ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard/Archive 03

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This is an archive page for the Moderator noticeboard. Please do not edit the contents. To start a new discussion, please click here.
This archive includes discussions from January - September 2008.

Archive Quick Links
Archives of old discussions from the Moderator noticeboard.

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Expanded archive listing



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)
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