ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard/Archive 03

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Collaborative cover art credit

How do you do it? Here's a pub where the two guys are given individual credit, and here's one where the same two guys are given collaborative credit. There are plenty of credits for the Dillons that go both ways and they almost always work together. Choosing the "Add Artist" button doesn't let you decide which is separate covers (like for an Ace Double) or if the two artists created one work. Mhhutchins 18:15, 29 Jan 2008 (CST)

How do I do it? With publication notes. :-) For example, see Paster Master which is by the Dillons. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:39, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

No, that doesn't do it. Look again at the two samples I provided. The first one has a comma between the names and the second one has and between the names. How is that done? Mhhutchins 08:26, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

I suspect a single Cover Art record is created when you create a new pub record while two Cover Art records are created when you go back and add an additional artist to a pre-existing record, but it's just a guess. I'll try to experiment a bit some time today. Ahasuerus 08:33, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

I tried both ways to create an and between the artists' names, and neither way worked. 'Tis a puzzlement. Mhhutchins 11:15, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

State one cover artist only and later find the COVERART record and edit it to add the second artist :-) --Roglo 13:05, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

Interesting, but I can't see any use. Even if you used it for an Ace Double there's still only one coverart record with both titles in... or can you force two in somehow and rename them one for each half, each with its own artist? BLongley 14:23, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

That's the problem: in the first pub there are really two COVERART records, each with one artist. So when you look at the artists bibliography, you don't see that this work is collaborative. --Roglo 14:31, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

Actually, I was thinking of it more as a SOLUTION (or at least a workaround). We need notes when there's two artists for a book, each doing a different cover - you can't be sure of the order of the artist display, and sometimes the titles will get reversed in the combined "Title A / Title B" joint pub title record. (E.g. another editor disagrees with the order and merges it with one the other way round.) Having two coverart records, each with the right title (as you can edit those independently of the pub title), and the right artist, might preserve the information without a note. Still, as the AUTHORs are still stuck with a joint title record and their order can change, and the pagination needs recording in notes too (in case the title order changes), I can't recommend this practice as it still won't make us note-free. BLongley 15:37, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

And COVERART != cover; you have sometimes two different images used for one cover. In the pub below the attribution is: Cover images © ... and ..., so probably two images by different artists were used. --Roglo 04:29, 31 Jan 2008 (CST)

Which reminds me that here when I added two artists, I created two records. I'll have to check if this is a collaboration. --Roglo 14:36, 30 Jan 2008 (CST)

Mhhutchins, did your question get answered about why one has a comma and the other is "and"? These two title records are for the comma case and this single title record for both artists is the "and." Al obviously was having too much fun. Anyway, I'm sticking with my first answer as then I get to control the order, etc. Plus often times the credit is vague and so I like to quote exactly what's stated in the publication and people viewing the record can interpret it themselves. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:55, 31 Jan 2008 (CST)

Duplicate submission

Looking at my pending submissions: it appears that when my browser gave me problems earlier, my submission of a TitleDelete for "The Houses of Iszm - remove (davecat)" (review) went in twice. When someone gets to it, approving one & rejecting the other probably would be appropriate. Thanks.

(Browser is acting up again - probably had too much stuff open earlier - going off to reboot.) -- Dave (davecat) 08:34, 1 Feb 2008 (CST)

Done! Duplicate removals are usually harmless -- once a moderator has approved the first one, the second one is displayed as a bogus delete. Ahasuerus 08:43, 1 Feb 2008 (CST)

Thanks -- Dave (davecat) 17:22, 1 Feb 2008 (CST)

Pending Submissions

Two of my submissions have been hanging there quite a while (MakeVariants for the December & November 1964 Analog editorials ("Race Riots" & "The Extremist")). Just nobody had time? or is there some substantive issue? I ask only because if the latter no one's talking to me about it - but other, later submissions have been approved. (And I'll be shutting down for the night in fairly short order - I hope!) Thanks. -- Dave (davecat) 17:22, 1 Feb 2008 (CST)

Sorry, I put one of them on hold this morning and almost forgot about it. When I took a closer look at the submission a minute ago, I realized that the submission was fine and I just wasn't looking close enough. The second submission was still in the queue simply because moderator availability has been spotty today and the queue is getting long. Both approved now :) Ahasuerus 18:30, 1 Feb 2008 (CST)

Incorrect edit

Please do not approve my recent edit to The Whirligig of Time removing the series designation from it. I had confuesd it with the same author's The Fury out of Time. Further research shows my error. -DES ^Talk 17:47, 6 Feb 2008 (CST)

Done! Ahasuerus 17:51, 6 Feb 2008 (CST)

Pending Polluto: The Anti-Pop Culture Journal submissions

Could somebody please review the two pending Polluto: The Anti-Pop Culture Journal submissions and communicate with the new editor as needed? I am out of time and will be traveling during most of the next 24 hours with only sporadic access to the internet. Ahasuerus 00:50, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)

Never mind, it's taken care of now :) Ahasuerus 12:08, 15 Feb 2008 (CST)

The Sword of the Golem by Abraham Rothberg

Found this in my SciFi collection. It's billed on the cover as a historical novel, but blurb on the back cover states "Rabbi Judah Low Ben Bezalel creates a monster-like robot out of clay". For those unfamiliar with the idea - it's a legendary Jewish Frankenstein. Should it be entered or not? -- Holmesd 12:56, 18 Feb 2008 (CST)

Checking the reviews on Amazon.com, it looks like a pretty straightforward historical fantasy, so in it goes! :) Ahasuerus 17:29, 18 Feb 2008 (CST)

Done. Holmesd 22:35, 18 Feb 2008 (CST)

Approved and the hardcover edition added from the OCLC catalog. Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:04, 18 Feb 2008 (CST)

I can't think of a Golem story that isn't SF. Can anyone suggest one? BLongley 13:48, 19 Feb 2008 (CST)

Well, I suppose it's possible for the Golem to be revealed as some kind of legerdemain or have another mundane explanation, in which case the story would be straight historical fiction and not speculative fiction, but I can't think of any examples. Ahasuerus 20:36, 19 Feb 2008 (CST)

Is mythology speculative fiction? Is a modern re-telling speculative fiction? -- Holmesd 22:16, 19 Feb 2008 (CST)

We use a fairly expansive definition of "speculative fiction" as per the current Project Scope Policy, which includes "non-genre speculative fiction, fabulations, magic realism, and slipstream", but tentatively excludes "fairy tales with no known author". So mythology is presumably out and modern re-tellings are in. Ahasuerus 00:40, 20 Feb 2008 (CST)

Of course, we have some very borderline cases. Jewish SF under a house-name of 'God', or only included because of a Doris Lessing introduction? (I see the Portuguese edition thinks Doris Lessing actually wrote a whole book of the Bible....) BLongley 13:58, 20 Feb 2008 (CST)

Help needed after move

There are some tasks that need an admin bit set. Please see ISFDB:Community Portal#Publisher Issues for detail. -DES ^Talk 09:31, 24 Feb 2008 (CST)

• Could a moderator please delete Publisher:DAW/Titles. It is currently a redirect of effectivly no value, and its existance prevents me from moving [[ISFDB:DAW/Titles]] to the proper name. Also, could someone please look at Publisher:DAW/Titles/old? It appears to be an early draft for the DAW/Titles page, and i suspect it can be deleted, but someone who knows this page bettre should check that there is nothing of value here that is not on the main DAW/Titles page, and if there is not, a moderator is needed to actually delete it. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 09:56, 26 Feb 2008 (CST)

I've deleted Publisher:DAW/Titles/old. It looks like the Publisher:DAW/Titles was already handled. Marc Kupper (talk) 14:02, 25 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Webzine Submissions

A A new user added this wiki page. I think the Card magazine is strictly online and therefore submissions for it should not currently be accepted.--swfritter 09:21, 21 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Possible Emergency Unavailability

I've had an awful night starting with noticing a burst radiator in my bedroom - which burst very gently at first, it seems, and the drip-drip-drip has apparently gone through the floor, onto the main electricity supply box... I'm not sure how much water still remains to come through, but I'm shutting down everything electrical till I can get radiator, floor and ceiling replaced, and some SLEEP as well. (So far, no books have been harmed, but I'm cold, tired, and wet after playing "Little Dutch Boy with the Finger" for a couple of hours.) BLongley 00:34, 25 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Ouch, that must have hurt! Of course, no books have been damaged, so the ultimate disaster has been avoided, but still! Ahasuerus 00:50, 25 Mar 2008 (CDT)

I have water again, and in the right places now. Still no heating apart from the electric fire in my bedroom. No sign of my landlord taking action yet, but I've spoken to his wife and his uncle, who have promised to inform his brothers, and if the expected happens then I'll get the uncle-in-law and the brother-in-law and my former landlord and a dozen other relatives all turning up to fix things tomorrow. Hopefully before hypothermia sets in. BLongley 18:35, 25 Mar 2008 (CDT)

"Thoughts After an Assassination" make-variant

It probably won't make any difference, but I was trying to work too fast & submitted a make-variant for a variant I'd already made. Should be to the same parent title, but it might be best if someone cancels this one. (I did subsequently submit the one I'd meant to, for another title, so please approve that one unless it looks wrong, though.) Thanks & sorry to bother you. -- Dave (davecat) 12:34, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

OK, rejected. BLongley 13:47, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Out Like a Light - putting together a serial?

I found that the "Mark Phillips" serial Out Like a Light, in Analog, 1960 (3 issues), is a variant of The Impossibles. I looked at a couple of random examples of the same kind of thing, & found a title of type NOVEL, with no pubs to its credit. Fine, I thought, NEW NOVEL is what to do next. But that creates a pub record.

What I'm about to hit "submit" on is that pub record. I've put a note in it to make clear that the pub itself will need to be deleted. If that's not what I should be doing, anyone who reads this can reject the submission & then tell me what I should have done instead. Or (if no one sees this in time) tell me anyway & I'll clean up my little mess. Thanks! -- Dave (davecat) 16:39, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

You are quite right that typically we create new Novel Titles via the standard "New Novel" submission form, which creates a Title/Publication pair of records. The idea behind this design is to make it easier for editors to enter new novels and also to minimize the number of orphan Titles in the database.

As far as the immediate Serial problem is concerned, the underlying issue is that Serials are currently associated with their "parent" Novel titles by matching the two titles lexically at the time when the Web page is generated, which causes all kinds of issue. Take a look at Edmond Hamilton's biblio for various examples of multiply linked Serials, e.g. "Outside the Universe" or "Outlaws of the Moon" or "Quest Beyond the Stars" (vs. "The Quest Beyond the Stars"). There are also display problems with pseudonymous Serials and other quirks.

The ultimate solution to this class of problems is to establish appropriate Serial-Novel links within the database instead of relying on the "lexical match" logic. This task is next on Al's "to do" list and he plans to start working on it once he releases the Award Editor option, which is currently in alpha testing. Once the software has been updated, we will need to review all Serial records that are not associated with Novels at this point and link them when appropriate. I think a simple Note explaining the nature of the relationship should do it for now -- unless somebody else can think of a more user-friendly band aid :) Ahasuerus 17:26, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

I knew about the lexical matching, thanks. Whenever I'm on after the submission gets approved, then, I'll either delete the pub or maybe modify it. (Should have planned ahead a bit better, I now see.) Thanks. Dave (davecat) 18:26, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Now that you are a moderator, you will be able to see your submission in the Submissions Queue and massage it at your leisure. Experimenting with a test record tends to be good practice, although I would recommend Help:Screen:Moderator first for a brief introduction to moderator arcana :) Ahasuerus 20:41, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

I've created new publess title records both with new-novel and then deleting the publication but also with "Add a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work to This Title" and then deleting the variant title link by setting the record # to 0). The make-variant method seems cleaner in that it's not creating a new db record that we then delete. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:35, 8 Apr 2008 (CDT)

In this case, I realized (dope-slap) that I had a pub; that's what brought the title to my attention. It's a Gutenberg release. (Interestingly, scanning through it looking for differences, there's only one major one - but that's the solution of the whole problem! And it's crucial to the development of the sequel, too.) So, where I'd first created the pub (via New Novel) planning to delete it, I just edited it to the pub I had, in the end.
What had confused me was that I'd looked for models of serials published under another title in book form, & they didn't have pubs under the serial's title. Here, someone had gone back to the serials & pasted the installments together into an ebook, so there was a pub. Duh. Obviously (had I merely spotted the connection between serial & book) the make-variant method would have been what I should have done - no need to zero out the connection, as it would have been correct. Thanks. When I've made variants in the past it's been the other way around - creating a parent because the author is a pseudonym. -- Dave (davecat) 09:01, 8 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Saqr al-Hurriyah, Awwal Thawrah fi-al-Tarikh didd al-isticmar

I THINK that's a submission, but as far as I know it might be a death-threat to all non-Islamic Moderators that don't help clear the submission list. ;-) Seriously though - the queue is long, I'm NOT going to tackle submissions that aren't even in an ALPHABET I'm familiar with. With added Alibrarian and Dissembler submissions I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and I haven't even finished adding the books I received today. I know we have our own specialities, but if some people here can deal with some OTHER things they understand the queue may get back to normal in a bit. Whatever "Normal" is. BLongley 17:02, 8 Apr 2008 (CDT)

I thought you'd enjoy the alternate spelling for Andre Norton. And the translated title. Holmesd 22:15, 8 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Not a new problem, this was brought up and discussed last March (see top of this page). Moderators seem to be doing what they can but I am sure they also like to do a bit of editing as well. The moderator to editor ratio is too low and as was proposed by Mike and Al a year ago, that ratio needs improvement. I don't think the number of new moderators has kept up with the number of new editors or submissions. Thx, rbh (Bob) 22:53, 8 Apr 2008 (CDT)

True, there are times when the submission queue swells and moderators have to scramble to process the backlog. Today just happened to be a particularly rough day due to a big Dissembler run and Alibrarian's return (may Allah enlighten him and lead him to this Wiki!) We'd love to be able to add more moderators quickly to help alleviate this problem -- and we added two new ones just 4 days ago -- but we got burned in the 1990s when the database was wide open to new submissions and we ended up with an often unusable mess that we are still cleaning up, so we have learned to be cautious. On the other hand, there are certainly active editors who are getting closer to self-sufficiency (including Bob, David Siegel and Dave Sorgen, to mention a few) and I am sure they will be moderatorized in due course of time :) Ahasuerus 00:37, 9 Apr 2008 (CDT)

I did approve one submission (other than my own) that I was pretty sure was OK. I looked through a lot of the others, but wasn't sure enough. There are some discussions I've read in the wiki, but can't remember well enough & couldn't quickly find; one about foreign-language versions of works originally published in English, & one about linking to cover art from Amazon, in particular.
Is there a way to ... no, I just found that one. Still learning ... -- Dave (davecat) 08:59, 9 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Sorry about the Dissembler run - there will probably be a few more like it. I think the runs have not been running to completion due to session timeouts at Amazon. The old Amazon web API was shut donw on April 1, forcing a rewrite to the new API, which is... much better. With no screen scraping, the runs clip along very fast, and I don't see the errors I used to. Once the forthcoming books pipeline is filled again, the number of submissions per session should drop off dramatically. Now that the new virtual server is online, I'll be busy setting up the new system, so no Dissembler runs for a few days. Alvonruff 13:24, 9 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Changing a Pub Verified by a Mod who is no longer around

I want to fix an error in a pub verified by Scott Latham who hasn't made an appearance in almost a year. Should I also change the Verification to my name? CoachPaul 00:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Before it became evident that he might be gone a long time, I left messages on his talk page. But for the past few months I've simply changed the pubs, and added notes of sources or explanations if I have the same pub. I haven't changed the verification credit. MHHutchins 00:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll change the verification credit when it becomes clear I'm adding more than I could reasonably explain in notes, and the verifier is inactive for several months. ("Mod or Not" doesn't come into that.) The better the reputation of the previous verifier, the longer the number of months. And only if I'm willing to be asked questions about my verification - I'm actually disposing of some books and moving some of my verifications from Primary to Primary-Transient. So if I take over verification, I take over the perceived responsibilities too - and I don't do that lightly as I hate being bugged over something I thought I made clear in the first place. "Ownership" of a verification is something many people feel, but unless you have a way to live forever and dedicate your life to ISFDB, there is no way that our current single-verifier system will survive. Bug Al for Multiple Verifications, and for which fields: but for now, Verifications will and MUST transfer. BLongley 01:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Having said that, I hope Scott isn't dead, disabled or otherwise unable to get here. Is anyone vaguely in contact with him that can reassure us of that? I know when I go, I'll probably go quietly (in internet terms - the people that would discover my corpse know nothing about the places I visit) and all my verifications will be up for grabs. Oh, I'm SO morbid tonight - blame our new host for not setting my bed-time! BLongley 01:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Scott is still around, he has been doing some editing on and off for the last couple of months, even some today.Kraang 01:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Webzine Submissions

There have been some recent efforts by new users to make submissions for webzines or stories that appear on webzines. The most recent one was for AlienSkin Magazine which, although it has an ISSN and is issue based, does not appear to make past issues available - yet another reason for excluding them. Eyes open.--swfritter 21:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Email confirmation needed

The new wiki version requires an email confirmation exchange to mark a user's email as "confirmed" before it will allow use of the 'email this user" feature, or other email based features. If your email was on file before the move from TAMU (and the wiki upgrade) you will need to go to preferences, and check the email section on the first tab. If your email is not confirmed, it will say so, and there will be a button to click to initate a confirmation email exchange. Until you do this, other users cannot use "email this user" to send email to you from the wiki, nor can you send any. -DES ^Talk 16:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Just click Special:Confirmemail Marc Kupper (talk) 19:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

French pubs for Stephen King

I just submitted two pubs as "L'enfant lumière", but I think I've gotten confused (one definitely has the wrong title, for one thing), and would appreciate if they were rejected. Circeus 15:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. Alvonruff 15:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(Complete Novel) Serials should not be merged

Just a reminder. Separate publications of such are treated as unique entities, the primary reason being that one version of or another will quite often be substantially revised and/or abridged.--swfritter 16:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Request doublecheck on pen name submisison

I have created (but not self-approved) submission 976894 in which i identify "Chris Henderson" as an alternate name of "C. J. Henderson". But knowing that this kind of change is pretty much impossible to undo, I would like to ask for a double chek. My evidence: in my copy of Whispers #21-22 the book reveiws are credited to "Chris Henderson" in the TOC, but to "C. J. Henderson" on the title page of the review column. We have a numnber of other book reveiws credited to "Chris Henderson", and some fiction credited to "C. J. Henderson". C.J has a web site, but does not mention having written under the name "Chris". -DES ^Talk 18:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Any advice? Submission is still pending. -DES ^Talk 23:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, on the website he does mention "In his time, he has earned his keep and kicked around as a: movie house manager, waiter, drama coach, fast food jockey, interior painter, blackjack dealer, book reviewer [et cetera]". The first thing to check though is why we have TWO C. J. Hendersons - one that does reviews and one that writes fiction. The former seems to have two spaces after the "J." - I've no idea why the split is so consistent though. I think your variant is for the one that would be retained by an author merge, but it's not easy to see. But I'd correct the wrong "C. J." before deciding on the "Chris". BLongley 18:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I know how that happened. All the reveiws for the 2nd "C. J. Henderson" were derived from the entries in the one issue of Whispers that I entered, and all were entered by Copy & Paste from the first such entery, which was put in as "Chris" from the TOC, then changed to "C. J." based on the first page of the column itself. That's how we got two identically spelled "C. J."s. I have now merged them. As to C. J. vs Chris, I'll see if there is a contact address on that web site. -DES ^Talk 19:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I have sent an email to the contact address listed on the web site. We'll see what response, if any, i get. -DES ^Talk 19:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Did Henderson really review "Alexi [sic] Panshin" by "Rite of Passage" in 1984? :) Ahasuerus 22:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Err, oops. Looks like I inverted title and author on that one. Will fix. -DES ^Talk 04:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I have an email back from CJ Henderson confirming that he is actually also "Christ Henderson" and inviting a phone call next week (he is at a con this weekend) for any further questions. I will call unless someone else would prefer to. I will delay making the pesud final until I discuss with him which name should be cannonical, as well as what othe work of his should be entered. -DES ^Talk 05:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Moderator List

Are all current Moderators listed in the Availability Table above? If not, can we make sure that they are all there, so I don't mess up by approving something I shouldn't.CoachPaul 22:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

This page lists all users with Mod privileges, although it doesn't show which are still active. It might well be worth comparing the lists occasionally. It looks up-to-date for now though. ("WikiSysop" is Al again, I believe - we need one account that can't be locked out.) BLongley 22:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You can also see a list of all moderators in the list of top moderators available from the Moderator menu. Which reminds me that User:PortForlorn, who was moderatorized to participate in the beta testing phase in September 2006, hasn't been seen since October 2006. Do we want to remove his(/her) moderator flag? So much has changed since late 2006 that I suspect that s/he wouldn't be able to function independently without re-training. Now that the Wiki software has been upgraded, it can be done in 10 seconds.

More generally, do we want to create some kind of "inactive moderator" policy to remove the moderator flag from accounts that haven't been active in over a year? Naturally, we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings unnecessarily, but even if the software/policies do not change much in 12 months (fat chance!), human memory is imperfect and it may take a few weeks for the old instincts to return. Ahasuerus 22:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "de-moderatizing" of inactive accounts is unreasonable. Things change so much around here that I'd be lost if I came back after a month of inactivity, even more so for an entire year! MHHutchins 23:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

All righty then, I will copy the discussion to the Policies board. Ahasuerus 15:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Changes to verified pub

In submission #977869 an editor is attempting to add info to a pub primary-verified by a different editor, a long-standing one. Specifically, to add a cover artist designation. Would it be best to ask the editor to ask the verifier first, to approve and notify the verifieer myself, to reject, or what? Advice sought by a relatively new mod. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 22:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Feelings about how to do this properly vary among moderators/editors, but in general the rule is to make the change, then leave a note on the verifier's page informing him/her of such. Usually no one objects to someone adding missing data, or correcting obvious errata. Some verifiers prefer to correct their own errata. If you're going to delete data or make major changes, it might be better to check beforehand, but that's a judgment call.--Rkihara 02:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I approved it after checking Marc's Daw list and the artist is mentioned, I also left a note on the verifiers page.Kraang 03:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Works in Progress

If anyone EVER comes across a pub that has a note "In Progress", "Work In Progress", "WIP", or anything else that implies I'm still working on it, that contains my initials "CP" or that is signed CoachPaul, please, assume that I have forgotten about it and put a message on my Talk Page letting me know what pub it is. Thanks!CoachPaul 04:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be easy to write a script to identify all Notes fields with this text. Unless somebody else gets to it first, I'll give it a shot once I am no longer sick. (ObSF: Campbell's observation that nobody is getting any younger.) Ahasuerus 23:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I did earlier, and can confirm that as of the last backup I loaded, no notes with "CP" or "CoachPaul" in them have "WIP" or "Progress" in too, and the ones with "WIP" or "Progress" don't have "CP" or "CoachPaul" in them. There are several "Dragon" magazines with "WIP" or "Progress" in if anyone cares to claim them though. I may have a look at the next backup tomorrow to see how the new Review linking works, so maybe I can update then. But that's the pessimistic view apparently - it's supposed to be Carnival here, and as it got totally rained-off last year I'm sure there's going to be a lot more effort in making people have FUN whatever the weather this time. BLongley 00:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to post the records with WIP or Progress to my Talk page, I'd be willing to say that many of them probably belong to me. I'm fairly certain that I'm the one responsible for the Dragons at least.CoachPaul 03:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Not only possible, but done. BLongley 18:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

If anyone else is interested in the SQL, here it is: the leading space is just so the results paste into a nicely formatted Wiki section without learning any fancy Wiki codes. BLongley 18:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Select ' ', p.pub_id, p.pub_title
from notes n, pubs p
where p.note_id = n.note_id
and  (n.note_note like '%WIP%' OR n.note_note like '%progress%')

Thank You!CoachPaul 19:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I've been through them all, and they were all mine! I cleared up most of the books, but three still have a lot of stories left to enter to complete the contents. The Dragons I'll get to when I dig up my copies.CoachPaul 23:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Rhschu submissions

Maybe it's my inexperience with books but this user seems to be trying to add printings that are already in the system. I would appreciate it if somebody would double check my holds. Can we expect this to start happening more often when the web API gets used more often and offline editors start entering pubs without even looking at the current database? Or perhaps start dumping their own databases or databases from other sources?--swfritter 22:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Will double-check. I doubt that anyone that can do the Web-API stuff will be THAT incommunicative, though. It looks like it will still take a lot more communication before it works. BLongley 23:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've seen new submissions of works that are duplicates of pub's Rhschu already verified. I'm not sure what's going on and why this editor has not found the Wiki. The notes in the rejections should have lead them here by now.Kraang 00:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

In some cases this editor verifies a pub. than clones it and adds the missing data, instead of just updating the pub. with the missing data. Who ever this is they are looking at the database.Kraang 00:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

But won't this submission lead to a near duplicate of this incompletely edited pub? Wouldn't it make more sense to edit an incompletely edited pub rather than adding a new one?--swfritter 01:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

In merging the titles I moved the target title. Your submission on hold is now in an error state. Sorry about that! The change in any case was only an update about the number line.Kraang 01:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

"Prelude to a Nocturne" title merge

Please reject this, 'cos I think my Dreaming Down Under anthology clone will fall over if it's accepted & it's much more work to re-do the clone than the merge. Thanks --j_clark 04:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Later: Not sure what will happen now, as my clone has been accepted & the title merge is still in my queue. Probably the title merge will be OK? --j_clark 11:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I've put it on hold and when you've finished with the related titles(unmerging short stories) I'll see if its still OK and them proceed. Thanks.Kraang 11:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Queries in notes field

Please take a look at this submission and User talk:Rhschu‎#The Sioux Spaceman and queries. I would like a 2nd opinion on how to handle this sort of submission. Feel free to reject or approve if you have a clear opinion on what to do with the submission after reading my note to the user. -DES ^Talk 16:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree it's not the sort of note to approve and leave in the database, so rejection is in order (there's no other useful data in that edit). It's also not the sort of note that should be addressed to a moderator to action, as it's not a question all mods should be expected to be able to deal with. I don't mind a note to the mod like "I've added page numbers for all the contents, but there's some that aren't actually in the book, what do I do?" as the mod can can explain "Remove titles from this pub" to them directly (and maybe do it for them, if the queue is getting long - but I normally would leave at least one example for them to try themselves) - but the note should be removed when the response is given. I presume all mods could answer a query like that. However, if the query is more general then encouraging use of the Help Desk is best. (I know you asked in Verification Requests, I don't think that's the right area really - although both swfritter and I have answered there.) BLongley 18:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

In general, notes to Mods are good things IMO - some multi-step edits may look unreasonable and so a clear statement of intent is good on the first edit even if it means the mod has to remove the note and watch for later edits too - but QUESTIONS to Moderators in general should either be on topics all mods should know (plain editing matters), or posted in the appropriate area of the Wiki (Help Desk, Rules and Standards, on Verifiers talk page, etc.) That's just my opinion though, an alternative could be to discourage all such notes and make editors call for a Moderator's help here instead of leaving notes in submissions. BLongley 18:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Your view makes sense to me. I took the note as a question to the world or at least all ISFDB editors, rather than mods in general. As to whether the query should have been asked on the Help desk or in Verification requests, either might be plausible, and surely either would be better than in a note in the pub. Thanks for your comments. -DES ^Talk 20:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

A Mod would obviously see it first, so I read it as a question to the Approver. I wouldn't let such a submission pass without follow-up work as the questioner wouldn't be visible to respond to. (Although we could obviously add that info: or ask such notes to be signed more clearly.) But the procedure is obviously questionable, so thanks for raising it. BLongley 21:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I would have rejected that submission immediately and tell the submitter to ask questions on this page, not in a record update. In fact, we would be destroying very viable information if such a submission is approved. MHHutchins 00:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

And we are still dealing with "Temp Note" entries that were not removed, mostly in the magazines. These were really annoying because they seemed to be primarily for the use of the editor who entered them rather than supplying moderators with any valuable information.--swfritter 00:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that Rhschu‎ didn't mean to delete the existing data, but rather was unfamiliar with the Wiki structure and asked the question in the only place he knew about. We all had to start somewhere :) Ahasuerus 02:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

There wasn't any existing data to be deleted: there is NOW of course, as you put it there. ;-) BLongley 19:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]He seems to have discovered the Wiki. (Hurrah!) After rejecting the submission, I would have directed him (on his talk page) to this page or whichever would be the most appropriate for his questions. Yes, we all have to start somewhere, but with guidance (which I thankfully received in my early days) we can arrive at the right place. :) MHHutchins 03:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think the comment "Queries in notes field: When? NEVER!" makes Mike's opinion clear as to what SHOULD happen. :-) I think we're all resigned to seeing such at times though, and that we're agreed that we should NOT allow any of these to persist into a note that never gets cleared up? (Whether that means automatic rejection and a severe talking-to on the submitter's talk page, or some fix-up work by the Approver and a gentle pointer to the RIGHT way to do things is probably down to each Mod's style.) However, I feel there are occasions where a note to the Mod is useful - we could ask Al for such to be added as a separate field that never gets into the database, but is viewable on the Approval screen: or we can adopt a convention to deal with people overloading the current notes field - "No queries allowed, 'Notes to Moderator' should start with exactly those words" would be fine by me. I know I've stared at submissions trying to second-guess what the editor is going to do next, and it's just as much a pain for me to hold the submission, go ask about future intentions, and approve the next day as it would be for every editor to post a note to Moderators in general that they intend to "unmerge title X because it's actually called Y and they want to unmerge, rename, and create variant", for instance. I don't think all Approvers are necessarily up to date with current Moderator Noticeboard queries - and our editors take a long time to find it anyway. BLongley 19:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I havde asked for exactly that, with "Feature:90158 Capture reason or summary of an edit." on the ISFDB Feature List page. Feel free to indicate support. In the mean time, notes starting "Moderator:" or "Temp:" are IMO useful in some cases. Should the help document this? -DES ^Talk 19:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Overall - I did not have a problem with the note and had I seen it I would have approved the entry, then edited it to make the note more third party, and also tried, via the wiki, to have the editor involved, document what is, and is not, present in more detail. Overall, I've been pleased with what I've been seeing from Rhschu as he seems he/she is thinking in the right direction and is learning about how to express those ideas via ISFDB.

Unrelated but I very rarely reject submissions as there's no way to eventually remove them from the rejected queue. The only items I reject are ones that would be disastrous and really hard to recover from. My usual course is to approve and then to edit/clean up items that should not have been integrated into the main database. I agree though that there should be more options for editors to leave notes about titles, publications, etc. They don't have to be addressed to a moderator though it's usually the moderators that would best know of an answer. A thought would be to use a publication's wiki-page or even it's wiki-talk page. We've also discussed ways for moderators and perhaps the submitting editor, to modify a submission. I handle that by approving and then editing which is not too bad. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Unapersson

Anyone heard anything from Unapersson in the last couple of months? BLongley 21:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you need his attention for something? I could e-mail him. User_talk:Unapersson has a number of open items but I don't see anything that looks pressing. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible copyright violation

The page Bio:Dorothy Cora Moore appears (and claims) to be a review of the works of this author, published in "ForeWord Magazine Clarion Review". As such, it is at least probably a copyright violation. It was posted by someone who appears to be the author being reviewed. We don't seem to have a clear policy on this point --should the page be simply deleted, or replaced with a copyvio warning, or what? know what Wikipedia would do, but their policies are designed for a rather different situation. -DES ^Talk 16:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I found what appears to be the cited source for the review, but it has no record of any review of any book by the title given, of any book by the stated author, or of any review by the stated reviewer. The posted review has no date, and I don't know how far the online archives of ForeWord Magazine go back (but I see that they go at least to 2005). See this site for more details. -DES ^Talk 16:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was lifted from TheAtlanteans.com. The author may own the rights to the review if it was actually a "review for fee" job? BLongley 18:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Strictly from a standpoint of appropriateness to the goals of the ISFDb it may not be acceptable with a particular difficulty being that such items are not moderated.--swfritter 20:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict with swfritter) It is the same review that appears there, no question. But the presentation there at least seems to imply that it was published in the "magazine" which seems not to be the case. It might be a "review for fee" published nowhere else, in which case the book's author might (or might not) own the rights, depending on the agreement. Their page says:

"Paying $305 for a professional 400+ word critique is the best marketing value available in this industry. Use the review in your press kit, back cover endorsement, or on your Web site. With your permission, the review will also be archived with the top three title information databases used by booksellers and librarians who make purchasing decisions: Bowker's Books-In-Print online, Baker & Taylor's Titlesource 3, and Ingram's iPage, in addition to www.forewordmagazine.com."

And the "review" used the term "Clarion" which seems to be the name for their review for fee service. And a search under that heading turns up the same review. Copyright status is still less than clear, although since the book's author is authorized to use it "in your press kit" I think we are clear on the copyright issue. On the other hand, this is a fairly obviously promotional review, and that is even more true now that it appears that the author paid a fee for it to be written. I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing we want on our site, but I'm less worried than I was.

I have noticed a number of people posting bios of fairly obscure currently active authors on the site in the past few days, all apparently by the authors themselves, and I created Template:Bio Warn to deal with such postings. But I'm not sure about this one. -DES ^Talk 20:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

"Publisher: iUniverse, Inc." makes me even less inclined to bother with such a publication. I'm not a great fan of deleting real books from the ISFDB unless they really are not SF, and not by an SF author/reviewer/bibliographer, but I don't feel quite the same way about the Wiki side. Delete it, and encourage the poster to use the ISFDB itself to ADD it if the book is worth recording. The few bits of reviews I've bothered to read indicate it's borderline anyway - the "Atlantis really existed" bit seems like background for a standard mainstream story. BLongley 23:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I do wonder why we've suddenly attracted so many self-promoting authors though. Has the new host and the lack of a robots.txt file made us more visible, or are we being actively discussed somewhere? BLongley 23:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Bio policy

Section moved to ISFDB talk:Policy#Bio policy. -DES ^Talk 15:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Automatic data cleanup testing

As some of you may have noticed by now, I am in the middle of testing a new automated data cleanup process, which will be eventually turned over to User:Fixer. This will result in the appearance of (sometimes numerous) test submissions in the queue over the next few days, usually with titles like "Test again" and "Test - do not approve". It is important not to approve these submissions by accident since some of them may not be quite right while I am working on the algorithms. I realize that this may make the queue harder to navigate (and I will try not to flood it), but the long term benefits of a cleaner database should be substantial, so please bear with me :) Ahasuerus 02:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

As you conduct your testing, let me know if we need any additional feedback in the moderator apps. Currently all of the control rods are in the editing apps, with very little checking on the moderator side. This became apparent in recent Dissembler runs while deleting Manga publications - it's quite easy to delete a title when it still has publications attached to it, and there's really no indication to the moderator of that state. So we probably need some additional warnings to let moderators know that a remote app has submitted something dumb. Alvonruff 02:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I have been playing with title merges and noticed that the approval screen gives you the option to approve a submission even if one or more of its "titles-to-be-merged" is no longer in the database. I don't know what would have happened if I had tried to approve one of those submissions, but we probably don't want to make the "Approve" button available if the submission is that badly out of whack. I had seen this happen before when inpatient editors submitted multiple title merges instead of waiting for the first one to be approved, but rejecting a few dozen of them within a couple of hours kind of drove the message home :) Ahasuerus 05:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Over on wikipedia they seem to have user names that end in "bot" for the robots. I don't know what the rules are for their user names but it seems "Fixer" would qualify for being named a "bot?" Marc Kupper (talk) 15:34, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Many, but far from all, of the Wikipedia scripts/automated processes are run via users whose names end in "bot", but the real marker (for wiki-edits) is a "bot flag" that can be assigned to any user, regardless of name. This allows bot-edits to be hidden in recent changes, and some other monitoring features. The name is just a convention, needed among the huge number of Wikipedia users, less needed here. I think "fixer" would qualify for the bot flag, once tested (it is not normally applied to bot edits while the bot is still in a development/testing state). -DES ^Talk 15:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It turned out that automating Title merges was not the best starting point due to a number of complexities involved, but it's working reasonably well now. There are only about 300 eligible merges left, so I'll probably submit the ones that do not involve variant titles on behalf of Fixer and run the vt-infested ones manually from my account.

Re: creating a "bot" flag, I assume the idea is to let the moderators know that a given submission was created by a bot account and may require additional TLC and/or notifying the bot's maintainer about any problems with the bot's logic. At the moment all we have is Dissembler and now Fixer, which shouldn't be too hard to remember, but if we end up with more than, say, half a dozen bots, then we may need a flag. Also, we may want to mention Dissembler and Fixer on the Help:Screen:Moderator page. Ahasuerus 14:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Shazzam and Saab Lofton

This user uploaded a long and fairly incoherent rant to Bio:Saab Lofton, Bio talk:Saab Lofton, Author:Saab Lofton, and Author talk:Saab Lofton. The rant was directed against Saab Lofton who has one book on file here. It contained accusations of lying and was apparently intended to be racially and politically inflammatory. The page Wikipedia:Saab Lofton has apparently been part of a running dispute on Wikipedia over whether Lofton meets Wikipedia's criteria for "Notability" (and thus inclusion), and the poster here appears to be the same person who has been challenging content there and accusing Lofton of lying to make himself seem more important, While Lofton accuses someone, who may be the poster here, of "stalking".

This article was clearly inappropriate for out Wiki, and the act of posting the identical rant on four pages here makes it clear that the poster was not simply ignorant. I deleted all four, and blocked the poster for 24 hours.

It appears to be factual that Lofton has had two books published, both by quite small and non-traditional sources. How well they sold appears to be disputed, but is really not relevant here. At least one of the books appears to be SF in some sense.

I think we don't want to be part of the Wikipedia debate on the merits or otherwise of the Lofton article on Wikipedia. Some there are proposing to delete the article, and it looks to me like a somewhat marginal situation under Wikipedia's current policies. I could grab the basic facts from the Wikipedia article ad put them into a brief bio article for us, or I could just leave it blank, as it now is.

Any thoughts? In any case, please be alert for future edits from User:Shazzam or on the topic of Saab Lofton. -DES ^Talk 15:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Gee, we haven't had a real flame war in a couple of years! I guess that's one side-effect of a higher Google ranking :-\ Anyway, as you said, all we care about is whether the person in question has written a work of speculative fiction, which he apparently did over 10 years ago. Whether the book sold 1,000 copies or 2,000 copies is something that may affect Wikipedia's view of his notability, but in our world it makes it almost a bestseller :) and Lofton is clearly "in" based on the Rules of Acquisition. The rest of the flame war had nothing to do with us and was a natural candidate for deletion. The language and the spamming were certainly bad enough to merit a 24 hour ban under the Blocking Policy. Ahasuerus 18:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article's discussion page has some comments on the spectfict work and a link to http://www.iiipublishing.com/ where we learn about "William P. Meyers, who published books as III Publishing from 1989 to 1999". Why do we care? Well, it looks like they were a spectfict publisher! Believe it or not, but ISFDB seems to cover them fairly well. I don't have time at the moment to do a book-by-book comparison. (the III web site lists 15 books and ISFDB has 11 of them). Maybe we're ok as on http://www.iiipublishing.com/books/books.htm I see the following that don't seem to be specfict

• The Nihilist Princess
• Down and Out in the Ivy League (marginal - description says "The book ends with a flashback to Roman times where a Jewish peasant has visions of the future where he will be the Charles Manson, and therefore starts prophesying and believing he is the Son of God.")
• Deconstruction Acres
• The Father, The Son, and The Walkperson (Does "improbable" qualify as spectfict?)
• This'll Kill Ya
• Vampires or Gods? (nonfiction but it looks like it qualifies for ISFDB) Marc Kupper (talk) 15:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

1,000,000

The EDIT Counter hit and passed the 1 million mark today.

2008-06-28 18:53:30 1000000 - TitleDelete Dissembler Alvonruff Fushigi Yugi: Veteran

The prize goes to Dissembler, approved by Alvonruff! It's kind of apropos.CoachPaul 02:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Edit counter was artificially bumped up by a few hundred thousand a while back, so this isn't a true 1,000,000th submission, but it's certainly a nice round number :) Ahasuerus 02:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Never did claim that the counter was accurate, just that it hit and passed the mark. Lots of nice zeros. Zeros are good. Don't know why the Romans, as smart as they were, didn't come up with them.CoachPaul 02:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a nice round number. The actual count should be closer to 269,538 which is the sum of the top moderators. I did not add to this the sum of the rejected items and the items that are currently awaiting resolution on the queue. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It's kind of like you don't get $1,000,000 when you win a $1,000,000 Lottery prize!CoachPaul 15:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Unleashing a Dissembler run when we're getting close seems a bit unfair. :-( I was trying for it manually. BLongley 19:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

2008-06-28 18:56:04 	1000005 - TitleMerge 	BLongley 	BLongley 	The Stocking
2008-06-28 18:55:43 	999995 - TitleMerge 	BLongley 	BLongley 	A Stone's Throw Away

Sorry, didn't even notice until I saw the Moderator queue. I'll avoid submitting when we get near 1234567. Alvonruff 12:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, at least it's not like getting into an accident because you are too busy watching the odometer hit 111,111.11 miles - or maybe it is. And really, shouldn't we be getting credit for every insert, delete, and update.--swfritter 14:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Well we probably shouldn't be thinking of it as "credit" but seeing those numbers mount up does make it tempting. Surly one can often enter the same data in different ways, that make different changes to the "count". One edit can bring in an entire anthology or magazine, with perhaps two dozen new title records, or it can fix a one-character miss-spelling in a note. The verified count is more realistic, but only reflects some aspects of ISFDB work. It's fun to look at one's increasing edit-count, as look as one doesn't get obsessed by it, i suppose. On Wikipedia they speak of "editcountitis" and i guess we have our own version. -DES ^Talk 14:24, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The best way to up your count is to make lots of errors. We might want to score our edits the way they score diving and gymnastics in the Olympics. Just need to find some impartial judges.--swfritter 15:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep ;) But entering large anthologies one story at a time is a good method, too. Particualrly if each story must then be manually merged, nd thenm have the date of its title record fixed. Ah what fun! :) -DES ^Talk 15:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Did you have to bring up large anthologies?! I've got ten of these on my desk awaiting entry and they're now staring at me! "If I had any money, they'd call me eccentric, but since I'm broke, I'm just crazy".CoachPaul 16:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm working with a new editor on one, see User talk:Dragoondelight and the various "Under the Moons of Mars" discussions, and my recent posting on the Help desk. -DES ^Talk 16:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years has reviews/synopsis of the 1834 stories published in the stf mags from 1926 through 1936. That could be a fun project.--swfritter 16:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's going to do that anytime soon. This is the longest work I've seen so far. BLongley 17:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Concurrence instead of Verification (transient)

I am checking my collection against the data. The one lack is that when it is verified and I agree the only option is Verification (transient0. I think it should be changed to Concurrence. This is the hard part to implement. The concurrence should only show the last person and data doing so. A count could be taken of say ten last such concurrences with data and those after would replace the oldest. The newest concurrence would revolve eventually to the last position. When a publication reaches a good sample say 10 or 25 freeze the edit button. At that point the data should not need change unless you change your criteria for what is being recorded. Even then you could submit data to a moderator for evaluation. My point is I am checking books and you are not getting the full benefit of it. Each person is looking for something new and different, but a concurrence system would recognize there is a point when that publication is done. The lock down can be used to protect it. You could still clone, etc. What is the point of not reaching a finish when say ten people confirm the facts? When a check is made and a person can not say I agree then the system has lost the work that went into determining it. I worked in a verification system for personnel. At some point, you need to stop. The revolving concurrence data block could also be used for raw input. It gives a person working on it that little pat on the head. Currently at some point a publication will be checked dozens of times to no effect or repeated re-edits. At some point everyone passes either one way or another. This way you reach a point where the verifiers no longer need be called into check their work. This also means the verifier gets of the 'check it again hook eventually'. I probably will not follow this. I probably am saying this for the thousandth time. I realize it can entail a lot of work. But think of thousands of hours of checking that is or will be lost without it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 19:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Although several people (myself included) use Primary Transient as "2nd verifier" it is really intended as a primary verification on a Library book, borrowed book, or book the verifier intends to sell or give away. In short, a book that the verifier can not be expected to have at hand to answer questions about later.

There is a pending feature request (Feature:90137 Multiple verifications) for more or less what you want, although the details differ. I have no idea where it is on Al's priority list. Feel free to add your coments on the page for that requested feature. I agree that such a thing would be a good idea. -DES ^Talk 20:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"Multiple Verifications" (or even multiple "Primary Transient" Verifications) is something I really want just for the "hey, I can spot which books I still own from the database download" aspect at least. Much easier than keeping a separate set of 3,000+ records for myself. But "Verification" is a bit vague anyway, see many past "What are we actually verifying?" discussions. If Dragoondelight verifies a pub as it is at one point in time, DES adds interiorart and reverifies it, I add a coverart link and re-re-verify it, swfritter adds the page numbers of some adverts and re-re-re-reverifies it, Mike Hutchins Tuck-verifies it, Al marks several Verification sources as Not Applicable, Ahasuerus adds notes that OCLC and many other sources agree, Marc Kupper adds notes about which pages contain an SBN and which the ISBN: are we all STILL happy with having verified it? I think Al is looking into "WikiMedia-like history", that will make such changes clearer, but there's still the question of when we want to remove our verification (or have it removed automatically) when it gets beyond what we're willing to justify/check. We're still small enough that we talk to each other about over-writing verified pubs (mostly: I'm aware that some Verifiers are obviously not active any more and some people aren't asking the inactives for opinions anymore, but aren't taking over verification either). Multiple Verifiers, with a record of what they actually Verified at the time, is good. I'm not sure that's what we're going to get next, but I'm fairly happy to wait for now and resurrect this discussion later. BLongley 21:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Case in a Fawcett catalog number

User:Bluesman‎ has submitted an edit which would change the catalog number of a verified pub of The Amsirs and the Iron Thorn from "#D1852" to "#d1852". The pub was verified by User:Scott Latham, who has made no wiki-posts in over a year. Publisher:Fawcett Gold Medal does indicate lower case letters being used in at least some catalog numbers. I'd like advice, should this edit be approved? -DES ^Talk 15:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I have a copy and the letter is in lower case but there is also an ISBN (or whatever they were called then) number on the spine: 231-01852-050. My own personal opinion is that it seems valid to me to change to lower case since that is as printed but then there is the question of whether or not to use the ISBN and put the catalog number in the notes field. Even though the verifier has not been active I think it is still a good idea for the editor to leave a note on his page if a change is made.--swfritter 17:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The editor in question has apparently not yet found the wiki. Should I approve and leave a note on the verifier's page on his behalf? -DES ^Talk 19:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The case-change does seem to be accurate, if not significant. Notifying Scott is polite - he's still active as an editor, just not active on the Wiki. (And I myself would dread coming back to a Wiki talk page with that amount of messages!) Still, given the current discussions on derived ISBNs, I'd accept the edit, and notify the main contributors to the Publisher page of more evidence for Catalog numbers (OK, that's Marc and me, but consider myself already informed) but in this case I'd NOT try to use a derived ISBN. Note that any Catalog number of that era with the price coded into the last three digits is NOT an ISBN, or its precursor the SBN: the fact that it's 11 digits rather than 9 or 10 is a dead giveaway. Or the fact that it's formatted with THREE digits after the last dash rather than one. BLongley 21:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

For anyone tempted to derive an ISBN anyway: if you remove the price digits from the end, you sometimes CAN determine an ISBN from the remainder of numbers like this - it's likely to need a 0 at the beginning (for English language publications) and the check digit can be derived with Marc's ISBN tool so we'd get 0231018525. Google confirms two hits with that - both for the correct book. "0-231-01852-5" (properly formatted ISBN) doesn't add any more results, so I'd leave it alone, the catalog number is probably more useful. And indeed, "#d1852 Algis Budrys" gets more and better results. The final killer for me is that "0231" isn't a known ISBN prefix for Fawcett Gold Medal - "0449" would be. I find this a good example of the proposed checks on derived ISBNs - I want derived ISBNs when they're useful and consistent, but I don't want them misused. This pub fails on two counts, so I think we've got a nice balanced proposal there. BLongley 21:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Wendy de Paauw / Pauuw

Hi, I've submitted an edit re the cover of Quest, as the first step to making de Pauuw a pseud of de Paauw. ISFDB has one instance of each & I've checked the primary sources - they are as entered in ISFDB. I have several non-genre books with illustrations by this artist & most are "aa". (Seems like an easy typo for a book editor to make!) I've checked the Australian on-line telephone directory and found several "de Paauw" entries, including a "de Paauw, W", but no "Pauuw" entries. This makes me certain that Wendy de Paauw is the canonical name. --j_clark 00:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Adding Bleiler's Checklist to the Verification Source

I'm not very familiar with Bleiler's Checklist, but Kpulliam has asked if it can be used a secondary source for adding/updating titles and pubs. If he's willing to take on this burden task, are there any objections to my adding the Bleiler to the list of verification sources? Thanks. MHHutchins 01:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Burden or task, I'll probably start with the oldest and work forwards. More new submissions in the beginning, (When the task is shiny and new) and more slowly / sedately when it's gets old and boring. At least that was what I was thinking of.... Kpulliam 01:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

There was no 'by date' index so I coudn't start with the oldest. After bouncing around a bit, I picked 'M' to start with in the Author Index. kpulliam 03:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The data is in the form of:

• MABY, J[OSEPH] CECIL
  • By Stygian Waters Houghton; London 1933 158

So I wanted to make sure that everyone was okay with me making entries into the DB, based on just this kind of info snippett. On some items I am doing more research, but on alot of them I'm thinking that just getting something into the DB is worthwhile. kpulliam 03:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

When adding it, instead of Bleiler2 since Bleiler1 is the Gernsbeck Years... can I suggest Bleiler78 as the canon/reference name in the database. This will serve to separate it from the 1948 version and his other works. Kpulliam 01:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable plan. And yes, Bleiler78 (or Bleiler-78) is probably safer if we want to avoid confusion with the 1948 magnum opus. Ahasuerus 02:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I see no objection. -DES ^Talk 15:23, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I tried adding this as a new verification source, starting with ID18 (the first available slot), input data for the following fields: Label: Bleiler78; Title: The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction, revised edition (1978); URL: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Reference:Bleiler78 (which I had to create). It wouldn't work after a couple of attempts so I gave up. Any advice? MHHutchins 01:59, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that I got a message asking for the missing URLS (for IDs 1, 9, 10, and 13). 1 and 13 shouldn't require a URL (Primary and Transient verifications) MHHutchins 02:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't make this work either, i have left a note on Al's page. -DES ^Talk 05:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Changes in the Help page for changing content records

I've made a few changes (well, actually more than a few) in the Help page for changing content records. A few things have been clarified and others have been simplified. I'd appreciate anyone glancing over it and correcting any obvious errors (minor or otherwise). Thanks. MHHutchins 17:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Editing contents and User:Dragoondelight

User:Dragoondelight is getting somewhat frustrated over a held submisison. See User talk:Dragoondelight‎#Editing the contents of publications and User talk:Marc Kupper‎#Editing the contents of publications. Any useful pointers or assitance that can be given to him would be helpful. -DES ^Talk 16:02, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Sky of Swords: A Tale of the King

I made an error and hit enter a few seconds into looking at this and created PulpUpdate I did not want. The next one is the correct one. Please delete the first. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I rejected it. Dave (davecat) 00:44, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The Risen Empire

I have submitted a new publication of this. I could find no elegant solution. The book is the two book printings of the 'Succession series' as a complete novel. It is not an omnibus as I can not separate the stories as published. It is not book 1 of the 'Succession' and presumably is not the same as the SFBC omnibus Succession printing. The notes are complete, but provides little to work with. Please be aware it needs variant titles and other decoder work. I am suspicious of at least one other printing under this title. Sorry for this. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:13, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

One way to deal with this is to make Succession a series with The Risen Empire being #1 in the series, and whatever part 2 is would be Succession #2, and the complete story, Succession, not having a number. Take a look at Tad_Williams' Memory, Sorrow & Thorn series where To Green Angel Tower is book #3 and is a nearly 1100 page hardcover monster. This was reprinted as two paperbacks under a mix of titles (US vs. UK editions). I dealt with this by creating a sub-series, To Green Angel Tower, that contains the paperback parts and each of the paperbacks also has variant titles. It's not perfect put allowed me to file To Green Angel Tower as a novel and not an omnibus of the later part 1 and part 2 reprints while gathering them all together on the bibliography. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:19, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

How about just a parallel Series... "Succession (INSERTPUBLISHER editions)" and label them 1 and 2? That seem simple and elegant, and it doesn't muddy the waters for other edition sets.Kevin 04:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Titles can't belong to more than one series and so publisher or parallel series can't be done for now.

I just looked at Scott Westerfeld and see that the Succession series is already set up and I would say everything looks correct.

• The Risen Empire was first published in March 2003. 304pp.
• The Killing of Worlds was first published in October 2003. 336pp.
• Succession is an omnibus and was first published in November 2003. 530pp. It's odd this is not closer to 640pp but maybe the typeface is smaller.

Harry, I'm confused by your wording - are you saying there's a publication called The Risen Empire that seems to include both The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds?

It's unrelated but I believe the subtitles for The Killing of Worlds : Book Two of Succession are incorrect. The Amazon Look Inside, etc. only seems to indicator this is a successor to The Risen Empire and does not mention "Succession" at all. The reason I say the subtitles are incorrect is that the ISFDB publication records should indicate what's stated and I see that the publication only states "The Killing of Worlds" and that "Book Two of Succession" is not stated. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

First the £7.99 orbit edition 'Risen Empire' notes are exactly as printed. The problem is they are stating that the 'Risen Empire, book one' and The 'Killing of Worlds, book two' precede the orbit edition. Note the 'look insides' are all for the Tor editions and do not show the Orbit copyright page. The £7.99 does not match the £12.99 Orbit hardcover most especially the 640 pages with the paperback being 702. The £7.99 orbit has no break between what would have been the two novels. The Killing of Worlds contains a "From the introduction to The Imperial Civil War' and a small print of 'prologue' where the novel starts, these are missing in the £7.99 orbit. Technically the Orbit editions are not part of the Succession series, though they contain everything, as far as I can determine, as the series except for the above.

I bought my copy, from an British source, through Amazon, thinking I was getting Book I. Amazon did not show differences at that time in the publications, since my copy came from a vendor (brand new).

The problem is to show that the Orbit editions are the complete novelization of 'Succession', as opposed to being the omnibus 'Succession' which supposedly contains the complete text of the series.

(IMO) Tor cut a complete unpublished novel in two. Adding the snipets to Book II and passed it of as a series. Orbit publishes the novel, but notes that it was printed as parts of the series. The Book I title and Orbit printing create buyer and ISFDB problems. At the current rate of publication the title mismatching will grow. I entered the £7.99 where I did so that everything would be centrally located. The data painted me into a continual maze.

I have another series title conflict to bring to your attention and will start that next. Thanks, Harry.

Title & Series problems

I am having some problem with correct titles. I know what the guidelines are, but publishers are stepping on the 'sanctity' of the title page. Logo and stylistic series data are now commonly surrounding the title. Many 'initial' inputs are mixing them, often they are mixed to reflect a sensible way of reading them for the input. The title page often reverses the order of what should be the title and the series.

Example: 'The Killing of Worlds' (by) Scott Westerfield on front cover. This is the entry first seen. The Killing of Worlds (full printed line separation) Book Two of the Succession (by) Scott Westerfield. The Killing of Worlds: Book Two of Succession on copyright page and this is as used in the £7.99 Orbit edition of 'The Risen Empire'. Tor is the publisher of 'The Killing of Worlds'.

Example: The Kris Longknife series published by Ace. Kris Longknife (over) Defiant (Defiant being in larger letters) with the Mike Shepherd at bottom page. Purchasers would usually assume the title was Defiant and Kris Longknife either another author, part of a strange mix print title or a series designator without the old time numbering. The Spine title shows the title print mismatching but has National Bestselling author (over) Mike Shepherd. Obviously this starts the confusion. Title Page has Kris Longknife (over) Defiant with the same printing mismatch with Mike Shepherd separated on the bottom. Copyright page prints the title as Kris Longknife: Defiant. Add the blurb on opposite page to title page where four books 'Ace Books by Mike Shepherd' all using Kris Longknife: and then Mutineer, Deserter, Defiant, Resolute, Defiant, & (Audacious on the Kris Longknife: Audacious printing, next in series). Advertising blurb where they use to give a little snippet to entice the reader is Kris Longknife (over) Mutineer with mixed size printing. I infer that they are saying when printed separately the title use mix size printing, but when making the title a straight line entry use Kris Longknife: Defiant.

Example: Dave Duncan authors lots of trilogy series and his books have the printing mismatch commonly. Title page entries vary from the series being above or below. I used the title wording that was unique to that book and noted the other. Example: Sir Stalwart (over) 'Book One of the King's Daggers' this in greatly reduced print on front cover. Sir Stalwart: Book One of the King's Daggers on spine. Title page Sir Stalwart (huge print) (over) 'Book One of the KIng's Daggers' (small print). Though there Sir Stalwart is not on copyright page, there is this Excerpt from 'The Gilded Chain: A Tale of the King's Blades' then a copyright notation. The initial ISFDB entry had a title record of Sir Stalwart, but the publication entry was I believe the 'The King's Daggers'. In this case I changed it to 'Sir Stalwart' and noted the Book One of the King's Daggers.

Example: Counting the Cost by David Drake. Front cover has Counting the Cross with Hammer's printed over it and Slammers printed under it. Spine has Counting the Cost. Title page has David Drake (over) (two solid lines) (over) the same stylized title as the front cover. Copyright page has Counting the Cost.

Conclusion: As a submitter of data from the book there is a great deal of variance. I know the moderators are aware, but the exceptions and exceptional are becoming more common. I hate changing titles, but it is beoming more dicey. I did what seems reasonable for the Dave Duncan books, but the very current titles are mixing it up and unfortunately they are making remarks on the copyright page that give the verifier the impression that is the most legal due to the copyright notation.

Specifically: Kris Longknife; Defiant or Kris Longknife Defiant or Defiant.

I know there is no easy decision to be made here. Possibly the addition of a note in instructions to make it clear to show the variations exist. Personally, when I used Defiant to find the ISFDB entry. Common sense versus the question of what is correct? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The Guardians: Thunder of Hell

Please reject the first submission as I hit the enter key when trying to change the title and that made the submission. A new submission will follow immediately. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 16:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I think i accepted it before I saw this, but I don't think any serious harm was done. -DES ^Talk 16:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I actually changed nothing. So it did nothing, but I am embarrassed that I can not totally repress the habit to hit the enter key to blank out something on a document. Thanks, Harry--Dragoondelight 19:06, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Incomplete Help Page Help:Screen:MakePseudonym left over from 2006

I found Help:Screen:MakePseudonymlisted on the sitemap. I then confirmed that it is a live help page linking from the 'Make Pseudonym' screen in the ISFDB. I went ahead and added link for it to the Help:screen page a few days ago, and put a comment on the talk page that it needed a moderators attention. I think it has rolled off most peoples recent change page at this point and wanted to bring it to someones attention. I don't feel confident that enough in my use of the database yet to write this page up. - Thanks Kevin 22:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think what happened is that the coding for this area was never finished. For example, while you can delete a variant title by setting the parent # to 0 you can't do that with a pseudonym. Part of the reason delete is hard is that an name can be a pseudonym for multiple authors meaning the delete function needs to allow you to choose which one to delete. Thus for now we are stuck with the backwards relationships when they happen. The help just needs to make it extra clear that you do the "Make This Author a Pseudonym" thing from the name that will become the pseudonym or house name. I believe the wording used to say "Make Pseudonym" and people really got confused.

Rumor has it that Al was working on the pseudonym editor before life grabbed him. Marc Kupper (talk) 05:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Not---The Warlock in Spite of Himself (image)

Checking to add a new publication to the title. I checked this entry mismatch. [1] . Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well that is obviuously wrong, and you can safely remove it without furthenr question. If you have a reasonable looking image, i think you can safely add it and norify the verifier afterwards. -DES ^Talk 00:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Brin1 verified THLSTWRLDS1982 4 minutes after THWRLCKNSP1974 and so must have had the wrong image URL in the copy/paste buffer. I deleted the image from THWRLCKNSP1974 and sent a note to Brin1. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no image, I was looking for possible information on the book. I was afraid it might have been spam or a trojan. Thanks for fixing it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

My Submission "Mavels and Mysteries"

Please amend my submission for the Richard Marsh collection 'Mavels and Mysteries' and add an 'R' to the title so it reads 'Marvels and Mysteries'. Thanks Kevin 04:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

OBE Kevin 21:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Eando Binder Project

As part of my ongoing project to update the date information for various magazines, the stories in them. and variant titles attached to them. I am also cleaning up the Eando Binder titles. Most of them were written by Otto Binder alone but most of our entries are for Otto and Earl. I suspect this data has been thrashed and trashed multiple times before by editors without access to Day or Contento. Please verify any Binder pseudonym entries before accepting them. I am tracking my progress on the Eando Binder bibliography page.--swfritter 19:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Chapterbooks for Dummies

We've got an editor using Chapterbooks to enter some mp3 publications, after advice here. And it all looks good at first: see Stephen_Eley. The minor problem is that CHAPTERBOOK content entries still show up alongside the contents we're interested in. BLongley 20:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The MAJOR problem is that people are trying to FIX this without really understanding what the limitations on editing CHAPTERBOOK title types means. I personally think the entries look fine, but as soon as you edit one of them (e.g. to put a title into a series, or add INTERIORART to a title), you'll break it. So the options are 1) wait till Al fixes the software, or 2) convert all those records to something we CAN work with safely. The current suggestion is to make them all magazines, which seems to be fine for new entries but is going to be tricky for existing entries. IF (and please do check whether this is actually desirable rather than waiting for Al, before attempting to edit the entries so far), I think I have a process that will do it. But it's multi-step, breaks important links at times, and so should probably only be attempted by a Mod that can make sure all the steps are carried through. So I offer this guide and examples of each stage, so you can decide if a) I've got the final desired result right, b) you want to try this yourself, and c) things you can try BEFORE attempting it. BLongley 20:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

All stages are visible at BLTESTCH1 - the overall page is a mess but look for the stage 1, 2, 3 and 4 titles and I think you'll understand why 1 looks good, but 4 might be desirable if 1 is unmaintainable. 2 and 3 look awful. BLongley 20:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

How to create such a Stage 1 title:
1) Start with a New Anthology, add your SHORTFICTION, and BEFORE submitting the edit change the Pub Type to CHAPTERBOOK. See BLTESTCH1 and BLTESTCH1 SF1 content display nicely, with "Chapterbooks" and "Shortfiction" entries. (There are other methods of creating such but I won't recommend them for now.)

How to convert them:
1) Display the pub. Notice how the CHAPTERBOOK entry shows up alongside the SHORTFICTION. Ideally it should be hidden, that will take software changes.
2) Edit the pub. The Pub Type is allowed to stay as CHAPTERBOOK but we won't do that. Notice how the CHAPTERBOOK content entry is now ANTHOLOGY - ISFDB is forcing a change. It won't let us keep CHAPTERBOOK for the content, but won't let us change it to EDITOR either. Still, we can ADD an EDITOR record - copy the details from the ANTHOLOGY entry. And to match, change the Pub Type to MAGAZINE. We can't do anything about the CHAPTERBOOK content record at the moment. (Except possibly mark it with a page number of "NA" or something to indicate we are going to remove it later.) See BLTESTCH2 in "Magazine Editor", "Anthologies" (forced on us) and BLTESTCH1 SF2 in Shortfiction.
3) Find the publication record either via the duff Anthology title or the Magazine Editor title. View it and "Remove Titles From This Pub". Remove the ANTHOLOGY record. See BLTESTCH3 in "Magazine Editor", "Anthologies" (forced on us) and BLTESTCH3 SF3 in "Shortfiction". But we still have a stray anthology title record.
4) Delete the stray anthology record. See BLTESTCH4 in "Magazine Editor", and BLTESTCH4 SF4 in "Shortfiction".

I'd appreciate feedback on whether Stages 1 or 4 look right to you. I really like Stage 1 (when the CHAPTERBOOK content entry can be hidden and edits don't change it). Stage 4 looks quite reasonable as a workaround for something that isn't a normal magazine. There are other options if people want the workaround to be ANTHOLOGY or COLLECTION instead, but I really hope people don't think stages 2 and 3 look OK. BLongley 20:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

PLEASE don't experiment with the original pubs or titles (the creator and I like them as they are!), or the ones I've provided as examples. If you still want to experiment and my creation of such initial entries isn't clear enough for you to create your own tests, ask for extra information about how to create them in other ways. BLongley 20:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Checking again before I go sleep - 4 isn't great in my opinion either, but it seems to be the way Magazines work here? I like my pubs to link back to titles, and titles to show all pubs. Corrections/additions REALLY ARE welcome still - but I don't want to mess with additional Magazine entries that might be satisfactory for Magazine Editors, if they aren't intuitive to everyone else. I'll do some more experiments if required. (All I need is a brain sample, a quarter-pounder100 grams of your intellect will do. ;-) BLongley 23:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I like the stage 1 CHAPBOOKs which the software incorrectly names chapterbooks. For now we'd just need to document how to create and edit these. Marc Kupper (talk) 17:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that you CAN'T edit the pub or the title after entry without it triggering a type change. You can edit and merge the contents though, you just can't add any more or adjust notes or put the title in a series. As it stands the only instructions needed are for creation, and that's the example I gave above. BLongley 18:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I've forgotten exactly why Al disabled chapbooks. It may have been by accident with the only flaws being that it's called chapterbook and is missing from some of the dropdown lists on the edit title and publication displays.

I am thinking that once we get back to coding that the chapterbook/chapbook stuff be renamed to "Standalone Work" which I'll refer to as SW in the bullets.

• SWs would be used to deal with independent publication of a short work, it could be an essay, poem, or shortfiction, on any media (chapbook, pamphlet, electronic, dramatic performance, smoke signaled, etc.) with the publication binding field being used to explain the nature of the media. SWs could be used to handle things such as the sale of cover art paintings (original or reproduction). In other words, if it's specfict, is something that can be bought/sold, and for whatever reason it does not fall neatly into a novel, omnibus, collection, anthology, nonfiction, or nongenre then use SW.
• A SW publication would be like a omnibus, collection or anthology in that its contents will contain one or more shortfiction, poem, interiorart, etc. titles.
• Ideally an SW publication only contains one work or perhaps a shortfiction and an illustration as the focus is on "standalone". If we find ourselves abusing SW to implement longer works then we should consider a new title type.
• Should the first implementation of SW include sub-types or multiple title types to cover print (pamphlet, chapbook, loose-leaf, etc.), electronic (digital or analog), art (painting, illustration, sculpture, music), etc? I believe this will be possible either by overloading the title-description field into an XML blob or by adding a new field. Marc Kupper (talk) 17:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent} As discussions have restarted, I've added BLTESTCH5 as an example of converting to an ANTHOLOGY rather than a MAGAZINE. It's a one-step process: edit the Chapterbook and the Content CHAPTERBOOK record will automatically be changed to ANTHOLOGY type. Change the PUBLICATION type to ANTHOLOGY as well before you submit it and then the edit will switch the title and publication records consistently to ANTHOLOGY. You can also add other content, change the existing SHORTFICTION content, etc, in the same pass. MUCH simpler! BLongley 18:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Bluesman on the wiki

User:Bluesman has found the wiki, and has responded to multiple queries and comments on User talk:Bluesman. If you have left msgs for Bluesman in the past, or if you have submissions by him on hold, check his page. i have already been able to approve one held submission. -DES ^Talk 17:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Great news! Although he doesn't seem to have responded to me. :-/ Was it something I said? BLongley 17:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

When I finally found the wiki there were so many duplicate "observations/questions/STOP!" that I tried to answer/explain/apologize for one of each. Seems I missed the one I think you are referring to: Space Pioneer? Frankly, this one baffles me as I do not remember editing it.--Bluesman 16:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well he did have a lot of messages to answer all at once. We'll see how he responds going foreward. -DES ^Talk 20:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The BEMs we call gods smile once again in their mysterious ways. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Publisher changes

I know we're getting more activity in this area, and more discussion, but I'm pretty sure that one or more Moderators are making changes that affect publications VERIFIED by active editors. I see several of my verifications are now for publishers that I would NOT enter that way. Please, remember the common courtesy of asking an active editor about a proposed change if you want to make a change to his verifications - the Publisher tools are POWERFUL, so shouldn't be used without checking even more carefully than usual. Yes, the Publisher displays are poor and the "by year" display sometimes makes 10 books take 5 checks, but MAKE those checks please! BLongley 23:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't change verified pubs but you should be able to track down who made the changes by looking at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/recent.cgi?0+I Do you have a specific pub you can point to?

Did see a verified pub the other night and thought about asking the person to change it. It's one of the things that triggered my recent list of publisher field proposals. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:11, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I make a habit of checking all the years involved in a publication and will query an active moderator before I make any changes or merge anything. Over 90% of what I've change or merged have had no verifiers and 90% of the time the name I go with has been verified by most of the active moderators.Kraang 01:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I did do some regularising. Specifically i changed "Ballantine Del Rey", "Ballantine/Del Rey", and "Ballantine / Del Rey" to "Del Rey / Ballantine", and merged the resulting records. In no case did I change anything entered as just "Del Rey" or as just "Ballantine". There is, as far as I know, no way to edit and merge publiaher records that affects only non-verified records. No information is lost in any of the changes above, the strings "Ballantine" and "Del Rey" remain present, the only change is the order of the strings, the presence of a slash, and spaces around the slash. If changes on that level may not be done to verified pubs, we might as well turn off the publisher name edit feature, for it is useless. If one must examine each and every pub involved, check if it is verified, and ask each verifier about each pub, again we might as well turn off the publisher name edit feature, for it would be quicker and easier to change the pubs one at a time by pub updates. If people really think that what I did was wrong, that I won't do any more publisher edits until there is a different consensus. But does anyone really argue that the difference between "Ballantine Del Rey", "Ballantine/Del Rey", and "Ballantine / Del Rey" and "Del Rey / Ballantine" is meaningful? Does anyone disagree that all these should be under one publisher record, by whatever name, sooner or later? -DES ^Talk 04:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

It is possible to fairly quickly check for verified publications by going to the publisher's page, Ballantine Del Rey for example, and then look at each year for verified publications. BDR has none but BDR (Canada) does for nearly every publication. The only changes I could see doing unasked is "Ballantine/Del Rey" -> "Ballantine / Del Rey" and for anything else, including the 100% unverified BDR, consensus needs to be developed, especially if someone's verified a publication. I would not automatically flip a "wrong" Publisher / Imprint either. Marc Kupper (talk) 18:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I think DES has apologised enough, we can move forward. But it looks as though it's going to have to be tiny steps. "Spaces around the slash" seems to be mostly agreed, when we concentrate on that alone. When we discuss anything more the threads get long and we have so many disagreements on all the other stuff we can't tell when we HAVE agreed on something! Changing verified pubs still looks like a major no-no to me if people are going to point at what we HAVE now as evidence - I'm pretty sure that I had verified some "Ballantine Del Rey" which is why I got so heated about them being turned into "Del Rey / Ballantine" without consultation. Are we agreed that messing with verified pubs is NOT acceptable practice? As if it IS acceptable, pointing at what HAS been verified as evidence for a change is no use anymore. BLongley 22:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I had honestly assumed that publisher regularization, for cases where the actual entity was obviously the same, and no useful information was being lost, was a case where the "don't mess with verified publications" did not apply, just as I presume it does not apply to changing the data on an author linked to from verified publications. Since I gather that presumption was incorrect, i will probably not do any further publisher edits, except to insert psaces around a slash, until we have consensus on what kinds of publisher edits are acceptable to do without checking with individual verifiers. -DES ^Talk 22:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is we have not determined what is "obviously the same" other than the space around the slashes part much less defined what sort "sameness" we are looking for. By the latter part I mean things like Ace. Is "Ace Books, Inc." the "same" as "Ace Books, an imprint of Charter Communications" much less the when G.P. Putnam swallows Charter and then a succession publishing groups swallow up and spit out G.P. Putnam. Are they all the "same" since they all say "Ace" and use 0-441 ISBNs? Are Ace Star, Ace Tempo, etc. the "same" as Ace as they also use 0-441 ISBNs? In 1986 DAW Books dropped the DAW=SF logo and switched to the overlapping D-A-W that they use to this day. The announcement was sung from rooftops of New York as The New DAW!!! though the only structural change in the company was Betsy Wollheim replaced Don as president and chief editor with Don keeping the "Publisher" title. Was the DAW of 1985 the "same" as 1987?">Marc Kupper (talk) 07:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Frankly i can't see how anyone could seriously entertain the idea tha a change of logo and of chief editor would make a "different" publisher. The very thought seems perverse to me. As to your first quation, I am not 100% sure, but I would be willing to call all those variation the "same" Ace. Still ther i might discuss a bit first. -DES ^Talk 07:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

No fear - I do have some coding in the works such as to set up a mapping table where we can define A maps to B. If you enter "A" then the software will mention "We have standardized on 'B'" and give the choices of "Yes, switch to 'B'" or, "No, I'd rather use 'A'". If you enter a brand new name then the moderators get alerted and we can then decide if the name should be mapped to an existing name or if it should be added as a new name along with the wiki pages, etc. Marc Kupper (talk) 07:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That would be very useful IMO, when and if it is online. -DES ^Talk 07:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2002

I edited this magazine yesterday (added reviews, corrected one or mistakes, added some contents and cover). I was going to add series information, but it seems there have been some sort of glitch somewhere. It looks like this. I wonder what went wrong? Tpi 14:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

A lot of duplicated and triplicated entries show up when I go into editing mode. I'm going to remove some of those and see if that fixes things.--Rkihara 15:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Removing the duplicate book reviews fixed the problem, but I also went through and took out the rest of the superfluous entries. Some of the book reviews need to be relinked.--Rkihara 16:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's obviously been cleaned up, since clicking on your link takes me to reasonable-looking data. I've managed to get duplicated data, myself, in the past by adding data, clicking on submit, clicking back (back into editor), doing anything (or nothing), then clicking submit again. No idea whether this is what you were seeing. -- Dave (davecat) 15:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Advice wanted

Please take a look at User talk:Dragoondelight#Changing contents: "Hell-Bound Train". Harry seems upset by the situatuion, and I want help in avoiding misunderstandings. -DES ^Talk 17:36, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Your explanation seems fine - there just seems to be some confusion on the submitters side about the definition of variant titles. We assume, unless there is evidence otherwise, that it is the same story published under a different title. I am a little bothered that an editor would submit a modification that they think is likely to be rejected without first asking advice.--swfritter 18:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Subb

Please reject Subb submission. I crossed my 'copy' wires and did not put the image in. I put the ISFDB address for it in instead. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Done. BLongley 22:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Missing Moderator

I am currently going through my collection and comparing/editing the database and have come across a couple of discrepancies/additions to some of Scott Latham's Verified pubs. I have left notes on his talk page but then saw here that he hasn't been on in over a year. I am hesitant about editing verified pubs without feedback from the verifier. Only one significant one so far, but then I have a long way to go.--Bluesman 15:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Additions are no problem - depending on the data it may not even be necessary to notify. Errors or discrepancies - since the moderator is not active it is perfectly alright to go ahead and make the changes and make notations on the verifiers talk page - even if they are not active the changes are documented. Just make sure that the changes are consistent with the standards.--swfritter 15:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I was reprimanded (nicely) for editing verified pubs without letting the verifier know, even when just adding alternate prices (being Canadian, most of my books have dual pricing). Better safe than castigated (nicely, of course). Plus any edits still have to be seen by an active Mod....Thanks!--Bluesman 16:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Definitely better safe than sorry with active editors - sometimes it's a matter of how the data is entered rather than the content. I might also note that inactive editors will occasionally take a look at their talk pages. The editors working mostly in magazines are somewhat braver when it comes to changing verified magazines with data that is not entered according to standards or inconsistently - with notifications to the verifier, of course, and prior discussions if a lot of data will be affected or a standard should be questioned.--swfritter 17:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are speaking about the msg from me, i didn't intend it as a reprimand, nor as a rule against adding anything without checking first. I was, IIRC, letting you know that the verifier should be notified (after the fact can be fine) of additions, and usually ask first for actual changes, particularly significant ones. Fixing obvious typos (such as "Sated First Edition" for "Stated First Edition") should not need advance permission. If a verifier is inactive, notification after the fact is fine, as stated above. Some verifiers may give carte blanc to make additions without even notification to particular editors. -DES ^Talk 20:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't fret DES, the "reprimand" comment was strictly tongue-in-cheek!--Bluesman 18:20, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Active Editors can always let you know when to stop bothering them - for instance, Bluesman, you can stop notifying me when you're merely adding prices. Other errors and omissions - please point them out to me! Inactive Editors (or non-communicative editors) are a different matter... there's no hard-and-fast rule about when you can give up trying to talk to them. I know I stopped trying to communicate with YOU after a while. Scott is apparently still alive and editing, if not moderating anyone else's work: some editors like "A Librarian" and "Brin1" worked furiously for a bit and never really communicated. I'm not sure how we can progress this though. When to despair? Is Unapersson another example? BLongley 21:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, one down and how many to go?? Must have left maybe 75 price addition notes already and would welcome as many whoas as possible! Still have half a collection to go... and have to go back through 95% of the first half to look at things I didn't know about the first time through.--Bluesman 18:20, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Bluesman, what you are doing with the Canadian pricing is fine. One option is when leaving the note is to ask if the person wants to be notified for each update. In my case, the answer is yes as I also use my talk page as one of the "list of things to do" meaning your notes would be a reminder to me to start adding the Canadian prices as I believe they are a good idea. I suspect you should still continue to notify people as we may find a publication some day that got reprinted with the same USA price and a new Canadian price. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point, when the moderator is active, but I don't think any of you want 100 notices of price additions on your talk pages. Speaking of which, is there a 'stale date' on entries on the talk pages? There must be some point at which ancient conversations or concluded business becomes clutter. Otherwise these pages could each get to be ridiculously long.--Bluesman 17:41, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Most Talk pages get archived from time to time, usually at least once a year. For example, see my Talk page at User talk:Ahasuerus. It's a fairly straightforward process discussed on the Wikipedia Help page which covers this area. Or ask here and somebody will do it for you quickly. Ahasuerus 22:32, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have set up archives for several user's wiki pages. "Siegel's Archive Service, Reasonable Rates" :) -DES ^Talk 00:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Alien Love

Just added this title to the database, but realized (split-second after hitting 'submit data', of course) that I put in the binding as HC when it should have been TP. The length of this one and also RIVER OF OUR DESTINY [144pp & 136pp] (both by Alan Rodgers) made me hesitate on whether to put them both as CHAPTERBOOKS, but most of the 'novels' from the early days barely topped 150 pages (40s, 50s, even into the 60s). Where is the line drawn? A hardcover at 9x6 or a trade paperback at 8x5 can have a lot more story in the same number of pages than a paperback at 7x4.--Bluesman 17:30, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Approved and adjusted. However, OCLC finds only two libraries that have ever had this book and their respective catalogs are either missing the record or are not accessible at the moment. Nothing in the the Locus Index either. I wonder if it was vaporware? Ahasuerus 17:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

it is currently for sale in three editions on Amazon.com & .ca... pretty good for an invisible book! By adjusted, you mean they are chap books?--Bluesman 22:06, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

A little more googling finds it for sale from a variety of vendors. I guess libraries don't carry many print-on-demand books and Locus must have missed it. The only think that I adjusted was the binding code, everything else is still the same. Ahasuerus 22:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Publisher problem

The publication record of DNTTTHFTND2008 lists the publisher as Robert J. Sawyer Books. Amazon does the same, which I'm pretty sure is where this data comes from. Aside from other discrepancies common to pre-release data, there is no mention of RJS Books except in the back of the book : "Rob Sawyer edits the RJS Books imprint for Fitzhenry & Whiteside, a line of cutting-edge thematically rich science-fiction books, including:......" then lists the ten titles published under that imprint. None of Sawyer's own books are included in that list. I have two of the ones from the list and they do have the RJS Books imprint. This title does not. The copyright page lists the publisher as "Red Deer Press; A Fitzhenry & Whiteside Company", as does his other collection "Iterations". Though there is a connectivity, what is the correct way to list it in the publisher field? Should I just overwrite the whole entry? The data for the HC & TP editions are similarly off. (Checked Red Deer Press website and even their info is wrong on the page count [some overworked data-entry person and I'm beginning to understand that...lol!! entered 386 instead of 286]. Any input would be appreciated.--Bluesman 18:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

"Red Deer Press" is an OK imprint to use, we've been regularising to that format. "Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited" is here too, but I don't approve of that "Limited" suffix. As usual, any discussion of approved imprints/publishers is probably futile, but in general you'll get less hassle if you stick with one we've already got. BLongley 19:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Pride of Monsters

Submitted an edit of PRDMNST1973 that included a catalog #: it should read #02486 (think I forgot the '8').--Bluesman 04:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Approed adn corrected as per your note. -DES ^Talk 04:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

New/Different pub or not?

How 'different' does a book have to be to warrant a separate pub record? Popular books can have many printings without a single change other than the number line 'progressing' each time.--Bluesman 18:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

We have been doing a separate publication record for each printing as it allows people to verify that a particular printing exists. At times you will see publication records that indicate they are for a span of otherwise identical printings. I suppose if someone owns copies of every single printing in a span they could verify that record. Currently the layering is Author / Title / Publication. I've thought about a fourth layer, Printing, to handle the case you brought up where there are a series of publications that are identical except for the printing #.

Once we have printing # support in the database this will be a little less messy as at present many of these printings are also dated 0000-00-00. Marc Kupper (talk) 21:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems with the advent of the number line the old practice of listing all the printing dates has been forgotten, and it was SO handy for filling in dates!--Bluesman 03:12, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

When I find details of prior printings, I'll either note them like here or if there's only a few I'll create stub entries from the copy I own. The aim is to not swamp the title page with loads of slightly suspect entries. It's also quite difficult to tell how much information can safely be copied back to prior printings: price can't, ISBN you might be able to if you verify the first date of use for that ISBN, but with some publishers you can't be sure the earlier editions will even have the same publisher name on. (E.g. Grafton would include all prior Granada, Panther, Panther Triad, Granada Triad and Grafton editions in their "previously published in Grafton" lists.) When I do own two printings of the same book I'll enter and verify them, even if they're identical in every other way - e.g. some early "Man From Uncle" books were reprinted 3 times a month, but only dated to the month so are identical in all but priniting number. BLongley 19:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

In general I agree with the above, but when i have a 2nd printing that is less than 6 months after the initial printing, on a book known to have been popular, i will in some cases assume that it was reprinted due to demand and not to a price change, and fill in the price along with other data for the first printing, with a note about the source of the data. -DES ^Talk 19:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully you are also adding notes giving sources for the data you added and the assumptions you made. -Marc Kupper|talk 21:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I am now. It is possible that early in my work on the ISFDB I failed to do so, but I would now never add any data from a source other than the book itself wiothout a note of where & how I got it. Didn't i say "with a note..." above. In such a case the note might be as short as "Price assumed same as second printing of <date>. (DES)" but no shorter. -DES ^Talk 21:24, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Doubly Verified pubs

TFCFTWTRS1991 and BKTG16212 pub records, both verified by separate editors/moderators, seem to be of the exact same book, other than the publisher being Bantam in the first and Bantam Spectra in the second. Should both stay or one go or should they be merged and if so what happens with the two Verifications? The note in the first entry is mistaken, as the HC and Limited Editions were published simultaneously, the paperback a year later (from the copyright page of the PB).--Bluesman 18:50, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

My vote is

• Ask Mhhutchins if he missed the TFCFTWTRS1991 record or why he verified a separate record.
  • If he missed TFCFTWTRS1991 then edit it to a note "Also primary-verified by Mhhutchins on 2007-04-01 09:57:31" and delete BKTG16212.
• Ask Scott Latham why he has the note "Hardcover and paperback issued simultaneously." Is this something stated in the publication and is it an accurate transcription? Mhhutchins may be able to shed light on this. Marc Kupper (talk) 21:42, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I missed it. Even though mine has the correct publisher name, and doesn't have an erroneous note, I'll delete it. Good luck contacting Scott. MHHutchins 22:53, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Shores of Wonder

Just did an edit of MLO2032 and the first edition I have has a different ISBN than the pub I edited (it IS the same pub). The ISBN I entered is on the copyright page, but when I ran a search using that ISBN it came up with "Planets of Wonder", also published by Thomas Nelson in 1976. The original ISBN is the correct one: 0-8407-6525-8. On the back cover of the jacket is the sequence 6525-8 without the first five digits. Most strange... --Bluesman 13:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little confused as I can't tell from reading what you posted and what's on the publication what ISBNs/codes are on your publication. To add to the confusion, you titled this notice Shores of Wonder but linked to a pub record for The Shores of Tomorrow. In any case, the publication record should reflect what's stated in the publication. If a ISFDB record seems to be for my publication but has wrong information then I'd note the old/original information in the notes.

Okay: firstly, the title is "Shores of Tomorrow". (kind of mixed the two books together...); secondly: the ISBN on the copyright page is 0-8407-6526-6, but on the back cover of the jacket there is just the sequence 6525-8. I ran the first ISBN on ABEBOOKS and came up with Planets of Wonder, then ran it with the second sequence from the back cover (0-8407-6525-8) and got the Silverberg title... does anyone have a copy of Planets of Wonder to check what is actually on the copyright page?--Bluesman 05:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe in this case the publisher screwed up and used 0-8407-6526-6 on both The Shores of Tomorrow and Planets of Wonder or at least Bill Contento two both books with the same ISBN.

• The Shores of Tomorrow Robert Silverberg collection (Thomas Nelson 0-8407-6526-6, 1976, 0-8407-6526-6, $6.95pp, hc)
• Planets of Wonder: A Treasury of Space Opera ed. Terry Carr anthology (Thomas Nelson 0-8407-6526-6, 1976, $6.95, 189pp, hc)

I checked AbeBooks for Shores of Wonder (the title you used to start this thread) and found

• 3 records with ISBN 0-8407-6525-8 (none of the three listing inspire confidence that the dealer was attempting to accurately describe the publication but rather looked up the ISBN in another database)
• 2 records with ISBN 0-8407-6526-6 (one of these is an advance reader copy)
• 1 records with ISBN 3-442-23312-7 (published by Goldmann. Goldmann-Science-fiction with this pub available in Germany)

Anyway - let's sort out what book you actually have. :-) -Marc Kupper|talk 21:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

First edition Thomas Nelson hc,'76. --Bluesman 05:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The Earth Book of Stormgate

This record is the one being worked on. [2] This statement is in Notes. Each Story is prefaced by an UNNAMED introductory story that is totally fiction OR The Earthbook of Stormgate on page 1, which precedes Wings of Victory, is split into introductory statements for each story. Page 434 ends the story of the story of how the book was fictionally produced. I am posting it here to promote caution in changing this odd presentation without full discussion. If I have been unclear, please put this on hold for discussion. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, fixed the unbalanced li / ul here for now. I understand this is a big problem book - I know, it has taken several attempts to actually acquire the three split UK volumes, I kept getting the wrong ones - but I'm not quite sure what the problem is. Being more detailed about introductory essays maybe? BLongley 22:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking at my versions, it might be a good time to ask who S / B as cover artist is as well. BLongley 22:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Bingo! Solved. It's Stephen Bradbury. BLongley 20:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Having meditated on it. I think 'The Earth Book of Stormgate' is actually a short story of presentation segments, each separately put before each short story. This is reasoned from 'The Earth Book of Stormgate' being used on page 7, but each segment reinforces that 'Hloch' wrote the commentary and put the stories in between it. The easy glance would be that the first two pages were the whole short story introduction for the series of stories. Also each of the fictional introduction segments are not titled. Hloch chose this real fictional event to place here and here, but Poul Anderson did not separately do so. LOL. Anyone with greater clarity is completely welcome to change it. Happy Holidays this can not be a 'novel' way to introduce stories, but my description seems clumsy. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Bill, thanks for fixing the errors. My problem is whether to create a title entry for 'The Earth Book of Stormgate' and how to convey to the reader that it might be inter-mixed with the other stories. I hope the note gets the message through to users. I am still torn about the issue though. I see it as a 'continuing introduction' with the added fillup of being writing as fiction. So it would be a short story not an essay introduction. I verified it, so anyone wishing to 'chastise' me for not entering a 'titled' element of a book is welcome to do so. Possibly they have a clearer vision of this type of fictional introduction.

Well, we've used "title (reprised #n)" suffixes before when a story is split around other stories, e.g. Festival Moon, but in this case there's the added complication that they're sort of credited to a fictional character. (If you take the name from within the text, rather than assume that any text not credited at start page gets the author name from title page.) I think it'd be better to credit to Anderson rather than Hloch if you want to go this way, but mention Hloch in notes too. If we start crediting all the fictional authors then some of the pieces currently credited to Anderson could get credited to "Fluoch of Mistwood" for instance. And they sometimes have fictional translators. BLongley 19:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

As I recall, the "reprised" language was in the ToCs and story title pages of the various Merovingin Nights books (I have them and could check) and not something we invented. -DES ^Talk 19:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

True, but we do seem to have invented the "#n" bit. "Final Reprise" is in the title of the last though. BLongley 20:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The Earth Book of Stormgatehas no such language, nor does it have any particular indications, as I recall, that the various introductory essays are parts of a single longer work. Had "Hloch" (spelling from memory) been a real person, rather than a fictional character, I am pretty sure that each of the essay's would be credited as "Introduction (Story Title)" -- at least that is how I would do it. i have read EBoS several times, I first bought my copy back in the late 1970s (from the SFBC) and i recall the intros well. By the way, I think that at least one of the intros has been reprinted along with the story it introduces in a more recent Anderson collection. In short, whatever we do about these intros, i would favor treating them as separate short works. i can see three options. a) Just ignore them, as blurbs are ignored; b) call them "essays" but note their in-universe PoV; or c) call them separate works of short fiction. Since they do mention characters not in the stories being introduced, there is an argument for this. This also avoids the problems with the split vols, which obviously have some but not all of the "intros". -DES ^Talk 19:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh? Which do you think are missing? Even volume 2, otherwise the same as "War of the Wing-Men", has such an intro. I guess that's a plus point for inclusion - "hey, there's 150 words more in this version!" BLongley 20:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I meant that any single volume of the split editions would obviously not have all of the intros from the full book -- I assume that split volumes together include all of them. But if we treat the intros as parts of a single story, we would need some way to deal with a volume that contained part but not all of that story -- as if one of the Cherryh split stories had been split across multiple volumes of the anthology series (I'm glad it wasn't). Probably we would deal with that by creating a new title, as we do with (revised) or (expanded) works, but that would conceal the fact that we have the same set of words (or I think we do) arranged in different volumes. I can see how what I wrote was unclear -- why didn't you turn on your mind-reading browser? :) -DES ^Talk 20:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately that would create a slight problems for the split volumes - if you didn't have all the prior ones then you could never confirm the numbering of the reprised sections. Fortunately I have them all so could confirm one printing of each at least. BLongley 19:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Aside. Parted out into pieces of story collections are notoriously tough to collect without getting burned by the vendors. I finally went hc to collect 'Before The Golden Age'(still cheated me on the dust jacket). I have a couple of vol 1 (American paperback editions) which were sold as the complete volume. I really became confused when I tumbled on volume 4, which turned out to be that Great Britain got the treat of the book cut into four segments. Still, I am slowly being persuaded that the short story may be the best place to see the true talent of an author. Thanks for the rescue. Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the British 'Before The Golden Age' is even worse than that, see the title notes. I have volume 1 of 4, 2 of 4, 3 of 4 and 4 of 4 - and volume 3 of 3. Because Orbit printed it in 4 volumes and reprinted it in 3. I also have "The Best of A. E. van Vogt" in one volume, and in two volumes, and they're still both different in content to the US one. BLongley 19:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

City

Just finished editing CTLTGTGHLP1954 and it presents the same problems as "Earth Book of Stormgate" (see directly above). There is an "Editor's Preface" and eight "notes" preceding each of the eight tales, all written as if the stories are of a real/mythological past history. In adding these to the contents I left the assignation at shortfiction, ignored the length for now and credited Simak as author. Plus this title is listed as a collection, but called a novel on both covers of the two editions I have (first PERMA & first ACE pbs). Both copyright pages state that: "City is based [my italics] on material originally copyrighted by Street & Smith...". Been keeping an eye on the "Earth...." discussion, but still not sure what to do with this?--Bluesman 17:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

As you discovered, Simak's City is one of those beasts that straddle the fence between a collection of linked stories and a fix-up novel. It's further complicated by the fact that Simak wrote another City story after Campbell's death, which has been included in some (but not all) post-1972 reprints of the book. As far as we know, the stories themselves were not modified vis a vis their original magazine appearances, so keeping City as a collection enables our users to quickly jump to their other appearances, which are often numerous -- see, e.g., "Huddling Place". Ahasuerus 02:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Then what do the "notes" before each tale get classified as? Just edited the first Ace pub and all had been lumped as "Author's note" which isn't particularly accurate. As with the Perma pub I just listed them as they fell and didn't classify them beyond the shortfiction designation.--Bluesman 03:30, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, "shortfiction" is what we typically use for "in-universe essays", so what you did looks OK. However, I have checked and the rest of the verified pubs do not list individual introductions/notes individually since they are only about a page long. I don't think it's a huge deal either way, but we will presumably want to stay consistent across pubs. Also, if we decide to keep individual "notes" Titles, we'll want to add them to the "City" series. 17:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Stapledon

Just added a publication to Stapledon's biblio and think I did it wrong. Should it have gone under OMNIBUS? The title was not exactly the same as another similar pub from the same year (Last and First Men/Star Maker) from the same publisher (Dover), but a different binding and price.--Bluesman 03:45, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

That's right, it's actually an Omnibus rather than an anthology and, as far as I can tell, you also did it via "Add Publication to This Title" for the *novel* Last and First Men, so we would have an Anthology Pub linked to a Novel Title, generally a bad idea. I have the submission on hold and could redo it manually, but it would probably be best if you resubmitted it as a New Omnibus -- since you have the book handy -- and then merge the Titles. No worries, just the usual growing pains :) Ahasuerus 03:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, will re-submit tomorrow, when my brain is fresh. With all these "pains" I should be nine feet tall by now! :) --Bluesman 05:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I have approved and reshuffled the original submission based on my copy. The Title record for this omnibus has been merged with the pre-existing record and Stapledon's introductions/prefaces have been added. Also, the date has been changed to 0000-00-00 since we have an earlier $2.00 printing of the Dover edition on file. Hopefully, the results match your copy. Ahasuerus 05:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will check it out! Apologies for not getting to this but have had no time/energy to get back on here and catch up. Busting my butt to finish a job before major surgery in about nine days. May be off here for a couple of months.--Bluesman 17:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

No worries, it's not going anywhere! Good luck with the surgery -- they are never fun, but as we get older, they become even less so... Ahasuerus 18:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! My first, other than having a broken arm set, since I had my tonsils out at 12...! Don't worry, I'll be back to bug you with strange edits before you even miss me!!! ;) --Bluesman 00:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Edward S. Hudson pseudonym of Robert E. Vardeman

Since it asks for no explanation here it is. Alien Death Fleet when searched at Fantastic Fiction has the Hudson edition, but also a 2008 release of the same story by Robert E. Vardeman. Checking with Amazon and reading the bits of storyline made the books identical, ergo they are the same. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:57, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I have approved the pseudonym submission and created a Variant Title for the novel. It says "Star Frontier Trilogy" on the cover, but no other "Edward S. Hunter" books ever appeared, at least not according to the Locus Index and OCLC. Checking OCLC, I see that the cover of the 2008 reprint still advertises it as book 1 in a trilogy, so perhaps Vardeman will wrap it up yet :) Ahasuerus 17:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Vardeman's forte seems to be triplets. I hope you meant that was 'Edward S. Hudson'. As I may be confusing, I had best retire for the day. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 01:00, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops, make it "Hudson", sorry! Ahasuerus 05:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I Dare

Here is the problem, you see two introductions, one has no page number. That is the original, which did not give the introduction correct title. I entered the correct title, so my thinking is to delete the incorrect one after acceptance. I hope this the problem with it's acceptance. If not, please give a ring. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like DES put this submission on hold on Wednesday, so he will probably chime in shortly :) Ahasuerus 18:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have just now indicated my concerns with this submission on Harry's talk page. As indicated there, I have now rejected the submission after entering some of the data from it separately. My apologies for the delay in following up. -DES ^Talk 21:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be a possible miscommunication brewing on this issue, any other active moderator please take a look at Harry's talk page if you think you might be able to help out. -DES ^Talk 02:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction (unorthodox data acquisition)

This. [3] . I think this wandered over to this spot. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 17:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC) Sorry, This is a review of the Giant Anthology os Science Fiction. No title search working on this today. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 17:20, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the only title for "The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction", the others are just "Giant Anthology of Science Fiction". BLongley 18:52, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Got it know, as it was initially submitted without the 'The' then I got loopy because a review from another source put it in correctly. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Partial Artist Signature

On the cover of Tevis' "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (there is no photo with the pub record) I have found a partial signature '..illon' and assume that it would be 'Dillon" but my copy cuts off the beginning of the signature. The verifier (RUDAM) has not been on his/her talk page for over a year (I did leave a note about this) so I'm wondering if anyone else out there has a copy? Don't want to touch the Verified record with just a partial... THMNWHFLLT1963 --Bluesman 00:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest thatr the Verification requests page is designed for exactly this kind of query? It doesn't matter that much, but non-mod editors are more likely to look at that page, and people doing verifications later may be mopre likely to look at it also. -DES ^Talk 01:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I was not aware of the other page and will use it in future for this kind of post. A question that might belong here: has something changed with the log-in process? Up until three days ago I could log in once and jump from different talk pages to check on posts and add to them but now every different page requires a separate log-in (when editing)--Bluesman 02:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)...???

I don't think we have had any software changes in the last few days. Wiki "sessions" can be flaky, though, and their duration can depend on your browser settings, internal timeouts and the current phase of the moons on Mars. Sometimes I stay logged in for months at a time and sometimes I have to log in 3 times a day. Clearly, we need to sacrifice more goats to the Wiki gods... Ahasuerus 02:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Strictly speaking that question probably belongs on the Help desk but I will answer it here. To the best of my knowledge nothing has changed on the site, and i am now doing the kind of thing you describe with no problems. I do know that staying logged in depends on a cookie being set and retained. Weather (and from what sites) to accept cookies and retain them is a browser setting, and it is possible that your browser settings have changed. If you are using IE, check the "privacy" tab under Tools -> Internet options. On other browsers, the setting may be elsewhere. -DES ^Talk 02:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

You're quite correct, David. Looking over this page, I see it has strayed far afield from its original purpose. The message below from Gloinson is one of the few posts here that adhere to the page's raison d'etre. MHHutchins 04:51, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Please don't approve

Please do not approve my edit of The Star Road by Gordon R. Dickson. The information was added under the wrong publication. Correct publication info is already there. I apologize for the error --Gloinson 03:45, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Done, per your request. MHHutchins 04:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Away and Beyond

Just did an edit of WYNDBYND19XX and moved the LCCCN to the notes from the ISBN/Catalog # field. Did this because I haven't seen it put in the field very often, usually in the notes. Is this the standard practice? --Bluesman 14:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

If a book has an LCCN, but does not have an ISBN, nor a publisher's catalog number of any sort, then IMO the LCCN could go either in the notes or in the ISBN/Catalog # field. If there is either an ISBN or a catalog number, then Those should take priority, which means the LCCN will usually be in the notes. Perhaps then it should always be in notes, to avoid having to look for it in two places. It it is put in the ISBN/Catalog # field, it should be identified, as "#LCCN 99-123456", at least IMO.

Oh and for the future, this kind of "how do i...?" question really belongs at the Help desk. -DES ^Talk 15:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

This question comes up from time to time, so we may want to make a more formal decision and add it to Help. Historically, I have been telling editors to add LCCNs to Notes since they are quite different from publishers' catalog IDs. My primary concern was that if allowed LCCNs in the Catalog/ISBN field, we would be overloading that long suffering field even more, with 3 different data elements uneasily sharing the same bed, er, field :) Ahasuerus 01:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree totally with Ahasuerus here. Let's not give this field another purpose. I wouldn't even mind catalog numbers and ISBNs having their own fields, if I didn't have to go back and update my verified pubs! Anyway, LCCNs are assigned by the Library of Congress, not by the publisher. They have no purpose similar to that of publisher's catalog numbers, which can used to narrow down publication dates. LCCNs can be assigned to books many months, even a year or more before the actual publication. Use the notes field, if you must. MHHutchins 05:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

LCCNs are useful -- they are a key lookup field at the Library of Congress Online Catalog. In fact, they almost became a universal identifier such as the ISBN now is. They are also a useful lookup key at OCLC in many cases. But I now agree with Ahasuerus and Mhhutchins: keep them in the notes. I also think that ideally we should split the ISBN and Publisher's cat # into separate fields, and i would think a script could populate those (anything starting with # or that has neither 10 nor 13 digits goes into the cat # field). But who knows when such a change might be implemented. -DES ^Talk 16:25, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

LCCN should be a Title field not a Pub field if it is a field since it is per work not per edition/printing. Dana Carson 02:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? The 1948 edition of Beyond This Horizon is LCCN 48007765 while the 1981 Gregg Press edition is LCCN 80026888. Similarly, the 1957 edition of Citizen of the Galaxy is LCCN 57010008 while the 1987 edition is LCCN 86026172. Ahasuerus 02:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

According to LCCN Permalink Frequently Asked Questions:

The Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) is the number associated with the bibliographic record created by the Library of Congress or another library for a given book. Strictly speaking the LCCN is the control number for the bibliographic record, not the book. In the past, the printed card in a card catalog was the most popular format for displaying the bibliographic record and consequently the number associated with the record was commonly referred to as the Library of Congress Card Number. Other formats, however, were also used to display and distribute catalog records such as: book catalogs, microform catalogs, and online catalogs. As the most popular format for displaying and distributing bibliographic records is now the online automated system, it is more accurate to use the term "Library of Congress Control Number" rather than "Library of Congress Card Number".

According to Preassigned Card Number Program:

A Library of Congress catalog card number is a unique identification number that the Library of Congress assigns to the catalog record created for each book in its cataloged collections. Librarians use it to locate a specific Library of Congress catalog record in the national databases and to order catalog cards from the Library of Congress or from commercial suppliers. The Library of Congress assigns this number while the book is being cataloged. Under certain circumstances, however, a card number can be assigned before the book is published through the Preassigned Card Number Program.

I take the above to mean that a new edition of a book is likely to hve a new LCCN, and a new printing could have a new LCCN if the LoC decides to aquire and catalog the new printing. I als take it that it is not assured that a book published in the US will have an LCCN at all, but it is likley for books published by major publishers, and by small presses who participate in the either the free Cataloging in Publication program or the Preassigned Card Number Program.

From all this i conclude that the LCCN should probably stay as pub-level data, until/unless we develop an edition level record type. -DES ^Talk 04:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

My mistake. I've seen so many books with LCCN numbers that are years older than the book that I'd assumed it was per title. I guess it's reprints that were not cataloged other than the original edition. Dana Carson 01:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Moderating submissions without access to the original pub record

I don't know why this just occurred to me, but it doesn't happen very often that a non-moderated editor submits an edit to drop titles. (Or at least in my experience as a moderator.) How do we know which pub record is being edited when there are multiple pubs of the same title? Check out this submission which I have placed on hold until I hear back from the editor. There is no indication in the submission about which pub is having titles dropped. I do a search for the novel (His Majesty's Dragon) and there are six pubs. Three of them have the title record which is being dropped. And two of them are VERIFIED. How would any of you other mods handle this? MHHutchins 05:29, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I would assume in this case that it was the non-verified pub, since the "verified" warning does not appear. But i'd need to experiment on a test pub to be sure that the verified warnign wpuild appear. And I wonder what is going on here, because I have a copy of that title and the record represents an element that is indeed present in my copy. I wonder if Harry is planning to change the type (the "notebook" is mostly sketches, and could arguably have type INTERIORART) and is dropping the existing record before addign the new one. Hold and ask seems reasonable, as well as file an enhancement request to get the pub record number displayed as it is on most (all other?) edit types. -DES ^Talk 16:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

See ISFDB Feature List (Feature 90166). -DES ^Talk 18:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

This. [4] . The deletions wished are the generic interior art and the Sketchbook one which appears as an essay. The generic interior art, only interior art, is after the 'Sketchbook' title page. It is two pages with 5 dragons. New entry will read From The Sketchbook of Sir Edward Howe as interiorart of 'Gayle Marquez'. There is no sketchbook essay, but there is fictional short story described in historical text form after the sketches. It has a separate title and is quite convincing on a quick look, as it is in an essay format. Frankly, I am ignoring that fictional essay, because it is confusing, no such research texts exist and yet as a story it only serves as a 'mood' setter for the novel series.

This is a mistake of the first verifier, who was cloned and then I cloned from that. Thus a mistake gets cloned, just as freely as the good data. The intent of the deletions and the revised new addition is to correct the cloning sequence and show the correct presentation. Of course, someone with additional insight may also posit a different solution than ignoring the fictional historical text essay that follows the sketchbook, but it still 'cooks' my brain. Sorry for the confusions, but it does show that cloning has added hazards. If I had not cloned, I am sure it would have been pointed out that I should have. It is hard to point out a continuing mistake in a sequentially dominated process. And now it should be obvious that correcting that mistake is just as time demanding in any case. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Shadow Steed- please reject

I made an entry error submission before I was through. Please reject it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 16:15, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Cities in Flight

Please reject as I have made a spelling error in a new title. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like Bill has that submission on hold. I see that you have already discussed this issue with Bill, so he will probably get back to you tomorrow after work (UK time). Ahasuerus 01:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Automated submissions - review requested

As some of you may have noticed, I have been playing with automated submissions for the last few days. Amazon.com is the first victim on my target list and in another day or two I will start flooding the submission queue with Amazon data, but for now I have created 9 semi-random Amazon-derived submissions to serve as guinea pigs.

All 9 submissions were created using my user ID between 17:55:51 and 17:55:55 ISFDB time and are currently sitting in the moderator queue, so they should be easy to find. The first two (Anatomy for the Artist and The Great Gatsby) are clearly not SF and were misfiled my Amazon. However, the other 7 are all legitimate SF books and we didn't have them in the database as of the time when I installed the last backup locally. 70%+ is not a bad ratio and if we can keep it up, the approval process shouldn't be too onerous (hopefully).

Once you review the submissions, you will see that they are very similar to Dissembler's with one major difference: I list the reasons used by the automated import program to determine whether the book is SF. They also link back to the Amazon.com page that the data originally came from. I hope this information will be helpful when moderating automated submissions, but please let me know if I missed anything -- or even added too much! The downside of this approach is that the approving moderator will need to remember to delete everything after the words "MODERATOR NOTES", but I figure all automated submissions require a fair amount of massaging/merging, so I hope that the trade-off is reasonable. Ahasuerus 00:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Two immediate thoughts: 1) submit them under a separate ID or people will "recognise them as a fellow-moderator's submissions" and leave them alone. (I use "Data Thief" for my test automated submissions for example.) BLongley 00:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I have had User:Fixer reserved for this purpose for a few months. The only reason I submitted the first batch under my own user ID was to make sure that they didn't get accidentally approved :) Ahasuerus 01:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

2) Even most newbie editors manage to "Add publication to this title" rather than create an entirely new publication (even if they add them under the wrong variant at times). Can this be improved easily? As it'll lead to a lot more merging activity otherwise. BLongley 00:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The only way to add this ability would be to teach the software how to determine that, e.g., "Spook Country (Thorndike Press Large Print Mystery Series)" is the same as "Spook Country". The basic algorithm could be implemented fairly easily, but I am not sure what the error rate would be especially when you throw middle initials and such into the mix. I'll see if I can give it a shot in the next 24 hours. Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Found a Python bug when submitting apostrophe-enabled titles using the Web interface. I'll wait for Al to address it on his end while I am polishing anti-comic/game code. Ahasuerus 02:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Al has explained the intricacies of the Web API to me (translation: don't do stupid things and it will work fine!) and I have finished a number of changes on my side, so I am ready to start creating submissions via User:Fixer. Feel free to approve/reject them as needed, but if you find systemic issues (as I am sure you will), e.g. certain types of non-genre books or RPG items getting through, please let me know. Ahasuerus 03:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, Fixer has been activated and three submissions are now sitting in the queue. We'll see how many we can process on a daily basis... Ahasuerus 06:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

A number of minor fixes were implemented earlier today, but nothing earth-shattering. I will work on using "Add Pub" instead of "New Pub" tomorrow, but for now there are about 20 Fixer entries in the queue. Keep in mind that all of this data comes from Amazon.com and its quality varies a great deal. Some Amazon pages have incorrect "Look Inside" links and in some cases mundane books are labeled "SF" for no apparent reason. Caveat moderator! Ahasuerus 04:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Of the first 270 records processed so far, over 30 were rejected by Fixer because they were comic books, had no SF subjects or browse nodes or otherwise looked funny. Another 82 were rejected by moderators because they were non-genre. In other words, about 65% of the submissions have been actually SF so far, but I expect this number to fluctuate as we go through different segments of the 289,639 records that are currently on file. I couldn't make any major changes to the code for technical reasons today (although I found and fixed the "comic fantasy" browse node which Amazon cleverly called "Comic"), but hope to rewrite and improve some areas tomorrow or early next week. I doubt I will be able to filter out many more non-genre books, though, since there is no way to tell that Random Title No. 345 is non-SF if Amazon labels it SF :( Ahasuerus 05:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) The bulk of the Amazon.com data has been captured. Of the 290,762 records that I have downloaded, 189,827 have legitimate ISBNs that we do not have on file. I will work on improving my code over the weekend assuming we don't have any unscheduled disasters until then... Ahasuerus 03:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Those figures are a bit confusing. The conclusion is that there's almost 101k legitimate ISBNs we DO have on file, or there's illegitimate ISBNs in that download. As we only have about 92k ISBNS between '000' and '998' (I'm pretty sure the '999' ones are duff) it sounds like the latter. Just how dirty is that data? BLongley 19:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Most of their recent (i.e. <10 year old) ISBNs are legitimate, but anything prior to the 1990s is likely to be fake, e.g. "BK00004567", and there are quite a few of them. Older records also tend to have relatively few useful fields and what is there is fairly dirty, so I figured we'd tackle them last. I did see a few very rare pre-1980 SF books that we didn't have on that list, though, so it's not a 100% lost cause. Ahasuerus 21:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The Chronicles of the Round Table-differences

Pardon. This anthology had only three matches with the contents of other examples with that title. Rather than import and delete so many titles, I added each title as shown on the title story page. I believe the other examples used a table of contents listing to enter the titles. I also opened one title field in error and blanked the data. I then entered it as an interview. The dates in the content fields are the same as those I did not import from and those dates check with the Acknowledgments pages, except for The Fight for The Queen which read "First published in The Book of Romance edited by Andrew Lang(London:Longmans, Green, 1902); copyright expired in 1962." This showed a 1997 date and that example was followed. Humble opinion. The titles in the other examples are probably wrong as this DB enters them. Awaiting commentary on my page. In all cases of the knight name edition, they will be variants of the original title (IMO). Messy, be warned. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry entered on wrong page, after log in required second time. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I approved the edit earlier today and posted on Rules and standards discussions before I had a chance to read this note. Since it's a standards issue, it's probably best to continue the discussion there. Ahasuerus 02:28, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Gilgamesh's submissions

I am afraid I am not feeling well and can't do justice to Gilgamesh's recent submissions, i.e. "The Robot and the Man" and "The Mixed Men: An Interstellar Adventure". If someone else could handle the corrections and the communications with Gilgamesh, I would greatly appreciate it. TIA! Ahasuerus 02:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Explorers

I just submitted two additions to EXPLORERS2000, when I was almost completed the first my computer decided to shut down and instead of typing all that in again finished the submission as a separate entry. These can be merged?? (I hate WINDOWS.....never have this problem with my MAC)--Bluesman 19:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Just had to remove a second "Exploring Fossil Canyon", the rest was automatic. BLongley 20:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! The shut-down happened so fast I could just get to 'submit' and then couldn't remember if I had finished entering 'Fossil..." so just started over with it.--Bluesman 18:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"Ultra-Gash Inferno"

You may not have read the news about it, but the Internet Watch Foundation seem to have started recommending certain Wikipedia pages get blocked for "Pictorial Child Abuse" reasons (Google "Virgin Killer Scorpions" for the news, and if you're brave, the sites that may get you arrested) and there's new legislation about "Extreme Porn" being banned in the UK as well. So it's probably not wise for me to investigate such titles for inclusion or exclusion here, but as I stumbled across this already I think it can be deleted on "Manga" grounds, but someone in a less repressive regime might want to go investigate and delete related titles. Or be a bit braver than me and ADD such, if it's really SF. BLongley 23:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I personally feel that someone bought a bunch of Virgin Killer sleeves and then brought the picture to the attention of the Internet Watch Foundation to create interest in the cover and to drive its price up - pump and dump. As far as Ultra Gash Inferno goes - Non-photographic images of children have never been illegal to possess in the UK meaning it should be safe to collect Lolicon to see what would be applicable to ISFDB. Should we ban books like Firefly which is rumored to espouse pedophilia? --Marc Kupper|talk 04:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, people have already been prosecuted for possession of "an indecent pseudo-photograph" in the UK. And the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 makes the definition even woollier - it doesn't have to be a photograph or a pseudo-photograph, but a "tracing or other image, whether made by electronic or other means (of whatever nature)". Frankly, nobody really knows what it covers any more but I personally don't want to be the first to find out. Don't censor anything on my account, this is just a tip-off that I'm not happy dealing with such at the moment. I'd rather be called a wimp by the rest of you than a paedophile by anyone in authority. BLongley 22:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

My visualization of the first is that it is manga. My visualization of 'Firefly' is that it has been around for almost twenty years. The problem with banning is when do you stop. I recently read the Founder by Christoper Rowley. It is fairly hard to get and I wondered if it was because one of the plot lines has "Moslem" desert chieftain descendants financing and brutally taking over the ship being built. If you bow to one group, I feel you will bow to every group which will find it offensive to their religion, etc. Novels and their authors frequently explore fringe topics. Michael Moorcock, who has lead efforts to ban Gor books, wrote a very graphic beastality sequence in the Runestaff series. It could be taken as an expression of the decadence of that culture, but if it was widely known it would probably be banned. The point is a supposed, self-proclaimed moralist lashes out at out at what he finds offensive, but does not apply those rules to himself. If you follow Moorcock you delete all Norman, and then you take the next step and start banning covers, because of Moorcocks statements about Wolheim being a sado-masochistic voyeur. Whips and Chains and where/when would you stop. Personally Manga, is not considered anything but quick thrill material in Japan. It always skirts into child images and often they are racially based. The title 'Ultra Gash' is a clear clue of the manga's intent and even if this one is not offensive, it will always be driven by the Japanese manga market and soon will become quite extreme. So ban manga type material as it's fiction schemes are just a guise for at best soft porn. At the same time, make anyone wishing to ban material be very specific as to the what and why. Make them submit a detail specific analysis of what is wrong with the material. Then be realistic, as this site does not advocate anything, why should it start censoring. You get my drift. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

To swerve this back on topic - Apparently Bill found what looks like a manga title but did not think it was safe to research himself. The publisher, Creation Books, seems to do specfict along with a number of other genre such as "wet angels" but makes up for that with an "SF Porn" section (not UK safe - sorry Bill, no peeking). However, the Wikipedia article, Creation Books, seems UK safe. I believe Ulra Gash is their only manga work on ISFDB. Two of the authors are only in ISFDB because of Ultra Gash. The third author, James Havoc, seems to write surrealist edgy "cyperpunk" specfict with Creation Books being his main publisher. Ultra-Gash has a number of Amazon reviews. It's not clear if Ultra Gash is specfict as it leans towards surrealist horror. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Update - there's an article at wikipedia:James Havoc which says "He was a head of Creation Books, Creation Records book division" which explains why many of his books were published by Creation Books though an oddity is that neither the Creation Records wiki article nor web site mention Havoc at all. It also seems, given the explanation of his "death," that this is a pseudonym. May he live happily in Panama. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

1980 Annual World's Best SF

Just submitted two edits on the pub THNNLWRLDS1980, but the first one was a mistake. Hit return instead of shift. Just so you don't think I'm out of my mind...though some days that 'may' be true......Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 23:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Midwich Cuckoos

Just put in an edit of TMDWCHCKS1959 where I changed the publishing date from 1959 to 1958 to agree with Currey, but the Ballantine db has it as 1959 with two lower numbered verified pubs. Should have checked that first. I think the notes are still valid, but please reject the date change. Cheers! ~bill, --Bluesman 19:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Approved and changed back to 1959. Ahasuerus 23:52, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Now & Beyond

Just submitted two edits on NWNDBYND1965, the second because of a text error in the notes and I found some more information. Please reject the first submission and use the second. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:33, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 00:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Infinity One

I just posted two edits to the pub record of ANCL00221. The second was to correct a minor punctuation error in the first. Please reject the first entry and use the second. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 15:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 16:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Selections From Beyond Human Ken

Have submitted two (three, actually, as I forgot to put the correct page count in on the first edit) edits for what turns out to be the same book. BNDHMNKNXP1954 and SLCTMNKN861954. The first was/is listed under "Beyond Human Ken", though the title page clearly states "Selections From...". Submitted a change to that only to find the correct pub 10 minutes later. The two pubs should be merged? ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:44, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I decided to delete SLCTMNKN861954 as it was a duplicate of BNDHMNKNXP1954 though moved one note over about the stated first Pendant printing. We don't a way to merge publications meaning we eyeball-diff the metadata and can use diff-pub to check the contents. I did merge the extra coverart title record that deleting the publication left behind. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Hilary (author) to Hilary Evans

I made an author title change, Hilary to Hilary Evans. I have Beyond The Gaslight and he was incorrectly entered in the contents areas. Of course, there is probably a merge function that I am missing. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 16:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there's an Author Merge. Which needed to be done between the new Hilary Evans you created and the existing one. Sorted now. BLongley 18:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way, can you confirm the other Evans too please? We have "Dik Evans" in contents but "Dick Evans" for the main title. BLongley 18:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the Everest help. "Dik Evans is a science teacher whose specialist knowledge supplies a contemporary context for those stories in which scientific hypothesis were exploited." From the back inner flap and apparently his total biography. I submitted the change to make it Dik Evans. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, approved. Thanks! BLongley 21:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Perry Rhodan #5: the Vegan Sector -Please delete

Entered under wrong title record. Please delete. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. BLongley 15:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)