 (~12%) or so with the full title used in the label, so it would be reasonably easy to change those and everything forward to F&SF. It would reduce the clutter considerably.--Rkihara 11:59, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Help standards do not leave us much wiggle room. If it says Galaxy Magazine where all the small print is, it should be Galaxy Magazine. You will probably be getting into the 1960's issues before long and I believe they were mostly done correctly. At least we weren't changing correct data to incorrect data. Before we get started on any big projects we should set some standards and post them on the wiki launch pages for each title.

Oh, by the way. When do you want to think about becoming a moderator? About the only mistakes you are making now are the ones that can be easily fixed and that you would probably catch. You haven't had to deal much with variant titles and pseudonyms but you have done enough of them to indicate that you understand them. More importantly you understand the impact of changing a title within a pub. You would only need to self-moderate at first and you are careful enough to ask questions and not go off on any wild tangents.--swfritter 12:37, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I'm straight on titles now. The primary ref is the fine print at the bottom. I've been using the cover and masthead. I tend to speed read technical material and sometimes the subtle details are lost.

The idea of being a moderator makes me a little nervous, since I don't feel that I understand all of the subtleties of the database, and it's a lot of responsibility to take on. But I guess at some point you have to step up to the plate, so I'm willing whenever you think I'm ready.--Rkihara 13:10, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Changing the story lengths in Galaxy

I'm holding your recent changes in story length for clarification. Are these changes based on how the piece has been designated in Galaxy's TOC, or by actually counting the words to determine the designation? Almost every piece that I checked in both Contento and Strauss were good as originally designated. For instance, you want to change Cordwainer Smith's "Think Blue, Count Two" to a novelette, when all sources I checked call it a novella. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:24, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I used the page count. "Think Blue, Count Two" is thirty pages long (pp. 47-76), minus two full page illustrations, which makes it 28 pages of text. Most of the stories changed from Novellas to Novelettes, were less than forty pages long. "The Bad Life" (pp. 166-194) in the same issue which is classified as a Novella is 29 pages long, minus two full page illustrations, and one nearly blank title page, for 26 total. I gave stories that made the minimum page count the benefit of a doubt, even after subtraction of pages. Maybe I should have left a note?--Rkihara 22:38, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Amazing aug/sept 1933

Missed a date on the editorial. Must say I was a bit thrown by the page numbers until I did a little research.--swfritter 11:52, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Amazing aug-sep 1933 / Galaxy Held submissions

According to the Proposed Publication Update Submission screen the name of the editor has changed but I cannot see any difference. I'm I going blind or did you change the name in some esoteric way?--swfritter 13:00, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I changed the date on the editorial only. Maybe the edit is corrupted and it would be better to reject it? By the way, is there still a problem with the story length changes I made in Galaxy? If it would help, I can go back and get the page counts for everything I changed, though you'll have to tell me which stories they are.--Rkihara 13:09, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Amazing - probably a display issue or the field may have been flagged as changed if you copied and pasted. I will approve and check. I just grabbed the Galaxy issues. Your changes are valid. The stories are not as long as advertised in the TOC with the possible exception of 'Day of Truce' which is right at the borderline. I would not have changed it. The Locus/Contento CD entries actually concur with your changes except for 'Day of Truce'. That should be changed back to novelette. A rough rule of thumb with digests. Nineteen pages without artwork is at the borderline. Forty-four pages is about the borderline for novellas. What may be causing some confusion is that Contento uses the abbreviation 'na' for novelettes and 'nv' for novelas. I will post mhhutchins page with a link to here.--swfritter 13:40, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I've been using the pub editing guide which sets ~20 and ~50 pages for a novelette, and between fifty and a hundred pages for a novella. I usually let a novelette through at nineteen pages, after subtracting artwork, and novellas at about 48 pages, though it depends on my mood <g>. As I'm doing long runs of magazines, I guess I'll do a real count for each title and post the counts here (the Amazing bedsheet had ~900 words/page).--Rkihara 14:35, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

My guestimates are based upon doing some random wordcounts. Some magazines, like Imagination, actually have word counts. Digests average about 425 words per page. Font sizes can vary too. The tiny type in the Fantastic issues I am working on probably reach novelet length at about 18 pages. I usually don't change story lengths unless they are clearly wrong. The 30 page 'novellas' you modified are clearly misclassified. The Baen's Universe entries I am working on are quite easy - just cut and paste the story into Word and do a word count.--swfritter 15:18, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The problem with "T. O'Conor Sloane" is the apostrophe in the name. There are different kinds of apostrophes in Unicode and our software used to have rather nasty problems with them. There are still some display problems when handling submissions, but AFAIK they do not affect the database. Come to think of it, we may want to mention it in the Moderator Help screen. Ahasuerus 15:30, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I get a warning for any field with an apostrophe in it. It would be nice to fix: as knowing that there's an apostrophe in the field might make me think "Oh, that's what's causing it" and I might miss an important addition. BLongley 15:49, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

It's worse at work where an inappropriate apostrophe can lead to a complete XSL transformation failure and no results back at all to our customers: that actually puts LIVES at risk at times. :-( BLongley 15:49, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Actual Word Counts

I just finished the word counts on several magazines and here's what I got. Calculations with Novelettes >7,500 words, and Novellas >17,500.

F&SF (December 1958) - 481 words/page

Novelette >15.6 pages

Novella >36.4 pages

Galaxy (February 1961) - 435 words/page

Novelette >17.1 pages

Novella >40 pages

If (February 1965) - 498 words/page

Novelette >15 pages

Novella >35.1 pages

Amazing (Aug.-Sept. 1933) - 900 words/page

Novelette >8.3 pages

Novella >19.4 pages

That was for the actual word count, though maybe the proper way might be to count all the characters and divide by some average word size.--Rkihara 15:23, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

You are an official victim of ISFDB compulsive behavior syndrome. Perhaps we should start a support group.--swfritter 15:36, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I buy books I don't need just in case they might improve our data. :-/ How's that for addiction? BLongley 16:06, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Admittedly, only cheap ones (my cleaner found a junk-shop where I rescued 32 books for £2.50 yesterday, and another 33 for £4.00 today) but ISFDB does make me go find books for "completist" reasons too, where I pay above the "1 penny plus postage" from Amazon. BLongley

I've been trying to collect just magazines, but since I've been entering book reviews, I've been cruising ABE books every day. So far I've managed to resist.--Rkihara 16:39, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I have a huge pile of fanzines and magazines that I daren't enter, as if they review a pub that doesn't exist here yet I'll have to go FIND AND CREATE a suitable entry. :-/ Still, Mike Hutchins is doing most of them and I can pretend it's not my problem. I've got a few days off work soon, maybe I can get some shipped to Denmark and REALLY not my problem. BLongley 16:54, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

There are books that have been reviewed from review copies although the books did not actually get published. If I find such case I will write the book myself and self-publish.--swfritter 17:19, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)

OK. Go to my User Page. I have tagged Project Gutenberg texts. Download the text file (use File-Save) from Project Gutenberg. Throw it in Word. Get the actual word count. 'Bad Medicine' from the July 1956 issue of Galaxy. Story less art is about 15 to 16 pages. Downloaded story has 5,787 words. 360 to 380 words per page.--swfritter 22:05, 1 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Interesting note. "Giant Killer" by A. Bertram Chandler was reprinted in "Baen's Universe" electronic magazine. It was classified as a novelette in The ISFDB but won a Retro Hugo Award in the novella division. It also appeared in a collection named "Novella:3". Popped the text into word and the word count comes out to 18,500.

When The Award-Granting Powers Have Spoken, I leave it that way. Even when Locus classifies a story one way then grants it an award in another category. When the ISFDB are the only ones disagreeing about it, I favour the verifier. If it's been verified two ways, I paint it pink and make it Someone Else's Problem. (This idea Copyright Douglas Adams.) Setting a Microsoft Tool loose on the problem with open data would feel like putting Dracula in charge of the local blood banks. BLongley 18:55, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

f&sf august 1957

One you would have likely caught - 'A Loint of Paw' does not have a page number.--swfritter 16:12, 1 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Ellipsis

There is a conversation going on. A script will probably be used to change to the selected format so there is no reason to change offending titles.--swfritter 14:58, 4 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Amazing Stories on hold

I noticed Ahasuerus put an earlier Amazing Stories on hold but I did not see any communication as to why. I just want to make sure there is not some common issue about these oldies that needs to be addressed.--swfritter 18:26, 4 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I was sick for a few days and almost forgot about the submission :(

I had two questions about this Amazing issue:

1. Are we sure that Murray Leinster's "Red Dust" is 1921-01-00? Contento believes that it was published in the 1921-04-02 issue of Argosy All-Story Weekly.
2. Do we want to change the date on Wells' The First Men in the Moon (Part 2 of 3) from 1927-00-00 to 1901-00-00? I can't find anything official in the Help pages, but I think we typically use the date of publication for Serial records even if the Serial in question was published after the first book publication. See, for example, various Merritt serializations in the 1940s. Ahasuerus 19:33, 4 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Looks like some of the same issues so I will wait until resolved. Those Locus/Contento magazine CD's are really good at documenting the first appearance of stories that were not originally published in sf magazines.--swfritter 20:25, 4 Oct 2007 (CDT)

The 1921-01-00 date for "Red Dust" was a cut and paste error on my part. I used the first hardcover date for "The First Men in the Moon," but Tuck shows that it was first serialized earlier in Cosmopolitan in November 1900. I wasn't aware that the first serialization was used for stories published earlier as books. This is the opposite of what I took for the correct approach under "EditPub: Contents: Date" which gives the impression that the book publication takes priority, at least in the copy I printed out on 08/16/07.--Rkihara 22:27, 4 Oct 2007 (CDT)

That section of our Help pages is a little hard to decipher, so let's take a step back and review the underlying reasons for this approach to entering Serials. Basically, there is a deep and abiding divide between the way short fiction and novel length fiction pieces are cataloged by genre bibliographers. When cataloging short fiction, the date of the original publication is always used as the "publication date" regardless of whether the original appearance was in a magazine, anthology, collection or a chapbook (which we call "chapterbooks" at the moment). However, when cataloging novel length fiction, the date of the original serialization is not used and the date of the first book publication is used instead.

The reasons for this divide are, as far as I can tell, twofold. First, serially published novels are/were often extensively rewritten prior to book publication (e.g. the Lensman saga), so it's natural to think of these two versions as separate works. Second, the world of book collectors is somewhat removed from the world of magazine collectors. To a book collector, a "first edition" is the first book publication of the novel in question, not its first magazine publication.

Given all of the above, we decided to use the magazine publication date for Serial Titles and the first book publication date for Novel Titles. When a Summary Bibliography page is generated by the software, it (lexically) matches Novels and Serials for the given Author and displays them together.

This works reasonably well when a novel is serialized first and then published in book form. However, what should we do when a novel is serialized after its book publication, sometimes decades after the fact? I don't think this permutation has been fully explored and documented yet, which is why we are struggling here.

P.S. I am en route back to my collection today and my Internet access will be sporadic until around midnight EST. Ahasuerus 12:48, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

In the case of "The First Men in the Moon," the sequence is serial, book, then serial. So should the date entered for the Amazing serialization have been the date of the first serial publication, or the date it was re-serialized in Amazing?--Rkihara 13:17, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Both posts appeared as I was pondering this. I was able to save my post both times with a copy and paste. Ahasuerus' post approximates my train of thought. I think the reverse logic may also apply when the novel is published first. I am more interested in the date the serial first appeared in an sf magazine than I am in the date of the original publication of the novel. They are different animals. In any case the connection between the novel and the serial becomes quite clear in the author's bibliography. We should await the return of the eagle to his pulp paper nest.--swfritter 13:32, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

A less common issue is the case where a serial is reprinted, most commonly in (complete novel) form, but I recently dealt with a serial that was reprinted in a different number of parts - I cannot currently remember the title nor my solution. Help is very ambiguous and seems designed to deal with what date to use for the novel.--swfritter 13:32, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I have approved the submission and corrected the date of the Leinster story. I also changed the year of the Wells Title back to 1927-00-00 until we decide what to do with it. I am about out of time, but perhaps somebody else could repost this discussion on the "Standard" page so that we could get other editors involved? Ahasuerus 13:58, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Will approve and make the same changes as above.--swfritter 17:06, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

P.S. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that we will want to use the date when the Serial was published. My primary reason is that we display all Serials for a Novel on the Summary Bibliography page, so displaying the same year for each Serial record would seem pointless. I suppose you could argue that multiple Serial reprints of the same text are almost like multiple Publications of the same Novel and shouldn't appear on the Summary page, but as long as we do display them, I think we want them to have different dates. Ahasuerus 14:36, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I have NO idea what would (will?) happen if (when?) we get the "The Cosmopolitan" serial of "The First Men in the Moon" entered here - "1 of 7" rather than "1 of 3" should keep them separate, but I've not noticed multiple serials of the same work here represented here yet. I'm almost tempted to buy the set myself, but could probably enter the relevant data from ebay auctions. (Although I might hurt myself reading some of those cover scans - they're at my eyesight limits.) Please DO try for a resolution though - I have an apparent late 20's or early 30's set of the Complete H.G. Wells Omnibuses which does contain some notes I've not yet read, if you feel the need to ask for info about what the books say. Generally, I'd date the serial parts as to month of publication of that version of the serial, keeping the serials separate. For the Novels, I'd combine them. BLongley 14:46, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

As to serial reprints, swfritter: they are VERY common, we just don't have a British Magazine specialist working here. :-/ And until Cloning magazines is allowed, we possibly never will. Many would be easy to enter if we could just clone a US magazine and adjust date and price. I'm not sure how off-putting it is when it works the other way (New Worlds or such?), but as one of our main sources of later magazines (Visco) has more British editions than US ones, I hope you share some of MY pain and will support such a feature request. BLongley 14:46, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I wish we did have somebody interested in British Magazines. There seems to be plenty of work that could be done in the non-clones while we wait for possible implementation of magazine cloning. I would like to see some protection put into place to guarantee the we don't have multiple instances of editions from the same country.--swfritter 16:32, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

(unindent) We do have a few examples of multiple Serial reprints, e.g. H. G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. As far as cloning magazines goes, it can be done by changing the Publication type to Anthology and adding an Anthology Title to the pub, but it's tedious and needs to be undone once cloning has been finished. It would be easier to rename the (rather confusing) EDITOR Title type to MAGAZINE, which I believe would help in a number of areas, but that's fodder for another discussion. Ahasuerus 15:02, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

My guess is that the reprinted texts of the H. G. Wells stories are almost certainly from the novels rather than the original serial publications. I think the whole issue of magazine publication information for pre-sf era (prior to 1926) publications is best handled in the notes sections of the sf era publications. I will try to post a succinct summary of this discussion in "Standards" tomorrow.--swfritter 16:32, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Re: "The Island of Dr. Moreau" - that's a simple one "Complete Novel" reprint. I'm thinking of a different serialisation: "1 of 3" versus "1 of 7" should work, what would two "1 of 3"s look like? (Oi! Stop thinking of "Seven of Nine" when I say that! ;-) )

Re: British Interests in magazines: Terry at Visco was obviously very interested enough to create the site: what's putting off people like that from coming here? US bias?

Thanks for the tip on how to get around the limitations, Ahasuerus: and thanks to Swfritter for "protection" comments. The current situation does seem to preserve magazines from interference a lot (although the Shortfiction contents are very vulnerable) but it does dissuade people from entering reprint and other useful (maybe) data.

Unlikely as it sounds, (as I do buy almost exclusively books) I do care about the original magazine dates. Or original book dates. Or prior magazine dates... I prefer short-fiction over novels mostly, so do like to take care of the short-fiction here more than some book-editors do. I'd get a bit worried if we reduced every story back to "this is an expansion of Leviticus 1, Chapter 1, Verse 2" or suchlike but I'm happy to take it back before 1926! Nineteenth century maybe? (Who here DOES own some "The Cosmopolitan" magazines?) BLongley 18:36, 5 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Aha! I found a Serial reprinted in different length series at last. It displays OK on the Author page, not so well on the Title one. BLongley 07:03, 6 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I figured it was probably in Fantastic because that is mostly where I have been working, verifying the entire run - up to 200 issues and counting. I do not like my solution. I am getting ready to summarize the issue in Standards and it sounds like you are going to have the data which will allow us to make a quick and compact analysis.--swfritter 14:35, 6 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Good catch! (And we really need to clean up Keller's biblio, but that's a different story.) As far British magazines go, Mike Christie has a fairly extensive collection and I also have a few hundred issues, but Mike hasn't been active since earlier this year and my access to my collection is limited until at least December if not January, so... Ahasuerus 13:32, 6 Oct 2007 (CDT)

There's another serial Nomad that could use a look-over. But having gone over almost 3000 Serial records today to find oddities, I'm taking a break from those. BLongley 14:06, 6 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Standards discussions

Feel free to voice your opinion about potential changes in the handling of ellipsis and serial dates. We are probably close to making actual decisions.--swfritter 13:54, 8 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Deleted titles are probably variant titles

'Against the Odds' by Brunner in If August 1965 appears to be a variant title. See 'The Odds Against You' on Brunner's bibliography page and you will see an empty variant title with the same title as above. This story was apparently done right at some time and then done wrong, leaving the empty variant title. The two 'Against the Odds' entries should be merged. Probably the best way to do this is by using an Advanced Search by the title and the author and then doing the merge. Make sure you keep the variant link to the parent title. It should have popped into my mind earlier but this is the case with most multiple-pub titles. There is a good chance that the titles you pull out are variant titles. That may even be the case if you don't find any empty variant titles on the author's page. Let me know if you need any further clarification.--swfritter 13:51, 9 Oct 2007 (CDT)

See you fixed it. I may be able to use some SQL to track down other titles that went through this same process.--swfritter 14:33, 10 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Last chance to remain a plebe

Ahasuerus also seems to feel comfortable with nominating you to moderator. I am ready to do so with your final OK. Remember you need only self-moderate at first.--swfritter 14:37, 10 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Theoretically, you can stick to self-moderating indefinitely, but I too am convinced you will prove better than that. Please do give it a try when you feel ready: we can always get you un-moderatorized if you don't like it. (Also Theoretically: nobody's wanted to go back yet!) BLongley 14:47, 10 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I can do that! Sign me up!--swfritter 15:42, 10 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I'm willing to give it a try. I'm not too adventuresome, so I'd probably stick to the shallow waters initially.--Rkihara 17:01, 10 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Good. I will probably submit the nomination tomorrow.--swfritter 17:23, 10 Oct 2007 (CDT)

If, July 1969

From Help - Cover artist. Enter the artist for the cover art if known. If not known, leave blank. This is something I was doing wrong even after I became a moderator - along with doing ellipsis incorrectly. You will note on the Standards page that we are keeping the current documented standard for ellipsis. Your unequivocal response was an important factor. I will fix this If while I've got it up. My last chance before you become a moderator. We will also be using date of appearance for serials. Two issues resolved in one day. We should have a party.--swfritter 13:44, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

And thanks to both of you for some quick resolutions at last! BLongley 14:15, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I just got this issue through ebay a couple of days ago. I will put the Three Lions reference in the notes.--swfritter 13:58, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I was stumped over what to do with "Three Lions, Inc.", which sounded like an art factory. I'll fix the errors you noted.

I've seen similar cases where the studio was assigned as the artist but putting in a note like I did will at least document why no artist is attributed.

I've been thinking about your note about "Deleted/Variant" titles. If I understand things correctly, when the title is deleted it breaks the association between parent and child or vice-versa. This then requires the link to be re-connected to the new entry, which is done by the title merge?--Rkihara 14:03, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I am still trying to figure out the exact steps that happen but the result is a variant title with no pub reference linked to a parent child. This child title is the correct title as it appears in the pub so when the correct title is added it can be merged with the child title which already has the valid link to the parent title. It would be nice if we could find a case similar to this and do some deeper analysis before correcting the problem. If we come across a case like this again we should try and do some deeper analysis before fixing the data.--swfritter 17:14, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

If changes to Worlds of If in 1972

I believe with the March/April issue. We might still want to use If to qualify the essay titles. That would have the effect of making If the canonical title for the series.--swfritter 13:49, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Will do. Complications will start earlier in the 1970's, since the majority of the issues linked to the magazine tables are British. I'm going to have to tag them in the notes to distinguish them from the US issues.--Rkihara 16:31, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I have left a note with Blongley who hopefully can elucidate.--swfritter 17:23, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I'd suggest that where the details are most useful to someone primary-verifying, they adjust the details to match their copy. For "If", that would mostly be the US editions. When Cloning of magazines is allowed, the other editions should be easily creatable. Anything you see that obviously refers to a different edition can be left in notes for the meantime: so if you paginate a US version and verify that, but took it from a British entry, do say if the cover-art is from the (probably close) British edition and leave the UK price in notes. I'll dig out my pitiful samples of UK reprints this weekend and make some more comments. If anyone has examples of US reprints of UK magazines those might be useful, although I suspect those are even rarer. BLongley 18:43, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I pulled a couple of issues and I have a feeling that they are almost exact duplicates perhaps with only the cover price being different so Blongley's suggestions are appropriate. If there were more detailed entries the answer might be different. The issues verified by Alibrarian are probably with data from American editions.--swfritter 18:59, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I checked six US issues of If against the entries for the British copies and found they were an exact match for content and page number. Also noticed that from July/August 1971 through the March/April 1972 issue, the price is marked in both Dollars and Pounds, reverting back to Dollars only in May/June 1972. Visco's fourth series of If reprints stop after August/September 1970, and the fifth series starts with May/June 1972. The dual-priced magazines are in the gap between the series, and I should be able to fill these in, changing Pounds to Dollars. I'll drop a note off to Terry about the magazines in the gap.--Rkihara 11:47, 13 Oct 2007 (CDT)

If, November 1969

'Appropriate Punishment'. Gaughan is listed as author rather than artist. I will let you fix.--swfritter 13:53, 12 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Unusual page count in Fantastic

Thought you might find this magazine page count interesting. They actually count an advertising insert as two pages.--swfritter 15:29, 15 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Seems a little desperate. I'm amazed that you caught it, I'm sure I would have never noticed. Now I'm going to have to check for that in the magazines that I enter. Do you verify magazines page-by-page?--Rkihara 17:45, 15 Oct 2007 (CDT)

In this case I noticed that the last page was 132 rather than the usual 130 which meant that adding the back cover pages would add up to the unusual 134. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the extra pages were the ad. I would not count them as pages unless there is a number gap between the pages before and after the ad.--swfritter 17:54, 15 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Galaxy Magazine, August 1968

In Galaxy Magazine, August 1968 should Trawlers uncredited 1968-08-00 137 INTERIORART be The Time Trawlers etc.? Dana Carson 01:31, 16 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Yes, you're right. I've just corrected it.--Rkihara 01:58, 16 Oct 2007 (CDT)

You are now a moderator!

The nomination was a smashing success, congratulations! Ahasuerus 12:20, 17 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Yes, it's well-deserved - my congratulations too! BLongley 13:18, 17 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Now that you are a moderator

I think you left a couple of things hanging, the sort of things that a moderator can clean up immediately. Get rid of the sticky notes. I think you forgot to remove the Ellison story from this pub and you did not delete this orphan. The second one is interiorart and you could have updated the record in the pub. It's very rare for artwork to be merged and we should not be merging even reprinted artwork until we have set up some standards. The only "artwork" I have merged is some reprinted cartoons in Fantastic.--swfritter 14:00, 17 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I'll take care of those.

I want to say that I really appreciate the help and support you've provided over the last couple of months. Learning this database has been like learning a new operating system, with its attendant frustrations. Having you around to guide me over the tough spots made it a less difficult task than it would have otherwise been. Thank you very much.--Rkihara 16:00, 17 Oct 2007 (CDT)

It's been an inspiration to the observers too - it's been fascinating watching you two work together in the learning process. A perfect example of "Mentoring" which I hope will catch on. Congratulations to you BOTH on that! BLongley 16:08, 17 Oct 2007 (CDT)

In the long run it will mean substantially less work for me and I will not be working in a vacuum. Looks like we have a new user who is doing magazines. Mhhutchins was the first to communicate with him and I am waiting to see how he wants to co-ordinate his initiation. I do not want to bombard him with multiple voices.--swfritter 14:43, 18 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Analog editorials

How have you been treating Analog Editorials? Most of the time they do not actually have the word editorial on the editorial page but nearly all of them do have the word "Editorial: " before them in the database. I ask because the new editor followed the same pattern probably based on looking at examples. Technically wrong according to standards and I think I suggested that in another case it should not be done. But so much data for Analog has been entered that we may have to go with the flow.--swfritter 15:53, 18 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I haven't made any entries under Analog yet. I thought I'd finish Galaxy, and If first, then move on to Amazing, and continue on with F&SF. I pulled a couple of issues of Analog (June 1951, and Sept. 1965) for a check of how they were published. They're similar to the editorial pages of If and Galaxy, so I would probably treat the Analog editorials in the same manner. I stared linking the editorial pages into a pre-existing series and using "Editorial:" as a marker, then erasing it as I linked it to the series. That put it in line with what was actually on the page. That requires a second pass, and whoever is entering Analog now could do that with a little extra effort. If it was titled just "Editorial," then I entered it per standard as "Editorial (Magazine, Date)."--Rkihara 20:48, 18 Oct 2007 (CDT)

That's what I figured. I don't want to overload the new editor with this sort of thing. We probably need to find some way to document such standards and indicate ongoing projects - perhaps on the grid for the magazine.--swfritter 10:35, 19 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Documenting Series Tasks

See what you think about the way I have documented series tasks in Fantastic.--swfritter 13:39, 19 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I like it. I hope that they're more than temporary. The "Departments" span the life of the magazine, so I think it makes sense to have the series links sit at the same level as the table, in addition to being at the level of the contents. The hierarchical layout of the editorials also helps visually sort through the clutter.--Rkihara 18:54, 19 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I never even thought about them being more than temporary but that does sound like a good idea. Might even want to put them above the issue grid.--swfritter 19:09, 19 Oct 2007 (CDT)

An interesting submission

Take a look at this submission mentioned in this post. I would appreciate it if you would analyze, but not approve, the submission and document any issues related to the new entries. We can then compare notes. No need to be in a hurry.--swfritter 11:58, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I compared it to my copy as you did. It appears to be identical to the US edition. I assume BLongley chose not to list the uncredited art. I also noticed that both "Universal-Tandem" and "UPD Publishing Corp." are both listed side-by-side as the publishers, which supports the identical issue theory.--Rkihara 21:59, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)

You might want to take a look at some of the individual entries. There are a couple of little gotchas and a couple of things that are a little out of standard, some of which BLongley might not be aware of and at least one I am sure he is aware of.--swfritter 14:26, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)

The cover of the US issue is not marked "vol.3." June is abbreviated "Jun," "Hue and Cry" should be attributed to Baen. "Cantor's War" and "Aura of Immortality" should be short stories. "Ars Gratia" is a department. "An Editorial Appeal" was not listed. That's all that I can find.--Rkihara 18:54, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)

There is one terribly significant issue here which would have a negative impact on another publication.--swfritter 18:58, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I'm puzzled, unless it's the fact that David Ketterer's book has the same title as two other pubs, though it seems to me that wouldn't be a problem?--Rkihara 21:57, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Take a look at the pub listing. You aren't used to moderating other people's submissions yet. It is submission mistake you might not have made. This is a mistake most moderators would not catch and a mistake most editors might make. Look at every entry that would be affected.--swfritter 10:36, 23 Oct 2007 (CDT)

And if you really want to cheat. Probably a one in a thousand occurrence with essays in magazines. But if you are editing a reprint anthology or pub you can almost be sure that nearly every entry has a connection with another piece of data.--swfritter 16:58, 23 Oct 2007 (CDT)

That last hint was sufficient. I hit your cheat link to verify. I found one like that earlier, I think in Galaxy. I didn't know what to make of it, and no way to check it, so I didn't change anything.--Rkihara 19:46, 23 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Treat it just the way you would a work of fiction. Remove from pub and add new record. Delete orphan. Do the pseudonym thing. It is so seldom that essays are reprinted elsewhere that there is a tendency to think of them as a different species. I am going to make sure I check at least the editorials and science columns - many of Asimov's columns have been reprinted but luckily not under a pseudonym. The fact that you had seen a previous instance and did no damage shows a good awareness of the issue. It's a lot different looking at submission records. I think it was at least a month before I had the courage to approve anyone else's submissions. You don't ever have to do so but you might occasionally want to look at some of the submissions and get and idea of what they look like.--swfritter 14:03, 24 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Butting in here just to a) congratulate Rkihara on work done so far, and b) to comment that Asimov is probably the really special case. It's actually affected the Magazines a lot as the Book reprints of the essays never have any of the extra magazine-entry words around them, so people have adjusted the magazine titles to match. Even an INTRODUCTION of his was worth carrying forward into other publications (I only linked "Gold" and "Diplomacy Guild" versions yesterday). Pohl is quite likely to have similar problems with Introductory essays though, so stay vigilant! BLongley 16:39, 24 Oct 2007 (CDT)

(Un-indent) That was definitely a tough example, and a good exercise. I have been peeking at other submission records to see how other people are handling certain editing tasks. It occurred to me since a lot of you are programmers, that it might be easier to learn and apply the editing tasks if they were flow charted. It probably wouldn't hurt to put in the bad paths too. While I'm at it, maybe a "family tree" structure to display author info, with the categories such as "novels," "short stories," "essays," at the first level, linking to separate pages for each category? Maybe the same for the magazine "series," such as the "editorial page," "book reviews," and so on? This would simplify the long, linear listings.--Rkihara 10:21, 25 Oct 2007 (CDT)

That was actually intended as a SIMPLE example of an almost identical publication. :-/ We seem to have stimulated a lot of standards questions recently though, so I'll refrain from posting the NEXT example for now.

As to flow-charting the editing tasks - yes, it can be done, but what level are you thinking of? I wouldn't presume enough to say "when entering or checking a magazine pub you should do A then B then C, etc, and then you're done" - implying that you do EVERYTHING right all at once could put off a lot of editors. And there's several ways to accomplish most tasks and those will vary according to the editor's choice of how they find them - if you start from an Editor's entries and fix stuff it might be better done one way than the best way if you started from a publication search. There's room for "how to do X" small tasks - e.g. if you add a content entry as a replacement for an existing entry, it's probably good to remove the existing entry at about the same time. Or for a more Book-orientated style of edit, today I've been mostly finding "Novel" Ace Doubles and changing the title type to "OMNIBUS", binding to "dos", and adding an "OMNIBUS" record with the same title and date and authors - all best done in one submission, but it doesn't get around the fact that I should (and did) have to cope with creating variant titles for OMNIBUS entries even though the NOVEL entries already had them. All of these tasks could well use some help guidance, but I'm always at a loss as to explain exactly where such help should go. Suggestions welcome! BLongley 17:37, 27 Oct 2007 (CDT)

(Unindent) You may have already seen this on swfriiter's page, but if not:

The next controversial Magazine Submission example is here. I found the last one more instructive than I thought it would be (both ways), from merely editing existing contents. Feel free to keep that as an example, but if I add too many more examples then we will need to approve, and fix, some. BLongley 18:13, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

This one, due to not finding a simple way to clone magazines, is an example of "copy and paste" activity, but also includes having to add reviews that the US magazine hasn't got yet, and may not have had. Many merges will be needed. An extra complication is that the way that the reviews of Ace Doubles are presented may not lead to matching with the books, or even the titles. BLongley 18:13, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

Again, there are no trick questions here. All typos are my own. Trying to differentiate UK and US editions via suffixes may lead to problems on sub-titles of some contents. Putting certain entries into series obviously cannot be done until approval, so think ahead on how those should/could be done. BLongley 18:13, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

Future Projects

Now that I am through with my 208 issue Fantastic bibliographical validation, a project I started on before you arrived, it is time for me to step back and figure out where I am going. I think there are a number of projects we can work on together. I would like to prioritize the tasks in such a way that we can avoid having to deal with variant and merged stories. It is tedious to do the ultimately safe process of remove item from pub, add updated item to pub, and in most cases delete orphan. 95 to 99% of the time we should be able to just modify the titles in the pub but we really don't know that when we are in pub editing mode. I am probably going to start entering/updating a few reprint anthologies and collections. When working with them you know that most of the title are linked someplace else. Hopefully the problem will be addressed soon. Any ideas where we should be headed?--swfritter 20:40, 30 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I'm open to suggestions. Right now I'm continuing on with F&SF, and will finish with If (up to the British editions), and Galaxy soon. I thought I'd start entering Amazing, and maybe Astounding, after finishing with Galaxy and If, but if you have a project to propose, I'd like to hear about it. I feel there is more to be gained by working cooperatively, than as an individual. If we were to form small teams working on dedicated task, then a lot of the things that have been annoying individuals here would be greatly alleviated. Working on other things than magazines would greatly expand my ability to work with the database, since I have enough of those to work on for years.

One of the things that I would like to work on are the letters, if the database could be modified to record them, something like what's being done now for the book reviews. The other day I ran across a letter by Virginia Kidd in an old issue of Amazing. I wondered if it was the same Virginia Kidd who later became a literary agent for many SF writers. I'm sure SF historians would find the letters fascinating.--Rkihara 01:09, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

My last thought on letters is that if they important enough to enter they should be important enough to summarize in the notes field of the entry. I would hold off on lobbying for their inclusion until the point in time that we began the task of actually reading the magazines in a methodical manner. A primary reason I am here is to get the data in place so I can do so. You did take advantage of the one day only immortality clinic at Long's Drugs didn't you? It wasn't well advertised and I was just lucky enough to be in the store on that day.--swfritter 16:54, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

As far as projects. On the major magazines I think we should stick to fixing up the column titles; we should do so at the title level rather than the magazine level to avoid any possibility that we are dealing with merged/variant titles. My trainer wheel magazine was Imagination. I was going methodically through the issues until I was able to get complete runs of the secondary core titles from the 50's that were not in the database. With the gaps I filled in with Fantastic 99% of the core American issues from the 50's are now in the database, some with the six bibliographic tasks done, most with fiction only entered and many in an between state. I define core titles as the titles listed in Mike Ashley's Transformations. I noticed that you have a very large chunk of Imagination. I have a complete run. I suggest that we do a complete bibliographic verification of Imagination. Imagination is an ideal choice because it is a long enough run (63 issues) to be a meaty project without taking forever. Also, because of the mediocrity of the contents there are not as many stories reprinted in anthologies or collections so we don't have to worry as much about affecting other data. Once we are done with that I think we will both be better prepared to tackle some of the longer runs of the primary titles. And you will also get a chance to see some of the dumb things I did in my early days.--swfritter 16:54, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I'm just short ten issues, so I could work on that with you. Just to be sure I need to know what you feel has to be done when you say verification. I think I understand what has to be done, but I don't want do it badly. I've read some of the posts about the subject and more than a few people feel that many were not done properly.--Rkihara 00:21, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

One question that came to mind as I was reviewing the main Magazines page was how confident we were that we have all genre magazines (much less magazine issues) listed. For example, I don't think we have the two issues of the first Fantastic Science Fiction, widely considered the worst SF magazine ever at the time of its disappearance in 1952. I have both (bedsheet) issues somewhere in the boxes, but at this point it's unlikely that I will be able to start sorting them out until at least January. Do we want to compare what we have against some checklist, e.g. the one that Ray Wysocki put together back in 1985? Ahasuerus 23:38, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

P.S. Since the number of uncatalogued issues is dwindling and becoming more manageable, do we want to create a list of "wanted" issues that we can't verify because none of us owns them? For example, I have access to my collection for the next few days and could enter the missing 5 Magazine:Fantastic Story Magazine issues. But if I knew that someone else had them, I could more usefully concentrate on something else. Ahasuerus 23:49, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Well in a couple of days there will be no missing issues of Fantastic Story Magazine - that's what I am working on now although I am not giving them the full business - just the stories and artwork by Finlay. Three or four of them I recreated from Contento & Day, mentioned in notes, but as soon as I track down copies of them I will complete them. The second of two issues of Science Fiction Digest is in the mail. Fantastic Science Fiction is on my dribbles list. I see that Vol 1, issue 1 is on abebooks but not issue 2. I will work up a list of haves/don't haves that we can add to from other sources. Didn't think anything could be worse than the Feb 1951 issue of Amazing I recently read.--swfritter 01:10, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

That's not one of the magazines I have, or I'd be glad to do it. It would be interesting to see a list of "wanted" issues, but I assume that all that's left are the rare and unusual titles that few of us would have.--Rkihara 00:21, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

We would be doing the Bibliographic Task from the box below the Imagination Page. Data entry would for the most part be the addition of art work and essays. Physical verification would be checking that the existing entries are correct. We need to check every title to make sure it has been merged on the authors page. To cross check reviews we will need to make sure that every review links to a book - luckily Imagination did not have extensive book reviews. We probably won't have to worry too much about canonical names - although it is time we start trying to figure canonical names for artists. I probably have better resource for tracking pseudonyms. It's really not much more than you have been doing already. Perhaps I could take the issues with odd issue numbers and you could take the ones with the even numbers doing no more than a couple of issues each per day and then checking each others work not only to spot errors but for inspiration.--swfritter 15:29, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Okay, that sounds good. I won't be able to get started until Saturday, since I've started working again, 1-2 days a week as a consultant. I do have a question about making sure every review links to a book. I've entered quite a few for which there are no entries at present for either author or the reviewed book in the ISFDB. What then? The rest except for the pseudonyms shouldn't be too hard. I did a recount on my issues and I'm 12 short, so I should identify those for you, and we can split the rest.--Rkihara 18:34, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

When that happens, I usually pull down my Bookmarks folder with Sources of Bibliographic Information and try to find the book that we are missing. Now that FirstSearch is publicly available, we have access to their core data, which is a wonderful thing indeed :) In particularly obscure cases I use Sigla or the alpha version of my own library search software. Ahasuerus 18:54, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Now I get it. It wasn't clear to me that I should fill in the missing book data. Well, I'll make another pass through my entries later.--Rkihara 00:23, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Matching books with reviews is one of the primary reasons for the Bibliographic Tasks. It's nice if it is done on initial data entry, and I do, but it's not an additional task that needs to be loaded on editors in the learning phase.--swfritter 18:39, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

I do have a concern here - if a book review in a magazine doesn't quite match an existing book entry here, do you adjust the magazine review entry to match the book, even if it's not exactly as stated in the magazine? Or do you adjust the book entry to match what the magazine says? Or just leave them if there's no verifier to ask? BLongley 19:25, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

From Help: Title - The title of the work being reviewed. If the review uses a non-canonical title which is already recorded in the ISFDB as a variant of the canonical title for this work, simply enter the title used in the review. If the review uses a title which differs from any of the known titles for this book, but which still serves to unambiguously identify the book (e.g. if the review has a misprint, or abbreviates the name of the book), then enter a corrected title, but make a note in the notes field for the publication that the review title was spelled incorrectly, and give the form of the title actually used in the review. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahasuerus (talk • contribs) .

Yes, but what do people actually DO? BLongley 19:51, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Since this is one of the Bibliographic validation tasks it is not as critical that it be done totally correctly during initial data entry.--swfritter 16:39, 3 Nov 2007 (CDT)

But this is NOT necessarily "initial data entry". If you're introducing something genuinely new, there's no problem. If you're introducing variations of publications already here, then you ARE overlapping with other people's work. For instance, today I looked at the first 100 reviews here with no associated publications recorded here. Sometimes it was a typo that could be corrected immediately, IMHO, as nobody had verified the magazine and it was not one actively being worked on. Sometimes it was problems with variant titles: occasionally I fixed the book, sometimes the unverified magazine. Sometimes I found a new book that SHOULD be here, and entered it as best I could from online resources. I'm happy to leave verified magazines with reviews of unexplained books for now, there's plenty of other things to work on, and I hope I can assume verified books don't get corrected to match magazine (or book) reviews. Please do NOT hold back those of us doing "secondary" bibliographical work though: I'd prefer that we worked together and look at the long-term view. I don't want to stomp over a good magazine entry because it got the reviews wrong, and I don't want anybody to stomp over a book entry just because a magazine said it had a different title or author. Checking such overlaps at the time you submit suchlike overlaps seems best to me, we're not all going to live long enough to explain "this review" or "that pub". BLongley 19:44, 3 Nov 2007 (CDT)

A policy change should probably be addressed on the Rules and Standards forum.--swfritter 19:54, 3 Nov 2007 (CDT)

I too do add in MISSING books when possible, same as I do with missing MAGAZINES (so far only non-genre magazines with SF contents, but nobody but me seems to mention those much). BLongley 19:25, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Moderator Availability

When you get a chance, could you please update "your" row in the moderator availability matrix over on ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard? TIA! Ahasuerus 11:17, 31 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Imagination Project

I would really like this to be the test run before we start doing more significant titles so I suggest we take it slowly, perhaps an issue a day, while we work on other projects. Some of the things we need to determine are the basis for determining artist attributions, essay column naming conventions, and adding some minimal data to review notes to indicate how significant they are. We can develop a project guideline document that others can scrutinize.--swfritter 18:50, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I'm ready, slowly is fine with me. One thing we need to standardize, is the page numbering of the interior art. The Help page allows either the first page of the story or the first page where the art appears. I'm inclined to do the latter, as I have been. You can credit the whole pub to one artist, but this would not seem to apply well to a magazine. The art attributions are another, when listing stories, authors are credited as listed, and a pseudonyms are created as needed. Artists are not credited as often and identified many times by signature, and the canonical names for most don't seem to be defined. Ed Emshwiller for instance, my guess is the majority of his art was either signed or credited to Emsh, which is how I entered everything of his that I came across to be consistent and since that would appear to be his canonical name. The whole idea of the canonical name is a little strange, since in some cases "it is" a pseudonym, just the one most often used. I wonder if it would be better to tag all pseudonyms as such, so instead of "X[as by Y]," why not "Y[pseud.]," and this would link back to the legal name, with all pseudonyms listed below. This would not only simplify things, but after a while people perusing the database will begin to recognize a lot of pseudonym on sight.--Rkihara 11:52, 3 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Same for Frank Kelly Freas who usually is attributed as Kelly Freas. That's why I have not been assigning canonical names. I don't think they should be assigned until the artwork data is in the database. How can we know what is the most commonly used name until we have collected the data? And in many cases (like Emsh) we may have to reverse the canonical names. It actually may be more efficient and less time consuming to assign canonical names at the artist bibliography level.

As to identification of artist. First priority should go to the printed credit. If the artwork is signed in a legible and more complete manner I think that name should be use. For instance, Virgil Finlay almost always signs his full name though sometimes he is only credited in print as Finlay. In that case I go with Virgil Finlay. If the artwork has only initials I go with the printed name, if available even it is only on the table of contents. If the artwork is initialed and otherwise uncredited I have been depending on my personal knowledge and using the actual name. William Terry, for instance, usually signed his art with his initials but I recognize his unique signature and use his name rather than the initial. What we might even think about doing is setting up an attribution page where we list information about the artists. We can even scan signatures, put them in my flickr account, and display them on the artist page. The good thing about doing multiple issues of a magazine is that a lot more information becomes obvious because the context is better known

I would list all artwork on the page where it occurs. If I remember correctly there are not all that many multiple artwork instances in Imagination. I think the best thing to do is just go ahead and do and issue and see what we each come up with.--swfritter 16:35, 3 Nov 2007 (CDT)

One thing about the artwork, I started off listing everything, but that led to multiple repetitions of the title, which was confusing to look at, so I just did the first appearance in a story after a while. Maybe the way to do it is to lobby for a change in the title entry, so artwork could be entered directly under the title, instead of separately, much like entering multiple authors. The art listing could displayed as "illustration 1 - Artist." Just a thought.

And it certainly lengthens the artists bibliography page although that is a display issue that can eventually be resolved through software. I don't think Help was up to date with an example when you started. Davecat has been doing art [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?ANLGJUL70this this way}. I don't know if I mentioned this before but you can cut out a lot of the view clutter by Concise Listing underneath the Other Bibliographies heading on the left hand side of the screen. With the lack of a programmer with sufficient time to make changes to the software there will probably be few updates for cosmetic issues. What little time the programmer might have is probably better spent on data integrity issues. I would enter it as an enhancement request.--swfritter 13:23, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

I'm ready to start when you say go. Are you going to take the odd issue numbers and I do the evens as you suggested earlier? The first even for me would be Dec. 1950.--Rkihara 20:09, 3 Nov 2007 (CDT)

Please note that the editorship of the Dec 1950 issue is in dispute. Ray Palmer is the editor of record from most sources, he signs the editorial, but he Hamling may have been the ghost-editor. He was working for Ziff-Davis at the time and may have been trying to keep them from knowing he was moonlighting. My conception of determining artwork credits is not written in stone. The main reason I want to avoid entering artist initials is that we when would have to determine a canonical name for the artist. A separate issue is whether or not we should enter the initials that essays are signed with and then consider them as pseudonyms. I have not been doing so but I figured I might have to reconsider. Davecat's intuitive response was to enter the initials and make them a pseudonym. The editorial in the Dec issue is signed by Rap. Your opinion? I would also appreciate it if you would let me know which issues you are missing.--swfritter 13:23, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

Missing issues: 1951; Feb., Sept., 1952; Jan., Mar., July, Oct., 1953; Jan., June, 1954; Mar., April. On initials my preference is also to enter the full name if known, since someone not familiar with the context of the entry would have to link to the canonical name. You did mention the concise listing which I've been using, but other than the clutter, multiply replicated titles for the art look inelegant. I wasn't aware of the editorship problem with Dec. issue, but I would put down Palmer as editor, as we have a similar situation with Galaxy, in that Pohl left H. L. Gold on the masthead as editor for a year. Someone with more knowledge can add a correction in the notes later.--Rkihara 16:00, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

OK. First page where artwork appears. Editorials signed with initials - the appropriate editor's canonical name is entered (although we may at some time have to revisit if there a different consensus). Most complete author name whether it be in print or a signature. Only enter artist initials if actual artist cannot be determined. I will start up an artist note's page so we can start documenting artist entries. A note: Tillotson's assignment as a pseudonym for Fuqua is from an editorial in Science Fiction Plus but I have not been able to access bibliographical note pages to document it. And you are finally about to learn the mystic secrets of Editor records after you change the editor name. There is a secret handshake involved. Whether Hamling was the actual editor or not, as he claims, Palmer's signature on the editorial column makes him the editor of record. In addition, Hamling's farewell editorial in the February 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures specifically credits Palmer as the editor of Imagination. At this point in time he had no reason to lie because he had already severed his ties with Ziff-Davis. Should we trust Hamling's word. He was a convicted pornographer who served hard time in federal prison. Let's go.--swfritter 16:40, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

Imagination Project Test Run

December 1950 has been entered, let me know what you think.--Rkihara 17:56, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks good. What is your source for the McGreevey house name statement? Is there any way to know who actually wrote this story? Should there be a verb in the sentence about him? Raymond A. Palmer is not listed in an editor record on his author page. I will probably have to show you how to do this tomorrow. I think I am going to take the initial issue to the Standards page to get some more input.--swfritter 19:00, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

I used the pseudonym list in Vol. 3 of Tuck. I'll add a "be" verb.--Rkihara 19:28, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

I need to get Vol. 2 and Vol. 3. I'm surprised that none of my sources picked that up from Tuck. Most of them use him as a primary source so I figured everything from Tuck was probably in them. We should probably add Browne and Hamling to the list of pseudonyms used by McGreevey and then update his Bibliographic Comments page with the source for the pseudonym attribution. You will have to manually change the address of the Bibliographic Comments page in order to access it. I presume that Tuck does not give a specific attribution for this particular story. Vol 1 No 1 is ready for your perusal.--swfritter 19:59, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

I have some business to take care of tomorrow, so I'll on early in the morning and probably won't be back online till the evening. I wonder if I should start entering the real authors from the list into the bibliographic notes for the pseudonyms? No way for me to tell who wrote the McGreevey story, Tuck doesn't list magazine contents.--Rkihara 01:27, 5 Nov 2007 (CST)

That sounds like a good idea if you don't mind having to modify the address of the pages. It might go quicker if the tamu problem is fixed. I may start doing the same with the sources I have.

Vol.1 No. 1 looks fine.--Rkihara 10:35, 5 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 1 no 3 has been updated. Feb 51.--swfritter 15:47, 5 Nov 2007 (CST)

That's a big duh!!. Should be Vol 2 no 1. But you don't own it anyway.--swfritter 17:46, 9 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 2, no 2 has been updated. Interesting letter by Jack Gaughan in letters column, apparently an unknown in the field at that time. I added a note to the comments. Vol 1 no 3 is one of my missing issues, but I checked what I could. The next even number issue for me is May 1952, since I'm missing the evens up to there. Will it be the convention to make note that the editor, etc., signed with their initials?

I haven't noted any negative response so I would continue to do so. We probably don't need to make the notation for each issue. We can make a general statement in the launch page.--swfritter 13:51, 6 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 2, no 2 looks good although I could not compare it completely as my copy lacks the last 32 pages. The first 32 pages were improperly inserted a second time in their place. Replacing this issue will no longer be as high on my priority list. I think it might be a good idea if we start hitting the verify button on the issues as we complete them. Considering the tag team methodology we are using I think we have fulfilled the most extreme definition of Verified.--swfritter 15:40, 6 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 3, no 3 has been updated. I will wait for comment from you on this and previous before proceeding. I was wondering about the fan column, "Fandoria." I'm thinking of entering the fanzine reviews as a book review. I'm going to post this idea on "Rules and Standards" for comment.--Rkihara 12:53, 6 Nov 2007 (CST)

Ouch! I will comment on "Rules and Standards".--swfritter 13:51, 6 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks OK.--swfritter 15:14, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 2 No 3 updated June 1951. Please note the way attribution given to letters in case there are other places where initials are not used. And don't forget that we need to check if the stories need to be merged.--swfritter 16:28, 6 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 3, no 5 has been updated.--Rkihara 10:04, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks OK.--swfritter 15:14, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 2 No 5 Nov 1951 has been updated.--swfritter 15:14, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks fine. We need to set a standard for the "Meet the Author" dept. as I've been entering the name of the author like a subtitle with a colon. Since they're autobiographies the author being profiled is identified by his/her authorship, so what I'm doing is redundant, but I think it identifies who's being profiled a little more positively. In some magazines the profiler is sometimes another SF writer, so that could cause some confusion.--Rkihara 20:30, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Good idea. Users are just as likely to look for biographical data using the title search. If you will notice in the verified flags section for the pubs is a flag called Primary (Transient). It is a somewhat unofficial flag right now which we might put to use. I would suggest that we each check the Primary Verifed flag for the specific issues for which we are responsible and that verifier of the verifier check the transient flag. That way we need only communicate specific issues. Once we are done we can reset the Transient flags.--swfritter 12:23, 8 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 3 No 1 January 1952 updated. My copy does not have a back page so if there is anything of interest there please add it to the issue. Alias A Woo-Woo is listed as exactly 7500 words. One more word an it would be a novelette. That is cutting it thin.--swfritter 13:24, 8 Nov 2007 (CST)

That's one of my missing issues in 1952, along with March, July, Oct.--Rkihara 16:37, 8 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 3, no 7, Dec. 1952, updated. Will start checking "transient" flags from here on.--Rkihara 17:17, 8 Nov 2007 (CST)

I misspelled only as ony when I initially edited this and the mistake may have been replicated elsewhere via copy/paste. Table of contents is probably better than TOC - too much jargon. I will change both since I am the one that put them there in the first place. Sheckley's "Writing Class" is specified as shortfiction and should be short story. "Tomorrow's Science: M33 in Triangulum" should be bc rather than page 164 even though is is listed by page number on the table of contents.--swfritter 16:57, 9 Nov 2007 (CST)

I just created a variant that affects Dec 52 Imagination - Beachcomber/The Beachcomber. I remembered you'd been working on this Magazine in particular so thought I'd give you a heads-up in case you want the variant the other way, it seems an infrequently reprinted title by the data here, and we haven't had many more verifications for the alternate than the original. BLongley 13:09, 13 Jan 2008 (CST)

Imagination 1953

I will be taking Jan, Apr, Jun, Aug and Oct. You do not have Jan and Jun. That leaves you Feb, May, Jul, Sep, Nov, and Dec. I am throwing Dec to you so I will be able to pick up an issue you didn't have. Have you heard of Google docs? Ever used it? Able to access it and use it? It allows the sharing of spreadsheets over the internet and might be a good way to co-ordinate projects.--swfritter 18:07, 9 Nov 2007 (CST)

Google docs is a new one on me. What kind of spreadsheets do you think we should be uploading? The distribution for 1953 looks good. I have two missing from 1954, then the rest are continuous.--Rkihara 20:17, 9 Nov 2007 (CST)

Volume 4, No 2, February 1953 done.--Rkihara 21:02, 9 Nov 2007 (CST)

Cartoon on page 5 is a signed cartoon (Sommer). 'Probing the Body with Sound' and 'Grow Your Own Home' should have exclamation marks.--swfritter 10:51, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

Corrections added.--Rkihara 12:57, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 4, No 3, April 1953 done.--swfritter 11:08, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

First word of cartoon on p. 5 should be "Educational" instead of "Education." Cover illustration not titled (The Enchanted Crusade) in notes. Mari Wolf interviews Chad Oliver in Fandoria. Speaking of spreadsheets, I use an Excel spreadsheet that I've made to track the inventory and grade of the issues in my collection. The worksheet I use for grading could be modified for working magazines, as I use conditional formatting to color code for grade (numeric grades 1-5). That's enough categories to track magazine entry and verification. I suppose "0" could be "no listing," "1" basic listing, "2" checked completeness of listing, "3" check pseudonyms, etc.--Rkihara 13:36, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

Fixed. I am setting up a google docs account and will email you with information on how to access it.--swfritter 13:48, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol. 4, no. 4, May 1953, done.--Rkihara 18:49, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

To be consistent, the artists who are listed on the table of contents should listed in the notes. --swfritter 16:09, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)

Done.--Rkihara 01:35, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol. 4, No. 5, June 1953, done.--swfritter 16:42, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)

One of my missing issues. Frank Richards is pseudonym for Charles Hamilton, per Tuck.--Rkihara 01:35, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

But he never published anything under the Charles Hamilton name so Frank Richards is the canonical name. Note that I put Charles Hamilton in as the legal name.--swfritter 18:18, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol. no. 6, July 1953 done. I had a mental lapse and I've screwed up trying to make T. D. Hamm the canonical name for Thelma D. Hamm. I found a separate entry for Thelma D. Hamm and changed the canonical in the author record from that to T. D. Hamm from Thelma D. Hamm, instead of doing an author merge. Two entries under Thelma D. Hamm have disappeared, unfortunately from anthologies, and I have no record of which ones. Is it possible to fix this?--Rkihara 11:38, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

Letters column should be page 154.--swfritter 19:01, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

Corrected.--Rkihara 10:58, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

When you changed the name to T. D. Hamm it became an exact match so when you do a search by name you only came back with one of the records. You could have found both records by going to advance search - ISFDB Author search form and entering the name. You can then select the author by record number instead of name. I changed one of the names to Th. D. Hamm so that there names are unique. We need to find out if she published any titles as Thelma D. Hamm. If so there should not be an author merge. In any case, I would do everything possible to avoid an author merge. The number of titles is so short that it is much safer to change them one at a time.--swfritter 18:28, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

Should be better now. The only one I had to fix was a T. D. Hamm story that I added yesterday (what are the chances?). It ended up going to the one that used to be Thelma D. Hamm. An author merge is totally inappropriate. Thelma D. Hamm (though the name is fuller) is a pseudonym for T. D. Hamm and the individual titles should be made pseudonymous works. I'd like to know under what name they were published in those anthologies. I would bet it was actually T. D. Hamm and that the data in ISFDB was entered from a secondary source. But we have to go with what we have.--swfritter 18:48, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

Thanks for the fix up. The name in the anthology might have been Thelma D. Hamm Evans.--Rkihara 10:58, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

August, 1953 done. Tomorrow will be a better day.--swfritter 19:51, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)

"Introducing the Author" should be fep. The artist for "The Buttoned Sky" is W. E. Terry (initials in lower left under wood stack). Sign in cartoon p.93 reads "Janitor—Please remove the dust," at top, last word obscured when sign reappears at the bottom. Cartoons on p.107, and p.160 missed. This is irrelevant, but does that cartoon on p.5 make any sense to you?--Rkihara 11:31, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

Fixed except cartoons on p. 107 and 160 which are unsigned.--swfritter 12:21, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

October, 1953 done.--swfritter 12:56, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

Maybe a note should be added that "Time Armada" is not identified as a serial in the table of contents? In cartoon p.79 "Probably is misspelled.--Rkihara 19:04, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

Good idea! for the serial. Either this is a case of false advertising designed to conceal the fact that the story is a serial or they intended to print the whole novel but realized they did not have room. Cartoon fixed.--swfritter 13:53, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)

September 1953 done.--Rkihara 00:03, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)

Cancer Cure? on the table of contents but Cancer Cure! on the title page of the essay. Almost perfect.--swfritter 14:09, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)

Corrected.--Rkihara 22:49, 15 Nov 2007 (CST)

November, 1953 done. I will be off-line this weekend for classes. Back on Monday.--Rkihara 22:22, 16 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks good. If you have a dictionary you might want to look up the definition of "retirement". I took a few accounting classes at the local community college after I retired and it was nice to know I could still handle the classroom thing. When I turn 60 next year I will actually be able to audit classes at the local state university for free.--swfritter 13:07, 17 Nov 2007 (CST)

December, 1953 done. I've been taking several classes a year for about twenty years now. Generally whatever interests me. Right now it's bookbinding, and book and magazine conservation. I believe that the brain is like a muscle, it needs exercise or it gets weak and flabby.--Rkihara 11:45, 19 Nov 2007 (CST)

Fandora's Box does not have a mag/month qualifier. It appears that de Camp and Weinbaum pieces appeared in Fantasy Twin. They should probably be treated the same way as Ace doubles with a separate entry for each novel. The reviews will for each novel will then show up under the appropriate novels. A note should be made that The Space Merchants is actually listed as The Space Salesman.--swfritter 15:09, 19 Nov 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 09:35, 20 Nov 2007 (CST)

Imagination sept 1951

Done. You don't own this one but you might be able to spot some inconsistencies.--swfritter 14:33, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks okay. "Don't Burn Them Up, "I'll See You in My Dreams," and "We're Off to Mars," are entered with curly apostrophes which the ISFDB has a little trouble with. The stories will link link okay from the listing, but if you cut and paste from the editor and do a search it will turn up blank. I've been replacing them wherever I remember to with straight apostrophes. You may remember the T. O'Conor Sloane entry you were wrestling with when I was an editor.--Rkihara 22:24, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)

Now if someone could only tell me where the straight apostrophe key is. I would hope at sometime the software would catch up with apostrophes. Still can't figure out that cartoon. I have to assume it must have had some topical relevance.--swfritter 16:49, 15 Nov 2007 (CST)

july 1952 Imagination

You don't own it but - notice the cartoon is by Harlan Ellison. Never know what you are going to find.--swfritter 16:34, 16 Nov 2007 (CST)

By coincidence, I ran across a couple of illustrations by Greg Bear this week. Harlan seems to be the more unlikely artist.--Rkihara 22:12, 16 Nov 2007 (CST)

Since there is a dual credit I would bet he probably only wrote the caption.--swfritter 14:27, 19 Nov 2007 (CST)

Harry Harrison began as an illustrator. Just yesterday I came across an ad in SF Quarterly for a sports magazine which contained a Roller Derby story by Lester del Rey. I would bet it would be harder to track down a copy of that magazine than it would any of del Rey's sf.--swfritter 12:29, 17 Nov 2007 (CST)

Imagination 1954

Vol 5, no 1, January done. The remaining issues are going to require a little more work as December 1953 was the last issue I worked on before going on to other things.--swfritter 16:01, 19 Nov 2007 (CST)

Looks okay.--Rkihara 09:36, 20 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, no 3 , March done. Note that the "Childhood's End" review will not link with the novel - assuming the apostrophe thing.--swfritter 14:06, 20 Nov 2007 (CST)

I won't be able to check this issue, since March and April 1954 are the last missing issues from my collection. I can fix your curly apostrophe, since my system defaults to the straight apostrophe.--Rkihara 17:12, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

I took a quick look anyway. I think the word "fantatic" in the caption for the cartoon on p.121 is a misspelling.--Rkihara 20:18, 23 Nov 2007 (CST)

Right you are on the cartoon. I will do April. Go ahead and fix the apostrophe and see if that helps. Thanks. I will figure out some easy way to map the straight apostrophe.--swfritter 13:17, 24 Nov 2007 (CST)

The apostrophe change didn't work and when I went back to look it was "curly" again. I also noticed that none of the five or so reviews of "Childhood's End" linked to the novel. There must be something more complicated going on than just the apostrophe.--Rkihara 20:27, 24 Nov 2007 (CST)

Various flavors of apostrophes (blame Unicode) have been a royal pain for a couple of years now. I thought they had been fixed except for a few display issues, but maybe not. I'll take a closer look tonight. Ahasuerus 15:43, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

Even when we've "fixed" the apostrophes, the quotes don't work. Search for "Doc" and "Smith" as separate fields in advanced Author search. Try clicking on both results. The one with Apostrophes works, the one with Quotes doesn't. I think a lot of our data is wrong, just to get around such bugs. BLongley 16:47, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, no 2, February done.--Rkihara 00:35, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

"Second Stage Lensman" review does not show up under the title on Smith's page. Sometimes the novels will match if you use one of the pseudonyms. You might have to try a couple of experiments - or just wait until the software works the way it should.--swfritter 16:15, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

Very strange, well, E. E. Smith worked.--Rkihara 17:12, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, No 5, May Done. Page count down to 132 now so that should speed things up. Starting to get revved up again after the holidays.--swfritter 15:33, 28 Nov 2007 (CST)

Same here, it's been a busy couple of weeks.

The word "some" is missing an "e" in the cartoon caption on p.97. the illustration on p.94 is by Terry (initials in tiny script on left edge requiring a little magnification to see clearly). Cartoon on p.97 missed. Article "Accurate Radar" listed as on p.112, on same page as cartoon, p.113.--Rkihara 10:42, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

Fixed. Guess I need to get a microscope. It's already a pain having to take my glasses off to search for initials on artwork.--swfritter 15:35, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

The word "question" is missing an "e" in the caption for the cartoon on p.79. Those "e"s are really sneaky fellows!--Rkihara 21:37, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--swfritter 19:58, 30 Nov 2007 (CST)

Well, you could always relax a bit and NOT try for perfection. I've stopped swabbing my signed books for samples of the author's DNA, for instance: I can wait for Al to add that to the Author page, it'll be useful eventually I'm sure, just not right now. Of course, by the time the database IS perfect, we'll be able to add ALL the contents, word for word, as everything we've analysed will be out of copyright. Or Disney and suchlike have extended copyright so far that we'll be illegal everywhere bar Australia. BLongley 16:47, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

I think it goes to credibility. The fewer mistakes an outsider sees, the more professional we look. Serious references like "The Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature" probably have whole teams of proofreaders working in parallel. We only have one, "the" verifier, so we should be as exacting as possible, since no one may come back again for another check for years. In terms of content, we're adding at least as much as you would expect to find in the "Readers Guide," maybe a little extra. Anything less makes it less useful.--Rkihara 21:37, 29 Nov 2007 (CST)

There appear to be two somewhat different issues here: completeness and accuracy. Adding authors' DNA and including complete texts of their works falls under the former, while catching typos falls under the latter. We could be very complete and yet rather inaccurate the way OCLC's coverage of many authors is. On the other hand, there are highly specialized (i.e. incomplete from our POV) sites that cover one author or one area and they tend to be quite accurate.

I have always argued that although we generally want our coverage to be both complete and accurate, it is more important to be accurate than to be complete. I believe that it is better to state that a certain data element (page count, binding, non-genre magazine editor, etc) is "unknown" than to guess incorrectly and mislead our users. Ahasuerus 14:56, 30 Nov 2007 (CST)

I think there's now a third attribute to go with completeness and accuracy, and Rkihara has named it - credibility. I'm actively searching out titles with no publications, researching them via the web alone, and IF credible (to me) I'm adding pub data to the ISFDB. If we wanted accuracy alone, at some point we'd be deleting all data that wasn't verified by someone we all generally trust. If we wanted completeness, we'd allow Dissembler and any other prolific editor to submit anything and everything. I'm in between those limits - my researches have led to dozens of new publications that I can't physically verify, but are credible due to multiple people trying to sell such editions, posting photographs of such, etc. We have a LOT of unverified data and always will: I believe a lot was originally entered from sources such as Tuck and Contento, which we generally trust in the meantime (they're "credible"), and if the source was listed we might have more confidence. I've changed a handful of titles during these researches, where there's overwhelming evidence of a typo or omission of an "A" or "An" or "The" or suchlike. I've verified NONE from such research unless I've also ordered the book, received it, and checked it. A title with no pub might well be deleted instead of trying to support it, as it's not verified: I prefer to use multiple credible sources (when there are any) to support inclusion, rather than delete anything not yet completed. BLongley 17:55, 30 Nov 2007 (CST)

That's a bit of a diversion though: what is going on with these magazine editors is very detailed work, and double-checking each other constantly makes me think that we're getting more accurate data out of it. (Often data that I have no interest in, I'm really only interested in the "Speculative Fiction" itself, but swamping us with the other details seems to be something I have to live with.) Adding reviews IS helping us find other books and magazines and fanzines that SHOULD be here - but if we're generating such from secondary sources we are possibly reducing accuracy but adding completeness. I don't mind that too much so long as the verified works are separated from the unverified ones, and I don't think we've got to the stage of someone verifying that a review of a pub was collated in a collection of reviews leading to a verification of the pub actually existing, or suchlike. I DO want multiple verifiers of a pub enabled, and if the pub itself is only referred to by reviews I want those reviews verified too: but it does boil down to "credibility". "Multiple Verifiers" would be good, but also "this entry added by X", where "X" might or might not be credible is good too. BLongley 17:55, 30 Nov 2007 (CST)

I suspect that "credibility" is a function of both completeness and accuracy. A database that has every SF work every published but is replete with errors would not be credible and neither would be a database with unpredictably incomplete (yet very reliable) coverage of the field.

I think the key here is to state our sources. For example, Sam Moskowitz did a tremendous amount of research and his data in some areas, especially in the field of the so called "proto-SF", can be valuable, but at the same time he was notoriously sloppy. As long as we state that we used his information to reconstruct certain publication records, our users will know where the data had come from and who to blame if it turns out to be in error. I tend to agree with Wikipedia's conclusion (which took them a long time and gigabytes of Talk page discussions to arrive at) that the main criterion for inclusion is "not truth but verifiability". We may never be 100% sure when a particular book was published, but as long as we state that source A claims December 1984 while source B claims January 1985, I think we should be OK. Ahasuerus 11:51, 4 Dec 2007 (CST)

Which is fine while the sources are around: unfortunately a lot of information can come from things like ebay auctions, alibris or abebooks listings, etc. A photograph is pretty good evidence of existence, although as they rarely show anything bar front cover, the EXACT title and author and date are not going to be known. Still, some is good enough, for instance, that I'd be quite happy to add a "Jim Gardner" verification source for his scans and notes on Amazon, in lieu of primary: he is effectively primary verifying some information. And "Look Inside", while annoyingly ruining the chance of a decent cover picture to use here, DOES often give us exactly what we need. (OK, not all page numbers, although sometimes contents are useful, but often it has exact title, date and author by our current rules, and sometimes details of prior printings.) I don't want to propagate inaccuracy (a lot of sites are rehashing our own data back at us, or worse, Amazon's) but our credibility isn't coming from a list of published references, it's built on the collective efforts of the editors here, and we'd not make much of an impression on completeness if we didn't start from secondary sources. So long as it's clear when an entry ISN'T verified, it's something to work with: after all, I'm working from a list of stubs that could have been deleted as sourceless, and finding useful stuff from it. That's probably more useful in the long run than the work I do from my own collection, although even then I do find some surprises, e.g. in the last few days I think I've discovered more about (The) Shadow of Heaven than Clute and Nicholls ever said. It should all be verifiable too, but there's no guarantee that it will be verifiable at any particular TIME - there just may not be a copy on sale at the moment! BLongley 12:59, 4 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, No 7, July 1954 done.--swfritter 19:56, 30 Nov 2007 (CST)

Editorial on p.4 missing.--Rkihara 10:18, 1 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--swfritter 18:55, 2 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, No 6, June 1954 done--Rkihara 20:39, 30 Nov 2007 (CST)

P. 68. I think there is an even tinier WT in the lower left hand corner. Or my copy may have a smashed gnat!. P. 73 - cartoon.--swfritter 18:55, 2 Dec 2007 (CST)

It's a little smeary, but I think you're right about the WT. All fixed.--Rkihara 20:14, 2 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, No 9, September done.--swfritter 18:35, 3 Dec 2007 (CST)

Looks okay.--Rkihara 11:17, 4 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, No 8, August 1954 done--Rkihara 10:25, 5 Dec 2007 (CST)

Good.--swfritter 15:06, 5 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 5, No 11, November done. Here's an anomaly you may find entertaining. The first story is illustrated by at least two different people and maybe three. I guess this is a case where you have to include all the artwork.--swfritter 16:47, 5 Dec 2007 (CST)

Trivial error, entry for p.118, cartoonists name, Wheeler, uncapitalized. I've never come across more than one illustrator per story myself. I think that it would be a bad decision editorially, as the different drawing styles might not mesh well.--Rkihara 23:02, 5 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. I suspect that one or more of the pieces of art were not specifically drawn for the story. Lowndes worked on a notoriously slim budget and he was not about to let anything go to waste. Not as bad as Palmer's "Other Worlds" which had constantly recycle artwork.--swfritter 15:02, 6 Dec 2007 (CST)

While scanning through previous entries I found an error that I'd missed in one of your pubs, Vol 5, No 5, May 1954. The "Letters from the Readers" is classified as interior art--Rkihara 23:42, 5 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.

Vol 5, No 12, December 1954 done.--Rkihara 11:30, 9 Dec 2007 (CST)

Stories do not have month data. Might want to put titles of movies reviewed by Ackerman in notes.--swfritter 17:43, 10 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. Ackerman's essay is about films in production and novels optioned for upcoming films. Maybe two dozen or so mentioned, some in production, and some I think were never filmed. No reviews per se. I'll list them if you think it's important.--Rkihara 00:34, 12 Dec 2007 (CST)

Nope. I should have looked a little closer and should have known better as this was a common way that Ackerman wrote his columns - and he always seems to mention numerous films that were either retitled on release or never completed. Not exactly a great source of valid data.

Vol 5, No 10 October (marked on spreadsheet) "Invisible Enemy" has a date of 1954-00-00. "Atom Bomb in Space" p. 96 needs an exclamation point. Cartoons on p. 117 and 128 not added. --swfritter 17:43, 10 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 00:34, 12 Dec 2007 (CST)

Imagination, April 1951

Could you please double check whether Eric Frank Russell's name is spelled "Eric Frank Russel" in your copy of this issue? TIA! Ahasuerus 22:34, 20 Nov 2007 (CST)

My fault. I've fixed it.--Rkihara 00:30, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

Thanks! :) Ahasuerus 00:50, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

Well at least three people missed this one including the original editor, myself at the the start of the year, Rkihara, and myself again. Dissembler could have done a better job. When I am not being lazy I usually click on every fiction author and do a dupe check which would have caught this. 99% of the time it seems like wasted effort because few stories from Imagination were reprinted and what few that were have almost all been merged. --swfritter 15:43, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

IIRC, Jamie Fraser loves Imagination, potboilers and all. It's a big world out there :) Ahasuerus 16:15, 21 Nov 2007 (CST)

Imagination 1955

Vol 6, No 1. January 1955 done.--swfritter 18:08, 10 Dec 2007 (CST)

Looks fine, only a typo in the notes-a "d" left off an "and."--Rkihara 00:46, 12 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--swfritter 16:53, 12 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, No 2. February 1955 done.--Rkihara 10:47, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)

In order to maintain our reputation for being picky - the cartoon on page 69 has a comma after the word "Boy".--swfritter 18:18, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 10:33, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, No 3. March 1955 done.--swfritter 18:54, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)

Minor error, Fandora's Box should be on p.112. Interesting editorial.--Rkihara 10:33, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed

January 1955 Redux Word "space" is missing an "a" in cartoon on p.128.--Rkihara 11:23, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. I wish the spell checker function in Firefox was persistent for this field. It has to be manually switched on for each edit.--swfritter 16:23, 17 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, No 4. April 1955 done.--Rkihara 11:17, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)

Asimov as co-author of the editorial (Which should be "The Editorial" instead of "Editorial")? James V. McConnell rather than James McConnell in both 'Introducing the Author' and the credit to his story which will than require the pseudonym thing. Ellipsis in title page entry for "Amateurs & Rockets . . .".--swfritter 15:14, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 18:15, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, No 5. May 1955 done.--swfritter 15:45, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)

"TV from the Moon," p.100, missing exclamation point. Typo, cartoon p.109, "waht" instead of "what."--Rkihara 11:40, 19 Dec 2007 (CST)

Waht! the heck. Fixed.--swfritter 14:54, 19 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, no 6. June 1955 done.--Rkihara 10:45, 21 Dec 2007 (CST)

McCauley is actually credited as H. W. McCauley. I believe we have both missed variations on his name a few times and I am going back to make appropriate modifications. P. 27 'future' not in uppercase in essay title. Same page comma after 'water' in cartoon.--swfritter 14:32, 21 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 10:07, 22 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, no 7. July 1955 done.--swfritter 14:57, 21 Dec 2007 (CST)

Cartoon p.100, word "Time" missing an "s."--Rkihara 10:20, 22 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. Cartoons are a definite pain.--swfritter 15:37, 22 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, no 8. October 1955 done. Previously verified by Alibrarian, but it required extensive revision to bring it into uniformity. Alibrarian also put several departments into series. I wonder if we should go back and tag some of these as series, at least the "introducing the author" columns?--Rkihara 12:12, 24 Dec 2007 (CST)

Looks good. I guess the reference to the 'cut' by Blaisdell is for the collage illustrating "Scientifilm Marquee"??? so perhaps it should be credited to him as interiorart? Otherwise the reference makes no sense. I updated some of the series titles to specifically include the title of the magazine. I think it is better to have the data in the system before creating the series although it is also a good idea to be thinking ahead when entering the data so that any modifiers are entered in a consistent manner. I also think the batch mode process is also a little quicker and less prone to error. Luckily updating a series title need only be done once. Let's all give three cheers for relational databases.--swfritter 15:43, 24 Dec 2007 (CST)

Explained the "Scientifilm cut" in the notes.--Rkihara 10:42, 25 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 6, no 9. December 1955 done.--swfritter 19:42, 24 Dec 2007 (CST)

Photo caption on bc; typo in "nebula," and "Monoceros" missing "o." Cartoons on p.4, and p.129 missed, title of essay p.109 missing quotation mark on right side.--Rkihara 10:42, 25 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. There's always a cartoon on page 4! Should not have missed it. I think I was blinded by the horrible dye job they did on the illustrations - I think they are imitating Fantastic which during this time frame used color with much better effect.--swfritter 15:46, 26 Dec 2007 (CST)

Bibliographic progress

This document compiled from a Google docs spreadsheet shows the progress we are making in entering initial data and completing the bibliographic task for the 1950's mags. There are only 44 issues from some fairly inconsequential issues that have no data. Once we have finished Imagination and I have completed my work on Future bibliographic tasks will have been completed on more than 40% of the 50's issues. With the work you and others have been doing on Galaxy and If we may be able to complete the tasks for all the 50's magazines in pretty short order - maybe by June. The gaps in my collection are mostly the pulps and Amazing. Perhaps we should put together spreadsheets for those areas to see what is missing from our combined collections?--swfritter 17:13, 12 Dec 2007 (CST)

I've reached a stopping point on both If and Galaxy, as there are some unresolved issues with If relating to the British issues already entered, and the last years of Galaxy need only minor corrections. I'm now working my way up through F&SF, and Amazing stories. I'm now up to 1974 with F&SF, and 1935 with Amazing stories. My run of F&SF is 99.5% complete, missing mostly recent issues, and Amazing is ~80% complete, with large gaps in the twenties, early thirties, and early forties. The only other large run of magazines that I have that runs through the fifties, is Astounding, the fifties Planet Stories, and miscellaneous short run publications. If you want to coordinate a push to finish the fifties mags I'm game, maybe we can recruit a couple other editors too. I have a master spreadsheet that I use to track my collection, not entirely complete, since I'm only inventorying magazines that I'm "collecting." I also have several hundred more magazinesthat I've acquired out of curiosity that I've not listed.

On another subject, I wonder if any of us are going either to Pulpcon or the Windy City Pulp convention? I attended Windy City a couple of years ago for the first time, skipped it last year, but this year I'm thinking of attending at least one of them.--Rkihara 19:06, 12 Dec 2007 (CST)

I will probably create a spreadsheet with the issues I am missing from the 50's - I have nearly all the digest issues and am missing about half of the pulps and a number of Amazing digests. I finally had the good sense to stop searching for "Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1949" and recently acquired "The Magazine of Fantasy" Fall 1949. So now I am only missing one issue from the early 70's. If you are missing any "F&SF" from the late 1990's let me know - I have five years of duplicates. I was able to fill in my fifteen year gap pretty cheaply but only by buying twenty years of the magazine. If I go to any cons next year it will probably be ComicCon (altough it is more of an exhibition) since my niece lives in San Diego. My collecting budget has kind of strapped me for other expenditures. I am actually within a hundred issues of magazine collecting goals.--swfritter 19:17, 14 Dec 2007 (CST)

I have all of the fifties pulp Amazings, except for one, and I'm missing about a dozen of the digests scattered through '57-'59. We could do those next, verifying pubs where we overlap. In F&SF, I'm missing one or two issues after 2000, and a couple in the 1980's. I've got some spares in 1970-71, so if your missing issue is there let me know. I've heard the window for registering for ComiCon is rapidly closing as the local comic store owner said that they were limiting registration due to capacity limits at the center.--Rkihara 11:22, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)

Imagination 1956

Vol 7, no 1. February 1956 done.--Rkihara 11:27, 25 Dec 2007 (CST) Looks good. I just wish there were some way to get the first book review to come after the book review essay entry. The item that usually ends up first is the first one that is entered into the system.--swfritter 16:46, 26 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 7, No 2. April 1956 previously verified. Done with mostly minor changes.--swfritter 17:08, 26 Dec 2007 (CST)

Pub title needs to be shortened to "Imagination." "Science-Fiction Library" should be "Imagination Science-Fiction Library."--Rkihara 20:16, 27 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. I think there are a number of issues from this point forward that have the longer title. Which means that the Coverart entries will be wrong even after we update the titles. Coverart titles are not updated when a title is updated - they only get the title when they are added. One of those projects, along with series, that we will have to do eventually.--swfritter 20:36, 27 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 7, no 3. June 1956 previously verified. Done. Again with minor changes.--Rkihara 20:41, 27 Dec 2007 (CST)

Tomorrow's Science should be bc. According to both Contento and Robinson, Milton Lesser is the only author known to have used the C. H. Thames pseudonym. Anything in Tuck? Artwork for 'Mystery at Mesa Flats' should be page 101. Artwork page for 'The Obedient Servant' should be 111. The correct title for Dikty is "Best SF Stories and Novels 1955" and the title difference should be noted. "The Search for Bridey Murphy" is also incorrectly cited as "The Case for". The book title is correctly cited in the body of the review.--swfritter 15:22, 28 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed. Must have been too much holiday cheer. Tuck shows John Jakes, and Milton Lesser for the C. H. Thames pseudonym. I'm working on Amazing Stories now and noticed that whoever did the original data entry used "unknown as by wxyz" for house names, or maybe we could ask for a modification to the entry field to allow a house name marker.--Rkihara 11:06, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

It's possible that we might be able to assign the Thames to Lesser. See my bibliographical note for Jakes. Although it is entirely possible that Jake's bibliography is not complete.--swfritter 14:58, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 7, No 4. August 1956 previously verified. Done with changes.--swfritter 15:55, 28 Dec 2007 (CST)

"Science-Fiction Library" should be "Imagination Science-Fiction Library."--Rkihara 11:18, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Fixed.--swfritter 14:58, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)

Vol 7, No 5. October 1956 Done.--Rkihara 13:09, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Cartoon on page 6 has Todd signature in lower right hand corner on first step. Stories do not appear to have been updated with month. Signature on page 65 cartoon might be Farris - maybe we will find another sample. Missing finishing quote on page 93 cartoon. Fandora's Box author is Bloch. By the way, I have ordered the seven Amazing Stories issues from the 50's that neither of us owned. When you get to the fifties I can fill in the issue you don't own. We can either use that as our next mutual 50's project or Astounding as you suggested. We might find others who want to join in on the Analog/Astounding - Davecat received the 1959 issues as a Christmas present.--swfritter 17:59, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed. I looked at the cartoon on p.65 and changed it to "uncredited" for now, as it does look like what I took for two k's are actually headless r's. I may have an extra that I can check it against, but I'll have to dig for it. I'm taking a break from Amazing Stories for a week or so, but I'll probably be up to 1950 by the time we finish entering Imagination. We can start whenever you're ready, as most of my collection can be randomly accessed with little effort.--Rkihara 19:35, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Good. Hopefully this cartoonist does something later with a more legible signature. I will work up a spreadsheet and we can share the grief as much as possible with those dreadful pulp issues which seem to have dozens of credited but useless essays. Being a stickler for calender correctness - I will assume that the 50's run from 1951 through 1960.--swfritter 19:42, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 7, No 6. December 1956. I might also note that Contento has this listing for the one Thames story they don't credit to Lesser - "Miss Impossible [ghost written by John W. Jakes], (ss) Imagination Oct 1958". A ghost writer for a pseudonym. My guess is that Lesser was obligated to provide a story but needed help.--swfritter 18:39, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

One typo, colon following page number for p.75.--Rkihara 10:30, 2 Jan 2008 (CST)

How could I have not seen that?--swfritter 14:48, 2 Jan 2008 (CST)

Entering initials and making them pseudonyms

You may be interested in this issue which I also discuss here. What's your opinion? It's fairly clear what my opinion is and if the decision is made to go the route of entering initials and making them pseudonyms I can do the Imagination cleanup.--swfritter 18:45, 27 Dec 2007 (CST)

I vote for entering the canonical name if it's obvious. I'm not sure if an entry in the notes is necessary. On the larger subject of standards, it seems to me that we would be better off adopting an international bibliographic standard, rather than setting our own rules. This way we would all, literally, be on the same page, and in conformity with the larger community.--Rkihara 21:07, 27 Dec 2007 (CST)

Removing reviews

I see you added a comment "Removed, reviewed title is a magazine" for Victor Gollancz - this doesn't seem to have worked, we just have a stray record now, only showing up on Norman Spinrad's page but not leading anywhere. I'd hold off on fixing such for now till it works (if in fact we DO want to remove reviews of magazines - with the Fanzine effort now started such links may be desirable). BLongley 07:51, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Okay, I ran across a couple more but I'll leave them. If we're going to retain reviews for fanzines and magazines there should be a separate section for entering these, as magazines like Amazing, Imagination, and others often reviewed more fanzines than books.--Rkihara 10:26, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

This doesn't look like a review of Magazine:New_Worlds but rather like a review of 'original stories' New Worlds anthology, published by Gollancz and later by White Wolf. See Infinity Plus, they even quote Spinrad's review. --Roglo 10:29, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

The review was in Asimov's, April 1994. I went back and re-read the whole review and you're correct. I was thrown off by the recap of the history of New Worlds, and should have read a little further. I'll restore the entry.--Rkihara 11:33, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Correlating the review with WorldCat it appears that Spinrad was reviewing volumes 1&2 of the series, and that the editor is Garrett, not Gollancz. I'll add the second volume.--Rkihara 11:46, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

There are already records for New Worlds & New Worlds 2 in ISFDB; Gollancz was the publisher, not editor. Thanks for fixing this. --Roglo 13:46, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

I believe he meant adding the extra review to the magazine to separate the two titles. BLongley 15:11, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Yes, I've noticed, my previous note message was not very clear; I'm sorry about that. --Roglo 15:39, 1 Jan 2008 (CST)

Imagination 1957

Vol 8 no 1 February 1957 Done. I included the pen-pal column, which I normally skip over, since this contained more content than usual. I've decided to get a copy of the Locus index on CD-rom, and I've been thinking about looking for a copy of "The Science Fiction Book Review Index." Any thoughts about the utility of the latter?--Rkihara 11:24, 4 Jan 2008 (CST)

Looks good. The Jorgensen story is by Silverberg and Garrett.Cartoons on pages 45 and 107 each have a single letter capitalized when they aren't in the source. I always include pen-pal columns. In fact in a couple of pen-pal columns in Imaginative Tales I even credited names - Charles Brown of Locus who was in the navy at the time his name appeared and (mostly) mystery writer Ed Gorman who has an interesting blog. Three days without power and heat - at least I got a lot of reading done as I huddled up in my down sleeping bag and occasionally went outside to collect the asphalt roof tiles that the 66 mile per hour winds detached from my roof. It was an adventure going out to pick up the newspaper. By the time I caught up with mine the wind twice blew it away from me and I finally caught up with it when it landed in the gutter. Looks like I'm back in time for system hiccups!--swfritter 17:09, 7 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 10:30, 8 Jan 2008 (CST)

I'd noticed your activity had fallen to zero, so I wondered if you were in one of the areas that had lost power. I'll go back and insert any pen-pal columns that I've skipped over. I guess I should do that for Amazing too.--Rkihara 18:54, 7 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 8 No 2 April 1957 Done. The pen-club essays are more significant than the uncredited essays. I think the general rule of thumb is that anything in the table of contents should be strongly considered.--swfritter 19:44, 8 Jan 2008 (CST)

Kohler's name should be capitalized, and I think we've been using just Kohler for the canonical name, cartoon, p.89. Initials on cartoon p.97 are clearly separated from the foot of the insectoid, re: comment. Artwork for "Slaughter on Dornell IV, on p.111. Your statement about the importance of the Pen Pal/Club essays makes sense. I think the column just started in recent issues of Imagination, though I'll go back and check (I'm sure you would have caught it). Most of the Pen Pal columns I skipped were in Amazing. I generally don't list acrostics, science and other quizzes, and the coming next month entry, everything else gets put in. I also don't remove these if someone has already entered them.--Rkihara 11:33, 9 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed. Perhaps I should say the initials form the dismembered foot of the insectoid creature? I would have noticed any earlier Pen Pal columns. I've been doing some background thinking about artist canonical names and I am not necessarily sure that the same logic applies to them since they are often not credited by anything other than initials or signature. Do you remember any credited cartoons where the initials HW was used? Cartoons by someone with the same initials also appear in Infinity. Also, we may want to think about entering Tup and making it a pseudonym of Tupper since cartoonists are no longer credited on the TOC of the issues of Imagination we are now editing.--swfritter 18:51, 9 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 8 No 3 June 1957 Done. I don't remember any credited cartoons signed HW, but I'll keep a lookout. On Tup vs Tupper, how do standard bibliographies handle this? I've always wondered why variations of signature are treated as pseudonyms. Why can't, Emsh, Ed Emsh, Emshwiller, Ed Emshwiller, etc., can be treated as a variation of one name, rather than a series of pseudonyms?--Rkihara 18:14, 10 Jan 2008 (CST)

According to Rock "Kill Me If You Can!" is by Randall Garrett. "Twenty Thousand Leagues" has an ellipsis. Cartoon on p. 89 - a comma missing. Book review column does not have title and month. Scheffy cartoons have only last name. Kohler signature of cartoon on p. 123 has his first name. Might also want to mention that artists are attributed based on signatures.--swfritter 19:59, 10 Jan 2008 (CST)

Ahasuerus made a good point to me about initials and other name abbreviations. He suggested that we look at it from the point of view of someone who has a magazine in their hand. If they want to find more works by the author/artist in question they are going to type in the name they are credited with. Most of the other bibliographical works do a very bad job of indicating variant titles and variant names. The pseudonym function in the ISFDb also incorporates variant names - authors who sometimes use middle initials, misspellings, etc. Kind of a one size fits all approach but easier to implement.--swfritter 19:56, 10 Jan 2008 (CST)

We may need to discuss this a bit. If we follow the logic of Ahasuerus' argument, then we should go back and change all of the entries where we used the table of contents, rather than the actual signature to identify the artist, as the same argument I suppose is used to justify using the title page to identify author and title, rather than the table of contents.--Rkihara 20:34, 10 Jan 2008 (CST)

I think that is a slightly different case in that there is internal evidence available to the reader within the magazine to identify the artist. For artists I think the name that should be used is the name closest to the canonical name that can be found within the mag. Virgil Finlay, for instance, might be identified as V. Finlay on the TOC, Finlay on the title page, and sign his art as Virgil Finlay - the last should be used. But if Bill Terry initials his art as WT, is credited on the title page as Terry but is identified as W. E. Terry on the table of contents then W. E. Terry should be used. At least that's my idea. I have no doubt there will be another pass through these magazines to standardize the artist information and likely to add multiple pieces of artwork per story. It doesn't necessarily have to be us. I actually want to start reading the stuff at some time - in fact have started reading the almost 200 mags that were published in 1953. Each generation of editors is building upon and remodeling the work of others.--swfritter 21:06, 10 Jan 2008 (CST)

That's a pretty well reasoned argument, so I'll make the changes. I've have classes and other things coming up this weekend, so I'll be on minimally until Monday.--Rkihara 01:55, 12 Jan 2008 (CST)

June 1957, fixed.--Rkihara 11:23, 14 Jan 2008 (CST)

Standards, and probably the most appropriate ones, seem to emerge through experience rather than planning. I think I'm going to watch a little football this weekend.--swfritter 14:26, 12 Jan 2008 (CST)

The point about standards is a reasonable one, but reading all ~200 magazine issues published in 1953 sounds borderline masochistic! 1953 was one of those years when the SF field absolutely exploded (even more so than in 1938-1941) and the demand was so great that any professional writers could get all of his trunk novels published. Some did get them published, for better or for worse. (For better from the bibliographic perspective, for worse from the readers' perspective :-) Ahasuerus 18:11, 12 Jan 2008 (CST)

I am less interested in quality than analysis of trends, attitudes, and themes. I am not reading the issues back to back, I read a novel in between and am listening to Card's Alvin Maker series on audio. I must admit that the January 1953 Amazing was a hard slog. Thankfully Fantastic Adventures dies a much deserved death with the March issue.--swfritter 19:30, 14 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 8 No 4 August 1957 Done.--swfritter 20:27, 10 Jan 2008 (CST)

Missing cover illustration description in notes.--Rkihara 11:36, 14 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed.

Vol 8 No 5, previously verified. October 1957 Done.--Rkihara 12:09, 14 Jan 2008 (CST)

"Ambassador's Pet" is by Silverberg and Garrett.--swfritter 19:30, 14 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 10:26, 15 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 8 No 6 December 1957 Done. Headed for the homestretch.--swfritter 20:04, 14 Jan 2008 (CST)

Looks fine.--Rkihara 12:41, 15 Jan 2008 (CST)

Locus CD's

You may want to hold off a few months. I have the edition that was released on April 8, 2004 and I am going to wait until the new edition comes out - hopefully on about the same month.--swfritter 17:18, 7 Jan 2008 (CST)

Thanks for the notice. I'll wait.--Rkihara 10:31, 8 Jan 2008 (CST)

Imagination 1958

Vol 9, No 1, February 1958, previously verified. Done.--Rkihara 13:57, 15 Jan 2008 (CST)

Looks good.

Vol 9, No 2 April 1958, previously verified - a rarity - a no-Silverberg issue.--swfritter 19:43, 15 Jan 2008 (CST)

"Corridor of the Suns" is tagged like a department (magazine, date). Typo in cartoon on p.105, "one" is missing an "e." I didn't notice that Silverberg was so prevalent. It would be interesting to generate stats on some of these magazines. I think F&SF's bibliography on their site has such stats for writers, artists, and so on.--Rkihara 10:55, 16 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed. I was thinking about doing a spreadsheet by mag, month, and number of stories per issue. I would also include his non-genre stuff. He also published a number of detective, sports and other types of stories - including one in Hugo Gernsback's Sexology.--swfritter 19:00, 16 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 9, No 3 June 1958, previously verified. Done.--Rkihara 22:06, 16 Jan 2008 (CST)

Cosmic Pen Pals on page 108 is not listed. It's tempting to believe that the Tenneshaw and Blade stories are by Silverberg or Garrett but no sources credit them.--swfritter 18:06, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed.--Rkihara 21:42, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 9, No 4 August 1958 Done. And you get the honor of doing the final issue.--swfritter 18:32, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)

"Velikowsky's Fantasies" should be on p.84.--Rkihara 11:16, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Fixed. Also, I have gone through all the cover art records and made sure that the names and magazine titles are right.--swfritter 12:28, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Vol 9, No 5 October 1958 Done.--Rkihara 18:12, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Stories don't have month. Perhaps should say in notes that the artwork credits are based upon signatures. It's interesting to go through the entire run of a magazine. So much optimism at the start and in the final few issues there is a perceptible sense of impending doom as the editors realize that they are near the end of their run.--swfritter 19:29, 19 Jan 2008 (CST

Fixed.--Rkihara 10:27, 20 Jan 2008 (CST)

Novels in Magazines

From the last backup - Novels in Magazines

• Amazing Stories, May 1944 Murder in Space
• Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fall 1931 Seeds of Life
• Amazing Stories, April 1943 That Worlds May Live
• Amazing Stories, November 1943 Empire of Jegga
• Amazing Stories, August 1959 A Taste of Fire
• Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1930 White Lily
• New Worlds and SF Impulse, March 1967 Report on Probability A

I am assuming you are probably not responsible for the last one. If you have any trouble navigating to the correct sections in Help in Edit Mode let me know. It is not quite as straight forward as I first assumed.--swfritter 16:06, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

I didn't change the "Entry Type" in any of the quarterlies or magazines other than Amazing, and nothing after Jan. 1948. Seems to me that I changed a few more than you found, but I'll go back and fix all of the issues from 1943, since that's about when the novels started appearing.--Rkihara 18:27, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Guess I could have formatted that a little more neatly. Of course, my SQL could be a little suspect. It is also possible that others have modified your original entries. I've finally learned from experience to Verify my work. It really helped in this case because your notification to the Verifier resulted in an early resolution of the problem.--swfritter 18:52, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

I found eight more when I went back, all fixed now. I left the ones I didn't modify alone.--Rkihara 23:12, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

And, of course, "A Taste of Fire" has a different title than the published book. I used a completely ugly way of connecting them. Maybe somebody else has a better idea. The original entry was actually merged as variant titled novel.--swfritter 19:15, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Verification of anything you're interested in is a good move - or bad if you want to stay silent, as people like me go ask questions a lot if we spot a discrepancy. I think Mike Hutchins might eventually get fed up with my questions, but I'd rather he entered and verified stuff rather than not enter it at all. The Buddy system you two have is working well, keep it up! I've unverified some stuff from Alibrarian (incommunicative editor) and may do so for brin1 (likewise) but an active verifier is a treasure indeed. BLongley 19:18, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Swfritter, feel free to post your SQL for inspection/validation/correction: it seems some of the project pages posted are unclear about what we're trying to find and correct, and the same could be said of my Entropy Stats and/or my own recent project pages. Some have led to a lot of activity, but we should be more open about why we're doing it and what it means. BLongley 19:18, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

It was in reference to this post. Novels in mags that should be (Complete Novel) Serial, a post which you had comments about - didn't exactly lead to a massive project. I also unverified a few Alibrarian verifications - mostly in Fantastic. It's unfortunate that they would not not communicate - a lot of good ideas and willingness to do the work and with a little more sense of community could have been very valueable.--swfritter 19:53, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

Have Alibrarian and Brin1 submitted anything lately? I thought they pretty much dropped out some time in 2007 for reasons unknown.

Alibrarian left, perhaps coincidentally, when I began rejecting, rather than accepting and fixing, a series of legal names that were formatted incorrectly. I was willing to continue doing so because I thought the Wiki problems might be causing a communication problem until Davecat came aboard and had absolutely no problem figuring out how to communicate. Do not know about Brin1 but I Mike Christie seems to be active in Wikpedia.--swfritter 17:59, 21 Jan 2008 (CST)

As far as linking Serials to differently named Novels goes, there is a fair amount of ugliness out there necessitated by our old friend, the Lexical Match Display Logic. Eliminating all remaining lexical matches in the software and replacing them with pointers has been on Al's list of things to do for about a year now. I am sure if we could donate a couple hundred K a year to replace his salary, things would move much faster... Ahasuerus 22:52, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

I think I've also seen serials given a variant title with type Novel and merged - but the canonical title should have the date of the first book publication.--swfritter 17:59, 21 Jan 2008 (CST)

There appears to be, or have been, some confusion over the date used for variant titles - date of variation, or date of first publication? It's easy to spot some Novels (search for title of "(rev" and see if the date in the title matches the date of the record) - quite a few could do with a quick clean-up as the variants are recorded under the wrong parent. Not so easy to spot variations of Serials, I think that would require some SQL. Are there enough to make it worth doing? BLongley 14:11, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)

This is a question that has deprived me of billions and billions of nanoseconds of sleep over the last few months :-( The Help pages currently state that "For works that have had variant titles, the date to enter is the first under any title and any pseudonym; variant titles do not have their own dates". The rationale here is to prevent misleading dates from appearing on Collection and Anthology pages. For example, William F. Nolan's "Small World" (1957) appeared as "The Small World of Lewis Stillman" in his 1963 collection Impact-20. If we had "The Small World of Lewis Stillman" listed as a 1963 Title (as opposed to a 1957 Title as per the Help pages), then a quick look at the contents of Impact-20 would suggest that the story was first published in 1963 and not in 1957.

On the other hand, the current approach makes it more difficult to find when a particular story first appeared under a variant title. To reuse the same Nolan example, you would have to pull up the list of all publications that reprint this story and review the Contents section of each one. And, of course, the original rationale is mostly moot when it comes to novels.

I think the best answer to this puzzle would be to modify the software to display the publication date (if it is different) for the parent title so that the Nolan story would be displayed as:

• 13 • The Small World of Lewis Stillman • (1963) • shortstory by William F. Nolan (aka Small World (1957)) [as by William F. Nolan ]

Then we could change the Help text to state that we want to capture the first date when the variant title was used. If we can get 20 minutes of Al's time to make the change, I will volunteer to write a script to find all pre-existing discrepancies and we will live happily ever after :) (Hm, I think I should post this on the Community Portal as well.) Ahasuerus 14:40, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)

Solving the display problem and letting us record some more meaningful data on the variants suits me. I don't think it's a 20 minute fix though: maybe for Novels, but for short stories we might want the actual title and author in this pub, then the first date it appeared as by that author, and the first title it appeared under, and the first date it appeared in a book, and the first date it appeared in a magazine... and we still have to train people to put variants under the right parent. :-/ BLongley 17:10, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)

Canonical name for artist Terry

Now that we have gone through Imagination I think we have enough information to assign a canonical name for William E. Terry. He was generally credited as Bill Terry in Other Worlds. He was usually credited as W. E. Terry in the Imagination twins except for a few exceptions. I think that W. E. Terry makes more sense because the count might be slightly higher and also the 'WT' initials he used appear in the name.--swfritter 18:27, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)

Amazing Stories: 1950's

Started entering data.--Rkihara 12:32, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)

I've got one issue in. Is it "The Clubhouse" or the "The Club House" in your issues? In the February issue the TOC uses the second, the headers at the top of the page do, and although the words are a little close the title on the title page seems to be two words. Also in your May issue you will find that I have assigned Burt B. Liston as a pseudonym of Lester Barclay. Barclay's real name is Livingstone Berkeley but he did not publish any stories under that name and published more stories as Barclay than he did as Liston. No need to wait on each other for Amazing - go full speed ahead. I think we've got things mapped out for at least the first two years.--swfritter 21:17, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)

Also, in the January, 1951 issue could you check if it's Edmund B. Swiatek. In February it is clearly Edmond B. Swiatek. There are currently 5 very different variants of his name out there.--swfritter 21:22, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)

It's "Edmond," and "The Club House." I'll fix both. When I was checking pseudonyms, Charles Recour in the July 1951 issue, turned out to be Henry Bott (legal name). I made Bott the canonical name in one instance, but I'm thinking of reversing this, as Charles Recour appears to be the canonical name. If so, should we make pseudonymous entries for Bott in Imagination? I left a bibliographic note under Charles Recour.--Rkihara 21:41, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)

I've also been using images from Galactic Central as we have explicit permission to use them.--Rkihara 21:50, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)

That's a tricky one because Bott actually did use his real name for articles and editorial credits. But the Recour name is the one most sf fans are going to recognize and it seems he did all his fiction under that name. It's very much the same issue with R. S. Richardson/Philip Latham which my gut tells me should be Latham because he did fiction under the Latham name. My own inclination would be to go with Recour since this is the ISFDb and not the Internet Science Essay Db. I usually don't think about checking essayists for pseudonyms, but should - definitely don't want to spend time doing that on the authors of the little mini essays in Amazing.--swfritter 22:06, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)

Keep in mind that once an Author level Pseudonym has been set up, there is no easy way of reversing it (until and unless Al adds an option to delete Author Pseudonyms), so we may be stuck with a suboptimal canonical name for some time. Thankfully, it's not that hard to write a script that identifies all Author records where a pseudonym is used more often than the canonical name, so we should be able to fix these issues once the software has been improved. Unfortunately, it will involve a lot of typing and clicking... Ahasuerus 05:16, 26 Jan 2008 (CST)

February 1951 checked. Looks fine.--Rkihara 20:25, 26 Jan 2008 (CST)

Interesting issue with the April 1952 issue. Paul Lundy is credited as the artist for "The Golden Gods" on the table of contents and the first piece of art is not signed but later on there is a signed piece by Summers. Since Summers was the Art Editor I suspect that they had an extra page they needed to fill. It is also unusual for issues from this time frame to have more than one piece of art. I can't find anything that says that Lundy was a pseudonym for Summers.--swfritter 20:49, 31 Jan 2008 (CST)

"The Master of the Universe" which begins in the April 1952 issue appears to be a serial of sorts. There are eight installments, ending in November according to Strauss. I don't have the April 1952 issue where it started, but it appears that it purports to be a factual account of future events. Prior edits have classified these as either short stories or novellas. I think we should change the type for this series to serial.--Rkihara 00:28, 4 Feb 2008 (CST)

I have found at least two that were mistakenly listed as novellas when they were shorts. I was thinking making them a series might make more sense since the parts do not actually seem to comprise a novel.--swfritter 14:58, 4 Feb 2008 (CST)

I thought of that, but each installment starts off with a chapter number in sequence with the previous installment, as if it's one volume. I'm changing them to serials for now. If we decide otherwise, I'll change them back.--Rkihara 15:16, 4 Feb 2008 (CST)

And they do appear in consecutive issues. I was thinking too about changing the author to be as actually credited - "Author Unknown" rather than just "unknown" which is kind of a catchall for uncredited works.--swfritter 18:30, 4 Feb 2008 (CST)

"Unknown" -- as opposed to "uncredited" -- is generally used when the author/editor may have been credited, but is not known at this time. For example, if you are entering a story from a photocopy of its original appearance in Argosy, you may not be able to tell who the editor of the magazine was. In a case like that, "unknown" is preferred to "uncredited" since "uncredited" is a positive statement about the credit (or lack thereof) while "unknown" simply indicates that we don't know who the editor was or whether s/he was credited. We have discussed this approach a couple of times and it seemed to accepted, but I don't think we have updated the Help pages yet or at least I can't find anything there. If it seems to make sense, I can post this discussion on the Standards forum and then update the Help pages. Ahasuerus 19:10, 4 Feb 2008 (CST)

Thankfully I don't do as I say. That is pretty much the approach I use - "unknown" for things like stories that have pseudonyms used by an unknown author, uncredited - no actual credit is given and no third party source can be found. I didn't catch it at first but this situation is even stranger. The first three episodes are credited to "Author Unknown" and the last five to "Author Unborn". Contento/Miller credits them all to the unique "Author Unknown" and makes "Author Unborn" a pseudonym of "Author Unknown".--swfritter 19:46, 4 Feb 2008 (CST)

Amazing Stories 1953

If you have your April/May 1953 issue, the first digest issue, handy could you check and see if there is any thing of interest on either side of the back cover - mine is missing.--swfritter 20:12, 6 Feb 2008 (CST)

There's an illustration by Jack Coggins on the outside back cover (bc) titled "Will this Steel Umbrella Stop Russia?" The bep has an ad printed on it.--Rkihara 22:15, 6 Feb 2008 (CST)

Thanks. Must be a great piece of art for somebody to tear out and frame. Another magazine to add to my find another copy list - make a copy of the missing pages - insert into my issue and sell the good one on ebay someday.--swfritter 22:23, 6 Feb 2008 (CST)

Amazing Beyond 1953

Any preferences for assigning issues? For 1954 you have one issue that I don't own and for 1955 you have three, and for 1956 you have two. Unfortunately I think we will be seeing more and more cartoons. Editor Fairman seemed to love them.--swfritter 13:23, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)

Up to now I've just filling in the ones that you marked as unique to me. I have no preferences, so I'll leave the division of the issues we have in common to you.--Rkihara 13:35, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)

Looks like you have leap-frogged to 1955. There is just the one issue from 1954 that I don't have so I will leave you to do that and all of 1955 while I do the remaining issues from 1953 and 1954. Don't let me slow you down. I am doing about one issue a day. We both should both go back and check our pseudonym sources for any that we may not have assigned.--swfritter 13:44, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)

I've been working on Amazing for nearly two months now, so I think I'll shifting more time to other magazines after doing 1955. Speaking of pseudonyms, we probably need a field to list bibliographic sources for these, since other editors checking our attributions cannot check our sources.--Rkihara 10:29, 9 Feb 2008 (CST)

As long as we are using information from the major bibliographic sources it is not as critical. If I find data that is a little more obscure I try to put it in the Bibliographic Comments for the author as with John Jakes. The only problem with Bibliographic Comments is that they are not database fields but Wiki pages that are only loosely tied to the data. In the long run what I would like to do is start from the bibliographic sources and methodically go through them. That would also include official or semi-official websites like those for Silverberg, Harrison, etc., at the same time fully documenting the sources.--swfritter 18:58, 9 Feb 2008 (CST)

Look out for Walkinshaw in 1957

If you eventually get to any cartoons in 1957 Amazings you might find a signature that would be easy to misinterpret as Walkimshaw, Walk Inshaw, or some other variant. I am fairly certain now that it is Walkinshaw.--swfritter 19:13, 9 Feb 2008 (CST)

Found my first in Feb. 1958, very clear and legible - definitely "Walkinshaw."--Rkihara 10:10, 11 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Or S(s)o Y(y)ou Say . . .

Should the beginning letters of all the editorials be in uppercase?--swfritter 19:50, 11 Feb 2008 (CST)

I've been using the standard capitalization rules for titles up to now, in that the first and last word is capitalized, while articles, and prepositions and conjunctions of less than four letters are in lower case. If I understand correctly, you're proposing a variation for the editorials, or is it all department titles, since your example is the letters column?--Rkihara 22:33, 11 Feb 2008 (CST)

Ah, capitalization - the topic that we all love to hate :) There have been numerous discussions in the past, but for now the Help pages state:

Case. Titles should have case regularized unless there is some specific evidence that the author intended certain letters to be in a specific case. For example, if the title is "EXTRO" in all caps, the title should be entered as "Extro". This applies to the titles of short stories as well as books. Typesetting style is not important; for example, Fantastic Universe typically printed story titles in lower case, but these titles are regularized for the ISFDB. Regularized case means that the first word is capitalized, and all later words are also capitalized except for "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". Hyphenated words have the first letter after the hyphen capitalized.

This convention goes back to the mid-1990s and has been occasionally questioned since we are arguably losing some information because we capitalize so much. For example, a librarian would enter the title "Bad bill" verbatim, i.e. "Bad bill", while we would change it to "Bad Bill", which would make it look like it refers to a bad person as opposed to a bad bill. For better or for worse, with hundreds of thousands of records in the database, it's too late to change... Ahasuerus 23:07, 11 Feb 2008 (CST)

P.S. Cartoon captions have apparently evolved a de facto sub-standard since so many captions are direct speech in quotes. We may want to post this fact on the Standards board and add a clause to the Help pages. Ahasuerus 23:11, 11 Feb 2008 (CST)

From Help: "The title should be "Cartoon: " followed by the caption, in the original case, between quotation marks. If there is no caption the words "no caption" should be used without quotation marks." But perhaps I don't have it in the right place. Did catch a few yesterday without quote marks.--swfritter 23:25, 11 Feb 2008 (CST)

Thanks, I must have missed the edit that added this sentence. Our Help pages are in dire need of a thorough review since some are out of date and some are simply wrong (like the translations page). Unfortunately, there is never enough time, what with the data entry, the backups/cleanup scripts, moderation, the Wiki, travel, etc. At least I will have enough frequent flier miles for a first class ticket to Mars when they launch commercial flights... Ahasuerus 23:33, 11 Feb 2008 (CST)

Amazing 1956/1957

I own all but two of the 1956 issues so I would suggest I do that year except for the ones I don't own. For 1957 you own all but one so perhaps you could do that year except for the one that only I own.--swfritter 18:39, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)

Okay, that's fine.--Rkihara 18:51, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)

Amazing December 1952

I am taking a quick run through our entries up through 1955. The December 1952 issue has the entry: 1st. Run • novelette by unknown (aka First Run) [as by Mallory Storm ]. Since it is not published anywhere else I am assuming that someone changed the title from First Run to 1st. Run - the variant title should probably have the same title if the story only appeared in this pub. So far everything else is looking fine. So Valigursky and Summers actually collaborated on the artwork for "Empire of Women" in the May 1952 issue? Another oddity.--swfritter 19:58, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)

I don't remember if I changed "First" to "1st," but it's printed "1st" on the title page, and "First" in the table of contents. I'll take out the AKA "First Run." The earlier Amazing Stories had a lot of these dual artist credits, which I always wondered about. The best explanation that I could come up with is that the editor had another artist rework the original (with or without permission). Leo Summers was the art director, so that would make sense. I read in Emsh X2, that this was a common practice, and that Ed Emsh blew a gasket the first time it was done to him. After that, the originals were always returned to him unaltered, with alterations done on a transparent overlay.--Rkihara 20:24, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)

Just got through reading Emsh X2 myself - kind of weird that they credited it that way; I assume most of the time it was done surreptitiously. Somebody is going to have a lot of fun entering all the artwork credits into Emsh X2 and it probably won't be me. Finished going through the issues. Still have to resolve the Recour issue - if most of his stuff under that name was filler then Bott might be the more logical canonical name. There seem to about an equal number of titles either way and the deciding factor might be the fact that Bott is his real name.--swfritter 20:40, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)